Nobles' Club CXLIV: Napoleon of the French

[ThatOne]

Spoiler :

IMO
You can use the lake and the oasis to provide you with fresh water, to prevent having to settle on floods. Bigger thing I see though is that your cap is size 6, and no worker and several unworked tiles. I would have gone cities can work the food first. Cities in middle of large deserts/floods always tend to have health problems. I'd stick cities on each side of desert, or wait until you have a few more food worked. The sickness is just eating all your food, so your making farms, which are only giving 3 food after the sick eats, and not bringing in the commerce.

 

[elitetroops]

Spoiler :

I'd use the lake for a city to grab the double gold. 1SW of lake (directly east of double gold) and you can borrow pig to quickly grow onto the gold. The other pig/gold city will not need the pig badly after it gets going. The floodplains are food enough as it is a city I wouldn't whip very much. I'd cottage pretty much all FPs, there's so many other strong food spots for specialists. Corn+Pigs+Clam east of cap was my 3rd city. It's a very strong early production site, makes a great settler pump and can function later as a decent GP farm with 12 food surplus at size 3.

In my test a barb city popped east of sheep very early. That is also a very good spot that I wouldn't leave to the barbs if I make a more focused attempt at the map. Settle on copper later and borrow corn from sheep/corn/fish to get the city going, as Gumby said.

 

[Hurricane Jane]

I'm trying to do the step to Monarch as recommended, and... just soooo many more barbs..

Spoiler :

Animals actually seriously HARM my warriors outside the borders.. now I finally know why fogbusting is so important. I think getting Archery maybe after Mysticism on my tech path is really essential now, because my Warriors really won't stand a chance against those barb archers

 

[ecuwins]

Warriors can do ok against barb archers. They need to be fortified on, at minimum, a forested/jungled tile. Then, the stupid barb spears and/or axes start to show up. If I don't have metal units or Construction by this point, it's usually rage quit time.

Long story short, if you can 'shut off barbs' at the cost of a settler or two, then you need to consider/weigh those costs. It can totally be worth delaying a new city in order to fog bust your area.

 

[Gumbolt]

As a general rule for most games. You really don't need archery on Monarch, emperor or even immortal level. Teching archery will only delay other key techs. Really is a last resort if barb axes appear and you can't fog bust all land properly.

As Ecu suggests try to keep the warriors on forest and fog bust well. One unit covers a 5x5 area. Skip city defenders in favour of fog busters too. Units in cities below size 4 early on are quite wasted.

Eventually as you grow to 4-5+ cities fog busting should become less important.

 

[elitetroops]

@HJ

Spoiler :

As mentioned archery is usually not needed. On this map it is a bit of a problem since usually you would aim to grab a strategic resource for barb defense with your second city. Here the available strategic resources are in really poor spots for a second city and I'd at least want to settle FP/gold and eastern food spot before going for a strategic resource. Getting good fogbusting up with warriors can handle the problem. East of cap you need at most one warrior to make sure nobody can spawn there. Four more warrior in the west and the north, fortified on forested hills if possible, should be able to cover most of the remaining surrounding area.

Are you teching mysticism for Stonehenge? That's usually not worth it if you don't have stone. As you move up the levels you should also be prepared that the AI will start grabbing wonders earlier and you can't get them all. You will also need to grab land earlier and build a lot more units when going to war, which means that you can't waste too many hammers on wonders that you don't really need.

Are you teching mysticism for a religion? That I would also avoid in this situation. You have a neighbor who is a strong techer and will probably get a religion. All you should care about is being in the same religion with him so that he'll be your friend, he won't attack you and you can tech trade with him. Ideally you would want all other religions to go to other AI on other continents. The more different religions the other AI have, the more likely they will hate each other and spend time trying to kill each other off. The worse thing that can happen is another continent with 3-4 AI and only one religion. They would all love each other and speed up each other's teching as whenever one of them gets a tech it gets traded around to the rest. Such a continent is also hard to invade, because when you attack one of them, you will likely immediately get all of his friends on you as well.

 

[Hurricane Jane]

@et

Spoiler :

Mysticism is for the +1 happy Monuments in cap and early cheap border popping for other cities. (whippable at size 2) I don't like going for Mysticism normally, I think Writing is far more important and gives you a decent pace in border pops as well, especially if there's food in neighbouring tiles. But with CHA leaders, the +1 happy can be pretty good in your cap.. and it is a free whip for more early happiness = more commerce = more tech (or more hammers = more warriors for fogbusting)

But maybe this is okay on noble but not too good on Monarch - because there are just better/more important techs or whatnot.

 

[sinimusta]

@hj

Spoiler :

If a city really needs the border pop like having the main food in 2nd ring, then it's way better to get a monument than a library for it. If you wait for a library you need so much pop to whip it or forests it takes forever. Monument needs only one forest or pop. And all cities don't need those libraries anyway. That's wahy I wouldn't think writing as an option for border pops.

 

[elitetroops]

@HJ

Spoiler :

Charismatic monument is indeed good. Question is just how early you need it. You have the +1 happy already from CHA and will also have +1 from gold soon enough. With this much good land to settle I think I would be focusing on getting out settlers first before cap grows beyond current happy cap. Most likely I have alpha and can trade for mysticism when I need monuments. The only early site that needs a border pop badly is the eastern triple food site. Other than that I would settle with the important resources in first ring or otherwise workable at the time I settle.

 

[Choggy]

Immortal Standard NHNE - 50AD

Spoiler :

Easy map so far - I'm playing this quite quickly, it's a forgiving map for sloppy play with a hangover

Settled 1SW for the 3 dyes and the FP, I don't remember the exact order of my tech path but I went pottery before BW for early cottages. Settled the Pig/Gold site to the NW for my second, I'm now up to 10 cities, ahead in the tech rate and I'll have Music in 2 turns. Getting Bureaucracy and an Academy early on with this start really makes a difference.

 

[Gumbolt]

@ Choggy.

Spoiler :

Map seems pretty simple. Close to 1120ad and I have cuirs and 7 turns off steel at 100% science. I have 2 cities churning over 100 science (126 and 226).

Even with 1-2 strong Ai across the sea cannon and cuirs should win through quickly.

 

[Gumbolt]

Spoiler :

The horse city with bureau and spread of irrigation makes a great HE city. 4 mines, the horse and an engineer can be worked. More with workshops later on.

 

[Choggy]

Spoiler :

The horse city with bureau and spread of irrigation makes a great HE city. 4 mines, the horse and an engineer can be worked. More with workshops later on.

Spoiler :

I settled the horse site as my third city and seriously considered that as the HE spot but decided against it in the end and chose the Pig/Gold site to the NW of it - 4 PH hills, 3 green hills, 3 riverside green tiles and 3 other green tiles that are easily farmed.

I think your site will beat it in the end with workshops but I want to Cuirr-stomp WvO early on before he starts teching hard and I don't want to have to detour to Guilds.

 

[Gumbolt]

Spoiler :

I considered the pigs site but just such an amazing science site I decided to use it for that. Even gave it an academy too. Long term that will pay off. 1170 and steel is in. Just need some galleons now. Galleys will do for now I guess. WVO down to final city.

 

[TheSunIsDark]

Were the opponents moved as well? Starting next to a certain other civilisation is enough to ruin anyone's game (and chance of a space race). Probably just coincidence, but...

 

[elitetroops]

Were the opponents moved as well? Starting next to a certain other civilisation is enough to ruin anyone's game (and chance of a space race). Probably just coincidence, but...

Care to explain (in spoilers)? Not sure who you refer to and why anyone would ruin your game...

No opponents were moved btw.

 

[TheSunIsDark]

Care to explain (in spoilers)? Not sure who you refer to and why anyone would ruin your game...

No opponents were moved btw.

Spoiler :

Willem and Stalin. Mainly referring to Willem (who got neutralised by one warrior)

 

[Gumbolt]

up to 100ad or so.

Spoiler :

Initially expanded to about 8 cities. Teched AH/pottery/mining/ bw.
Capital SIP.
Pigs/gold 2nd city.
Gold/marble 3rd city.
pigs/clams/corn 4th city.
Below capital for 5th city to share some cottages with capital.
Horse city
copper city
sheep/fish/corn city. (Settled a bit late really)

Went for writing, Aesth, maths, poly, lit, music. I traded for alphabet, monarchy, IW, PH and other techs. Then teched Music, MC, COL, CS and headed towards machinery.

Built parth in marble city and TGLib in capital.

Willem declared on me at 50bc. Initially with about 10-12 units. I had about 7-8 axes ready. He had been war mode for quite some time.

Main mistakes were not settling double gold city and settling sheep/fish/corn city too late.

Greeks meanwhile declared on Russians and eventually vasselled them.

100ad- 1000ad

Spoiler :

War with Dutch lasted about 8-9 turns. Killed off his initial stack using mainly axes. He mainly used swords and axes. Steamed on to take one of his city before taking peace. Gave away aesth for peace. The war was pointless as I was close to mace anyway.

I steam rolled to Nationalism, paper, edu (part bulbed), Gunpowder, Lib, (took MT). Reached MT around 960ad. Got engineering/printing press.

1000ad-1320ad

Spoiler :

Ddeclared on Dutch with 10 or so cuirs. He just got LB's the turn I declared. Took one ceasefire after I took his capital before finishing off his 10 cities around 1220ad.

Once I had galleons and frigates I declared on Russians and Alex. Landed with 25 or so cuirs and 3 cannons. Used Ottomans land near Russia to attack from. Took 3 of Russian's cities before Alex 40 strong stack arrived. I threw 3-4 cannons and about 20 or so cuirs at it. He had mainly knights, phants, Mace, Xbows, few pikes, 7-8 mix of pults/trebs and 7-8 chariots. After my first assault he retreated entire wounded stack to Moscow which he took (Undefended). I destroyed his stack the next turn. his Trebs and pults all died from flanking. I have 21 cuirs left on his land with 5-6 more units waiting in ships.

He still has 14 cities left. I am a few turns off MS. My biggest city is size 17.

Ottoman has vasselled Carthage who only ever had 2 cities.

Should be in good shape whatever happens.

 

[elitetroops]

@TheSunIsDark

Spoiler :

Willem is one of the best available neighbors for tech trading. Trades techs when only 15% of the other AI have them and up to 22 techs before WFYABTA. What more could you ask for if Space is your goal? Okay, you can always ask for Mansa, but you can't always have him.

Stalin... perhaps try to keep him busy with wars against someone else..?

 

[Gumbolt]

Spoiler :

Willem and Stalin. Mainly referring to Willem (who got neutralised by one warrior)

Spoiler :

On my immortal save Willem had all the usual starting units as did all the other AI. I used non hut save. On Noble all AI start with 1 warrior anyway?