NC XVIII: Willem

[michmbk]

Ok, from 1776 to 1976/end (Monarch/Epic)

Spoiler :

I was struggling to save my economy, so first order was getting courthouses and forbidden palace on the Zara island. In addition, I started building markets, grocers and banks wherever I didn't have them and it made sense. Figure Amsterdam will be my wall street and sushi city. The economy starts to recover, so I decided not to colonize. Of course, I forgot about democracy (for some dumb reason I always do), and need to double back for it or trade to avoid the emancipation hit. Just as I was planning to double back for it:



Joao's offer was decent, so I thought, get this and medicine, get sushi going, and I'd be ok. Oh, and meanwhile, two more of these:









Two merchants, off to run some nice trade missions - 7000 gold sure helped - having 2 GP farms was a brilliant play this game. I did learn from this that I need to check the info screen for the largest city for my trade mission - that made a 900 gold difference between Uruk and Babylon. Sure enough, I got my markets, grocers and banks running, and then the power of sushi hit.





How ridiculous sushi is. Founded it in Amsterdam, built a few execs and then wall street in Amsterdam, to help offset the corporate maintenance. Second screenshot above is when I think I was at my max extra food - 17. Spread sushi through my empire and my cities are getting insanely big. Think at this point space is the plan - I workshop two of Zara's cities and one of mine, so parts will not be a challenge. Heck, I may end up backing into culture too, who knows. In 1893, I'm getting 17 food out of sushi. Still need to spread to a few more cities, but at this point, I'm teching ahead, and have several solid production cities. I need to build my uranium mine so I can get a few destroyers to protect my borders, because the only risk to space I see is a sneak attack. I think I have 5 GP farms at this point, so thinking a golden age will be in order soon. I pop another merchant, and then my first prophet, here he is.



Hey, I founded confucianism like 2500 years ago, so why not get the holy city its holy shrine - worth about 20-30 gold per turn pre-multipliers. I think I have a few more great people on the way - the next two will probably be for a golden age. Gee, I forgot I was building this.



So now I can change civics if needed - a nice perk. Built this just because too - sushi made me have about 5 production powerhouses.



Since I had Cristo, I decided to experiment with environmentalism for one turn. Note to self: That is a bad idea when you have sushi everywhere. I saw my gold per turn go from -106 to -503. Not recommended. Since I had never run environmentalism with corporation, i wanted to see the effect, and it was not a good one. Another random event - this was huge.



I paid 398 gold to save about 160 gold per turn. Not a bad trade, I'd say. Joao snuck in and completed Apollo program 5 turns before me. I'm not all that concerned, because I think he beelined to rocketry and I did a lot of other techs that are needed to go the whole way down the tech tree. Teching to industrialism to see if I have aluminum, and I do in several places. All of a sudden, this game got easy. Build parts, build wonders for the heck of it, build wealth for the heck of it, and cruise to victory. I was also elected leader of the UN, because I had continued to maintain good relations with everyone, and had become so huge because of sushi. I put forth one diplo victory attempt, because I alone had about 30% of the vote, but it didn't carry the day. So I forced some unhappiness on Zara by voting for emancipation a few times - he kept defying the resolution. Funny how I thought it was dire about 150 turns back, but sushi and workshops made it easy. Built this just because as well:



Great people were pouring out the last 100 turns - I think 8 in total, as I had +17 food in all cities at one point from sushi. So I was basically running 5-10 specialists in most cities. Used my last 5 people for two final golden ages during ship production.

One turn to victory - the size of these cities is ridiculous. Here's my domestic advisor and the Hague, my production power (some of the gold numbers look out of whack because I was building wealth with nothing else to build...happiness is crazy because of the culture slider):





I flipped one of Zara's two remaining cities, and grew it from size 5 to 12 in about 10 turns right before...Victory!



Stats - 20 total great people.







Mediocre score, because it was late in the game when I won. Plus I botched the war with Zara, which probably set me back 50 turns or so. I've now founded sushi in about 3-4 games, and each time on a water map, it's staggering. I think when I do in the future, I'll also try to get to ecology quicker for those recycling centers, because health is the only thing holding the cities back at that point. Fun game, a lot of ups and downs. I'm starting to think on these easier setups, I might be ready for emperor (i.e., playing with financial or Rome). But as I learned with the Toku game, I'm not ready when I don't have strong traits or traits that are ideal for the map.

 

[Orzio]

Doing my first empeor try here so not sure how good its going. (monarch to around 100ad)

Spoiler :

So I started by settlign in palce seamd like a nice capital some food some production started with a workboat for osme fast food.

Found out cooper was close after BW and thoth that it would be nice for early production and barb defense

Obviously I went for the great lightouse and built it in 1860
Also noticed we had some stones so went for the mids that got done in 400bc. Also got a GM that I settled for some early cash.(rexed allot)

OK first a quesiton I am abel to trade with zara does that mean he have contact with some one else?

For the future I am thinking of 2 alternatives right now. Go for Maces and invade zara with maces and catapult. + with this is
1 I get loads of land early
2 I can focus on my other plans for the late game and just defend these islands easily

other option is wait for rifling that way I could probably still be in the liberlism race and it would probably be safer. bad thign is obviously that I may get diplo penality with the other civ when I met them and I risk a 2 front war.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Everyone's looking really good so far. I was wondering if the somewhat unusual map would cause problems, but maybe it's too easy . Still not a bad intro to water games though.

 

[Point13]

What kind of map was this anyways? Fractal?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It was an islands map, although I re-rolled it enough times to make sure the player had room for a decent # of cities and this particular setup.

 

[Nials]

I would like to join this game. Going to play it on Prince/Epic. Will be my first game on Prince and Willem seems like a nice leader to try a new level with.

Hope it's not too late to join in.

 

[Orzio]

I would like to join this game. Going to play it on Prince/Epic. Will be my first game on Prince and Willem seems like a nice leader to try a new level with.

Hope it's not too late to join in.

It never is

 

[dubrown]

Is the Ai set to emperor?

Spoiler :

I have just seen the Ai settle a city with 2 warriors. Makes me wonder. This never happens on Monarch settings.

With scenarios that's made for noble, if you go up in difficulty, the AI behaves as it should on for instance Emperor, but, and it's a big but, the AI don't get the correct starting techs/units, so it'll not start with Archery and archers. Thus it'll be a light version of the harder level.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

With scenarios that's made for noble, if you go up in difficulty, the AI behaves as it should on for instance Emperor, but, and it's a big but, the AI don't get the correct starting techs/units, so it'll not start with Archery and archers. Thus it'll be a light version of the harder level.

Indeed, there are workarounds for this, but they require creating different worldbuilder save(s) and thus more work. Seeing as how this is the noble's club, any difficulty is fine but IMO the maps created should be catered to the intended audience .

However, if you want them to have archers just change the settings in notepad or even the worldbuilder. If you do it in notepad though you don't even have to see what leaders are being used. Just add the archery tech to each guy that isn't you.

By the way, they *do* get the correct #s of starting units. It's just on the difficulties where they would get archers, they get warriors instead unless they have archery. On deity for example they'd still have their settler etc.

 

[Orzio]

not sure how to delete a post (edit)

 

[Feyaria]

Its not the map, its the other leaders that make this game so easy.
The only civ that is competitive in the tech race is .... also finacial.
On water maps, where you are working a lot more water tiles then in normal games, financial is a HUGE advantage.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Its not the map, its the other leaders that make this game so easy.
The only civ that is competitive in the tech race is .... also finacial.
On water maps, where you are working a lot more water tiles then in normal games, financial is a HUGE advantage.

Only because the AI is so complete in being terrible at managing specialists and great people.

Still, they at least showed SOMETHING in my immortal game, I wasn't exactly running away in tech . Not that I tend to tech well anyway.

 

[Nials]

Part I, Prince/Epic, 1000 BC

Spoiler :

Settled in spot. Warrior explored of course.

Initial techs were Mining -> BW -> Sailing -> AH -> The Wheel -> Pottery -> Masonry -> Writing -> IW.

Two units of seafood makes whipping attractive, so BW is a high priority tech. As Willem is Financial he also gets an extra commerce from working coast, so Amsterdam builds 2x WB, whips the second as it's about to grow to size 3 to time it with the starting of a Worker build at pop 2.

Next I alternate Settler/Warrior, putting the Settler at the top of the queue when the chops come in. Once Amsterdam grows to size 4, I whip the Settler to completion and settle Utrecht 1E of the Horses. I make a WB next and send it east to explore, it finds an injured lion, seems I'm not isolated! Yay!



At 1975 BC my WB meets Zara to the east. Interesting, I don't think I've ever played against him before. I sign Open Borders as soon as Writing is in and explore near his capital, which looks like a very sweet GP farm, and is still only defended by Warriors.



I thought of rushing him, but Copper is in a pretty crappy location and IW would probably take too long, so I pass it up.

Utrecht makes a Chariot for fogbusting and barb protection and then starts on a Settler at its happy cap. Next tech is Metal Casting for the Colossus, which will take a while to get, but that's alright as I don't have any other pressing tech needs right now, the focus is more on filling the island with ~6 cities and getting a few coastal wonders.

Utrecht finishes its Settler in 1275 BC and I found The Hague 1 NE of the Wine as it's probably the best production site I can get on this island, I plan to make Colossus here a little later. This city starts a Worker immediately as I still only have one going, probably should have made at least one more as Amsterdam worked a couple of unimproved Silks for quite some time when it could have been using the grassland mines *blush*.

This is where my round ended. Amsterdam will finish TGL in about four turns with some whipping overflow if my estimations are correct. My immediate plan is to fill up the island with cities and make a Galley to explore beyond the peak and the other surrounding island.
The island 4E of Amsterdam looks like a decent fishing village, not sure if I should settle it after the island is filled or wait until later.

 

[dalamb]

Everyone's looking really good so far. I was wondering if the somewhat unusual map would cause problems, but maybe it's too easy .

I wouldn't say it was "too easy" for me; things seemed to go very slowly. It was/is fun, though.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I wouldn't say it was "too easy" for me; things seemed to go very slowly. It was/is fun, though.

That's an adjustment on a water map. You will inherently tech slower than on a good patch of green land, but the AIs are hampered even more. In the event that not everyone knows each other right away, tech trades are less frequent too.

What this boils down to is that the tech rate on water maps is abysmal compared to regular maps, if the players are comparable/the same. However, the human tends to outdo the AI more easily on such maps, since the AI is so terrible with great people, trade strategies, etc and can't spam out its low-maintenance cities as readily.

 

[dalamb]

4000 - 2350 BC

Spoiler :

I thought more about Fierabras' comments about city placement, but decided to put my 2nd city (Utrecht) between the stone and the pigs anyway. I placed his suggested city later (Rotterdam on my map); by then Utrecht had farms and didn't need the pigs, so Rotterdam was able to grow reasonably quickly. Here's my home island:

Spoiler map :

I built the GLH and Colossos (in Amsterdam) as expected, and also Pyramids and Hanging Gardens in Utrecht (the stone city). Maastricht, on the southern peninsula with the bronze on a desert hill, starts out quite weak but that's where I'm putting the Moai Statues and an eventual dike.

I have just tech'd Astronomy for a nice jump in the economy, and have started to build East Indiamen. I plan to invade Zara to the east soon, having started building the army once I had both Feudalism and Theology for their corresponding war civics. I've met six opponents, one of whom I converted to Confucianism (the state religion I founded) and may be able to convert another soon; Saladin has Hinduism and Gilgamesh has Taoism, so it's probably not worth trying to convert them (yet!). I have the best score, but Saladin is rather more powerful at the moment.

Spoiler power :

Spoiler score :

Question: I got the "blessed sea" quest, which wants me to plant cities on 10 different land masses. Does anyone know what one gets if that succeeds, and whether it's worth the hassle of creating tiny island cities?

 

[dubrown]

@dalamb

Spoiler :

The blessed sea quest is normally not worth it in my opinion. If you happen to finish it while pursuing your goal for the game it's one thing, but don't go out of your way to finish it. I don't recall the reward for this quest but it'll surely not be worth spreading out on 10 landmasses early. Ofc, if you have 9 small islands nearby, each will count towards the quest, even 1 city ones.

Edit: I've played another stint in my game, update will come later as I have no time atm.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Marathon, Noble 1742 AD dom win.

Spoiler :

Okies I went with my plan to tech out guilds, the astronomy while finishing off Zara. As soon as that was done I upgraded all my gallyes to indiamen. I also noticed gp wasnt THAT far away so while punpmping our some extra units to fill up the indiamen I teched out gunpowder.

Once that was all done and I had a few muskets along with rest of my stack they set sail off after Hammy.

While all that was going on I noticed that lib STILL hadnt been discovered yet so I was liek what the heck lets try for it. I teched out paper, the edu and lib STILL wasnt done, in fact even edu hasnt been done :/. Not sure WHY the ai hadnt finished it off by now I just count my blessings, tech out lib and then pick nationalism as my freebie.

While I am taking out hammy, salad who has been at war off and on with wang dow's on him again and asks me to join. I figured why not since wang cant get to me and maybe it would help keep salad from looking at as next target which was a worry still since he seems to be biggest civ in game at the time.

After hammy is finished off, war with wang still going on so I decide to swoop in and take as much of wangs cities as i can beofre salad gets him to cap.

I take seul first off which is nice cuz it has MoM and my cap is working on building Taj. I take about 4 or five korean cities until wang just has one city lift. cince that city pretty rinkydink I decide to go ahead and cap wang for the extra happy boost. And while that rinky dink city is being swamped by salad's culture--another reason I didnt want to take it--it does act as buffer between my new ex-korean cities and salad.

So by time Wang is capped, taj almost done, I have spread judaism to all my core cities so they can get boost from ap buildings. and round this time a gp pops. I dont have any other use for him so I start a GA. GA speeds up building of Taj so then I get dbl GA. Before the dbl GA is finished another gp, and a great artist pop so I burn them and end up with 72 turns of GA goodness .

All those back to back to back GA's help my tech rate very nicely, they also let me tech out banking and constitution and do a dbl civics switch to Merc and Rep without any anarchy which help tech and gold even more.

What all that means is it isnt laong before I have the techs and gold for upgrades that when I I decide to go after salad my stack looking like this:



They take over mecca and even though he is STILL pretty huge Salad acts like a big sissy and very next turn after mecca falls:



I decide to accept. I figure it would be quicker to get to victory by just accepting and then moving on. The other reason I accepted was cuz of Joao.

I FIGURED either Joao, or rags or Hanni or maybe even all of em would end up on map just cuz it seems like part of challenge in these games is to give em at least one or two leaders the chosen civ can have tuff time with and those leaders or some of few leaders who could give willy a run for his money on water maps. And sure enough joao is around.

That kind of put alil more pressure on me cuz I was HOPING by getting astronomy waaay b4 everyone else I could settle off other islands netime i felt like without worrying bout it. But joao and his UU put monkey in THAT wrench. So even while fighting with Hammy and wang I was also trying to settle off a big island between me and giggles b4 joao got it.

I also wanted to put joao down before I started seeing waves up troop loaded carracks landing at my door. But I wnet after Salad first just cuz he was BIGGER and dint want to worry about him while dealing with joao. So salad folding like origami after losing just one city was conevenient. It let me not have to worry about him backstabbing me, it also meant that I got spices I lost from trade when I dow'ed him since now I just demanded he give em to me. And it meant now i can focus everything on Joao.

So I accepted, and because it really didnt have ANYTHING all that worth keeping and I didnt want to mess with it going into revolt every othewr turn by culture pressure I gifted mecca back to Salad. But salad was sooo huge even with giving back mecca accepted his cap put me withint stones throw of dom win:



So with salad and wang all pacified, zara and hammy dead, and giggles and his new vassal bootycall not as big a threat yet as joao and his carrack I loaded up my boys and sailed off and then:



They took out Lisbon first then made clockwise sweep all way round his main island. There were two lil one tile islands to south but I left em for last.

Reaon i did was just cuz one tile islands can be a pain. I had no amphib troops and I DIDNT want bad rolls suiciding half my army from attacking off the boat and NOT have enough left for jaos main cities so I saved them for last when I all his main cities already taken and then it wouldnt matter losing a few xtra units to take ouyt those two rinkly dink cities.

I was getting happy too. I was VERY close to infanty at this point which I LOVE and figured once joao all done wait a cpl of turns upgrade my stack and then and then go stomp bootycall. Ya see me and Giggles WERE at friendly status then ol mis implants shows up and suddenly we down to cautious not soon after. I am pretty sure that was NOT a coinky dink.

But I dont get a chance to put her in her place. You see those two lil isalnds while small were putting ut TONS of pressure:



See how lil isalnd on east is pushing out culture waaaaaay up onto map? That is how bad the lil city on west was doing too it was pushing cultureup waaay all over the west side of lsland up against lisbon's city center. But taking out that city let lisbon and oporto free to let there culture expand out for like a HUGE instant border pop and that pop was enuff so that on next turn:



Hehe I wasnt even expecting that I thought for sure even taking ALL of joao's land I would still be a lil short of land% for dom win but guess I was wrong.

Anyways hre is final stats:

Gold:



Power:



Hammers:



Hammer graph REALLY shows how triple GA really shot them up, and how they shot back down once it ended--but by then ap buildings and then later dikes started getting built a few places so they went back up again

Score:



Demos:



This is main reason I hate watery maps. I CAN win on them. Just not as easy as other maps. It just that the way I play I mostly play on style designed to get as MANY hammers as I can. And on water maps even WHEN I am hammer leader it is still sucky hammer output--Im just leading cuz everyone elses hammers are even suckier.

And all that leads up to:



A decent score not my best all time but definitely waaaaaay above average for me

Here look at my empire--

Core cities which were on my starting island and zara's island:



Middle empire of hammys island and desrted island off to west I colonized:



Southern empire of newest captured cities of jao and wang:



My vassals wang and salad:



And finally giggles and his hussy. they werent much of factor whole game:



So thats bout it for this game. No the hardest game I ver played but I STILL fell in tech whole early and had to climb out but I got lucky and triple GA helped BIG time and after I got ahead it wasnt so bad.

So anyways thx for the game, looking forward to whoever next and good luck to everyone else

Kaytie

 

[KingMorgan]

Nice map, not sure why people dislike Islands. Makes it easier imo.


Emp / Normal 4000BC to 1981AD

Spoiler :

Thought i'd hit the LHC by mistake!

Decided to head GLH and COL route, and Mids when i saw the stone. Settled a 2nd city for the stone, then built GLH and ORC. Took MCast then with the help of the copper built COL. forgot totally about building the mids, had the Hangin gardens though. Headed then to Lib, started meeting AI, took Nat and built Taj.



Then to steel. Built a few Maces, 3 rounds of dafted Muskets, then built 8 cannon, researched MScience. East Indians shipped my Gred/musket/cann/spy army to see Zara. Took 3 cities inc Cap and his capulation.

Followed Hanny up the radio line, trading along the way. Delayed Corp massively. Founded Sids, traded and demanded a load of seadfoods, then once the dikes were in it was easy street to space.


beelined computers, built internet, researched fusion. game over, off to space.



1981 easy space victory.

Dikes + Sids + Free Market = victory

 

[Fierabras]

Emperor/Epic:
805 AD - 1430 AD

Spoiler :

I circumnavigated the world in 820 AD. In 880 AD the Buddhist religion spread to me, which was the first. With the early Astronomy in place I went on the Liberalism path. I did found Taoism in 890 AD. I met all the civs and opened borders to get massive foreign trade route revenue. Before continuing with Paper I decided to tech Engineering first and started building Trebuchets. I switched back to slavery and whipped buildings where needed (mainly harbors). I also took some turns to tech Poly - Mono and switched to OR, but forgot to adopt Taoism for a while, which had spread on my island. In 1250 AD I completed Liberalism:



I took Nationalism and switched to Nationhood. After 2 rounds of drafting maces, I was ready for war. I parked my main stack next to Zara's capital. I teched Aesthetics - Drama next for cheap theatres, but forgot I already could build colloseums to offset the unhappiness:



I progressed along his eastern coast, but also took some easy cities in the west:







I razed his only non-coastal city Lalibella. I was a tough fight, because by now Zara had maces as well. I conveniently ran out of trebs, but had accumulated 885 espionage points and used it to take down the defenses of his last city:





During the war I teched: Monarchy - Feudalism - Guilds - Banking - Economics to get the free Great Merchant for Sid's Sushi later. Currently I'm beelining Steam Engine, so I'll tech Gunpowder - Chemistry next. I also got another Great Scientist and intend to use it for a golden age soon.

I have been way ahead on tech for the entire game and haven't traded techs apart from Drama for Literatue (national epic) and sold Drama to the other civs for gold.

Now that the war is over, I can colonize the island in the west. I still have the monopoly on Astronomy.