Noble Shadow game - Washington

[Fippy]

Why are non-riverside plains and hills bad tiles to cottage and work? I know for hills I could be building mines for production, but I was thinking of building cottages cause I would want cities that specialize in commerce.

Sadly slavery is much too powerful..yup we have fun with calculating overflow and stuff like that,
but it's really a broken mechanic. And as result anything negative can be questioned.
Some here will even happily settle on gold tiles (running gag ).

 

[sampsa]

And the rule of thumb I remember is that roughly, each new citizen costs you two gold.

I don't think this is very close to being true. In general probably one? And the more pop you have the less unit maintenance you pay (maybe not so useful on noble though). Just grow to work 22 and you'll be doing great.

 

[dudey1234]

Btw, city specialization is kind of an obsolete strategy. You want to have your whole empire doing one thing at a time.

I did not know this haha I guess a lot of these guides are outdated. When did this happen and why?

 

[sampsa]

When people realized how pointless it is. And by it I mean pretty much a "prod" city. Your cities in general want to grow and make as much as possible doing that. If you need to produce something, you whip. This is what Fippy was also saying.

 

[sampsa]

I'll try to explain a bit how you should be thinking the early game.

T0 you should settle on the plains hill IMO. That one extra pt is a lot! Also it doesn't kill a flood plain. Loses a turn and a forest though and maybe most importantly the corn. Thanks to the extra and EXP bonus you get the worker out on T11 - one turn faster than SIP.

I SIPped just because you did so it doesn't change the spots where you should settle your next cities. Worker first - wb first is probably fine if you work 03 to get it out asap. If you work something else it's a big mistake, just delaying everything. Mining-BW-AH seems quite obvious to me. You want to be chopping as soon as you can and you have plenty of good tiles so pigs are not that important immediately.

Went for 2 workers before settler. Not mandatory at all, but seems decent as there is plenty to do (improve food and chop).

Spoiler :

Dot map. It makes absolutely no sense to try to mark spots that are 10 tiles away from your capital. 3 close spots that immediately contribute is enough. Food to the first ring is probably the most important early game rule there is. What it means that you need to immediately be able to improve and work a -tile. You can't wait 15T for (build monument, wait for border pop).

Settle strongest sites first. Wheat spot has an extra city center and can immediately work pigs. Only minus is that it's not connected like the northern corn spot. Horse spot is kind of trash but is a decent 4th city as there is it can steal. Maybe I won't settle it 4th if I find a better spot (=land food, some coastal fish isn't that great as it takes a boat).

So next thing I'll do is settle these spots as fast as possible, connect for extra and take it from there. And that's pretty much how you should play until T60 every game.

 

[dudey1234]

A couple questions I had in mind:
- If non-riverside plains/hills are bad places for cottages, what should I put there instead? I tried to use the idea of counting all of the food in my city and only building farms to get just enough food to have the max population, is that ideal?
- Seems like production is not as important since whipping is just better? Does that mean I should be putting less emphasis on mines and production improvements?
- More on whipping, since whipping creates 1 unhappiness for 10 turns, when is the point when I should stop whipping? And when is the best time happiness wise to whip? I whipped the barracks during my 20 turns because I wanted to reduce the unhappiness of my cities
- My wonder game is nonexistent haha, I have no idea what to build and when and how. How important is this?

I’ll probably play 20 more turns tonight

 

[sampsa]

If non-riverside plains/hills are bad places for cottages, what should I put there instead? I tried to use the idea of counting all of the food in my city and only building farms to get just enough food to have the max population, is that ideal?

It's better just to ignore weak tiles. Maybe later you get to use those tiles at biology, boosted windmills or something. Max population has nothing to do with good play. Just work all the good tiles and ignore bad tiles.

- Seems like production is not as important since whipping is just better? Does that mean I should be putting less emphasis on mines and production improvements?

You can whip everything else but wonders. And those you can chop. I barely build any mines as they are often not worth working.

- My wonder game is nonexistent haha, I have no idea what to build and when and how. How important is this?

Not very important in my opinion. You can crush noble without considering any wonder.

 

[jorissimo]

- If non-riverside plains/hills are bad places for cottages, what should I put there instead?

Mostly nothing until Communism/Rep Parts, then workshops and windmills.

Does that mean I should be putting less emphasis on mines and production improvements?

Yes

- My wonder game is nonexistent haha, I have no idea what to build and when and how. How important is this?

I wouldn't focus too much on this, wonders are often distractions. The Pyramids can be really strong if you have stone. The Great Library is nice if you have marble. But expansion is more important.

 

[sampsa]

T60

Spoiler :

Settled those 4 cities. Cities all have granaries, and can now go for monuments for +1 and border pops. Cap just 3-pop whipped a settler and lighthouse is nearly done.

Exploration: You shouldn't care what's near or behind AI territory. Let them settle that land and you can take it later. The island in NW is very interesting though. I will settle sheep spot there next turn for intercontinental trade routes, immediately winning some . Have also a worker+warrior there.

Tech: have writing, going math, then Oracle techs (+masonry), CoL and taking civil service if I can.

Expansion: don't stop expanding. On noble you can afford to expand hard and more cities is better. You should have maybe 10 before 1AD. Depends on the land of course.

 

[dudey1234]

Putting spoiler tags because @sampsa and other potential people are now playing the map but here are T100-T120!

Spoiler :

T100: I canceled the barracks in Washington and New York so I can start on a galley and settler. Going to explore the other land asap, I thought it was inaccessible because of the ocean but there is an area where I can go there.
T101: Building the monument for +1 happiness cause it can be done in 1 turn in Washington. Micromanaged the citizens to produce the settler quicker (7 turns now)
T102: I switch from calendar to monarchy (oops should have done this sooner)
T103: Chicago is cheeks and monument is so slow, I switch to a production tile to get it out quicker, and I make a worker build a mine.
T105: Whipped lighthouse in Boston for 2 pop
T108: Settler finished in NY, loading him onto the galley and exploring soon!
T110: Whipped my galley in Boston for 2 pop. Settler finished in Washington, so I got another settler incoming to the new islands.
T118: Monarchy finished, I forgot to rebel
T119: I rebel this turn

Since we're in turn 120 now, I decided to do a bit more of a deep dive into my cities and my current state.

Here's Washington my capital:

I'm improving a lot more of the land and I have monarchy now so this will be more filled in, this will look pretty good, I realized i took off the scientists, I have more room to expand

Here's Boston:

My happiness cap is finally better now, so more tiles worked is good, this is pretty much fully developed I think

New York:

I started clearing the jungle away so I can build more cottages

Atlanta and Philadelphia:

These cities are looking ok, philadelphia definitely

Chicago:

I'm really feeling the effects of having no food in the first ring, this city kind of sucks and takes so long to get going. It will expand soon tho which is good

Seattle and San Francisco (which I found today! i forgot to mention):

Kind of a lot of plains (which in hindsight ) but I followed the rule of 1 tile in the first ring, and they can share resources which is good? I wanted to go for the whales up top for the happiness.

Here's the unit count:

10 workers right now which is good I think for 8 cities? A lot of axemen I realize which I'm not sure if it's profitable or not, I guess I'm using the monarchy civic so it's a good thing I have a lot of axemen.
Here's the state of my whole empire:

I'm kind of nervous that Elizabeth has expanded so close to me. Do I need to start worrying about going to war? I guess she is still just cautious.
I'm thinking of settling next to the fish next, let me know if that's a good idea.
Here's my domestic advisor:

My next techs I want to research and prioritize are:
Calendar (for the happiness)
Code of laws (for the courthouse and lower city maintenance)
Metal casting (for the forge)
Machinery (for the windmill to put on plains tiles)
Alphabet (to start building research)
Let me know if there are other techs I should look at!

I'm gonna start moving workers to the island using a galley so that I can start working San Francisco and Seattle.
All in all this is an interesting game! I think I'm starting to get the hang of things. I'm looking forward to doing more with my cities now that I can increase their happiness by lots.
Since I took this time to do a bit more of a deep dive please ask me if you want to see any screen and I'll be happy to provide!

Thanks for the help as always everyone!

 

[soundjata]

I don't think this is very close to being true. In general probably one? And the more pop you have the less unit maintenance you pay (maybe not so useful on noble though). Just grow to work 22 and you'll be doing great.

Nah I think it is a correct assessment to evaluate a new citizen at -2 maintenance cost*
So a new citizen working (non financial) coast is exactly neutral in this sense (a waste of time growing). It is ok to do it in preparation for starving/whipping though.

* -2 is a reasonable average for mid game.
Very early the cost is zero. Very late it could be up to 5 or something... (making +3 value then +4 value tiles gradually worthless)

Maybe we need facts

 

[sampsa]

Maybe we need facts

Good idea.

I have no clue how you two can think it's -2. Where does that -2 come from exactly? What exactly does mid game mean? I could also argue about the statement "a waste of time growing" because it's quite clearly false to me.

 

[a pen-dragon]

Number of cities maintenance is capped on 8 (on deity), and distance will typically be ~10 in the mid game, making for a total of ~20 or 2/citizen for a size 10 city.

For the sake of clarity lets assume the mid game starts around when the number of cities cap is hit. (around 15 cities IIRC)

Both do scale up with city size, but AFAIK in a way that makes each new citizen cheaper than the previous one.

As long as we are not considering substantial colony maintenance or garbage small (size<~5) cities I would say that 1-2 per citizen is fair.

I neglect inflation (which has a negative influence, increasing costs), and commerce modifiers (which increase yield) for simplicity.

Earlier both maintenance costs are smaller since one has fewer cities that are closer together and later on they can be reduced with state property.

 

[Fippy]

I tested a bit with an old save (900 AD).
Running Rep, Bur, slavery, free market and theo as civics.
Those are all medium upkeep, cept Bur which costs more.
No ORG and deity with 6 cities.

Started with 10 more pop in my capital..costs 8gpt.
Tested it in all other cities..also 8-9gpt more.

I know that early not every city growth increases costs.
-2 gold looks like a big stretch in this test

I vaguely remember that coast tiles (2) were considered slightly commerce positive, in iso games.
But i think that results from capital academy & libraries always favoring the highest possible slider..
or we could simply say 1g > 1 for the whole empire.

 

[pmarc]

- More on whipping, since whipping creates 1 unhappiness for 10 turns, when is the point when I should stop whipping? And when is the best time happiness wise to whip? I whipped the barracks during my 20 turns because I wanted to reduce the unhappiness of my cities

As you mention, whenever you get unhappy citizens that is a good sign to whip. The main thing is that you want to keep enough population to work the best tiles, i.e. your food tiles, your cottages, maybe some special mining resources (e.g. copper, gold, etc.).

Sometimes in a heavily-cottaged city, I may stop working a food tile and stagnate if I'm at a good size and don't want to grow unhappy or whip either. But that's rare. Usually you grow into mediocre tiles and/or unhappy citizens then whip, regrow and repeat.

This is part of the reason why it's often encouraged here to overlap the worked areas of cities a bit. If you can swap tiles between neighboring cities, that provides more flexibility to work all the good tiles while also managing the growing / whipping cycles.

My next techs I want to research and prioritize are:
Calendar (for the happiness)
Code of laws (for the courthouse and lower city maintenance)
Metal casting (for the forge)
Machinery (for the windmill to put on plains tiles)
Alphabet (to start building research)
Let me know if there are other techs I should look at!

I think Alphabet and Code of Laws are the most important here, though mostly not for the reasons you mention.

Building Research with Alphabet is useful and avoids wasting hammers sometimes, but more importantly it unlocks technology trading. I would prioritize it before Currency in most games.

Code of Laws is useful sometimes for founding the religion (especially if you don't have neighbors with a religion to spread to you), but mostly for Caste System, a civic that you can switch to when you don't need whipping for a while and use it to run scientists even without a library (which is expensive to build if not Creative) or run artists in a city that needs to grow its borders. As others said, you want to get food in the first ring but sometimes it's not feasible (like fish that's in ocean instead of coast), an artist specialist in the city will grow the border in 3 turns only compared with building a monument and waiting 10 turns. Unless you're Organized, the courthouse is too expensive though (120 hammer or 4 population chop) to be useful early game.

Metal Casting runs into the same problem, with the forge being too expensive in the early game unless you're Industrious. Also, workshops, watermills and windmills are much better later with the bonuses from industrial age technologies and civics. The Metal Casting -> Machinery line is rarely a priority outside of specific goals like rushing Engineering (e.g. to use trebuchets) or rushing Optics (if you're isolated or semi-isolated and you want to contact the bulk of other Civs that are across the ocean).

 

[Thrasybulos]

I have no clue how you two can think it's -2. Where does that -2 come from exactly? What exactly does mid game mean? I could also argue about the statement "a waste of time growing" because it's quite clearly false to me.

This post strikes a muted bell, so it might be what I remembered (as I said, something from long ago).

But basically, my take has been than growing into non-financial, non-riverside cottages isn't going to provide the expected economy boost. So those should - generally - be limited to your future Bureaucracy capital.
Non-financial non-riverside grassland tiles get turned into temporary farms post Civil Service when fast growth is needed and pre-Railroad labour abundant, then into workshops.

The exception would be a crashed economy (post-conquest or over-expansion): in that case, moving existing citizens to cottages would indeed help.

 

[sampsa]

Reading that post I understood where the -2 comes from. One from added maintenance and the other comes from HR! Thus the assumption is you are already past -cap.

However, we can't really isolate like that and claim that it's not worth growing if it's not -positive. Also what is the alternative to not growing exactly? Maybe stagnating building a settler/worker, whipping or clicking on avoid growth. However, you don't always need a settler/worker or any building. Then you have nothing to whip so you are stuck throwing food away with avoid growth.

Why is growing better? Because you are winning a lot of - 1 pop is worth 30. In general, it's much better to just bank those by maximizing growth. I guess there is a limit how far you can/should grow, but there will be a point you find something to whip. I often grow into unhappiness and I think it's in general better than clicking on avoid growth, due to the reasons explained.

Thus as a general rule below -cap I'd always much rather grow to work a 21-cottage or a 22 -water tile than stagnate or whip something I don't really need. With HR (needing also a 15 investment on an extra warrior) I presume it's much more tight and depends a lot on a hundred variables. Also as a general rule: don't use avoid growth. I only use it if a granary is finished with a (near-)full -bar, because it wins .

 

[sampsa]

My next techs I want to research and prioritize are:
Calendar (for the happiness)
Code of laws (for the courthouse and lower city maintenance)
Metal casting (for the forge)
Machinery (for the windmill to put on plains tiles)
Alphabet (to start building research)
Let me know if there are other techs I should look at!

pmarc already posted good comments on these, but let me expand.

- Happiness. After initial expansion comes mostly claimed -resources and resource trades with AI. If that is not enough, go monarchy for HR. Don't go calendar for a single . Go monarchy for unlimited !
- MC/machinery -line is simply trash. Forges and windmills are very minor things, not really changing much. Only go there is you are en route to optics.
- Alpha/currency is very beneficial for your empire. Trade routes, tech trades, build /.
- CoL is great for a religion and a strong civic. Courthouse is very very minor. CoL also leads to Civil Service, which unlocks an excellent civic.

 

[Thrasybulos]

I'm not claiming it's not worth growing if it's not commerce-positive.
I'm just saying that if your aim is to improve your commerce, growing into a cottage might counter-intuitively not achieve that aim.
There are definitely other reasons to grow, as you've pointed out.

I never click on "avoid growth", for the simple reason that I'll 100% forget later on that I've clicked it and miss a lot of turns of growth when my happy cap is raised.
I'll instead reallocate my citizens so that I stop growing (hiring specialists, working plains cottages or mines - I know, I know ).

 

[dudey1234]

Turns 120-140

Spoiler :

Giving a general overview this time of my cities:
I focused on growing my cities and working every usable tile in my cities, and getting my commerce up.
I unlocked currency, alphabet, calendar, and code of laws and now I'm working on civil service.

Here are the state of my cities:

I feel like I've improved and worked all the tiles I have to work. I've gotten my happiness to the point where I am working all my important tiles (food, cottages) without any unhappiness (maybe some unhealthiness issues?)

I've also built the library in many of my cities, with 2 scientists to match, so I think I'm in a good spot.

Couple questions I had during this playthrough:
- I feel like I've worked everything to the point where there's no more things to improve with my workers. I've put them in a random hill in my territory for now, but what is there to do? Should I move more of them to the island and work those tiles?
- I think I can still work the sea tiles, which is probably ok to do, so I should probably increase my happiness to improve those right? I feel like my cities are all very developed now. Is there anything more I need to do here?
- I feel like I'm also at the point where I don't need to build much else in my cities. Should I build a market? Should I build a courthouse? Should I just build research/wealth?
- What should I research? Here's an image of everything I can go for:


I'm doing civil service for now, since I think bureaucracy is good? What else should I be going for here?

That's it for now! I feel like I'm solidly in the mid game, where I feel like I get lost. Let me know if I'm missing anything anywhere!