Noble's Club CXXXVIII: Isabella de España

[pomthom]

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 Isabella of Spain, whom we last played in NC LXXIV. The Spanish start with Fishing and Mysticism.

• Traits: Isabella is Expansive and Spiritual. EXP means faster granaries and harbours, faster worker production (+25%), and +2 in each city. SPI means no anarchy when switching civics or religions, which makes it easier to yield to AI demands (which you can reverse 5 turns later if you wish). It also makes temples cheaper, which can help with cultural victories where you want a lot of them to build +50% Cathedrals in your legendary cities.
• The UB: The Citadel, a Castle that gives +5XP to siege units built in the city. This can give a big boost to medieval-age warfare, and in the modern era might cause you to think hard about how soon to go for Economics (which obsoletes the bonus).
  
  
  
  
• The UU: The Conquistador, a Cuirassier with +50% versus melee units, and which gets defensive bonuses. In the Gunpowder era the bonus against melee might not be all that valuable, except against a technologically backward AI like Montezuma. Beelining Military Tradition might become attractive.
  
  

And the start:


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Spoiler map details :

Fractal, standard size.

Random opponents, no edits.

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Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine:

There are no hard and fast rules here: fun and learning are our primary goals, but we do suggest that you update your progress at various points in the game, using the Spoiler feature of the boards. You can post as often as you like; here's one suggestion:

• 4000 BC (starting thoughts, no spoiler required for that discussion)
• 1000 BC or so (how you decided to progress up the early tech/build paths, which AIs you have met, where you're thinking of putting cities, etc)
• 500 AD or so (after establishing some cities and a possible plan of action)
• 1200 AD or so (mid-game, Lib race, wars or peace, or whichever happened or didn't, met other
• continent if applicable, etc)
• 1600 AD (or when you have decided on a course of action and a specific victory condition)
• End of game (Victory!!! or defeat, no shame in losing, especially if you tried a higher level. Learning is what we focus on, not fastest win or biggest empire)

This is just a guideline. If you're trying to improve your game, then posting more frequent updates, in as much detail as you can manage, is the best way to get suggestions from other players. If you come to what seems like a major decision and you want some advice, post an update, regardless of what game-year it is.

We also welcome players to ask for specific game advice, as we have a number or stronger players who lurk and help out with solid tips, and of course, we help each other. Replies to specific questions should also be in spoilers, with a simple "@" in front of the person the answer is directed towards.

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 138 Isabella Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels)

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 Noble. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel

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.

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.

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.

 

[Izuul]

Oh to not start with Mysticism...

This looks like it could be a bit difficult from opening screen shot. Not sure if I'm brave enough to try this on Deity.

 

[Pangaea]

Don't like fishing starts - particularly without fish. So what is the best way to open here? Workboat for 15-ish turns? Worker for chopping seems a very long route without mining to start with.

The redeeming thing about Izzy is the improved Cuirs, but otherwise I don't much like her.

I SIP btw. Nothing else seemed particularly wise.

 

[Izuul]

Nothing visible to move for and too many turns would be wasted moving anyway. SIP and WB first seem about the only options here. WB in 9T, 6T working 1F2H forest and 3T working 3H FPH. Worker next, Mining > BW for tech, and chop 2nd WB.

That's a lot of effort for 2 4F tiles...

 

[marasaidw]

Wow I sure wound up with a tough one to move up to Monarch. To be honest I'm not really sure what I'm going to be doing with this start. I'll probably wait and listen for ideas. Isabella seems like a tough leader to play. I'm considering SIP and starting WB. Teching would be mining>BW?

Since this is my first Monarch game. I'd appreciate a lot of help. I'll try post my plans for small 10-15 turnsets, wait for replies and then do it, but I do want to play a little bit each day or even twice a day. So if it goes too long without comments I'll just go try my own thing and fail spectacularly. I think I'll start this tonight. If your willing to help let me know.

 

[Izuul]

Immortal to 1160 BC

Spoiler :

Moved warrior 1SE and revealed corn, but nothing else. 2 full turns would be wasted to get the corn and we don't even start with Ag, so probably better for 2nd city.

SIP revealed gold (something good here!) and opened with a 9T WB. Mining > BW will be the first two techs. Micro'd the WB to finish with exactly 30H and 6/22 food in the bin for 4T growth working clams. If you work the FPH for 4T instead of 3T here you end up with 31/30 WB, but 5/22 food which slows growth to size 2 by a turn.

Put 1T into a second WB to time the 12T worker with 13T BW. This gives our worker exactly enough time to move into the forest and be ready to chop. 1T earlier and our worker would just waste a turn. BW revealed copper to the east and I'll probably settle 1N of it for copper and corn.

Spoiler :

2nd WB will finish 2T after the chop working the FPH again. I worked that until 2nd clams were online. TW is the next tech and a Warrior the next build. Worker moves to mine gold. Gold comes online 1T before our city grow to size 3, but i didn't see any way around that, not with my opening anyway. Cap is size 3 with gold worked on T31. TW also finishes just in time for our worker to road the gold without wasting any turns. Ag next for corn.

Edit: Growing to size 2 before starting the worker is definitely a stronger play here. Credit to Rainy Days for pointing this out, but because we are expansive and because we need BW to finish before our worker is useful, we can spend 4T growing to size 2 then work the 3H FPH. That tile gives our capitol 4HPT which triggers the 25% expansive bonus and gives us a 5th hammer. The FPH is essentially a 4 yield tile here. 4T for growth + 9T worker with 3OF. The worker still moves into the forest in time to chop when BW finishes, and we get our WB online 1T faster and we can work the gold 1T sooner as soon as the mine is finished. 1st settler also comes out faster.

Spoiler :

After the warrior finished i started on a settler. As soon as my worker finished the road on the gold tile he moved to put a chop into the settler. 2x 4F clams and 3H gold makes for a very slow settler so i feel the chop was necessary to speed things along. I also went for AH after Ag to get the pigs hooked up and for the sheep + gold site to the south. I don't really like teching AH too much in this kind of situation (other food sources + copper secured), but our growth in the capitol is very slow and gold makes these techs fairly quick. Going straight for Writing and Alpha after TW may have been an option, not sure.

Anyway, worker laid some roads out for settler, city was settled, and copper mined. 2nd city started on worker. Madrid built one more warrior after settler and then started on an axe for 1T. City grew to size 4 next turn and i switched to worker. Put 2T into the worker for 20/60 and whipped using OF to finish the axe. I think it was quicker to get the axe this way. My 1st worker farmed pigs after mining copper.

Spoiler :

You can see i was also teching Sailing and Masonry. Gonna try my damnedest to get GLH here. It's going to be a fairly late one, but this big lake we start on is considered ocean so any city on that will get the bonus, and we also have coast to the south and east. I don't see much else around here for commerce outside of the two gold mines, so GLH would be incredibly useful.

1st and 2nd workers both started chopping a LH for Madrid. 3rd worker went to corn when it was finished in Barcelona. Barcelona built a 2nd axe while growing to size 2 then started a settler. Madrid grew to 6 and started settler while workers continued to chop into GLH.

Spoiler :

Qin looks like he may be building a stack, but he's not plotting yet. I'm prepared to gift him a city, but he plots at pleased so there's no point until i have a means of begging from him. I'll start on Alpha shortly... probably going to need to tech it myself with just these 2 guys around.

Spoiler :

Whipped Madrid settler into GLH while teching Pottery (perhaps I should've gotten it earlier). Settler went to the sheep + gold site 2S of the gold. GLH finished in 1160BC. That's probably too late for many Deity games, but frequently good enough on Immortal as was the case here. Another reason that this map would be difficult on Deity...

Spoiler :

I need to finish the road into Qin, I've probably neglected that too long. I also need to consider going for Alpha ASAP in case i need to gift a city and beg a cheap tech. Aside from that I'll just spam some cities around this lake the coast and maybe go for Conqs if i can keep the crazy guys happy here.

 

[lymond]

Love me some Izzy, although I'm not crazy about the start. Ok long term, but a bit rough out the gate.

 

[Aje]

Are you guys sure that WB is the way to go?

I'm thinking SIP. Build worker first (for the pigs). Tech Agri>AH then Min>Bw (depends on what we see after SIP and early exploration.

 

[lymond]

Are you guys sure that WB is the way to go?

I'm thinking SIP. Build worker first (for the pigs). Tech TW>AH then Min>Bw (depends on what we see after SIP and early exploration.

good night...that's a lot of a wasted worker turns

these are one of those starts that a test save is a good idea to try various scenarios. My general inclination is to WB first and whip worker later. Straight to BW. Pigs is obviously the primo improvement here but it is a lot of beakers to get there with your worker doing nothing. BW at least gives you instant production to chop out WB2, Worker2 or Settler 1 asap while AH comes in.

 

[pigswill]

Spain on a lake?

 

[lymond]

Jalapeño on a steeeek?

 

[Aje]

good night...that's a lot of a wasted worker turns

these are one of those starts that a test save is a good idea to try various scenarios. My general inclination is to WB first and whip worker later. Straight to BW. Pigs is obviously the primo improvement here but it is a lot of beakers to get there with your worker doing nothing. BW at least gives you instant production to chop out WB2, Worker2 or Settler 1 asap while AH comes in.

I think that you're absolutely right Lymond. Mining>BW gives us the most useful worker actions and add a lot of needed hammers.
I wrote a hastily and was thinking about the best visible improvement.

What I sometimes miss in the NC treads is the explanation behind different Tech/build orders. It is probably obvious to the experienced players, but not to always to those playing prince and below. You did a good job explaining
In that sense it's good that some "bad" ideas/plays gets discussed and tried.

On another topic I like that start is coastal.
I makes me and other players use our heads and do something different.
To many green river starts withcorn will dull our minds

Related to this start is Kossins Micro challenge 2 (if I recall correctly).
It's a very good excercise for coastal start practice.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=498753

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Prince / Epic / No Huts Events
(Would have played on Monarch but I play with "Lock Modified Assets" so that I don't accidentally access the World Builder so it's a pain to add Archery to the Barbs).

Spain on a lake - SIP and try and get a religion or two while building Work Boats seems the obvious play at this level as we're Spiritual, start with Mysticism and Fishing and have no Worker techs.

Spoiler Situation at 1255 AD :

Managed to found both Hinduism and Judaism in Madrid, also got Stonehenge (need to shrine those two religions) and the Great Wall (for the Barbs). Barcelona founded on the Coast near the Corn and Copper.

So t105 and I have two religions, two World Wonders and two Cities! Rapid expansion follows - I'm probably aiming for Domination or Conquest with Conquistadors however Qin steals the Horses.

I find the Spanish UB and UU conflicting - a UB that gives slow moving siege a bonus and a UU that is a fast mover. However needing to steal Horses meant I built a Citadel in Madrid and got some Trebs and Macemen out to take the Horse City. As an added bonus - Citadel + Barracks + Vassalage + Theocracy and I have a Level 4 unit for HE without a single fight!

Horse City fell easily and I accepted peace, trying to win the Liberalism race to take MT and then go on a rampage with Conquistadors, funded by Madrid's double Shrine

Thanks for the map Pomthom, it's good fun.

 

[dalamb]

The redeeming thing about Izzy is the improved Cuirs, but otherwise I don't much like her.

I'm fond of the +5XP for siege in cities with castles. Gives a good reason to actually build a few castles and delay obsoleting them for a bit.

What I sometimes miss in the NC treads is the explanation behind different Tech/build orders. It is probably obvious to the experienced players, but not to always to those playing prince and below. You did a good job explaining
In that sense it's good that some "bad" ideas/plays gets discussed and tried.

Like it says in the boilerplate, it would be nice if people reported in at various points rather than in a couple of big mid- to late-game posts, and explained a few things for the newbies. Watch for Robert's posts; he stops frequently and asks for advice, so there's a lot to learn from replies.

 

[FlyingSwan]

View attachment NC 138 - Isabella AD-0001.CivBeyondSwordSaveagree with Izzul on the start,work 2h1f then switch to 3h on 5th turn for WB.tech min/bw chop 2nd WB.

playing Emporer/normal/nhne 1AD

Spoiler :

I liked the colossus as a target to compensate for lack of rivers for commerce.Managed to secure marble so the great library will be next hopefully(don't think I,ll risk MoM although I could trade for calendar..Is it worth it?)

I swear the barbs were raging on my game

edit;I switched back to the 2h1f tile on turn 9 to try and get a bit more food,not sure if it made any difference...

 

[Thrar]

I just can't decide between SIP and moving up to the river or down south.

Two 4 tiles are weak, particularly when they require an extra 60 investment. The pigs are nice, but Ag/AH clashes with early BW to chop for expansion.

Spoiler warrior SE and fog gazing - opinions wanted :

Warrior SE reveals a dry corn and a peak surrounded by water in the distance.

As visible from the initial screenshot, there's a river up in the NE that bends north. S of the river is a grassland (plainly visible), E of that is an FP and N seems to be another grassland. The FP alone would make up for one of the clams imo.
There's another body of water to the W of the start. Likely a lake, seeing that it's surrounded by land on 3 sides.

To me, candidates for settling are:

• SIP (T0)
• S of pigs (T1)
• the riverside grassland (T4) or beyond (T5)

SIP is obviously strong in food (especially with lighthouse) but requires investment. If the land is worth it, GLH is an option. Main downside is the messy tech path - Mining/BW for the forests, Ag/AH for the pigs, Sailing and Masonry for GLH.

S of pigs has the advantage of a much easier tech path and only loses 1 turn. Ag/AH while working a forested PH for worker in 12 (we're expansive). It's strong in food and has plenty of hills. NW of the original start can still get the clam later. GLH is out unless we get an exceptional second city, but then again, strong early expansion is very valuable as well.

Up at the river is a risk. We seem to be on the southern hemisphere since there's desert to the north. With the water beyond the southern peak and a choke point to the west, the move might bring us closer to a neighbor and help block off some land. The river is definitely nice to have, and it has at least a flood plain.

I'm leaning towards settler SE, then next turn warrior NE and decide whether to take S of pigs or move up there. What do you think?

 

[marasaidw]

Monarch to 3400BC (T21) nenh

Spoiler :

Took the conventional path so far mining T8. 1st WB T9. Budhism and Hinduism were FIDL T15 and T18 respectively. T21 I finished BW and a worker

Spoiler :

[/URL][/IMG] I've met Qin and Kublai. Qin is to the west and close Kublai I think is to the south.

So now i'm trying to decide what to do. I think the worker order is move 1SE chop 2nd WB then move onto gold and mine it.

After BW what are the pros and cons of going wheel vs agi>AH. Is there another option I should be considering? I plan to play my next turn set in about 16hr.

 

[Rainy Days]

Immortal to 1160 BC

Spoiler :

Moved warrior 1SE and revealed corn, but nothing else. 2 full turns would be wasted to get the corn and we don't even start with Ag, so probably better for 2nd city.

SIP revealed gold (something good here!) and opened with a 9T WB. Mining > BW will be the first two techs. Micro'd the WB to finish with exactly 30H and 6/22 food in the bin for 4T growth working clams. If you work the FPH for 4T instead of 3T here you end up with 31/30 WB, but 5/22 food which slows growth to size 2 by a turn.

Put 1T into a second WB to time the 12T worker with 13T BW. This gives our worker exactly enough time to move into the forest and be ready to chop. 1T earlier and our worker would just waste a turn. BW revealed copper to the east and I'll probably settle 1N of it for copper and corn.

Spoiler :

2nd WB will finish 2T after the chop working the FPH again. I worked that until 2nd clams were online. TW is the next tech and a Warrior the next build. Worker moves to mine gold. Gold comes online 1T before our city grow to size 3, but i didn't see any way around that, not with my opening anyway. Cap is size 3 with gold worked on T31. TW also finishes just in time for our worker to road the gold without wasting any turns. Ag next for corn.

Spoiler :

After the warrior finished i started on a settler. As soon as my worker finished the road on the gold tile he moved to put a chop into the settler. 2x 4F clams and 3H gold makes for a very slow settler so i feel the chop was necessary to speed things along. I also went for AH after Ag to get the pigs hooked up and for the sheep + gold site to the south. I don't really like teching AH too much in this kind of situation (other food sources + copper secured), but our growth in the capitol is very slow and gold makes these techs fairly quick. Going straight for Writing and Alpha after TW may have been an option, not sure.

Anyway, worker laid some roads out for settler, city was settled, and copper mined. 2nd city started on worker. Madrid built one more warrior after settler and then started on an axe for 1T. City grew to size 4 next turn and i switched to worker. Put 2T into the worker for 20/60 and whipped using OF to finish the axe. I think it was quicker to get the axe this way. My 1st worker farmed pigs after mining copper.

Spoiler :

You can see i was also teching Sailing and Masonry. Gonna try my damnedest to get GLH here. It's going to be a fairly late one, but this big lake we start on is considered ocean so any city on that will get the bonus, and we also have coast to the south and east. I don't see much else around here for commerce outside of the two gold mines, so GLH would be incredibly useful.

1st and 2nd workers both started chopping a LH for Madrid. 3rd worker went to corn when it was finished in Barcelona. Barcelona built a 2nd axe while growing to size 2 then started a settler. Madrid grew to 6 and started settler while workers continued to chop into GLH.

Spoiler :

Qin looks like he may be building a stack, but he's not plotting yet. I'm prepared to gift him a city, but he plots at pleased so there's no point until i have a means of begging from him. I'll start on Alpha shortly... probably going to need to tech it myself with just these 2 guys around.

Spoiler :

Whipped Madrid settler into GLH while teching Pottery (perhaps I should've gotten it earlier). Settler went to the sheep + gold site 2S of the gold. GLH finished in 1160BC. That's probably too late for many Deity games, but frequently good enough on Immortal as was the case here. Another reason that this map would be difficult on Deity...

Spoiler :

I need to finish the road into Qin, I've probably neglected that too long. I also need to consider going for Alpha ASAP in case i need to gift a city and beg a cheap tech. Aside from that I'll just spam some cities around this lake the coast and maybe go for Conqs if i can keep the crazy guys happy here.

About first 30 turns

Spoiler :

I grew to pop 2 after the first work boat. That way you can start the worker on clams+plains hill. We get a free hammer from that forested plains hill. The worker will be finished 1t before BW and can move to chop into work boat the next turn while the capital grows to size 3 on pigs.

I played a quick opening till 2800BC for comparison with yours and afaik it yields more food and hammers unless I'm missing something in your screenshot.

I got crushed by barbs on deity my first try (and Qin building the great wall didn't help). So on my second try I went for a funky opening with mining, hunting, ah, archery, wheel & BW. I only build one work boat to free up hammers for warriors/archer.

2800bc

Spoiler :

 

[cseanny]

Can't use Buffy with this save?

 

[Manco Capac]

^
Welcome back, champ.