Nobles' Club 227: Stalin of Russia

[krikav]

@AcaMetis

Spoiler :

I wouldn't have mind that poor isolation map really, but it's not everyones cup of tea.
I agree that this map has alot of different options available, but I think that an axerush is the most favourable path to tread. (Mainly due to Agg).

Certainly not without options here though.
With ind and this much forests, chopping out an early oracle is quite possible. And building pyramids after that you have rep+caste early on (caste helping with borderpops for 3-4 coastal cities set to work two specialists at size3 without granary and without lighthouse).

I have to see if I will play my game out. I tend to abandon alot of games after a rush, feeling abit like I have allready eaten all the cherries in the cake.
But I might try a peaceful approach out too, just for fun.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Aggressive encourages horizontal growth and industrious encourages vertical growth. I am still trying to find the right balance. The problem is both reduce production cost but neither helps your economy.

Noble NHNE, 1200BC

Spoiler :

Finished researching meditation and priesthood. Begin alphabet. Begin building the Oracle in the city with Stonehenge to stack GPP points.

Noble NHNE, 925BC

Spoiler :

Oracle completed. Normally I get Code of Laws or Aesthetics for more economic and/or trade value. But we’re industrious...

Noble NHNE, 850BC. I changed my mind…

Spoiler :

…and spent three (3) turns building The Great Wall in my capital anyway. There were way more barbarians than I imagined. I could de-fog but I actually want them to form cities so I don’t have to build so many settlers.

Noble NHNE, 800BC.

Spoiler :

Alphabet complete. Started Currency… to be completed in around dozens of turns. My hands are full and I need free money.

Noble NHNE, 675BC.

Spoiler :

The spearman. Just in case they have immortals. Right after the stack of two-legged animals began moving towards the target cities, the capital continued building … chariots. Maximise the number of units on the same spot when the actual attack on the city begins.

Noble NHNE, 450BC.

Spoiler :

Persia conquered. Finally I can do my favourite thing: spam settlers until the economy crashes with 0% research. Because why not?

 

[Snowbird]

Spoiler T98 situation :

Not sure I like how this rush panned out.
My empire is in a very weird shape and has high distance maintenence.

IMHO, if there is a choice rushing leader/civ who has favorite tile improvement cottage... is the best for the economy.

A bit late with that advice probably.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

@krikav

Spoiler :

Is peaceful expansion even an option this game? Both neighbours have nowhere to expand except towards you.

 

[Excal]

T175 1150AD

Spoiler :

Tech: CS > Paper > Phil (bulb) > Nat (GAge +Taj) > Edu (bulb) > Lib (MilTrad) > GPow
Civ: PolStat + Vass + Sla + FreeMkt + FreeRel

attack Darius take 4 cities + cap
a few more turn rifles > Cossacks
prob Qin > Char > Joao
bit of relig Budd fest happening except Eliz vs Hannibal wars

 

[krikav]

@sylvanllewelyn

Spoiler :

I don't think it's unrealistic to expand outwards abit. South toward the gold/plains cow. Something in the east around the marble/seafood and then some helper city in the west.
Thats already 4 solid cities, and after that I think it's likely that one could grab another city in toward the AIs, perhaps the desert-fish?
And tucked in safely behind us is room for two cities (silver and then ice/fish and another tundra fish in the west.
So, 8-9 cities peacefully, 3-4 which are rather crappy, but with pyramids+rep they are awesome anyway.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T175 :

They are teching fast. I had to give Darius cash to have him adopt caste system, because he finished education while I had a few turns left before I could lib MT.
Gpersons did this:
Bulbed philo, 2GSci ran a GA, then 1 into education, 1 into lib a second GA a stray artist and a GMerch.
Got two GMerchs in time, two more are 80-90% done but they have to wait for later.
Have just swapped to vass/slavery/theocracy.

Darius cottages was still here!

Got PP in the deal too! Saving this city because I prefer that darius leaves the board so I don't have to deal with motherland anger.
I trade MT for replacable parts with him next turn, and DoW Qin 2 turns later.

About half are standing by to counterattack once Qin takes the city, and half circle around to take cities from Qin.
Qin bribes Hannibal on me, but later a AP vote stops that.

Have revolted to Judaism to thaw relations with Joao abit, didn't notice he had left HR for Universal suffrage.
I wanted more of Qins cities, but my army is exhausted, I need to recover.
Have not paid any attention to city micro since I DoWed Darius....

 

[Jellybug]

Hello all,

Been lurking for a while and thought I'd give this a go. This one's on Emperor.

Spoiler Turn 51 :

Settled in place, city 2 on the horse. Chariot rushed our boy Darius. Went in early, with four chariots bc he had a worker in range and an archer in transit over flatland. Turns out four chariots > two cities. Must have been settling somewhere so I think I got lucky. Are you sure you want to keep Persepolis? Yes, game. Yes I am. Now, to turn this into a broader HA rush or just settle in and go for pyramids?

Shout outs to this forum btw. Kindled my love for this game, as back when it first came out I was too young to appreciate its depth (though I very much enjoyed facerolling the world on chieftain). It's insane how good some of you are.

Much love,
Jelly

 

[Jellybug]

Looking good so far.

Spoiler Turn 100 :

Got Mids and Great Wall. Moving Palace to Persepolis (southwest near bottom screen). Hopefully borders pop before AI settles in my backfill. Map is so packed with options it's making me anxious! Just got to prepare for the obligatory Renaissance war with Hannibutt or Burger King and we'll be set for cossack sweep.

Anybody know how to hide the big thicc empty blue bar at the bottom of the screen for tastier capture shots?

 

[krikav]

Welcome to the forums @Jellybug ! (I agree that the forums play a big part in what makes this game fun. )

Looks like you are having a good game:

Spoiler :

Bold move, going for chariots.
With BFC copper, I think that axes are a natural move, but it looks like your play turned out nicely.

Palace move to benefit more from burocracy? Looks like that will take quite some time, make sure Perseopolis makes the right priorities.
Before palace, I would absolutely prioritize lighthouse and library and such.

There are some way to hide the interface, but that also hides alot of stuff that are useful to aid others to assess your situation when looking at the screenshots. (Ctrl+I perhaps?).

 

[Jellybug]

Welcome to the forums @Jellybug ! (I agree that the forums play a big part in what makes this game fun. )

Looks like you are having a good game:

Spoiler :

Bold move, going for chariots.
With BFC copper, I think that axes are a natural move, but it looks like your play turned out nicely.

Palace move to benefit more from burocracy? Looks like that will take quite some time, make sure Perseopolis makes the right priorities.
Before palace, I would absolutely prioritize lighthouse and library and such.

There are some way to hide the interface, but that also hides alot of stuff that are useful to aid others to assess your situation when looking at the screenshots. (Ctrl+I perhaps?).

Cuirs in their base while I was still researching Edu. Mad props. I'm

Spoiler Turn 200 :

about to attack Qin with Cuirs, seven turns from Cossacks, and looks like I'll be able to chain the map (though Joao just vassaled Burger King so that might slow me down enough for Liz to get reds

 

[krikav]

Spoiler :

Most things are much faster on deity, the AIs tech faster and you can bunnyjump abit with trades and such, so even if the turn is early, relative to the AIs it might not be.

In my game, I have just played on for a few turns, but it looks obvious that I have to slow down and tech up quite abit before continuing with Joao. (He looks really strong!)
Likely need 10-20 cannons and the same number of rifles, and I'm doing about 100bpt right now...
So I won't have a easy time.

 

[Jellybug]

Spoiler :

Most things are much faster on deity, the AIs tech faster and you can bunnyjump abit with trades and such, so even if the turn is early, relative to the AIs it might not be.

In my game, I have just played on for a few turns, but it looks obvious that I have to slow down and tech up quite abit before continuing with Joao. (He looks really strong!)
Likely need 10-20 cannons and the same number of rifles, and I'm doing about 100bpt right now...
So I won't have a easy time.

@krikav, when you use cuirassiers, do you usually lib into it or beeline Miltrad? This game, similar to you, I

Spoiler :

Libbed it (though I took Nationalism bc Liz was closing in on it and I wanted that golden age from Taj). Reason being, with Joao, Liz, and Hannibal, if the game went too long, I didn't want to be hopeless if the cossacks didn't win it for me in time. I'm just wondering when to lib it and when, if ever, to beeline MilTrad.

Victoraaaay at

Spoiler Snapshot :

1640AD Domination

Spoiler :

Moved the capital around 200AD. Darius had cottaged it heavily for me, and I switched as soon as I had Civil Service. I don't often do this, but it had 7 available cottage spots, as opposed to 4 (I SIP'ed at start), and the dyes on top of those. I chopped the lighthouse, library, and palace out no problem, and it was actually ready before CS was done because I wanted to grab all the land I could and that slowed me down. Great library in Moskva, the inital capital, helped stock this up, and I was getting 400-500 Bpt at 0%slider circa 1400AD. Not bad in my book anyway. (there was seafood in the city but it got pillaged by *******s)

Spoiler Overview :

Chariot rush Darius into Great Wall + Pyramids. Great Library (trading Aesthetics for Alpha, Sailing, and IW), then calendar (traded for Metal Casting, I think), then liberalism beeline (Nationalism on the way to Cuirassier/ Cossack sweep). Normally I try to capitulate rather than take over completely, but Charly vassaled to Joao so that wasn't an option.

This game is the second highest by score in my personal Hall of Fame. Thank you so much for posting the match, and I look forward to playing more.

 

[krikav]

@Jellybug

Spoiler :

I'm not really and expert on cuir-rushes, as I have a personal taste to try out alternative aproaches, and I like the style of 1movement combat too (medieval warfare with trebs, or rifles+cannons). I also like isolation games alot and that usually tilts the game toward chemistry/steel.


But my general understanding and speculations:

One has to reach gunpowder somehow and thats either through education or guilds.
The game can sometimes be set up so that you can get trades (MC+Machinery, maybe even guilds), so just looking at raw beakers and in theory a beeline looks nice.

And paper, education and liberalism. What kind of nonsense techs are these? Just enabling civics that one won't use, and buildings one won't build.
What makes it work out in practice is the fact that it's a bulbable path.
If one forgoes an academy, it's just 100+200+300 great people points to double-bulb education and put a bulb into liberalism. This is so ridiculously efficient that one can almost see these techs as "free".

Libbing nationalism or libbing MT is not that much difference, libbing nationalism is obviously safer, and perhaps makes more sense if one has marble to build Taj earlier.

So if one wants quick cuirs, then bulbing through education->lib is the way to go.
Not sure how a situation that lends itself to a straight beeline would look really.
Perhaps with little or no food, and alot of raw commerce, so that one can tech fast but have difficulties getting great people?
Some sort of multiple gold start spiced with plains cows?

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Forges normally do not make sense except for dedicated production cities. Now I get cheap forges, and cheap barracks, and units that are cheaper because of forges, and stronger because of aggressive trait. I firmly believe in city specialisation this trait combination just isn't the right for it.

Noble NHNE, 1AD, Anno Domini…

Spoiler :

…Confucius. I was hoping another AI will research it first to sow more religious discord but I wanted to get one GP farm going.

Noble NHNE, 75AD

Spoiler :

Great Lighthouse! I needed a way to turn production into commerce.

Noble NHNE, 325AD. Great merchant! Caste system is great…

Spoiler :

China has calendar and construction and refuses to trade them to me. They also refused to trade mathematics earlier and I had to research it myself. Needs some “convincing”. I need construction for engineering. Razing a couple of cities should do it.

Noble NHNE, 560AD. The next wonder is…

Spoiler :

… Hanging Gardens. One of the best wonders in the game. Population is power.

Noble NHNE, 720AD. I am guessing this is the last substantive trade I will get from the other civilisations. No more reason to leave them around much longer.

Spoiler :

Traded calendar for construction and some gold. A key one.

 

[Excal]

T236 1630AD

Spoiler :

cap Qin after capturing 3 cities fairly easily
was going to wait for cossacks, but I spotted his GrMerch heading my way , so attacked earlier with remaining cuirs

Charley next but he has vassalled to Joao
wipe him out totally with cossacks

unfortunately Joao has been plotting while i deal with Charley and has a ton of units, so I have to capture 9 of 13 cities before he will cap (seems he has a fairly strong navy chasing after my vassal Qin ) one trick I learned is to abandon a captured city, but sit on hill next-door and just chew up his re-inforcements - which works very efficiently until machine guns arrive

will crank up culture slider to see where land share is at, but may need Liz or Hannibal to reach Domination (they have been warring for some time - Hannibal is fairly backwards without even GunPow )

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Noble NHNE, 1545AD.

Spoiler :

Overall approach:
Vassalage and Theocracy. Barracks and Stables. Knights with Flanking I and II, close to "Mobility" promotion. Infantry take "Medic" and "March" Promotion. Advance quickly.

Thank you so much for the organisers. I will wait for the next game that is more builder-inclined.

 

[Excal]

T247 1685AD

Domination

Spoiler :

switch US + StateProp

can not quite get 64% land
DoW Liz take 2 cities and crankup culture slider = Domination

nice (failgold) game - Thanks

 

[shakabrade]

Update Until 700BC

Hi guys, corona has pretty much totally cleared my schedule and therefore me joins.

Spoiler :

The Opening:
There was a discussion the other day about starting with two workers and I wanted to see it in action. Therefore I started with BW as we already had one food tech in form of Hunting and Deer in BFC. Due to totally lackluster surrounding (slow growing cities) and a copper in BFC, I figured out that I would totally play the heck out of this leader and his traits. Especially as the second city had gold to support the axe rush. Since we had Darius as a neighbour, a competent techer who could give us lot of techs for peace, who had flatland cities, and we also had two protective AIs as neighbours, the choice was pretty clear. Starting with two workers proved to be very useful for this strat, there were many good timings with the chops and improvements. I have planted a scout (actually a Spear) into Persian soil and decided that this would be enough to take out 3 cities after reinforcements. Decided to go for the capital first.

I was playing fast and forgot to take screenies before this one:

Spoiler :

Three defenders, four dead axes - not good, not terrible. The most important thing is to keep the momentum, otherwise AI whips too many D-fenders.
And that Persepolis is such a nice GP farm.

Spoiler :

Then a gift from a confused AI who tried to help Persepolis or Pasargdae. Anyway, archers in the field killed, plan shifted from attacking Pasargdae to attacking Susa:

Spoiler :

Then Pasargdae, the foodless:

Spoiler :

Darius teched Alphabet pretty early, extremely useful, but he held on it knowing that I will keep him alive for at least 10T once I got it. I thought I'd get much more tech from Darius, but in the end I had to self tech 20% of Alpha to get it in peace talks. And nothing else.



But what else do you need. If you can build research, you can always recover!

Ok, lets get this over with:


After this stage it is all about securing the city spots (and not settling unless connected and threatened to be taken), trade routes, building libraries and actually running scientists to squeeze some research. You can imagine that the slider is totally dropped due to maintenance. I did not bait into settling the silver, and only went for food cities. But to accelerate everything I made a certain wonder a priority:

Spoiler :

And now a picture of an empire:

Spoiler :

No picture as I forgot to take early screenies.

Basically, on Pangaea, you just trade around what you have, for me it was Alpha, a bit of Maths and later on Aesthetics and Compass to catch up. It is really not that important whether you lack good research output in the very opening if you can get those low priority/high value techs for the AI. If you manage to trade for Currency, you are totally recovered.

In the next part, I'll focus on trade and wonder building. Those remaining axes are now a military police and couple of them are parked near the barb city for a snipe if China tries to take it. One settler will be gifted to Charly and lots of resources traded to him to make him friendly (for safety and ignores WFYABTA). China is wonderwhoring, which is good as it has small army and is my first target for Cuir rush (has built Mids for the police state).

 

[shakabrade]

To 25BC

I went back to saves and have taken some pics to have better update.
The screenshot of 675BC:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

The empire is not much, but now it has food, gems to come online, forests to be chopped into GLib and National Epic. Riverside. Marble soon connected.
A potential. But now we first need some more workers. Tech is still bluntly building research. The idea is to failgold Moai statues, beg some 150 gold combined from Buddhists, hope for some cash on AIs soon and trade that Aesthetics around and win crucial wonder (GLib) by chops. And that's why extra workers will come in handy pretty soon.

Spoiler :

The things start looking better. The Currency (for the AIs is in) AIs start having some cash and GPT. Soon I'll fail Moai, trade techs for some cahs, beg some cash, sell some resources and push for Music.

Spoiler :

Ta-da! I so love getting this (first) for the first Golden Age and so many nice trades after that! Oh, yeah, I gifted a city to HRE (Giftutsk), got bonus diplo for trading resources and we are pals now and share all tech!

Spoiler :

Ok, I am not showing my full bpt until the GAge.

Spoiler :

I like seeing max possible bpt in BCs because I can be a petty person, I guess.

Tech situation:

Spoiler :

So, if you trade with your friend too much, he becomes powerful and advanced. That is why we'll have to open a second front before we betray him at some point. Joao seems eager to help. Although he hates us with the same intensity.

Edit: I forgot about the wonders. I got GLib without any competition and have managed to get Parthenon as well! Moscow saved 3-4 chops and had plenty of its own production. I've been putting hammers in almost all wonders as we are IND and have both stone and marble, and gold for Shwedagon Paya. Failgold was critical for this game.

Spoiler :

New tech update:

Spoiler :

Those turns around T100 take so much time but I love them, scheming all the trades, assessing the risks, partially researching to avoid spilling cash, sometimes gambling on the next tech. So much to do, and the cities start to look really nice. And you need to plan your GPP at least a bit. My mission is clear, strong bpt means that I can go for 2 GS (one for Edu and one for Lib) and for 2 GM (too upgrade HAs to Cuirs). Only downside is that I didn't get the Metal Casting in trades. I think it is unusual not to have it already. But I suspect that is the outcome of killing one of the best techers right away.

I'll stop here as it's late. I have finished the game yesterday, fortunately since THEY have found a way for us to work remotely so I now need to shyte where I eat. :/
Take care!