Noble Players, help me beat noble as Shaka

[Sidney Magal]

Let's have some brainstorm of all the noble players here and see how we can win this map. More advanced players can participate too, but I kindly request you not to scare the nobles away.

So, I started a fractal game with Shaka.


Where should I move the scout to? What could make me not settle in place?

 

[lymond]

Looks like you have a hill 2E of the scout, so I would send him 1SE/1NE to reveal a lot of land (unless it's a forest hill). Also looks like coast to the north there. I'd say settling in place depends a lot on what the scout reveals. I'd rather have those lakes in a coastal city, but if the resources are strong SIP - especially food - then it's probably worth it.

Is that too scary for the Nobles? (i can be scary if you want)

 

[vranasm]

i agree with scouting.
Kind of dont agree with moving settler for 3 turns before settling if you are thinking about settling that NE plains hill. SIP has a lot of forrests around and the map around NE plains hill seems brown.
no river around SIP screams no cottages for a while for me.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't know if it's supposed to be scary or not, but I played to 1 AD:

View attachment Noble Shaka AD-0001.CivBeyondSwordSave

Probably the hardest adjustment for rookies here will be lack of commerce in the capitol...it's not a good bureaucracy site and this leader has only 1 econ trait, which isn't the most obvious in application.

I'm open to questions on my save, but IMO the priority here (if you're not just going to go off cheesing warrior rushes), is to expand onto the best special resources.

EDIT:

I've played up to liberalism:

View attachment Noble Shaka AD-0475.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Djoums]

I would SIP, there's a lot a forests around and we have good ressources. Seems like an ok start.
Commerce will be needed in future cities.

 

[Sidney Magal]

Ok, I've played 20 turns now and would like some advice on how to go on.

I moved the scout 1SE/1NE to see what was hidden in the fog of the capital.

Spoiler :

My, oh my! Is anybody hungry? Of course I settled in place.

I started to research Animal Husbandry to be able to improve all the livestock around Ulundi. When research was completed, I saw that we have a source of horse pretty close.

Spoiler :

Time to send the scout over there. After Animal Husbandry, I researched Mining and started research of Bronze Working to put all those forests down. I still haven't finished so I don't know if we have copper or not. I think our next city should go somewhere around here:

Spoiler :

Do you guys agree? What should we research after BW? The wheel to connect our cities? Mysticism for border pops? Iron Working if we don't find copper? Archery to be safe?

Save is attached.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So far so good on tech path. City 2 is bad for a chariot rush but otherwise fine based on info so far.

 

[coanda]

When/where did you meet Mansa? That's a good city site you've got marked there, but if there's another good site in his direction you might want to head that way first.

I'd grab Myst next, particularly if that's the second city you go with - you really want to be able to work the horses and rice there. Of course, if you have your heart set on an axe or sword rush and draw no copper, I suppose iron working is a possibility... but Mansa is such a great trading partner and nice neighbor, as long as you don't let him run away with the game.

 

[Issus]

I agree with you on the city placement. I wouldnt consider chariot rushing Mansa.

Edit: I would go mysticism for the borders to get horse and rice.

 

[Djoums]

City 2 would be ok for production and barb defense (although on noble it's not that crucial ). Surrounding land does not look great for commerce though.

 

[Sidney Magal]

Mansa came from the west. I'll send my scout in that direction to try to find him. So I'll go to mysticism after BW. Will play more tonight.

Why rush? I have no idea where he is so it would be a little silly to decide that now. What if he is ~20 tiles away? If he is very close, a rush becomes more attractive, don't you think?

BTW folks, don't be shy! If you have something to add or shadowed the game, feel free to post.

 

[Civman123]

I don't know about chariot rushing mansa. Because of the 4 strength skirmishers, you probably will need a couple more chariots than usual. Considering the relatively inconvenient horses (needing a border pop or weak city to get), and Mansa's good disposition and low unit prob, it is probably better to wait for later to kill him. I would go for peaceful expansion.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Mansa came from the west. I'll send my scout in that direction to try to find him. So I'll go to mysticism after BW. Will play more tonight.

Why rush? I have no idea where he is so it would be a little silly to decide that now. What if he is ~20 tiles away? If he is very close, a rush becomes more attractive, don't you think?

BTW folks, don't be shy! If you have something to add or shadowed the game, feel free to post.

Mansa is the pits to rush. Skirmishers are ugly to attack. Try blocking him off instead. Remember, Mansa is the only AI who will trade monopoly techs. If you don't have company on your landmass (or you get rid of the other company) you'll appreciate that. If you like taking vassals, he's the one. He might offer to peacevassal before Nimoy tells you you've research Feudalism.

However, block him off! He's a top techer and if he gets good land he techs about the fastest of anybody. He can complicate the diplo scene, however. With his tech whoring, he always gets on somebody's bad side.

Finally, Mansa doesn't build that many units, so if you want to take him out later, he probably won't have that big of an army (it may be advanced, however).

Good thing about having Mansa on your continent is he isn't on another continent. That's when you hate him because he increases the tech rate of whatever continent he's on.

 

[Benginal]

Turns 0-32. This is the first time I've ever written a game up like this. Let's just say that I now appreciate what Kossin and Sisiutil do a lot more.

Spoiler :

Turn 0: Moved the scout to the pigs hill. Settle in place. Start on worker and Animal Husbandary.

We don’t have any good commerce in our capital. We do however have a lot of food. I decide to settle in place and get writing and a library up to run two scientists. This initial plan is subject to change since I’m not an expert at using specialists to power my economy and research. So if I can capture a better beaurocracy capital I will move my palace there and cottage spam.

Turn 1: Send the scout east.

I want to avoid settling in the tundra if I can help it. So I tend to scout in good looking around my capital at first looking for a good second site. In this case though, I see a hut. I haven’t played with huts in quite a while. But given it’s there I’ll go pop it.

Turn 3: 28 gold … Merh.

Turn 10: Start on Mining. Still scouting to the east. Land isn’t excellent, but there’s grassland, some nice food specials, and stone.

Mining itself won’t be useful for quite a few turns. But bronze working, with all these forests and all this food for whipping, is a necessity.

Turn 13: Worker finishes and moves to sheep. Start on a warrior to explore west. Pop a hut for 93 gold. Still haven’t met anybody.

Question for the experts: I often have this quandary of a “close” tile to improve and a “better, but farther” tile to improve, e.g. the sheep right next to the capital or the irrigated corn 3 tiles away. I think pasturing the sheep first makes sense, but then after that should I move to the corn or pasture the closer cows and pigs?

Turn 14: Meet Mansa Musa. Start pasturing sheep.

Mansa’s a pretty good neighbor. He’ll often found a religion and then I can get friendly with him, tech trade abuse him, and then go kill him later with not necessarily superior troops but definitely a lot more of them.

Turn 16: Hinduism fiadl. Start on bronze working. Finish exploring east with the scout. Send him back home to explore the southern tundra.

My initial thoughts on the land are that it’s not great. There are enough food specials that running lots of scientists should be pretty straightforward.

Turn 18: Start on cows. Notice that Mansa didn’t found Hinduism.

Turn 21: Finish warrior who starts heading west. Start on worker.

The one thing I’ve learned as I’ve moved up the levels is that workers are really important. The sooner you get them the better. Every now and again if I don’t think two workers can be useful I’ll use just one early on, but in this case with bw almost done, there will be lots of things to keep two workers busy.
Turn 23: Start on pigs. Malinese people discover a herb.

Sheesh, we’re playing with random events too. Let’s just put three archers in our city and destroy it … or something like that.

Turn 24: I find marble to our south.

Good thing I went tundra diving. Turns out we have marble which screams Parthenon. Parthenon + specs is a powerful combination.

Turn 27: Finish second worker. Start on a second warrior. Scout got attacked by a wolf but survived. I give him combat 1.

Some people argue about whether combat 1 or woodsman 1 is better. In my experience, my scout dies so it doesn’t matter. For your learning though here are the reasons I might choose one over the other. Combat 1 is good because it’s on the medic line. Scouts are great medics as they are never chose to defend and they have two movement. Woodsman 1 is good because then you can get woodsman II and move through jungles faster than anybody else.

Turn 28: The workers are headed to the forested plains hill to the northwest and the corn. The warrior and scout are going westish.

I still haven’t met anybody else which is annoying. Let’s hope we’re not semi-isolated. Although if you have to be stuck with just one person, Mansa is probably the best person to be stuck with. Looking on the bright side: If you were stuck on an island what three things would you want? Marble, Stone and Mansa. Looks like we’re good to go. Unfortunately Shaka is not industrious, but marble and stone will help.

Turn 29: Bronze working in, see copper. Start on writing.

I thought about researching the wheel next, but I am really going to need those scientists pronto … so writing it is. Copper is excellent and I’ve met Mansa to the west. Also, we are in a good spot to get all of that land to our east.

Question for the experts: Is it worth it axe rushing Mansa? It means more land for us. But assuming we can get him to friendly, might he be more valuable as a trading partner?

Turn 30: Start settler.

Turn 31: Meet Ragnar.

LOL, all my worried about isolation can be ignored now and replaced with worries of being near this nutcase. In my experience, unlike Montezuma, this guy can be a force in all the ages. His financial trait allows him to keep his military up to date which is not good for us.

Turn 32: Meet Willem.

Okay okay, I get the point.

 

[Benginal]

Turn 33 - 50

Spoiler :

Turn 35: Settler one turn from completion. Make tentative dot map.

I’m still undecided at this point about what to do. There’s a lot of land. But an early rush is just so powerful. I think I will go settle on the site production 1 in my dotmap, improve the rice and the hills while building an Ickh … barracks. By that point the capital will have expanded to the copper which will be roaded to and ready to be improved. Those two cities will churn out axes and I will take Mansa and his nice river and grassland land.

Turn 36: Send Settler with current capital garrison to city site. Start on new warrior. Revolt into slavery.

I usually wait to revolt until after I finish my settler. This way the Settler can be walking during the revolt and at least some part of my empire can be doing something useful.

Turn 37: One worker stops my settler and warrior off to our aggressively placed city site. The other continues chopping.

Let’s talk about the city site now. Had the opponent right there been Ragnar, I would not be settling there. However, I don’t see Mansa as a threat and think I can be pretty abusive about forcing him to expand west leaving lots of room for me.

Turn 39: Finish Warrior in capital. Start on Barracks.

Turn 40: Settle second city. Worker starts on rice, city starts on barracks. I notice the worker in my capital is just about to finish chopping. I stop since I want the chop going into my library not my barracks.

I actually thought a little bit about putting the city 1N to capture the gold as well but in the end decided against it. Here’s why: If I put the city 1N I would have no food until the borders expanded, not being creative means that would take forever and would not be worth it. And secondly, I’m pretty confident I can still get that gold with a later city given my plan of taking out Mansa.

Turn 42: Writing in, wheel up next. Switch to library in capital.

Turn 45: Capital grows to size 6 and into unhappiness. Whip in Library. The capital will finish the barracks and then start on a third worker.

Turn 46: Meet Charlemagne who immediately asks for open borders. I agree and go on to sign open borders agreements with everybody.

Turn 48: Wheel done. Start on Mysticism.

This next tech choice was difficult. But I think I’m going to need border pops eventually and nothing else is super important atm. I’m going all out for axe rush on Mansa now and have the techs I need to do that. The next important techs are going to be Code of Laws, Currency, and Monarchy. The Ikhanda allows us to put of courthouses, so I’m thinking Monarchy might be our next long term goal.

Question for the experts: Is that tech logic right? What should I be doing next?
Turn 49: Borders pop in capital. Worker that just finished in capital goes to start mining copper. Start on warrior. Other worker finished road in between and will join up mining next turn.

Turn 50: Warrior finished in capital and goes out to spawn bust.

 

[Benginal]

Spoiler :

The capital is running two scientists just for fun and building a worker as a place holder. As soon as the copper gets online I’m going to start spamming axes using a combination of the mines I plan to build on the hills and the whip.

uMuggiildywuggildy is looking to be an excellent help in producing axes. I’ll have to get a road up there which is kind of annoying, but in the meantime it can work on a worker or something.

Overall I’m feeling pretty good about taking down Mansa. There’s some excellent land along the river that’s running north and south right through his land. After I take him down I’ll settle along said river and most likely move my palace to his former capital.

Tech-wise I’m going to go for Monarch first to grow the cities, which will be really easy in this game and then Code of Laws for courthouses and for Ulundi to run as many scientists as possible.

On the religious front I will switch into Hinduism as soon as I can to placate Ragnar. I haven’t been exploring much so still don’t know how far Ragnar, Willem, and Charlemagne are from me. I’ll decide when I find out if I want to dispatch one of them early or expand in my area.

 

[barbertje]

Question for the experts: I often have this quandary of a “close” tile to improve and a “better, but farther” tile to improve, e.g. the sheep right next to the capital or the irrigated corn 3 tiles away. I think pasturing the sheep first makes sense, but then after that should I move to the corn or pasture the closer cows and pigs?

The sheep gives only 3 food, so I wouldn't start with that. I think I'd improve
the pigs first because you can pasture quicker than farm, and after that the cow, because you can do it without movement delay.