Noble Marathon Space Attempt

[pigswill]

As I understand it the key to an early space victory is to have a big empire at an early date and I thought the bestest leader for this would be Darius the Iranian (the empire formerly known as Persian)

Map: standard size, temperate, big n' small. Marathon speed. No barbs, huts or events. 10 hand picked opponents

Spoiler :

Bismark, Elizabeth, Gandhi, Hyuana C, Isabella, Joao, Louis, Mansa, Peter, Ramesses, Roosevelt. No nasty unit spammers or protective civs, happy for the AI to build the wonders I don't want)

Traits: financial, organised. Financial is kind of self-evident. Organised less so but half price civics in a large empire is yummy (and may help combat inflation) and of course cheap courthouses (with just one chop CH can be whipped as soon as a city hits pop2).

Starting techs: agriculture and hunting.

UU : Immortal ( chariot with bonus against archers)

UB Apothecary (grocer with +2 health bonus, pretty useful for late game industrial conurbations).

Awesome Start

Spoiler :

Three plains cows, plains wine, 5 green tiles. More Little House on the Prairie than Hall of Fame.

I've already played (badly of course) up to 240ad. Summary to be added.

If anyone has the interest and patience to play along here's the starting save.

 

[pigswill]

2000bc

Spoiler :

Settle 1N on plains hills, lose three grassland, gain three plains..

Started with AH and worker of course, good news is horses in bfc, the world is doomed . Then wheel to connect horses and build immortals, built barracks while waiting to start immortals then its off to war.
Captured Delhi 2605, Moscow 2340, Washington 2200. Built a city (Pasagardae) in 2250 for floodplain cottages because the capital isn't exactly commerce rich. Built Stonehenge (2100bc) for a bit of culture

By 2000bc I have 5 cities, 6 workers, researched AH> Wheel> Min> BW> Myst> Masonry (stone in Delhi)> Fishing> Pottery.

1000bc

Spoiler :

More of the same.

Captured Lisbon (1850bc) and Cuzco (1280bc), autorazed a couple of pop1 cities in the process.

Bit of a gap in between because I was building settlers to fill the wide open spaces and a few Wonders: Pyramids (1750), Oracle ((CoL) 1460), Glight (1410), settled 7 cities.

Techwise the highlight was researching maths and getting alphabet and IW in trade . Also researched Currency (economy), Aesthetics/Poly (for Parthenon and Lit), MC (for Colossus) and Calendar (for happiness and Mom). Skipped HbR coz I don't need HAs or Wellies.

Delayed Lit because Persepolis is busy with Parthenon and I'm planning on using Persepolis as my GP Farm using Wonders instead of specialists to generate gpp. Moscow's on the coast so that's got Glight and will get Colossus.

By 1000bc up to 15 cities, 16 workers, 240bpt, -15gpt

 

[Anysense]

Your expansion is too slow even in Deity stadards. I suggest you replay and try to get to at least 30 cities by 1000 BC. No point spending a lot of time on a game when the first stage is a complete fiasco. It would also give you wrong impression of what the endgame should look like.

I would also advise you to check 'no city razing' next time. There is no point razing cities except in very rare circumstances and there is always an option to give them away. There may actually be an excellent reason to do so, apart from avoiding unnecessary expenses.

 

[pigswill]

I'm sure you're right.

I would be genuinely interested in how you approached this particular game and got 30+ cities by 1000bc. Obviously it would be totally different to your impressive deity spaceship win.

 

[Anysense]

If you were playing Romans/Deity I would be able to give you more detailed advice. Since it's Persia/Noble I'm kind of clueless and can say only that you should conquer faster and perhaps build more settlers at some point. Apparently, you are trying to tech to much early on, while you only need AH, the Wheel, BW and Math, everything else can wait. May be, try and find better map, something with commerce and better food - cows are nice for building Immortals but the initial growth is way too slow. I'm no expert on Noble but may be you should not settle immediately and go hut-hunting with starting settler instead.

Edit: Ah, no huts. Well, you can't hope for extreme results without those. Why did you turn them off? It is true that random events can turn very nasty, but you can't go wrong with huts.

 

[pigswill]

You make some valid points. I have to admit that I got the balance wrong between economic growth and horizontal expansion. Can't go wrong with huts, not autorazing pop1 cities beats waiting several turns for them to grow to pop2. I shall roll a new game and start from the beginning.

 

[pigswill]

Started again.

Map: standard size, temperate, big n' small. Marathon speed. No barbs, city-razing or events.

10 hand picked opponents: Bismark, Liz, Gandhi, HC, Isabella, Joao, Louis, Peter, Rameses, Roosevelt. No nasty unit spammers or protective civs

Traits: financial, organised. Financial is kind of self-evident. Organised less so but half price civics in a large empire is yummy (and may help combat inflation) and of course cheap courthouses (with just one chop CH can be whipped as soon as a city hits pop2).

Starting techs: agriculture and hunting.

UU : Immortal ( chariot with bonus against archers)

UB Apothecary (grocer with +2 health bonus, pretty useful for late game industrial conurbations).

Interesting start: stone,marble, oasis, cow, desert gold 3E, floodplains south and east probably extending southwards. Tricky. Floodplains are nice but not when you have too many of them (0.4 health malus/FP) and you don't have the health resources to compensate.

Might be worth exploring for a couple of turns before committing myself.

 

[Anysense]

You make some valid points. I have to admit that I got the balance wrong between economic growth and horizontal expansion. Can't go wrong with huts, not autorazing pop1 cities beats waiting several turns for them to grow to pop2. I shall roll a new game and start from the beginning.

You are playing a very different game here, it takes time to get used to it and learn to think in a different way.

Ignore stone and marble, there will be plenty of time to get hold of them later, remember its Marathon. Try to roll something with wet corn/pigs and large amounts forests.

 

[pigswill]

I agree that stone and marble aren't top priority. Before considering re-rolling I'll explore with settler and scout for a couple of turns to see what's around.

 

[krikav]

For someone who know little about space and nothing about marathon, things doesn't need to be perfect to be entertaining.

If I want to see a near perfect execution, I got threads of @Anysense / @WastinTime and @Fish Man to consult.

You do your own thing @pigswill ! And for the record, I like events/huts off too.

 

[pigswill]

Explored a couple of turns, the more I explored the 'worse' it got so abandoned that start and after a few abortive re-rolls I came across this map.

Third Time Lucky.

Actually its a coastal start ..

Spoiler :

But not as we know it. 2 coast, 2 coastal clams, grassland cows, dry grassland corn, PH gold, 2 floodplains, 2 grass hills, 6 grass and 3 plains. 11 Forests sitting on top of that lot and even a small river for a few cottages.

I actually moved scout 1 west first.He discovered gold in them there hills which prompted me to relax and SIP, Might even name the capital Cornucopia.

I forgot to mention there was a goodie hut in bfc which I popped by settling. I didn't get , I didn't get , I got a second scout. Oh well, that should speed up early exploration, might even get me an extra hut to compensate.

Something else worth noting is that there is literally nowhere to get horses in bfc so I can forget early Immortals.

@ krikav, As well as being entertaining (unlikely) I'd also like to play better than usual. All the good players play immortal or deity at normal speed so there ain't that much known about optimal strategies for noble marathon. As I've posted before the standard high level plays (failgold, bulb and beeline to backfill etc) don't actually work that well. Trouble is, no-one really knows the best alternatives.

 

[Anysense]

Nice start. It is good to have early access to coast actually - easy to get exploring workboat soon. Of course, you do not have to strive for perfection and you can reload and replay as you wish, since you are not playing for HoF. However, if you are used to Normal then Marathon is bound to take you out of your comfort zone.

 

[Snowbird]

so there ain't that much known about optimal strategies for noble marathon.

Since you've got experience, what are your big picture views?

From theory standpoint - I would say pick some imperialistic leader, Cathy probably. With noble level resistance, you do not need fancy units like immortals - chariots probably would do. Oracling something silly should be a priority.

Barbs are probably not making many cities on Noble either. Great Lighthouse+Colossus should be nice...

Not sure Organized is worth and with noble tech discounts probably could do without Financial,

 

[krikav]

I think Napoleon would be a nice choice too.
Cha helps quite abit with conquest. Not only can you get stronger units quicker, but you can also use the promotions abit like health potions.
I like ORG alot, getting factories up easier is lovely, and in a game where you get a ton of cities and massive upkeep, cheaper courthouses must be totally awesome.

The muskets might be a nice alternative too, two movers that ignore walls/castles and you can get them much quicker than cuirs. Also you are almost there if you go for banking which most mara/huge/HOFers seem to value alot.

 

[Anysense]

Organized factories are great, but couthouses... I built 11 on Deity and that was a bit of an overkill. Imperialistic is another great trait if using corporations, otherwise you won't have to settle that many cities. Financial is always usefull. Industrious may not be that good on Noble - how much failgold do you really need? Creative is great for random games but in HoF conditions... Probably not. Can't think of anything else; surely you do not need Aggressive or Charismatic to help you against Noble level AI. I think the choice is limited to leaders with two traits of the big four and a nice early UU if playing on a higher difficulty level, which narrows the choice even further.

Philosophical might be interesting, but there are no philo leaders with good UU. I expect Liz would be pretty good on Noble, though.

 

[pigswill]

@Snowbird, Very little experience I'm afraid.

I actually think that Immortals are a good choice, you shouldn't need late UUs because you should be able to clear enough territory to get up to 50% land in classical times. On the other hand you are likely to encounter some hilltop archers at some point and str6 v archers is much better than Str4 when it comes to minimising losses (and losing momentum through replacing losses and healing survivors).

In terms of expansion the issue is whether the limit is building settlers (you won't be capturing that many cities) or city maintenance. A few weeks ago I had a go at noble marathon on earth 18 playing Cyrus , I got to 10 cities by 2000bc easily enough but I then spent the next 500 years getting research above 0. That convinced me that the limit is financial hence Darius.

I also think that early (and cheap) courthouses is important to early game expansion so probably look to Oracle CoL rather than slow research CoL. You can of course save Oracle for a more expensive tech but if your expansion stalls because you're skint your empire and economy will be that much smaller which affects all your research.

The bit I'm not so sure about is whether to go cottages or specialists ( a debate almost as old as Civ 4). I'm personally not convinced by specialists because a scientist may generate 6bpt with rep but costs -2F. A city with 2 5F tiles can run 3 scientists for 18 bpt at pop5, however that's only 3.6bpt per pop and stagnant growth. Five grassland cottages feed themselves and once they get to 4bpt that's 20 commerce and the city is still growing (and the cottages are still maturing towards towns.).

I'm also not convinced by Rep in a big empire because it gives max +15 happy (3*5). Each city has to have one MP unit to keep the citizens happy regardless of civics, Once you get to 16 cities HR actually provides more happiness than rep all the way up to 40+ cities.

Obviously the issue with specialists and food is quite different if you go for Sushi but you have to figure out how to get there when you basically have to research everything yourself.

With Big and Small then Glight and Colossus obviously make coastal and island expansion much more affordable so come under the heading of Must Have Wonders.

edit: @ Anysense. Philosophical obviously generates more GPs (cheaper Unis is nice but not game breaking in the same way as cheap granaries/libraries/courthouses). What do you use the GPs for? Going for a string of GMTMs is worth consideration, a few academies are nice.
Bulbs are nice but if you bulb education you still have to research banking and nationalism yourself
Surprisingly one of the handicaps of Marathon is Golden Ages which only run 16 turns (=5,3 T normal speed)

 

[Qactus]

Btw this is an excellent ressource to see how everything (GPP, Golden Ages, chopping, drafting, etc.) scales with game speed:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/game-speed-and-map-size.411750/

 

[Anysense]

@pigswill , You should throw pretty much everything your Normal/Standard experience taught you out of the window and start tabula rasa.

I'm still convinced that courthouses are utterly useless even on Deity, even with Organized, except a few for Forbidden Palace.

Your empire should be net negative from around turn 100 until first Golden Age. If gpt is positive at 0% research while not in GA, Caste+Representation and starving your cities to max out bpt/gpt, then you are doing something seriously wrong.

Representation is not about 15, it is about 6 per unit of population. You won't even need military police once you get some vassals. Very convinient when you are just finished with expansion and enter research phase. Every citizen that does not have a good tile to work - such as riverside workshop/village/town - has to be a scientist. This all situational: just do whatever gets you more beakers, as long you don't quite starve your cities - you'll need that population later.

Cottages are good but take forever to mature. May be worth it to build some with Financial, nothing later than t200 will do, though. The problem is that you have to build cottages while still in expansion phase, when your cities do not have much time to work cottages. Hence, I hardly ever build them, Deity AI is really nice about developing some for me, though.

Normally, you should not need Heriditary Rule for happiness and Bureacracy is to be avoided even with Organized, unless you absolutely need the hammer bonus for something very important. Vassalage is good for extra promotions and Nationalism for 0 maintenance is a no-brainer once it is available.

GLH and Colossus are some the most important wonders on a watery map. GLH in particular is very important to build early along with a few island cities for better traderouts. And if can grow some of them to size 14 or above you will have 3-4 traderouts.

I would think it is obvious what you need GPs for: Golden Ages and bulbing. Yet again, intuition trained in a Standard/Normal box can suggest insane things. A few academies? Nah, it is hardly worth it even in the capital. Philosophical might help you to get two more GS/GM for bulbing, shaving off a few turns to Mining and then a few more to Sushi, but hardly more than that.

Golden Ages run 24 turns on Marathon, I've never even heard of 16 turns, neither should you

I'm not sounding a bit harsh? Ah, Forget it. Except, may be, stuff in bold.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

@pigswill For the given settings (Noble, Marathon, no auto-raze), you can capture capitals just by sending in a warrior before T30. Would probably want to overload the map with max amount of AI to take advantage.

 

[Qactus]

@pigswill...
Golden Ages run 24 turns on Marathon, I've never even heard of 16 turns, neither should you
...

Regular Golden Ages are 8 turns on Normal and 16 turns on Marathon speed and thus scale very badly compared to other things.
If you have the MoM (which you should) then yes, you'll get 24 turns, but then you'd have to compare it with 12 on normal, which is the same unfavorable scale.