Noble's Club XVI - Shaka

[DMOC]

@ KaytieKat

Spoiler :

I'm a little confused as to how Bingo, Bongo, Bango and Erving came into existence. If I understand the screens, their levels greatly exceed their experience points. How did you do that?

If they have experience X out of anything else much larger, and X is 10, then those units were upgraded from previous units. Anything upgraded goes to 10 XP if the original unit had >=10 experience.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

@TMiT

Spoiler :

Lib race is looking a lil better. No bulbing cuz since I havent made many shinys darn few specialists the gp rate had been SAD. How bad was it? The INSTANT Mecca came out of revolt it was number city to pop a gp in like 141 turns :/ Things got a lil better after Ulindi finished MoM and then was big enough and had enuff buildings to run some specialist but still so far only two have popped in my. One a GM who bulbed currency and then most recent a Gprophet who I burned for a GA. GA combined with banks and markets and stuff coming online got bpt to like 600 or so which made phil and paper like 3 and 4 turns. Me and hanni both teching education but I am about 5 turns ahead so HOPEFULLY I can beat him to it unless he gets a gp and bulbs ahead of me.

As for my level play. I still only about like 50/50 win/loss on noble now. I remember reading a post wehre someone wrote something like When you know you gonna win easy with random leader on random map then it time to move up a level and I am NOWHERE near being able to do that on noble I still lose on easy maps with easy leaders

@sinergistic:

Spoiler :

Bingo Bongo Bango and Erving all started out as swords. SO when they got upgraded to maces all their experience dropped down to 10. Well bango didnt only cuz I upgraded him RIGHT at 10. Poor Bingo got hit hardest - a 40 point drop

@ Ai

Spoiler :

See what I told TMiT And bte gratz on your recent culture game it looked like a very tuff game.

Kaytie

 

[L-Plate Ruler]

@Supr49er, thank you.

I'm a long time reader, first time contributor. Just moved on from Civ IV original to BTS Am comfortable on Warlord, and can sometimes eek out a Space or Culture win on Noble.

Game at hand: 1000 BC, Noble on normal speed.

Spoiler :

(4000) Animal husbandry -> (3640) Mining -> (2920) Bronze working -> (2880) -> Masonry -> (2520) The Wheel -> (2280) Archery -> (2080) Fishing -> (1920) Writing -> (1480) Sailing -> (1120) Iron working ->

4000 BC - Settled in place and started production of Worker.
3400 BC - Completed working, started building barracks until we reach size two when I'll switch to Settler.
2960 BC - Met Starlin.
2880 BC - Adopted Slavery and started work on settler.
2520 BC - Settled uMgungundlovu.
2480 BC - Met Saladin.
2400 BC - Met Hammurami
2280 BC - Started work on The Great Wall.
2200 BC - Settled Nobamba.
1200 BC - Completed the great wall in Ulundi, started work on a settler.
1120 BC - Signed open border agreement with Starlin.

Pros: Three (nearly four) cities down; about to start building invasion force to take over Starlin's land.

Cons: Maybe a little behind in the tech race; need better infrastructure and more cities.

Where to from here: Try and settle a commerce city to the west and grab those horses too if I can.

My 'empire'...

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Noble, Marathon, 1540 AD

Spoiler :

Ok the 400 years game time from last report has been peaceful. Mostly building up cities and settling empty spots. I got a gp to spawn and I really had no other use for him so he started a GA to help the post war building.

The GA really helped LOTS in getting me lib win. Thanks to beaker boost I managed to get philo,paper,edu and lib reched before Hanni finished Edu.

I took astronomy for lib tech to try and get some resorces trades going then teched out Theo so I could get divine right and try for Spiral.

After DR I tech Nationialism and then tech towards constituion so I can run rep and head toward democracy and gor for SoL.

After Dem I go for gunpowder chemistry then tech Nat to gor Taj and then tech for rifling, then mil trad.

A GE popped in middle of all this so after Taj is done he gives hammer boost to building of SoL thanks to GA ands ge boost SoL gets down to 20 turns so it was finished by time GA was over.

Toward end of GA I set slider to 0 to get massive cash boost so I could upgrade all my attack units to rifles.

At thats at point where I am at now.

Here is how empire looks now:

The East where my core cities are:



I even managed to get the two babri cities on the island to the east and settle to more cities there. I know the xtra cities will up the maint but those two cities get me like 3 seafood sorces and I plan on getting sushi running as soon as it available--even have a GM that spawned all saved up for it.

The west:



I guess I really shouldnt been griping out salda about his godawful city sites since I end up making new citties right at or close to old cities of his that I razed. Mostly cuz they will get more seafood.

ANd those two SUCKY cities up north just cuz there is tons of silver up there and hopefully oil too.

I seem to have lots of land now but:



Still waaaaay short of a dom win.

So it looks like I need to go attack somebody.



I build some ships and load up Gen Sargon, Bingo, Bongo, Bango, Erving, and a few of their buddies and then decide on a target.

I pick HC for three reasons.

A) His cap hold buddhist AP so if I go and raise his cap then it wont be a headache. As it is I am already having to redo trades over and over with Pac and Hattie cuz they all cancel them all at once which I am pretty sure a reult of AP "stop trading with the infidel" thingy.

B)because of this:



Seems like HC is feeling froggy and odds seem to say he gonna take a leap at me at SOME point. While I am not really worried about him alone. I doubt he will be. He spun of Geargie as a colony plus with AP I really dont want to deal with a AP kill the infidel dogpile while my main army is off on either giggles/bk's or hanni's island. So I think it best to just take AP out of that equation.

C) and last but NOT least:



That stupid ranker STILL has Ulundi near bottom of list grrr But if I burn Cuzco to ground Ulundi is gonna go up a notch One way or another that ranker gonna put Ulundi at number 1 where it belongs!!

So thats the plan burn cuzco to ground to take out AP and then get HC to cap and then go after maybe Hanni or Pac next. Well actually right now THE plan is burn Cuzco to ground. Then we will just what will happen after.

Anyways here is demos:



And tech sitch:



I guess Hanni wasnt going for Lib after all or maybe decided not to bother once he lost since after edu he went for economics and now going for corp.

I THINK I can win this as long as I dont get a backstab. Giggles and BK HATE each other and been fighting each other whole game pretty much and Hatty and Pac hate each other too so I figure once I take out the AP I really wont have to worry bout backstab and can just pick off the AI's one by one until I get a dom win. That plan for now anyways--well plan AFTER cuzco gets burned to the ground hehe.

Kaytie

 

[L-Plate Ruler]

500 AD, noble, normal speed.

Spoiler :

(750) Pottery -> (650) Mysticism -> (575) Meditation -> (450) Priesthood -> (275) Mathematics -> (475) Calendar

975 BC - Signed open border agreement with Hammurabi.
825 BC - Settled Bulawayo.
600 BC - Captured barbarian city Olmac.
475 BC - Settled kwaDukuza.
325 BC - Signed open border agreement with Saladin (recently voted most powerful civ...).
275 BC - Met Charlemagne. After my mate Saladin had an archer weaken the barbarian city of Thracian I moved my battle hardened Impi in and capture the size two city. It's in a prime spot south of Starlin's capital, a perfect launching point for my offensive. Just hope the maintenance costs don't cripple me.
225 BC - Finished construction of The Pyramids in uMgungundlovu.
175 BC - Settled Nongoma.
450 AD - Met Gilgamesh, signed open border agreement with Charlemagne.

Pros: Lots of citys, good production levels and access to many good resources, including elephants and horses.

Cons: Over expansion cost me in the tech race, running at 0% for a couple of turns.

Where to from here: No more expansion, build infrastructure, generate wealth. Build an army, slay Starlin, the Saladin.

Capital and two production cities.



The two captured barbarian cities, they're doing nicely.



Horses, commerce and another production city.



The state of play... not great

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Prince, epic, to 1845 AD:

Spoiler :

It was decision time at the end of the last round. Two friends on our continent and a lot of not-so friendly people on the others. Those two friends was the most obvious targets but, with galleons around, an intercontinental backstabbing was a concrete risk. But we are the Zulu, and our land needs to be secured (just read Shaka's background...I don't know if I should consider him a genius or a psycho).


1545 - The first move was a switch to Free Religion, to get rid of all those religion diplo penalties. Stalin is still friendly, Saladin drops to cautious, Gilga is now pleased. Overall, the diplo situation seems more manageable:



The plan is to recover for a while after the Babylonian war and build some infrastructures. Stalin still has enough on his hands, and we are still not sure about his plans.

1625/1650 - We get a lot of cash from Stalin, Hatty and The Islander for some old techs. Will be useful to upgrade those CR maces.

1660 - Stalin finally reveals his intentions and declare war on Pacal.

1675 - Hatty declares war on The Islander.

1685 - Switch to Police State and Nationhood. Some trading for more cash from Huayna and Hatty and we start the upgrading to rifles.

1706 - The AP forces a war vs Charlie. We can't do much, as Zulu fleet at this moment is, well, nonexistent.
And we finally declare war on Saladin.

1710 - Anjar is captured.

1716 - Saladin captures Nippur, that bad culture-chocked city.

1728 - A lot of angry citizens force a switch to Emancipation.

1744 - Nippur is re-captured.

1752 - Peace with Charlie.

1762 - Now something unexpected. The AP forces a war vs Stalin. What to do? We hoped for a spontaneous vassalization in the last centuries, without success. And he was on the list right after Saladin. This AP resolution doesn't really harm us, after all.
So it's peace with Saladin for some cash and we focus on Stalin.

1772 - Sippar is conquered (that city culture-flipped by Stalin a while ago).

1778 - HC wants us to join the war vs Charlie. He's a potential friend and trading partner. Charlie hates us anyway, so we accept. Not going to do anything, of course.

1780 - St. Petersburg captured.

1788 - Rostov captured.

1798 - Moscow captured.

1812 - Novgorod.

1818 - Yekaterinburg.

1830 - Charlie becomes Gilga's vassal.

1832 - Yakutsk is captured. This was that annoying city in the pig/rice spot. We tried to make him capitulate and give up this city, but he always refused. And he didn't even build a farm and a pasture there, so far. Idiot.

1845 - Rostov revolts and joins Saladin.

1845 - Yaroslavl is conquered and Stalin is no more:



The continent at this point:




Tech situation. Bad news, Saladin has infantry. He already proved to be a tough nut to crack in that brief war. But he has to go anyway. I don't want to focus oversea with him eagerly awaiting to backstab.



Diplo situation. We are Saladin's worst enemy.



On a side note, Surus the elephant is no more. He evolved and became a Cavalry unit, named after n.2 of the top 100 US racehorses of the 20th century:



Tech board at this point:




The plan now is to get Industrialism asap, build a decent stack of tanks (I'm thinking 10-12) and wipe Saladin once and for all.
At that point, I think Gilga and his vassal Charlie.

 

[Fierabras]

Monarch/Epic, 1200 BC

Spoiler :

With the starting techs Hunting and Agri, I decided to build a scout first. Here's a screenshot of Ulundi after 5 turns where I switch the worked tile from the pigs to the wheat to complete the scout at the same time as the city grows to size 2.



With the 2 scouts I popped some goody huts with minor results:

- scout
- 70 gold
- Archery
- experience

I did manage to get good information on where everything was located. I teched the following:

AH - Mining - BW - Wheel - Pottery - Writing - Fishing - Masonry (6 turns to go)

After teching Bronze Working I noticed I had the monopoly on the bronze resources, which meant Impi rush!! After whipping and chopping granaries and ikhandas I managed to get 6 impis out rather early and took out Russia. It did cost 3 impis, so I build some more and took 8 impis to conquer Babylon, after which I sort of came to a halt. This is what it looks like now:

Zululand:



Former Russia (notice the city ruins where St. Petersburg was, razed due to size 1)



Former Babylon



I would like to finish off Babylon, but those 2 bowman are tough and I only have 5 impis left. I'm a bit stuck on how to continue this game, but I'll likely switch to rex/builder-mode to consolidate. I do have to keep an eye on Saladin though...

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Noble Marathon 1736 AD, Dom win.

Spoiler :

When I last left off plan was to go to HC's cap raze it and raise Ulindi's ranking.



mission accomplished and



Ulindi goes up a notch.

I then take Tiwanaku mostly cuz it has Versaille which would make taking more cities on that coint less costly.

after that HC still wont cap so I take a cpl more cities to give Tiwanaku breathing room from HC's culture then declare.

Rest of that time is spent mostly teching up to assembly and other techs. I am not sure why but I seem to be teching LOTS faster than the ai's. Thanks to ikandas I am able to run a lil more bpt than usual buit not THAT much I dont think. The AI's just seem to be going slow for some reason now :/.

Anyways while I am teching up I notice Hattie sneaks in and settels RIGHT on
Cuzcos old spot. I am like oh no you didnt just backfill a city on me you lil uh rhymes with witch

So I declare on here. Her culture was really crowding a cpl of HC's old cities anyways.

I take a city from her then the lil twerp who NEVER does good at war takes Twinaku from me :/. Partly my fault I only garrisoed it with two rifles but STILL. But to their credit they dont go down easy. First of all she plays smarts and starts off with like 5 or 6 cats on em. Then Knight after Knight. I dont know how many for sure but they killed enough to get me a GG. But eventually numbers overwhelmed em and poor guys died and Twikanu fell grrr.

But I took another of her cities and then my stack started marching on thebes. I guess he got scared cuz by this point Sargon and Bingo Bongo Bango and Erving just got upgraded to Infantry so she is willing to listen to reason. Not only does she cap but she also gives back Twinkanu

I keep teching. A GE had appeared earlier so after I tech corp I start spaming Mining inc and later I spam Sushi. After awhiule of building up I notice I have RR, Assembly Line, Combustion, Artillery, and flight and NONE of the AI's has rifles yet --I told you they were teching slow :/

Noticing that I start to feel confident that maybe game is in the bag. I have all my rifles upgraded to infantry and made a few more. And I upgraded some frigates and caravels to destroyers. Ihavent upgeaded my cannon yet or my galleons but I figure I have enough to handle HC who still using knights and longbows.

I DoW on HC and his vassal wash again. I take all of HC's cities excpet one that is way out of way stck between hattie and Pac but this time he willing to cap and I let him. His capping lets wash break free and he is rdy to cap then and there so I take it.

Im still like 11-12% short of land area for a dom vic. PLUS there is that lil issue about Ulindi's ranking. It STILL being ranked number 3 by that stupid ranker grrrr.

The ranker says Carthage is number one city in world so I send the boys over to go see what all the fuss is about:



Bingo is NOT impressed he doesnt even bother to wait for the cannon to soften up the defenders he just attacks as soon as cultural defeense is bomabraded down.

After Carthage is taken two things happen first:



This is like second game Hanni caps after I take just one freaking city what gives? I THOUGHT he was supposed to be one of the big bad war mongers? oh wells his land will help toward victory but more impoertantly:



Upon careful reconsideration the rankers decided Carthage wasnt all THAT special so it out of top 5 and Ulindi moves up another notch. It STILL not number one though so:



Bango doesnt seem to think it all that great of a city

ANd frankly neither does Sargon.

After Sargon gets honor of taking out last defender Mutal falls and:



Ya see? those rankers know what they are talking about after all hehe

But not only does taking mutal move up Ulindi it also leads to:



I check victory conditions:



Things look good so I dont bother with anything else just hit shift return and:



yay Shaka wins

Final graphs:

Score:


Hammers:


Power:


Demographics:



By end of game it was a lil onesided. It all adds up to:



My highest score ever

My main empire by end:

The east:



west:



My money city Mecca:



Not making as much gold as it probably should be I really didnt focus much on spamming hiduism like I probably should have but with Ikanda boosting economy and AI's teching so slow it wasnt really necessary.

My hammer city:



It ended up being my wonderwhore city



My cap and science city Ulindi which JUST happens to be number 1 city in word according to most recent rankings

and finally I really cant end this report without one final shot of General Sargon and his boys I couldnt have done it without them



So thats bout it new high score for me but I really couldnt tell you how I did it. I NEVER runaway with tech like that usually. Ikanda DID make economy a lil easier to handle, but still most games even when I am going good if I am running to assembly line it means I miss out on getting sci meth, phys, electricity, communism, etc first. but this time I managed ot get em all first.

When I said I got to flight before AI's got rifles that really not accurate. I got flight before HANNI got rifles, NONE of the other AI's except for Pac even got to gunpowder and they WERE ahead of me early on, beating me to code of laws (which I usually get to first) monotheism, aesthetiecs, lit, optics, all those early techs but for some kind of flukey reason by renaisance they just stopped teching as fast and that let me win game more than anything I did but even if it was a fluke it still was LOTS of fun

Would like to know why Hanni got a psudonnm and why he got a big perfect square island --almost like he was world builded in hehe

Kaytie

 

[L-Plate Ruler]

Nice work KaytieKat

My game, er... not so good.

 

[Killroyan]

Katiekat, that was almost a madscientist ending. How to get your city number one. Made me chuckle a lot and now move up at least 1 difficulty level. You are indeed too good for noble. Bingo, Bango and Bongo were impressive. Shaka would be proud.

 

[assass1n]

Prince/Epic To 280 AD

Spoiler :

Having massive problems with economy
Have 8 cities and slider @ 10 p.c. with ikhanda and libs in all cities
Rushed Stalin kept capital and another city with horses
Hammi son of a ******* settled cities in between ulundi and moscow
next target is him
got gs settled him
going CoL now
somebody founded Confu in 380 BC
havent gone any religion
Sal/Hammy in Hin
BK in Bud

 

[Fierabras]

Monarch/Epic, 65 BC

Spoiler :

I needed to kill Babylon and made 3 chariots to weaken those bowmen. With 3 chariots and 4 impis I took the last Babylonian city in 700 BC:



I made a serious mistake by not razing it and soon it became apparent that I could not afford it, so I liberated it to the Mayans in 600 BC:



I still had some serious problems with my economy and was forced to bring down my science slider to 0%!

The main reason I teched Masonry first was to take a shot at the Pyramids. I started it rather late, but even when I would not get it, it would get me some much needed gold instead.

In the mean time I used scientists in all 6 cities to keep a decent tech rate. After Masonry I teched Sailing - Alphabet. I managed to build the Pyramids and switched to representation, after which the tech pace picked up rather well.

I traded the following with Alphabet in hand:

Saladin: Alphabet for Iron Working and Meditation
Charlemagne: Writing for Polytheism
Charlemagne: Alphabet for Monotheism and Priesthood

After Alphabet I went for Mathematics, but maybe CoL or Currency would have been better. My cities were growing rather well and I laid down some cottages which finally enabled me to get my science slider up to 10%, but I'm still mainly running a specialist/scientist economy. I'm about to settle another city in the jungle to the west:





Saladin is getting a bit too strong for my taste, so maybe I'll switch to his religion Hinduism, as he is spreading it to my cities with missionaries. On the other hand, I could go for Construction and Horseback Riding to mass-build War Elephants and Catapults, but without Currency and CoL first, it would be stretching it too much.

 

[bramirez]

Can I start now or do you think it is too late now? Just poor player at Noble so I will do my best to get ahead. Need good advice.

Where can I find all the old series? Someone played musa in any of them?

Can I activate a log I can print on here so you will see the events? Can I use Bat and Bug mod? Seems some people are using it. How can I do it?

 

[byang08]

I'm gonna try my first game at prince with this, doing prince/epic

4000 BC

Spoiler :

Moved my settler one tile north to build my capital so I can get the fish resource. I'm gonna cottage spam although there's a nice surplus of food for a GP farm. I'm not sure about this but the capital should always go for commerce because of the bonuses it gets right? Unless I decide to move the capital that is. I'm exploring in the northwest direction but to my dismay it's been nothing but jungles which drastically waste my scout's movement

edit: I researched AH first then will go for IW to get rid of the jungles. Building a worker as my first unit besides scout

 

[Fierabras]

Can I start now or do you think it is too late now? Just poor player at Noble so I will do my best to get ahead. Need good advice.

Where can I find all the old series? Someone played musa in any of them?

Can I activate a log I can print on here so you will see the events? Can I use Bat and Bug mod? Seems some people are using it. How can I do it?

It's definitely not too late, so jump right in! I'll be here for a while (I'm still finishing the last Nobles club series with Roosevelt, in which I'm totally pwning)

Check out the previous versions in the Nobles Club Bullpenn

Personally, I haven't played Mansa Musa, I joined rather late. I'm not sure about using log files, but I prefer to construct my own story as most players do.

BUG mod is fine, I also use Blue Marble. I'm not sure about BAT, the general tendency is to play it with unaltered gameplay mods. If you are going to install BUG, install it in CustomAssets and not as a singular mod (although you could still play the savegame that way, I believe).

I'm happy to make any suggestions. This episode is rather fun and I even might replay it as Noble/Normal, but I'll continue my Monarch/Epic first.

 

[Fierabras]

@byang08, 4000 BC

Spoiler :

Interesting choice of settling. I'm happy with hills on riverside, but settling 1 tile north does get you a nice resource. The capital should go commerce most of the time, just because it has the palace which generates commerce. When you get the modifier stuff (like 25% science for Library) it always is the early commerce city. In this case there's lots of green grassland, so cottages seem the way to go.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Can I start now or do you think it is too late now? Just poor player at Noble so I will do my best to get ahead. Need good advice.

Where can I find all the old series? Someone played musa in any of them?

Can I activate a log I can print on here so you will see the events? Can I use Bat and Bug mod? Seems some people are using it. How can I do it?

I probably won't post another one until about 2 weeks...so you have plenty of time and are welcome to play/post any NC game any time you wish.

Any mod will work as long as it can play scenario files.

There's a link to a lot of old NC games in the noble's club bullpen (bullpen was started by Bleys). Mansa Musa has not been played yet in NC and I'm considering him in the next few.

By the way, I'll get an update eventually. It's been an eventful thanksgiving, in both good and bad ways. Next weekend will be a lot more normal than this upcoming one.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

BAT mod is fine or at least it better be since thats what I use now. It doesnt really alter game play. BAT is just BUG mod features along with graphic changes so more units get a more unique look to each civ. Even improvements such as cottages and workshops etc look a lil different depending on which civ built them.

I think it is really cool. If you look at some of my screenies this game you can see how it changes the look of look some of the zulu units. Shaka's Maces have a more "zulu" look and even shaka's modern units like destroyers and infantry have more unique look.

Although it DID freak me out one game. For most part UU's or at least all ones I have seen to have their look as in regular game with exception of redcoats. Instead of looking like units from american revolution period with BAT mod they look like brit soldiers in like 1800-1900s-- if you ever seen old movies like Zulu!, and Zulu Dawn then you got idea of how they look. Well anyways since redcoats got a makeover the OLD redocoat look was ported over to british musket unit. So here I am sending a stack over into to attack britain thinking my curiasors are gonne romp over britain and then I am like HOLY %^&%&^* when did they get REDCOATS soo fast?? But mousing over showed they were just muskets.

@Killroy and lplate--thx for nice words . Although I am no madscientist I dont play anywher near his level or do as good as write ups or make as many typos hehe

and dont worry Lplate I have gotten mushed more than a few times in these games and especially in LHC games it just makes it even more fun when you start to win a few And dont give up on a game TOO soon, there been a cpl of games where I thought I was in unwinnable sitch but actually pulled out victory somehow.

Kaytie

 

[bramirez]

First two questions:
1 - tried to load the game from inside but can only get it to start if I double click the file. Why?

2 - Everyone is settling in place, but with so little hills and the fish in the north wouldn't be better to settle 1N?

 

[byang08]

Spoiler :

Ok first dilemma, I don't know if I should build my 2nd city at where my settler is or one tile to the north. The outline signifies where I plan to build another city. If I move my settler one tile north, then the northern most three tiles the city will get are one plain, two grassland, all by the river, in exchange, the city won't be able to work on the banana, but the other city will. If I build the 2nd city in place, it will lose two river tiles, one plain one grassland, in exchange for a grassland hill and banana. However the banana will eventually have to be shared by the other city although that's not a problem since bottom left has plenty of food anyway, I'm planning to make it a GP farm. I will cottage my 2nd city.

Also, I'm looking to rush Stalin, I built a barrack before my settler so I'll know where the copper is, turns out it's right near my capital, however my 2nd city will be surrounded by jungles and probably won't be able to produce any units fast enough for the rush, there aren't a lot of forests I can chop either. This is my first game at Prince level so I'm not too sure whether I can pull an Impi rush off or not. Also by the time I research IW and chop down some jungles it will be way too late for a rush. So, will hold off on the game until I receive some advice. Thanks