Nobles' Club 226: Victoria of England

[dr£ddlord]

This is a horribly addictive game...

played 4 times.
Did not manage to win it, whatever I did I always ended being attacked, on the games I was ready I was able to repel back and even destroy/take vassals, but it always took a toll so even if I was huge someone wa further in tech from me, and AI's kept peace vassaling to each other, it was horrible, and I love it!

Spoiler :

In my best attempt I got up to 36 cities after killing Sumeria and Babylon, and vassaling Mongolia, but Washington was way to advanced and had Portugal as a vassal, and managed to launch the ship before I could do anything about it.

Which brings me to a couple of questions:

1 - Can you kill/fire/divorce your vassal?

2 - Can you defy a resolution after it has already succeeded (and you didn't defy it when it was presented)?

Great game @AcaMetis , its so good I am still playing it in my head

Spoiler :

I lost aswell on Monarch. Had the same problem you had with Washington getting really big and having Portugal as a vassal. He launched a spaceship before me

 

[elementoffear]

@krikav what if I raze the UN city? Do the resolutions still stand?

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

Washington was definitely this game's Deity challenge/surprise. Between the chance to cut off Joao's early expansion and settle your share of the jungle that I don't think anyone even tried to bother with (and understandably so, considering the land that's available to the east) he has every opportunity to become much larger than any player should be comfortable with. What I didn't expect was for mister King of Kings to willingly vassal to him. The only time I recall seeing Joao offer to become a vassal was when he was staring down the business end of a Cossack's rifle, and because he's such an annoyance and volatile leader with his outrageous demands what few offers he did make me were usually signed with a bullet anyway.

Of course I'll happily take the unexpected challenge, especially on this map . It's a good example that even crazy delicious starts with a leader well suited to get the most out of them isn't necessarily won T0 .

 

[krikav]

@krikav what if I raze the UN city? Do the resolutions still stand?

Don't know.

 

[krikav]

@AcaMetis
Haha, yes that is the king of kings I know too.
"Oh, I see that you have just done a trade mission? I want ALL of your gold please!"
Lovely map, both the land-shape, neighbours and setup made for a game that was interesting pretty much the whole game.

 

[earthy]

Spoiler T240 conquest :

With 4 vassals in tow the plan was to get out the bare minimum # of redcoats/cannons and go for washington ASAP whle whipping more, but here is where I made my first mistake. I went for nationhood to get quicker rifles, which meant I lost vassalage and my promotions. I got unpromoted redcoats and CR1 cannons, and those just don't do the trick. I also maybe should have waited for more good units before going in, cause cuirs don't really cut it here either.

I take the first city pretty easily, wait a turn for cannon reinforcements, then push out onto flatground to take out New York. He sends a counter attack up on the hill, and it hurts like hell wiping it out. I switch back to vassalage cause I can't take these bad promo units.

After I wipe the stack he hits me hard on flatground. In total I lose 22 cuir, 21 cannons, and 5 redcoats. I wait for reinforcements, and when I'm ready to attack NY this is what I have remaining:

I throw all four cannons in, then take a bunch of 50% fights and get a bit lucky. Still lost a lot of guys here. I wouldn't have any good defenders, so I raze this city and move east towards SF.

T210 I take SF, but I've now lost most of my original army. Reinforcements are coming in pretty strong though. Him and Joao also have infantry now

I manage to take Seattle and Atlanta with mass sui-Cannons, but he still doesn't want to capitulate. Washington re-settles the city I razed, and Giggles snipes it like a badass for me. That makes Washington willing to cap @ t218! I gift washington his crap back for the culture, then get ready to hit joao. total cost of washington war: 34 cuir, 35 cannons, 15 redcoats, and 23 turns

There's not much to say about the Joao war... He had a ton of infantry, and a turn after I declared he got artillery. I didn't dare keep a single city for fear of him taking it back and getting war success, so I just suicided cannons, hit with rifles/cuir, razed, and rinse+repeat. Dunno if razing cities gives less war success, but whenever it gets to that it's very hard to vassal I find. Maybe just cause I'm too weak to hold cities. Or maybe it's cause he didn't have land target with any of my vassals anymore. 7 razed cities & 24 lost cannons later, he's willing to throw in the towel @ t239:

Not the worst result in the world(actually my highest score on deity so far), but with 4 vassals by T184 I really do feel like I screwed up the end of the game. I really thought I could get a sub t220 win here, so I wasn't too happy about how long it took to capitulate washington and Joao... I think Krikav was right about whipping an army for giggles being a mistake. Getting to rifles and cannons a little earlier so I didn't have to fight machine guns & infantry would have helped a lot. I also think maybe instead of pushing in on Washington right away, I should have just let him reinforce Los Angeles while I built up a critical mass of cannons. I really got punished for pushing in before I was quite ready. All in all a pretty fun game though

@krikav

Spoiler :

whenever I look at your screenshots it always looks like you're having 10x more fun than me . I'm painstakingly fighting an outmatched war, and meanwhile you're just paratrooping guys into fallout, or rushbuying like 30 tanks per turn with your 200 towns .

 

[sampsa]

500AD

Spoiler :

It's annoying to play this slow, but I guess I just don't want to screw up. Lib MT 175AD, gunpowder 250AD, but Taj was distracting me. I guess the normal thing to do would be to just whip/upgrade cuirs asap and I guess I would have a stack of 30 already. However, Taj is certainly not without merit - I got a GS to bulb PP and a GM coming out in 4 turns, so I'm not that far from rifling (maybe 700AD?). Switched to theo+slavery and will whip some elephants to upgrade (have only 8 units to upgrade now). Wang peace-vassaled to Genghis around 100AD and now they are giving it to Hammy. Washington has plotted for some 6 turns and the target should be Joao. Genghis is my first target I think.

 

[krikav]

@earthy

Spoiler :

I'm abit more fond of nationhood than some, and I do think that it's even more usefull with the english, but it has a rather short window (I have experienced it the hard way many times). As you most likely noticed here your strong cuirs got to defend almost all the time, and the redcoats more or less just tagged along for the ride.
@Fippy is almost never late to point out the weaknesses of drafted rifles and I agree more and more with her on that account...
With agg or pro or redcoats it's abit better, but here and against washington with his own rifles and grenadiers I think that the window of opportunity was closed already.
More vass cannons had likely been better.

Oh, whats the point of playing a game if one can't have abit fun.
I try to take the opportunity when the map allows for it, to explore some stuff that I seldom get chance to do.

I can hardly believe that you didn't have fun though, 59 cannons lost indicate a hell of a slugfest, and thats always super-fun.

 

[krikav]

@sampsa

Spoiler :

I get that alot too!

- Taj is comming in in 10 turns, must plan..
- On, now it's just 2 turns to the Taj GA, need to prepare.
- Have to utilize the GA to it's fullest. How to arrange civic swaps...?

Sometimes I get the feeling that I'm in some sense delaying attack too much, and that it could perhaps be better if I had just played as if it wasn't any Taj GA at all, and just take the bonuses for what they are.

 

[Fippy]

Yup it's true, i almost never used drafting.
If that makes me better or worse, no idea but usually at this point i can afford whipping
Maybe it's more tempting with SPI.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I want to join the next one. When would that be? I played a long time, stopped, then started again. I won playing every difficulty ... except noble, which I never actually tried. Maybe I can experiment a bit.

 

[AcaMetis]

I plan on putting up the next NC map tomorrow, barring unforeseen delays/objections/other shenanigans.

 

[krikav]

Next leader is Stalin, right?
Agg trait already all but guarantees some fun!

 

[sampsa]

Next leader is Stalin, right?

Definitely not my favorite traits, so hopefully I learn a thing or two on how they can be used.

 

[elementoffear]

I plan on putting up the next NC map tomorrow, barring unforeseen delays/objections/other shenanigans.

What? A new game right at the beginning of a holiday? Don't tease me ..

BTW speaking of corona , how about an isolation game? This last one was almost always war, a Stalin cultural victory is something that I have never even thought of

 

[Major Tom]

Definitely not my favorite traits, so hopefully I learn a thing or two on how they can be used.

Build AP (industrious), inaugurate Stalin as Pope, crush skulls (aggressive) until 99,8% vote for a glorious win. Easy peasy.

 

[Major Tom]

I plan on putting up the next NC map tomorrow, barring unforeseen delays/objections/other shenanigans.

I like to join in. Hopefully someone can post the standard deity map (NHNE), as I always make a mess with worldbuilder.

 

[AcaMetis]

What? A new game right at the beginning of a holiday? Don't tease me ..

BTW speaking of corona , how about an isolation game? This last one was almost always war, a Stalin cultural victory is something that I have never even thought of

I've not decided on a map yet, so maybe. I'd be concerned about iso being very limiting in terms of playstyle, though, especially with AGG/IND and no unique stuff worth mentioning in that situation. That's pretty much guaranteed to involve AGG warriors fogbusting while you failbuild wonders to fund your way to amphibious grenadiers, and I'm not sure how I could make that interesting. Building AP and crushing skulls until the world institutes Stalin as Civ IV Pope, on the other hand, is just , and not the worst idea depending on how the map plays out.

I like to join in. Hopefully someone can post the standard deity map (NHNE), as I always make a mess with worldbuilder.

I actually considered doing that myself, but I wouldn't want to leave out the lower difficulty and/or huts/events players out, and me making 4×2×2=16 ingame saves per NC would be a lot of effort. Not to mention that even if I did I'd still be leaving out the modded players. A shame that oversight never got patched out.

 

[sampsa]

Hmm yeah, I always play with BUFFY these days so it's complicated.

 

[krikav]

I think we have had a few isolation games in NC recently (or semi-recently).
NC202 was iso, and so was that degauelle game, can't remember number.
I'm fine with whatever, but I do enjoy iso games.
However... Iso games tend to be abit less popular.