[BTS] Help a noob out on noble

[yodude4]

@Pedro78 I will take your advice then, and I'll avoid more than 10 turn updates for the foreseeable future; here's a 5-turn update.

I decided to trade both techs in the end, and I switched my capital to a barracks to get it to grow to 5 pop and work those cottages. It hit its happiness cap in the middle due to previous whips though, so I avoided growth 3 turns in and worked a scientist specialist to get some science. After finishing alphabet, I researched mathematics but soon I ran out of money to finance my research, so I switched to 0% to build up some gold in the treasury. Chichen Itza was switched to a granary. Lakamha finished its worker, and that worker went to chop a settler (Lakamha doesn't have more than 3 improved tiles to work, so I figured I should prioritize getting my fourth city out rather than letting it grow to 4 pop).

Screenshot:

Spoiler :

 

[lymond]

If I'm not mistaken, I believe you lost that fish forever by settling Itza where you did. Keep in mind, that unless GLH is a priority here, not all cities need to be coastal.

Seems like you should have a couple more warriors out by now, for mp and fogbusting at least. ..maybe there are more than I don't see. appears barbs could spawn to the SW and to the E. Not to mention you have not unfogged all the coast (i know you have done so in prior attempts, but you should still be in the habit of doing so). Furthermore, busting these areas will prevent galley spawn as well.

I agree that gold city probably would be better for Itza at this time

 

[yodude4]

@lymond you're probably right about barbs, but on noble they are pretty scarce so I'm going for the long-term development. Also I don't think I'll be going for GL (it seems late to start considering I don't have a coastal city) but in hindsight it wouldn't have been a bad idea. And yeah, gold city was probably a better choice, the luxury resource would have been very nice

 

[lymond]

On Noble, GLH probably won' be built until the ADs, but really the point was that you don't have to settle coastal if no seafood..that lake makes it tricky for that spot, combined with the fact that you killed a fish city.

Another note is that, assuming you don't have Sailing, I don't see a road to Itza so no trade route. Best to have these in place before settling the city, but if not, soon thereafter. I believe a 3 tile road for the river should do it.. Trade routes are very important and should not be neglected..foreign trade routes even better.

Well, I'd get in the habit of practicing as if you were moving up levels, as I believe that is your goal. Like with huts and events and crap, you are setting a false impression. Simple thing is that maybe barbs don't spawn as much but they will as you move up, so learn to deal with them now.

I'd much rather build another cheap warrior unit right now than a barracks.

 

[Pedro78]

Lakamha doesn't have more than 3 improved tiles to work, so I figured I should prioritize getting my fourth city out rather than letting it grow to 4 pop

That's good thinking, but it would be even better to let it grow to 4 pop then 2 pop whip + chop a settler

 

[Anysense]

Meanwhile Hannibal gets access to roads and libraries (commerce,GPP,cottages,etc. good stuff)

Which is good, because you want him to be capable of researching more useful stuff for you. And honestly, I don't understand why you are so keen on slowing Hannibal down. As a noble AI he is already so slow that he can't even make a decent tech trade partner.

 

[yodude4]

@lymond good point about the road; I got that hooked up in this update. And yeah, I probably won't settle coastal.

Back again with another 6 turn update! Very little happened; Mutal kept waiting for its happiness cap to die (after which it'll probably whip out a settler/worker, though I'm not sure on this), Itza kept building its granary, and Lakamha kept building its settler. The workers chopped a forest into the granary and built a road to Itza to get that trade route.

Spoiler :

So I'm about to settle the gold city; does the dot mapped location look like the one I'd want, or should I move it a tile down to get the corn in my opening ring? I like making the desert tile useful, but I don't know if that matters more than accelerated early growth.

 

[Fippy]

Fish city is not lost actually, just cannot get a lighthouse
CI can build workboat, and here would still be a fine city.

 

[Anysense]

Mutal kept waiting for its happiness cap to die (after which it'll probably whip out a settler/worker, though I'm not sure on this), Itza kept building its granary, and Lakamha kept building its settler. The workers chopped a forest into the granary and built a road to Itza to get that trade route.

Did you by any chance use "avoid growth" button? It seems you did. I wish devs removed that stupid thing from the game. Your capital should have grown to size 6 already to 3 pop whip a settler. Similar thing happend to Chichen Itza. Unless I'm much mistaken it's currently working plains instead of the corn... It is a horrible thing to do, grave offence is a very mild term for that. Btw, generally the earlier you whip the better, so granary should be whipped at lvl 2. Every time a city grows half the food required to grown is stored in granary, thus you missed 12 food because of groving to size 3 without granary.

 

[Olafeson]

Regarding the question about your gold city. The spot on the coast you marked is fine (or 1W to get a 2 base hammer city on PH). You already got the corn because it is the culture of Lakhama. Just go in the city screen and click on the corn tile , it will now be worked by your gold city and not by Lakhama anymore.

Also you can not settle anyway 2S of the gold anymore because Lakhama is too close.

I would grab the corn, grow to size 2 and grab the gold, then build a lighthouse there and work sea tiles from pop 3 upwards. you can give the corn back to lakhama, after gold city grow to size 3 for example.

 

[yodude4]

It's been a while, but I'm back with another 5 turn update!

I finished the settler and settled the gold city on the spot indicated in the above screenshot. Two workers built a road to the city before it was founded, and upon its creation one worker went to make a cottage on a forest tile below it while another went to hook up the gold. Lakamha, after finishing the settler, began to build a library (I'll want one eventually and it needs to grow to pop 4 since it built the settler at pop 3). Mutal finished the fifth settler and I prepared to settle on the rice to the left... until I noticed some sugar on my right and went to check it out. I moved my warrior and revealed two nice snazzy fish tiles very close to the shore, and my settler redirected himself to the right to settle my fifth city. However, it is not settled yet, as Iron working is about to finish (I'll want it for my war with Hannibal) and I want to confirm the location.

Is the dot mapped location good for city 5?

Spoiler :

 

[lymond]

post saves

clam and fish make two cities. I would settle right now 1NE of the horses and build a monument there to get fish later

Itza should start a settler right now for 2 pop whip

IW is a mistake. It appears you are on a continent with Hannibal only...what type of map is this? So may be best to leave him alive for trade routes and just focus on empire building and economy. IW is a glorious waste of beakers

I would tech to Currency and CoL instead...possibly get a religion for the continent. Use free mish to spread to Hannibal.

Do you fishing and Sailing yet..foreign trade routes?

Lastly, you seem to have a lot of gold saved up in the bank. Try to focus on getting the gold you need for the next tech and then pursue it whole-heartedly.

oh..and honestly it is probably better to post a plan for what you are going to do and discuss the reasons behind it and then get feedback. You are making a lot of decisions on your own and making bad ones.

 

[pigswill]

Two questions on IW. How soon do you want it? How soon can you get it by trade/extortion?

edit: Maybe rule of 'food in first ring' should be amended to food available immediately on settling (to cover the scenarios when food is outside new city's first ring but inside existing cultural borders and therefore improvable)

 

[Olafeson]

Honestly i really enjoy your wirte up yodude4, good explanation, regular updates, good questions, which i ask myself also all the time.

This far you did a really good job. Every city god connected by roads as soon as you settled them or shortly after (a city connected with traderoutes already makes more commerce than it is losing gold most of the time). So with a 0% research slider you make more gold than you did before. Enough workers too.

I think lymonds advice is best, make 2 cities out of fish and clam to the east. 1NE of horses, can work horses and share cottages with capital. Later make another city 1W of clams.

Let Mutal grow to size 4 and Chichen itza to size 5, then start a settler in both cities and 2 pop whip them into 2 more workers. That should finish the core of your empire, then you can focus on getting a GS out and cottage up the capital.

As an exercise i would try to tech to LIberalism now and get smth like MT (Military Tradition or chemistry as a free tech). You will need to play (and win) these Lib Races a lot when you climb in difficulty. Do not try to attack hannibal before that. Post a Picture of the "Foreign Advisor" (F4) screen, and show the tech menu. This will allow us to see how far you managed to outtech a noble A.I.

After you (hopefully) won Lib you can get Cuirassiers or canons and wipe hannibal out. Good luck.

 

[Fippy]

Settling pic (how i would).

#1 as Lymo said, monument first for fish as best tile.
It's a nice spot also cos of the shared tiles with your Cap.

#2 should be settled quickly, forget it's not coastal
With wet rice and 5f fish, it's still a great city and also needs a monument.

#3 can be considered filler, it's not bad but no hurry..would do that when another settler makes sense somewhere.

 

[lymond]

yep, good plan dat...fish/rice not bad city even without LH. (don't forget it will need a road completed)

As stated earlier, I recommend getting a warrrior and planting him 2W1S of the rice in the SW corner to help prevent barb galley spawn...not sure if you will ever bother settling down there. No use in having that area just spawn barb galleys all day, especially with all your seafood being coastal (i.e. not ocean where they can't reach)

time to get a library in Mutal if you don't have one, and start running some scientists for your academy

Not sure about Lib>MT for this game, but you do want to meet the other AIs sooner than later on this type of map....so Optics early and maybe Lib>Astro is in the cards.

 

[yodude4]

Thanks again for all the replies, and before I post my next update I have a question:

IW is a mistake. It appears you are on a continent with Hannibal only...what type of map is this? So may be best to leave him alive for trade routes and just focus on empire building and economy. IW is a glorious waste of beakers

i would try to tech to LIberalism now and get smth like MT (Military Tradition or chemistry as a free tech). You will need to play (and win) these Lib Races a lot when you climb in difficulty. Do not try to attack hannibal before that.

My current plan was to tech to construction, take out Hannibal and then go Lib -> Economics or Astro. My worry is that if I let Hannibal live much longer, my expansion will be capped at about 6-7 cities which, while probably fine for now, probably isn't enough to keep up with the AI in tech later in the game. My question is, while I could probably conquer Hannibal and still win the Lib race on noble, is this plan too greedy for higher difficulties (and thus something I probably shouldn't try to do here)?

 

[Anysense]

My current plan was to tech to construction, take out Hannibal and then go Lib -> Economics or Astro. My worry is that if I let Hannibal live much longer, my expansion will be capped at about 6-7 cities which, while probably fine for now, probably isn't enough to keep up with the AI in tech later in the game. My question is, while I could probably conquer Hannibal and still win the Lib race on noble, is this plan too greedy for higher difficulties (and thus something I probably shouldn't try to do here)?

I think you can proceed with that plan, except that there is no need for construction. Just a dozen swords should be enough. Tech path may be something like math->currency->MC(metal casting)->machinery->compas->optics then go after lib. You will need a couple of GS's(great scientists) to bulb education. Another way is to tech calendar after optics and use 2 GS to bulb astronomy.

 

[Pedro78]

6 strong cities including a decent cottage capital are enough to win lib in most cases, even on deity, when you have several AIs to trade with. Although this is Noble and you can win the game any way you please, on a higher difficulty the right choice here would be going for early Optics and Astro, delaying the war against Hannibal. Too bad you rolled a semi-isolated start here, as semi-isolation strategies are often quite different when compared to a more "standard" game. In this particular case I would most likely get Astro before lib.

I'd recommend you watch Lain's video of a semi-isolated game, it sums up many things you have to know when playing semi-isolation, plus I'm sure you'll learn many tricks about empire management :

 

[yodude4]

It's been a while but I'm back with a 5 turn update!

I let Iron working finish and found iron right in the borders of Uxmal, which started building a monument after finishing its granary to get that iron (I want to at least be able to defend against Hannibal). The settler moved to 1NE of the horses, and started building a monument. A worker near my capital hooked up the horses, and another worker at Uxmal moved to my capital to chop out a settler, which I started after finishing an additional warrior (I moved the one in Mutal south of the rice to fogbust). Itza 2-pop whipped a worker, and Lakamha continued building a library.

Spoiler :