Nobles' Club 280: Brennus of the Celts

[soundjata]

We would need more than one Noble's club per week otherwise Krikav will be iddle from Wednesday to Monday.

Spoiler :

 

[konata_LS]

@krikav
Thanks. I'm currently very confused about an off-line Willem game in which I did some thoughtless things . Might post the screenshots in a separate thread and ask for advice.

About your game

Spoiler :

Oh, I see the reasons why you didn't go to Axe rush. T55 was indeed dangerous . Deity barbs are much aggressive than lower difficulties.

Mansa on the other continent might become a runaway AI. Fortunately, Pacal is nearby, so you'll only have to deal with one runaway AI (Mansa) instead of two runaway AIs (Mansa and Pacal).

It looks like you're going for Cannons, not Cuirs. What decided you to go Cannons instead of Cuirs? Do you want to leverage CHA by building CR3 sieges, or do you just get tired of Cuirs and want to try something new?

 

[krikav]

@konata_LS

Spoiler :

Not sure if I will go cannons yet. Delt with Pacal with catapults/Gallic warriors/Xbows/Elephants and some trebs because that was the least I could bring to topple him easy.

Charly is big and has alot of units, I don't have much good experiences with going cuirs on such opponents. But as it is, it's not certain that I can catch charly at cannons+muskets, or if I need rifles too... Or perhaps I have to wait until infantry/cannons or artillery. With Mansa in the game techpace has the chance to explode, him dealing out techs like popcorn to everyone.

Snailing my way forward now, did manage to win lib because Mansa was going for economics, took Astronomy with that T159.
Now I'm trying to get 6 cities with universities so I can build oxford.

I'm sure it would be possible to streamline the game alot, but I'm gearing up for the long game.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T163 :

Pillaged alot of faulty improvements, got in total 146gold for that.
Saved some towns and villages which was close. Trashed some improvements that was in the way to chain-irrigate to the wheats.

I traded philo (which I got in the peacedeal with Pacal) for optics and paper. Used two forests close to the easternmost city I had to chop a caravel and rushed eastwards.

I was hoping that Mansa would be tempted to veer off into the arctic to chart it, but no. He went straight for circumnavigation and I came up a turn short. :/

Met Wang and got the map. He an Capac have been waring for ages (GGenerals spawned and Mansa is isolated). So I turn back my caravel and try to avoid meeting Capac to avoid screwing up diplo.
Traded for Banking with wang the next turn.

Mansa got education either the turn before or the same turn I got it. But I hope and think he goes economics instead of lib. He almost always does with his gold flavour and favourite civic free market.

Sure enough, Mansa gets economics.

I picked Astro with Lib and see that Charly is already about half-way through it, so I trade away Astro to Mansa for economics. Boosting Mansa himself is no worry here, he got a tiny tiny island. Might have to go over there to stop a culture victory way later but thats about as much as of a threat he is in himself.
He does want to throw tech on everyone else though, but I hope that if he is advanced enough and the others dislike him enough, that won't be too much of a problem.

I went into free market+Slavery (Still in rep/but/OR), the idea is to whip some infrastructure in the captured cities and to get 6 universities up for Oxford.
Saladin finally becomes his normal self and start to send missionaries.
Meanwhile, the two caravels I had get to shuttle a confu missionary to Wang every 3-5 turns or so. He has almost no religious spread at all, and would be nice to befriend him that way.

Wang gets Astro for gunpowder.

Building some spies to steal cash/drama/music from Pacal as I have a whole lot of EP on him.
Had troubles getting university 6 up, Lakamba was probably a poor choice as it needed library too, and I went for a forge first.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T195 :

This is shaping up to a very nice capital.

Charly finishes PP and here I trade away education for nationalism+PP. Was hoping to get constitution for PP+liberalism with Mansa next turn but no, by that time Charly had already given him PP for divine right. :/

Maybe he got some cash too, because he had 600g for trade. I gave Charly economics for 600g and asked him to go into organised religion too. Was hoping the religious divide would make him less likely to trade with Mansa in the future.

After some failed spies I finally got Music. Here I also got chemistry from Wang for PP+music!

Have reached replacable parts. Beat Charly too it so now I'll get to trade with Mansa first. :>
I have a worker standing on each hill in the empire, every hill 1 turn away from finishing a windmill.

Techrate is nice, capital is pulling most of the weight.

Chem+RP to Mansa, I try to keep lib as that gives me a higher chance to get the communism spy and Kremlin.

Seems like Saladin bribed Charly on Mansa, giving him chemistry and constitution too...? Not very nice!
Somewhere around here I had enough confu in Wangs territory to bribe him into that. I also used some of the spies I had to flip Charly into Confu too. Was thinking that I might be able to get Charly to friendly but that was tough since I didn't want to leave burocracy.

I was abit sad that the capital wasn't on a river, and it was almost only by luck that I saw that I could build a levee. Perahsp this is because we are settled beside a lake that is connected to a river somehow...?
Not that I complain!
I saw that I lacked coal, so ignored AL for a while here and went SciMet->Communism first.

Started a GA with the GSpy.
I seem to be doing OK in regards to tech, but especially in production. Mutal had some wonders and also GLib, so I built national epic there and it got most of the GP duty. Was in pacifism for a while in this GA but I don't think that makes much sense, should probably have remained in OR as almost only Mutal benefitted. I also kept around my anchient army for way too long, and that probably cost alot.

Used two GScientists to put 4000 beakers into physics which I finished after biology. Should maybe have settled those to in capital since I had them standing around a very long time. Or at least I should have bulbed SciMet to get quicker communism.
Here I trade SciMet for Democracy and start to failgold Statue of liberty, almost finishing it too because Saladin was so slow.
Mansa got physics for Steel the next turn too.
T194 I get rifling from Wang (I also ask him to leave Capac alone a while) and T195 I get railroad from Mansa for Biology+Communism.
Charly/Saladin doesn't like me trading with Mansa, but what can I do? Free Railroad?!

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

I was abit sad that the capital wasn't on a river, and it was almost only by luck that I saw that I could build a levee. Perahsp this is because we are settled beside a lake that is connected to a river somehow...?

Can't explain how you're able to build a Levee there, but come to think of it this isn't the first time Brennus did something unexpected with a lake and a river .

 

[Izuul]

This is going well for me so far. Deity T157

Now that I've gotten to this point i think i will check out Krikav's game up to T163.

Spoiler :

I went Ag > AH > Mining > BW and settled the gold site to the south as quickly as possible. I think i got lucky with the barbs because they settled several cities to the north which kept things really quiet. I eventually captured two of them and razed the other. Settled the jungle city of Gergovia after capturing Libyan to block Charlie out. It more or less worked. He still settled a couple cities up there, but it kept him at 11 and i could easily see him getting 14-15 on this map if you let him have the jungle.

The religions also worked out nicely with Sal alone in Hinduism. He and Charlie have been at war two or three times and there's currently a holy war against Sal so Charlie is preoccupied and has his back turned to me. Pacal built the AP so i have nice production from temples and monasteries too.

I went straight for Cuirs and bought horses from Charlie. I thought this looked fairly safe since everyone else had horses. I just had a 1T war against Pacal to get his horses and i can now attack Charlie and cancel that horse deal.

I hate intercontinental warfare though so I'm not sure how i will proceed if/when i conquer the continent. These days i often just find myself losing interesting at that stage of the game and quitting.

 

[krikav]

@Izuul

Spoiler :

Woah, thats really nice! Much stronger position than I managed to find myself in!
Seeing this, I start to wonder if my blocking city toward Pacal might have been a huge mistake. That probably set my initial expansion back quite abit.

GJ blocking of Charly, he did indeed become a bit of a problem in my game.
I have to go all the way to tanks+bombers to teach him not to steal my jungle.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T243 :

Continued to trade with Mansa. Got combustion for electricity. He was going for radio so I hoped I could trade that with him, but it seems like he started the wonders the same turn he finished the tech, won't give me it because of "We have our reasons".
He continued with Flight after that though, so after I finished industrialism I went for superconductors and started to mass-whip tanks.
Cities with good production potential I whipped factories, but Gergovia/Tolosa/Lakamba/Ixmal/Chichen Itza/Happy Pacal and that southern iceball city didn't get factories. Two of them got drydocks though, and whipped some battleships.
Toward the end of the whipping-spree I finished up some airships with the intent of upgrading to fighters.
Tanks alone against hilled protective infantry isn't enough.

Had 6-7 spies ready and supported a revolt. Taking one city before I have fighters in the air.

Heroic started to build bombers, but almost no other city is on units now.
Had to adopt police state again just to handle the unhappines anyway though.
Went free religion to get more happines too, have spread 4 religions to the most key cities. Even so, I had alot of unhappy faces in capital. :/

Unfair fights are fun. 89 protective infantry slaughtered, 4 tanks lost (which all died at around 98% odds fights)

The war against Saladin proceeded in a similar fashion, I was more reckless with the tanks and not healing as much since I don't imagine them having much more use after Saladin.
Once Saladin was down at one city I bribed Mansa again him and hoped to get Medicine for peace, but I didn't get that so went with a ceasefire instead.

 

[krikav]

There have been so many threads about space lately so I figured I would go that route.
So exhausting though, micro nightmare!

Spoiler T275 :

Pillaged in total 1750gold from Saladins territory.
Crammed in a bunch of filler cities too.

Had troops and Mansa was going culture, and had no oil, so a sitting duck. I couldn't resist!

It seems to me, that planning ahead so you got 5 strong cities to finish casings is an important thing in spaceraces. Don't think I did a very good job.
Also, I went 5 turns into slavery and postponed fiber optics just to be able to whip granaries in the fresh filler cities. That was probably just dumb.

Did manage to get a fourth GA too. Had a horde of GPeople standing around until T260 or so, when I started my 2person GA. I wanted to wait until almost all of Saladins cities where out of revolt.
MoM was in wangs non-coastal capital, didn't want to bother with that.
Mutal spawned about 9 out of 10 GPeople in this game, so I had alot of cities that where high on points toward the end.

 

[Ita Bear]

Hello folks,
finally got around to trying this game out. I decided to move 1SW and settle, freeing the clam for my second city. Tech so far was Agriculture, AH, Mining and currently onto BW. I've marked potential city sites on the map: 1 is an obvious production city, growing off capital pigs until I get a workboat out for clams. Plenty of hills around to mine. City 2 has deep sea fish so will require a border pop, but early gold is always an advantage. City 3 may require IW to fully utilise but will bring cow and elephant into the empire. So far I've met Pacal. Interesting game to think about so far!

T40/750

Spoiler :

Kind regards,
Ita Bear

 

[Izuul]

Finished this one off. T245 Domination

Spoiler :

The war effort got bogged down a little bit on two different occasions. The first was a couple turns into the war against Sal when he got grens. I would've lost a lot of Cuirs attempting to take out PRO Grens so i had a stop for 3T to finish Rifling and then a few more turns to get the money to upgrade to Cavs.

I teched and traded my way to Physics and went after Wang with Cavs + Airships and he folded in just a handful of turns. Capac put up some pretty good resistance though. He had 14 or 15 cities with MGs and Infantry, but that wasn't really even the problem as the Cavs and Airships could get through them with manageable losses. The problem was that, shortly after the war started, he got Combustion and unleashed Destroyers on my Galleon chain. Destroyers vs Galleons and Frigates is laughably unfair and basically eliminated my ability to bring in fresh troops.

I never made peace, but i stopped building new units for a bit while i got Combustion. I ended up with some Tanks near the end of the war, but they came so late they didn't really have much impact.

 

[konata_LS]

@krikav

Spoiler :

Congrats on your win !

It seems Space has become a fashion these days , though it often requires more micromanagement and focus in the late game. Since the former land of Saladin would be all workshop, pillaging the existing improvement is almost a free GMerchant for you.

You've conquered 3 AI's land but only suffer a slight loss. That's indeed impressive, especially two of your targets were PRO .
Do you think Bomber/fighter deal with PRO enemy better than sieges? I often lost more than 20 cannons or artilleries when fighting PRO enemy if they get Rifles or AL; as a result, the war wearness is soaring in my cities, and AIs are less willing to capitulate. So I start to wonder if there are some units more efficient than sieges to deal with PRO AIs.

 

[krikav]

@konata_LS

Spoiler :

I bulit way less workshops than I thought one would. In fact, it was mosly farms in most of the places. Only in 7-10 cities or so the focus was heavily on production. Might be because of the late conquest and because of all the filler cities I settled.
Maybe someone with more experience in spacerace would have judged the situation at some point like this: "Oh, this is enough growth, NOW is the time to go all workshops and focus only on beakers, additional growth will not have time to pay back itself."

Flight is a big deal... untill the AI start to get SAM infantry and/or fighters of their own and alot of destroyers. But prior to that it's a completely loopsided fight. Sort of like cuirs against archers.
It's rare to be able to get so far in the tech tree while having the AIs still that behind in tech.
I managed to get there only because I geared up my empire for mass teching (lots of cottages, observatories, oxford..) and because of Mansa giving me a ton of tech for free. Steel+Railroad+Combustion+Flight all came from Mansa, and probably much more that I have forgot too.

It's still a nice setup, but if the AIs do have these flight counter units, it's best to have alot of fighters (probably from carriers) and send them in first to take the hits, you will lose a bunch of them which have to be replenished.
Thats at least how I do it. I don't really know the inns and outs of aircombat since it's so rare to get there.


I don't think there is any silver bullet to handle PRO Ais. Fighting them at a tech disadvantage can be incredibly costly, fighting them at tech parity is more costly relative to non-PRO AIs.
But fighting them at a tech advantage is still more costly than fighting a non-PRO AI at a tech advantage.

Had I fought a non-PRO AI the way I fought Charly I would perhaps have lost only 3 tanks instead of 4? It was just that the fighting was so loopsided that was the key factor there, Pro was of little significance.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

Hi all, long time lurker, first time poster.

I thought I’d stick a post up as much as anything to show that there are people out there who play the NC games even if they don’t post. A big thank you to @AcaMetis and to everyone who plays and comments.

Here goes: immortal, normal speed, NHNE.

I’m already at 1000AD so this will be long and rambling.

Spoiler :

As far as I remember I went SIP and then agriculture - mining - bronze working.

Having met Pacal - notoriously bad at expanding - and only found decent city spots along the coast and jungle to the north - unlikely to be contested soon -, I figured I’d go GLH. Other factors that played into this decision were the abundant forests, underwhelming number of city spots early and the fact that I’d not met anybody else so I figured it wasn’t a pangea. Also, I barely need an excuse to try to build the GLH. It is excellent for financing my insatiable lust for otherwise marginal city spots.

Therefore, I went fishing, sailing, masonry, the wheel, pottery before animal husbandry.

I mined the pig and farmed the cow, mined the copper and then started chopping settlers and workers. The solid defensive terrain in the jungle and Pacal’s proximity in the south made fog busting easy enough with a handful of warriors and I got an axe out fairly quickly thanks to the riverside copper so the odd barb getting through wasn’t a big concern.

Settled the gold city first and then 3N of the capital to share the clam/ mined pig and eventually get the cow and ivory thanks to a charismatic monument.

Then I started chopping the GLH. I completed it in 1360BC.

I briefly considered rushing Pacal - either with Gallic warriors, given I had copper and he didn’t look to have metal, or elephants as I had ivory and a charismatic elephult is fun given the relative ease of getting CR2 catapults. However:

• his land looked mediocre;
• he was easy to box in, helpful given he's one of the more likely peace vassals;
• he loves going monarchy and therefore early feudalism is a risk; and
• GLH trade routes and tech trades with a guy who is super easy to get to friendly seemed more valuable. He’d founded Buddhism and converted me early enough.

I settled the sheep and fish spot post-GLH and, eventually, because Pacal really hates building settlers, took the stone and rice spot. A very marginal city but, having gone masonry, the stone would be somewhat useful for fail gold.

Charlie attacked Saladin somewhere along the way, which went nowhere, and they both converted to Buddhism soon enough and become friends. At least I wasn’t excluded from the lovefest.

In terms of tech post-writing, I self teched alphabet. It was clear nobody I had met had writing when I got it so I didn’t fancy waiting for alphabet. I didn’t get much in the way of trades from it. Perhaps just iron working from Pacal. Everybody was too behind which is a theme that’s continued. I went COL and civil service, which I got just after 1AD.

I was able to put off monarchy because of charismatic, the gold and the ivory. Eventually I got it in a trade with Pacal for maths - which I also had to self tech. I got a trade or two from compass and subsequently paper. I think I got construction, calendar and metal casting plus cash.

I’ve been too far ahead in tech thanks to the GLH, a cottageable bureau cap with an academy and a lot of fail gold - either mine or the 900 odd gold I got from Pacal for paper and calendar. I even self teched machinery because only Pacal had it and I didn’t want to give him any of the monopoly techs I had. This made me feel a bit dirty.

The plan has been to lib astronomy and then take the continent with cannons. Charismatic plus spiritual makes it easy to get 7/8 exp trebs for upgrade before switching from vassalage to nationhood when rifles are ready (and required).

I won liberalism in 840AD and took astro.

I got there by single bulbing education and lib, having used the first GS for an academy and the third for a golden age. I’d planned to bulb philosophy but by the time I got the second GS education was next in the bulb path. Not sure if that’s because I’d teched paper.

The fourth GS and two GMs were from the golden age. I’ve got another golden age coming because I’d teched nationalism and the Taj is now one turn from completion. Hopefully some more GMs to come.

I also built Sankore because it seemed likely that the AP would be in Buddhism and I have spiritual temples. Monasteries are also reasonably appealing given that I don’t think I’ll be going scientific method any time soon.

Anyway, I’ve expanded a long the coast and taken three barb cities - one razed to move it one left so it’s on the coast and another auto razed. I managed to unlock the heroic epic with the auto raze. I’ll probably settle some more debatable cities along the coast as I tech towards steel and rifling. It’s quite probable that it’ll delay my attack date but I like settling cities. I could also do with more population to get hold of the AP.

It’s all looking rosy at the moment but I can see my tech lead evaporating with all those friendly Buddhist faces and the AP, as predicted, in Buddhism will be annoying. The plan is to switch into theocracy and vassalage to hopefully get Charlie and Saladin to vote for me next election. I might also consider gifting Charlie a junk city near the double banana and wheat city he denied me. I think this game is basically won as long as there aren’t any AP shenanigans.

The other issue with the AP is that I’m concerned that Huayna and WK will end up in Buddhism too because they have no religion and the only religion that can spread from our continent through my Astro trade routes is Buddhism. I don't think losing to AP is a risk as the other guy won't have Buddhism but it would make it harder to get elected to control it.

I think Mansa has been hogging the rest of the rellgions on his own continent. I’ve not met him yet but I saw him at the bottom of the list of AIs when I added the barbarian techs. I think it was obvious from the T0 demographics anyway.

 

[krikav]

@Mr_Trotsky Haven't read your ramblings just yet, will eagerly dive into them now. But just wanted to say thanks for popping out of the shadows!
Since we can at least see how often the NC games are downloaded, we know that you are in good company.
There are many playing that aren't posting which is abit of a shame.
I try to share my games often, but what I do in my games might not always be the best things to try mimic if you play on nobles.

 

[krikav]

@Mr_Trotsky

Spoiler :

"Also, I barely need an excuse to try to build the GLH. It is excellent for financing my insatiable lust for otherwise marginal city spots."
Haha, yeah I feel that too! The urge to cram in just another city... mmm, cities everywhere!

It's look like you got a builders dream of a game going on there imho. Once again I start to feel that my opening was rather bad in this game (I settled stone/rice first, with rice in second ring) mainly to box away Pacal, but it seems like he managed that task all by himself.

Regarding Buddhism spread.... I _think_ that it had no chance to spread to Wang/Capac before the owner of the holy city (Pacal) has Astro. So if you don't want them to get Buddhism, refrain from giving Pacal Astro.
But I'm not completely sure about this.

 

[konata_LS]

Posting the gameplay in NC series is benefitial for learning the games and improving playing skills . I strongly recommend doing so. Not necessary to post the gameplay turn by turn, just posting some screenshots and explanations or saves would be fine.
For example, post three or five screenshots at some key points (1 AD, Lib race, Renaissance wars, victory or loss), and explain briefly the main points of the game (settings, peaceful REX or early rush, build Sistine and win culture, or attack with Cuirs or Cannons, or build UN + farm everything then win diplo...).

OTOH, I understand some people feel too nervous or too embarrassed to post their gameplay. This is Noble club, not scolding club. People discuss NC games and offer comments/constructive criticisms for learning and helping each other , not for laughing at or looking down on others. If someone posts his/her game at Warlord level or Noble and asks how to play better/win earlier, many people would be glad to give advice.
So, please don't be afraid of posting write-ups, no matter what difficulty level is. As written in the OP, "From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome!"

@krikav

Spoiler :

Thanks for your answers! It seems your economy near the end of game was a kind of "hybrid economy": CE and hammer economy.

Flight is often a tech I ignored in games. But your gameplay made me reconsider this tech. Maybe sometimes I should research it and bring some fighters to assit artilleries and tanks. Flight seems more useful when AIs have AL but lack Rocketry/Combustion. To make it happen; good tech rate and empire management are usually required, like you did in your game, 1200 in 1500 AD for a non-FIN leader at DEI is indeed remarkable.

Fighting against PRO AIs is winnable, but at heavier cost. Maybe that's why many players don't like PRO AIs.

About religion spreading and Astronomy

Spoiler :

Not sure if the shrine can only spread religion across ocean after its owner gets Astro. But a NC game I just finished may give some examples. It was NC 262 (Mansa).

Around 1300AD, none of us had Astro. Though Ramsy had Optics.


Ramsy opened border with me soon after I met him, but his religion didn't spread to me, so for a long time AP only had 2 members, Ramsy and Toku:


But after 1400AD (or maybe 1420AD, don't remember), I already had Astro, Ram didn't. I had traderoutes with Ram, but he didn't have TR with me.


And one of my coastal city got Ramsy' religion, now AP had 3 members: Toku, Ram, and I.


There are 2 possible explanations:
1) The shrine can spread religion across the ocean if the other continent (me) has Astro and traderoutes with the shrine owner, even the shrine owner (Ramsy) has no Astro.
2) The shrine cannot spread religion across the ocean before Ramsy gets Astro: Ramsy put a missionary in his caravel and manually spread his religion in one of my city. (<--I couldn't confirm it, because during those turns I was too busy fighting Peter).

Both cases are possible. So for @ Mr_Trotsky 's game, if Pacal had contact with Capac and had Optics, Pacal may put missionaries in caravels and spread Buddism to Capac before Astronomy.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

@krikav

Spoiler :

Yeah definitely an opportunity to indulge my unhealthy love of infrastructure as well as expansion

I think it’s hard to draw firm conclusions about the stone blocking city from my game. I suspect the extra settler on diety completely changes the dynamic. On immortal, Pacal pretty much always stagnates on three/ four cities while he chases religions and builds missionaries and weak early game wonders. He normally catches up later if there’s still land available because of his economic strength but I was never worried he’d box me in. I guess he doesn’t do this on diety because he’s got an extra city to build settlers in.

In any event, I had elephants and charismatic catapults if the worst happened and the window for this is pretty long on immortal.

Finally, I’m not sure whether this is right or not but I worry less about settling jungle if I’m spiritual. It’s easier to clear the jungle by ducking into serfdom or going caste for a few turns to run specialists if your workers can’t clear the jungle quick enough to get enough decent tiles. Merchants in a city you’ll never get a great person from aren’t great but it’s better than the sad one food tile you might be left with otherwise.

Also, although I’ve not read your report all the way through because I’ve not even got to the breakout stage, I get the impression that things are under control (for you if not poor Pacal).

Regarding astro and religion spreads, I anticipate this experiment being ruined by the holy city coming under new ownership in the not too distant.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

@konata_LS

Spoiler :

Thank you. That’s very kind. Although the reason I hadn’t posted wasn’t fear of scolding club! I’ve seen that all criticism is constructive unless unwillingness to follow advice reaches the level of trolling.


It’s really a question of time and the way I play. I basically play when my partner is working late or on nights. I then binge! That’s why I put a 1000AD post up with no prior posts. Difficult to comment on that because it’s hard to assess what I could have done better fifty turns ago.