NC CLXIX: Pacal of the Mayans

[Noble Zarkon]

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 Pacal of the Maya, whom we last played in CXXXIV. The Mayans start with Mining and Mysticism.

• Traits: Pacal is Expansive and Financial. EXP means +2 , allowing bigger cities sooner if you can find happiness resources -- or build Ball Courts. It also gives faster granaries, harbours, and workers. The +25% bonus for producing workers only applies to , not , so you need to be working 4 to get the 5th. FIN gives +1 on tiles that already have at least 2. FIN is regarded as one of the top tier traits in the game.
• The UU: The Holkan, a Spearman that needs no resources to build, and gets immunity to first strikes. A Holkan rush on a neighbour who doesn't have axemen yet is weaker than an axe rush but might be feasible under some circumstances; you can get the rush going faster since you don't need to find and hook up copper. If the neighbour has mounted units you might find it works a bit better.
  
  
  
  
• The UB: The Ball Court, a Colliseum with +3 instead of +1. Along with Pacal's +2 from EXPansive, it can help your cities grow more in the early game (relatively early, given that you need to research Construction first).
  
  

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Hemispheres.

Spoiler edits :

Swapped two strategic resources near the start. Chose the opponents to bring a certain flavour to the game.

Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine: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 134 Pacal Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels). 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.

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.

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.

Spoiler huts and events :

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.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Reserved

 

[Izuul]

Love 1st ring FIN oasis.

I'd still be tempted to move onto stone here and grab the rest of the FPs later with another city. FIN oasis + 3H city tile with an EXP leader would make for a ridiculously fast start.

 

[Pangaea]

Looks like a nice start. Settling on the stone is certainly an option, but SIP and building the Great Lighthouse isn't bad either. In any case I'd move the warrior onto the stone to reveal what is over there, as I guess the most pertinent options are SIP or settle on stone.

SIP will give 4 FPs, giving only 1. Coupled with wet corn that will be plenty of food, and FP cottages are great with FIN. I don't like coastal capitals, however, so if stone reveals good stuff, it would be tempting to move onto it.

 

[Izuul]

Stone appears to be coastal too from the screenshot. I was thinking about moving onto stone and using the extra production there to help build the GLH. It wouldn't be a particularly good Bureau cap, certainly weaker for that than SIP, but hopefully the other stuff would make up for that. 9T worker is possible but that would require working a forest for 6T and the Oasis for just 3T so it's possible Ag wouldn't be finished in time on higher difficulties like Deity.

 

[Pangaea]

Stone appears to be coastal too from the screenshot.

Didn't notice that, but when putting my poor eyes through the screen, it appears you are correct

 

[dalamb]

Coupled with wet corn that will be plenty of food,

Does an oasis really count as a source for irrigation? Didn't know that.

 

[Pangaea]

Does an oasis really count as a source for irrigation? Didn't know that.

It should. I can't load the start save right now and check because I have BUFFY and can't be bothered to change it (hey, I'm lazy!), but if you hover over the corn it should say "Fresh water" in the popup thing in the bottom left corner. If you settle a city next to an oasis, it will also get the fresh water bonus with more , same as for river and freshwater lake.

 

[FlyingSwan]

9T worker is possible but that would require working a forest for 6T and the Oasis for just 3T so it's possible Ag wouldn't be finished in time on higher difficulties like Deity.

I tried this at EMP,but I was working the oasis first and then the forest and only got a 10 turn worker,but your dead right the other way round works-9 turn worker
thanks for that.
guess im doing a restart..

 

[Sinsyne]

Playing on Emperor.

Early game up to 1440 BC.

Spoiler :

I settled on the plains hill one south of the stone, worked the oasis tile and built a warrior. Warrior finishes and city grows to two on the same turn whereupon I build a worker while working a flood plain.

Research path Polytheism->Agriculture->Masonry->Wheel.
With the oasis and a financial leader you successfully found Hinduism. I chose Polytheism over Meditation as it is the more expensive tech and the lost turn from moving your settler will have less impact there, plus I will need Polytheism for Literature later. Haven't tested whether you can found Buddhism instead.

Agriculture is ready in time for your worker and Masonry is discovered right when your worker can improve the stone. However Wheel comes one turn too late and I had to skip a worker turn.

You can get a nice plains hill city to the south with marble, sheep, spices and two seafood in BFC. Scouting reveals that you share the continent with Egypt and there's a nice chokepoint a bit south of his territory. City placement isn't ideal, I could have tried waiting 10 turns for the Stonehenge monument border pop to get a better placement and still cut him off from the rest of the continent, but it isn't worth the risk.

Capital built Stonehenge and Great Wall, soon Temple of Artemis and will get a prophet(92%) for the Hinduism shrine. Things look rather comfortable for now.

Up to 1330 AD.

Spoiler :

This has to be one of the most leisure games I ever played, after you box Egypt in it's smooth sailing and you can literally just go through the motions while half asleep. You have an entire continent to expand into at whatever pace you're comfortable with, but you still have an early trade partner, soon two more as Darius and Saladin scout you with their work boats. Ramesses converts to Hinduism soon enough so you don't have to worry about military at all as he doesn't declare on Pleased.
I lib'd Democracy in 1230, am currently in the Taj Mahal Golden Age and just finished replacing all that jungle with cottages.

The demographics screen worried me as it showed a larger civ on another continent but now I made contact I worry less, I've got a comfortable tech lead over Cyrus.

Happiness was a limiting factor in the earlier game with not one pre-Calendar happiness resource around, but you have a quite convenient UB for that with +3 . Notre Dame gives another 2 and then you're in the timeframe for plantations and wineries and can grow your cities to your heart's delight.

The sheer size of Cyrus worries me but I'm confident enough I'll pull off a win.

Oh, fun fact, your enemies besides Saladin are 2x Egypt and 2x Persia. That's why Cyrus's capital is Carthage.

 

[elitetroops]

@Sinsyne:

Spoiler :

Your cities have a lot of wonders, but not the one obvious wonder that you have to get on a map like this, the Great Lighthouse. Did you build it somewhere else? No Oracle either, which would be in my top 3 wonders with GLH and mids.

Great Wall is quite questionable when there is virtually no land for massive barb hordes to spawn. Did you want a great spy? ToA could make sense, I guess, if you also built Great Lighthouse.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

@Sinsyne

Spoiler :

Happiness was a limiting factor in the earlier game with not one pre-Calendar happiness resource around, but you have a quite convenient UB for that with +3 .

I did say I swapped a resource around In Nobles Club we try to make the UU and / or UB relevant if we can.

 

[Champion 8]

What about researcing BW first and then agriculture?
Let the capital grow to size two and then whip out a worker.
Then you can both work on the oasis the first turns and enjoy the 25 % hammer bonus while whipping out the worker?
The worker can chop out some holkans if there are some close neighbours or a settler if we are alone?
I also agree that it looks like a good idea to settle on the stone.

 

[Izuul]

That's going to delay the worker and the corn too much.

 

[Sinsyne]

@Sinsyne:

Spoiler :

Your cities have a lot of wonders, but not the one obvious wonder that you have to get on a map like this, the Great Lighthouse. Did you build it somewhere else? No Oracle either, which would be in my top 3 wonders with GLH and mids.

Great Wall is quite questionable when there is virtually no land for massive barb hordes to spawn. Did you want a great spy? ToA could make sense, I guess, if you also built Great Lighthouse.

Spoiler :

Great Wall is just a failsafe to protect my isolated city, plus immunity to barbs and knowing Ramesses can't declare meant I could neglect my military way more than you can usually afford to on Emperor. But yes GW is in no way necessary.

GLH sure would have been a huge boost but I didn't even try to get it(it's worth noting I played NC CXXVI Hannibal right before with GLH+Colossus and just didn't feel like doing the same thing again). Founding Hinduism delayed Sailing and I knew Industrial Ramesses has a coastal start as well, coupled with getting two settlers out first this made attempting the GLH daring to say the least. He got the GLH in 1480 BC.

Thebes did quite well spamming wonders in this game and sported GLH, Oracle, Colossus, Angkor Wat, MoM, Hagia Sophia, Sistine Chapel and Shwedagon Paya. I was sorely tempted to take it over. GLH and Colossus would have boosted my economy, Sistine Chapel might have opened the door to a cultural victory.

@Sinsyne

Spoiler :

I did say I swapped a resource around In Nobles Club we try to make the UU and / or UB relevant if we can.

Spoiler :

Ah, is that why every enemy has a mounted UU and copper is so far away?

Oh, I was wrong about Carthage being the capital of Persia2. Hanners is on the map too but he and Cyrus have exactly the same colour, there is no visible border between them.

The double booking of Persia and Egypt also led to interesting results like Darius of the Persians demanding I cancel my deals with the vile Persians.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

@Sinsyne

Spoiler :

Ah, is that why every enemy has a mounted UU and copper is so far away?

Indeed

Oh, I was wrong about Carthage being the capital of Persia2. Hanners is on the map too but he and Cyrus have exactly the same colour, there is no visible border between them.

Argh - meant to sort that, sorry.

 

[elitetroops]

Spoiler :

Great Wall is just a failsafe to protect my isolated city, plus immunity to barbs and knowing Ramesses can't declare meant I could neglect my military way more than you can usually afford to on Emperor. But yes GW is in no way necessary.

Spoiler :

Great Wall costs as much as 5 warriors with stone. 5 warriors could have spawnbusted the entire continent south of Ramesses, making you just as immune to barbs as the Great Wall. Even 3 warriors would have been enough to ensure no barbs spawn close enough to head towards your cities. And you have to build those warriors anyway at some point for military police in your cities. The great wall is almost never worth it, except if there is exceptional amounts of empty land around you. Better to build spawnbusting warriors that also serve a function later in the game.

 

[FlyingSwan]

The great wall is almost never worth it, except if there is exceptional amounts of empty land around youQUOTE]

Or if you want to do some serious Espionage Economy abuse,

Spoiler :

I restarted this game after Izzuls 9t worker advice,so I had some knowledge of the map.I wasnt 100% sure if I was going to go EE until the 1st spy dropped(it could of been a prophet),but I knew I wanted to try,especially with with Col oracled.I got a couthouse in the cap to run spys and scientists-obviously I had the mids as well.All espionage on Ramasees,stole lots of great techs.Then it got more interesting when Saladin settled on the continent-a crappy city south of my gems city-but he got the horses.

Then I got the "greed" event to take control of the horses within 100 turns.So it was all ESP onto Sal,and then a load of spread culture spy mission to get the horse tile in my control.Got 4 cavalry out of the effort.

After reading the post on "specialist economy" I decided to do just that,following my own advice,stayed in pacifism/Rep ALL game-built just farms,workshops,windmills,and just 2 cottages where there was no irrigation.Dropped 26 great people in the end-5 spys I settled in the capitol.10 scientist I bulbed,the others were probably on MoM GAs.

Got the space victory in 1923AD(played pretty sloppy the last 130 turns or so and had 3 or 4 of my nuclear power plants blow up-I couldnt get hold of coal.I checked the Espionage screen,Ive got like 38 thousand spy points on saladin still ,finished the game with future tech anyway.

View attachment NC169 Pacal AD-1923 space vic.CivBeyondSwordSave

Thanks to Noble zarkon for fun map,interesting little start

 

[Izuul]

Immortal 1 AD

Spoiler :

I built the GLH and settled the western island chain aggressively. I met Sal with a WB fairly early on but did not get his Hindu religion spread until quite late. Another WB met a Darius WB off the Egyptian coast later and i haven't had contact with him for too long. I had originally planned to go for an Astro bulb, but the inability to trade for any techs has really slowed things down and made that impractical. I hit the Music line fairly early for the great artist and then went back for Civil Service after abandoning the Astro bulb plan.

I was just able to get Ramesses to friendly last turn so i can at least trade a little bit now. I would love to get Sal to friendly as well, but I'm still just at +8 due to getting his religion late so i have a ways to go there.

Pics:

Spoiler :

Trade mission gold$

Overview

Capitol

Tech screen

I need to do something more productive with my island cities, but i haven't had anything useful to whip in a awhile. I'm not sure which direction i really want to go with this game atm either.

 

[FlyingSwan]

Immortal 1 AD

Spoiler :

I'm not sure which direction i really want to go with this game atm either.

end game spoiler/ish

Spoiler :

its a go with the flow imo,you can go war early ish,but it kinda felt whats the point with the land us and rammasees share.Id like to see how you handle a diplo victory on this map.