NC XIX: Napoleon

[Gooblah]

TMIT~ Is it too late to join in? With my BTS back up and running after 6 months, my skills need a LOT of work, and this seems like the best way...

 

[Single Malt]

TMIT~ Is it too late to join in? With my BTS back up and running after 6 months, my skills need a LOT of work, and this seems like the best way...

Never too late to join the party

 

[Gooblah]

Never too late to join the party

yay! I played up to 2625 BC, and thus far it is not my A-game. I need a LOTTA help, friends.

Spoiler :

4000 BC: Warrior grunts, Settler squirms, and I make the decision to move 2 W.
3975 BC: Paris settled; Worker, AH chosen.
3850 BC: Islam founded by Atlantis, which appears to be a minor Civ led by Genghis Khan. Also snag 85 gold from a hut.

3800 BC: Parisian culture hits an all-time high of 15, and expands. Oddly, the tribal hut doesn't pop. Is this a change in 3.17?
3700 BC: Meet Charlemagne. He founds Buddhism the same turn.

3600 BC: Animal Husbandry -> Fishing

3550 BC: Worker -> Warrior
3450 BC: Snag 52 gold from a hut.
3400 BC: Fishing -> Mining
3350 BC: Meet Brennus.
3325 BC: Warrior -> Workboat
3200 BC: Mining -> BW
3125 BC: Meet Julius.
3075 BC: Workboat -> Warrior for one turn (to grow to pop 3)
3050 BC: Warrior -> Settler, find Charlemagne.

3025 BC: Dotmap made.

2850 BC: Hinduism FIADL.
2800 BC: Bronze Working -> Pottery, revolt to Slavery
2700 BC: Copper sighted, Warrior survives Lion attack for Woodsman I.
2650 BC: Orleans founded.

2625 BC: Meet Bismarck.

I settled my first city late IMO, and did not settle aggressively. I should have moved towards one of the Horse or Copper sites, not the Stone, and I also should have moved towards Masonry, not Pottery in order to use the Stone. Thoughts?
(I'll post a save a bit later)

 

[KingMorgan]

Goolah

Spoiler :

I guess your playing Marathon or Epic? What level are you playing on?
It's not too late, but you need to spit out settlers like there is no tomorrow.

Your GP farm is ok, but your missing the extra 1 food each lake tile would give you from not being able to build a lighthouse. Perosnally your capital has far too many plains tiles for my liking. As general rule of thumb, palins tiles suck until Biology or Chemisty.

Expansion will be your friend, just spam settlers workers and escourts, make sure your cities quicly grow to your happy cap. You should attempt Stonehenge if you possbily can.

 

[Anomander Rake]

Update from me:

I have decided, after many restarts, that maybe Noble is a step too far.

I bought Civ 4 (complete) back in Sept. never having played any of the previous versions. I started as a settler, which I found very easy and then found these forums. For whatever reason, in my own mind I felt I should be playing Noble and leapt into the NC Elizabeth game last year, failed miserably, got discouraged and started playing other games.

This year, I thought I'd give it another whirl, but Noble Napoleon is still too difficult...

However, I read the Mehmet II (man crush) thread, and thought I'd give him a go at Warlord difficulty.

That game is going very very well, and I am (at last) enjoying Civ 4. I think my problem is that I have no idea what to build, what the buildings do, or what to research and when, or how/what to beeline. Warlord is giving me a chance to play slowly make mistakes and correct them.

I am still going to follow the NC, and I see that I can actually play Napoleon at Warlord, which I might try once Mehmet is done.

AR

 

[Single Malt]

Anomander, I was stuck at Warlord for quite a while, until I found the Nobles Club. The gap between Warlord and noble difficulty is big. My advice is to bite the bullet, and play one of the NC scenarios. If you fail, try to figure out what you could have done better, and replay the map. It will click eventually. My First NC game was NCIX, Catherine. It took me about 5 attempts to win that map. I would suggest searching the forums for the game, DL the WB save and try it. That game was quite balanced, forced you to build military and war, and invited an aggressive REX (not war, with settlers). When learning it does no harm in reading the spoilers of other peoples games before you start playing, as it can give you an idea of what you should be doing.

This NC Napoleon is quite difficult, and not fully reccommended for the jump to noble, so playing a previous game may be a good idea. When the next one is online play on noble to about 2000-1500BC, and ask people for advice on either what you should have done, or what to do in the future. Then after the advice if you feel like restarting and taking the advice to heart, do so. The NC is a learning series, in order to learn to get to grips with noble difficulty. As such there is no shame in defeat.

 

[Anomander Rake]

Thanks Single Malt for the feedback.

The trouble is that I am really a complete beginner and need to get an idea of the basics. I was looking over my Mehmet game late last night and realised that, apart from a Great Spy and 2 Generals I don't have a single specialist in any city!

I've high jacked this thread enough now.

AR

 

[JTMacc99]

Monarch/Epic to mid-late 1700's.

Looking for either conquest or diplomatic victory at this point. Tough little game.

Spoiler :

Quick recap of what I did so far:
1. Settled in place. Founded a couple nice cities for the strategic resources and rushed Charlie. Wiped him out in the BCs and then the economy COMPLETELY crashed.
1A. Researched Code of Laws on my own, while the rest of the world each researched two or three other things. I then turned around and traded CoL for 70% of what I needed to get back in the race. I then used a Great Scientist to bulb Philosophy and used that to trade my way all the way back up to second most advanced. :HEW:: That worked out well.
2. Founded just enough cities to seal off the entire swath of land from the gems and iron southwest of Paris all the way to the Roman border.
3. Spread Charlie's religion as far as I could and built the shrine. Also, I cottaged the hell out of my empire, especially all the river cities.
4. Opted to adopt Izzy's Hindu religion rather than my own, which kept Izzy, Vicky and Bizzy from attacking me while I built improvements while they built units and waged constant war with the Vikings and the Celts.
5. Tech path headed for the cottage friendly things, with the thought that I would be able to surge WAY ahead and maybe even pull off the old Tanks vs. Longbows move late in the game.

So to pick it up from where I left off, once I got Democracy, things really started to look a lot less scary. My friendly status with Izzy, Vicky and Bizzy (pleased with Rome, Bizzy's vassal) has really come in handy. I started building tons of cannons, muskets and Macemen and quickly vassalized the Vikings before anybody else could do it. I then turned that stack around and headed for England.

She was friendly, but also a complete pushover. Meanwhile, the Germans and Celts were having their own massive war, with both of them having a higher power rating than me. This is a very good thing.

So, I vassalized Vicky after taking one city and then giving it back. She went right back to pleased with me. The next thought was to do the same to Izzy, since Bizzy's power rating was still right around mine. Then, after researching Physics and Steam Power, I went back and researched rifling while my stack moved back to get ready for Spain. As I upgraded 30 or so maces and muskets to rifles, I changed my mind and decided to deal with Bizzy first.

Two reasons for this: His power rating just took a nosedive, no doubt a combination of my rifles and massive losses to the Celts, and HE was researching rifling. Right after his power rating nosedive, Rome broke free from him. Sadly, all of my troops are on the other side of the world, or I'd make quick work of JC. I could make good use of those cities. I'm sending some fresh cannons and rifles over there now. I will not take him as a vassal, so I need enough troops to finish the job. Hopefully I'll get a bunch of level 4 rifles out of the deal to get some amphibious troops and take out Atlantis soon.

After I make the German border cities my own, I'll probably take him as a vassal and then do the same to Izzy.

That makes it the world versus the Celts.

While the German and Spanish wars are going on, I'm going to research railroad (half done already) and then artillery.

I SHOULD be able to pummel the Celts with a giant stack of rifles and artillery, but it is possible that he could mount enough of a counter attack to seriously damage all of my city raiders. I'll make sure to scout ahead before I do anything stupid. If it looks a little shaky, I'll wait until infantry.

Overall, it's been a tough little game. I had to incorporate diplomacy. I had to set strategic research paths to first save the economy and then drive the economy. And I had to be very patient with my strategy.

 

[Single Malt]

AR, If your looking to improve your game, then you are not hi jacking the thread. Thats why this thread exists in the first place

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Never too late to join the party

No kidding. You can play any NC game you want, they're all open. Even NC I.

 

[JTMacc99]

Anomander Rake:

Print out these three things, read them, play a game on Noble, read them again, play another game, read them one more time, and you'll be completely hooked on Civ IV. The basic facts of life covered by these three guides will then allow you to run your games as you see fit. You'll have the ability to create new strategies, adjust strategies as your leader and land requires, and pretty much explore all of the victory conditions and the ways you can achieve them.

General Strategy Guide

What to build and how to improve your land.

Early Rush!


Monarch/Epic to 1762AD, shooting for Conquest now:

Spoiler :

Took Bizzy as a vassal after capturing two nice sized German border cities. Shortly after I declared war, I had a meeting with the Celts and bribed them into peace with Germany for the price of Education. There was a serious risk of Bizzy giving up to the wrong guy at this point in the game, as my power rating was about equal to Brennus.

At this point, Charlie has been dead for 2,000 years, the Vikings are my vassal, the English are my vassal, the Germans are my vassal, and the Romans are on borrowed time until I can send enough rifles over there to stomp them out of existence.

I turned the stack of rifles and cannons around (plus a few knights and my super-medic musketeer who replaced my original one accidentally lost in my Viking war) and headed for the border of Spain.

I captured two border cities and accepted her surrender. To be fair, I pretty much wiped out her military in a couple turns, but it is so close to the victory right now that I see no reason to capture the rest of her cities, including the glorious Hindu holy city.

Somewhere in the last 10 turns, I also loaded up a few Galleons and captured Atlantis. He built a few wonders, but nothing that will be a lot of help to me at this point.

The Cottage economy is really cranking now. Most of my cities are surrounded by towns generating sacks of commerce and a hammer. 30% of those towns are on river tiles and are now producing two hammers with levees. Generally speaking, I'm building rifles and cannons in most of my commerce cities at a rate of 4-6 turns per unit. If this game were to last until factories become available, I will be swimming in hammers.

Completed research of Railroads, and my swarm of workers jumped to life once again. I need to make sure to set a few of them up to make sure that there is at least one direct route from the French heartland to the Celtic border. I decided to research artillery next, over combustion, because I think that an upgraded stack of 30-40 cannons should be just about enough to annihilate anything the Celts have on hand at this point in the game.

Also, right as I was starting my war against Spain, I had 15 cannons and about 8 rifles over on the Roman border, so I went ahead and declared war on him. He's only got about 4 cities (plus an amusing one he took from the Celts, which I may use as a staging area for my own Celtic war) so this should go quickly and quietly.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Gaming frenzy continues.

Monarch/epic, to 40 AD:

Spoiler :

Techs: myst (hut) - ah - masonry - mining - bw - fishing - pottery - writing - alpha - iw and hunting from Bis - sailing and archery from Julius - researching currency

Huge chunk of top quality land, so I skipped any early war project and went into rex mode.

4000 - Settled in place. I think clams and lighthouse are better than extra early hammers.

3900 - Mysticism from a hut.

3775 - Map from a hut.

3765 - Meet Bismarck.

3400 - Meet Charles.

2750 - Brennus.

2675 - Exp from a hut and HE is unlocked.

2375 - Orleans, good production potential:

2175 - My fav early wonder:

2050 - Chopping overflow from the Wall + stone = Stonehenge in 5 turns. Nice wonder for Cha leaders:

1575 - Lyons. Claims horses and seals my NE border:

1400 - Meet Julius Caesar.

1200 - Next AI is Vicky. I get a great prophet and settle him in Paris.

1100 - Rheims. Not a great city, claims spices and completes my eastern border:

650 - Tours, future commerce city:

625 - Last AI is Isabella.

350 - Barb city captured. Was going to backfill there anyway at some point:

320 - Bismarck is slow, so I expand beyond the natural choke point:

110 - Chartres, future Moai city:

35 - Isabella wants me to adopt Judaism and I agree. Main block is jewish (Isa, Bis and Vicky). Now I'm safe from Bismark, but Charles is going to be pissed off. He's buddhist and alone.

Empire's overview:

Despite my expansion, tech situation is decent. I'll trade currency around to catch up:

And diplo. No wars so far:

Future plans: settle that fish/gems city N of Marseilles to seal the western border and possibly another city at the northern stone site, if there is some seafood in the fog.
Tech to CoL, build courthouses and prepare for medieval war vs Charles.

Atlantis apparently isn't a factor in this game, besides building the Spiral Minaret.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Of course, when I think I'm doing well at Monarch, I have to pull off a . .. .. .. . game like this.

Monarch/epic, 10 - 1385:

Spoiler :

I tried something unconventional. Completely ignored the lib path and went straight to the medieval military techs, hoping for some wars with tech advantage. Apparently it didn't work .

techs: currency - col - math (JC) - meditation and polytheism (Vicky) - calendar (JC) - priesthood (Bismarck) - monarchy (VIcky) - construction (stolen) - metal casting - hbr (stolen) - monotheism (stolen) - machinery - engineering - feudalism (stolen) - guilds - cs + aesthetics (JC) - literature - theology - paper - philo (JC) - researching edu


220 - Great Spy in Paris.

280 - GSpy infiltraded in one of Charlie's cities.

295 - I was still missing an AI. Ragnar.

325 - Avignon:

340 - Ragnar declares war on JC.

430 - Construction stolen from Charles.

475 - HBR stolen.

535 - Monotheism stolen.

670 - Vicky becomes a vassal of Bismarck (not forced).

760 - Ready to attack Charles:

775 - First city falls:

870 - Vienna:

940 - Bismarck bribed vs me. Now I'm at war with Charles, Bismarck and Vicky.

990 - Feudalism stolen from Charles.

1000 - Aachen. No shrine :

1010 - And peace:

1110 - Rouen:

1150 - Suddenly a huge german stack appears near Marseilles, I upgrade/whip more defenders and walls but it isn't enough and Bismarck captures it. He wants Avignon for peace.

1200 - I bribe Isabella with Guilds to declare on Bismarck.

1220 - Bismarck loses 21 units at Avignon and still has THIS. Never seen such a huge stack this early at Monarch:

1230 - Obviously he captures Avignon and now wants Chartres, the Moai city. No way I'm going to stop that stack, so I give in. He will capture it anyway and then ask for more. This has to be my worst defeat so far in my civ career.

1265 - Isabella captures a German city. Probably the idiot was throwing everything at me. Isa usually fails at warmongering.

1330 - Isabella is the first to liberalism.

1360 - Brennus DoW Isa.

1385 - Focused on military for a while and I'm ready to take my cities back. Still pumping units from 4 cities. I want revenge:

Huge mistake was going for Charlie first. He was small and bound to fall behind. Second mistake was not making peace with Charles as soon as Bismarck declared war. Plenty of time between his DoW and his first good stack.
The experimental tech path obviously has been a failure as well.

At this point my only friend is Isabella. She actually loves me for shared religion and fav civic. Charles hates me and everyone else is cautious or mildly pleased.

I've fallen hopelessly behind tech-wise. Ragnar (JC's vassal) and Charles are even more backward. Everyone else has at least 4 techs on me. And I don't have anything to bribe Isabella.

At least I have 2 very good production cities: Paris with bureau and Orleans with HE. Marseilles' loss is a huge hit, as it was my best commerce city.

I think I have to make my move now, while my military is still up to date, take my cities back and then some more.

 

[Single Malt]

Shikuka

Spoiler :

Did you notice the effective stack composition of Bismarck? I had troubles with him too

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Single Malt:

Spoiler :

He's a very tough opponent indeed. I have a renewed respect for this AI, he's probably more dangerous than people like Shaka or Montezuma. Never had any major war with him in my previous games. Not at tech parity at least. Definitely a surprise.


Things are going better anyway. He's still sending big stacks but his power is dropping and I'm getting my cities back. Very fun game, never had an interesting medieval war like this one.

EDIT: now that I've read some spoilers, I see he has caused a lot of trouble in other games as well.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Part III, 1385 - 1630:

Spoiler :

edu - gunpowder - chemistry - bank, drama and music from Isabella - econ (JC) - researching steel

Research power is pitiful, but the AIs aren't teching very well either.

1405 - My stack was barely enough to kill everything he has in Avignon in 1 turn. I don't capture it right away, I want to move at least 6 defensive units inside or I may lose it again in the same turn:

1410 - Avignon is recaptured, Bismarck's power took a big hit and Victoria breaks free.

1415 - Prophet burned on a Golden Age.

1425 - My abused commerce city is recaptured:

1430 - JC and his vassal Ragnar declare war on Isabella.

1445 - Bis is still moving in decent stacks:

1455 - Brennus is HUGE and I fear he's going to vassalize Isabella, so I bribe him out with education.

1460 - Apparently Bismarck creates units out of thin air:

And Chartres is recaptured:

1465 - Avignon's defenders fight well, but the city is lost again.

1470 - Peace with Vicky. Didn't see a single unit from her.

1485 - Avignon returns to France and finally Bismarck's stacks look more manageable:

1505 - Payback time, Stuttgart falls:

1520 - Little german stack is destroyed.

1565 - Frankfurt:

1610 - Berlin. Pyramids, Angkor Wat, Chichen Itza and Mausoleum:

1630 - Munich:

And I accept this deal:

I'd be barely able to continue this war and I'm scared he may vassalize to someone else, bringing me into another war. WW is very high and the german cities have motherland unhappiness. And I need a lot of infrastructures.

Dusseldorf turns out to be this garbage, worth 15 gpt of manteinance, so I gift it back right away:

At some point I switched from Judaism to Hinduism, Brennus' religion. As said above, he's huge and now pleased. So I'm safe on that front. Isa dropped from friendly to pleased, but she's at war with JC.

Somehow I'm still in contact:

But I don't have a lot of friends:

I'm researching steel right now, and will have a monopoly on it. I think I'll wait for cuirassiers and then declare on Isabella, accepting her capitulation asap. She's not useful anymore. I'll spread Hinduism and adopt OR to build infrastructures and push Brennus to friendly.


Definitely one of the most fun rounds I've ever played. This is all the crap I've killed so far:

 

[JTMacc99]

Ai Shizuka:

Spoiler :

As you read in the other games, it was best policy to either be really nice to Bizzy or to kick his ass right at the start. In my game, the key was to kill Charlie with an early rush, rather than spam my own territory, and the to play buddy-buddy with the Hindu block of Izzy, Bizzy and Vicky until I was ready to deal with them. The Germans had enormous amounts of troops all game, but he ended up sending those giant stacks into battle with the Celts rather than against me. Those two were so busy killing each other that they were toast when my economy finally kicked in and I showed up with cannons and rifles to their muskets and trebs.

My advice to you is to see if you can't finish off Charlie and then cottage the heck out of all that nice land and see if you can do something like get to tanks before Bizzy gets to infantry.

Monarch/Epic 1818AD Conquest Victory:

Spoiler :

Having taken the Vikings, English, Spanish and Germans as vassals, and destroyed the Holy Roman Empire, Atlantis and in the late 1700's the Romans, all that was left was dealing with the Celts.

Fortunately, as my big stack of artillery, machine guns and rifles sat at the Celtic border, a very large number of Celt troops (Grens, trebs, and mounted troops) were hanging around in the newly conquered Roman area. He was also at war with Rome, so he had sent all those troops half way across the world.

Naturally, I declared war on Brennus immediately after I took the last Roman city and then started pounding his stacks with my artillery and airships. The stacks were large, and especially with all the grens, could have easilly taken back some of the Roman cities defended by my rifles. However, after taking a brutal pounding by my artillery, his attacks killed very few of my defenders.

Back in Celtic territory, I steamrolled the first city, and promptly returned it to German control. (Saved me the trouble of defending it.) As my stack headed for the Celtic capital, we took another large city on the way. Meanwhile, my destroyers were pounding all of his coastal cities and had his wooden fleet completely holed up.

Even better, big stacks of Spanish, German, and even some English Redcoats started hitting his southern cities. Very quickly, his power rating was tumbling from just about even with me to 3.0. I checked every turn, but he was refusing to capitulate without putting up a good fight. A couple turns before 1818, I almost won a late religious victory, with 987 of the 1027 votes needed. If I had put medicine on the research path, and had founded Sids, this game would have been over then.

Instead, I took the third large Celt city and had artillery outside of the Celt capital when he finally capitulated.

Final score was a nice 115,000 and a rare pangea victory for me at Monarch.

I owe this mostly to checking in with other posts through about the same period as I went along. It made me consider many things, but mostly that the group of civs we were dealing with here are not the space race type. Best bet was to play religious nice-nice with the biggest threats, and bide my time until I could play their game but on my terms.

 

[Anomander Rake]

@ JTMacc99:

Thanks. I had DL'ed Sisiutil's upadted guides, but the City Speicalisation thread was a new one for me.

Bookmarked, subscribed.

AR

 

[Ai Shizuka]

JT:

Spoiler :

Yes, what you suggest is probably the safest way to deal with Bis and Brennus.
Doesn't matter anymore, as I took the pride-driven route and went for revenge on Bismarck. Not the smartest move, I suppose, but the most entertaining for sure .

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Monarch/epic, 1630 - 1742. Short but eventful round:

Spoiler :

steel - ppress and lib (Vicky) - nat and optics (JC) - mil science - mil trad - constitution (Lincoln) - researching democracy

1685 - Big switch to a weird civic combo: police state - vassalage - free market - OR.

Vicky spawns Lincoln on that SW island.

OR to speed up infrastructures and push Brennus to friendly. Vassalage to get the exp I've lost without theocracy and police state because I will be pretty much warring no-stop to the end of this game.

1704 - I didn't wait for cuirassiers after all:

I get a Prophet in Aachen and build the buddhist shrine. Worth 20 gpt. Aachen is completely chocked by Charles' culture, but I plan to fix it in a not-so-distant future.

1710 - Killed a lot of spanish stuff at Essen, but she still has more. Will capture it in the next turn.

1712 - Oh wait. I kill some more crap and check Isabella out of curiosity. Guess what:

Sure, darling. She was still at war with JC, who was moving big stacks of praets/knights through my empire to attack her.
I didn't capture a single spanish city.

1722 - Vicky's next:

1724 - And Assyrian falls:

1728 - Victoria has a huge stack coming from Nottingham, so I retreat to Assyrian to defend there, pillaging the road on my way back.

1734 - Without roads, her knights move faster, while the rest can't reach Assyrian. She's stupid enough to suicide them vs formation pikes and cg3 musketeers without waiting for siege.
When the bulk of her stack arrives, I sacrifice a few cannons for collateral damage and let my defenders take care of the rest.
Power ratio with Vicky is now 1.8 and she talks about peace. No capitulation yet.

1740 - Nottingham:

And Victoria joins the cool kids' club:

Now Lincoln is free and I sign peace. Assyrian and Nottingham will be a pain to keep out of revolt, so I gift them back.

Tech board is decent. Except Brennus the monster, of course:

Diplo:

Brennus loves me, so I'm now completely safe on the western front. Everyone else hates me, but I don't care. I'm going to vassalize everyone.
The next target is Charles, to complete that half-assed job. I need more cottage land to compete with Brennus, so I'll wipe Charles completely, not accepting his capitulation.

On a side note, I demanded two 10 gold tributes from Charles to keep him off my back during the wars with the ladies.
His power is pitiful, so he'll fall easily.

I don't know if I will be able to compete with Brennus, so UN victory from vassals abuse is more likely.