Nobles' Club 234: Gandhi of India

[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 Gandhi of India, whom we last played in NC 160; we last played the Indians under Asoka in NC 218. The Indians start with Mysticism and Mining.

• Traits: Gandhi is Philosophical and Spiritual. Philosophical gives all cities +100% generation and a +100% bonus to Universities. Spiritual allows you to swap state religion/civics without suffering Anarchy, and gives a +100% bonus to all Temples.
  
• The UB: The Mausoleum, a a Jail with +2. Combine it with Gandhi's ability to quickly (and cheaply) swap into Police State to keep your cities functional during a long, dawn-out war, or build them during a Space Race to offset Emancipation unhappiness while boosting your generation.
  
• The UU: The Fast Worker, a Worker with 3. A very powerful UU in the right hands, these guys can chop forests and improve distant tiles faster than regular workers could ever hope to manage.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Global Highland, high sealevel, Temperate Climate, total of 8 rival civs. Note that Global Highland is a map script that produces a large amount of land tiles. With two extra AIs these settings should result in about ~100-110 land tiles per civ, which should be on par with a large-ish medium sealevel Pangaea.

Spoiler edits :

Several resource swaps were made to give AIs nearby strategic resources, and the player's starting position was swapped with an AI.

Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine: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 234 Gandhi 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 labeled 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]

I have no idea where to move the settler in this situation, and not just because of the time of day shown in that screenshot. 1W looks very inviting, but I'm not sure. What do the experts think?

 

[as2w]

It looks like warrior W or SW to see just a bit more. I don't see an alternative for the warrior move. 1W for settler gives us back 1 forest, but we lose the river connection if I'm reading the screenshot correctly. So that may mean an earlier focus on TW to get cities connected. My guess is that if you move 1W to settle, then it's AG>>AH>>BW. Or since we have mining, does that change how soon to get BW? It still looks to me that TW would be, at earliest, the 4th thing we tech.

 

[AcaMetis]

Unfortunately SIP isn't connected to the river either. You could settle 2W to grab the corn while being connected to the river, but that'd lose plains cow. The Warrior really has to move first and see if there's anything that'd encourage a move like that hiding out in the fog.

 

[dr£ddlord]

Monarch nhne

Spoiler :

 

[Anysense]

Spoiler :

Settling on PH between pigs and corn seemed automatic... Huge mistake, lost both cows and ivory to Joao. It wasn't cooked, was it? Joao is well placed to steal everything and has large amount of land all to himself. And, of course, the warrior is on the wrong side, so that one can't even steal Joao's worker to slow him down

Next settler will probably go to riverside PH wine and borrow pigs and that's that. There is not obe single other spot worth settling, unless Joao feels generous and leaves that northern fish for me. Still can be playable if I can keep ivory with religion+monument+library. Lucky he's got in the third ring.

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

Beyond the usual nearby strategic resource swaps and the starting position swap this map wasn't cooked, no. Joao started in that position with basically the same resources he had initially. I'm actually kind of surprised that he's being such a nightmare. It's Joao, sure, but I didn't expect him to settle in your face so much and go crazy with his culture by founding a religion. My testing indicated that he'd stay manageable. Painful, maybe, but manageable.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Deity, NHNE, BC4000 - - BC1080. Trust the divinities and settle in place.

Spoiler :

Turns out there is copper.

What would Gandhi do?

Spoiler :

Exposed archers.

Took a city and called it a day. Getting greedy is suicidal on deity.

Lost many axemen taking out barbarian cities on hills.

Happy Hindu love fest just the way Gandhi envisioned.

 

[dr£ddlord]

Spoiler :

Its hard because of India's starting techs are mining and mysticism plus almost no commerce in the starting position.

 

[Y Draig]

Long long time since I last played or even visited the forums. Lets see how this goes!

 

[Anysense]

@sylvanllewelyn

Spoiler :

Ten-city Brennus before even 1000 BC
And I thought I was having hard time... Lets hope he will stay in classical era for ever, as he so often does.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Deity, NHNE, BC1080 - - BC0500. Being a free-rider.

Spoiler :

By the time I would have finished alphabet, everyone would have had it already. But if everyone has alphabet, then I will never need to get alphabet!

I could, however, get something else for a little bit of trade value:

I had nothing to trade to the Celts. Half the known world is Hindu, and the Celts, with the most cities, built the Kashi Vishwanath. The won’t trade polytheism, maybe going for literature and The Great Library. There is a significant risk to trying to be first to music at this point.

No meditation, polytheism, sailing. I had to set priorities. There is still hope. Brennus and Mehmed do not plot (war) at “pleased”. I am fine until the Celts switch to free religion. I have some time.

@Anysense

Spoiler :

Is 10 cities by BC1080 too fast even for deity? I have no idea. However it is BC500 and the Celts are still at 10 cities. Portugal, whom I attacked during BC2240, is now at 9 cities.

I am now very interested in looking at your game by BC500. You moved West to settle Delhi, giving Portugal more space. You did not attack Portugal. How many cities did they have in your game by BC500?

 

[Anysense]

@sylvanllewelyn

Spoiler :

I've only played to 1850 BC, Joao has already got 9 cities. At least he is pleased and I'm only 13 turns from Math bulb and 15 turns from Alpha. With any luck I will be ready to elepult him around 1000 BC.

 

[Snowbird]

Tried a start...

Spoiler :

Not sure why some guys have problems expanding... AH slowing initial phase I guess? (I teched AH after BW and Wheel -- had a C2 barb archer near capitol, so I don't think Wheel was optional)


I think it is a second barb archer on Bombay but two warriors + hill+cross water...

The quality land seems to be gone so HBR into attacking someone - both brenus and jao seem to have good land and horsies will be in culture in two turns I believe. One of workers is digging road to Mehmed ~4-5 turns until foreign trade is established.

Settling goldmine before 2000BC, having horses... I don't really think it is worth playing out.

 

[Anysense]

Spoiler :

I am now very interested in looking at your game by BC500. You moved West to settle Delhi, giving Portugal more space. You did not attack Portugal. How many cities did they have in your game by BC500?

15 and still rexing. Declared on him in 525BC with 8 jumbos, 4 axemen and 10 cats. Brennus began plotting a few turns ago, probably against that wondewhoring guy, whoever he is. Probably, yeah. He came with a small stack just 2 turns later

I quickly took the two border cities from Joao and made peace - had throw in HBR but nevermind.

Sacrificed a few catapults to destroy Brennus' stacks that keep coming one after another; all in all killed about 40 units before he would even talk, but I'm not going to talk until I had retribution.

Over the following 12 turns I captured 3 nice cities which have 3 pigs, corn and cows between them (more than all of my core cities put together) and a couple of golds as a bonus. Now Brennus is finally ready to be reasonable and signs this nice treaty. Ought to have asked for more first, did not really expect him to accept it.

On the whole the game is rather hopless: I'm desperately falling behind in research and Joao is pretty much out of control.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

@Anysense

Spoiler :

Just noticed you're playing on epic speed. Immediately our games are not comparable. Even then, when you declared war on Portugal, the Celts had... how few cities? Very different alternate universes.

Deity, NHNE, BC0500 - -AD0520. The overlords can give and can just as easily take away.

Spoiler :

When you're REALLY far behind...

This is not a trivial gift. I immediately started stacking archers in Lisbon.

But to no avail. Is it the worst thing for a powerful AI to declare war on you? Actually it can be worse:

The culture bomb! Portugal was first to music. My whole strategy hinged on Lisbon being a powerhouse. Turns out, between Christianity founded to the South in BC625 (I kid you not), and a culture bomb to the North, Lisbon was not very useful.

I had no choice but to switch into total war mode and start razing cities. Then just as I was winning, the Celts... did they declare war on me? Not quite but this is bad enough:

Sidenote: how was I winning against Portugal in the first place? Stack of archers and spears behind walls. Portugal lost units failing to take it down. Humans have trouble against archers, so do AI.

State of the empire assessment:

Spoiler :

The tech pace is slow. AIs are fighting wars against each other. Happiness and health are not problems because nobody can grow cities quickly enough. Pretty much hit WFYABTA with everyone except for ... Portugal... and some poor sobs that were even further behind. but we are committed to total war with Portugal now.

Portugal is tech leader with engineering, feudalism, civil service, and researching paper.

Win or lose this is becoming a boring game.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Deity, no huts no events, normal speed, AD0520 - - AD0940

Spoiler :

Retired. No point playing on.
Reason 1: Celts control the Apostolic Palace and kept preventing me from reining in Portugal. As a result they were first to liberalism. If I defy the resolution to stop wars with them then I would have been defeated by the other countries. I was too weak.

Reason 2: My only chance was cultural victory, which was my intention all along right from the beginning in BC4000. But the Celts had the same idea and they would be much faster

I really believe I ran out of options.

 

[dr£ddlord]

Monarch nhne

Spoiler :

 

[Anysense]

Deity/Epic 565 AD.

Spoiler :

I'll skip the description of tedious war with Joao. Suffice it to say that it resulted in capitulation in 565 AD. He also gave Philo and Machinery. Next move is probably trade Philo for CS and hopefully Mehmed's gold will still be there on the next turn (you know how their gold tends to vanish exactly on the turn when you have something to trade for it).

Mehmed is obvious next victim and then finish off Brennus. Plan is to tech Engineering and get Guilds from Mehmed once he is ready to capitulate. So far killed more than 200 units, taking out Mehmed and Brennus alone will require about 100 more... The game seems winnable but actually winning it would involve destroying several hundreds more units and I don't feel like it.

It was not only Joao who did his best to ruin me. Mehmed, unable to plot on pleased, did his bit by culture bombing Yayoi only to steal clam which he can't even use. In the meanwhile Mao the Psycho forced war on Saladin and keeps trying to assign my cities to the Celts, which I simply deny and keep whipping units in former Brennus' cities so they don't feel too unhappy.

Epic speed really makes difference here effectively increasing movement speed 1.5 times, very important when you start very small and AIs are very large. I doubt it would be playable on normal speed, not unless you get really lucky with AI's behaviour, religions destribution and other random stuff.

 

[Capellan]

Noble. 1840AD Domination win.

I played a lot of Civ 4 about a decade ago, and was a 'win more than lose on Monarch' player then - you can find me in some of the old NC threads. I recently reinstalled Civ 4 recently and gave this scenario a whirl. Noble since I am very rusty.

Spoiler :

SIP. Settled south quickly for the gold, then popped a city to the west before focusing expansion northward into the jungle.
My early expansion linked up with Brennus and basically blocked Mehmed: he never got above 3 cities.
With about 10 cities to my name and Ivory, a quick run to Construction and then elephant and catapult stomping Mehmed was the obvious play.
This was brief.
I next turned to Jo-Jo and sallied eastward against the Portuguese. They had 10 cities but I had lots of angry grey beasties - and by now there were macemen backing them up. A few trebs even made it on the scene by the time I fought my way to the end of the peninsula. I decided not to cap anyone in this game, just to see how it went.
By now I was comfortably leading on tech and I saw little point in not continuing the conquest. Brennus was the next target by virtue of location. He also had 10 cities and I'll give him points for fighting hard: I backstabbed him while he was already fighting the Romans, but he still threw a lot of troops at me. Of course, I started with muskets to his crossbows, and had grenadiers on the way, so his lots of troops did lots of dying.
Eventually rolled him up. Took a quick breather and then ran over the top of China in short order. Was just moving on Rome when I ticked over the land limit for Dom.