Nobles' Club 255: Louis XIV 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 Louis XIV of France, whom we last played in NC 167; we last played the French under De Gaulle in NC 249. The French start with Agriculture and The Wheel.

• Traits: Louis XIV is Creative and Industrious. Creative gives every city +2 for free, and gives a +100% bonus to Libraries, Theatres, and Colosseums. 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 :

Pangaea, Temperate climate, medium sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

A number of resource swaps were done to give every AI a nearby strategic resource.

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 255 Louis XIV 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]

Not a bad starting position, but the Marble might yield extra deliciousness. Beyond the 2 city tile . I'd say move the Warrior 1NE to scout as much land as possible, there has to be something if the game is recommending we settle that specific tile, and if there's good stuff to be had settle on the Marble? I think the risk of ruining seafood should be very low, considering there's that island(?) due west that can grab a fair bit of the coast regardless?

What do the experts think ?

 

[Nick723]

This is a start and leader that says ‘build the oracle’?!

 

[drewisfat]

Ah Sun- my favorite leader! I'd agree with warrior 1NE, but there's merit to 1NW getting some scouting in as well and making sure we're not killing seafood. Does waste 2 warrior turns though. Also the land to the left suggests we might still be able to incorporate seafood long-term. I'm very hesitant to not SIP, just because we get max forests to chop with Mr. Wonder while retaining fresh water. If we find seafood 3N or 3N1E could justify settling on the corn though.

I wouldn't automatically be thinking oracle just because of marble + IND. To me the main thing that makes Oracle appealing is gold/gems, because we have to power through 3 pretty garbage techs early just to enable it. I think you play the map, marble isn't quite as exciting as stone. GLH is an option if we see other attractive coastal city spots. If you do go for Oracle be sure to go through Polytheism and not Meditation. Poly lets you failgold ToA immediately and Parthenon later on. We're also going to need BW early otherwise our worker is stuck building roads after the two farms.

*Musketeers!* I firmly believe the Musketeer is a great UU, and you should think of them as being a cuirassier rush booster. Consider tweaking your tech path a bit to get gunpowder before MT, and you can start building up musketeers with hammers there not directly competing with cuirs yet. Drafting Musketeers is also a very strong option with France. They're a 1 pop draft, and with CRE we get faster theaters so Globe Theater is more affordable. Personally, Louis is the only leader where I think Globe is generally worth it. I usually aim for a 50% to 60% musketeer unit comp. The cuirs are the can-opener that kills the strongest defenders in the city - the musketeers do everything else. Stack defense outside the city, clean up after the strongest defenders are removed - or to finish off hurt defenders, and then a couple left behind for city defense. It's much more efficient from a hammer standpoint AND the hammers you use to build musketeers do not directly compete with those for cuirs, because you can build them earlier and/or through drafting.

I think the salon is also underrated. The GA points are generally not pollution, because observatories come rather late in the game about at the point where we want to think about using GP for golden ages and not for bulbs. I'm usually not running any artists, so some points in that direction without the commitment to running an artist are often more valuable than any other great people points.

 

[chinemol]

Failed miserably at this one...

 

[sirgalahad1313]

I'm not totally computer illiterate but for the life of me, under steam(thnx to microsoft I was unable to play with my original discs so I had to buy the steam version), I can't find the warlords saves.*sigh*

never mind, I found it but the problem is I don't have BTS so the saves aren't showing up in my worldbuilder file. I'll look for another set of saves with just WL

 

[bamdorf]

Well I played a bit and built Artemis and Oracle. Why not says I? I, you say? I am a putz! After the wonders, I built barracks in three cities and starting churning out axemen. I am blocked in so I have to smash my nearest neighbor to the East. Somehow.