Nobles' Club 232: Ragnar of the Vikings

This is a horrible start, I will have another go tonight. I have been unable to rush the Romans due to them being on bronze, I have been unable to box them in due to them being imperialistic.

 

Spoiler T65 - 1500 BC :

Settled 2W as suggested (looked more promising)

I did not rush Auguste. He is too far and has praetorians and I also want to learn to develop myself.

I founded Upssala SW to capitalize on the copper and build the GL. Financial makes coastal tiles viable (AND therefore gives more space), and I spotted 3 coastal (+Upssala) sites including 2 high food paradises ( 1 NE and 1 NW) so GL seemed pretty adequate, especially with a living Auguste).

My goal is to use an oxford capital and maximize research, since the spawning point is economically pretty good, all the while exploring and building a better grasp of the geopolitics (only 2 AIs discovered, NW is tantalizing but I need to know what lies around).

I rush-founded Haithabu and Bika to develop cottages for the capital.

Additionnally to the 3 coming coastal, I also planned to settle 3W and 2W4N of Haithabu.

Lets wait, develop, and see

 

Monarch nhne

Spoiler :

 

Deity To T50:

Spoiler :

Decided to settle towards the Rome although much batter cities are available. I hope AC will not manage to circle me. Copper city is a decent worker pumping city with the Fish and Copper. The capital is strong for settlers.


I will take the stone into the 1st ring not to lose it. Also, the capital will border pop next turn and the Corn will be inside the culture. So frustrated that I cannot settle the best cities first and need to sacrifice workers. I think I'll have 2 workers for 5 cities and so many cottages to build and forests to chop.
AC has everything and an annoying Stonehenge. I hope he will not settle on my borders.

 

Emperor, NCNH, BC0500 - - AD0400. Viking are not made for war.

Spoiler :

I have neither used nor fought against Roman legions ever before. I sacrificed my workers distracting reinforcements. That Roman stack is marching my way. I need to find a place to hold. Religion came late and my cities do not have cultural defenses. I will have to rush-build walls when they arrive.

Strategically I still believe committing to a thousand-year war to eliminate them is the only sensible choice. Once I absorb their land I can catch up. My tech is not too far behind. I am in pacifism and caste system with 5 great scientists. One went to lightbulb philosophy. I will get the next 3 in around 25 turns. At least I will get liberalism first for whatever that is worth.

(I should not have messed around.)

 

Spoiler T129 -350 AD Prince :

Got the GL T81

Im still on my oxford/research way, aiming to fly towards canons (hopefully through liberalism), which i would use coupled with berzerkers (to upgrade them with the CR promo) to swallow auguste and then ravage the continent with a big army. Or I could do more research and ravage it with an avanced one, I dont know.

I am not sure it was the best thng to do. I suppose that at higher levels, you dont really have a choice as you are shoehorned in the most optimal way of playing the map, which you need an expert eye to contemplate....

I still wanted to try and learn the oxford way.... I learnt to micromanage cottages and things .....

Anyway Im pretty much set up now, one turn from founfing the last city 3E1S of Bjorgvin. I just converted to jesus because Auguste converted after I founded christianity, and I deemed sacrificing one turn pretty necessary to stave off an unecessary war, especially against praets.

The next post will tell if my construction was princely sound....

 

Deity to winning position 1080AD:

Spoiler :

I managed to settle all the good spots plus the island for horses. There were some good spots in the jungle but Roman Praets captured those cities before I could spare any production for the Axes. Rome managed to be a bit problematic at the Northern Pigs+Clams spot and managed to steal my first ring Pigs with theri Monument from the Henge, but then I just chopped 2 forests and 1 pop whipped a Library. Initial settling with no improvements was very expensive but working some 13 tiles saved the day and brought in Writing for Libraries and was also important to get Aesthetics. I managed to get Alphabet, Maths, IW, Sailing, Mysticsm and Monarchy for the Aesthetics plus partial teching. Mansa tradiong everything helps a lot. It was lucky that AC went for Metal Casting and he lacked Alpha, Maths and Aesthetics. My priorities were Alpha and Monarchy because happiness was a huge issue until Monarchy, I avoided connecting Copper and Iron to be able to build warriors. However, the biggest boost was opening the trade route North and getting basically everything. somehow in this game we have everything if we shuffle it right.

The only concern was the religion as Confu holy city was south and the Roman jungle cities all went Confu so the Romans were Confu while Mansa and Zara were Hindu. Mansa spread Hindu to me, but I did not switch until AC switched. I also liberated a city to AC as he does not plot at pleased. From that moment on, I had all my initial slow teching covered by trades while more and more cottages came online. Naturally:


My GA Artist. I am actually more excited about winning Music than the Lib race. That means that you have recovered really quickly. This bpt is before Bureaucracy.
With Bureau, 2 Turns later, the bpt is over 300 and in GA it was 450. Due to multiple double food sites, generating 3 GPs was no biggie, even without Great Library, 2 scientists and one GM.

Spoiler :

Then you win the Lib and do the most common choice ever .

Spoiler :

And upgrade War elephants with your GM money.

Spoiler :

I played the game until I wiped the Romans of the map until 1080AD (no screenies ) and I got Rifling for Cavs while banking some 1000 gold for upgrades. So, Mansa with his Cuirs is next but his border is not well defended. I can take 3 cities in 2 turns and that is Capitulation from him. Now, I should just whip some 12 double food cities and build galleons to take over the map. But I am actually not in the mood for that as I am sad that such a beautiful land is not really worked and will switch to play Realism Invictus for couple of days.

So, there are let's say 3 obstacles on this map:
1. Get the land before the Rome
2. Solve the happiness issues as early as possible
3. Become pleased with Rome ASAP

Work the food, which also generates commerce and press whip button every 2 turns.

 

Hello everyone

Spoiler Immortal T77 - 950BC :

Settled 2W thanks to Fippy's consideration. That was so unusual play for me not to settle on PH turn 0, so I decided to give it a try.
Tech: Agri -> Mining -> BW -> Archery -> Wheel -> Masonry -> AH -> Pottery -> Writing. I liked to delay AH to get BW faster
Built mids T77.

I am dissapointed with my decision to settle third city on pigs, not on double fish. Nevertheless my position looks great with mids and so much food

Sorry for my english

 

Reply:

Spoiler :

I think your Mids will be net negative until Mid game as you will not work your FIN cottages as much and have already postponed your good cities to build them even if they manage to provide you with +3 happiness. But if you go to war and go into Police state, they will definitely pay for themselves. I agree about the double Fish. Your copper city could have built the Workboats for that city and it would have been able to maintain your expansion. If you generate GM, maybe you can bulb engineering and take Rome with Trebs+Xbows and recover again with Represenatation for a powerful snowball.

 

Immortal Difficulty
with no Tribal Villages, no Random Events, normal Speed

T77 950BC

Spoiler :

peaceful expansion, quite nice land, mostly friendly neighborhood (so far)
lost scout to barbs
secured copper & will get stone, but no horse, no ivory - so beserkers upgraded to grens may be the way to go

Tech: Agri > Mine > Bronze > AnimHusb > Wheel > Pott > Write

 

Thank you for the map @AcaMetis

Here's a little overview. (emperor, normal, no huts no events)

Spoiler The Saga of Jarl Hairyballs :

Settled in place, second site 1NW of corn (lost stone later, no biggie, took back with force.) Retrospectively, @Fippy's 2W was probably a better play, but i had already committed. Third site on hill next to copper/fish in the SW, from there just filling in. It wasn't a lot of land, but it was good land, and plenty to tech up a bit, even to cuirassier if I wanted. I lost the GLH in 550BC, which is kinda early for Emperor, but it wasn't a big deal. I was split between teching to cuirassiers or going for engineering, so I decided to go Eng. Settled the Horse island soon after, which turned into a powerhouse by stealing the seafood and working horsies/hills. Hammers so nice in Police State.



Probably should have built pyramids myself, gone caste/ philosophy bulb/ etc. into cuirassiers, but I hadn't done a mace war in a while. I attacked at 720AD. Nobody even had longbows---this is emperor, right?



Eventually, Jelling, by that lonely crab at the beginning, made a sick heroic epic city, pumping out CRIII trebs and C3knights on the back of lots of hills. Caesar was kind enough to build the Mids, which I used for police state. The only challenge to this war was the AP. I lost twenty turns killing Caesar because of imminent forced peace. Once I got to Mansa, though, I was able to elect myself the Pope. Zara got Cuirassier before I attacked him, but I had enough knights that it didn't matter.



I finished the continent around 1650AD, at which point I was almost to Dom, but not close to Astro. From there, it was a quick recovery (aided by a newly sacked Versailles) and some lobbing grenades from the ocean at Freddy. The golden age pictured at 1630 is because Capac wanted me to switch to Monarchy from Police State, which was so annoying---I didn't want another war right then, so I caved to the demand, but I captured Mausolleum two turns later, and I really wanted to save the GA until after I was out of revolt. It wasn't too bad though; it helped me get universities up (they weren't strictly necessary, but I wasn't sure how behind I would be when I met Freddy), and I was able to double bounce into Universal Suffrage/ FreeSpeech/ Free Relig.

Last pic is one turn before victory. I love the feeling of recovering. When all your conquests come on line and you catch back up in tech. All these massive discoveries, banking, education, rifling, going off in two, three turns.

Cheers to you on here, helping keep my days bright. You're beautiful people.

Much love,
J

 

@ariosto @Excal

Spoiler :

Your crab city and double fish city are similar except, in both cases, the crab and the second fish are not in your starting 9 tiles. Your tech order was also similar to mine, no mysticism. I am curious: how are you going to make the first border pop? Whip out a library or wait for religion to natural-spread? My approach was to keep all my food sources in the first ring for a more front-loaded payoff.

Emperor, NCNH, AD0400--AD0580. Short update because every turn was complicated.

Spoiler :

My response to that Roman doomstack was to move all my defenders away and sit next to the city they were moving towards. All - - even the token archer sitting in each city, unhappiness be darned. Once they take my city, I will pounce on them.

The AI's response? Saw my "stack", decided the attacker's advantage was not enough, and... moved back to try to re-capture Rome. I did not expect that.

So, I counted where their stack will be during each turn, and timed my army movement to catch them out of position:

The idea is to sit a stack in the forests, attacking into the enemy stack sitting in flat land. When you win, you will be damaged, but still protected by the forest. When the dust settles, there will only be one unit exposed to counter-attack. Needless to say city-raider II praetorians do not fare well against combat-II and shock axes and swords.

Then I stopped the war. I need time to regroup with my catapults to preserve my veterans. And to refit them with newer weapons.

 

Spoiler :

I settled on PlainsHill for extra hammer rather than next to Crab because that city already could work Pigs for food growth
I will whip library to pop border
BUT DO NOT TAKE MY ADVICE - seek an answer from Lymond or sampsa

 

Domination victory T293 1846AD immortal difficulty NHNE.

Spoiler :

Lost enthusiasm after I made such a bad job of the start but got really lucky with Pyramids T101. Economy really took off after that. Got to engineering first, whipped trebs and beserkers. Used a trick that's new to me from watching Lain pre-whipping some units so they were complete in my queue and not paying maintenance for them until I needed them. Rolled over AC with one interruption for AP vote to stop war.

Another really lucky turn of events that nobody had gone liberalism whilst I was at war - didn't even really aim for it but after a bit of tech trading to get me back into the game and an ambition to go cannons against Mansa and Zara I suddenly found myself with all the prerequisites to lib chemistry whilst Zara and Mansa still lacked philosophy. Steel shortly thereafter. Zara peace vassaled to Mansa and their tech rate went off the chart.

Mansa never seems much of a challenge in war. Built cannons ++ and declared on them. He did get curraissers before I finished but he was on his knees by then and I barely lost a unit taking double figure cities off of him. Zara had renounced Mansa's protection and made peace quickly but I declared again as soon as Mansa was no more. Zara was a little more difficult with a tech lead against me but started with 5 cities so there was only so much he could do against overwhelming numbers including rifles.

My final big mistake (I think) was not vassaling Zara or Mansa - could have got both and would have been a tech monster combined and able to go to war against either or both Germans or Incans much earlier. Looking at the high sea level and the number of tiles I thought winning our fairly big continent would be enough for domination victory but there was a fair bit more land than I realised. Anyway, spent about 10 turns building 40 transports and 10 destroyers and upgrading my beserkers to infantry and some of my 100+ cannons to artillery and steamrollered Huayna Capac before he could win culture (1 city had <100 turns until legenendary.) Interestingly, he gave me his best remaining city (Pyongyang) in the peace deal - I usually only get offered junk cities.

Overall happy with the victory on immortal albeit seemed quite an easy map. Really poor opening play and huge amounts of luck to get mids and lib from a poor position. I was over 100 turns into the map by this point but I was really interested in @Fippy 's opening suggestion - having spent years trying to not settle on PH to preserve them for mines (completely wrong in most circumstances) maybe I am now valuing them too highly for builiding cities on. Guilty of not playing the map throughout - preconception relating to high sea level and few land tiles affected early settling and exploration and late game warfare. Had fun with medieval warfare when until recently I found it hard not to use curraissers all the time. I'm finding that I'm winning fairly consistently on immortal but nowhere near good enough for deity - bit of a frustrating middle ground at the moment.

Thanks again for the map @AcaMetis . Enjoyed reading everybody else's write-ups.

 

Spoiler :

The plan was to go for early representation, so I was going to build library in every city anyway. I did 1 pop whip granary + chop libraries in most cities. I did not whip libraries so I could work all premium tiles AND 2 scientists next turn after they were finished.

Spoiler Immortal T78-T115 1AD :

I teched writing and took a little pause in teching to settle all cities I wanted, build granaries and libraries in them.
Representation scientists give you 6 beakers, which is more than even financial riverside towns. I believe, generally cottages are competitive because they are food neutral, but here we have strong food tile in every city (even 2 in some) and no early happiness, so build cottage empire was not an option in this particular game.
Teched aestetics T103, changed for alphabet, math, sailing
Teched currency -> mysticism -> metal casting. Traded MC for CoL, Contruction, Iron Working and cash. Hope Caesar will build collossus for me
Teching CS now.
Rome built Great Lighthouse 800BC. Zara declared war on Mansa Musa 250BC
GE was born T115 (chances about 75%), so I have to decide now, either I go for berserker attack so bulb machinery and switch to bureau+police state (thanks shakabrade for idea), OR I go for cuirrasiers and build Great Library/Taj with GE.
My no-brain choice would be cuirs, because I surely can get GA from music and lib for MT (or even astronomy). But I probably will do the former just to give it a try. Not decided yet
Question: is it good idea to delay attack and tech engineering (8 turns) to attack berserkers/trebs, or earlier berserker/cats attack is better choice?

 

I'm trying to follow your game. Judging by the other screenshot, it looks like you settled by copper as second city, then by stone for the third. Was the double fish city actually later?

As it is, I'm settling double fish second, then stone third. I've followed the tech path.

 

Emperor, NHNE, AD0580 - - AD1140

I just learnt something about unit experience:

Spoiler :

Units "lose" their experience when they are upgraded. For example, my veterans from the first war against the Romans had experience in the teens. It was lowered to 10 and some experience was lost.

But for highly-experienced units this was actually good because you keep your promotions. At 10xp, your next promotion is still 7xp away rather than a larger number.

I also forgot there was another mechanic in this game making life more difficult for the winning team:

Spoiler :

The Romans capitulated to the Malians.

Now I have knights picking off my reinforcing berserkers and catapults.

Everything is expendable

Spoiler :

Lost most of my veterans when the war ended.

Raze every city because the Malian knights make holding onto cities an active liability. Throw everything to completely wipe out the Romans, then gift a city to the Malians for peace to finish off the war.

 

@sylvanllewelyn

Spoiler :

You have been visited by the peace vassal fairy! Congrats on killing Augie. Are you going to sit back and tech up or go back in to take on Mansa with zerkers?

 

@zoiks

Spoiler :

Yes, I settled both frontline cities first. I did not want to lose any of those sites. One for copper, other for cottages. I overflowed into workboats and once I put a settler to double fish, it already had 2 workboats. It was a tough decision for me, whether to prioritize those cities over double fish. It was also difficult on the economy. Double fish has immediate 6. IMP leaders can have something like 3T settlers, so better safe than sorry.

 

My first space victory ever (Turn 453 2026AD Prince)
I could have won faster in other ways but I absolutely wanted to do space if feasible, so I basically forced the most secure way (preventing my rivals from existing)

Spoiler Story :

So I settled 2W and saw an opportunity for oxford capitol (which I wanted to test).
I rushed education and oxford, managed to lib steel flying over the AI research, BUT Auguste DOWed me with plump stacks for which sizes I had not really prepared myself (dude went monty style at please if I remember correctly). This is the only point of the game where my fate was shaky.
I had only decent defenses and had devoted a lots of hammer into trebs for the cannons upgrades, trebs being the only siege weapon whch is bad on the ground (for their cost) and I wanted to preserve them.

It was somewhat tight but I whipped my way to victory, erasing the attack and then taking my revenge with canons (vs LB). I took the west of the peninsula but made the mistake, I think, not to conquer the north of Rome. I was indeed afraid of maintenance costs, wanting to preserve my skyrocketing research rate. I did vassal him to be able to walk his territory to Mansa, who was teching at a dangerous rate.

My goal was to rush artillery, which I did, and muster hordes of grenadiers to 'talk' Mansa out of the race. So I spine-bustered him into oblivion (he had only cavalry and few rifles, the rest was medieval), and undertook to bestow the same diplomatic largesse on the neighbouring Zara (3rd of the race).
I did not vassal mansa because I feared the maintenance again. He vassaled to Zara which made his vassaling longer I think.
I vassaled Zara to be able to make some beneficial trades, after having conquered some juicy cities.

The next target was Freddie, who was on his own continent, so, being a ravenous viking rider of the fateful seas; the game became a marines fiesta, of which I have to say: marines are awesome!
I had to industrialize my cities beforehand, and then razed his 2 stronger cities with the marines way (attacking the same turn as declaring is really, really good, all the more being able to pick the targets). I then camped his oil and unanium with fighters and a huge fleet of battleships, all the while pumping marines for the final blow. I razed enough cities to render him clean and irrelevant.

After that the game was over. HC had vassaled WK but was strolling way behind. I just grinded the victory with a SP empire ....
I did not really optimize the end, and could have at least won 6 turns before because i did not know a GE could not rush the Stase ....


I think I did bad with my vassaling. I should have completely absorb AC and Mansa, and vassaled Zara into a decent ally.... I was very afraid of maintenance.
I also should really consider using cuirs and cavs now. I had not really understood that 2 moves is a strong advantage, especially at the time of conquering space exploitable before the end....

But... Marines were so awesome!