Nobles' Club 273: Ragnar of the Vikings

[krikav]

@Major Tom

Spoiler :

Jelling 1S would have had crabs in second ring, not first. Other than that 1S would have been better. One more grassland that can be worked eventually, and it would be able to share rice.
But getting the food online sooner was much more valuable there I think.

You outline the difficulty pretty good too. It's very hard to get timings right and to know when it's ok to stop teching and just go for it isn't easy.
rifles+cannons does have a very long window of opportunity though, and if everything else prior to that has failed then that point is really a place to go all in.
It's almost impossible to fail completely with rifles+cannons and in almost all cases you can get some land and make some progress on at least one target.
To manage to do it fast enough, and recover/regroup afterwards and do a nice followup, or to kickstart teching again, that can be quite a challenge though.

 

[krikav]

@Major Tom

Spoiler :

Might be disproved on this still, but I think this map feels kind of hard.
Both Hannibal and Willy are good techers and not really pushovers, most city spots are abit awkward and a tad slow to develop. Resource trades are problematic, neither commerce nor production comes that easy.

I think I'll be able to carve out something from this map, but don't think it will be pretty and not it won't be fast either.

 

[Major Tom]

@krikav

Spoiler :

Right, the first ring. I wanted to share rice, more wood and grassland so I chopped a monument.

About the map. The good things:
Easy diplomacy play. Hannibal do not attack at pleased. Brennus will eventually be friendly with shared and org religion. Trades secured and I even have DP. Perhaps I should provoke a Hannibal attack. Hannibal has his fat towns nearby so reward pretty high. When going for Willy you have Napoleon to assist from other side. Napoleon and Pacal should be pushovers as their teching suffers from endless wars and limited land.

 

[gavenkoa]

"Demigod" is an otherwise standard Deity game where the AIs are only given their Immortal level starting units, in an attempt to bridge the gap.

Is that a new practice? I see it first time though I haven't played for a year ))

 

[AcaMetis]

Quite new, yes. The idea was mentioned in NC 271, added as as experiment in NC 272, and alongside NC 273 I've updated the guidelines and boilerplate to include it.

 

[shakabrade]

Deity to 1AD

Spoiler :

I am dragging this game for a week and don't remember the start that much. What I feel is that it was slow and that it could have been avoided to be as such. When I saw 3 cows, 2 in BFC or BFC of 2nd city, I decided to go for AH and revealed horses. On the other hand, we did not have too much land and I decided to take a bit from Carthage with HAs. Did not play HA rush for quite some time.

In this game, AIs were quick to Alpha and all HA techs including HA. Therefore I went for Aesthetics, hoping to trade around and get both HBR and Maths. In the end, I had to bulb the Maths but the trades were quite successful. However, I think that I was too keen on trading for stuff and that hurt my HBR date. I was Financial on the coast, starting with Fishing, it should have been better than T89 attack date from 4 cities. Ok. I did make a bit bigger initial stack as Hannibal has already expanded to something like 9 cities. I find it problematic when you attack an AI and then need to stop to reinforce and heal allowing them to pump 4 units per turn. I did find Hannibal's only connected metal and did park a chariot to pillage it T0. It helped a bit.

War was relatively successful but attacking from such a barren land with 40T of unhappiness in core cities is such an ugly sight. I lost 15 HAs and one chariot for 7 cities. I got TGW in Carthage and all cities but one kept granaries. Later in the war, the Dutch declared on me, to my disbelief, they were plotting, but they invaded with just one galley . When it came near my city I already had reinforcements. But it did make make peace with Hannibal. It was okay because I needed to recover my economy and 2 of his 3 reimaining cities were on the hill. I stopped my unit production, happy with 11 cities and thinking that what I had remaining is totally enough to handle anything from the Dutch. Also, Napoleon DoWed the Dutch.
What was problematic was the loss of happy resources from Willem. After some time, I was able to sign peace with Willem for 165 gold. I did that to open up the happy resource and gpt trades. Also, Willem will trade techs soon. My focus from this moment is just trading with monopoly techs like Compass around to get CoL and to get some GP out for the golden age. It will be okay. After the war, I swithced to Brennus' religion and OR for diplo bonus, chopped a settler and liberated a city to Brennus and we are already friends. He has ton of land and resources and will be very heplful if I manage to catch up quick enough to have something to trade. Now that I am writing this, I totally think I should have already gotten Literature for National Epic.

Some pics:

Spoiler :

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

How did you figure that the Incas are on the map? I know the trick to suss out Hammy and Mansa, but not ol' HC.

 

[shakabrade]

Spoiler :

How did you figure that the Incas are on the map? I know the trick to suss out Hammy and Mansa, but not ol' HC.

Spoiler :

Lol, you are right. I thought that since the average soldiers were lower than the highest soldiers in the demographics, but not as much as with Hammy and Mansa, that we must be dealing with Quechua as the low tier unique unit and I thought all unique units give extra solidiers (checked now and most do not). But it seems that scouts yield no soldiers and Quechua yield as much as a warrior. And we had a scout. So, the unknown guy could still be anyone. Also, when AIs start on Deity, they start with Archers and no Warriors. So, completely wrong reasoning behind it.

https://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/st...orkings-of-the-demographics-screen-explained/

 

[konata_LS]

FIN + AGG is a cool combo . AGG is less popular than FIN or IND among many players, but AGG is still useful under some circumstances. I'm not saying Ragnar is the best leader, but I personally enjoy warring as Ragnar.

In my opition, unlike some completely one-dimensional AGG leaders such as Genghis or Toku, Ragnar is more versatile than many AGG ones: he can handle well an early rush if there is an opponent nearby; if all the AIs are quite far away, FIN can afford a peaceful REX and hold a good tech rate, then turn the tech lead into a military advantage in the Renaissance era. +1 from FIN can also pay higher units costs, which makes Ragnar's army excel at both quantity and quality. Like all the FIN leaders, a good tech rate can certainly lead to a Space victory. But when playing as Ragnar, it would be such a waste to keep his massive highly-promoted AGG army only for city garrison, not for conquering AIs .

Clam and cow are acceptable for a civ who starts with Fishing and Hunting, but it seems there is no river around the starting place, so 3 from water tiles might be a temporary solution before finding some nice riverside lands. Chopping these forests would compensate the lack of in a coastal start.

From T0 to 203. Managed to survive despite several mistakes

Spoiler :

Settings as below:


In 800BC, I was scared and double-checked the settings. Whaaaat? 800 BC Taoism ?! it's Monarch level, right ? Monarch AIs got Philo in 800BC?! I rarely see this, even in Emperor write-ups...


Oh, it was this guy. It seemed he found Confu on the same turn of finishing Oracle and grab Philo with it. When I met Willem, I felt like a settler AI in front of a Deity human player .


There was only a short river nearby. So it became necessary to look for some alternatives to compensate the low starting place. Open border with Hanni. The scouting chariot revealed that his capital was in flat land and he had no Copper. Nice. Chopped 10+ HAs and DoW Hanni.


Starting with Hunt + horse + cheap barracks + forests to chop = an efficient solution to the problem and catch up in tech. Hanni refused to give IW, but 4 techs + 3 cities captured were enough. At least for now .


Peacefully expand until Rennaissance. 800BC Taoism gave me a real panick, and I started to brainlessly build random things in my cities and forgot to build enough workers. In the war with Hanni, I didn't capture any woker; after the war, I stayed with 6 cities 3 workers for a long time. It was certainly my first mistake, which largely slowed down my development. The result of my first misake was I got Civil Service after 600AD. At a really late date.

The second mistake was I didn't finish Hanni off after 10 turns' peace-treaty expired, because I thought one-city Hanni wouldn't be a threat at all. Then the nighmare scenario happened: Hanni peacefully vassaled to Brennus. Why didn't I wipe Hanni out in BC? But I don't want to reload from an early save, as I should learn from my mistakes.

I bribed Nappy in a war with WvO to keep Nappy busy. 1 turn later, Nappy bribed Brennus&Hanni to attack WvO.


Attack with Cuirs. Brennus and Hanni were not pushovers and both of them built a decent number of units, though their units were a little backward. Wiped Hanni out. Brennus finally capitulated after losing his capital on T203. This war would have been much easier and shorter, if I had eliminated Hanni before AD.


The had 20+ cities now. But the economy was very close to strike: 0%, -27 per turn .


Tech situation on T203, not bad. But I still wondered who was the last AI in this game (so far I only met five ones). Maybe I should send a caravel to find out .


Must take a break now. It seems the recovery from wars would be an urgency in the next few turns .

 

[konata_LS]

Continued. Settings as #29. From T203 to the end.

Spoiler :

To prevent the strike, temporarily stopped building units. All cities building wealth. Assigned some citizens in high tiles. When the newly captured cities came out of revolts, whipped/chopped CHs, since I was still under OR and slavery. Then switched into Caste, generated a GMerchant in a high city and sent him to Pacal's capital (Pacal built ToA there) for a trade mission. In the former celt and carthaginian lands, there were at least 3 -resources (ivory, dye, sugar) plus the +1- from "we influence other civilizations". These newly acquired - allowed me to delete some warriors or archers under HR and to reduce unit costs. The economic situation became much better after these measures.

The initial plan was to build galleons, Cannons, UUs and pikes to attack Willem. But several turns later, I abandoned this plan, because Willem got Cannons while I even didn't know Chemistry . WvO was fighting with Nappy but still the first to reach Steel - he even captured 2 cities from Nappy the unit-spammer. Once again Willem made me feel like a settler AI in front of a Deity human player .

The luckiest thing was Willem didn't have Rifling - in fact he didn't have Printing Press. Since there were still more than 30 Cuirs left in my land, I decided to research RP-Rifling and to zerg Willem with Cavs. Sent a caravel to explore the remaining AI, met Fred, and got Astro from him. After Rifling, built galleons and Cavs, turned off research, updated most of Cuirs to Cavs. DoW on Willem.

WvO capitulated on T238 with DR. Even when Willem capitulated, I still hadn't Steel and was one era behind him .


Sent the reinforcement and DoW on Nappy. He cap on T251.


Sometimes it's hard to understand AI's behaviour. In this game Nappy was wonder-spamming . Paris held even more wonders than Pacal's capital:


Sent the rest of Cavs and eliminated Pacal:


T262 domination:


Built many mounted units: (and lost a worker to a barb HA )


All the zerged Cannons came from Willem's part, as he was the only AI who could build Cannons throughout this game:


To be honest, I played poorly this game. It was not lost only because the difficulty level forgives my numerous mistakes and FIN trait tolerates my terrible worker management.

Thanks for the map

 

[krikav]

@konata_LS

Spoiler :

Wow, that Napoleon capital!
And he so rarely builds any wonders at all!
Congrats to a nice victory!