Noble Continents game - need advice

[bippukt]

Hello everyone! I am currently playing Noble game (Standard size Continents + medium sea level + Permanent alliances enabled + all other settings standard). I chose Elizabeth of England and I have to say that the Financial+Philosophical combination is unbelievably strong. A solid start position with 2 gems helped me along, of course

EDIT - BUG Mod is required.

Currently, I am on a continent with Roosevelt, Gandhi (Roosevelt's vassal) and Suryavarman. Roosevelt and Gandhi are friendly with me and they dislike Surya. So I decided to use my tech lead to kill Surya, which is almost done.

I have just got Redcoats and Cavalry (must be around 1500AD) and I now have several choices open to me. First of all, I am almost certain that I am going to win the game. But I want to say that Roosevelt and Zara Yaqob are giving me something to think about. You can just have a look at the savegame and help me about the following

1. I have Redcoats and Cavalry and will soon have cannons - I can kill off any Civ that I choose to. The easiest target would be Roosevelt (and so Gandhi too). I don't need them for tech trading as I am way ahead. But, they are both friendly to me, they are both peaceful guys and they are both willing tech traders. Should I go ahead and attack him.

2. Or should I go towards combustion, crank out a few transports and load those Redcoats and attack Zara Yaqob?

3. What about a UN victory? I am not in its favour mainly because I think Roosevelt will be my competitor and I need his votes at the very least to win.

4. My land is full of grassland - I like that but this has left my cities with poor production. I just can't crank out units with as much speed as I would like.

5. What about a permanent alliance with Roosevelt? Is that possible?

Any advice about any of the above (or anything else ) will be welcome

 

[TheLlama]

Are you playing this game with any mods? Because I can't seem to load it without BUG 3.51, which I don't have.

 

[bippukt]

OUCH! Sorry, but it does have the BTS Unaltered Gameplay (BUG) mod. I should have mentioned it earlier. Sorry for wasting your time

BTW, you should get the BUG mod - it doesn't change gameplay at all and adds a lot of nice interface features.

 

[TheLlama]

Ignore my last post. You are playing this game with BUG, so it is worthwhile to point out that anyone without it cannot view your file. That being said, it turns out I do still have BUG installed, even after re-installing BtS so I was able to have a look.

I think your game can go two different ways. You can either go for a diplo victory, or you can leverage your extreme tech lead and go for a domination win. If you go for the diplo victory, your first step would be to finish off the Khmer to get those votes secured. Then, I probably would attack the Americans, because it would be tough to win a diplo with ~24% of the world voting for itself plus Gandhi's votes. However, once you finish that war, you pretty much only need one AI's vote, which you should be able to accomplish by courting one of the bottom 3 on the other continent.

The second option, which is much more fun and higher scoring, is to get the domination vistory. If you take this approach, I would reccomend vassalizing Khmer, because they will continue to expand while you war, and half of their land and pop go towards your threshold. Again, Roosevelt/Gandhi should be your first target, since overseas empires are oppressively expensive before SP. I would do my best to finish them off entirely, because once your borders pop, it seems to me that their empires should put you close to domination. If necessary, find the weakest AI on the other continent and pound them till they capitulate, and that should do it (Preferably not ZY if avoidable, because I can attest to the fact that a war against the SoZ is misery).

Note: In either case, it is to your advantage to capture Delhi as quickly as possible, since a double shrine city provides an exceptional boost to your economy, esp. if you put Wall Street there. I hope this helps! And be sure to let me know how it works out.

-Hamlet_of_Denmark

Edit: I see you already noticed my last post... In that case, sorry for the redundancy, and yes, everyone should get BUG, it's totally awesome.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

OUCH! Sorry, but it does have the BTS Unaltered Gameplay (BUG) mod. I should have mentioned it earlier. Sorry for wasting your time

BTW, you should get the BUG mod - it doesn't change gameplay at all and adds a lot of nice interface features.

Yes it does. It lags considerably, and almost oppressively with logs on. To players who spend a lot of time/turn, this is a minimal sacrifice. To me, losing 5 seconds between relatively early game turns and 10 during late-game turns amounts to 10-20% of the time I spend on those turns. That hurts.

Even if you try to optimize the settings for it, it doesn't seem to run as fast as the standard install with no mods . This is somewhat a shame as it has some useful features even to me.

Finally, what's up with the extra-long city bars that don't register when you click on certain parts of them? Pretty obnoxious.

BUG is an excellent tool for learning micro but not-so-hot for playing games quickly.

 

[TheLlama]

I think the problem might be in your comp, not in the mod. I've used it for a while, and it doesn't lag me much at all, even when I play on large maps.

 

[bippukt]

Well, I continued the game and I decided to go for what I thought was the easiest option - Permanent Alliance. But for some reason, despite having extremely friendly relations with Roosevelt, he just won't accept a PA. You can see the screenshots to see what he says - "We haven't had a defesive pact or shared a mutual war for long enough"

The bonus from mutual military struggle has reached +4 already. What else does he want?

I have attached the relevant screenshots and the latest save-game file.

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

Finally, what's up with the extra-long city bars that don't register when you click on certain parts of them? Pretty obnoxious.

BUG is an excellent tool for learning micro but not-so-hot for playing games quickly.

I think I read that they extended the city bar so you could read everything on it...but you're right, you can still only click where the original sized of the city bar was. You can't click on the "extended" portion. Pretty annoying, but you get used to it.

I never really noticed bug slowing me down too much, because my comp isn't the greatest anyhow. However, the 2 main things I find really useful, are the whip reminders, and having the power rating right there for me to see at all times.

But maybe I'll try uninstalling it, as I think I've got whipping for the most part now, and I've learned to open my advisor screens a lot more (F4 I love you). Guess I can just open the ole military advisor too. I do want to see how much time I can save without it.

 

[Joshua368]

Yeah, the BUG mod isn't supposed to slow things down, your computer just isn't good enough. You can easily turn those off anyway.

I never even noticed the glitched up city bars, huh.

At any rate, the easy constant access to great people information, power rating, AI attitude, available tech trades and WHEOOHRN are certainly worth any negative side effects... which I apparently don't notice anyway.

 

[bippukt]

Well, it seems that the game has decided things for me. Roosevelt vassalized Saladin and now he is so big that he doesn't want a PA. "He is doing fine on his own" - all that investment down the drain Next time I am just going to kill my neighbour if I have such a big tech advantage. I guess that it's time to kill some weak civs and go for domination. Zara Yaqob can build the UN - no one is going to win now as I won't vote for Roosevelt.

PS - I hate PC slowing Norton

Will post the final result of the game.

 

[TheLlama]

In my experience, a shared war is almost impossible to get a PA. Defensive pacts are pretty key. Also, if you were the most powerful, he would never sign it, citing the reason 'you've grown too powerful for us.' Good luck on finishing, space ships are fun sometimes too.

 

[bippukt]

Finally finished the game - bloody PC slowing Norton ...must read TMIT's guide for speed civving.

I finally won a diplomatic victory, but it should properly be called a diplomination victory. Except for Roosevelt and his vassal Gandhi, I attacked and vassalized everyone. Saladin helped by breaking free from Roosevelt . Tokugawa's infantry didn't survive English modern armor

In this game, I have learned something important:

1. If you have a big tech advantage, then either go for the space race victory or go for domination/conquest. Don't play nicey nicey...these AI bas***** are an unreliable lot

2. If you have a big tech lead, don't get complacent, don't let the game drift. Not even on noble level. The AI can catch up with you if given the chance.

3. If you have a big tech lead and want to attack someone so as to make him capitulate quickly, go for the jugular. Attack and capture his biggest cities
asap, especially his capital. Take advantage of the element of surprise. You will kill his best troops in large numbers and take out his most productive cities. Of course, the AI values these cities the most and will capitulate quickly. I attacked Joao II, captured 4 of his biggest cities and he capitulated on the same turn. Nice

4. Financial trait rocks. Philosophical is the icing on the cake. Get to those redcoats ASAP and kill everyone

5. For late game standard+ size maps, get 3-4 GB RAM. 1 GB with 8500GT and C2D processor is not good enough

I have attached a screenshot and the post-victory save game if anyone is interested.

Time to try a random leader now, perhaps on Prince or Monarch.

 

[TheLlama]

Congratulations bippukt! Excellent work. A tech lead screams conquest, not only because those victories are the highest scoring, but also because they are the most fun. I would be careful about #3 though. You have to watch out for him converting those cities back again... Of course, if you capitulate them, this is less of a worry since their borders cannot interfere with yours.

 

[bippukt]

Well, I don't think that conquered cities will flip back to the owner. But the more cultured cities, especially the inner ones, have the tendency to go into revolt very frequently. And those revolts can be very long for the big cities . But that is just an annoyance - the wonders are very useful and putting in a few theatres, libraries and universities by paying gold helps bring them around after several dozen turns. If I am certain that my vassal won't grow too big and the city doesn't have wonders, I will usually gift that city back.

But maybe things are different in Monarch+. I have played at that level rarely and did OK. But I like noble-prince more.

 

[Skallagrimson]

If you conquer a city the civ you conquered it from can't flip it back, but it can make it go (even perpetually) into revolt, even if they capitulated. You'll have the full BFC and think everything is hunky dory and then BOOM, revolt. How revolting.

 

[bippukt]

Yes, that's why I gift the inner cities back to the previous owner (my vassal) as long as he is much smaller than me. I will also keep them if they have good wonders. A theatre, library and university should help after several turns have passed. But the 10+ turn revolts don't help

BTW, do you lose the benefit of the wonders in the city if it goes into revolt? I hope not.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Yes, that's why I gift the inner cities back to the previous owner (my vassal) as long as he is much smaller than me. I will also keep them if they have good wonders. A theatre, library and university should help after several turns have passed. But the 10+ turn revolts don't help

BTW, do you lose the benefit of the wonders in the city if it goes into revolt? I hope not.

Coin benefits from a shrine go away, but I don't know for sure about the others. I'm pretty sure I've captured 'mids, had the city go into revolt, and didn't have my civics change back to something I didn't have the tech for (e.g., Police State was still in effect even though the 'mids city I captured was in revolt... I think...)

 

[Joshua368]

You get the wonder's effects immediate after capture (before the city comes out of revolt) so I'm guessing you keep them even if it goes back.

 

[bippukt]

Well then that settles it. Beware all ye wonder hogs

 

[Skallagrimson]

You get the wonder's effects immediate after capture (before the city comes out of revolt) so I'm guessing you keep them even if it goes back.

I'm pretty sure shrine gold is different though.