NC XVIII: Willem

[dalamb]

Until recently I've been unable to finish games, getting bogged down and quitting instead. Now that I'm doing better I'm retrying the Willem game.

Spoiler old attempts :

4000 - 2350 BC
2350 BC -1395 AD
1395-1710 AD
Replay 500 BC - 1752 AD (to try amphibious assaults).

Here's what I've been doing differently:

Spoiler :

Initial goals:

1. Keep the same early strategy of going for the GLH and Colossos in Amsterdam, and Pyramids and Hanging Gardens in Utrecht (to the west between stone and pigs). Succeeded, but I had only two cities until 470 BC as a result. That still worked out OK as far as I can tell. I also wanted the Hagia Sophia (for the extra GE points and the boost to building improvements on the island) but missed it. One minor "advantage" was that with Creative border expansion I could often pre-build improvements before settling a city on the continent. To do: build Cristo Redentor here; ISTM I may be doing some civic switching, especially if Saladin tries to attack (again).
2. Avoid combat; last time I tried conquering Zara; it worked but was very tedious. He's a friendly neighbour, with whom I've traded several techs.
3. Take Confucianism and spread it to everyone I could. Succeeded. Zara got it but eventually switched to Taoism; some judicious spying, bribing, and missionary spamming eventually got him to switch back. Post-caravels I sent a single missionary each to Joao and Gilgamesh, the only ones without a religion, and they converted.
4. Settle the empty island to my west, since I knew it would eventually have oil. Succeeded; last time Joao beat me to it.
5. Settle the jungle island. Failed: Hammurabi got there first. In retrospect I may have been able to get there faster than I did, since I delayed Astronomy a little too long.
6. Build Sid's Sushi and follow the advice about spreading it to foreign civilizations, who supposedly will spam it to all their cities if you put one in a good production centre. Party successful; I founded it with the GM from Economics, and have been sending execs, but they haven't started producing their own (yet).
7. Make good use of dikes. Succeeded wildly: they do wonders for those 1-tile islands! Of course I had to buy them with Universal Suffrage.

I'm aiming for a spaceship victory. Here's the current situation:

Spoiler map :

I'm reasonably ahead in score and tied on culture.

Spoiler culture :

Spoiler score :

A few mildly interesting features:

• I needed little military at first, but built up rifleman defenders before contacting other civilizations via caravels. I'm currently reasonably on par with power.
  Spoiler power chart :

  
• Saladin eventually DoW'd and proved a minor annoyance; his first attack was a losing amphibious assault against the 1-tile island of Delft (to the SW). I managed to build a few frigates and eventually Ships of the Line to hold him off, bribed Zara to join the war, and eventually used the AP so that Babylon and Portugal joined the fun.
• I missed building the Statue of Liberty but decided to go back a few turns and buy it. With science at zero I was picking up about 900 gold per turn, so it didn't take long. I foolishly used up a GE to rush half of it, but the cash could have taken care of it alone. I may back up a bit and go pure cash to preserve the GE for a second corporation.
• After pausing I happened to read a thread that discussed national wonders, and discovered how National Park works. I was excited to realize that 's-Hert-whatever on the east coast of the island to my west is still surrounded by forests -- I'd built lumbermills and chopped zero or one -- so is ideal for nature preserves and the NP. It's high on my todo list for right after I resume (likely later tonight or tomorrow).

 

[ilikepies]

Willem is probably my favorite leader due to his ability to keep up with commerce and research and at the same time squish enemies culturally.

I have no idea what the Noble's Club is though. I assume you download the save file and play it on a difficulty? Sounds interesting, could someone explain it? I'm definitely up to try another game as the Dutch.

 

[dalamb]

It's a WorldBuilder save file -- unzip it into your Saves\Worldbuilder directory and run it as a Custom Scenario. You can choose whatever speed and difficulty you like, but the AI won't have its extra techs if you run at Monarch or above -- that takes multiple WB save files to do right, and I just started doing that a game or two ago for the newer NC games.

 

[millahnna]

So like I said in the Sury thread, I've been backplaying a lot of these.

In case anyone is still reading older NC's my save is attached. On the whole, there's one or two little things I think I could have done better (and one major, "d'oh, I totally forgot I meant to do that" issue) but this is going pretty well. But then I do really well at water maps of this sort, so I probably should have tried one level up.

Spoiler :

Isolated starts are totally my thing. Apparently I'm a big ole freak.

I settled in place and if I recall correctly my initial tech path involved getting BW, AH, and Sailing fairly early. Z came over and said hi by way of fishing boat around the time I got my fourth city placed. I didn't actually mean to finish Moai in The Hague. I was going to switch it to something else and then build Moai on Horse Island but I totally spaced and forgot to set my BUG reminder. So I lost out on placement and fail gold. Pout. Hague will still be a decent city but Leiden will suffer until I get dykes. Such is life.

I got two early GScis out of my library in Amsterdam. Academy built in Amsterdam with one, bulbed something with the other. Just got my GPro for my Holy Shrine as well.



I founded Confucianism (unfortunately in a production city) and Z founded Christianity (can't remember which town) just after I got to his island and blocked off his ability to expand past his first two cities. I'm zipping towards optics now to go meet the other neighbors but he's following the same path so it's time to go to war. He just offered to be my vassal a turn or two ago but I want to wipe him out before something dumb like a border pop gives back the iron I rightfully stole from him.

I plan on making his capital my GP farm (he's got a wonder there but I forget which), and will likely keep his other city as well.



After Optics I'm going back to trading techs so that I can (hopefully) trade with my other neighbors when I find them. Depending on the situation there, I think I may try for a Diplo win, which will be new to me.

I'm not sure what to do about the Shrine in Production City issue. Wall Street will likely be planned for Z's holy city once it's mine and shrined but I may do some weird combinations of the various Production city wonders since I have a few OK-decent hammer towns instead. I'd like to build the Apo Palace but Convert to Christianity since no one else will have it so I can control who gets it and then make Confucianism my money religion. Maybe I should do that the other way around?

Off to play more.

 

[dalamb]

@millahnna:

Spoiler :

I had fun on that map, but it never occurred to me to pre-emptively settle on Z's island -- thanks for that insight! Maybe I'll try again eventually -- I did well but bogged down at the point where I needed to deal with overseas warfare.

 

[millahnna]

@dalamb

Spoiler :

Bogged down overseas, that was my experience after that save as well. It's a running problem of mine in general but I lagged around instead of settling on barbarian island as quickly as I needed to (that's going to serve as my launch point for two foes). Consequently, Hammy and someone else settled there with me. At the same time Hammy settled the one tile island just SW of my island and started harassing me. I can't decide if I sould have settled on that patch of desert that is isolated by mountains (next to the nanners) to border pop block him or if building some more cultural stuff in the stone/pig city would have handled it.

My Apo palace plan went to poo also; some doofus finished it a turn or two later. So I'm trying to switch gears to a Domination win. Sharing the island is not helping me at all on that angle but I did move my stack o doom there after wiping out Z. So maybe I can recover.

Of course I may just pull my usual and start over after I've tried a few other NC's first (that wonder fail error is really bugging me). I like to hop around on them so that I forget some of the details by the time i retry.

 

[Tarkeel]

I know this is an oldie, but I'm just back from a long break on the game, and how could I resist playing one of my favorite civs?
Playing at monarch, normal speed; no huts or events.

Up to 1000BC

Spoiler :

Initial thoughts:
Lack of worker-improvable tiles, so start on work boat. Research bronze working, then start cutting and mining.
Claim the horse/fish for production, then the pig/hills.

Mining->BW->The Wheel->Animal Husbandry->Sailing->Masonry->Pottery->Writing->Math->Currency
Amsterdam: Work Boat->Worker->Work Boat->Settler->Worker->Warrior(x3)->Settler->Worker

2640 (34): Met Zara yaqob

Status at 1000 BC:
3 cities, 3 workers, 4 warriors. 5 turns to Great Lighthouse, break even at 24 beakers.

 

[dalamb]

@Tarkeel:

Spoiler :

As usual the GLH is tremendous on a watery map, especially with a FIN leader, so I hope you get it! I don't think TheHague is in the best position -- 1 off the river means no dike later in the game. For me it was important to settle near the stone so I could get the 'mids: 1E of the lake, using the pigs as primary food, but that might be irrelevant to you. See millahnna's game, too -- he settled eastward, including on Zara's island.

 

[millahnna]

@dalamb

Spoiler :

He can still put a dyke in TheHague because it's coastal. Dykes are like a cross between the levee and the Moai in that respect; coastal or river works.

 

[dalamb]

@millahnna:

Spoiler :

How could I forget that dikes work on sea tiles! My Dutch friends will disown me! But I still think 1E on the teeny river is slightly better.

 

[Tarkeel]

@dalamb:

Spoiler :

I put The Hauge there to minimize overlap on the city sites I went for; had I known about the Iron I would have put it on the river. I think it worked out prety well though.

Up to 560 AD:

Spoiler :

Fourth settler was sent exploring on a galley towards the east; and found this nice spot to land:

This turned out to be Zara Yaqob's homeland; We stole his only happiness and I managed to sneak in two more cities (beating him to Leiden by one turn or so).

The homelands have three more commerce cities built, next will be the plains-hill in between at and then probably just south of the desert copper.

Utrecht built the Great Lighthouse, and The Hague managed to sneak in the Pyramids. Calendar was next goal to get some more happiness; then going for optics to explore the world.

I actualy only hooked up the Copper this turn, not having had any use for it and no cities working the tile. Not sure what to do about ZY yet; he has no resources and no tech so should be an easy kill; I just have to grab CS and I will have macemen to clob him with. Best he can bring to bear will be catapults.

Status at 560 AD: 9 cities, 2 wonders; 1 crippled AI.