Nobles' Club 256: Boudica of the Celts

[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 Boudica of the Celts, whom we last played in NC 168; we last played the Celts under Brennus in NC 223. The Celts start with Hunting and Mysticism.

• Traits: Boudica is Aggressive and Charismatic. Aggressive gives all Melee and Gunpowder units a free Combat I promotion, and gives a +100% bonus to Barracks and Drydocks. Charismatic gives every city, Monuments and Broadcast Towers +1, and decreases the exp required for units to level by 25%.
  
• The UB: The Dun, a Wall which gives a free Guerilla I promotion to all eligible units (Recon, Archery and Gunpowder-type units, although Rifling will obsolete the Dun, making the free promotion impossible to get for any Gunpowder unit beyond Musketman without upgrade shenanigans). Guerilla II Archers right out the gate are some of the most defensive scouts you'll be able to get, especially in enemy territory during a war, but that aside this building does nothing that being Protective doesn't.
  
• The UU: The Gallic Warrior, a Swordsman that can be build with copper in addition to Iron, and starts with the Guerilla I promotion for free. The game claims that this "makes it a formidable defender on hills", but Axes generally have a different opinion on that subject. More realistically Gallic Warriors have (easy) access to the Guerilla III promotion, +25% Hill Attack and +50% Withdraw Chance, putting these guys among the best survivors of implausible odds in the game. That this is true for the unit that chooses to forgo a shield, shoulder pads and shirt in favor of sweet tattoos, making them overall less armoured (and just dressed in general) than Ragnar's Berserkers, is something best not pondered too much .

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Continents, Rocky climate, medium sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

A few resource swaps were done to give AIs nearby strategic resources and to relocate one unworkable Fish to a better location, and your area was given a few more forests.

Spoiler isolated? :

Not isolated.

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 256 Boudica 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]

On the one side, could settle the PH 1NW for the 22 city tile - the 2 is worth noting when you're settling a city on what's normally a base 0 tile. On the other side, the two tiles 2E and 2E1S are conspicuously missing forests and could contain delicious grassland resources, whereas all that's visible further NW seems to be desert. I'd say move the Scout 2NW onto the forested tundra hill, to get a good look at the area we'd be moving into if we settle the PH, and if it's a bunch of desert junk...SIP, I guess? Lots of forests, fair amount of river tiles, fresh water...I don't see a better place to move to if the north-west contains nothing but desert .

What do the experts think ?

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I thought the Dun gave Guerilla I to melee units as well? As in, a stack of axeman with two movement on hills. Or is this not the latest patch?

 

[SillyGoat]

SIP still gets a 12t worker thanks to the forested deer. Moving to the PH means an 11t worker (so same turn as SIP after spending a turn to move) and it may mean moving away from food, it looks like the tiles East of the settler are bare and make contain food. +4 food from the Deer isn't enough to grow on let alone work the gold. I would move the scout 7 and then 8 to see if there is any food near the gold. If not, then I would favour settling in place.

 

[AcaMetis]

I thought the Dun gave Guerilla I to melee units as well? As in, a stack of axeman with two movement on hills. Or is this not the latest patch?

It gives the promotion to units that can be promoted with the promotion normally, and normal Melee units cannot be promoted with the Guerilla line. One of the unique aspects of the Gallic Warrior is that they can take Guerilla promotions, so the Dun would give them the promotion...if they didn't get it for free anyway .

SIP still gets a 12t worker thanks to the forested deer. Moving to the PH means an 11t worker (so same turn as SIP after spending a turn to move) and it may mean moving away from food, it looks like the tiles East of the settler are bare and make contain food. +4 food from the Deer isn't enough to grow on let alone work the gold. I would move the scout 7 and then 8 to see if there is any food near the gold. If not, then I would favour settling in place.

Stepping on the hill would give you better vision of what's NW of the settler, though. NW->N will only give you one line of tiles to the north, stepping on the hill reveals two.

 

[SillyGoat]

Stepping on the hill would give you better vision of what's NW of the settler, though. NW->N will only give you one line of tiles to the north, stepping on the hill reveals two.

Fog gazing suggests that the tile 2w of the gold is forested so it will block vision of the tile that I'm interested in: the one beside the gold.

 

[lymond]

Yep, Dun description is misleading...only gives to archery and gunpowder units.

Sweet deer tile..best unimproved tile in the game(standard scripts). PH would be nice but unfortunately better food is not that way..likely something in the E or SE.

I think moving Scout 2XNW will reveal tile 2XNE from there, despite forest....maybe not
(edit: oh..yeah..looking at the wrong tile...that tile is forested)

yep, that tile looks clearly to be a desert there and likely not an fp..maybe oasis

 

[AcaMetis]

Fog gazing suggests that the tile 2w of the gold is forested so it will block vision of the tile that I'm interested in: the one beside the gold.

It...does seem to be forested, yes. Have to zoom in very close to see it, but the tile 2W of the Gold does appear to have a forest on it. In that case NW->N would indeed reveal the tile 1W of the Gold, but that seems to be a Desert tile? I think the best case scenario for a Desert tile would be an Oasis, would that be enough to move away from two conspicuously empty grassland tiles?

 

[SillyGoat]

It...does seem to be forested, yes. Have to zoom in very close to see it, but the tile 2W of the Gold does appear to have a forest on it. In that case NW->N would indeed reveal the tile 1W of the Gold, but that seems to be a Desert tile? I think the best case scenario for a Desert tile would be an Oasis, would that be enough to move away from two conspicuously empty grassland tiles?

If it is desert, then I'm settling in place and hoping there's more food in the fog to the east. Even best case with an Oasis only gives +5 food with a camp on the deer and that drops to +3 with the gold. I'm ok with that for a second or third city but I want a lot more food than that for a capital. No guarantee we have food to the east, but the start normalizer normally aims for 2-3 food specials so I'm expecting there to be more food somewhere in our starting BFC.

 

[SillyGoat]

I loaded up the save, haven't moved anything but zoomed in fog gazing says it's desert and more desert to the north. To the east, I think I see the edge of some sort of food on the grass. Sheep maybe? or just a part of the grassland graphic?

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[odin1981]

Given the difficulty level I would think long and hard about settling on t3-4 after some movement. Barb's are gonna annoy you, the two starting techs of Celt's are trash, and aside from forest's and the gold but limited food it doesn't feel like a strong capital. Granted I played on diety/immortal.

 

[AcaMetis]

North definitely looks like desert. The southern grass I'm pretty sure is just part of the graphic. At least it looks like there's similar bits in the tile 1N, and that's forested, so it can't have Sheep.

 

[odin1981]

I'd move scout NW,?, depending on what I saw, probably NW again. Moving the settler I would start NE.

 

[scheines]

Spoiler To 1000 BCish :

Settling feels real awkward in this one:

• Lot of brown land besides the BFC
• Lots of tundra
• Best cities appear to be settling backward into the coast (copper, along the coast to share both corn), or rather far away (the patches of green)

Copper first feels like a must; but what is everyone else doing next? How far is too far for an early city? For instance, the corn and FPS city would be a great specialist city, but is it too far for say a city 3 or 4?

(Pics to come when I am back at my PC)

 

[prettification]

The map is very hard. I hope there will be high-level accounts since it is bound to be quite educational.

Spoiler :

Coloossus is king on this map.

Further I settled (in the beginning) was NW 1SE of the gold.

I was rushing rifling with caste scientists after having conquered Churchill, but Auguste just got grenadiers with 10+cities and colossus, so its pretty over (rougly T180, Im at school now)

There is not enough land to warrant the profitability of war, in my opinion, apart from securing the continent from Churchill expansion.

Its all about carefully squeezing everything you can out of the barren continent (that you will have to keep away from Churchill), with representation/caste (and maybe colossus/GLH), all the while practicing expert diplomacy.

Thats all about I can think of with my noobish level and this failed attempt.

Will restart when coming back from school.

 

[Willem V]

Also really curious how other/more capable players handled this, so hope it gets picked up.

Took a shot myself and am still in the race, but I could have done a lot better (Imm/normal speed/NH/NE):

Spoiler played until 1080 AD :

Sorry no pics, maybe I will upload some if I am home.

So I opened by SIP, happy with great food at capital. Going agr->mining-> BW.

Not so happy with surrounding land. Quickly realized we had barren, poor land and were possibly semi-iso with Churchill. Adopted his Buddhist religion early on so we were buddies.

Second city went for northern sheep to help work gold. Was pretty red faced when my settler was on route and I realized I had no AH and had to research that before I could work any food at my second city. First big mistake, but I made the best of it by working the gold and freeing up the capital to work more foodhammers for quicker rexing. Think I went fishing (for clam city)->Wheel->Pottery->writing after that.

Third and forth city went near eastern copper/clam and southern deer, as helper cities for cottage growth for the capital and to run the first library scientists. Cannot say I was too happy with these cities either but there simply were no better spots nearby.

Had great luck with barbs (mostly warriors) but also sent out enough warriors myself to fogbust and prevent barb spawns nearby. Was pretty content with this part of my play. Churchill's archers also soaked up a lot to be fair.

Rexed pretty hard, being motivated by a recent forum post that said the current norm for rexing for non-noobs is 6 cities by 1000BC and 10 by 1 AD. Never managed that before (noob!) so gave it a go and rexed at the detriment of my teching, but kept a reasonable pace I think. Do not know if it was worth it. Chopped like a mad man, whipped a bit but not that much as the food was poor (outside of the capital).

I did stop to think whether I should expand beyond four cities at all, given a possible semi-iso scenario. If semi-iso, I believe the correct play would have been to maintain a small empire (no more than five cities?) and bee lining to optics and bulbing astro. I felt however my land was too poor any way to make an early optics/astro play, and I needed more or better land. This (accidentally) turned out the correct play, as I met a workboat from Julius (hindu) soon afterwards, and my own boat met Mehmed (buddhist) a while later. They shared the adjacent continent.

So my fifth city went near western sheep along the partial tundra river (more of a connection city towards the corn spot) and sixth city went for double deer/silver city. My seventh city went for the corn/floodplain spot (best spot on the island) and I was lucky to get the spot on the coast west of there with the sheep/fish as my eight city, before Churchill got it.

I took a barb city near western corn/dear spot, having 9 cities at around 1 AD, which I was happy with from a rexing point of view. I do doubt whether I should have settled some of these spots at all. Maybe a smaller empire and just crushing Churchill earlier (see below) and going for optic/astro would have been the better play. Probably even. Mistake 2.

Went for alpha after writing and was far in but switched to Aest when I noticed Churchill was going for alpha. Lost some beakers in the trade afterwards. Mistake 3.

Went for meditation before alpha/aesth to build a monastery in the capital and spread Buddhism via missionaries. Was not the right play I think, too early at least as I hardly built a missionary in this phase. Mistake 4.

First scientist went for academy. Could have gone for math bulb but do not think this was a mistake.

Traded Alpha for IW, sailing and Poly I think. Went for Code of laws next, by employing several library scientist and by building research. Also invested in fail gold via Shwegadie pegadie, Statue of zeus and Parthenon (had traded for ivory and marble at some point, for my abundant deer). Got to CoL at 300/250BC or so. Then had to go for math, as nobody would trade. Then went for Civil Service and got there at around 100AD. Went for mono and OR in between. Thought that would beef up the building of failgold and the necessary infrastructure in the younger settlements. Do not think it was worth the turn of anarchy. Mistake 5.

No fail gold had come in yet, if I remember, which was not exactly how I had planned it either. Switched to Buro and caste, and employed more scientists (in goldsheepsville, my second city, I think) to get out the second scientists for Philosophy.

Global tech rate appeared slow overall and our continents were clearly scientifically ahead. This lead me to believe I could go for the Music artist via lit, which I did and which I got.

Turned on the golden age after getting the great scientist, bulbed Philo, switched to pacifism, and went for scientists in the cap and merchants everywhere else. My cities were small and so not many merchants were hired. Squeezed out two scientists in or shortly after the golden age. Later got one merchant.

Now I did all of this because I had planned a cuir rush. As I drew closer to that 'rush' I realized that was a mistake. First of all with poor land and slow tech rate/no trades (and some poor play), my rush date was going to be atrocious. Second, Churchill could have been beaten much earlier with a decisive treb/cat attack I think (although he had feudalism at aroudn the time I got CoL I believe). I also had access to elephants (via traded ivory) but was oblivious to this. Should hav gone for elepult i guess, followed up with rifle or cannons overtaking the rest of the world maybe. Third, the rush would end with Churchill, since all other targets are on another continent. Researching astro and building galleons, is going to delay further what could already hardly be called a 'rush'. So my cuirs will probably get slaughtered once they reach a new continent and the lines of reinforcement will be an issue as well. Big, huge mistake 6.

In the mean time I had settled the fur/fish/silver iceball (fur trade bait) (city ten), used an artist to pop borders and hard built a workboat, whipped the granary, whipped the lighthouse. Could not resist settling this but again, do know if this was worth it.

Since I was committed to the cuir rush (and I am a bit of a one trick pony, who cannot perform other attacks), I researched paper, bulbed edu in part, researched nationalism, researched compass and even calendar, and bulbed lib in part and got MT. Then I researched gunpowder and theology (yeah, trades have been horrendous), all of this fueled by failgold finally coming in. Traded for MC and some other stuff, switched to OR and slavery and whipped Forges and barracks. Then switched to theo and whipped cuirs like a madman and attacked churchill at 1000 AD. He capitulated at 1080 AD (after capturing four (rather poor) cities and wiping out his army). Also captured a barb city on the far western side of the continent which I thought was crap, but turned out to have fish (city 15).

In the meantime I had traded for optics, and sent out caravels which met, Joao, Alexander and Hannibal together on another continent. Bribed of Alexander from Joao, because he was going to capitulate him. Could not get real trades from them because they are backwards. Astrology is also in and I realized I should have maybe gone for this earlier as intercontinental trade is such a huge factor. Mistake 7.

Now I am considering if to move forward and if so, how. I think I definitely still have a winning position (Alexander is the only rela contender with 14 cities), but it could have been so much better with better decision making and play. I want to leverage my cuir advantage (otherwise my entire play has been a waste), but ill need to whip more of them and whip boats to take on Julius or Mehmed, while my economy is dreadful right now (completely whipped to the ground, and it was not good to begin with).

My two cents. Very interested to see veterans play this map and outperform me by a mile.

EDIT: and thanks Acametis for organizing these. Always read the NC threads and think about opening positions, even if I do not play. Keep it up

 

[prettification]

So here is my initial set up after restarting on Monarch (T88)

Spoiler :

Vienne just whipped a forge and is gonna build the colossus. I wii let it grow to 5 to work a river cottage in the meantime.

Settled Vienne and Tolosa to exploit the two corns, research MC with chopped/whipped libraries, and to open access to colossus sea tiles.
Camulodunum is just newly founded, and will be the early production city.

Research order was Agri - Mining - BW - AH (to rush to writing and the libraries to rush MC) - wheel / pottery (pretty much "must have") - MC and Mathematics (for the 30H chops).
I worked the gold all the time with Bibracte (after having grown to size 3, save for growing to size 4 and working two river cottages. Planing on a third after the axe.

My mistake in the first game was to go to war without a solid economy. Hence my goal now is to settle the continent and squeeze as much ressources as I can while keeping Churchill away from the land if needed. Still planing to take him on with maces and trebs, later than in the first game.

Budica is a war queen so still planing to take over the world after industrialization. If not crashing from noobish level of course.

I had also settled the gold NW with my 4th city (so Im 5 cities wide at T88, dunno if its good). Too good to leave it to Churchill and the gold is handy early in the game. Also, 4 hills on a map which sorely misses prod.

 

[Willem V]

Decided to ‘Lain’ up and play this one out.

Spoiler From 1080 AD to 1555AD :

Considered I had not worked so hard to get Cuirs to forego them after four turns of war. Given the fact the tech pace was so low, I could get some mileage out of them, was my thinking.

Decide to go all out on intercontinental warfare with cuirs on boats. Whipped like crazy. Declared war on August At around 1180 AD, two turns after Mehmed did. Was a lucky break. Capped August after capturing three cities and threatening Rome. Gave back almost all cities and went after Mehmed. Rinse repeat. Just whippping cuirs and attacking. Mehmed folded even faster.

After that I wanted to go for Joao, but two turns before my boats arrived Alex attacked Joao and I saw an opportunity to dogpile Alex (the top dog) and attack part of his army in the open. Went for him first.

Alex capped only after I took 7 of his cities (he had 15), but I kept the reinforcements coming and wore him out. I faced mostly muskets, longbows and knights in my fights with all opponents so I had the odds.

After that went for Joao who had grenadiers, but I had the numbers. Capped him in a couple of turns and declared on Hanibal immediately. He just reached rifling that turn. Was 2% short on land for domination. Took one of his cities and wiped out his army and capped him in two turns. 1555 AD conquest win. Built 96 cuirs, lost 54 of em.

Was completely broke the final 20 rounds with -150 gold at 0% science at the end. I typically try to avoid that, but this time went for it and just took a round of strike and deliberately went into couple of turns of anarchy to keep my head afloat (now where have you seen that tactic before recently ;-)

Anyway, had a blast and apparently completely overestimated the war capabilities of the immortal AI again and it’s ability to defend against a cuir attack.

Although I do admit I reloaded a couple of fights I should not have taken. Def some lessons learned.

 

[scheines]

Spoiler Immortal, To End :

First - a few saves for reference:

• 575 BC - after most of my initial settling of cities
• 1200 AD - before war w/ Churchill (yikes, this is late)
• 1932 AD - end

Thought I'd post a high level play since some struggled a bit. By no means did I play great, but hey, I managed a win. Definitely think I need to play more with leaders like Boudica or Toku - perhaps some of my good lib dates are being boosted by good leaders. Critique welcome if you can garner much from so few details.

1932 Space Win -- Terrible date but the map is not very conducive to space IMO:

• Semi-iso start. You meet Mehmed and Caesar early, but not like on Pangaea. At the very least this makes most war more expensive in terms of hammers (galleons).
  
• So much desert or brown tiles --> not many good workshop cities later
• We don't have aluminum
• AGG + CHA aren't anything to write home about in terms of economic traits. CHA is ok.

Anyways, settled as shown in 575 BC save. I teched CoL, CS and traded around to backfill, then actually managed to still win the music race. I misused my GP a bit - the artist tempted me into a second GA, which IMO slowed my lib date by a lot. Could've made better use of another 1/2 of education bulbed, in hindsight. Also used a GS for an academy. Ended up fine because I went space, but maybe it could've been better used earlier. Anyways, I grabbed a pretty meh lib date, then into a way-too-late war against Churchill with cuirassiers. He was conveniently just bribed by Caesar onto Mehmed, so the war was pretty straightforward.

He ended up bribing in Caesar on me. I couldn't get a religion from anyone (really unlucky I guess?) so he ended up pretty peeved with me, because I converted into Confucianism (which I founded) to get a bit out of it (Theocracy). This ended up fine; we made peace after awhile with no land invasions either way.

From here I swapped up priorities: grabbed astro, met the other AIs, and went space after I saw that Alex had 15 cities already . Ran the slight risk that he might end up overtaking us in a space race with so many cities, but he isn't a great techer, so no worries there. Plus, I ended up bribing him on Joao, which kept him occupied all game.

Alex ran close-but-not-really to domination (41%), but the win was never really in question. I went free religion because there were just too many different religions to keep everyone happy, and an annoyed Alex is never good. Tech wise, nobody was close in space parts, so a pretty comfortable win, despite this game being one of my latest space dates in a long time.

 

[prettification]

Just a short noobish question: Is tech extorting viable in civ 4? Unlike in civ 3, I remember some games where the AI would not relinquish its techs, even when my army was on the brink of erasing its last city... And Im in the situation where tech extorting is the only way to go...