Nobles' Club 249: De Gaulle of France

[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 De Gaulle of France, whom we last played in NC 208; we last played the French under Napoleon in NC 244. The French start with Agriculture and The Wheel.

• Traits: Leader is Charismatic and Industrious. Charismatic gives every city, Monuments and Broadcast Towers +1, and decreases the exp required for units to level by 25%. Industrious gives a +50% bonus to all Wonders (World and National), and gives a +100% bonus to Forges.
  
• The UB: The Salon, an Observatory with +1 free Artist, providing +1, +4 and +3 GA . Not a bad bonus for cities facing cultural pressure, but your Great Person Pool will never be free from Great Artist pollution again.
  
• The UU: The Musketeer, a Musketman with 2 instead of 1. If you're attacking someone with Mounted units and are afraid of Pikeman sniping the strongest units in your army, bring along Musketeers as stack defenders. They can keep up with their allies on horseback. Somehow .

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Terra, High Sealevel, temperate climate.

Spoiler what's a Terra map? :

Terra is a combination of Pangaea and Continents. There's one main continent where all the players start on, and a number of other continents/island chains that can sometimes be accessed without Astronomy, sometimes not, and one or two major continents - the New World - that can only be accessed through Astronomy.

Note if you're not playing a custom scenario with Vassal States turned off settling 3+ cities on a landmass without a Palace (either the basic one, the Forbidden Palace national wonder or the Versailles world wonder) will incur a very hefty Colonial Maintenance penalty. If you wish to settle the New World and not go bankrupt before researching Communism for State Property (or go bankrupt afterwards when the UN inevitably forces everyone into Environmentalism) you should pre-emptively build the Forbidden Palace in the Old World, where all your established cities can easily pump out the requisite Courthouses and production to build an expensive National Wonder (though Ind does help ), and move your actual (very extra cheap to build) Palace to the New World. Trying to build 6 Courthouses and Forbidden Palace in newly established cities in a new, uncharted and untamed land is one step short of a futile endeavour.

Spoiler edits :

A few resource swaps were done to give nearby AIs strategic resources.

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 249 De Gaulle 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]

Eh, could settle 1NW to move a bit further inland, grab river and say "no" to clam, I guess? Not like riverside Wine is really a great pick-up, though. Nice for later, but nicer than Clam? Can't say that I can really think too much in this heat ...

What do the experts think?

 

[Fish Man]

Oh ho ho, another Frenchman so soon? Hopefully this isn't an iso with like 3 health resources...and wine at the start, thematically appropriate too!

 

[Lich_Lord]

Been several years since I've played civ4, but I'd settle in place. Three food tiles, lots of forests for chops and a river to get the crucial +1 commerce to the mine and some cottages seems like a nice start

 

[Pangaea]

Terra is a combination of Pangaea and Continents. There's one main continent where all the players start on

Praise the Sun!

SIP looks fine. Coastal, lots of forests, maybe we can chop out GLH? Am busy with a BOTM, but will probably play this one at some point. Terra is a fine mapscript. Quite nice for going to space actually.

 

[AcaMetis]

Don't assume that means that Terra starts can't be horrible in their own right, though ...

Spoiler :

But yes, Terra Iso would be a very difficult map to roll indeed . I actually got one map that was probably as close to Terra iso as you could get, but that one got rejected .

 

[Pangaea]

Spoiler :

Suppose you could have started us off in the new world, though that would have been one heck of a continent in a typical Terra map. Would lead to some barb issues, but other than that, REX forever. I'm glad this is a non-iso though (presumably...). They're not very fun to play, because it's even more formulistic than a regular start. All about bulbing Astro and then waging war, with probably cannons. Unless you do culture or something like that.

A tangent, but I read that French wine farmers are in deep trouble, because stores are full of the stuff, and they can't sell it (even worse with champagne). Big gatherings isn't exactly on top of the list right now, where especially champagne is consumed in ample supplies, so they've had a sales drop of 30-40%. So, err, get to Monarchy and gulp down that stuff.

 

[Fish Man]

Spoiler :

Suppose you could have started us off in the new world, though that would have been one heck of a continent in a typical Terra map. Would lead to some barb issues, but other than that, REX forever. I'm glad this is a non-iso though (presumably...). They're not very fun to play, because it's even more formulistic than a regular start. All about bulbing Astro and then waging war, with probably cannons. Unless you do culture or something like that.

A tangent, but I read that French wine farmers are in deep trouble, because stores are full of the stuff, and they can't sell it (even worse with champagne). Big gatherings isn't exactly on top of the list right now, where especially champagne is consumed in ample supplies, so they've had a sales drop of 30-40%. So, err, get to Monarchy and gulp down that stuff.

Spoiler :

I think France should colonize India. India has much better food than just wine and pork.

By that I mean, axerush time!!!

Spoiler :

I WILL admit that I replayed the start and employed a strategy that otherwise would not have been possible without knowing ahead of time where the metal was. That being said, conquering 2 exceedingly strong cities including a capital with 5 food specials, and completely wiping out a civ by t53, is no small feat on deity, even WITH some prior knowledge. Here's how to do it.

This plan involves some risk and isn't always possible, but if pulled off successfully, will be much more effective and hammer-efficient than your average axe rush. What you want to do is identify your nearest target, and steal their worker. This will delay them hooking up strategic resources, and most importantly, force them to spend additional hammers on a new worker, which roughly approximates to them building about 2 less archers. Such a decrease in defense for an early rush is game-changing. Additionally, stealing a worker means you won't have to build your own, meaning your first build can be a barracks - usually when axe-rushing you don't even have the time for that. So, an early workersteal lets you face potentially 2 less archers and get an extra 3XP on all your attackers. Sounds great, right? Well, there's even better.

You see, when you declare, I've noticed that the target AI (even someone like Gandhi) likes to spam units, yes, but then also put together attack/pillaging stacks. Early on, they will happily do this with archers - that's right, marching their best city defenders right into the jaws of your waiting axe army. Now this is usually cause for concern but...they take about one or two dozen turns to really start invading, and when they do, you will definitely have some axes ready. Use those archers to 1. farm XP for CR2, and 2. clean up units that are MUCH, MUCH easier to kill in the field than in cities.

Once you kill their "attack stacks" you can often broker a ceasfire. Then what you can usually do is heal up, march right to their capital borders, and declare again, and snatch it. They may only have time to whip 1 unit at most if you surprise them well enough, and they certainly won't have enough units after suiciding half their early-game defensive army into your borders. Do this well, and you can take out an AI far earlier than a traditional axerush, and also have to build less units because the opposition you face is far lesser in comparison.

PS - protip: CR2 axes get WINNING (62%-ish) odds against non-pro unpromoted archers in a 20% city. Without any promotions, I think they get less than 20% odds. So a single promotion or two can make a big difference indeed.

@dankok8 - I will use this as one of two example games to demonstrate how to win deity space under 250 turns, if you would like to see a fairly detailed playthrough.

 

[Pangaea]

Started on this map, and have played to 700BC / turn 87.

Spoiler :

Knew the start would lead to some wasted workerturns, but I didn't fancy Fishing early (enough food) so went AH. And went to the pigs first. Yes, it wastes a turn, but 5f beats 3f. Then Mining->BW.

Don't know if this was bad luck in my game or something that always happens, but Gandhi settles towards me after only 22 turns. Most likely my 2nd city would have been in that area. Made things a bit awkward, as we're already squeezed for land at the end of a not-great peninsula. I put city #2 between stone and wheat (one off coast, but allows a possible city further north, and allows a backfiller on the east coast), and city #3 between the revealed copper up north and the pigs. Yes, we have copper closer too, but not by any food without border expansion (and needs a workboat too, often another delay).

But Gandhi being Gandhi, he quickly gets two religions, and also a monument in the new city, so he steals the copper! Thought I'd still grab it back in decent time, but percentage increased too slowly for my liking, so chopped out the Great Wall in that city. Given the small room we have, I decided to Axe-rush Gandhi. But in between all this, we also chopped out the Mids. It did help to steal some workers from Gandhi. First I kept watch as they like to road between cities, and I managed to snag one before his borders expanded again. Then he kept sending folks to improve the corn.

Spoiler :

With Mids, I switched into Police State for more effective non-Math chops. But only after first 2-popping an Axe in the capital (had to work basically no good tiles). With so many workers (think I had 6-7 at this point), it was time to keep 1-turning Axes from all three cities, which also had a barracks each. In truth I hadn't planned to DOW this early, but then Gandhi sent two workers to the corn, and I had the warrior right there...

Spoiler :

Also wanted to be quick about it because Gandhi had recently acquired BW and gone into Slavery, and I knew the copper was already improved (you see it from mouse-hover trick). He whipped out an archer so we faced two, but that was enough with the 5 Axes that invaded, and you can probably see the stream coming from the capital. Blink, and we suddenly had 14 Axes -- way overkill really, but not like I could build anything else

Poor Gandhi was a little upset. He has a history of using workers, so I can't blame him

Spoiler :

Would actually have caught a worker with their pants down (improving a cow) if it had been a regular worker, but these geezers are fast. He could move into the nearby forest and then further. Oh well, we'll get them later. Pillaged the copper and had to wait for more guys to get into position for his capital. And what a capital it is, holy smokes! Didn't move them next to the capital instantly, with the hope of preventing more archer whips, but by the time we were ready to attack, there were 5 archers in there. I lost 5 Axes on them, but thankfully the second guys won all their fights (and tbh, we needed to reduce costs, as I was losing 14 at 0% while trying to get to Writing).

Only 1 archer in the last city, which is squeezed between Roosevelt and Justinian, who both have got rocket-fast starts it seems. Both have Alpha and a pile of techs on me. Have also REXed hard, with 7 cities each.

Spoiler :

Pretty sure I've never had this many workers so early before (10), so within a few turns the capital had cottages on just about every tile. They also put the rest of the forests into the GLH, and we landed it (did 2-pop it, just in case, as it was getting late). Anarchy again to go into Rep, which will help greatly for taking advantage of all that food in both capitals. Judaism spread to several of my cities automatically (two in one turn early on actually, quite rare), but since all the others are Hindus, I'll switch into that. Still have 8 Axes or so, but their time has come and gone I think. May have to delete the warriors and use the Axes as military police. Have to get the economy on track now. GLH naturally helps, and once I get up some libraries, Rep will help too. Then check out what's up north by the silver, and send some guys to scout the lands further west, and meet the last AIs.

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

For the record I did consider the possibility of Gandhi settling towards you very early, especially on Deity. But, well, there's not much I can do to influence AI settling decisions, and it's literally Gandhi. You sneeze in his general direction and he collapses like a house of cards.

 

[Fish Man]

Spoiler :

For the record I did consider the possibility of Gandhi settling towards you very early, especially on Deity. But, well, there's not much I can do to influence AI settling decisions, and it's literally Gandhi. You sneeze in his general direction and he collapses like a house of cards.

Spoiler :

Disagree with that, actually...axerushing (no construction) an AI with metal + slavery is still very, very nasty on deity. Would not recommend. In fact I'd take Monty without metal over Gandhi with metal any day of the week.

Yes, my first and reckless attempt ended quite badly...how could you tell?

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

Hmm.... Would Gandhi having Horses instead of Copper (not that this second city can't grab a copper resource anyway, but again, can't control AI settling decisions ) make the pre-Construction Axe rush that much easier?

 

[Fish Man]

Spoiler :

Hmm.... Would Gandhi having Horses instead of Copper (not that this second city can't grab a copper resource anyway, but again, can't control AI settling decisions ) make the pre-Construction Axe rush that much easier?

Spoiler :

Umm...did you forget that chariots get a +100% attack bonus vs axes?

Also, no copper in first city if you settle blind = AI will probably get metal regardless by the time you attack If you can't rush before t50 or so, expect to fact 3-4 cities on deity, maybe even more. The chances of at least one of them capturing a stray copper or iron, is pretty high.

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

No, I just figured that with a Spear stack defender or two (have to go Hunting, sure, but that's not that expensive) Gandhi especially would never dare to actually attack with his Chariots, and since they only gain a bonus on attack and no defensive bonuses they'd ultimately amount to just a 4 unit. Would put a damper on the worker stealing to be sure, but in terms of taking cities I thought it might be easier if Gandhi was stuck with Chariots over having his own axes.

If it isn't clear, by the way, these kinds of early warfare situations is something I don't have too much experience with myself. If I go to war I much prefer just flooding the world with 2 units because anything else just feels so slow, especially when you spend turn bombarding down city defences. Effective, yes. But slow.

 

[Pangaea]

@Fish Man and @AcaMetis

Spoiler :

I'm not really a Deity player (have won, sure, but am not comfortable), but would it not be possible to get by here even without a rush? I've seen videos of AZ and Lain where they argue that as long as you get 5-6 cities, you should be okay. The land we have available here isn't big nor great, but there is room for at least 5-6 cities (plus whatever may be on the north silver-tongue), although most of them will be coastal, so probably not great production.

Anyway, Axe-rushing on Deity is definitely not easy. I saw Lain do it in a video the other day, but even he got into quite a mess at times, and only smart movement managed to save his skin. So easy for Deity AIs to 1-turn units, and for example Axe vs fortified Axe is not a pleasant scenario. Then blink and they have Swords. Plus a pile of Archers of course. All promoted because they have barracks early on.

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

Gandhi would likely be extremely obnoxious with his super religious culture if you don't take him out at some point (either early Axe rush or later Axepult rush), but beyond that I think that so long as you're able to claim most of the New World you should be able to squeeze out some sort of win.

 

[dankok8]

@Fish Man

Spoiler :

Sure. Deity Space is pretty good!

 

[Pangaea]

Oh gosh. Played to T105. French, wine, (nearly) strike. So fitting

Spoiler :

Remembered wrong when I wrote the last update. We had 11 Axes left. So I looked around... Roosevelt was impossible. Huge, had several sources of iron, and 3 archers and an axe in the nearest city, with a settler that didn't leave. Only other border I could see was Justinian, and it seemed like he only had chariots. No time for barracks spears, but I whipped out two plain spears from Delhi with max overflow (it has about +99 per turn), and off we go. The city looked pretty terrible surrounded by desert and copper, but it only had 2 archers. Three once we stepped foot inside his land. We got it, with very lucky combat, then cease-fired for healing and for the spears to catch up with the stack.

Spoiler :

The economy is in a bad way, and we're losing 18 per turn at no research. The army is way too big for its breeches. Am getting by on capture gold, but it doesn't last long. This isn't a war for extermination, but I want to go a little further and see if he has good cities. Nicomedia was total gunk. Somehow, the next is even worse, without any food or any resources. What the hell, dude?

Spoiler :

It also had walls, because that place definitely needs heavy protection. Too valuable.

We move onwards, merely turns before the army begins to strike (not enough wine). Looking at the culture view, this may be his capital.

Spoiler :

Aye, it sure is. Not that well defended either.

Lucky there too. Well, at least with one combat. The first one was a CR3, but had only 27% win chance (the others had pitiful odds), and he actually won! A guy suicided at 17%, then we won the rest at 98-99%. It's possible we could have continued and taken one more city, maybe even two, but the land around looks pretty bad (I see tundra and ice north). This very turn we would have entered strike, so I have to stop here and hope it's possible to save the economy. Made the unusual move of going directly for Metal Casting, since we get cheap forges anyway. Also got a Great Merchant from 35% chance. Kinda hoped for a GE to bulb Machinery, but once I manage to locate where Elizabeth is, we'll at least get a good amount of gold, although it's far less so early in the game than it would have been later when the cities are big with harbours and whatnot.

A bit miffed that Roosevelt has only one city less, from REXing alone, and he has plenty room for more. Looks like a terribly unbalanced map to be honest. We and Justinian got screwed, while Roosevelt and presumably Brennus could REX in peace to 10+ cities. Gandhi was boxed in too.

Anyway, we peace out with Justinian. Tried to get Alpha, but he wouldn't have any of it. Got IW instead, which is okay I guess. Everybody has it. Goal is to get some trades going once Metal Casting is researched by the Rep scientists.

Spoiler :

This kinda shows how lucky we were with combat. Usually lose many more axes than this when mostly attacking archers/units in cities.



Still have 9 left, and maybe half are CR3, but now I don't think I have any other choice but to delete the MP warriors and use the experienced Axes instead. Have to try and save some money somewhere, and we're paying out the arse in upkeep. If only we could get open borders with Saladin and Brennus, the improved trade routes would maybe get us to break even at 0%, and enable us to crawl to Currency (Rep is awesome in these situations).

Once again capture gold saved our skin.

So strange to have so many workers. No idea what to do with them any more, so I'm building roads everywhere. Which is usually something you do between 1000AD and Railroads, or something like that, when you have nothing else to improve.

 

[Fish Man]

t120 update

Spoiler :

Closing in on lib. Nobody is plotting except for Brennus who decided to take on an AI an era ahead of him (real smart, dude). Lizzy's the only real threat...her GNP with Colossus + GLH is absolutely dfisgusting.

Spoiler :

I worry she'll reach rifling sooner than usual, but then again, I'm going to reach cuirs VERY quick. If I build Globe Theater in Delhi...can only imagine the whipping that I'll be capable of from that city alone .

Bulbed philo with my first GS, put a bulb into edu, and may bulb the rest of edu or lib depending on if anyone soon is willing to give me metal casting/compass.

IND was key on this start. I think there's actually no marble on the continent everyone starts with...which meant that GLib and MoM were easily mine for the taking (AI really don't like building wonders without their appropriate resources).

Economy is so-so but I have a MoM-fueled golden age coming the next turn. My plan is to take out 3 of the remaining 5 AIs with cuirs, and then tech my way to space. Will probably settle the new world by beating astro out of somebody, too.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Oh, and I finally found some horses, too. Was also in a spot that has enough food to give Delhi a run for its money as a GP farm/NE city!

Spoiler :

 

[Pangaea]

About resources on (this) Terra

Spoiler :

Some types of resources tends to be divided between the New World and Old World on Terra maps. Looking over what I can see of the current map in 200-300AD, Gems and most Calendar resources must be in the new world. In a conquest game that may not matter much, but in the long game like space race, you want to get as many happy resources as possible. That's a good reason to want to settle the new world first. Usually some really good spots over there too, with tons of forests as well (and possibly free Astro when using Huts -> send scouts/explorers on caravels).

On the bigger maps where you can stuff it full of AIs, it's also possible to increase the domination limit by abusing setting up colonies, that then push some of the dead AIs off the scoreboard. Think it was @WastinTime that discovered/revealed it. That is particularly useful in space or score games, where you want to inch up to the domination limit without triggering it (until you want, in the score games).

Can be a pain to set up new cities on a new continent of course, you need piles of workers and ideally a galleon chain, but it can be done. Especially if going with corporations, because then all cities get +20-30 and right away, so getting up infra fast is a non-issue. Costs, however...