Nobles' Club 349: Victoria of England

[AcaMetis]

The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Victoria of England, whom we last played in NC 268; we last played the English under Elisabeth in NC 328. The English start with Fishing and Mining.

• Traits: Victoria is Financial and Imperialistic. Financial adds +1 to any tile that already produces at least 2. Imperialistic adds +100% to Great General generation and +50% bonus to Settler production (note that the settler bonus doesn't apply to excess directly converted to ).
• The UB: The Stock Exchange, a Bank with an extra +15% generated over a standard bank. Banks are rarely build buildings as they are somewhat expensive (200 on standard speed) and maintaining 100% slider isn't hard to do when you can build Wealth, sell resources and excess techs, or just punch money out of weaker civilizations. That said, if you're planning on going conquering a few Stock Exchanges in economic backbone cities will keep your economy safely afloat. Unless you send an army that would make Genghis Khan faint to take over an amount of land that would make the Romans call you completely crazy, of course .
• The UU: The Redcoat, a Rifleman with +25% vs. Gunpowder units in addition to Mounted. These guys have an edge against the most common unit types they're likely to fight against, including their intended counter unit, making them an all-around excellent unit to use in their era. Rifling is a lengthy detour from getting "any" decent attacking unit on the way to Cannons, but Redcoats do have an advantage in that they can be drafted, and Banking is on the way to Rifling.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Pangaea, Temperate climate, Medium sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

A few strategic resource swaps, and an unworkable clam was moved somewhere workable (which did necessitate transforming it into crabs, but cé la vie).

The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC 349 Victoria Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels). You can play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.

Spoiler what's up with specific difficulties :

In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Prince. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

Spoiler what is demigod :

The difference between Immortal and Deity difficulty is akin to the difference between Noble and Immortal. Players eventually reached a point where Immortal was too easy, but Deity was still out of reach, and so neither difficulty provided a fun experience. "Demigod" is an otherwise standard Deity game where the AIs are only given their Immortal level starting units, in an attempt to bridge the gap.

Spoiler for players on Monarch or above :

You should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:

Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians :

1. Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
2. Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
3. By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labeled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
4. Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
5. Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
6. Exit the worldbuilder.
7. Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.

If you're playing at higher level than Monarch, consider also giving them Hunting at Emperor, Agriculture at Immortal, and The Wheel at Deity.

Spoiler huts and events :

Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.

 

[AcaMetis]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a hill piggy you can put a mine on, but only a floodplain for food otherwise is a bit unfortunate. Not sure what to do here. Warrior 1N to check the tiles it can that are relevant to a 1N PH settle? Warrior 1NW or 1SW to just check as much as it can? Warrior 1SE to check out the river as much as it can? Probably that one, if there's Corn or Wheat there that would be a major find. After that settle 1N on plains hill, settle 2E1S on plain hill? Settle 1S to forgo plains hill but grab maximum river tiles it seems like? Not sure what the best course of action here is.

What do the experts think?

 

[antimony]

I think my default would be 2E1S, so in the meantime the settler can check 1SE while the warrior goes 1S to reveal the maximum river tiles.

 

[Henrik75]

River plains hill looks pretty clear to me, a shame to give up so many grass cottages but the early boost is too strong. Agree with above for scouting. FIN IMP + river and ph settle should set us up for crazy rex. Tempted to mine pig and another hill and spam settlers at size 2-3 until 5 cities then vibe with river fin cottages.

 

[GTFGreg]

Argument could be made to settle West rather than East for an IMP early game settler chop rush supported by FIN river cottages. Or settle East, then forest spot as second city to pump out futher settlers for same result with hopefully better capital food yield.

Plains hill advantage probably has settle East option triumph.

 

[soundjata]

There are many different options with this rich start
Settler size 1, settler size 2, even worker>settler size 1. (chop stuff asap)

Speaking of chops, the riverside plains hill does not have any forest in sight

 

[antimony]

Spoiler After scouting move :

Settle on wine not bad for FIN... but if sheep is the only special here it's not a great capital.

Was expecting more floodplains east, but riverside grass hill isn't bad when we grow to size 3. It will just be long to get there on a single floodplains. River plains hill still the safest move?

 

[Tecumseh1]

Spoiler First ~50 turns: :

I SIP here. When it doubt, that's my move as I am not good enough to pick a better spot 90% of times. Warrior for 8 turns while growing to size 2, then worker. Started on Agg->AH. Worker arrived just in time to improve pig. Next mine plains hill and start BW. Chopped the forest and did size 4 2 pop wipe for settler 2. Second city SE of capital using the rice. City 3 SW of capital with sheep. Appreciate any feedback!

 

[Evil Beejeebers]

This is another interesting map. A bit like the last one 348 I am jealous of what the ai have. I'd love to have the spawn of the blue civ in the corner of the map.

I think domination and conquest are viable for this one, maybe too viable...

 

[antimony]

Spoiler Deity T84 :

Settled on river plains hill, built worker then grow to 4 building warriors (to work rice, double pigs, grass mine), then alternate settlers and workers in capital. Researched Agri-AH-Wheel-Pottery, Hunting and then fairly late BW (only one forest in capital, and no barb worries due to close neighbors).

Given very close neighbors I decided to go for Construction breakout, so city 2 SW to grab elephants (and get rice from capital), city 3 west for sheep and wine, city 4 north for sheep and furs. City 5 was trying to grab desert copper and some flood plains but is a bit swamped by Qin's culture.

Thanks to generous commerce map I got ahead of my usual T80 Construction benchmark by a few turns, have 7 catapults and am about to get HBR for war elephants. Target is Cyrus since he's already at war with Gandhi and his forces must be spread out. Pace of tech is very fast though, and all but 1 of the AIs already have construction as well (and you can see from espionage than Gandhi is 5 turns from Feudalism).