Nobles' Club 189 - Mao Zedong

[elitetroops]

The IMM save only gives the AI the IMM starting techs. You have to select immortal difficulty from the scenario menu to actually play it on IMM. That's a Noble game you're playing here, only difference is the AIs all started with Ag, Hunting and Archery. No wonder it was so easy

The instructions in the bullpen are not up to date, but this can be avoided. The instructions say "Delete all lines saying "Handicap=". This lets the AI handicap vary by level." Instead you should delete the line from all AI, but for the player (Team 0) change it to Handicap=HANDICAP_IMMORTAL, or whatever level save you are creating. Then that difficulty will be selected as default when loading the scenario.

Not putting any blame on you at all, you couldn't have known it, nor has this ever been required from map makers. Just letting you know that this can be done, in case you ever create another NC game.

 

[Pedro78]

@antimony

Spoiler :

Wow your second city is really far away, would have been better to settle it closer. I've already said it, but I think BW first is far superior to Pottery in this case. Overall concerning the dotmap I would advise you to look at Fippy's city placement, it's very good

@elitetroops Thanks, I didn't know that indeed. I'll try to remember it if I create another NC game someday

 

[Arromir]

It's definitely been a lot longer than I intended, but I finally got a chance to put a few more turns into the game. Having to move halfway around the world with a three month notice tends to eat up a lot of your time.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

After whipping the settler in Beijing, I went ahead and grabbed the bronze with Nanjing. Writing coming online in one turn.

I decided to go for Fishing->Sailing next since I wanted to grab the double crabs with my next settler out of Beijing. The next fifteen turns were spent on developing more cottages down south, as well as putting some chops into libraries and my next two settlers.

Spoiler :

On turn 79 I planted Xian in the southwest to grab the gold and the pigs. The following turn Chengdu was founded in the north, finally giving me my first coastal city.

Currently I'm going for Math into Currency, and probably grabbing IW after that to start clearing some of the land down south. What would be the best tech option after that?

So far Tokugawa has not expanded to the north, and I'm tempted to just block him out completely if he still hasn't done so by the time I get IW. Outside of that I have several more coastal spots to grab, and possibly the horse and gems location in the south.

As always, any advice will be greatly appreciated, and hopefully my next turn session will not be two months from now.

 

[Pedro78]

Looking good

Spoiler :

Not much to say from the screenshots, city placement is good. Math-Currency is an option. You can also go straight for Optics, which might be the best move in this situation.
Grabbing those horses to the south is a huge priority, considering that Toku doesn't have them yet. Especially on IMM they will make your game A LOT quicker.

Oh and don't build plain farms, that's just a waste of worker turns

 

[antimony]

Got a diplomatic victory in the late 1800s. I will try the next NC at a higher level than Prince (perhaps Emperor?) and post more updates. I was still curious to know people's opinions on a few points.

Spoiler :

General context:
I went for a continental domination strategy with Cuirassiers->Cavalry, and delayed Astronomy / meeting other Civs quite a bit. For the starting region, Beijing and Shanghai (corn+pigs on the SE river from capital) were cottage commerce cities, two north coast cities (with clams) had more specialists, whereas the copper city (SW) and gold city (SE) were for unit production. After the early techs, writing and iron working (could have delayed that one?), I beelined math->currency->code of laws->philo->civil service. I founded Taoism, switched to Bureaucracy - Caste System - Pacifism and launched a golden age with the first GS to get more GS on the path to Lib-MT. (I didn't realized Music was pre-req for MT, so I should have used the GA from music to launch a golden age, is that correct?)

A few questions:
- I was trying to follow the recommendation of 1.5 worker per city but had some worker idling even at 1 worker per city. Could that be because I wasn't expanding / growing fast enough? Or some idling is expected for the benefit of getting new cities online faster?
- How early do you get Calendar for happiness resources? Assuming no AI would trade Priesthood, is it better to tech it and Monarchy before Calendar?
- What use did you make of Pavillons? Since they were cheap, I built them in conquered cities to help establish culture, but I'm not sure it's the most efficient way to do so. Are there other ways to reduce occurrence of revolt in conquered cities?

Thanks Pedro78 for the map!

 

[Pedro78]

@antimony you're welcome

I was trying to follow the recommendation of 1.5 worker per city but had some worker idling even at 1 worker per city. Could that be because I wasn't expanding / growing fast enough? Or some idling is expected for the benefit of getting new cities online faster?

There is no 1.5 worker per city rule. In most games I have between 2/3 and 4/3 worker(s) per city. It all depends on the land you have. However if your worker management isn't great it's better to build more workers than to work many unimproved tiles.

How early do you get Calendar for happiness resources? Assuming no AI would trade Priesthood, is it better to tech it and Monarchy before Calendar?

I very rarely self-tech Calendar, but that's on deity. On lower levels I'm sure it can be good to self-tech it in some cases, at least when you have 2+ calendar resources. Monarchy is very map-dependant, if you don't have access to a lot of happy res then it's usually good to get Monarchy (assuming that you have good tiles to work when you grow your cities), otherwise it's usually better to trade for it (AIs will always trade Monarchy even when it's a monopoly tech).

What use did you make of Pavillons? Since they were cheap, I built them in conquered cities to help establish culture, but I'm not sure it's the most efficient way to do so.

Culture buildings in general are useful when..

1. You don't have Music yet
2. You have to deal with AI cultural pressure

Otherwise it's almost always better to build culture. Theatres can also be good if you're planning for a long war and will run the culture slider for happiness.

Are there other ways to reduce occurrence of revolt in conquered cities?

Military police. Stack units in the city until the chance of revolt (shown when you hover the mouse over the culture percentage bar) drops to zero. I'm sure there is a formula for this, but I don't know where it is.

 

[Arromir]

500 AD status:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

As the screenshots above show, I've settled all the land available to me. The last seventy turns have been busy, as I've gone from four cities out to twelve. My warrior spotted a settler coming out of Satsuma just as I had finished whipping a settler, and having two workers building a road allowed me to beat him and settle Hangzhou by a single turn. This effectively blocked Tokugawa from accessing the rest of my lands which I have been able to back fill in peace.

After picking up Currency I headed for Optics which I will grab next turn. After that it's on to the Astro bulb. My cities were at a low happy cap for quite some time, but getting the forges out with gold and gems has finally allowed me to start growing them again.

The most likely plan after that is to tech to cuirassiers and roll over the rest of the continent. I should meet the rest of the AIs relatively soon once my caravels are out exploring. As the demographics bellow show, I'm third in GNP, however the leader is ahead of me by quite a large margin.

Spoiler :

@Pedro78

Spoiler :

Oh and don't build plain farms, that's just a waste of worker turns

That farm was actually built to avoid wasting worker turns. I'll need it there eventually to irrigate the rice.

 

[Pedro78]

@Arromir

Spoiler :

Looking good. Ningbo should be 1E of its current location.

The most likely plan after that is to tech to cuirassiers and roll over the rest of the continent. I should meet the rest of the AIs relatively soon

That's also how I would play it out. Make sure not to tech CS before Astro bulb!

As the demographics bellow show, I'm third in GNP, however the leader is ahead of me by quite a large margin.

Demographics are not always relevant - Culture is also included in GNP. So an AI with lots of wonders/religions will have a very high GNP, even though its bpt is likely lower than yours.

 

[Gumbolt]

Just for fun up to 75ad.

Spoiler Up to 75ad :

Settled on wine. Coastal start seemed sub optimal given how slow they can be.

Techs. AH BW Wheel myst pottery.

Expanded to 6 cities. Crab city, pig/corn and gold, Copper/wheat(coastal), Horse /double gem and gold/pigs.

Then teched fishing/writing/hbr. late HA rush on Toku. I wanted the ivory.He had a lot of archers and chariots.

Went for HA rush here. I had 4 decent cities and a road network to Toku. He also lacked metal.

Took Tokyo and he had built the great Lighthouse. Thankyou sir! I have 8 coastal cities so that suits me fine. Lost 12 HA but killed 26 archers. (5-6 barb ones.) and 14 chariots. He has 2 cities left. I will take his last land city as it may have iron?

I did think about a ckn rush but I was lacking techs and Toku was too far away. By time I had got to the tech Toku would of had phants. Far too risky. Plus messing around with mids and other wonders seemed a waste here.

I need currency and construction next. SB in war mode. I could be target. Hmmm.

Took final land city from toky. He offer med, Aesth, alphabet, IW, masonry and sailing for peace. 2 workers captured. Sweet deal.

SB has a lot of melee units. Building more axes. He could get phants soon. Would he beeline HBR? Not so sure.

up to 150ad

Spoiler 150ad :

Things have got interesting as Russia has just declared on SB. He has construction.

I have had to fully research currency using research everywhere. I was losing 30 gold a turn. Eakkk. Need foreign trade routes. He'll never take a city as SB has 4 DS to fight off his stack. Utterly pointless.

Spoiler Thoughts on settling a city. :

See attached. Comical. Going for the iron but halfway across map from his first city. If he improves the iron he may do me a favour.

 

[Pedro78]

@Gumbolt that's a really aggressive strategy -- HA rush to get the GLH looks sound on IMM, but going for Construction right after? Pretty sure it's far from optimal, should be fun though

Oh and Toku looks really desperate for that iron lol

 

[Gumbolt]

@ Pedro

Spoiler update :

Hardly right after? I took about 6 techs in peace and currency/maths before I teched construction.

Things got a bit silly after that. Russia declared on SB. Great. He bribed Toku into this war. (125ad)

I then had demands from both SB and Stalin. Both had 1 sword roaming round my mainland.
375Ad SB attacked with his 1 sword and took one of Toku old cities. I took it back the next turn or so.
450Ad Russia attacks me with his sword. At this point SB and Stalin were still at war. I did get 2 demands from both of them which I turned down a few turns earlier.

560ad Russia had a stack of 14 units outside Nara. 3 spear, 2 axe 1 sword and 8 pults. My stack of HA took this out. Along with all it's follow up units. Not helped by fact I was constantly fighting off a strike. 12 cities was killing me. Even with the GLH.

By 860ad. I had captured Novograd. By this point I had lost 22 HA and 4 axes. Albeit I had killed 16 swords, 16 pults, 15 chariots and 7 spears. Russians got engineering some time after this. Tech was slow. MC, Calendar and PH. Eakkk. I eventually gifted back Novograd to Russians. I had whipped it down to 1 pop and SB was about to capture it. I would of lost it to culture anyway.

1070ad. I managed to take out 3 of SB main land cities. Russians took out his other city near the ivory. Captured MM wonder. SB still not willing to take peace. Albeit I played the war in 2 parts as I had no pults initially.

Still slightly behind in techs although just started a 12 turn golden age. Got Russians to pleased.

Not my finest hour this game. This is the issue when AI are in war mode but get declared on. Really strange game.

Still need to switch civics. Lots of micro to do here.

 

[Tecumseh1]

Saw Lain had a video of this so decided to start playing blind before watching it.

T52

Settled 1 SW. Seems wine is better play. I'm cottaging the 2 wines. I think there's enough food to avoid farming either one. Went AH - BW - Pottery - Fishing. Actually did a few turns towards archery (playing Immortal only) before seeing the map looks pretty isolated. City 2 to the west for gold + wheat. City 3 on northernmost tile for clams and wheat. Finally met Sitting Bull around T45 or so. I'm hoping he has a religion at least. Otherwise useless to me and too far away to attack.