Nobles' Club 226: Victoria of England

[AcaMetis]

The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Victoria of England, whom we last played in NC 162; we last played the English under Churchill in NC 137. The English start with Fishing and Mining.

• Traits: Victoria is Financial and Imperialistic. Financial adds +1 to any tile that already produce at least 2. Imperialistic adds +100% to Great General generation and +50% bonus to Settler production. Note that excess directly converted to won't benefit from this bonus. Indirectly converted food , on the other hand...
  
• The UB: The Stock Exchange, a Bank with an extra +15% generated over a standard bank. Banks are rarely build buildings as they are somewhat expensive (200 on standard speed) and maintaining 100% slider isn't hard to do when you can build Wealth, sell resources and excess techs, or just punch money out of weaker civilizations. That said, if you're planning on going conquering a few Stock Exchanges in economic backbone cities will keep your economy safely afloat. Unless you send an army that would make Genghis Khan faint to take over an amount of land that would make the Romans call you completely crazy, of course .
  
• The UU: The Redcoat, a Rifleman with +25% vs. Gunpowder units in addition to Mounted. These guys have an edge against the most common unit types they're likely to fight against, including their intended counter unit, making them an all-around excellent unit to use in their era. Rifling is a lengthy detour from getting "any" decent attacking unit on the way to Cannons, but Redcoats do have an advantage in that they can be drafted, and Banking is on the way to Rifling.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Fractal, Temperate, Mid sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

Two fish were moved from doomed to be unloved location to a better, more appreciated home among their new friends.

The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC 226 Victoria Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels). You can play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.

Spoiler what's up with specific difficulties :

In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Prince. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

Spoiler for players on Monarch or above :

You should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:

Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians :

1. Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
2. Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
3. By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labelled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
4. Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
5. Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
6. Exit the worldbuilder.
7. Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.

If you're playing at higher level than Monarch, consider also giving them Hunting at Emperor, Agriculture at Immortal, and The Wheel at Deity.

Spoiler huts and events :

Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.

 

[AcaMetis]

Well...that sure is a start . As far as I can see the question is whether to SIP and settle a city on the Stone later, or whether to settle the ivory and settle a city probably 1 SE(?) of the Stone later. On the stone gives us an absolute monster of a capital and quick(er) Stone, Ivory gives us a 2 city tile with more than enough food, and fresh water in the stone city (which will have at least +2 from Floodplains by the looks of things, +3 if settled on the Stone, so I think the +2 from Fresh Water is nothing to sneeze at in this case).

I'm leaning towards settling the Ivory, as much as I love the idea of having a capitol that can work 4 6 tiles later . Globe Theater and that city becomes a drafting machine. What do the experts think ?

 

[krikav]

I think I will build a few cottages this game too.

On Ivory is probably best, warrior on a SE trajectory to see if we can find someone before T5.
Capital won't be able to handle all the fishes untill T200 or something, but it's nice that capital will provide borderpop for all 3 of them, looks like there is room for cities both north and south to share fishes.

Stone and insane amounts of food seems to indicate that pyramids+rep could be an idea, but if only considering building pyramids, then SiP has merits... That would give capital more production potential and it would enable a city on the desert stone (which would require a considerable amount of workerturns to quarry+road if we settle on ivory.

TW could be delayed since cities along the coast would be insta-connected. But TW probably shouldn't be delayed too long as getting pottery reasonable early makes alot of sense with the FIN-trait and fantastic cottage potential here.
Vicky with her IMP trait also speaks in favour of whipping settlers imho (10 hammers invested and you can do a 2pop whip!)
Anyone slow-building settlers with production from food (the fishes) is most likely doing their development a disservice.

 

[sampsa]

Deity T50

Spoiler :

Really nice starting techs and traits for this start. Who needs workers when you have floodplains and the ability to whip IMP settlers? That pig+clam-site is nicely connected to capital, 3rd city only after capital border pop. Went BW-hunting-archery-agri-wheel-(pot). Went archery because I didn't want to die like a moron again. Bear ate my initial warrior and the barb archer in the screenshot killed one of my two fortified warriors at 11,5% odds around T44. Whipped an archer like a boss and didn't lose the game yet, phew.

So started with a boat, then grow, whip settler @4, OF into another settler, whip again @4, OF into worker, whip when available. Worker will go immediately to chop York forest and whip another worker.

T51 settled 4th+5th and now it's time for workers, cottages and granaries. Somehow I don't think I'll go Mids, rather chop some workers.

 

[Imploding]

Nice another NC! Great!
Monster start with Victoria!

I consider settling on elephants the ph hill or SiP.. maybe iron/copper 2N of SiP.

Will load up game and have a go!

 

[earthy]

this start is giving me flashbacks to a willhem map I played!

Spoiler :

 

[krikav]

T0
I fired up the game and it just occured to me that riverside ivory yields an extra commerce.
Not sure this is enough to tilt any decision though, but it was something I didn't think about before booting up!

 

[AcaMetis]

Putting a camp on the ivory does yield a very beefy 133 tile, yes, and clears either a floodplain or the riverside plains tile to not become a farm later, since the city will irrigate the corn. I think having a 2 city spot is better short term, through, and since Civ IV is all about snowballing early advantages, probably better long term in turn. You could do good stuff with SIP and setting the capitol to hammer out settlers, though - 1 city tile, fish for food, 3 riverside plains ivory, two 3 grass hill mines and one 4 riverside plains hill mine - 14×1.5=21/turn building a settler, or hammering out a settler every 5 turns . Not bad for the suboptimal approach .

 

[sampsa]

Personally I don't think having a 133-tile available is even close to competing with +1 city center, especially when there isn't actually a lack of good tiles. Saving a forest is a nice bonus.

 

[krikav]

I did choose to settle on ivory. I reson like this: Happines will most likely be the limitation, and I want as many citizens as possible working these lovely floodplains cottages, so the opportunity cost of working the ivory camp is not working a floodplain cottage.

 

[krikav]

especially when there isn't actually a lack of good tiles.

Exacly this!

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T41 (tbc to T50) :

Up at T5 it's time to choose tech. Haven't met any AI yet but holy smokes what land we have available! Warrior will here move one more turn east but then return and take up post on the plains hill which gives excellent vision.

Gilgamesh shows up with two scouts, likely that he is trapped on a peninsula west of me. Glad that I have wonderful land to expand peacefully away from him as his creative borders would be annoying. He is also one of those AIs that you don't want to fool around with as he is likely to DoW and his vulture are brutal. :'(
I started building a workboat working a 1F2H tile, but these last two turns I can work the forested spice instead and get some food into the bar.
Once workboat is done I grow to pop2 and then start building a worker.

BW is in and I revolt right away and whp the worker. GK showed up from the east. GK seem to have some other neighbour though as he put 0 points on me and he likes Gilga. Now I remember that I forgot to check demographics.

Washington shows up in the north, I send my warrior to piggyback on him as thats a nice way to scout somewhat safely, tailing after a AI archer.
A chop finishes the second workboat in time for pop2.

Joao also shows up from the north. We are in a nice central position here (but also abit dangerous). We can manage alot of the diplo early on and preventing and allowing wars depending on who we open and close borders with.
Right now I try to spend all turns growing on warriors, but when a chop lands I catch it with a worker.
Settlers I will only put one turn into and then whip from pop4->pop2. Don't know if this is optimal but it feels nice.
Most important I feel is that I whip settlers as that benefits as much as possible from the IMP-bonus.
After finishing TW I chicken out from my plan to go straight toward pottery, mostly because I see that I have a city that is safe to place up north that will claim both clam and fish T50.
Growing on warrior here T28.

T29 I swap the queue again to catch chop with a worker. This minimizes the turns that I'm forced to stagnate.
I want to grow as much as possible to be able to whip as much as possible.
Only barb warriors around which is lovely.

At pop4, now I put a turn into a settler, next time I whip it and send it north.
My two workers are busy whopping the two selected forests, they and the overflow from the settler whip finishes a third worker in one turn. Again I think it's lovely to get these things like settlers/workers done in as few non-growth turns as possible.

At pottery, barbs are attacking. I have saved the southern forest to have a fortress for my warriors.
Abit excess roading here while waiting for pottery. Perhaps farming a floodplain or making a mine had been better?

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T50 :

The warrior that piggybacked on Washingtons archer earlier took up post here, good place to fend of archers as it gives time to react if the warrior dies. I was abit worried that the archer would slip by though but the smell of warrior fear was irresistible.
The worker is finishing a chop of a workboat which I also whip to completion to get as much hammers as possible rolled onwards to a granary, I want to reach at least 30H so I can 1pop whip the granary next.
Did not whip earlier because I wanted to work the 2F1H tile as long as possible but once it was chopped away the population goes!

All of the sudden, my roading doesn't feel that smart anymore. >_<

I was lucky though, that archer rather wanted to kill Gilgamesh scouts than to take my autobahn right to my vunerable capital.

Did some scouting with the workboat before it was time to head back for the T50 borderpop.

If I haven't seen entierly wrong, this barb archer has now killed 3 scouts of gilgamesh on that exact spot.

Crazy Joao at alfabet!

Overvew at T50.
I kind of want to get archery so I dare push forward. But AH might reveal horses in some convenient location too. And I want to start improving the pigs.
Not really sure if I want to whip the granary in capital (and 1pop whip of pig-citys soon) or if I just want to continue work the cottages.
Not really sure what to do with the workboat next turn either (capital borderpops T51). Do I want to net the clams T51 that both cities can use? Or do I want to net the fishes T52 instead? Thinking the clams as York can soon whip another workboat for the fish.

I'm kind of neglectant about barbs, but the allure of starting to get those cottages down sooner rather than later was abit too much to resist.
I don't think I need much more than what I allready have here. A city or two to the east would be really nice to get even more floodplains, but after that I think I should rather utilize IMP to get some cheap gift-settlers out to please GK and Gilga and sit steady untill the renaissance.
Stone is comming under culture next turn, but I'm not sold on the idea to go masonry now.
Don't have a clear city that could finish pyramids in a reasonable timeframe really.
Could be that I chopped away that opportunity and got quick settlers and workers/cottages instead of a shiny stone wonder.

 

[krikav]

@sampsa

Spoiler :

In case you don't want spoiling the suprise, don't look at my game, I have meet different AI!

I like your approach with neglecting workers early on. Seem to have worked out nicely.
I think I went way to heavy on workers from the get go. Once I had one worker the only really sane thing to do with that worker was to chop more workers, and that turned into sort of a trap.
5 cities are more than 3 too!
This gives me some flashbacks to that immortal cookbook with sally, where I went for early cottages and was totally amazed when I opened yours (and swordnboard and others) save and saw cities and workers everywhere.

 

[sampsa]

@krikav

Spoiler :

Yeah I think my play was pretty good, though not completely sure on archery. Just didn't want to die twice in a row. Map seems very easy, but hopefully Genghis or Gilgamesh can throw a curveball or two.

 

[krikav]

I'm sure that @AcaMetis has some devilish plan in mind for us!!

 

[earthy]

another deity attempt

Spoiler to t50 :

Not really used to build order on seafood first starts. Double workboat seemed like a fun idea so I tried that... Agriculture before BW was probably a mistake though. Could have whipped the first settler a bit earlier if I went straight for BW.

@t18:

Got a workboat out early to scout as well, but unlike Krikav I didn't think to bring him home . After BW I went TW->Masonry->Pottery, but since I've yet to start improving the stone I suppose I should have gone pottery first. Haven't met an Ind leader yet so gunna make a shot for late mids. Not a fan of the worker shortage these seafood starts yield.

t50:

Spoiler to t82 :

Mids in capital @ t75, settled one more city for gold/horse. Genghis looks like he's going to be a monster,and giggles is plotting.. He's not really stacking near me, but he's putting 4 points on me. Does that mean anything? His worst enemy is across the map so I doubt he's going for him. Maybe archery is the safe play here?

 

[AcaMetis]

Devilish plan in mind, definitely . Though whether it'll actually work out as such...we'll see .

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T82 :

I have had points on Gilga, and see that he now is going IW. I have a settler out and check if he has copper allready, which he has (He is boasting about his vulture) so this settler I won't use myself, this is to please Gilgamesh.

Exacly the city he needed! I didn't get liberation bonus from this though which I think is weird. But +4 fair trade is enough to get to pleased. Feel much safer already!

The immediate need for mass settlers super quick is over, and I'm starting to run into happines problems, so I transition to 3-pop whips of settlers to get hammers in overflow for some infrastructure.

Kahn is ofcourse comming to steal my only source of horses.

Situation when I got a library in the capital.
Rushing sailing now mainly for traderoutes but also to have something useful to put hammers into while growing (lighthouses).

Cancel my clam+pig for gold trade with Joao, now I have my own gold! I did go for myst here with the idea to steal GKs rice, but he apparantly went for myst himself for once.
I'm not so sure about these eastern cities... The riverside is nice but they will take time to develop. Might have been wiser to just tech to some elephant powered construction attack instead.
I settle on the gold because this city has no food source and will be much more profitable just slow-growing on grassland farms and working riverside cottages instead of stagnating working the gold.
Besides... close to GK I feel safer on a hill, and it's a 2F2H3C city center which is really nice.

T74 Korea finishes pyramids likely placing them without relevance for me.
T78 I lose an archer to barbs because I was an idiot and just marched too close to their roaded cities. I also get to pleased with GK. This move however got me to annoyed with both Wang and Washington as they had GK as worst enemy.
I didn't think about that, and this could cause problems later on. Never good to screw up diplo. :'(

T18 I meet Hammy, the last AI.
Complicated diplo here, Khan and Gilga have roughly the same peaceweight and the rest of the AIs form sort of a different team, I'm stuck in between.
This workboat moves east abit more before it reaches Wangs borders which I can't enter, so the boat is deleted.

T81 Gilga finishes GLH and this is the state at T82. Hope to trade Aestethics for Alfa with Joao T84 once I have put a turn into alfa.

 

[Pengu]

Imm until 400 BC
The land :

Spoiler game :

Well, that was nuts . I settled on the ivory and went worker 1st. Teched BW and chopped out 2 boats. Went for a settler after that and settled on the hill to the N of the capitol to share cottages as I went straight for pottery after bw. Met 4 of the AIs pretty quickly and Gilga is a dangerous backstabbing neighbor. After that I went to the xact same spots as sampsa with city 3 and 4, by the pigs and by the stone. Went math and quickly chopped out the mids as happiness will be a problem with all this food.This meant that GLH was off the table. I went for COL to infect Gilga and share the religion to try and make him like me. My other neighbor to the north Washington will not like me but he isn't a known backstabber. I went on to settle west of my capitol to share the fish and on top of the hill by the sheep to the east. Went for currency and then I am now halfway to bea. My last city so far went by the gold mine to the east so I could share the sheep. Met the final two civs and found 2 barb citys between us. As I saw no iron around I will maybe try to take them out with axes. If I am left alone it could be great with all these cottages. Just hope Gilga doesn't start plotting....