NC XVIII: Willem

[Fierabras]

@dalamb

Spoiler :

Good choice on sharing the pigs with the 2 cities! My stone city (without pigs) was very slow in growth.

 

[flipsix3]

Oh goody, another chance for me to fail miserably at adding Epic speed to my Noble game

Count me in (belatedly)

4000BC

Spoiler :

Initial thoughts are Willem's obvious affinity to water, and what seems a decent coastal/freshwater/seafood/forest (for chopping) start

Settle in place, intention to tech: Mine/BW/Wheel... pottery next, for cottages later, unless a more pressing need arises. Also going to want to jhead towards calendar asap to maximise / from all those nice silk spots

Not seeing any great production potential (pre Maoi/Dike), so expecting to use Amsterdam to spawn settlers for fairly rapid expansion whilst exploring...

Build: WB/Warrior/Worker/Settler/WB... probably

 

[cripp7]

I missed checkpoint 1&2 so here's checkpoint three.

Spoiler :

started out by settling in place and REXing out the island, building TGH and Colossus. Building up an Army of swords and axes to take over Zara, which is capital has been real good wonders.

Spoiler :

Now my goal is just to take over everyone to say the world is mine! Now for some key pics.
my empire.

Tech situation

graphs.

demographics

 

[Fierabras]

@flipsix3

Spoiler :

Have you considered Mining-BW-Sailing before going for Pottery?

@cripp7

Spoiler :

WOW, That is a strong science city! It has all the right buildings and mass scientists to boot. Whip a cheap building (Colosseum -50% cost) for happiness.

 

[flipsix3]

Spoiler :

Have you considered Mining-BW-Sailing before going for Pottery?

@Fierabras

Spoiler :

I have, although I'm not sure I;ll have a second city settled to make use of the connection that early. Certainly something to consider though - as early searches doesn't reveal a natural cottage city area... yet

 

[flipsix3]

to 1000 BC

Spoiler :

Planted Amsterdam, worked up a WB whilst my warrior explored the small (peak-blocked, and hut-less) landmass

Worker, settler, lighthouse

I was tempted to hook copper up immediately, but I'm not happy that any city there will be strong enough just yet, so opted to head south for Utrecht. Amsterdam's cultural borders should grab the copper soon, but I will certainly place a city to have it in a BFC at some point.

Utrecht ran off a second WB for Amsterdam whilst growing to size 2 - meanwhile Amster saw a very messy chop/whip combo to land me The Great Lighthouse (seems an obvious choice as I've already seen Zara sailing a WB into my coast - so overseas trade should be straight forward - and I should, of course, be growing multiple coastal sites as the Dutch. I need to improve the efficiency/understanding of my whipping - had to interrupt the early build with a whipped warrior to keep the pop under cap

Teched Mining, BW, Sailing, Wheel, Pottery, Writing, and a couple of others that I forget now - aiming for calendar asap to utilise the Silk that I have access to.

Early screens:






Working an unimproved tile to sdlow growth until Library built, at which point I'll use a Scientist for the same effect



Early for me to formulate a serious strategy yet - beyond Rexing the "island" and getting some trade routes up and running (so want currency and astro as priorities). That and adapting to life on a one-civ continent

My other main (early) challenge is still adapting myself to the horrible build times that Epic gives. It's all in the head - but I still have to work to shake the feeling that I'm lagging behind

 

[dalamb]

@flipsix3:

Spoiler :

Not sure if we really need spoilers for your "initial thoughts" but it's probably courteous anyway.

Not seeing any great production potential (pre Maoi/Dike), so expecting to use Amsterdam to spawn settlers for fairly rapid expansion whilst exploring...

I found that a city on the west bank of the tiny river east and south of the pigs turned into a reasonable production city eventually, with several hills plus food from the pigs and farmed grassland (esp. after Civil Service, when you can farm a grassland next to a farm instead of needing a freshwater source. I did, however, postpone this until after growing a city with a BFC covering both the stone and the pigs; I really, really wanted that stone early to have a chance at the Pyramids.

 

[gcm4738]

Back from the Mother-in-Law's place in Scotland, so I'm more geared up to play as William Wallace than WvO, but I'm going to tackle this one on Monarch/Epic.

It's not a bad thing to join in late... Already some other experiences to compare to as I go!

 

[Nials]

Part II, Prince/Epic, 10 AD

Something unexpected happened, so I decided to play a short round and hope for some good hints.

Spoiler :

Finished TGL in Amsterdam at 825 BC. Since the entire island has been fogbusted I focus on Settlers/Workers for a while in both Amsterdam and Utrecht. Metal Casting comes in at 700 BC and Amsterdam's borders will pop in 21 turns, claiming the Copper. I'm not quite sure if I should start the Colossus immediately. I figure since I need a Forge first I can hold out a bit and wait to claim the Copper first, thus making the build more efficient. Also, in my experience (at least on Noble) the AI doesn't prioritize Metal Casting that highly yet. In addition, I figure it's better to build it in Amsterdam in order to focus GPP generation for now.

Next tech is Alphabet to open backfilling with Zara. Rotterdam is founded 625 BC 2SE of the Iron, not a very hot city, but at least it will have plenty of food from the two Fish. Nijmegen gets founded 2N of the Stone at 455 BC. Granted, this will cause quite a lot of overlap with the last city I plan to settle 1SE of the Crabs, but I somehow felt this was the best way as it grabs the most grassland tiles. However, thinking about it, with the Colossus (hopefully, haven't started it yet) and being Financial, maybe more coast would have been just as good.

In 350 BC I get the flood event.

I decide to let it destroy the road as I'm not really using the Iron as a resource and 20 gold is more valuable at the moment.

At the same turn Alphabet comes in at 335 BC, I get this event which tells me that I am hopeless backwards. Yikes!

Granted, I have yet to work a single cottage or build a Library, so no big surprise there. Zara doesn't have Writing yet, in fact he is researching it at this point, so at least I will hopefully be able to trade Alphabet to him for something. But right now he won't trade any of his techs, bah.

I'm thinking perhaps Alphabet was gotten a bit too soon rather than beelining Calendar, so that's my next tech target, although Currency goes first to help the economy.

At 290 BC Zara demands Metal Casting. I was really in doubt of what to do here as it was a pretty expensive tech, but I noticed that he had quite a few Axemen and that his power rating was higher than mine, so I gave in to the demand and reaped a +4 diplo bonus, giving me a total of +7 with Zara.

At 245 BC Maastricht gets founded 1SE of the Crabs. Then something pretty crappy happens in 215 BC.

The Colossus is built in a far away land. Damn, so much for researching Metal Casting and handing it out as a free gift to Zara. I was a little surprised to see it made in the BC's, because on Noble I find it rare to see it finished by the AI's until the 1 AD mark has passed.

The remaining bunch of turns this round were spent building infrastructure and workers. In addition, exploring beyond the peak was done to reveal a few extra city sites. In particular, I am considering settling two cities down south, namely 1E of the Banana and 1SE of the Copper. Research at the moment is Mathematics which will be followed by Calendar to boost happiness, something that is desperately needed.



Demographics aren't looking too good but at least I'm not lagging far behind in any area except Soldiers, which I've purposely neglected for more cities and infrastructure.

I would really like some hints on how to proceed.

 

[Fierabras]

@Nials

Spoiler :

Without representation from Pyramids you will reach your happy cap eventually. You could go for Monarchy for the wine and HR, but another route is Calendar (silk & incense) and Optics (whale). After that you could do like I did (see my posts) and bulb Astronomy with 2 great scientists. That way you can trade resources with other civs across the ocean.

 

[Nials]

@Fierabras

Spoiler :

I skimmed your first few reports without looking veyr much at the screenshots. Since I settled Rotterdam the same place as you, using it as a GP farm is indeed a very good idea, since it doesn't have much else decent land to work with. Good thing I have only been running scientists in Amsterdam for a few turns.
Monarchy is a tech that I usually neglect because I play on Noble, however the Wine resource of course makes it a priority. I'll grab it after Calendar. Seems like Optics would be a good tech to shoot for afterwards.
I will have to look into which techs should be avoided to bulb Astronomy.

 

[Fierabras]

Emperor/Epic:

1430 AD - 1700 AD

Spoiler :

I loaded my remaining attacking forces (7 maces and 1 super medic chariot) and some workers on my 3 East Indiamen and sailed them to the western island to take both barbarian cities. The rice and wheat were very welcome at this point.



I didn't use my Great Scientist for a GA (I used him for an academy in Amsterdam), because another was coming soon: The Great Engineer I generated by building Pyramids, Hanging Gardens and a forge in Utrecht:



I used him to hurry the Taj in The Hague and started a golden age. I switched civics to Representation - Bureacracy - Slavery - Free Market - OR and 1 turn before the end of the GA to Free Religion.

After Gunpowder - Chemistry (+1 hammer for workshops), I continued with Printing Press - Replaceable Parts - Steam Engine and I reached the industrial age in 1560 AD.

I switched to building dikes in most of my cities. Here's a screenshot of my Moai city:



By now most other civs were running Mercantilism, so it was time to say goodbye to TGL and after Scientific Method I continued with Constitution - Corporation, while building 6 banks, so I could start Wall Street in Amsterdam.

I then decided to tech Communism for the free Great Spy, so I could use him for another GA. I neglected my power rating and Gilgamesh thought he was strong enough to attack me on the western island:



He captured Haarlem, but I recaptured it by upgrading some maces to rifles and soon after that I got the mercy event:



I'm still way ahead on techs and I will get Sid's Sushi soon. The dikes are being whipped into place and I finally have some good production. It looks like I can choose which victory I want now.

 

[Fierabras]

@Nials

For the Astronomy bulb, you need to avoid Meditation (next bulb: Philosophy) and CS (next bulb: Paper).

 

[dalamb]

4000 - 2350 BC
2350 BC -1395 AD

Spoiler :

I've conquered Zara's continent as planned and just have his two islands left. Any advice on how to go about it without being able to get Amphibious on any of my units? I presume a spy's Support Revolt mission would be necessary. Can trebuchet bombard amphibiously or do I need to wait for frigates or ships of the line?

 

[dubrown]

Emperor/Epic ~100AD-1280AD We meet everyone, we cirumnav the globe and a decision is made on how to proceed towards glory.

In previous updates I used the BUGMOD log, unfortunately, it gets really messy when you start to have many cities and I haven't got time enough right now to go through it all to clear it of irrelevant news, else it'll be way to long. So this update will not be as detailed as the previous two with regards to research path chosen etc. But I'll try to cover most important decisions in words and pictures instead.

Spoiler :

We left of having meet our closest neighbour, I suspected at that point that we where isolated with Zara and this assumption proved correct. So Optics was a prioritised goal for me.

I wanted a few more early wonders, unfortunately I missed two of them I aimed at, Great Lib and Mids got snatched from me with just a few turns left on each, on the other hand, this saved my economy somewhat at that point. However, I got this wonder which is wonderful to a Fin civ on a watermap


Combined with TGL and fin this saved my early economy bigtime. I went for Monarchy for happiness issues, combined with Calendar it gave me a good enough happy cap. Remember, I have no religion, Zara neither and before Optics, no religion will spread to us either.

I didn't have to worry about military early either, no threat from Zara at this point, he was somewhat backwards as I didn't share with him unless he shared with me which didn't happen often, some very lowend techs at the most.

I was first to optics, meet the rest of the world. Here's the happy bunch of competitors.


I also got the circumnav bonus


Techs at this point


We're ahead on the important techs, noone even got compass yet and I've circumnaved the globe. I never thought I'd manage that on Emperor.

We also identified the unlucky AI that went down early, probably to a barbarian uprising.


Poor Saladin, fortunately, he as well was isolated so noone has spread to that continent yet. Funny though, Barbs with the Hindu holy city.

Finally, my land at this point:


I was a bit slow settling the continent, but well, only one city left here.
Maastricht (NE of wine) is to be my production city no 1. Though no GG or wars yet so HE may never arrive this game.
Capital will be tuned towards economy, I think both Oxford and Wall St. will go there.
Rotterdam (in the desert with two fish in the SE) has Moai, with the Dike it'll be a good late game production site and already is.
Nijmeen (the island city in the east) got the NE and will be tuned towards specialists, no ideal GP farm but the best this map has to offer (Rotterdam would have been possible as well, but I wanted it for production)

The rest is mixed cities, decent production and cottages in all of them.

What now? Space or diplo is still my goal, I could turn to a domination game at this point quite easily but I don't feel like it. I will however settle atleast one more continent, and Saladins old one will be my goal, a possible shrine (if I ever get a prophet) and room for 5-7 cities, with Forbidden palace it'll not be overextending things.

I will also take the one to the west that's empty, except two barb cities, else someone else will claim it and we don't want that. However, I think I'll release that one to a colony, else my economy will not handle it pre state property.

Research goal is off course Astronomy. I'll go for that first, then go for lib. I'm enough ahead of the rest of the bunch so I can afford to delay Lib for quite some time, although I do want Free religion as early as possible.

 

[dubrown]

Emperor/Epic - 1280AD~1860AD We pursue our goal, late game resources revealed and a final decision is made

Spoiler :

We start with discovering Astronomy, we've been preparing for this so we have galleys ready to be upgraded to our very nice UU.

Before that however, we finish another wonder that helps our happy cap


Then, our colonisation fleet sets out, it's not a huge stack, but not much is needed to take a barbcity, although it took more than one turn.



And Mecca is now in Dutch hands.

Likewise, the western small continent went the same fate


Two barb cities conquered and quickly released as a colony. Not surprisingly it's Roosevelt of the Americans that gets to lead that continent, it seems he's always the first choice when releasing a colony.

We get to lib first, from lib we take Scientific Method, if I don't have oil I might need to change some plans.


And what do we find, no oil on our main continent


But we drew a lucky bet settling Saladins continent, 3 sources of oil in our hands and a 4th possible.


Techs at this point


AI starting to catch up a bit, not surprisingly as they've meet eachother now and the tradefestival has begun. I however, stand passive trading here, I don't want to give away any advantage just yet. Only trading techs that some AI shortly will discover.

After economics and some trading to get Democracy we finalise our civics for the game, this is how I want them in this game.


First war of the game breaks out, not surprisingly it's gilga that initiates it, he and his colony Qin takes on Hammu


Quite surprising that it takes until 1800AD for a war to start in a game of Civ, but isolated watermaps can cause such abnormalities.

I on the other hand, sits peacefully at the side of things, it's not in my plan to meddle in others affairs, despite both sides requesting my assistance.

I do pursue another gamebreaker, I have stacked away 1 GM and 1 GE and what do we get from that?



Both of course founded in my Wall street capital. Possibly some will say "Why don't you run Bureacracy with a capital like that?" Well, it certainly would've been quite good economically but really, I have quite some towns in other cities as well and the culturebonus was needed on the new continent.

Techs at the end of this segment


We're still looking good for space, a UN vic might be possible but I haven't handle the diplogame good enough I believe so it might be hard.

I've pushed out some wonders lately as well, The Kreml and Broadway to be precise. UN is on it's way as well.

 

[dubrown]

Emperor/Epic ~1880- 1969AD - Our first "war", victory achieved

Spoiler :

Sooner or later it was bound to happen.


I was somewhat worried as I had delayed Combustion which Zara hadn't, so my fleet wasn't up to his destroyers, fortunately, he didn't do much damage and his amphibious assault on my island city was easily repelled. And shortly


Some time later, war number two arrived, I had been expecting this one, Gilga probably wanted my vassals land.


Fortunately for me, the UN was built by me, unfortunately Gilga elected secretary at this point, but he didn't act very brightly, had he pushed the war on, I'd been, or atleast Roosevelt would've been toast.


I couldn't get the voted needed for a diplo victory, I did get elected secretary from time to time, enough to upset the world with some provocative elections, making my main opposition defy the resolutions and thus hopefully get some happiness issues. I did however manage to enact the non nuclear weapons agreement, covering my back there as well incase things turned badly later on.

Finally, Apollo was built, I had at this point teched quite some spacetechs before building it so I could start producing alot of the spaceship at once.


Techs at this point


I now knew the spacerace was won and the game as well, noone near any domination or culture victories. Noone would be able to finish their ship before me. Even diplo was out of the question, no AI would be well liked enough to get the needed votes, actually, I had enough votes myself with Roosevelt to block any such attempt.

Finally


The dutch land at the end
Main continent east

Main continent west

Former Sals land west

Former Sals land east


To show a pretty good productioncity at the end, not optimal, but atleast it pushed out spaceparts very quickly


Another good production city, it got the HE a few turns from the end, guess the Red cross made a unit get over the needed 4th level, even before that, it was very good, shows the power of the dutch UB combined with Moai.


Techs at the end


Did I forget this one? A must post really


And finally some statistics






Score, really nothing to brag about...



Conclusion. An easy game. A fin civ is really strong on this kind of map, plays out several levels easier than the choosen one. I finally got to test the dutch UU, never played the dutch this late in a game before and it proved to be very powerful on this map. All my cities had very good late game production, the UB combined with Mining inc made for good hammers even in otherwise poor production cities.

 

[flipsix3]

-> 1260AD

Spoiler :

Not surprisingly the focus was on expansion, and filling (or, at least, ringing) the continent.



Although I had OB with Zara, there's been no sign of him (or anyone) attempting to land on our shores yet. Good! That gave me time to pick my spots and grab a good number of coastal sites.

I've also got a couple of holy cities, most notably The Hague - as and when I pop a GP I'll be shrining, in the meantime I've set about landing a couple of missionaries on Zara's border cities to start the spread.

Here's an overview of my cities:




Utrecht is gearing up to be the big production centre - apart from builds to increase caps, it will start to churn out a sizeable military with a view to overseas exploration/conquest - meanwhile I'm tempted to look at whether I can set up my starting continent with three viable cities for a cultural win, with the side option (if diplomacy is handled well) of grabbing the UN and aiming for a Diplo win.

Thoughts/comments/critique always welcome, as ever there's a good chance that my individual city management is left wanting!

 

[Nials]

Part III, Prince/Epic, 490AD

Spoiler :

I decided to follow Fierabras advice and pursue Mathematics -> Calendar -> Compass -> Machinery -> Optics while avoiding Meditation and Civil Service. This would make any GS's lightbulb Astronomy, which would be a huge economic boon. I have no barb trouble and my power is on par with Zara, so I won't invest too much in military yet, instead the plan is to settle the two cities down south and then expand on the Horses island straight east of Amsterdam, that city would be decent for Moai.

Middelburg gets founded 115 AD 1SE of the desert hill to the south. I thought of settling it 1S of the Copper instead and only settling one city down there, but I figure with TGL in place I might as well leverage it by settling more cities, plus I have an extra Settler ready to go. They won't really have any overlap anyway, as two of the three shared tiles are desert.
My workers are somewhat idling around with not much to do, so I decide to replace the riverside mines in Amsterdam with mines. It's not production but commerce that I am lacking and Amsterdam is not really that well geared as a production center anyway.

Delft gets founded 1E of the Banana at 145 AD.

I explore a little more around my island and find another nice fishing island to settle. It would make a very slightly better GP farm than Rotterdam.


At 295 AD, a few things happen. First, Calendar is in and Amsterdam also pops a GP, but it isn't a GM...

How lucky! I accidently ran two scientists for a few turns and this is the outcome *lol*. I'm not really sure what to do with him, he can lightbulb Compass, but that's not a very beaker heavy tech. As the Silks and Incense are being improved immediately, all cities will get a few extra pop, so Amsterdam can work more cottages, and thus an Academy seems to be the best use of him at the moment.

At 370 AD, Leiden gets founded on the island straight east of Amsterdam.

Around this time I also confirm that Zara and I are isolated. I've now explored the sea as much as I can until Optics.

400 AD comes around and The Hague loses its Forge to a random event. Ah well, at least it didn't provide any happiness.


490 AD is where I decided to end the round. Machinery will be done in 8 turns and Optics will take an additional 10-11. At that point, Astronomy is available to be bulbed. Rotterdam will produce a GS in 29 turns, which should be able to bulb about half of Astronomy I believe?

This is how the world appears at the moment

GPT has been booming lately because of the happiness boost from Calendar. I think happiness is one of my biggest problems as I'm #1 in land area but far down the population total.
Totalling only four cities, Zara's empire is pretty small. It also has a nice chunk of grassland. An invasion would definitely not be out of the question, the only problem is when to do it. I don't want to make a detour for Construction and siege just yet, so maybe post-Astronomy with Maces and Trebs.

 

[cripp7]

@cripp7

Spoiler :

WOW, That is a strong science city! It has all the right buildings and mass scientists to boot. Whip a cheap building (Colosseum -50% cost) for happiness.

@Fierabras

Spoiler :

Added OU/NE for a great sceince city, despite the health

Spoiler :

Took a little long but finished vasseling everyone but Joao, he had medicine on me. Sal spawned Kuby Khan which broke free after Sal caved in. Rifles/cannons vs LBs are great

Power

Double Moai production

Relations

Techs

Score, could've been better


Still not that great on water maps, I prefer B&S, continents, pangea. but a win is a win