NC LXXVI: Charlemagne of the Holy Roman Empire

[vranasm]

agreed. but i thought you no longer playing those diffs.

well if I want to clickthrough and test strategies i just fire some game on monarch.

You can search for challenge on lower diffs too (quickest space race is good example)

about this map:

Spoiler :

this start and neighborhood is sooo food poor that I just won't play it.

Would be nice to run some script which is heavy on food and low on commerce for next game

 

[FlyingSwan]

Emporer/normal to 1680BC.View attachment NC 76 Charlemagne BC-1680 oracle.CivBeyondSwordSave

Spoiler :

With the goody huts God a smiling down I managed this early Oracle.After scouting out vast tracts of land to the east taking CoL as the free tech for early Rathauses was obvious.It feels as though I can do without AGR/POT/Fishing for the moment so Im teching Alpha.With the initial city sites bieng food poor and with so much land to settle I thint Rathauses are going to take priority over librarys initially.

Oh yeah had a chariot eaten by lions

 

[dalamb]

The "crappy start" seems inherent in the map type; sorry about that, but a couple of people did request this particular script (see the map details spoiler and the brief discussion in the bullpen). Nobody will blame you for skipping this one, and in the bullpen people have requested a high-food map for the next one.

 

[Turin Turumarth]

I'm not playing this. Barbs are a pain in the neck and the RNG hates me today. I should have gone GW.

 

[obsolete]

Plains hill sheep glitch is even worse than plains cow glitch.

Well, technically this start is a A LOT BETTER than the typical c-glitch, because you have three total resources (at least) in your BFC this time. C-glitch gives you nothing but the single 3f tile (after improvement, laugh).

Anyway, every time I ed about it and normalization, I've got some Firaxis Fan-boy telling me to STFU and stop complaining already. So.... all I can say is, nothing new to see here folks, just take your cake and eat it too.

If I do this I'll probably drop down to immortal just so I don't feel bad when I see the AI's all have double pigs, metals, gems/gold, etc in their BFC again. I once made the mistake of being talked into a bugged start on deity, NEVER AGAIN!!

 

[yatta77]

If I do this I'll probably drop down to immortal just so I don't feel bad when I see the AI's all have double pigs, metals, gems/gold, etc in their BFC again. I once made the mistake of being talked into a bugged start on deity, NEVER AGAIN!!

Sorry all about my ignorance, but what qualifies as bugged start?
Just the lack of 4+ food tiles?

I'm reading lot of people disliking (likely correctly) starts with plain cows, what I miss to know it is what you are supposed to get in average, and what is clearly below the "acceptable" limit, hence has to be considered bugged.

Thanks to anybody has the answers.

 

[Turin Turumarth]

I told you global highlands was better in every possible way...

 

[vranasm]

Sorry all about my ignorance, but what qualifies as bugged start?
Just the lack of 4+ food tiles?

I'm reading lot of people disliking (likely correctly) starts with plain cows, what I miss to know it is what you are supposed to get in average, and what is clearly below the "acceptable" limit, hence has to be considered bugged.

Thanks to anybody has the answers.

I usually am angry if I don't get 5+ food tile. Usually reroll such map right from beginning.

The only exception heavy flood plain start where I could live (but would not be happy).

i even reroll starts with gold/stone if there is not food btw.

 

[dalamb]

I told you global highlands was better in every possible way...

I didn't either agree or disagree; I just went with a map type a couple of people asked for.

 

[lymond]

quick update -> no spoilers/thoughts on map

Immortal/Normal

Spoiler :

Despite the dearth of food, this start is not that bad, especially for Charly. Plenty of production to crank out settlers while bee-lining Pottery to cottage the heck out of Aachen. Some AIs do have more lush land, but overall the map is pretty screwy as for as the land and resources.

Should win Lib easy by @1000AD, which is kinda late but I don't think bad for this type of map and the fact that I could not really set up an early GP farm.

Barbs were a cakewalk.

 

[Mylene]

@vran: i don't think a medieval war is a good choice. so there is no need for the beeline.

Big difference between a medieval war and a beeline to 2 very very strong units if you get them early
On Immortal or lower with Landsknechts and Trebs you can win the game, protective helps making use of castles for +1 traderoutes everywhere you want. This rush uses everything Charly offers, so it usually makes the most sense. And it is more fun than yawning about what a bad leader he is

 

[LeftAdjoint]

Spoiler :

Oof. Played on immortal—I was getting pretty into the writeup for this one, but cut too many corners to develop while getting the oracle out and got run over by barbarians.

I knew what to expect from the map description (food-poor indeed!) but my biggest complaint is that there is far, far more land available in this start than the description would lead you to believe. Of course most of it is horrible, barren plains and desert, but I didn't scout/protect two of my tiny chokes early because I expected other civs to be there, and it was a bit of a surprise when about a dozen barbs came through them...

This map is full of insults to the player, which actually kind of makes it fun to play. For example, the contested SW resources next to a creative civ, or the huge stretch of northern land sealed off like a nice gift, even though it consists of a long tunnel of awful land ending in a mediocre production city that will kill you with maintenance.

 

[dalamb]

@LeftAdjoint (re the map)

Spoiler :

My script counts "useful land", which cuts out deserts. I can modify it to count tiles and resources of all kinds, if that information would be useful to somebody; I'm not sure how I'd use it when making the maps. I suppose counting food tiles would be a good idea.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Horrifically frustrating map
Prince/Normal/ No random crap to 1904, not sure if I feel like continuing this...

Spoiler :

So not only is the capital pretty mediocre, the land around us is also trash too. Well, except two spots near the coast... Everyone else seems to be blessed with tons of grass land, so it doesn't look like I'll make it peacefully.

People were teching horrifically; Collusus went at 1300 AD! I decided to build stonehenge and oracle, but failed to pick up the great wall. Oracle'd CoL and got a nice shrine going which somehow autospread over to Zara which was helpful. Great Lighthouse was a boon too.

Did not scout the far north sheep, well that sucked, that city could have used an extra sheep tile.

Far east city was screwed by a barb city popping up, which was razed.

Unfortunately, stuff was going REALLY SLOW regardless. I forgot when they got alphabet, but it sure took forever. Attacked Zara with Elephants and catapults at like like 800 AD but he was so behind he didn't even clear most of the forests so he was easy pickings. Also bribed Napolen in and the AP drags sitting bull in

Zara bribed Sury against me, which didn't do much, he soon caps...

A little later on Napolen decares war on me too and sends Sury after me again. Khmer actually has a very large stack of everything, forcing me to suicide all my siege against him which means I had to force peace and slow me down.

~1500 lib, 1700 oxford, ugh... Somehow I'm still first to lib; nobody else even has education.



Finally got steel, and cap'd Napolean quickly. Then I went against Sury which also still had massive stacks again but cannons are just that great. He won't give up, but Sitting Bull actually build the AP and helps me out...

I have my side to myself, but Vic is huge and will be a pain in the ass to dislodge. Well, she doesn't have infantry yet, so it may be better. But it's the 1900s already... meh.

Also Sitting Bull and the AP may prove annoying, I may feel like burning it down.

 

[cain3456]

Too bad the current BotM also features Burger King.

 

[dalamb]

Yeah, but I scheduled ours a couple of months ago to balance out the traits.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Playing Map > Playing leader, so it's fine as long at the maps are distinct.

Spoiler difficulty :

Overall, this is one of the hardest NC's I've ever played since Saladin which also had awful land.

 

[LeftAdjoint]

@dalamb

Spoiler :

I didn't mean to imply that the map itself was necessarily in need of improvement, but when I hear "a lot less land" or "crowded" I tend to imagine that other civs will be close by. It's not hard to defend the choke points from barbarians, I just felt very slightly mislead by the quoted descriptions.

I agree with others that this was a very, very hard map regardless, but I tend to like hard maps. This made me really appreciate grassland! I would like to see a map where all of the starts looked like that. (of course, in this game I feel that the human got the worst start of the seven by far)

 

[Berkobob]

To 1440 BC:

Spoiler :

Founded Vienna near the clams around 1920 BC. Thought about a blocker city towards Zara, but decided against - no good tiles to work and he is creative....

Teched Writing --> Fishing --> Ag, wasnt going to get ag but need it to work wheat and build a few farms for the cap/3rd to share.

comments on builds - got an extra worker from prague as it had nothing to build, third city making its workboat before library because clam in the first ring.

Library in capital - will generate first GS from here, then get it building. changed mind on 2nd city - this can be settler pump while I build wonders. third city can just generate a GS or two.

Only found Zara so far, and he expanded directly towards me. This is good as I am now considering whether to abandon the wonders and just whip him in a cat/archer war - he looks to be choking on forests atm.

There are other AIs near him because i can see his research - I hope they are not all behind him!

land to the east looks OK but barbs built a city there.

next round:

Spoiler :

wheel to hook up elephants and get roads going as I have a lot of spare worker turns atm, then aesthetics to get parthenon started. I may hold off a GS in the 2nd city to get some more sites claimed (marble and a city near the barb city)

As people have played way beyond me I shall shorten my comments etc.

Still play short rounds so I can later work out where I went wrong

 

[obsolete]

Well this just sucks...

Grrrrr. Dropped down to Immortal, but looks like I got myself into some trouble here. I'm posting my save so others can look and give me suggestions on a come-back. Each turn that goes by looks like things are going to get worse for me, and since I HAVE NEVER lost an Immortal game in like 5+ years, I refuse to go down, unless in a furry of flames.

Advice please...

Spoiler :

Already, Stupid Surry DoWs on me very early in like BC era, seems he went into army-build as soon as he met me, and walks all the way to the opposite end of the map just to DoW on me (yup).

I got Zara on my side against him and then me and surry have been fighting for thousands of years (no joke,). At least we had a couple 10-turn peace breaks in between the epic war. I've also had to beat up Zara because he vassaled to Surry too. Anyhow, all my Deity-AW game skills are really coming into play here, so I've totally abused protective to hell against these narrow corridors.

I was making headway a little too easy, so I decided to hault, and simply experiment with a few things.

#1, I want to see how many units I can keep killing of Surry's without any losses. I've killed 10's of thousands it seems with my few elite archers (ooops, marines & inf).

#2, I want to see if it is possible to flip your own vassal's last city, causing him to dissappear from the map.

#3, I want to still keep seeing what other dumb things the AI comes up with next each turn.

Anyhow, seems Surry is willing to vassal. I assume it's because of my 350 nukes ( no joke) I've been stockpiling, and my 1000-to-1 kill ratio.

The two guys on the other island I vassaled after I hit them both with a pile of nukes.

Anyhow, suggestions? Do I accept surry as a vasssal and win with a conquest, or do I push for a time victory and possibly go down in flames? Very tuff choice here...

I think I"m in real bad trouble now, since my units are running out of promotions...