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

[a pen-dragon]

I think a lighthouse is necesary for it to be a good city, so I will build that after the warior is finished.

IMHO, no, a lighthouse is not necessary, it will even slow you down if built now.

A lighthouse adds 1 on all water tiles. For now lets say you will work the lake and the fish, so that makes +2 . If only working 2 food tiles besides the pasture lake and fish, this city would have 7 surplus without a lighthouse or 9 with one. Keep in mind that with basically any improvement a grassland or plains tile beats coast most of the time.

A granary OTOH basically doubles your surplus food for faster growth, giving ~+7 for growing the city. You will not be growing it maximally in the short or even medium term so the additional 2 have about one third of the impact of a granary.

Ofc you will want a lighthouse down the road, but for example this city could start with a granary and then whip a few workers (or settlers) 4->2. You first want to grab the good land and only after this maximize your existing cities.

Think about it this way: If you build too much infrastructure now you will end up with less cities peacefully than otherwise. One additional city (on reasonably good land) adds much more than a lighthouse in a few cities.

 

[War Master in Training]

T52 Moscow finishes its work boat which I send to St Petersburg. I tell it to make one more work boat. (will take 3 turns, exactly how long is needed for the city to grow, then it can pump workers for a while)
St. Petersburg finished its settler so it is going to go found the sheap city. I am going to tell the worker to chop one more time and then build a mine on PH.
T53 Rostov is founded, and the settler for the fifth city is in position. I tell Rostov to make a worker since it can't do much else until it has one and there aren't any great tiles for it to grow into yet.

Spoiler new cities :

now I get to learn how to share the fish and the copper. Technology wise I think writing is the best thing to go for next. Possibly iron working? I already have two copper (that are not connected to cities)
Next turn I will have 5 cities which I think is enough for a rush. The only remaining good city locations are north of the Inca or are basically filler cities. So I think the next thing to do is make a ton of workers (whip?) and then a bunch of axes (and a couple spears since inca clearly has horse). After the fall of the inca there will be a ton of great city locations and I can switch back to settler spam (first time playing imperialistic empire and I suck at making enough settlers, so it feels like spam to me). I do wonder what you all think about how to prioritise worker actions. I think connecting up resources has become a priority. I need the from ivory and I need copper for axes. next would be chping out the last couple workers and the axes, then tile improvements.

Spoiler "Remaining" good land :

Even though I am a creative civ, I doubt it is worth settling more than what I already have before the rush.

 

[soundjata]

Do not go worker first in Rostov. You want to grow even slowly.

You are delaying yourself so much by having so few workers

When we talked about rapid expansion, we assumed you would follow the rule of ~1worker/city

 

[Gumbolt]

None of those new suggested site are good land as AI culture will eat up your cities. Better to take out the nearest AI. Axes?

What is the plan for your economy? GLH or cottages?

Have you sent a workboat to the fish yet?

 

[War Master in Training]

When we talked about rapid expansion, we assumed you would follow the rule of ~1worker/city

Haha. I either don't make enough settlers or I get tunnel vision. I think recovery won't be difficult though and I am not going back again.

None of those new suggested site are good land as AI culture will eat up your cities. Better to take out the nearest AI. Axes?

What is the plan for your economy? GLH or cottages?

Have you sent a workboat to the fish yet?

Okay, good to know my intuition on that is right. Fish will have workboat on turn 55. Economy plan is GLH plus Inca floodplain cottages. I have good in the capital for that. There is also cottageable grass tiles strewn about waiting for workers.

Changing build in Rostov to warrior since fogbusting is more imediately helpful than a granary.

 

[Gumbolt]

Have you scouted the rest of the land near you? There is more land north and south of your capital? If you got GLH you will will want lots of coastal cities. We know there is land the other side of teh clams too as Sampsa pointed out. A workboat scout will be useful at some point.

 

[War Master in Training]

north of the capital only has space for one filler city on top of spices in order to reach fish. There are spaces south of the capital that suck land wise so I will fill it in when/if I get GLH.

 

[War Master in Training]

T54 Novgorod finished warior. It needs one more turn to grow a pop so I set it to granery for this turn before I switch it to worker next turn. Yaros founded and set to work on a granary for now. Warrior sent out to fogbust. Work boat starts fishing St Petersburg. I will tell it to switch from mining to fishing as soon as it finishes its granary and that will give Novgorod a turn with the mine which gives Rostove a chance to work fish.

Spoiler Empire :

I plan to research writing next.

 

[War Master in Training]

T55 worker finishes chopping in perfect time to put it into a new worker. The last boat is deployed. I think I will tell my only current worker to camp ivory for and to start connecting resources.
T56 worker is told to head to ivory.
T57 I shuffle around resource tiles being worked a bit. St Petersburg finished granary so I tell it to make a worker. Since Novgorod is now working the copper Petersburg only has two resource tiles to work, so growth can be delayed until the worker finishes building the camp. Meanwhile, my scout of in the distance spots first barbarion that is not a wild animal. Increased priority for getting a couple axemen online to tear through the wariors.

After writing in finished in two turns I can either research alphabet to trade with egypt and inca, or I can grab mathimatics for forest yield. I am leaning towards alphabet since the forest quantity is beginning to dwindle. Archery sounds like a tech I should trade for.

Spoiler Empire :

not visable is that Moscow worker is done next turn. Plan is for it to imediately connect corn and copper with a road. Southern worker will improve sheap tile once it finishes ivory.

 

[War Master in Training]

Well, a ton of mistakes already. You are playing way too fast!

Having two cities with no settler in production on T55 with an IMP leader is abysmal. Even 3 cities would be bad.

feeling good about how I re-ran it (despite the worker disaster, I will face the consequences of that). By turn 54 I had 5 cities instead of two. It is suprisingly fun to micro cities this close together sharing tiles. I have in the past been super against placing cities that overlap more than one tile set asside sharing a resource tile.

How different do you play the early game (or later) when you have imperialistic?

 

[War Master in Training]

T58 My poor scout died to the barbarion it saw dispite having huge deffense bonuses since it was still healing. Moscow finished the worker. It can grow in two turns but it is already above its current happy cap (will be at happy cap next turn when slavery debuff wears off) so I told it to make another worker. Will likely whip the worker once it has in it. Other worker begins building a camp which will be done a couple turns before Petersburg can work it.
T59 My warior that was sent to fogbust the south discovers that the tundra was a lie and there is a good city location there. I may settle there before rushing axes. Something to consider. I also decide to not whip the worker just yet. Instead I build baracks for this turn to let it grow (in just one turn) past happy cap. I will then whip worker with two pop, putting myself at happy cap again efficiently.
T60 I finish writing and begin putting beakers into alphabet. My maintanace + lack of comerce has brought my research to a crawl though. I sign open borders with the inca primarily to scout land but also for potencial comerce increase. I whip worker in capital. will likely start making one more worker after to mantain happy cap.
T61 The whip overflow is suprisingly good. I can finish the baracks in 1 turn (or build a library, not important right now) and then I can grow again in 2 turns. I will instead take those overflow and make a worker in 2 turns. I send the worker I just built to the other side of my land to work floodplains with cotteges.

Spoiler Good final city spot :

I found my last good city location.

Going to leave off there tonight

Spoiler empire :

 

[soundjata]

Why not moving up (NW) your last city so do some tile sharing too?
You'll kill a grassland and a forest but will be closer to the action.

 

[Gumbolt]

If you were planning GLH sheep should of been coastal. 2 free trade routes lost as now inland. All that desert tiles add nothing here if they lack fresh water.

You need to start thinking about strategy here.

Can we see the save please? Why are you teching alphabet?

There is plenty of green land above Rostov?

Rice/dye site is not terrible but would need the 3xlakes and a lighthouse for 3F2C. IW to clear jungle. You can settle fish and clams above Moscow. Generally GLH in the capital.

 

[War Master in Training]

If you were planning GLH sheep should of been coastal. 2 free trade routes lost as now inland. All that desert tiles add nothing here if they lack fresh water.

You need to start thinking about strategy here.

Can we see the save please? Why are you teching alphabet?

There is plenty of green land above Rostov?

Rice/dye site is not terrible but would need the 3xlakes and a lighthouse for 3F2C. IW to clear jungle. You can settle fish and clams above Moscow. Generally GLH in the capital.

strategy is to make workers, maybe one more settler, than axe rush inca.
Iron working might be a better investment of tech because I will want to expand north as soon as the inca are conquered.

Why not moving up (NW) your last city so do some tile sharing too?
You'll kill a grassland and a forest but will be closer to the action.

I was originaly going to put it further south on the coast. Currently I am almost blind to tile sharing being good when deciding on city placement.

T61 switch tech to Iron Working (I only have 11 a turn)

 

[Gumbolt]

I would just go with axes. You have no real economy at present. That is what GLH would of provided. Foreign trade routes also help. Have you opened borders and scouted Incan land?

 

[War Master in Training]

T62 Copper connected to cities, I start producing axes. My warrior scout gets further into inca territory. It looks about as expected, with a hamlet (3 turns to village) on a floodplain tile. Slightly strange thing is that I don't see evidance of more than one inca city. Also only one archer in capital. I shouldn't need too many axes. (it is only noble difficulty)
T63 I finish two workers simultaneously. I get a notification that says that the inca just finished the great wall. Weeee! That will be nice when it is super easy to conquer their lack of units and reap the benifits of being able to settler spam a ton. Inca does have a second city (1 pop) and a few more improved floodplain tiles that will be very nice.

Spoiler great wall :

Judging by the great wall graphic, these two cities are as far as the inca spread. with only three low level units stationed in cities it should be an easy fight. I am thinking only make 5 or 6 axes.

 

[Gumbolt]

On Noble expansion is much slower for AI. They don't start with workers. In theory 8-9 axes might be ample. Capital is on a hill with likely 60% culture defences. I would assume 3 units per defender.

 

[Lennier]

The GW graphic is just a graphic. Barbs can’t enter culture of controller of GW on landmass w GW, not just not enter inside wall on map. So Inca could in theory expand beyond the graphic.

 

[War Master in Training]

At first I thought capital was on a hill by looking at it, but it is not fortunately. It has 40% deffenses. The at least one of the archers does have garison though.

The GW graphic is just a graphic. Barbs can’t enter culture of controller of GW on landmass w GW, not just not enter inside wall on map. So Inca could in theory expand beyond the graphic.

I meant for the use of knowing whether they had any more cities.

T64 Ivory connected for increased which is very helpful. Workers build various improvements and also chop.
T65 Novgorod finishes its first axe. I deliberate a bit and then decide to make a baracks before continuing to make more axes because of the quantity that will likely come out of that city.
T66 I make Yaros work a forest tile I am chopping so that the goes to it instead of St Petersburg. Novgorod whips baracks, taking care of its looming problem for a bit. Overflow to be put into axes.
T67 Inca has a new archer with city garison. The original did not have it though. I start to make a baracks in the capital as well. It will be able to pump out axes quickly. The baracks are justified because less units are needed to take out my oponent and it will continue to make the city better for the rest of the game.

 

[Gumbolt]

I might have slow built GLH in capital anyway. Hopefully you are chopping and whipping the axes. With 3-4 hammers invested you get nearly 30OF.

No idea really what you are doing with just turn updates.

At times it is better just to let the AI build cottages and spam 1-2 wonders. He won't have fuedalism for many many turns.