First Game on Noble - Comments Requested

[Brain]

I'm currently playing my first game at Noble. Below is a description of this game with some screen shots and a save. I'd like to get some tips from more experienced players regarding my game. I'm open to comments and criticism on any aspect of the game.

Settings: Standard size, continents, marathon speed, 7 AI opponents, Noble difficulty, no random events, no culture flips, choose religions.
Playing as Augustus Caesar.

My overall strategy in this game is to clear out my continent by force and then go for domination.

I start out next to rice, clam, 2 dye, and with ivory visible but not in the city radius. Some jungle is visible, which hints to a near equatorial region. Fortunately, there's no jungle and lots of forests in the capital's city radius. Very good start position IMO.

My initial build order is: work boat, worker, 3 warriors, settler, warrior, settler, warrior, worker.

My initial research path is:
- Agriculture: for the rice
- Bronze Working: forest chops & opens up iron working
- Iron Working: playing as Rome so I need to know where iron is ASAP
- The Wheel: roads
- Pottery: granaries, cottages & opens up writing

I meet Charlemagne in the north and Sitting Bull in the south. I see a nice juicy worker right on Charlie's border. Ah what the heck! I declare war and capture the worker. Charlie already has archers, so I take no risks and retreat. I make peace soon afterwards.

I settle my second city in a good spot for a super cash city (IMO) west of Rome with 3 dye, 2 gems, and rice. Unfortunately, it's in the middle of the jungle so I have to deal with lots of unhealthiness early on. Bronze is a bit too far but fortunately there's iron not far just outside my cultural borders south of Rome. I settle my third city there, placing it so that ivory is also in my borders.

After this I build some more workers, connect the iron, and start building praetorians. In the mean time I placed another city in the north, close the Charlie's border. Maybe a bit too close. My research path is writing, alpha, math, construction. My goal now is to launch a major attack on Charlemagne.

Finally, I attack Charlie in 480 BC with an army of 15 praets, 2 spears, and an axe. He has only archers and chariots so my attacks are like cutting through butter with a warm knife. I take 4 cities, including his capital. At this point I have a lot of gold, but I have to maintain a huge deficit to keep up my research rate. I decide to make peace in exchange for sailing, archery, and mysticism. Make no mistake - this is just a phony peace treaty. I want to catch up a bit on the tech side and get sailing, which opens up calendar (to connect dye). This gives me a few turns to regenerate my troops in preparation for the final strike. Note that this is marathon speed so he won't have time to rebuild.

Now, at this point I have to consider my next moves. After I eliminate Charlemagne then Sitting Bull is next. However, he already has swords and I don't expect that war to be so easy. At the very least I will have to build some catapults. My plan afterwards is to aim for optics so that when I'm done clearing the continent I can go discover the rest of the world. However, I don't know what other techs I'll need. I'll probably have to switch my style from warmonger to builder in order to fill the land on my continent.

Anyway, I'd really appreciate comments on any aspect of my game. Thanks in advance.

 

[slobberinbear]

Rome is a great civ to use when you are bumping a difficulty level. Some thoughts:

1. You have fairly developed cities that are still operating with no culture. In some cases, you are missing out on big resources (i.e., gems, etc.) that bring in significant production or commerce. Build something, anything, that generates culture, even if you have to whip it.

2. Your low research is going to kill you. The solution? Keep fewer of the captured cities. It's hard to learn, but often you should raze cities unless they are exceptional. Later, when you have Currency and Code of Laws, it is easier to keep enemy cities. In particular, I would have razed Augsburg and Prague, which are not optimally located and are "behind" your line vis a vis the remainder of the HRE (i.e., Charlie is unlikely to resettle them).

3. I am unclear why you accepted a cease fire when you have your opponent on the ropes. Even if you are experiencing war weariness, you have an advantage it seems, and you should press it. If you resume war in 10 turns, you'll still have the same war weariness anyway. The techs you received from Charlie are simply not worth leaving him alive. The only time I take a breather in mid-war is if I simply cannot maintain an offensive. Your reason for not continuing the war -- running low on funds -- is partly caused by #2, above. Keep fewer cities, and you have fewer economic problems. Also, it's normal to run a research deficit while warring, using the war booty to keep funding the beakers. I would raise the science slider and keep on fighting Charlie.

 

[pigswill]

As Slobberinbear said your cities need culture to pop borders. Fastest way to get culture is to adopt slavery and whip monuments (maybe libraries in larger cities).

Your economy is nowhere near strong enough to absorb SB at the moment. Your army is more than strong enough to finish off Charlie so don't build any more praetorians, consolidate your existing army (you don't really need more than one defender per city) and wipe him out completely.

At noble the AI is paying as much in city maintenance as you are so if SB expands he'll cripple his economy allowing you to gain a tech lead.

At this point your economy needs more commerce than you can raise from working resources. Currency will give you a free extra trade route. On top of that you could do with either working cottages or running specialists (or both, have some cottage cities and some specialist cities).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm in disagreement with some of the other posters here. You are the Romans in the BC's on marathon! I would expand and press the other civs until you're almost in strike .

However, if you DO go the route I suggest, you'll be needing to use specialists for research while things like captured cottages grow.

I'm going to download the save and have a look see in a little bit. If you expand rapidly via war CoL and currency are PRIORITY techs. If I'm not running an oracle sling and haven't gone the priesthood route, I often take currency first because it lets you build wealth and lots of cities = lots of extra commerce from the extra trade route/city. That, and you can sell off techs and resources for cash possibly...should buy time until courthouses are built.

I'm with everyone else on the border pops. Make something and get the power tiles!

Will update later.

 

[semirami]

1. You have no culture buildings in your cities, except the Palace in Rome. If you are not creative, the first building for a new city is mandatory a monument

2. Your cities are badly overlaped. I'd raze everything except Aachen and settle again, when I can afford the maintenance. So you will keep the slider at 60-70% and will have much better cities.

3. You are researching Calendar. Sure, you have a lot of dye, and it is nice resource, but it gives commerce. Right now you need production, more than commerce. And Calendar is very expensive tech. Right now you need AH(you have cows and sheeps),
CoL for curthouses Metal Casting for some workshops, Monarchy for herditary rule and Currency. All much more important, than Calendar.

4. You dont use the Slavery civic. It is a very powerful civic, especialy with your limited production.

 

[Loose Nut]

1. You have no culture buildings in your cities, except the Palace in Rome. If you are not creative, the first building for a new city is mandatory a monument.

That is what I am wondering. You're playing as Julius Caesar, aren't you, not Augustus, right? Seeing as how Antium and Cumae haven't popped.

 

[Sisiutil]

That is what I am wondering. You're playing as Julius Caesar, aren't you, not Augustus, right? Seeing as how Antium and Cumae haven't popped.

They changed Augustus' traits in BtS to Industrious/Imperialistic.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I opened this up and then got the urge to play it out lol . I'm at 900 AD, but I won't spoil the game for you.

HOWEVER, based on the save you left, you need to quit researching calendar and pick up currency...you have all the pre-reqs and it's actually your shortest path to CoL also.

Note: You easily have enough commerce worked to go ahead and finish charlie off as soon as the treaty expires.

The only other thing I wonder about is the # of civs on this map =P. I'm pretty sure there is another continent full of AI's somewhere, but man. I guess I'm just not used to marathon (usually play epic).

Edit: The whip is your friend. You have plenty of cities that could take advantage .

 

[Loose Nut]

They changed Augustus' traits in BtS to Industrious/Imperialistic.

Doh. I even tried to look that up on the info page! *meekly retreats*

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I played this out to a domination win yesterday, but got sidetracked by madden 08 and didn't write it up yet. I'll do that when I get home today in a spoiler, and I'll detail especially how I climbed out of economic crash .

 

[Diamondeye]

I'd have killed off Charlie and then stop offensive and get economy rolling with an Engi beeline, using Ind to get some forges up, maybe Colussus, and then go trebs and praets on SB...

 

[Brain]

Thanks to all for your tips. I agree with the culture and that's what I intended to do next. I did not have time to build any culture due to my praetorian rushing. I get your point about the whip, but I never liked pop rushing because I just don't know when to use it. Should I wait until I'm at the happiness cap or should I use it in smaller cities as well?

Wow, TheMeInTeam you're pretty fast. I take much longer to play out my games. Anyway, I'll be interested to see how you played it out, but please do use a spoiler.

 

[slobberinbear]

Getting the most out of Slavery is described in many strategy articles. I suggest you look in the sub-forum.

The basics, however:

It is generally better to whip in a higher-food city;

having a granary helps the city regrow faster;

if you are near your happy cap, make sure that you can deal with the unhappy face you get from the whip. That means whipping more than one pop at a time, whipping a happiness building, stagnating growth somehow (e.g., building a worker or settler) to avoid regrowing into unhappiness for the 10 turns, etc..

If you can deal with the unhappiness, it is best to whip when your food bar is nearly full, so that you can regrow faster.

If you want to practice whipping, play as Montezuma and build a few sacrificial altars.

 

[Sisiutil]

In addition to whipping, I highly recommend making more use of chopping. It looks like you have several forests left around your cities, and those could all be chopped to hurry the essential things for a Praet rush: barracks, Praets, granaries to help with whipping, and, of course, more Workers to do more chopping (though you should be capturing several Workers too).

To my mind chopping has huge advantages over whipping, as powerful as the latter is. First off it's simpler. Second, you don't have to wait before you can chop again. Third, the consequences (unhealthy cities) are rarely immediate this early in the game. And if you're chopping to rush units, which as Rome of course you are, then you'll be conquering territory that includes either health resources to offset the lack of a health bonus from forests, or you'll have surplus resources you can trade for health resources. Another advantage is you deprive the enemy of tiles in your territory where they have a defensive bonus.

Chop to rush Praets especially--the main challenge for Rome is that you're trying to rush a unit out the door that is very expensive at that stage in the game. Furthermore, you'll often need reinforcements because you don't have Catapults yet, so you're going to lose several Praets along the way.

 

[Brain]

Well, I do chop sometimes, especially in the early game when I have long builds. I always chop my first settlers. However, I have one issue about chopping. I'm usually working forest tiles and often they are a source of extra hammers. I don't want to have only grassland tiles with no hammers and hills are not always available.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Game Summary!

Ok, first for his immediate future (up to around 1 AD):

Spoiler :

Straight for HRE throat as soon as the treaty expired. After all, we weren't near strike yet . We could fall into it now though! -6gpt at 0% is more like it!!!

Sort of. Actually, the cities taken are still in revolt and should keep me afloat when they come out. I committed the sin of worker automation in this one! When I have sprawling empires, I do my "specialization" via telling the governor what to emphasize (this actually affects what improvements workers build) and based on what buildings I put in a city. It's on noble, and MARATHON, so I want this to end some time this year. With this many cities, it should be fine.

We have some gold. We are going to use it for deficit research to get currency online ASAP. We are also going to trade SB some weak techs for more gold to fuel more deficit research...why not? We plan on killing him soon enough anyway, but having the economy recover ASAP is a priority!

250 AD:

Spoiler :

We've made two production cities (that one that starts with an E in the middle of our empire with metal and tons of hills, and the city just north of it), and they are making prats and pults. The rest are building forums or just making important things like granaries and libraries, and growing.

The 0% ----> 100% slider adjustments are helpful. Although rounding problems were long since corrected, this let me make libraries while stockpiling gold, and then burn that gold into more efficient research once they were up!

We are accumulating forces to hit SB shortly. While Brain said he has swords, Prats aint afraid of no sword . DOG SOLDIERS, on the other hand, can be a problem. We will indeed need to soften defenses with siege, which is why I'm bringing pults into this and recovering economy to such an extent first.

A captured city pops a prophet. Also, since we were rushing CoL so nicely, we founded...Jewisihness! I didn't realize pick religion was on, so this surprised me (confuc. was founded and I didn't check carefully). This continent has no other religion, not to mention we just popped a prophet. Rarely do we ever see free money like this!

We also continued to trade to SB to get money and deficit research. First tech traded after currency was researched was currency...might as well get more quality trade routes!

615 AD-1205AD:

Spoiler :

We're ready.

This is going to be a slow war. I'm taking cities, keeping them, and taking peace with a tech and gold to fund more deficit research and heal, then DoW again! There's nobody else to worry about diplomatically, so might as well milk SB.



Also, he's settling more cities for us and improving them. It's so nice of him to do that for us . This is his curtain call however:



The barb city above is nice and will be next. We used prats and cats to own the entire continent. SB was researching feudalism since early in the war...but I kept taking his cities that would let it happen in any meaningful amount of time .



Yeah, I think we're in good shape. I forgot that you need machinery for printing press, so nationalism it is.

The Rest (through 1761AD):

Spoiler :

well this time I HAD to consolidate a bit, having no other heads to rolls. Considerably ahead of the other AI's in tech and already more massive than all others combined roughly, this game is basically over. I churned out rifles and upgraded those guys to CR and hit boudica, but to no avail! Her troop count and my lack of cannon screwed me even though she was just getting knights! I took some gold for peace and teched to infantry. THEN I turned the slider off again, this time DoWing her with the infantry. Drill II infantry thanks to theocracy (I like free speech because I'm rush buying). She capitulated pretty quickly.

Then I went for gilgamesh, who had taken france as a vassal. This actually took a while because I had to wait for france to break free before the sumerians would capitulate. Ultimately though, shuttling over 30+ infantry to the other side at regular intervals overwhelmed all defensive positions and I claimed:



DOMINATION! Runaway tech lead on everyone. I was competitive in tech while warring (that's what warmongering one's way up to emperor will do I guess), and got stupidly far ahead of everyone after SB died due to ridiculous #'s of cities and appropriate multipliers. I captured so many workers and ran serfdom too . If I'd not erred in judgment and attacked boudica too soon, this would have ended even sooner. However, as it stands this was good for a score a hair under 70k.

I DID backfill settle 3-4 cities of my own, but almost the entire continent is captured cities. Marathon is a bit slow for me, but oh well.

 

[Sisiutil]

Well, I do chop sometimes, especially in the early game when I have long builds. I always chop my first settlers. However, I have one issue about chopping. I'm usually working forest tiles and often they are a source of extra hammers. I don't want to have only grassland tiles with no hammers and hills are not always available.

I hear you; ideally, if you've positioned your cities properly, the small population sizes you have at that stage will only work worthwhile tiles. Or, if your cities have been able to grow larger (say because of a couple of early resources like gold, ivory) or you had to locate some cities in sub-optimal locations, then citizens working flat forested tiles, which are relatively weak, are ripe for whipping, or for becoming specialists. Once you get enough workers, put farms or cottages on some of those tiles and now they're worthwhile.

I think this also comes back to the fact that you haven't implemented something to make the cities' borders pop, so each city has fewer worthwhile tiles to work. While you may think you can't spare the hammers, in actual fact, you're hurting your production long-term because better tiles are not available for your citizens to work. Monuments can be built/whipped/chopped relatively quickly, and the increased tile options (not to mention more flexible city placement) is always worthwhile. If you prefer to avoid the monuments, either build Stonehenge, found an early religion, or play as a Creative leader.