NC CXIV: Charlemagne of the Holy Roman Empire

[Doshin]

@dalamb

Spoiler :

I would either claim the Sheep by settling 4E, 1N of your capital, or take the wet Wheat in the SW before de Gaulle settles it. After the wet Wheat is taken (by you or de Gaulle), you should look to settle the Cow/Horse spot.

The orange dot isn't bad, but it will take Wang forever to settle that way. The spot 3W of the dot is superior (grassland Sheep + Fish are better than Deer and much, much better than excess Fur) and, given the lay of the land, should be guaranteed.

Another minor suggestion: try not to whip away improved resources, unless another city can share them immediately. Your capital can churn out Settlers like there's no tomorrow by working all those hammer heavy tiles. There's no reason to pile up the whip anger.

 

[Pengu]

Imm until 1595 AD

Spoiler :

So, Justinian was up next. He just built a nice buddist shrine which was nice but more the fact that he was getting close to military science. He is always a cunning bastard and managed to expand on an island way down to the southwest. After taking his 1st city he got MS but my army was huge and he capped after I got the Shrine and some other wonders in Constantinople. So, with 2 vassals and 20 cities Wang was next up and he capped 3 turns after the war started after losing 2 cities.
NextRifling was coming in and I decided to declere on Mehmet. He was closer which was the only reason why . Otherwise the Khmer would make more sense as Sury is stronger, more advanced and hates me. Sitting Bull was one of the most pitiful immortal showing from an AI I have ever seen. He got something like 5 cities and capped to Mehmet after losing 2. I though I was in for a hard fight since he had a vassal. But city after city fell and even if he had 15 cuirs and other crap in Istanbul, he lost it very quick vs Rifles and cannons. To my surprise after losing only 4 cities(he had 14) he just capped. I gave back 3 cities and 1 to France. So nowthere is only 1 left. Sury is getting close to Rifling, but I am even close to Assembly line . So I will just take my armada of Frigates and galleons with Infantry and cannons and make short work of Sury next. Was a nice game, and really vital for me to kiss ***. I was friendly with both Just and Mehmet for most of the game and pleased with De Gaulle which meant only Wang was a threat. But 5 cities really isn't that scary

 

[FlyingSwan]

Emporer/normal to 1ad

View attachment NC 114 Charlemac AD-0001.CivBeyondSwordSave

Spoiler :

Dont know what to make of this one..I dont play burgerking much,but figured with stone in the BFC and his Rathaus it might make for an interesting espionage game.

Got the Great Wall and Mids and started teching CoL,but due to culture pressure from Wang Kon went for the Oracle and by some miracle got it quite late and took metal casting.

I switched to Rep and Caste for border pops.(probably a mistake as buildings are taking ages in the smaller citys-but Rep and specialists are keeping the economy alive)

All the neibours have gone Buddist,but ive held out switching in case someone demanded i take their religion so i could have the Diplo bonus.I think i will wait till ive got Monotheism and then switch to slavery at the same time.

Ive got my Espionage on De Gaul whose closest,but he,s teching crap even though he,s 2nd in score after me.All in all a weird one,dont know if im doing good or bad so im gonna check out some other games here.

Ironic that Burgerking has horse in his empire

 

[kc0hev]

Decided to finally post one of these. I have played a few times on Noble and I normally win. I believe that I still make many mistakes and I am looking at moving up to Prince with the help of the community on this site. Anyway on with the report.

Noble Huts: Space 1965

Spoiler :

I SIP and began researching toward AH and then Masonry (have to abuse the stone). I grabbed Stone Henge because I hate having to build a monument in every city. I also grabbed the pyramids and the great wall to get my wonder-whoring started. My peaceful expansion included settling a city for the gold to fund early research followed by a city to its east for the copper and then north of there to claim the sheep and wheat. Next I expanded west by settling on the sheep to get the fish and deer followed by a city up north to grab all those fur tiles. Finally I settled one south of the wine in the west.

I had ignored the middle of the tech tree and researched to IW and construction with small detours along the way. Buddhism was founded by Justinian and spread to myself and De Gaulle, we all converted. Wang, on the other hand, founded Hinduism and became my early target. I was building a force to go after Wang and just as my first cats were rolling out of the cities he declared on me. This was fine with me and I strolled over and put him in his place (6 feet under).

With this done I made a bee-line to optics to see who else was out there. While I was working on this Sitting Bull and Memed came along to say hello. They were down south having their own Confucian love-fest. They did not bother me the entire game other than to make demands and requests that I quickly turned down. With optics in I began exploring and met up with Sury. Along the way I found many islands that needed to be settled so I researched to Astronomy.

After settling many islands and taking out some barb cities to expand Sury decided he wanted a piece of my hard work and declared on me. He captured one of my island cities which I quickly recaptured. He took another with the same result. I landed a force of riflemen on his continent which took out a large number of his troops. He agreed to peace and gave up much gold and gpt for it.

I was set up well and decided that I would go for a space victory because I had a decent lead in techs and I have never tried it before. All was calm with the AI in this time and in the end De Gaulle, who was first in soldiers, and I had a defensive pact. I launched a fully equipped ship and won a space victory in 1965.

I look forward to future club games and hope to find a lot of advice here.

 

[Pangaea]

I'm having a go at this at Emperor for only the second time (think I did one about half a year ago). Do the AI start with 2 settlers?

Wondering about city placement...

Spoiler :

de Gaulle placed a city right in my face, which was a kick in the teeth. Now wondering where to put the first settler. Have placed down a couple marks.

Spoiler :

Since we are boxed in, do I need to get further out than the gold-wheat spot? If only there had been food on the other side of gold...

Went worker, warrior, warrior, settler (at 3). Research-wise I went: Ag, AH, Mining, Masonry (2 left) and then I'm thinking BW and the Wheel (to connect stone for hopefully building Pyramids). Given the situation, probably need to get out another settler prompto though. Then workers. Hmphrg

 

[FlyingSwan]

@Pangaea

Spoiler :

it seems a few people went for the double corn gold city,i went 1 east from there so i could work the gold straight away.I settled 1 north in the wheat spot,but that put me in a culture war with Wang,which i was very lucky to win.I dont think you have much chance of settling the wine spot without losing out on another city site,and it would create border tentions with De Gaul straight away..never a good thing..

1 turn from Lib

View attachment NC 114 Charlemac AD-1030.CivBeyondSwordSave

Spoiler :

Well up to now its been a Buddhist love fest.Ive managed to keep out of trouble by giving into a few crazy demands from De Gaul and gifting Fur resources to all the neighbours whilst joining in their religious fun.

Both Wang and Justinian have had Theology for a while so im banking on them building the Apostolic Palace soon.Figured I,d whip in all the buddist temples and Monastarys ready for the hammer bonus,and so decided to build the sistine chaple and university of sangkore while i was at it for the culture and beaker bonuses.The spiral minaret might not be a bad option for the gold,but il see how it goes.

Everyone is at pleased,although wang has quite an army on my border which is a bit disconcerting.I cant remember if he can do a DoW at pleased..

The whole spy thing didnt work out too well,nicked some nice techs from De Gaul and then put my slider on Justinian,just missed stealing Engineering(i seem to lose at spy odds of 70%+ many times in a row)

Im thinking i should just Lib Nationalism now rather than wait for something better,but the AIs dont have Education yet,so I could go for Democracy,just not sure.

I built alot of windmills this game to try and get population up which i suppose worked ok.

 

[shulgi]

@Pangaea

Spoiler :

I also founded my second city at c and De Gaulle founded a city in that very same place. I have been able to control that corn all of the time and have planned to move my capital to that spot. The only thing unfortunate is that the city spot East of c is not very good and only decent after civil service. Tech path looks good. I took masonry before mining but other than that, same. Wang crowded my #3 spot pretty badly.

 

[WelshGandalf]

@Pangea

Spoiler :

My 2nd city went double corn-gold. It's a great site for cottages, whereas your capital is definitely a hammer-centric site.

My third one went 1W of the wheat (so 1N of where you are suggesting). Wang settled close but before long I had the sheep and the wheat under my control (after he had improved the sheep for me ). These 2 spots are imo the best you're going to get so may as well use your imperialistic trait to get them ASAP. Then plan either a) to rush someone, or b) to get a super efficient small empire going to tech to something that will let you attack someone.

 

[Pangaea]

@FlyingSwan and shulgi

Spoiler :

Thanks guys. I was actually thinking about the eastern spot first since hopefully de Gaulle won't settle a third city ASAP, but it would be disastrous to lose that southern one, so think I'll go for that first. Then probably for the one where the c is marked in the east. Will get the food in the inner ring, so if Wang settles nearby, hopefully I'll come out ahead on food at least. That's the main thing. The rest of the tiles there are crap anyway. If I could somehow get the sheep further north, that would be excellent, but that is probably a too big ask, especially at this level. Depends what land they have available I suppose. But from what you say, it sounds like all three of them settle in my direction, which is a bit tough to take.

The wine spot was where I wanted to settle a city btw (could have become a great military site), but then de Gaulle ruined the party.

So much plains around, I really hate that

On Mining before Masonry: Figured it was best since I probably couldn't start working on the Mids until both were in anyway, given I need two settlers out, and since Mining is a pre-req, sort of, Masonry is cheaper with Mining in. Not sure which approach is best, but probably marginal any way.

Not sure how I'll be able to break out of this (hope we have bronze!), but it will be a good learning experience for me to be in a proper tight spot. Bound to make mistakes, but I'll see how it goes.

 

[Pengu]

Imm dom 1770

Spoiler :

Damn, what an annoying finish. When my war vs the ottomans ended I was 5 tunrs from AL and The Khmer didn't even have replacable parts. I used a golden age and switched civics. That would turn out to be a bad move. I thought with 20 infantry and 30 cannons it would be easy. But 2 turns before I attacked he got rifling. No problem I thought but 5 tunrs later and he had steam engine and another 5 turns he got AL. Just insane. To make it worse he had 17 cities and unlike the ottomans Sury had no intention of capping. So after taking 3 cities Infantry started to pop up. And since I switched civics I couldn't whip anymore without losing several turns to anarchy. I thought after taking his capitol and whipping out his stack he would cap but oh no. And to no surprise he got artillery just a few turns after AL. Just sick at the speed he got techs in the end.
And I took 2 more cites and still nothing. His main Island was totally overrun but no cap. He even got combustion! before the end. But when his last little stack was gone he had no choice or I would have taken the entire Island out of spite. Damn Sury and his refusal to cap combined with the fact that my vassals did almost nothing to help made it a frustrating end. It was inevitable but took 10-15 turns longer than it should.

 

[Inso]

Imm/normal to 1AD:

Spoiler :

Moved my scout down and saw the juicy double corn possibility with only 1 turn of movement, so went for that. Settled my 2nd city just above the stone with sheep and deer, then realised that I didn't need to take into account since it would come into my 2nd border pop of capital anyway, but oh well.

Next city had to take the non-irrigated corn from the capital to block off De Gaulle, which is a shame but the capital is still nice with irrigated corn, cow and a few grassland river for farms. Go straight for pyramids in the capital and chop 3 forests to make absolutely sure I get it, which I do (phew!). Having explored the land I see I'm surrounded so I start pumping settlers and workers as quick as possible to claim all the very nice food spots around.

Had to settle a crappy city next to the gold for emergency commerce, turned out to be a lifesaver since I was just running +2 gpt at 0% after settling all the cities. De Gaulle went WHEOOHRN but I switched to Buddhism (the religion of all 3 civs I have met) and pump some axes and he went out of it luckily.

Am now at 1AD, with 2 rep scientists being run in 5 cities I have a lovely beaker rate. 1 turn away from COL and once I get that I am planning to go CS+OR and then go straight for music for the artist to hopefully burn a golden age to max some great people later. One last thing, I popped an engineer as my first GP in the capital, so settled him there.

Overall plan would be to wage some war against De Gaulle since he seems to have the better land, however its always tough warring when everyone is the same religion since I would get the other AIs hating on me and there's always the AP-peace threat too.

Save below:

 

[FlyingSwan]

View attachment NC 114 Charlemac AD-1240 Dem 4 Lib.CivBeyondSwordSave

View attachment NC 114 Charlemac AD-1490 GAge .CivBeyondSwordSave

View attachment NC 114 Charlemac AD-1818 spread culture...CivBeyondSwordSave

Spoiler :

Well managed to keep the peace on the continent through the Apostolic palace,when De Gaul or Mehmed got into a war I either voted to stop the war,or bribed one of them into peace.This seemed to work well as no-one was running away with too much land.

Used Lib to get democracy,and with jails and security bureaus the espionage economy picked up.I waited along time before I stole Astromony as I didnt want to kill my Collosus too early...bad mistake,didnt realise there were so many nice islands around.Managed to settle 4 citys eventually though,good for trade routes and the custom house was a nice build.

Met Sury (who was in Hindu) and immediatly gifted him tech to open borders so I could spread at least one Buddist to his island.But when it came to the AP vote I just didnt have the population for a diplo win so Ive just carried on teching and stealing techs from De gaul and Justinian.Got some great ones too-physics,electricity,rifling etc.

Problem was when I found I had no OIL,nearest was in Wangs territory,I was panicking a bit but managed to use the "spread culture" spy mission to get into my land.

I guess im gonna try for the space win and try and keep out of trouble,but im not sure which civics are gonna suit me best at this point,all of the continent(less Wang who peace vasseled to Justinian)are still in buddist,If i change out of Organised relgion to Free religion I can see trouble ahead..

But I built the UN which I control(no joy with Diplo vote again)so I could force everyone into Free religion,I just dont know.Im liking my Rep,Nationhood,Caste,state property,organised religion combo too much though.If anyone gets chance to look at the save advice,comments welcome.

Other thing is ive got a spare Great engineer,is it worth me building Min Inc if im goin for a space win?

 

[Dubioza]

Heyya
I know I read it somewhere, but I can't find it anymore...for Prince level I extract Noble save and select Prince difficulty here? Or do I have to edit something as well?
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/7862/civ4screenshot0000d.jpg

 

[Kyle Everett]

Dubioza, I don't believe Prince grants any extra units or techs, so you should be fine. Though I played on Prince and it felt slightly easier somehow.

 

[Pangaea]

Got "Just-one-more-turn-itis" and suddenly it's 350AD and I've fought two wars

Emperor.

Spoiler :

Only intended to play the first 100 turns, but by then I had a stack of Axes ogling across the pond to de Gaulle, and I *had* to see how that worked out. Took the city he placed in my face, razed another, and after a rest we went to Paris and sent de Gaulle packing.

De Gaulle and Wang Kon are supposed to hate each other. But as I'm marching on Paris, Wang Kon bloody well dogpiles me! Rerouted re-enforcements to Paris eastwards, but Vienna (the copper!) went under. Thankfully I managed to re-capture it 3 turns later, though. This turn of events naturally meant I took peace with de Gaulle, though I would have done that anyway.

Hit back some attacks from Wang Kon, protected archers can be *really* useful!! His Hwachas was a pain, but we survived. Then countered. Oh, how we countered. Had sent what I could spare from the French campaign to re-captured Vienna, before we marched on Pyongyang with 12 divisions of Axes and some chariots. His protected archers were a massive pain, but we got through in the end.

I notice he's really squeezed in, and only has 3 cities left. So we go for his capital, Seoul. Thankfully only 3 archers and an axe there, because it's the nightmare of all nightmares: protected upgraded archers on a hill. Losses were quite severe, but we took the city. Seoul looks pretty darn good, with rivers and grassland, so I'll probably move the capital here instead of Paris or the 1st city I founded. Paris could become a kick-ass GP Farm. Or alternatively a good military site as it has much better food than our starting location.

Spoiler :

At this point the economy was so hosed I was losing 28 with 0% He was willing to give me Construction, Priesthood and the second half of Currency, so I took that as it would take a while to rest up and prepare for his last cities anyway. Am still losing 5:gold at 0% after Currency, despite the fact de Gaulle built GLH for me in Paris, so can't wait to the magic of the Rathouse!

I tried the GE-Machinery sling this game. Bit different than the one Seraiel told me about, Oracle>MC>GE>Machinery. Went with the Pyarmids instead and (tried to) make sure the computer didn't add science specialists. Seems to have worked okay, and I'm finally building some Crossbows now. Hopefully Wang Kon doesn't get Longbows before I can wipe him out.

Was a bit worried about the starting position in my 2nd game at Emperor, but thankfully managed to break out okay, so hopefully the rest goes well too. Need to get the economy out of the very deep hole it's in though! (Brace yourself Robert FIN, if you're reading this, Justinian has had a peaceful game and is racing away in tech)


OH NELSON!!! I almost forgot. Was ridiculously lucky. In turn 67, the mine just north of the capital popped GOLD. Think I've read there is a 1/10,000 chance each turn for a mine to pop something, so to have this happen so early is just ridiculous. Suppose it would have been better with silver in this case as we already have gold, but the extra commerce has helped maintain a half-decent research rate despite warring a lot.

Spoiler :

 

[dalamb]

Prince can feel easier than Noble if you're effective at trading techs with the AI; they get a little better at teching, so sometimes have more to offer you than at Noble.

 

[FlyingSwan]

Space victory Emporer/normal 1927

View attachment NC 114 Charlemac AD-1927 Space Victory.CivBeyondSwordSave

Spoiler :

got to space turn 347 without getting into any wars and managed with the crap land we were dealt with,less a few island colonies I settled mid game.It got a bit scary towards the end as my -diplo from sending spys into De Gauls territory got him to annoyed.By this time he was top in population and controlled the UN so after he had built the Manhatten project I didnt expect him to be signing a No Nuclear weopons treaty.

I built the Internet which kept me up on military techs and a bit of an arms race ensued in citys that wernt building spaceship parts.But I gave into demands so the 10 turn peace treatys kept coming.At the end I was making about 800espionage points at 0% slider,that spread over the 3 neighbours and counter espionage missions kept my spaceship parts from bieng sabotaged.

I built 86 spys this game,and managed to lose 80 of them,I had 1 crap city in the tundra that was never going to get over pop 4 pumping them out all game.They were definately worth it though for the ammount of tech I stole and land I reclaimed by spreading culture.

I never bothered making Min Inc as the Capital and production city were doing 176 hammers a turn which meant it was 8 turns to build the space ship engines.It seems to me workshops with caste system are comparable to what you would get from a corporation without the hassle of settling and trading for all the reources you need.

Thanks to Dalamb for posting the game.

 

[aitkensam]

Emperor 1720 Dom

Spoiler :

Bit of a slow end cos I'm not good at quick intercontinental warring and when i medieval war it always seems to set me back...
After having taken Wang out at 1ADish and having 12 cities sat back and teched to Lib-MT for cuirs which came at around 1020AD. Missed MoM which was a bit sad.

Whipped a bunch of cuirs and just before DoWing Just peace vassaled to DeGaulle. Decided whatever and left a mini stack in defense near French border while killing Justinian. Mini stack grew into a decent stack by the time DeGaulle enter my borders. His stack was about 20-30 units, all dead, gg for this war. Ended around 1400AD with whole continent and 30 cities. Both vassaled with only islands on their little crappy continent in southwest.

Got astro from Degaulle for peace and decided to wait for Cavs before killing Mehmed/SB. This prob cost me a lot of time, could have dow'd earlier with cuirs...

Anyway, dow'd around 1550 and took their continent, Mehmed dead, SB vassaled with two cities left on some far away continent.

Fortunately that hit the dom limit without having to go for Sury cos that would have been time consuming. He was not yet at rifling so not really a threat though. And I'd already gone into MassMedia to start UN in case this island wasn't enough for dom.

Anyway fun map, I usually give up when not pangaea or fractal, thanks for hosting.

 

[iggymnrr]

1190 AD space win, settler. BK is not as good as a financial leader but this was better than expected. (For kicks I played a quick HC game and he got out at 1150 AD. I can think of 3 leaders that may be better. Though Vicky might be another.)

 

[Archon_Wing]

Oh Burger King...

Start looks painful; plains galore. We do have one wet grain and those nice hammer animal tiles, as well as the stone tiles, but it looks like a struggle.

Did a quick play til 125 BC... very rusty, and forests remain unchopped. :S

Monarch/No events or huts

Spoiler :

Well, got the mids and a GE pops out. Well, that makes for an easy AP build, and people demanded tribute and Justinian wanted Theology, so I gave it to him since there's no way he can beat my GE. Position is very ideal thanks to the peace treaties being down as soon as I change to my AP religion. I'll be getting out of it asap and most likely plan on killing Kon.

And yes, I was way too safe getting archery, but what can you do?