Noble Shadow Game - How well can I play when I am being thoughtful about my decisions? Time to learn!

[War Master in Training]

This should be a rather easy game. My goal is to play optimally enough that I can feel good about forever moving on to prince difficulty. I also think it will be fun to get input on things.

Map settings:
(Using the "play now" option)
random leader
noble difficulty
small fractal map with random sea level and temperate climate
normal speed

We get Catherine!

Spoiler image :

Creative is great. It carried a bit in the last game I played and it is fun. Imperialistic is something I have very little experience in since most of my experience is still in vanilla civ and when I played BTS with friends and family I would choose characters with traits I already understood so I look forward to learning how to use this one.

get to start with a scout as well.
Unique unit and building are late game. Usually I play all the way to late game but I would like to maybe get a slightly faster win this time.

Spoiler Starting location :

Looks like an epic resource dense start! My instinct is to either SIP or even better move settler SW to include pig in BFC (edit: now noticing that doing this kills fish. I think SIP is the obvious move). Slight concerns about ruining the clam in the NW for a while which could be confirmed by moving the scout up. I think I probably want to move the scout by either the green or red arrow to get the goodie hut right away. Is there any benefit to taking the green route over the red one? More sea visibility? The freshwater lake feels huge for being next to a coastal town that can take advantage of lighthouse food.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Can you turn resource icons on please (Ctl+R).

SIP seems awful to me, kills a grassland hill for no benefit and misses the pigs, although you do have wet corn and some type of seafood. SW is a really strong option but you could also consider settling 1NW of the corn with a second city planned for the plains hill 1S of the pigs.

You want the scout to go the green route to uncover more tiles on the way to the hut.

 

[a pen-dragon]

What about 2W. Yes it is a turn 2 settle, but it is on a plains hill, allowing for a faster worker. 3S1W looks like a hill, allowing to share the eastern crab. A city in the north could also share the corn.

The wheat looks dry thus only being a 4 tile. This does not make it a priority.

Scout W, SE looks best. Via the pigs to the hut, there is no reason to directly move on the hut.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

What about 2W. Yes it is a turn 2 settle

I did wonder about that, perhaps the plains hill makes up for the delayed settle.

 

[a pen-dragon]

I did wonder about that, perhaps the plains hill makes up for the delayed settle.

Lets take a better look.

It produces a 12T worker starting on T2, instead of a 15T one starting on T0 (for SIP, others will be even slower). Thus it is finished one turn earlier. Moving on the corn will take 2T instead of 0, meaning that the farm is actually completed one turn later. This cancels out the one turn earlier start for growing. Both cases will grow to size 3 in the same time.

While growing to size 3, according to my calculations, 2W can produce between 22 + 6 into size 4 and 28+0. SIP is at 10+2 to 12+0, meaning that 2W comfortably gets a warrior out and almost finishes a second, while SIP does not even finish the first one.

Continuing, 2W does not have access to the wheat, but allows to mine the starting hill (as well as the PH 3W1S later) totaling 8 at size 3, i.e. +4 from imperialistic for settlers with 3 surplus, meaning 14 /turn for settler production (or 15 after the PH has been mined, but I think that comes too late.), this is 2 short of a 7 turn settler. This means that 2W can finish the second warrior before the settler without delaying the settler, due to overflow.

SIP could work the corn and two PH-forest at size 3, but that would only make 7(base )+3(additional from imperialistic)+2(surplus ) = 12 /turn for a settler, or corn+wheat + 1 PHF meaning 5+2+6=11, resulting in a 9 turn settler. Producing the settler at size 4 with wheat+corn+2PHF, would be 8+4+4=16/turn, i.e. 7 turns for a settler, but takes 5 turns to grow, and is thus slower overall, with only 1 foodhammer into settlers per turn advantage over 2W at 3 pop.

In summary, 2W produces a one turn earlier second settler and has one (or two) warrior(s) out before starting that settler, while SIP does not get the first warrior out.

 

[soundjata]

(cross posting)
Looks like a tricky start. Resource bubbles please. Where is fish?

I would certainly forgo AH for a long while here. Agri > BW > fishing > ?

There's apparently not much commerce around so I would like to have the clam and lake tiles worked asap.

Best way to reach that goal seems to me first city 1N of the lake and second city 1S of the lake.

The issue with plain hill settle is the clams can't be shared and the turns gained building the worker from +2H city center are lost moving to the corn.


Edit: @a pen-dragon calculations are also quite convincing (PH settle will accelerate the production line eventually)
But I am still worried by the ability of the cap to share its food!

My suggested city arrangement also creates a natural chanel from one ocean to the other, which might prove instrumental in the days of globalization and trade wars maybe

 

[sampsa]

So people can see into the fog but can't see the fish 2E?

I think you need to SIP. 2W loses 2T of even if it wins some .

 

[soundjata]

With fish SIP is good enough yeah. (5 forest will be valuable)

What kind of discovery from the scout would change that? 2 fishes in the north of lake location?

 

[Izuul]

Fractal can produce some really strange maps, especially with random sea level.

This looks like a tricky start. The Russian starting techs aren't helping too much here as it looks like you will need AG and Fishing at a minimum. At least on Noble difficulty you shouldn't have to worry as much about getting stuck in a small corner.

 

[Gumbolt]

So 2W kills the fish. So does 1SW. Shame to kill a decent food tile. SIP kill the clams on the other side unless you settle on pigs.

SIP is a nice city with lakes long term. Plenty of food.

 

[sampsa]

SIP kill the clams on the other side unless you settle on pigs.

Doesn't kill, but delays. There is an island.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

So people can see into the fog but can't see the fish 2E?

I couldn't, now I've looked really closely there's a tiny indication but it would not have said fish to me without the prompt. This is why we have resource bubbles to help aged eyes like mine

 

[War Master in Training]

Thanks for the reminder to turn on the resources toggle. I spent the entire last game I played getting used to having it on but it doesn't carry over haha.

Spoiler Hut had map :

The village had a map that gives a lot of new information. I think the fish that wasn't very visible in the non-animating screenshot makes SIP the best option. Second city can maybe go on the PH to the far SW to snag pig in BFC (creative civ). Unfortunate that I need to settle on top of spices to the the northern fish. That can be a backfill city since I already easily claim this peninsula.
I went ahead and settled. (building worker) Thinking about research, the obvious first one is agriculture for corn then wheat. Next is either bronze working or fishing. Fishing is good for a variety of reasons, including the two freshwater lake tiles that will be super good. I think I can get by with researching bronze working first so that I can chop these beautiful trees and also actually be able to build a mine. Fishing is just a fraction of the cost though...

T7

Spoiler Scouting :

The PH marked purple doesn't seem so great anymore. It does have freshwater, fish, and pigs (and coast). I think I will still settle there despite low commerce and make it a city optimizing for .
A more pressing matter is that I seem to be closed in on this peninsula by another civ (Huayna Capac?). Will need to scout more, but it raises concerns since the rest of the space on the peninsula doesn't look great. I notice elephants that can maybe be used to take that land by force. A dagger play with HA, axes, or phants+cats seems to be the best option from what I can see.

I leave off here to get a little input on what to research next. (worker in 8 turns).

 

[soundjata]

I think bronze is good because it will give the worker ample activities for the next 30 turns.

Commerce accrual can come later.

About expansion:
Purple spot is ok but I would prefer SW of wheat for city 2 because it can immediately work a 4F tile. And is connected to the cap with fishing.
When settling Fish/Pig, you want to have a boat ready to improve fish as soon as the borders pop. (still supposing AH won't be a priority for some time)

 

[War Master in Training]

Bronze will start being reaserched with 12 turns to finish. Worker will come out 5 turns early. Gives the worker enough to do just in time so I will go with that

 

[War Master in Training]

T15 finished worker and starting to build a Warrior for fog busting mostly right now.

Spoiler AI land :

his land is so good! He has so much commerce potential. Not really shown in the screanshot but I can't wrap around his southern border. He is really close to completely closing me off. An early rush seems to be the only option.

 

[War Master in Training]

T20

Spoiler Bronze working reveals :

I know what my worker is going to do now that it is done building the farm. Both circles look like good city locations. Purple has more food and less coast. Green claims ivory right away though. (we have hunting). Both cities can work a PH copper mine. Also, is there anything worth getting other than fishing right now? I think I can finish the warrior quickly and then build a bunch of work boats after. Animal Husbandry allows settling on purple and getting pigs, and also reveals horse so we can know what my options are for a rush. After fishing I can go sailing for the lighthouses that will be super good or I can get a fast pottery. (there is a bonus to research speed for techs that have two arrows going into them from already researched techs right?)

I think the best time to switch to slavery would be while my first settler is going out. Imperialistic bonus to settler production is only for raw right? The bonus doesn't get doubled.

 

[sampsa]

green spot 1N for sure, saves 20 (forest) and wins 1pt due to stronger city center. Overlap doesn't matter and it's actually good to have the ability to steal clam from capital.

 

[War Master in Training]

About expansion:
Purple spot is ok but I would prefer SW of wheat for city 2 because it can immediately work a 4F tile. And is connected to the cap with fishing.
When settling Fish/Pig, you want to have a boat ready to improve fish as soon as the borders pop. (still supposing AH won't be a priority for some time)

Looking at that spot, it is likely a little better than the green circle, only looses a single southern grass tile. If goal is whipping axe than I think the purple spot is better because of extra food. It does have extra prep time required though.
Going to continue on now researching fishing.

 

[War Master in Training]

T23
Scout found Hatshepsut a bit northwest of Huayna. The random sea level may have rolled high with how close we all are I think.

does anyone have thoughts on how necessary an early rush is or how to pull it off?

T24
ah, what perfect timing (culture pop as well)

I can chop out fishing boat after this. Probably will make settler at size 5 while working all resource tiles. For technology after fishing I am leaning towards sailing, then pottery, since my worker has enough to do for a while. Alternatively, cottages early on are good and especially the granary if I want to start whipping quickly.