NC LVI: Willem of the Netherlands

[i_imperator]

Well here's my game....Settings; Monarch, Marathon, No Events.

To 1540BC

Spoiler :

I moved My warrior and settler 1 SW

Tech: AH>Mining>BW>Wheel>Sailing>Pottery>Writing
Builds: Worker>Warrior X3>Settler X2>Barracks>Warrior>Axes X8>Settler>Granary> Library.
I met Genghis at 3865BC, i saw that his worker was building a road for some reason so i stole his worker

I got peace a few turns later and after teching Bronze Working i decided to Rush him. By 1540BC he was gone!

My Capital:

His Capital:

Power:

Score:

Top 5 cities:

Demographics:

My Empire:

My plan now is to keep the economy afloat, expand and try and get the Great Lighthouse and maby the collusus. If i hook up the stone site in time i might also try to get the mids.Genghis managed to build only two cities and i kept them (unlike the last NC )

1897UN Victory

Spoiler :

I managed to rebuild my economy and fight off the barbs, i backfilled the other city sites and got a few important wonders, The Great Lighthouse and Collusus were two very important ones for this map. I also got the Mids and switched into early rep. And the great wall. My techpath was: Masnory>COL>Currency>MC>Machinery>IW>Compass>Optics. From there i then picked the lib path and got it,i picked astro. I also got circumnavagation, which was handy for this map. When i got optics i built carvals (duh) and met the other AI's,
Monty(Yay): 750AD
WangKon: 855AD
Shaka:855AD
Ragnar:850AD
Sully:890AD
When i met ragnar and wang they were heathens and at war with each other. Wang capped ragnar a few turns after meeting him. Shaka hated wang for most of the game while Sully hated monty. Shaka eventually did what he dose best and DOWed on wang. I actually managed to keep shaka pleased throughout the game, by giving into demands (yes even a few phoney wars) I bribed Sully into war with monty while i built up the UU and a combo of trebs and Muskets/ later followed by rifles. I had a HE city thanks to the rush on genghis earlier.After taking 4 cities after his capital monty decides he's had enough and throws in the towel.

I vassled him. Then i preped a force for wang who was running away with tech. When i focused my espionage on him i found out that he had nothing but longbows and crossbows defending his cities. I also checked the tech screen and found that despite the fact he was teching radio he did not have rifles. I sent my army to him and eventually killed him. He spun off two colony's, De gaule and Toku.

I bribed shaka into war with me, shaka was behind in tech for most of the game but he managed to raze one of wangs island cities.

I managed to get ragnar aswell. After that i teched towards UN used a GE to rush it and rush bought the final 3 turns. I was off by just twenty votes the first time around. I assembled two forces of infantry and tanks and DOWed on De gaul and Toku and took their cities untill the capped. That was enough to get the win. And a decent score.

Demographics

Stats

Top 5 cities

 

[vranasm]

@vranasm:

Spoiler :

Was hydro power an issue in your game, or did you win before it became relevant? The one big advantage I saw in moving to magenta was that it could build 3 Gorges Dam. One minor thing I noticed is that it also shortens travel around the island a bit, but that's one of those things that doesn't affect the decision unless the two places are very, very close in value -- but I thought my analysis showed that Magenta was slightly better already (unless, of course, I goofed the calculations, which is why I wanted somebody to comment).

I am settling sufficently early that Amsterdam's borders haven't expanded to cover the sheep yet, so prepasturing was never possible.

Spoiler :

well i think i didnt finish the game, i played it to something like 1AD (but at least 5 times :-D)...
so cant comment from long term position, but in civ the higher you go the more important is a bit the short term. And specifically 3 Gorges Dam I wouldnt consider strong wonder since it's only own continent, feels like wasted hammers, since you need power only in prod cities and you wont have many of them...in fact i expect you will have 1 prod city and that's this one...

looked better at those positions...magenta spot has 1 desert tile, 6 water tiles, 3 desert hills
yellow spot 4 water tiles, no desert, a lot of plains which under SP (which you probably will need in any domination try because colonial expense) is something like 1f+5h (running caste) + 2 farmable grass.

and you trade sheep tile (4f 1h) for oasis (3f 3c unimprovable).
Not worth it i would say. But feel free to calculate it after bio, SP+caste, bio should allow to work all brown tiles with workshops (I hope! I didnt calculate it).

 

[dalamb]

@vranasm: I guess I need to think more about which victory condition to pursue; I've never built a big empire with State Property, and use Corporations reasonably often, but maybe it's time to try something different.

 

[Abegweit]

@ dalamb, vranasm.

Spoiler :

You're thinking about it the wrong way. You have to think about how your dot map fits together and what your settlement priority should be. Settlement priority is clear-cut: the number one spot to grab is the orange dot to the far north (fish/crab/marble). It blocks Mongolia and, being creative, you should be able to grab the ivory too. Once the Khan is blocked, he has no metals and no horses. IOW, he's dead meat.

Secondly, that city must obviously go where you put it. Otherwise you don't get the fish. What's more, blue dot to the west pretty much has to go where is it too. So the question becomes: where should you put the city that goes in between the two? At this point, you realize that yellow dot is really pretty bad.

On another topic, how do you manage to get both seafood corralled, the corn farmed and still only be at size two Next time, settle in place and forget the stupid fish. You have corn and three hills (which you can see in the opening shot).That's more than enough to make a settler, a worker or two, some warriors and a Great Lighthouse. In my game, I finished the light before ever getting around to building a work boat. You don't need it this early.

 

[Amao]

@vranasm:

Spoiler :

Was hydro power an issue in your game, or did you win before it became relevant? The one big advantage I saw in moving to magenta was that it could build 3 Gorges Dam. One minor thing I noticed is that it also shortens travel around the island a bit, but that's one of those things that doesn't affect the decision unless the two places are very, very close in value -- but I thought my analysis showed that Magenta was slightly better already (unless, of course, I goofed the calculations, which is why I wanted somebody to comment).

I am settling sufficently early that Amsterdam's borders haven't expanded to cover the sheep yet, so prepasturing was never possible.

Spoiler :

Hydro should never be your concern for settling the first cities. It's way too late to be considered here. And you really should be building Coal Plants in order to bump your production right when you had it to get the units out and to kill the AIs. Your mind set should be focusing on the openings rather than later trivial bonus.

Also, moving capital is not a good idea, too me. It's explained by Abegweit already. And to me, you also suffered -2 heath because you lose the fresh water access.

 

[dalamb]

@Abegweit,Amao:

Spoiler :

In an earlier game I the orange dot (northern city east of the ivory) 3rd, after the bronze -- but can that site really block Khan from the elephants? A human could settle 1SE or 1E of the ivory (the latter using bananas for food) if claiming it were important enough. In any case at +2/t from Creative, and with libraries a bit far in the future, it would take 75t to hit the 150 culture for expanding to the 3rd ring -- plenty of time for Khan to settle nearby, I think.

With regard to moving the capital: I had played it out to about 1200 AD with settling in place and was dissatisfied with rate of production of Great Scientists. I thought that it would make a good GP farm. It didn't occur to me that, post-Calendar (for bananas), Karakorum is a better GP farm. So maybe I should restart again and settle in place.

In any case, if, as Abegweit says, Yellow is a bad city location, which would you pick for a bronze city? Magenta? (I realize you were saying thinking about hydro is poor planning, but is Magenta right for some other reason?) Somewhere else?

 

[Fierabras]

Emperor/Normal 250 AD

Question about wonders:

Spoiler :

After getting TGL and Oracle (Code of Laws for Confucianism) I aimed for Metal Casting for Colossus and early Optics. How important do you guys consider the Colossus?

 

[Amao]

@Abegweit,Amao:

Spoiler :

In an earlier game I the orange dot (northern city east of the ivory) 3rd, after the bronze -- but can that site really block Khan from the elephants? A human could settle 1SE or 1E of the ivory (the latter using bananas for food) if claiming it were important enough. In any case at +2/t from Creative, and with libraries a bit far in the future, it would take 75t to hit the 150 culture for expanding to the 3rd ring -- plenty of time for Khan to settle nearby, I think.

With regard to moving the capital: I had played it out to about 1200 AD with settling in place and was dissatisfied with rate of production of Great Scientists. I thought that it would make a good GP farm. It didn't occur to me that, post-Calendar (for bananas), Karakorum is a better GP farm. So maybe I should restart again and settle in place.

In any case, if, as Abegweit says, Yellow is a bad city location, which would you pick for a bronze city? Magenta? (I realize you were saying thinking about hydro is poor planning, but is Magenta right for some other reason?) Somewhere else?

@dalamb

Spoiler :

In early game and lower level where no immediate need to block an AI, I weigh immediate return as the highest priority. I'd pick yellow because it gives you immediate access to sheep if you have settle in place. where you can pre-build the pasture and quickly building a boat by either rushing with food or chopping down the trees or simply by mining the copper and use the extra hammer to do the job. At early games, if the city can provide you 4-5 good tiles, it's a really good city. And this city will give you 2 really good tiles (fish and copper), 3 good ones (sheep and 2 fps), not to mention the plain hills yelling for production if you can raise the happy cap. what are you hesitating?

How many turns before you can lift the initial happy cap? And how many happy faces can you collect at 1000AD and what's your actually pop of that city would be? It's said the ideal city size (except for capital) is about 10-12 for a deity game. I think we can take that as a reference, and may be adding that number a little since we are working on lower levels.

 

[Amao]

Emperor/Normal 250 AD

Question about wonders:

Spoiler :

After getting TGL and Oracle (Code of Laws for Confucianism) I aimed for Metal Casting for Colossus and early Optics. How important do you guys consider the Colossus?

Spoiler :

pretty good if you are dealing Khan with ease. Nice to have and actually no pressure in this game because AIs suck in wonder building in this map. The Mids were built the last turn in my game before i won. That was post 1500AD... While, it was a Monarch one. I guess they'd do a little better in your game?

 

[Fierabras]

Spoiler :

pretty good if you are dealing Khan with ease. Nice to have and actually no pressure in this game because AIs suck in wonder building in this map. The Mids were built the last turn in my game before i won. That was post 1500AD... While, it was a Monarch one. I guess they'd do a little better in your game?

Spoiler :

I have build all the marble wonders and only Stonehenge and Great Wall have been build somewhere else. Maybe I should go for the Pyramids as well. I can certainly use some Representation right now.

 

[Amao]

Spoiler :

Amao, I am astounded at your performance. I've been playing Monarch for a month or so, but you completely outclassed me in this game. 1350 bpt at 1525 sounds very good to me - I'd estimate I was around 800 bpt at that point. And a conquest victory without Rifling? Very impressive to me. I wasn't really able to scrounge up enough hammers for a proper invasion until Steam Power and Assembly Line. On the other hand, I feel that I played extremely slowly this game - ended with a Domination victory after eliminating Monte, Shaka, Wang, then Ragnar, who I finished off with Modern Armor in 1941. ~50k points. I got to all of the post-astro landmasses before the AI but they seemed to drag down my economy until I got State Property. This is really an embarassingly late finish for me - I don't really know what happened!

Spoiler :

I was having fun. I'm the kind of player who wouldn't move on to next level until got totally bored. If you'd looked at my report on Izzy's NC game on Noble and Wang Kon's NC game on Prince, you'd know. But since Civ 5 is coming, I guess I'll stuck on Monarch and just waiting for the new Game.

For the hammer thing, have you tried workshop spamming with Caste/Guilds/Chemistry bonus? And later plus the Biology/Communism combo? It works very well and serves as a entry point for first military win on Deity level for many players as I have witnessed.

 

[Ergo Sum]

@Amao -

Spoiler :

Thanks for the advice. I haven't really tried workshop spam too much before, primarily because I am more of an Earth map player, although I'm starting to play more randomized maps or NC games. I'm just scared of losing commerce from cottages in the cities where I could spam workshops. I assume one would start setting up workshops around Guilds or Chemistry? Bio & SP would also work wonders, come to think of it.

 

[Amao]

@Amao -

Spoiler :

Thanks for the advice. I haven't really tried workshop spam too much before, primarily because I am more of an Earth map player, although I'm starting to play more randomized maps or NC games. I'm just scared of losing commerce from cottages in the cities where I could spam workshops. I assume one would start setting up workshops around Guilds or Chemistry? Bio & SP would also work wonders, come to think of it.

Spoiler :

I'll start to spam around Chemistry time, because I usually beelined to lib->steel first. Then backfill the Guilds if it's not trade-able yet. Btw, you can also pre-build workshops (say you need 6 worker turns on Normal speed, you spent 5 only and wait for the tech to be research then mass converting to workshops in a few turns.) You also want to time your GA at around after you set up the workshops so that you get max outburst.

 

[Fierabras]

Immortal/Normal, 25 AD

After trying this game as Monarch and making a mess of it on Emperor (Monarch save), I decided to try a third time on Immortal level. I hadn't played this level before, but this seemed like a good game to start on playing this level.

Spoiler :

I started the game by settling in place. The commerce boost from the oasis was too good to pass on. The build order was worker - workboat - settler (size 4). The worker farmed the corn, build a mine on the wine and chopped a forest for the settler.

I popped Hunting from the first hut and teched Mining - Bronze Working. After that I went The Wheel - Animal Husbandry and started roading towards the copper where I settled Utrecht 1 SW of the Copper.

With a further Pottery - Sailing - Mysticism - Masonry I aimed for The Great Lighthouse (950 BC), which I started building in Amsterdam after generating 2 more settlers at size 5. They settled The Hague and Rotterdam in the north to block Genghis.

I decided to tech Writing first to get Open Borders with Genghis for trade routes and then went Polytheism - Priesthood for the Oracle (900 BC) and The Temple of Artemis (550 BC) in Utrecht.

I took Code of Laws from the Oracle and founded Confucianism in The Hague, which was good as I gained the ivory tile though it's culture. The Oracle and the priest from ToA generated a Great Phophet as my first GP, which I used to build the shrine.

I still was in need for more happiness, so I went Monotheism for OR and Monarchy next. I switched to Slavery and OR first and adopted Confucianism and then switched to HR later.

By this time I build 2 more settlers to settle the island east of Amsterdam. Then I went for Aesthetics - Literature for the Great Library and this is where I am now. I teched Metal Casting, but the Colossus was build elsewhere and went Mathematics for Civil Service and I'm thinking to go for Machinery next to start building maces and take out Genghis.

I think I'll settle the desert west of Utrecht soon, but I'll also need Currency soon otherwise I'll tank my economy.

My empire:

Science, hammer and gold cities:

Tech path:

 

[dalamb]

I restarted again and followed various people's advice to get a much more fun/successful game. I may write it up later, but had one question about some poor-looking territory:

Spoiler :

Idiot Monty declared on me when I had rifles and cannons and he had jaguars and longbows. I'd have attacked him a couple of rounds later -- having a pile of East Indiamen loaded with invasion troops just waiting next to Tenochtitlan -- but it still seemed like a stupid thing for him to do.

So, I've conquered his original island, and am about to take the smaller arctic island to his west:

Is there any point to keeping any of his cities? I'd have totally ignored the whole island were it mine to settle, unless it had some resource I was lacking, but I have my own oil. The AI seems to love expanding into useless terrain.

 

[Amao]

I restarted again and followed various people's advice to get a much more fun/successful game. I may write it up later, but had one question about some poor-looking territory:

Spoiler :

Idiot Monty declared on me when I had rifles and cannons and he had jaguars and longbows. I'd have attacked him a couple of rounds later -- having a pile of East Indiamen loaded with invasion troops just waiting next to Tenochtitlan -- but it still seemed like a stupid thing for him to do.

So, I've conquered his original island, and am about to take the smaller arctic island to his west:

Is there any point to keeping any of his cities? I'd have totally ignored the whole island were it mine to settle, unless it had some resource I was lacking, but I have my own oil. The AI seems to love expanding into useless terrain.

Spoiler :

Yes if you have idle workers and you'd better be in State Properties by now, Or, you can either annihilate Monty by destroying all 3 of them, or you can sack a city or 2 and ask him to be your vessel, whichever serves you best.

 

[yanner39]

@Amao

Spoiler :

I'll start to spam around Chemistry time, because I usually beelined to lib->steel first. Then backfill the Guilds if it's not trade-able yet. Btw, you can also pre-build workshops (say you need 6 worker turns on Normal speed, you spent 5 only and wait for the tech to be research then mass converting to workshops in a few turns.) You also want to time your GA at around after you set up the workshops so that you get max outburst.

Spoiler :

When you say spam workshops, where exactly do you put them? You don't bulldozer over mature cottages, right? Do you spam them in new cities or newly conquered cities? I mean, you manage to maintain a beakers/turn rate of +1400 in 1500AD, you coudn't have gotten rid of these cottages?

 

[Amao]

@Amao

Spoiler :

When you say spam workshops, where exactly do you put them? You don't bulldozer over mature cottages, right? Do you spam them in new cities or newly conquered cities? I mean, you manage to maintain a beakers/turn rate of +1400 in 1500AD, you coudn't have gotten rid of these cottages?

Spoiler :

I had a pre-cannon war against Khan. Those cities are the best locations for workshops, 1) the cottages were not fully mature when workshops are fully charged; 2) they have food and many non-irrigable greenlands.

Later conquered cities are all shopped, or just mined and irrigated. When biology is researched, i went back and did some tweak to the 2nd city because it's the HE city.

 

[Fierabras]

Immortal/Normal, 25 AD - 1130 AD

Spoiler :

After researching Civil Service I switched to Bureaucracy and continued with Machinery. I generated a Great Merchant and send him on a trade mission, which netted me 900 gold. I used this gold to upgrade 6 axemen to maces later.

I researched Construction for catapults next and started building troops for the war with Genghis. With Drama next I planned to quickly build some theatres, so I could raise the happiness when needed with the culture slider.

By this time I sort of decided to go for a cultural victory and went Music - Meditation - Philosophy and build the Sistine Chapel and found Taoism. Next I researched Calendar to work the spices. I used another Great Merchant to bulb Currency.

In 760 AD I attacked Mongolia with a small army:

I couldn't wait any longer because Genghis started researching Feudalism. It was a quick conquest because I was up against archers and cats only. I didn't sue for peace or anything and kept 3 of 5 cities.

By now I was setting up an early trade route economy and beelined to Astronomy through Iron Working - Compass - Optics. Health was becoming an issue, but building harbors instead of aquaducts is a personal favorite of mine.

In 1130 AD I finally reached Astronomy and with my caravels I proved the world was round and opened borders with most other civs. Getting foreign trade routes really kicks everything in high gear. It will be a smooth ride to Liberalism.

 

[dalamb]

Spoiler older and now irrelevant attempts :

original BC 4000 - 2350
original BC 2360 - AD 1120
restart BC 4000-2775

Decided to restart again and follow advice about settling in place and order of planing cities.

Spoiler :

Settled in place, planted Utrecht to the north on the coast west of the ivory, then The Hague 1SW of the copper. Along the way managed to kill Ghengis' scout and steal one worker; that early in the game, he made peace quite quickly and, as it turned out, never built all that many archers. Conquered Mongolia AD 70-280. Other milestones:

• BC 1075: Oracle'd Metal Casting
• BC 975: I get a nice happiness boost at the cost of some production; not sure which was best in the long term, but in the short term it was welcome:
  
  
• BC 850: Finished the Great Lighthouse in Amsterdam
• BC 455: Founded Confucianism
• BC 335: Got the Master Blacksmith quest (build 7 forges).
  
  
  
  
  You can get all swordsmen promoted to shock, or get an engineer specialist in the triggering city, so I planned to pursue it -- but totally forgot and finished Education first, failing the quest.
• AD 565: Conquered the barbarian stone city.
• AD 700: Founded Taoism; according to advice I heard elsewhere, this means various AI wouldn't have prioritized Philosophy and thus gave me an advantage in going for Liberalism.
• AD 775: Finished the Pyramids; I was surprised it happened this late. I did miss out on the Hanging Gardens, which I can usually manage on Noble even without stone.
• AD 1000: Finished the Mausoleum, used the Great Artist from Music to start a Golden Age, saving 3 turns on the change of civics:
  
  
• AD 1020: Finished the Apostolic Palace under Confucianism. In an earlier attempt I found that neither the Ottomans or Vikings had a religion at this point and had been able to spread a religion to them, so I switched to Christianity as my state religion and tried to spread it, the idea being to deny the AP benefit to my enemies. As it turned out, everybody had some religion or other this time around.
• AD 1080: Finished Optics, upgraded two triremes to caravels, and headed off to find the AI and circumnavigate -- which I achieved in 1230:
  
  
• AD 1130 got the Harbourmaster quest:
  
  
  
  
  Finished in 1305 and all naval units got Navigation I (the other choices being Combat I for all ships, or +1 for each harbour. I later realized Combat I would have given me a leg up on getting Blitz destroyers, which would have been fun but likely won't be at all necessary). As I discovered, to get Nav II you need Flanking I first anyway, but it still meant much better sea power, a good thing on this map.
• AD 1270: Finished Astronomy and saw about a 10% increase in .
• AD 1330: Took Steel from liberalism and started upgrading catapults to cannons.
• Circa AD 1430: Started building privateers in Rotterdam (my island city east of Amsterdam, with Moai Statues), intending to send them in stacks of 4 to harrass and blockade Shaka, who I plan to take out after Monty. (following advice thread started by 6K Man).
• AD 1380: Intending to split the Hindu block so I could attack Shaka but stay on good terms with Wang Kon, I spread Christianity to most of his cities and eventually:
  
  
  
  
  Unfortunately he converted back eventually -- probably because he had the shrine, which I forgot to check for before this little maneuver.
• AD 1470: Finish rifling and start upgrading CR II axemen to riflemen.
• AD 1520: I had several East Indiamen waiting on the Aztec coast, ready to invade in a turn or two (when the last ship arrived) when Monty declared on me. I suppose I should have waited offshore, then moved to the coast immediately before declaring on him, but I was taken with the EI ability to "explore enemy territory". In retrospect I'm not sure what circumstances make that a valuable ability, since ordinary ships can reach the coast and unload in one turn anyway. I suppose if you're navigating up a narrow sea channel to reach the best possible target (instead of taking the closest) it would make a difference.
• AD 1590: Conquered Monty's last mainland city:
  
  
  
  
  I debated whether to keep it or destroy it. It had 2 seafood, which would have been nice if I were going for Sushi. I was inclined not to try it in this game, so destroyed the city, but as you'll see later I am still waffling and should have made a firm decision before razing. I started moving the army over to his west coast to invade his 3 wimpy island settlements. This was where I posted my question about whether it was worth keeping any of them. I suppose their seafood could be valuable if I were going for Sid's Sushi but if I decide to go State Property instead they're useless as far as I can tell.
• AD 1615: I'm ready to land the troops and need to make a decision about which arctic cities, if any, to keep.

Current world state and upcoming decisions; comments welcome:

Spoiler :

The world as I know it:

• My hemisphere:
  
  
• Other hemisphere:
  
  
• The unclaimed islands: I need to decide whether to settle them. I don't specifically need any of their resources, but I don't know where aluminum and uranium are, so taking them over might be a good idea -- especially if I go for domination, which I don't usually do.
  
  
  
• The charts:
  
  
  
  
  Shaka is disturbingly powerful, though currently with an obsolete army (I think!). I really need to take him on next. However, he and Wang are a Hindu lovefest, so I'd perhaps have to go after both, despite Wang currently being my best friend:
  
  
  
  
• Technology: Wang is researching Scientific Method and seems the most advanced, though I don't have enough EP with everyone to be sure of what they're researching. So maybe I bite the bullet and take out both Hindu nations in the same campaign.