NC VIII - De Gaulle!

[Zanttu]

It's been a while since I last posted on these forums.. Didn't have time to play CIV for a long time, but now I'm back. I decided to give this a shot, because the start looked so interesting and I have never played as De Gaulle before.

Emperor/Normal 4000BC - 950BC

Spoiler :

4000BC - The warrior spawned on the top of the cows, so I decide to move it up to the stone hill. He sees tundra deer and another tundra tile, and the coastline in the fog. I then decide not to settle on top of the stone, since the city would then be one tile off-coast and would have some tundra in it's fat cross. So I move the settler 1E, to get on the river for trade routes and a leevee later on. I plan on making an Obsolete-style monster capital, but will see how it turns out.

3960BC - Found Paris on the tile 1E of the starting position. It has cows, sheep, stone, 4 clean hills (2 grassland, 2 plains) and a total of 7 riverside tiles (not including the city tile itself). It's a bit short of food though, but after irrigating the grasslands it should be fine.. Start a worker and set research towards Animal Husbandry. Move the warrior on to the village, and ... ... POP AH FROM IT! That's cool, now set research for mining.

3800BC - After moving the warrior more eastwards, he spots an another tribal village. And this time ... ... POP MYSTICISM FROM IT! This is getting weird, I don't even remember the last time I got 2 techs from huts in one game. Looks like posting the game makes me more lucky, and I don't mind that!

3760BC - Here's a shot of Paris after popping it's cultural borders:

3640BC - Mining finished, start on masonry.

3520BC - Okay, now this is getting ridiculous. I JUST GOT BW FROM HUT! I'm starting to feel ashamed, as this is really going to affect my game..

3480BC - Meet Suryavarman.. Not one of my favourite AI's (and I don't understand his skin color).

3440BC - Buddhism FIADL.

3360BC - Meet Darius. Now he's more of my kind, he can be a good ally and a tech trading parter sometimes. Worker finished, start on a warrior. The worker goes to build a pasture for the cows.

3280BC - Masonry finished, start on polytheism. No Isabella in this game, since hinduism is still available.. Buddhism went quite late too, methinks. Maybe no-one started with mysticism? I am not planning to found a religion though.

3200BC - My warrior killed a wolf. Pasture finished last turn, so I move the worker on to the stone hill. On the next turn I start building a quarry.

3120BC - Warrior finished, start on the Great Wall. Fortify the warrior in my capital.

3080BC - Hinduism FIADL. My exploring warrior has healed, and is ready to move again.

3040BC - Paris grows to size 2. I start working a grassland forest for maximum growth while waiting for the stone to get hooked up.

3000BC - Elizabeth shows up. Another financial leader.. This will surely be interesting.

2920BC - My warrior kills a lion and gets promoted to woodsman I. Worker has finished the quarry and starts building a road towards the capital.

2800BC - The warrior is at his full strenght again, and is ready to continue his exploring duty.

2760BC - Polytheism finished, start on priesthood. The road is finished already, so I start working the stone. I should have done this on the previous turn, but I forgot. The worker goes to pasture the sheep.

2640BC - The warrior kills a lion, and is just 1XP away from woodsman II, thanks to charismatic.

2600BC - The Great Wall is finished, and I start Stonehenge right away. Paris grows to size 3, and the sheep pasture is finished so I'm now working the sheep, cow and stone. Stonehenge will be done in just 5 turns. The worker will chop a riverside forest next to Paris.

2440BC - Priesthood finished, start on writing. I plan to take Aestethics from the Oracle.

2400BC - Stonehenge completed, start on the Pyramids. I want the overflow hammers to go for the 'mids, because I get +100% for it from stone. I'm going to switch for the Oracle next turn though. Now Stonehenge has some nice synergy with charismatic trait, as I get +1 happiness for my free monuments. The worker has chopped the forest, and starts farming the grassland.

2280BC - Judaism FIADL. Elizabeth converts to it on the next turn.

2160BC - Worker starts mining forested plains hill. Again I want the chop to go to the Pyramids, so I use mining instead of chopping.

2080BC - Paris grows to size 4, and starts working a grassland farm.

1960BC - The Oracle completed, and writing finished at the same turn. I take aestethics as my free tech, and start researching mathematics. I was thinking maybe I should pick up pottery first, but see no reason for it. I'm not going to whip my low-food capital, so no need for granary. The capital doesn't scream for cottages either, so I'm just putting pottery away for a while. Paris continues building the Pyramids, the forest chop-mine will help on the next turn. The worker will go to mine a grassland hill next. I also open borders with everyone for diplomacy boost.

1680BC - Paris grows to size 5, and starts working the grassland-hill-mine which finished on previous turn. A Great Spy pops, and I decide to settle him. The worker goes to mine another grass-hill.

1520BC - The warrior kills another lion, and earns his 4th XP becoming a Super-Explorer with woodsman II.

1480BC - The Pyramids completed, start a library. I risk losing Temple of Artemis by not going for it straight away, but in my opinion library is much more needed right now. It's just 1 free priest. I switch to representation immediately. I think about slavery as well, but quickly decide not to take it. As I only have 1 city, which is going to be my powerhouse anyway, I don't want to take the change of slave revolt in it.

1400BC - Willem van Oranje greets me. 3rd financial leader, sheesh! I also open borders with him.

1360BC - My Super-Explorer is ready to continue his duty again, since he has healed from the combat with the lion. Worker starts chopping a grassland forest next to the lake. I need another farm here.

1240BC - Forest chop finished, and I put the hammers into the ToA. I'll have a go for it before starting the Hanging Gardens.

1200BC - Switch production back to the library and start farming the grassland. The library will be completed on the next turn, and I'll continue on the ToA again.

1080BC - Mathematics finished, and I realize I should have waited with the forest chop until this to get the +50% for chopping from maths. Oh well, I start on meditation as I need it for Shwedagon Paya. Paris also grows to size 6, and starts working a grassland hill mine for 1 turn while waiting for the farm to get finished.

950BC - Stopped playing here. Meditation finished, will probably pick up literature next.
A shot of the capital at the current time:

I'll probably grow it to size 8 and work 2 more hills. Happy cap is high, and after aqueduct+HG health is high enough also, but food is a problem.

And the world as I know it so far:

Haven't done much exploring, since I only have 1 warrior for it. I'm not going to open any other reports just yet, because I bet others know much more about the world by now.

 

[Geoffroy]

Spoiler :

At the end of last segment we vassalised Lizzy, and build the AP. As I said, there were two routes I considered: 1) Diplomacy for an AP victory or 2) Take over Darius and then continue to domination or space. Diplomacy was plan A as it would prolly be the quickest way to win.

As everyone except Lizzy (my vassal) and Darius is Hindu, and everyone has at least one Hindu city. The first election was one by Suleiman (I think), but the second was me v. Sury and Sury won, with his votes, Hannibal's and Suleiman's.
I switched out of Representation to heredatary rule to please some people, and of course I accepted everything they'd ask (like gunpowder for example). I also abandoned the plan of DOWing on Darius, as some were pleased with him. This AP better work, if not I'm screwed!!

Techwise, pretty bad. I just can't play a SE, no clue it seems. Hannibal was the tech leader (Carthage was wonder-wonderland) he won lib and always stayed ahead of me.

With some good diplomatic moves I got Hannibal and Willem to vote for me (this was Sury proposing a dpilo victory):

In the next vote, I was elected as the resident. Looking good!

I used spies to get Sury to free religion. I'm not sure if that was the reason, but when I started a diplo victory vote, I was the only option. (wait... i was in free religion too...?) hmm... weird. I'll ask the question after the spoiler.

And of course, as soon as I could, I proposed an AP Victory.

Result of the vote:

Victory!!

Score is not too impressive, but then again, I barely did anything special in this game. One smallish war, some wonders (henge, GW, Mids, GLib, AP), a bit of diplomacy and a vastly failed attempt at running an SE (I was pretty much only relying on the GPP in the capital, the GS in the GP Farm, and the occasional specialists).

Here's the tech situation at the last turn. I was impressed by the AI tech rate for Prince standard!

AP related question (no spoilers, I wont mention the names):

In the last vote, I was the only option for an AP victory ( I build the AP and was elected resident), no contestant. How come? I did spy no.2 into free religion, but I was in FR too, so that can't be it.

Is it because I build the AP + I'm resident?



@ Zanttu:

Spoiler :

Very interesting approach! are you planning on a settler any time soon?

 

[r_rolo1]

The AP victory candidates are the AP owner ( regardless of the religion he runs ( or not run ) ) and the highest vote count civ that runs the AP religion. If no one runs the AP religion ( or only the AP owner ) there will be only one candidate to the AP.

 

[oyzar]

Update ca 1000 AD

Spoiler :

Got a tech lead on the AI.. Decided to attack lizzy although she doesn't have that many nice cities so i guess i will just keep two or so then vassalize her... AP built and i am not among top 2 voters even though i got the event to spread hinduism to 4 of my cities... I'll either got for the dutch or pericles afterwards...

 

[Zanttu]

@Geoffroy:

Spoiler :

I've been thinking about it. I guess I'll try to squeeze one settler in my queue after HG. I'll probably found as food-heavy 2nd city as possible for being able to crank out more workers/settlers. All credits of my wonderwhoring strategy go to Obsolete himself . This map seems to suit very well on this type of approach, since there aren't many aggressive leaders (at least I haven't met them yet). Sury might become a problem, I don't know yet how close he is. Anyway, I think I need some defense up ASAP after the most critical wonders.

 

[Geoffroy]

The AP victory candidates are the AP owner ( regardless of the religion he runs ( or not run ) ) and the highest vote count civ that runs the AP religion. If no one runs the AP religion ( or only the AP owner ) there will be only one candidate to the AP.

Incredible I didn't know that. I guess I did the right thing then! Thanks!

@ Zanttu:

Spoiler :

I'll follow your game closely, should be very interesting and hopefully educational for a player like me. So please continue posting detailed reports, I'll read them!

And if you could post your saves now and then, that'd be great!

 

[oyzar]

update 1260 AD

Spoiler :

Took down lizzy and darius(now my vassals) Now going after the dutch with mostly cavs and cursairs, he doesn't have rifling yet... I also got a free golden age(and i have MOM) so together with taj and starting one with the artist from music i am still ahead despite all this waring... I'll post some intermediate saves once i am done...

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Its a bit of a gamble but I'd consider losing a turn and settling on top of the stone, still get freshwater from the lake and cows in first ring. Don't know what's to the north but that's what makes it a gamble.

So I went this route...

Spoiler Normal Speed, Emperor :

And abandoned the game because it seemed too strong to be of interest.

Capital on the rocks, with a very quick stonehenge build and when I realized that my only defensive units were warriors the great wall went up as well. I picked up the pyramids fairly quickly as well.

Second city went onto the plains hill between the corn and the sheep. That should be a military crank (ooh, Iron!), although I recall that I had it working cottages for a while the other cities were coming on line.

Third settler initially went south, then I sobered up and sent him east to start cottaging the river with the horses and wheat. Fourth settler went south to start along the river.

Stonehenge gave me a Representation boosted prophet to settle, and that's about the time I stopped.

Popped pottery along the way, and maybe something else as well? Meanwhile I seemed to have workers everywhere.

I couldn't persuade myself that it was going to be anything other than a long game of solitaire (can my economy support my troops?) so I closed the door on it.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Prince/Normal 187 Turns

Unsolicited Feedback, expressed with more certainty than may be warranted

Spoiler :

It looks to me as though your city placement needs some work.

Paris is fine.

Orleans is a choice I wouldn't have made, instead preferring to put it one tile west. That dead end of the river; I'm not so keen on. If you put the city here because you thought it was the best placement, that's just a matter of vision.

If you pushed it east to save room for your filler city, that's an error in judgment. You may never get around to that filler city - especially if it is going to be working mostly aquatic tiles. And until you do, you aren't getting any leverage out of the decision.

However, it's worth noting that city should be just north of the wines, rather than at the tip of the peninsula - unless you find something particularly tasty up there.

I'm pretty certain Lyons belongs two tiles north, on the river. It's really the only way to get the two floodplains up there in play. There's just too much brown up there.

I hate your placement of Rheims. I looked at playing on that part of the map, and eventually abandoned the idea because of the food problems. I think that city needs to be on one of the two available tiles south of the wines - which depends on what you have in mind for the rice to the west.

Worse than the placement, though, I think is the timing. You are but two turns away from Iron Working, so you should be thinking about expanding into the green tiles to your south, rather than playing in the dried up grass.

After that, it's not clear where your ambition went - 1230 AD and you have but 6 cities? However, that's a different topic.

 

[oyzar]

So I went this route...

Spoiler Normal Speed, Emperor :

And abandoned the game because it seemed too strong to be of interest.

Capital on the rocks, with a very quick stonehenge build and when I realized that my only defensive units were warriors the great wall went up as well. I picked up the pyramids fairly quickly as well.

Second city went onto the plains hill between the corn and the sheep. That should be a military crank (ooh, Iron!), although I recall that I had it working cottages for a while the other cities were coming on line.

Third settler initially went south, then I sobered up and sent him east to start cottaging the river with the horses and wheat. Fourth settler went south to start along the river.

Stonehenge gave me a Representation boosted prophet to settle, and that's about the time I stopped.

Popped pottery along the way, and maybe something else as well? Meanwhile I seemed to have workers everywhere.

I couldn't persuade myself that it was going to be anything other than a long game of solitaire (can my economy support my troops?) so I closed the door on it.

Spoiler :

I did this as well, although i didn't abandon the game... What difficulty did you play at? Moving up a difficulty for this might have been reasonable...

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Spoiler :

I did this as well, although i didn't abandon the game... What difficulty did you play at? Moving up a difficulty for this might have been reasonable...

Emperor. You are right that once I saw the view from the hill, I should either have kicked up the difficulty or played the game from the initial position. Didn't think of it at the time - was too busy trying to figure out what the worker should do while waiting for the first tech to come in....

 

[oyzar]

Spoiler :

Emperor. You are right that once I saw the view from the hill, I should either have kicked up the difficulty or played the game from the initial position. Didn't think of it at the time - was too busy trying to figure out what the worker should do while waiting for the first tech to come in....

Spoiler :

I played at immortal, i was also lucky enough to pop 4 turns of AH from a hut(as well as popping mining) which ment my worker had plenty of things to do...

 

[Bandobras Took]

@VoU

Spoiler :

Drat, I should have seen that for Orleans myself. One west is beautiful.

I also agree with Lyons (I think I mentioned in my post that it wasn't that great a position). I'm unused to charismatic leaders with their extra happiness and Stonehenge with its extra happiness, so I went for a city to grab the elephants.

With Rheims, it was a different question. I wanted some sort of buffer area between Darius and my wonder-rich capital, and I further wanted something on a hill for better defense. That city was for no other purpose than to blunt his expansion and provide a target for him should he declare on me.

And I'm pretty much going to be focusing on military to wipe out Darius the next time I play (whether I succeed will be something else again ), so my number of cities should be increasing soon.

 

[Bleys]

Those of you playing these at levels above Prince should keep in mind that the WB saves we provide for these games is does NOT have the proper AI bonuses. The AIs will get the correct number of units, but they will not have Archery, so they wont start with Archers.

As for the ease of play . . . well thats sort of the point of the series. I would expect reasonably skilled players to have a fairly easy time of this game, since the start and surrounding territory are pretty strong. However, believe it or not, there are players out there who will struggle at Prince and Monarch, even with a lopsided start like this one. All it takes is poor distribution of units, and trying to attack the wrong AI while his religious-buddies on the other side of the continent attack the other front.

If there is a large enough interest from the Emperor+ community, I will gladly provide 2 WB files, one with AI-Archery, one without, much like I do in the PYL series. Some of the charter members of the Nobles Club are already playing Emperor on a regular basis.

 

[r_rolo1]

As I still have the WB and I don't want to Bleys to cheat ( I suppose you already met all the civs, but ..... ), I made a Emperor version of this.

 

[Rub'Rum]

If there is a large enough interest from the Emperor+ community, I will gladly provide 2 WB files, one with AI-Archery, one without, much like I do in the PYL series. Some of the charter members of the Nobles Club are already playing Emperor on a regular basis.

I reappear suddenly for a comment here. I participated in the early games specifically because it wasn't high-jacked by the emperor+ community. It's Nobles Club after all. I don't suggest excluding anyone from the "club", but I do think that emperor+ level players tend to write longer and more detailed accounts of their games. That's actually a good thing to learn about the game, however I wouldn't have participated in Nobles' Club and gotten past that level if I had seen it filled with long accounts from emperor+ level players with the occasional Noble or Prince level player having short updates reading like "I won't even discuss my game because I did a stupid mistake and now Shaka is owning my arse".

Well, I don't think I'm being paranoid! Just saying that I don't think I was the only lurker who wouldn't' have played my few games here in the first place if it hadn't been a game series for "n00bs"!

 

[oyzar]

I guess this wasn't really aimed at me... I should prolly go play over at the immortal university instead.. However playing settle on stone with an industrious leader is something i haven't done before and i haven't played sp much lately so it is an ok game to get back in things

Spoiler :

willhelm is now going down from all the cavs... I doubt there is anything that can stand against me at this point... Date is currently 13700 AD, will prolly be over before it hits 1500

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I reappear suddenly for a comment here. I participated in the early games specifically because it wasn't high-jacked by the emperor+ community. It's Nobles Club after all. I don't suggest excluding anyone from the "club", but I do think that emperor+ level players tend to write longer and more detailed accounts of their games. That's actually a good thing to learn about the game, however I wouldn't have participated in Nobles' Club and gotten past that level if I had seen it filled with long accounts from emperor+ level players with the occasional Noble or Prince level player having short updates reading like "I won't even discuss my game because I did a stupid mistake and now Shaka is owning my arse".

Well, I don't think I'm being paranoid! Just saying that I don't think I was the only lurker who wouldn't' have played my few games here in the first place if it hadn't been a game series for "n00bs"!

It's worth noting. I was a little bit antsy moving to monarch and then to emperor in this series. During the NC I time frame I was probably solid on noble and somewhat iffy on prince, but nonetheless forcibly trying to play monarch in off-line games (trying some outlandish stuff along the way ). I don't think I'm alone - I'd imagine some of the others who played in NC were at first fit for the "club" in terms of skill, then improved as the series intended.

I thought about how to deal with this...do we start a "new" NC for the players who are still at that level to the exclusion of higher level players that want to contribute? Do we start something like an "Emperor's" or "Monarch's" club? I think it depends on the players the series was originally intended for. If the majority of players are intimidated out of posting because they see game summaries of "higher level" players, then maybe we should split into 2 new series. However, I think that to be a little silly and am just as happy to read noble/prince reports as I am immortal. Write ups are interesting on their own. The more detailed the summaries the more other players wind up offering feedback or understanding why things were done. Rookie players (like myself) had/have a great opportunity for learning there because knowing you'll have to explain what you're about to do gives you a bit more direction/thinking in each move.

This community is really nice on beginners as it is, so much that rather than being afraid to post here I was inclined to do so. I hope others feel the same.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Foiled in my attempt to create internet drama once again

 

[Bleys]

I want everyone who wants to play to feel free to do so, the #1 reason we play this game is for the FUN, and if a game looks fun, by all means, play it! One of the nice things about using spoilers for reports is you dont have to read them if you feel they are too advanced. I like having players like oyzar and VoU and such lurking, they make solid comments and truely help players, but at the same time I dont the new players to feel like they are to weak to post. After all, the whole idea of the series is to get the newer players into a groove of playing a game and reporting on that game in an effort to help them learn the game. I dont think we have that here (players afraid to post for fear of seeming dumb or weak). Seeing folks like schwartz, TMIT, etc, already competing very strongly at Emperor and above is very encouraging, and I hope some of the NC games helped them achieve that confidence.

I will ask rolo to do both versions of the save in the future (or do it myself, I can actually add Archery without seeing the AIs in the save, just their starting techs). I think the no-Archery handicap is especially prominent on maps like this. Heck, a couple of the AIs probably could have been warrior-rushed if there was no stone to make everyone go "oohh, SH-GW with De Gaulle = Huge!"

And remember, you higher-level guys, you are always welcome to add your own personal RPC conditions to make the game more challenging if it looks to be too easy. I know I feel that I WANT games where the course of action is fairly easy to grasp and games that sort of "play themselves". I know rolo agrees with that principle. We try to focus on specific themes, picking great warmongers for those types of games (Kublai Khan, this one), picking solid Water leaders for a water map (Hannibal, next edition will be Jaoa, for sure), thats the whole point of the club. To establish a level of confidence in a public, group setting. It works too, I see "NC Graduates" playing the Immortal University games (heck, I play them myself, I just dont post my pitiful attempts because I suck at that level).