Nobles' Club 195 - Asoka of India

[Fippy]

No need to give up here, Gunboat

Switch into Hindu, most of your unhappy cities have it.
Also good for diplo with Rags & Kublai.
And ofc HR, you are SPI ~~
That so easily solves your AP unhappy problems, and HR is also favorite Civic of Rags & Cathy.
(gifting AIs you care about diplo wise some more resis can be good, for +2 diplo there)

Can finish some units you started, then switching into economy & teching mode.
You have 16 cities, and not far behind in tech = good position.

Build some wealth, use specialists (Caste might also be a good idea, so far you created only 1 GP).
Can finish Shaka in 10t, but not important..seems you did not care much about the rest of your game
But all those thingies are easily fixed in just 1 turn, take a deep breath and look at everything described & other ideas you can come up with for your cities,
and you will see teching & catching up is very possible.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Oh wow. Thanks so much Fippy!

I have a known weakness when it comes to multitasking. In war mode, I usually allow my newly-captured cities to work on infrastructure, but pretty much everyone else is devoted to the war effort, so my economy tends to suffer. This game seems to amplify that because my core is heavily weighted towards production.

I'm not convinced that I can finish Shaka in 10t, (running low on cats, iir), but I'll give it a go - I'd hate to let him rebuild his strength (I've already done that once this game).

I could probably churn some GPs out of my Easternmost city (if I run Caste), but other than putting an Academy down in my capital, what would you suggest that I use them for? Also, would you care to elaborate on:

(gifting AIs you care about diplo wise some more resis can be good, for +2 diplo there)

I'm not quite sure what you mean.

Anyway, I'll try to implement those suggestions later tonight and see if I can redeem myself here.

 

[Fippy]

Sure, let's look at diplo screenie (i switched into Hindu and HR)

Spoiler :

+1 for "we appreciate the years you have supplied us with resources" with Cathy, was what i ment with gifting AIs some resis (resources) for diplo

Works this way:
50 turns of trading (or gifting) one resi gives +1, and 100 turns gives +2.
Each resource counts & reduces the turns needed, for example trading 5 gives +1 after only 10t (5x10 for 50t total again).

Okay, if we look at Kublai diplo we can see no "we appreciate.." bonus yet.
You are giving him dye, not for 50t yet thou.
But you have many spare resis (Sugar, spices, fish, corn, ), cos you have so many cities
If you care about better relations with Kublai, giving them to him until you get +2 "we appreciate.." costs nothing.

Great Peoples, many different possible uses here.
You could bulb Education (teching paper already).
Great Merchants for $$$ trade missions become stronger and stronger as games progress,
1100 gold minimum at ToA city.
Or just preparing for golden age(s), which also become better and better with many cities.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Thanks again!

I wasn't really considering the diplo effect of gifting resources - I was just caving in to demands to buy peace (I don't normally do that, but I thought I'd try it). I had no idea about the mechanics behind it. Thanks.

ToA = Temple of Artemis, right? Wow. I didn't know that would make a difference.
edit: I usually keep a Great merchant around to found Sid's Sushi if I ever make it that far, but the rest I either settle in a good commerce city or somewhere that needs the extra .

Tech-wise from here I usually either go Liberalism (if I've got an advantage, which I don't), or Replaceable Parts then head towards Rifling. Most of my strategies involve getting war techs because every single game I've played where I'm not on the offensive, one ai or another dows me with my proverbial pants down. I don't think I've won a single game that wasn't a domination victory (ok, maybe a few score wins early on, but they're not real wins).

 

[elmurcis]

ToA = Temple of Artemis, right? Wow. I didn't know that would make a difference.
edit: I usually keep a Great merchant around to found Sid's Sushi if I ever make it that far, but the rest I either settle in a good commerce city or somewhere that needs the extra .

Sushi is one thing where you might need Merchant (but thats for Space or different late games so in general - if have no clear idea to go that far in game - use it earlier). And settling is worth only in some rare situations (really optional). Trade missions are the way to go - amount of gold you get from far far away big city with Temple of Artemis can be huge (relative to tech costs or unit upgrading).

 

[rfcfanatic]

Went easy and played on Noble difficulty. Normal speed, no huts & events. Conquest Victory in 1846 AD.

Spoiler Victory :

About the map.

Spoiler Map :

Quite a lovely miniature Earth map Even the placement of rival civilizations is similar to Earth.

India has a tough starting situation. Aggressive neighbour to the north and very aggressive neighbour to the south.

Wars:

Spoiler Wars :

The first war was a short border skirmish with Qin Shi Huang over a barbarian city to the east (Gepid) in 475 BC. Unusually for a barb city, it was well-placed, with access to coast and riverside and 2 resources (Wheat and Horse). The theft of such city by Qin 1 turn before my Swordsmen could arrive, was intolerable.

Ended up being the first to found Confucianism, although the year was already 75 BC. Just out of curiosity whether I could get away with it, I adopted it as my state religion and of course, it angered the AI rivals.

Shaka attacked me in 150 AD and I even lost a city to them. But still, I managed to raise a late classical army of Swordsmen, Axemen and Catapults and fight back. It was a long brutal war lasting far into 15th century AD when Shaka lost their last city.

By then, Kublai and his vassals Catherine, Qin Shi Huang and Suryavarman had declared a war on me with a large stack of Macemen and Crossbowmen and many Catapults. Quickly whipped some Knights to deal with the problem as they are very good at killing Catapults. Also, a Castle in the city under siege bought me some time to whip the Knights.

Once the invasion repelled, it was time to build Trebuchets and go offensive. First Kublai, then Sury and finally Qin. By then, Riflemen, Cavalry and Cannon had entered the stage. Made peace with Russia, but only temporarily.

The final wars against Catherine and Ragnar were quick and easy.

Wonders:

Spoiler Wonders :

It was a bit late (775 BC), but I managed to build the Great Lighthouse. Timed its completion with birth of the first Great Scientist so that the odds of Great Person in food-rich Delhi would not be corrupted with influence other than Great Scientist.

Mausoleum of Maussollos was completed in early AD-s due to the lack of marble, but its benefits would become visible only when Taj Mahal got built in 1500s, because someone beat me to Music (managed to build the Sistine Chapel still).

The Apostolic Palace under Confucian control removed the threat of unfavourable voting sessions as well.

Later wonders didn't make much difference any more, I guess.

 

[cseanny]

Been trying to fix my sound (it was fine for my previous series) for recording and it's almost there. Not quite, but close. I recorded my first session and hopefully will have sound back to perfect for the next session.

Immortal, Normal, No Huts/Events til 725 BC. I opened towards Oracle, grabbed TGLH, started my own early-ish war while bribing several other AIs into some chaos as well. In a few more turns I'll be sitting at 11 cities.

 

[elementoffear]

Been trying to fix my sound (it was fine for my previous series) for recording and it's almost there. Not quite, but close. I recorded my first session and hopefully will have sound back to perfect for the next session.

Immortal, Normal, No Huts/Events til 725 BC. I opened towards Oracle, grabbed TGLH, started my own early-ish war while bribing several other AIs into some chaos as well. In a few more turns I'll be sitting at 11 cities.

@cseanny : Excellent walkthrough! I hope it doesn't take too long for the sequal

BTW, would you mind sharing the save at the end ?

Thanks

 

[cseanny]

@elementoffear, Glad you've enjoyed it so far. I'm working through the weekend so I'm hoping to have the next session up by Tuesday? Then again, I might end up getting today off in which case it could be sooner . I'd be happy to share saves at the end.

To anyone following, it's been a while since I've played and I forget how to stack whip overflow to finish an item in 1 turn. I asked this in another thread but crickets. If anyone knows I'd be grateful, thanks.

 

[Pedro78]

Nice to see you play this, Sean

To stack whip overflows you basically whip units/buildings and take them off the queue, then complete them all in a row. A couple of things to be careful about tho:

• The overflow cap is max(unit or building hammer cost | city base hammers), so basically you want to complete the cheapest builds first, otherwise the hammers will be wasted (or converted to gold with BULL/BUFFY)
• Unit hammers decay after 10T, buildings after 50T, regardless of the game speed.

A cool technique with whip overflows is to whip a unit that will be obsoleted next turn with some OF so you get the upgraded version "for free". (ex: 3pop whip a Treb on the turn before Steel)

 

[cseanny]

To stack whip overflows you basically whip units/buildings and take them off the queue, then complete them all in a row. A couple of things to be careful about tho:

• The overflow cap is max(unit or building hammer cost | city base hammers), so basically you want to complete the cheapest builds first, otherwise the hammers will be wasted (or converted to gold with BULL/BUFFY)
• Unit hammers decay after 10T, buildings after 50T, regardless of the game speed.

Thanks for the reply Pedro. I already know everything mentioned here . Maybe I'm asking my question a bit funny . Let's say I'm trying to finish Oxford in 1t, how do I do that? If you finish an axe, followed by a spear, followed by a temple, followed by a monastery you end up with 4turns to finish of the que.

How do you finish 3/4/5/6/etc queued and completed whips in a single turn?

 

[Swordnboard]

The idea is to step up the hammers each time. So, say you produce 40 a turn, you could finish an already-completed sword (40), temple (80), forge (120), etc., before eventually reaching enough OF to finish Oxford in 1T (2, I guess, since you need a university first). By whipping past completion you could step up a bit faster and in fewer steps. The process has to start a few turns before you reach education though. I don't think there's any way to finish more than 1 queued item (even if whipped to completion) per turn.

 

[cseanny]

@Swordnboard, thanks. You've said exactly what Pedro did . I guess my mind is slowing losing it lol. I could have sworn in the past there was a way to finish multiple queued items in a single turn. Obviously this would make the micro and planning much easier. And I haven't completed Oxford in years , but I figured it served a better example of what I wanted to do.

cheers all.

 

[elmurcis]

Unit hammers decay after 10T, buildings after 50T, regardless of the game speed.

20 turns for units on Mara speed, not sure if 100 or 150 turns for buildings but not 50 for sure.

 

[Pedro78]

I could have sworn in the past there was a way to finish multiple queued items in a single turn

In vanilla Civ4 there's an exploit where you can get multiple overflows in a single turn (not sure how this works), but in BtS you have to complete each build in separate turns.

Thx @elmurcis I didn't know the decay thing scaled with game speed.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

@cseanny
Thanks for the video! Some really interesting points in there. I had a few questions, but I'll have to watch the video again and write them down this time. They mostly have to do with trying to understand your reasoning behind a couple of decisions. Regardless, I'm also looking forward to seeing the next instalment of this game. Cheers.

 

[cseanny]

Til 580 Ad. Session 2 is a weee bit long. Apologies. Feel free to jump around to the parts you're interested in.

 

[elementoffear]

Til 580 Ad. Session 2 is a weee bit long. Apologies. Feel free to jump around to the parts you're interested in.

Hey @cseanny great walkthrough!
I was wondering, you mention a lot the population size in cities "I want to grow to 6 here" "I want to be 7 there..." etc
How do you decide what size to be in ? I always thought you should grow as much as possible/happiness/health allows, but is there a different strategy for this?

 

[unas876]

Most of the time you have to understand it as "I want to grow to size X to then do Y". For example you could want to grow to size 11 to then stop growing for a while and starve your city down by running a lot of specialists to produce a GP. Or even more popular, you want to grow to a certain size to do a particular whip, for example the ever popular size 4->2 or size 6->4 2pop settler whips during most of the expansion phases.

If you don't have any particular plans like that you probably always want to keep growing to your happy cap. But whipping especially in the early to midgame is usually more efficient than growing to the happy cap, unless you for some reason are forced into a low happy cap because most cities won't have enough good tiles to work, so usually most players have plans like "grow to size X then use a part of the population for whipping Y or creating GP Z" for most cities.

 

[ArchGhost]

Hey @cseanny great walkthrough!
I was wondering, you mention a lot the population size in cities "I want to grow to 6 here" "I want to be 7 there..." etc
How do you decide what size to be in ? I always thought you should grow as much as possible/happiness/health allows, but is there a different strategy for this?

Did not watch the video for the specific scenarios, but generally:

size 6 is commonly used for settler (100h) or library (90h) whips because after granaries it's faster to get 90 hammers via grow to that size and 3 pop whip than slowly accumulate them through working tiles, you don't need to chop, etc. You can use this for Cuir whips too if you need to set up the initial overflow train, where they will be 2 pop whipped every time after.

Also, whipping at a larger size means the city will be bigger after the whip and usable at a higher yield faster, especially if micromanaged to make sure the granary bin is full so it instantly regrows. 6 pop city > 3 instantly can regrow to 4 pop city and can be 2 pop whipped immediately after, if desired, or just work more tiles like cottages than 2-pop whipping a size 4 city. etc etc. 7 pop city would be size 4 and quickly 5, so on and so forth.

Growing up to the happy cap and just sitting there is not something that is usually desirable until you're ready to grow cottages or stay working powerful tiles, because the population itself is normally best used being whipped or starved down for GPP. Growing up to a certain level of pop is most useful when that population is actually put toward something until the point that slow working tiles comes closer to matching the power of the whip/GP bulbs i.e cottages mature or workshops get some of their boosts.