Nobles' Club CXXIII: Willem van Oranje of the Netherlands

[Robert FIN]

Great job Dalamb! I'm not able to check the save but with your write up information the game looks great! You'll win this game! Go for it!!! P.S. Lots of wonders, going for culture victory?

 

[dalamb]

With regard to the wonders: I probably build too many, which is what Builders do. But as to the ones I picked:

Spoiler :

Statue of Zeus I wouldn't have built, but Brennus did so for me. I try for Oracle in most games. Great Lighthouse might not have been the best choice for this map; there are a fair number of places for coastal cities at the start, but not as many as on a true "watery" map like Archipelago. Great Library is an obvious choice when you're aiming for a space victory. The other early wonders, aside from the 'mids, I rarely try for. It was probably a mistake to go for the Pyramids as late as I did; most people would have planned to conquer it instead of building it. Unfortunately China is pretty far away, so even if I go warmongering I won't get it for a long time.

 

[Robert FIN]

Spoiler :

Okay, afterwards # of wonders doesn't sound too much Dalamb. Good wonders except SoZ but since Brennus built it, its a nice bonus right? Have you played your own maps more often than you post these write-ups here by the way??

 

[dalamb]

You shouldn't mention game specifics like the AI leaders outside of spoilers. It's not a big deal for a lot of people but some still prefer it.

No, I don't play anything outside of NC games at the moment. A few years ago I tried a few starting in the Renaissance instead of Ancient Era.

 

[Doshin]

@pomthom

Cheers. About your game...

Spoiler :

General comments:

I see a few too many wonders being built. TGL without Marble is a , unless the situation is desperate. Whip your cities more aggressively. Build a Granary before a Lighthouse, and whip these for 1-pop when you hit 30/60H. Think through your priorities a little more carefully: (a) builds: your capital, e.g., is running two Scientists. Is it better to run these now, or to work the Grassland Hill to build/whip the National Epic 2 or 3 turns sooner? (b) tiles: food > hammers, and a Moai Statues coastal tile offers 2 1 3 compared to the Plains Hill (= 4 ). Work the coast instead; (c) trade routes: "Please don't" is a great commerce city:

Spoiler :

Tiny coastal cities get good with the Great Lighthouse.

Specific advice:

Since Brennus is at war with Zara, I think he will shelve his plans to attack you. You can either backstab Brennus with Trebs and Macemen (wait until his stack reaches Zara, and try to take out several 'big' cities in the first 5 turns of the war); or you can Lib MT for Cuirassiers... in which case, you'll need to scout out the southern coast with a Settler to look for Iron; or you can prepare for a draft Rifle war, since you have a ton of food and Amsterdam would serve as an incredibly powerful Globe Theater site.

Pick one and pursue it. Beelining Engineering for Trebs can be great play... if your plan to go to war with Trebs. But if you self-tech it without a good plan ("why not" ?) then you are delaying other, more important techs by 2-4 turns.

 

[Tall German Joe]

To 50AD, Deity:

Spoiler :

1920 BC and already very boxed in. I decided to settle right in Brennus' face to steal the Rice/another city:

Spoiler :

This would be risky with most AI, but Brennus is a huge zealot who doesn't plot at Pleased. So I converted to Buddhism, which he'd founded, in the expectation our religious relations would bring us to Pleased before he began to plot.

1080 BC and a latish GLH:

Spoiler :

Four Forests were chopped, I think.

The first of three (soon to be four) island cities:

Spoiler :

My tech pace was stupidly good, so I headed for Mathematics, Construction and then HBR. Brennus went into war mode a little after he became Pleased, so I knew he'd be distracted. He went after Sitting Bull.

I attacked the initial city with Catapults to get things rolling, and did the same for the Holy City (on a hill... Dun makes rushing extra painful):

Spoiler :

I took a brief ceasefire and redeclared two turns later. Brennus had moved his stack away from his capital to Sitting Bull, so I rushed with Horse Archers:

Spoiler :

Now I'm waiting for his stack of 8 Spearmen and an Elephant to return.

I lost my Super Medic, unfortunately. I used a third movement point to sever Brennus' Ivory, brought along two HAs to help defend, hit enter and... Oh well.

Empire and tech:

Spoiler :

P.S. The AI doesn't really get how Great Generals work. Minor spoiler:

Spoiler :

Oh noes. Leadership Chariot.

Spoiler :

wow, lookin' great so far! winning against spears and phants with horchers and cats is nothing I'd have imagined possible! assuming you can survive brennus' counterattack, you're certainly in a much stronger position mid/late game, when the western ais start exploding to 15+ cities, as compared to a turtle-to-lib strategy.

 

[Choggy]

Emperor Normal NHNE - 200BC.

Spoiler :

Got boxed in by Brennus quite early on, but have got to 6 cities and have room for one more and with the Great Lighthouse powering my early commerce I have been blasting the tech tree.

...which is just as well as none of the AI civs have Alpha yet. There's already a few wars going on, but even so they all seem to be avoiding it for religion techs. Wtf is all that about?

I'm going to do something about Brennus quite soon. He's got some metals somewhere but I want his 'phants so I'm thinking about an HA Rush.

 

[rfcfanatic]

An update from my own Monarch game.

175 AD

Spoiler :

Here you can see the 5 cities I managed to settle before getting boxed in by Brennus:

Spoiler screenshot :

Before settling Utrecht, I researched Sailing and sent a Worker to improve the Gold resource. It seems that it really boosted my start. I don't remember when I had Currency way before 1000 BC and Civil Service before 1 AD. Utrecht in its present location sacrificed a Fish resource, but was it a good or bad move?

The Hague, my 3rd city, founded in 1720 BC, is located near the Rice resource on the very bottom of the screen. One of the purpose of the location was to block off Brennus. By 850 BC I was done with city settling. Didn't care about the islands. Being boxed in and having a Horse resource, the only possible move was to HA rush Brennus.

The war against Brennus started off as a HA rush. Even after the capture of Bibracte I had no idea where his metal could be and my HA army got constantly harassed by his Spearmen (gosh, I hate Spearmen ). Luckily, I had Ivory under control by then and had discovered Construction. So the initial HA rush got abandoned in favor of Elepults, as you can see from the picture.

1320 AD

Spoiler :

Sitting Bull is about to fall, but I want Poverty Point before I accept capitulation, because I can see many wonders there. Hopefully he won't cap to Mao. I'm going to beg a small amount of gold from Mao as an anti-peacevassal measure.

Spoiler screenshot :

Willem's traits allow quite an enjoyable game where you don't have to worry about getting bankrupt after conquering many cities. Soon after Brennus was out, I Elepulted/Eletrebbed Charlie. Drill promotions on Catapults/Trebuchets really help against Longbows! I made a very stupid move - capped Charlie when he had one city left! Well, but I have to live with it.

I haven't cared much about Liberalism so far, but now I probably should. There's some competition from Cyrus. I manage large empires poorly. Still in Medieval era 1400 years after Civil Service - it really sucks.

 

[i_imperator]

Monarch Normal Up to 1650AD

Spoiler :

Decided to chariot rush Brennus early on, took two cities off him with 8-10 chariots, proceeded to expand and establish my empire. I was at 140 beakers per turn at 25ad. And I managed to get lib at 780AD, took astronomy from it. Dunno if its just the difficulty or the map but this feels very easy. I got the great lighthouse at a very late date, so im benefiting from +12 gold in trade routes from each coastal city on the new world. Went for communism after Lib and switched into State Property. Religion seems to be very cut down in the middle. myself and Sitting bull are Hindu, with sitting bull having built the AP and im in control of it but I cant get anything else other than trade embargo's.Everybody else is either Jewish and zara is left out being Buddhist. At the moment I have about 10 cities on the new world. This looks like its going to be a space game soon. I'm going to create a colony later in the old world.

The plan right now is to continue expanding and developing the new world with workshops and watermills, Hopefully I should be able to get to space without any major problems. Pics will be up in the next post when I finish it.
Edit: Also this is my first Civ IV game in ages, so i've probally made a good amount of mistakes. Feel free provide direction or feedback. Its good to be back!

 

[Pengu]

imm until 350 AD

Spoiler :

SIP and saw Brennus was really close. I decided I had to slow him down somehow so I could settle some nice cities. I did get a couple of workers but I couldn't get a woodman 2 warrior . Brennus is stingy and refused peace. He got 3 citites and was hard to control. If he came with archers I would be in trouble so I went for horsebackriding as I had horses. I just made it and got out a couple to smash some archers. I was really lucky Brennus didn't have metal. This meant I could just keep him busy while building GLH. Then that combined with 2 gold mines made it possible to both pump our horse archers and tech. Did met a few more AI's. After getting 10 HA's I started taking cities from Brennus. After taking 3 out of 4 I took peace for IW and mono. Then I was wondering what to do next. I decided to go for SB as I didn't want to wait for my treaty with Brennus to expire. Brennus was done for this game anyway even if I wanted to get rid of the unhappiness. And then Mao dows SB. I waited a few turns then attacked with 15 Ha's. After losing 2 citites he wasn't even interested in talking. Did 1 reload here as I forgot to use my upgrades on my GG. Which Sb sniped. This war was alot harder as Sb stiull had lots of units and a huge amount of metal everywhere. Spears are a pain
Finally his capitol fell and he was hurting. I got feu and he capped after lsong 1 more city. He was 1 turn from feu which would had been very bad. I did bribe Zara in on Mao so they are fighting it out. I think I am going guild next here next as a few still doesn't have feu. A similar start with no commerce and it would had been trouble. Or if Brennus got metal and his annyoing swordsmen would show up.

 

[Izuul]

Started this over on Imm after the Deity failure. 225 AD, much more fun and relaxing game this time around.

Spoiler :

I got an opportunity early to get a woody II warrior by killing a celtic scout so i decided to go for it. I used that warrior to harass brennus and steals workers (12 of them in all) while i settled a few cities and went for HBR. Once i got a few HAs out i began picking off stray archers and even luring some out into the open using extra workers as bait. I picked off two cities like this, but the others were a little too well fortified. That was remedied with a few cats, and brennus fell in 525 BC leaving me a sick capitol in bibracte.

Spoiler :

I used HR with all of my surviving HAs as military police to quickly grow bibracte to size 17 and create a bureau research monster. I also got a really late GLH to add some additional commerce, and there's room for 1 more fish city near SB plus 1-2 island cities if i really want them. I already have 11 though, so I'm not sure that's necessary.

Spoiler :

Nobody outside of Zara is teching or building anything at all in this game, and even he is pretty far behind. Normally i would just tech to cuirs and smash everyone, but i still have no iron in this game, so I'm heading to engineering quick to attack SB with trebs + maces + elephants. I'm not sure where i will go after that. Continuing with the 1-move army will be slow, but I'm already on the path for cannons and grens.

 

[MarigoldRan]

If there's gold, Horse Archers/Praets/Vultures are the way to go. ALWAYS. (Well, you still need horse, and a neighbor, but you get the idea).

 

[Robert FIN]

You shouldn't mention game specifics like the AI leaders outside of spoilers. It's not a big deal for a lot of people but some still prefer it.

No, I don't play anything outside of NC games at the moment. A few years ago I tried a few starting in the Renaissance instead of Ancient Era.

Sorry about doing it again.. The message is spoilered now. I've tried to remember that but it still happens to me at times. Stupid cellphone!! By the way, you mentioned before that you're a "builder". What is that? Is that some kind of playing type? What's the goal in builder strategy? Is it space race? Culture or AP victory? Or did you just mean that players who are near to age of 60 aren't a typical Montylike, warmonger-alfa-male?

 

[The Oz-Man]

Doshin's Leadership Chariot is fantastic. Just wait until it crushes all of your dudes, guy!

 

[rfcfanatic]

1765 AD

Spoiler :

Spoiler screenshot :

Only one opponent left - Cyrus. The rest are my vassals now. Trade embargo against Cyrus has already been negotiated. That should cripple his research while I regroup.

I won Liberalism. 1460 AD I also understood why my research was stagnating back in 1320 AD - farms and workshops were to be blamed. When I respecialized several cities on cottages, things started to get better.

 

[martin.vojtisek]

Tried this one, Monarch, Epic, Better-Bug-AI MOD.

Spoiler :

Is the tech brokering off, or something like that? The AI seem so slow, even though I didnt play very well. Settled in place, build four or five cities and TGL, HA rushed Brennus, but had to wait for catapults at the end, way too many spearmen. The elephant, catapults and vassalised Charlie and Mao. Liberalism for MT, tech to cavalry, attacked SB, but boy, triple promoted longbows do have good odds against cavalry . Should have gone steel maybe, dont know.

I have tech lead, but cyrus is closer than others.

I dont know if I should bother with astronomy before I conquer the starting continent. I am off for a week now, will finish after and post some proper write up.

 

[rfcfanatic]

1828 AD Conquest victory

Spoiler :

Spoiler screenshot :

Score:

Spoiler score :

That will take the 1st place in my Monarch hall of fame:

Spoiler hall of fame :

I only built 3 wonders: Notre Dame, The Sistine Chapel and The Statue of Liberty

Spoiler wonders :

The military power was dominant most of the game:

Spoiler power graph :

That's strange because unit counts were nothing special:

Spoiler :

dalamb, thanks for the map!

 

[Pengu]

1180 conquest Imm

Spoiler :

Well, I went straight to war again as Guilds was in and both Charlie and Mao was just teching feu so time was of the essense. I quickly whiped out Brennus before as he had fled to a couple of island. I went for Charlie 1st as he had machinery and could tech engineering while Mao didn't even have Machinery. A war goes quickly with knights and before Charlie got lb's in his 1st 2 cities they were gone taking out his outdated stack. No phants means he was a sitting duck. After that it was downhill from there. He was on the backfoot and no army at all. I had 20-30 knights crushing his protective lbs as i didn't care if I lost a few. After 5 cities was lost Charlie was done. He capped just a few turns before engineering. Well, I wasn't wasting much time and turned my stack around on Mao. Took out his entire stack on the 1st turn as it was sitting on a border city.He still didn't have engineering and was bit backwards. With me now having engineering and guilds my knight moved even quicker. I took so few losses in defeating his stack so he had only 2-3 lb's in each city. I had almost 20 cities pumping out knights and all he had was maces and ha's. The was was over in no time. By now Cyrus and Zara had grown big, over 10 citites each, but I had 3 vassals, and 2 of them had almost 10 cities each so there was no point stopping now. Zara had engineering but Cyrus was only teching it so that was it for him. Once again 40 knights just crushed him as he had nothing but maces and lb's. When engineering was in he had already lost 5 cities so I never had to face a pike in this war as he capped when the next city fell. Zara had been bribed in on me by Cyrus but I didn't care one bit. Saved me the trouble of dowing him. Armies from Cyrus, Mao, Charlie SB and me just poured in and he lost cities everywhere forcing him to cap rather quickly. Didn't bother with siege in the entire game but GLH kept me way in front in teching the entire game.

 

[martin.vojtisek]

1180 conquest Imm

Spoiler :

Well, I went straight to war again as Guilds was in and both Charlie and Mao was just teching feu so time was of the essense. I quickly whiped out Brennus before as he had fled to a couple of island. I went for Charlie 1st as he had machinery and could tech engineering while Mao didn't even have Machinery. A war goes quickly with knights and before Charlie got lb's in his 1st 2 cities they were gone taking out his outdated stack. No phants means he was a sitting duck. After that it was downhill from there. He was on the backfoot and no army at all. I had 20-30 knights crushing his protective lbs as i didn't care if I lost a few. After 5 cities was lost Charlie was done. He capped just a few turns before engineering. Well, I wasn't wasting much time and turned my stack around on Mao. Took out his entire stack on the 1st turn as it was sitting on a border city.He still didn't have engineering and was bit backwards. With me now having engineering and guilds my knight moved even quicker. I took so few losses in defeating his stack so he had only 2-3 lb's in each city. I had almost 20 cities pumping out knights and all he had was maces and ha's. The was was over in no time. By now Cyrus and Zara had grown big, over 10 citites each, but I had 3 vassals, and 2 of them had almost 10 cities each so there was no point stopping now. Zara had engineering but Cyrus was only teching it so that was it for him. Once again 40 knights just crushed him as he had nothing but maces and lb's. When engineering was in he had already lost 5 cities so I never had to face a pike in this war as he capped when the next city fell. Zara had been bribed in on me by Cyrus but I didn't care one bit. Saved me the trouble of dowing him. Armies from Cyrus, Mao, Charlie SB and me just poured in and he lost cities everywhere forcing him to cap rather quickly. Didn't bother with siege in the entire game but GLH kept me way in front in teching the entire game.

Spoiler :

just a question, when did you conquer sitting bull? in my game he was at war all the time, so when i attacked him with cavalry he had uber promoted longbows with better odds than my decently promoted cavalry... i wonder how would you take him with knights?!

 

[Pengu]

Spoiler :

Well, I went for him early around war lasting around 200 BC-200 AD. I had a nice big army of HA's after my war with Brennus. SB was at war with a big 10 city Mao and did not have feu. That meant he didn't have that many units defneding his cities, while swords and spears was the best he had in defence. 20 Ha's are a force and his 1st 2 cities were poorly defended. Then he was too late to scramble armies to his capitol. Even if he had 10 units there, with a few spears he still got overwhelmed. After he lost his capitol he didn't have much left to do but retreat. I had something like 10-15 citites by now and I could just pump out loads Ha's while SB had a 2 front war with 5 citites left. He just missed out on feu by a turn but it was too late as he had really nothing left anyway.