Nobles' Club 281: Sitting Bull of the Native Americans

[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 Sitting Bull of Native America, whom we last played in NC 247. The Native Americans start with Agriculture and Fishing.

• Traits: Sitting Bull is Philosophical and Protective. Philosophical gives all cities +100% generation and a +100% bonus to Universities. Protective gives all Archery and Gunpowder units a free City Garrison I (+20% City Defence) and Drill I (+1 First Strike chance) promotion, as well as a +100% bonus to Walls and Castles.
  
• The UB: The Totem Pole, a Monument with +3 xp for Archery units. Obviously a very powerful UB for defensive strategies, which unfortunately means it's value outside of Always War games is rather limited. Nevertheless you can pull some interesting stunts with a Guerilla II archer, and some have gotten good value out of an army of Level 3 (or, with any two of Vassalage/Theocracy/Great General, level 4) Crossbows right out the gate.
  
• The UU: The Dog Soldier, a resourceless Axeman with +100% vs. Melee units, albeit with only 4 base. Mind you that this makes them extremely formidable against Melee units, to the point where Gilgamesh' Vultures should flee in abject terror, but less effective against other types of units.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Pangaea, Tropical Climate, Medium Sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

The usual strategic resource swaps, and swapped the player's starting Gold with the nearest source of Stone I could find. Should make for a more interesting game, I do believe.

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 281 Sitting Bull 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 what is demigod :

The difference between Immortal and Deity difficulty is akin to the difference between Noble and Immortal. Players eventually reached a point where Immortal was too easy, but Deity was still out of reach, and so neither difficulty provided a fun experience. "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.

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]

I mean that's the most straightforward settling choice I've seen in a while.

Clearly we need to settle 1S on the dry corn . It's only a 5 tile until we get Civil Service after all .

The real question is whether to got for AH first (Horse scan, Cow tile) or go straight for Mining -> Bronze Working (chops/Slavery and Copper scan, although with Dog Soldiers that'd just be a solid resource tile) first. I'm thinking AH: Dry corn isn't really a tasty food resource, and it's so close to jungle it's unlikely to be shared. Cow is a better tile and near the river, away from jungle, so much more likely to be picked up by a second city.

What do the experts think ?

 

[user330977]

Oh man; I recently played a game with Sitting Bull and it was painful. I found his Dog Soldiers a hindrance rather than a help, but maybe this time I can try and better leverage his Totem Poles and strong archer units. I never really play tropical maps, so should be a fun experience. Does IW become a more worthy tech on such maps?

Stone settle brings three food resources into play; I think AH is the best opener to get growth and some hammers from the cows coming in. Then work towards BW for chopping and defences with Dog Soldiers. Plenty of food means a whip-happy start, too.

I'll load this one up a little later.

Kind regards,
Ita Bear

 

[krikav]

Mmmh riverside plains hill stone, yummy!
AH sounds nice, mining in itself doesn't do us anything.
But some early stone gambit might work out here too. Mining->Mason, worker has alot of tiles to farm. Getting TGW up could save us alot of barb troubles, and with Phi, this could open up for a espionage based game.

@Ita Bear I partially agree. Not a big fan of dog soldiers myself. It's not like they are super strong and you can count on them killing barb archers easily.
Their lower base strenght makes them abit tricky.
And I was not at all overjoyced with lack of copper in the recent BOTM game with sitting bull, where I had to defend against Keshiks with dogoldiers+archers. :|

But that being said, knowing that you do have some decent unit even if you don't get any early metal is nice.
Would be more fun if they where two-movers like Impis.

 

[migalhone]

Not an expert: i would SIP, and aim for Pyramids. Stonehenge would be nice as well, plenty of forests around to chop. Mining-BW first?

Not sure i'll be able to play this one out but i'll lurk and see what the other CFC's pull off with this one. Will Serfdom be actually used in this Tropical setting?

 

[sampsa]

Not an expert: i would SIP, and aim for Pyramids

It's a LOT better to settle 1W - kills a mediocre -2-tile, doesn't kill forest, claims dry rice, claims stone faster.

 

[migalhone]

It's a LOT better to settle 1W - kills a mediocre -2-tile, doesn't kill forest, claims dry rice, claims stone faster.

The stone tile would yield 5 hammers and 1 commerce. I understand settling on a plains hill confers +1 hammer to the city tile, which is quite good. It's just that a 5 hammer tile sounds pretty good early on. But then again, i'm not an expert and more food is usually better.

 

[Izuul]

2 extra city hammers in this case.

 

[sampsa]

The stone tile would yield 5 hammers and 1 commerce.

That is a good tile before granary, but not worth working really with a granary. +2 city center OTOH is insanely strong in the early game. Towards settlers/workers, SIP and working -tiles plus mined stone is the same as SOS, working -tiles and an unimproved tile. And you can improve on the latter by just staying 1 size smaller.

 

[migalhone]

2 extra city hammers in this case.

That is a good tile before granary, but not worth working really with a granary. +2 city center OTOH is insanely strong in the early game. Towards settlers/workers, SIP and working -tiles plus mined stone is the same as SOS, working -tiles and an unimproved tile. And you can improve on the latter by just staying 1 size smaller.

Oh i didn't knew that. So if we settle a plains hill stone, we get +1 from the stone resource and +1 from the plains hill? 3- city centre changes everything

 

[AcaMetis]

Yep, a PH Stone capital has a 3 city centre tile. You would get more production out of building a quarry, but that takes worker turns and tech, isn't food neutral, isn't instantly connected, and isn't permanently worked for free. So yeah, plant a city on it.

 

[civac]

I'm surprised people are contemplating AH. You gain 2 hammers per turn and one saved worker turn for a 200 beaker tech.

 

[krikav]

It's not wrong to go AH. It improves the strongest tile available in the BFC, you gain knowledge about horses and can start to possibly plan for HAs.
The question is simply if perhaps earlier chopping or some early stone gambit is better.

Best to check at T5, maybe we have seen more piggies or other interesting things until then.

 

[Fippy]

169 beakers on deity (i think..minus 20% for Agri).
~200 is BW

Krikav just posted too, adding that sheep/pigs/cows are very common and AH helps a lot with new city planning.
BW gets stronger with more food for whipping, or low capital which should be supported by chops asap.

Dog Soldiers play an interesting part too, with regular Axes AH into Mining + BW would take too long for barb defense.
For Dogs i think it's narrowly possible to get them around T40 and just in time for a deity barb rush.

 

[AcaMetis]

Speaking of potential AH resources, where to send the scout? He's in perfect position to start scouting the (N)W, but that seems to be Jungle Mc.Morejungle territory, and given the tech situation we'd prefer to know the surroundings of our second city by T5. Also meeting AIs if any are close, for tech discounts. I guess send him straight NE to scout the river, maybe meet someone? Obviously there's no way to tell whether there's double gems and more corn down south or some Calender stuff and more jungle, so all else being equal I'm thinking the best place to scout would be the river.

 

[sampsa]

I think BW gains some strength here the lower the level. Less maintenance so expanding faster is better. Techs cost less, so AH/pottery is not delayed as much. My intuition is to go for AH on deity, because of high natural .

 

[Ianrudy]

Native Americans.. UGH!!

Spoiler :

Monarch no huts

Seriously Genghis with horses (don't need AH when you see he has chariots already..)!! I might not last on this play..

Settle on the stone worker first.. I still don't like AH here because you only have cows and can farm it in the short term. Initial warrior scouts counter clockwise from starting position.

Mining->BW->Wheel->Masonry->Mysticism->Pottery->Writing(6T left)

Not sure what the hang up with going BW right off the bat is.. Dog Soldiers.. yes.. Chopping.. yes.. SLAVERY.. OH YEAH! I mean it is by far the most powerful early tech in my opinion and we have lots of tress to chop. I think Stonehenge here is a pretty much a no brainer too because of the unique building for free in all cities and border pops.

 

[Izuul]

HAs are so strong that one 6-yield AH tile is probably reason enough to go AH and look for horses unless you think the AH diversion could cause you to die to barbs.

 

[Ianrudy]

HAs are so strong that one 6-yield AH tile is probably reason enough to go AH and look for horses unless you think the AH diversion could cause you to die to barbs.

I don't think you can look at it as a 6-yield tile.. I look at it as a +2 hammer tile and I'm not saying AH isn't important just not at the beginning. What is the opportunity cost of those beakers out of the gate? I would argue it delays getting slavery, writing and a library online for taking advantage of our philosophical leader, and/or the run at Stonehenge which I think is pretty strong with this start.

Spoiler :

Sure if I had gone AH early it might have changed my settling decision on my first city but putting it off didn't change the fact that I could grab the horse/food/gold spot as my 2nd city.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Spoiler Question about Neighbors: :

With Genghis as our neighbor, how many overlapping culture tiles can we have while poking the bear? Does the Faction score (0 vs our +8) matter in Human-AI relations?