Nobles' Club 283: Catherine of Russia

[krikav]

@konata_LS
I think I have 3 workers at T50 (thats what I see on my screenshot).
I built alot more of them shortly after that though.

The most standard procedure for workers is imho something like this:
Capital starts with a worker, then a settler which settles city#2. The first worker sometimes makes a chop into capital just after settler is done, then that first worker leaves the capital for good.
That soon leaves you with two cities with one worker each.

After that, things diverge too much depending on map specifics to really say much

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T106 :

Monty got a city later too, and later still boudica got one too.

Ragnar built pyramids.

Ragnar started plotting and declared on Mansa shortly after. At some point I was asked to stop trading with Ragnar and agreed to that I figure I will attack him and take all of his stuff anyway.
Had EP points on Mansa and saw he was going for MC.

GPP is the main bottleneck now, waiting for the guy in Rostov. Construction is almost done.
Picked off some small techs after construction, poly/mono and traded for monarchy, also self-teched HBR for elephants as Ragnar has his own.

Almost every forest in the empire is pre-chopped and most are pre-roaded too, now I want trebs!

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Spoiler T111 :

@krikav It looks like we had the same plan (attack Ragnar for Pyramids,using elephants + catapults + maybe engineering), but I had a change of heart at T93. No one had any relevant tech for trade and Mansa was teching Compass. I chose Currency + Literature + Academy over Metal Casting and bulbing Machinery.

Also, Monte started a war with Boudica (unsurprising), and Mansa started a war with Willem (surprising!).

With marble and forests, I grabbed the Parthenon, Great Library and National Epic. I detoured to Music for the great artist before landing at Civil Service @ 125 BC. Monte finally decided to spread Hinduism to me, so I committed another bulb to Philosophy. This gave me a clean golden age launch and 108 GPT in Novgorod.

Funnily enough Montezuma is wrecking Boudica (3 cities taken!) which I don't understand based on their scores.

Based on the tech situation, I think I will attempt to lib Rifling, and go for a thematic Cossacks run.

 

[jnebbe]

Demigod to T71

Spoiler :

SIP, I think I went AH->BW->wheel->agri->pottery



In hindsight I do like settling capital on that northeast PH, it gets worker out 1 turn faster than SIP and if you settle as 2nd city like I did, you still have to wait for borders to pop to pasture the sheep
Also I forgot that pottery requires agriculture so it's a while before granaries are built




Was considering that floodplains spot to east, maybe could've gotten it but decided it was too far (maybe SW of pig would've been fine) but ragnar settles there so I backfill the horses instead




Then the barbarians invade! They pillage my gold+sheep and I have to waste some chops on warriors, I connect the horses asap and the chariots clean it up




Finally settle 4th city T71, another settler almost done in moscow which will settle 1SW of marble.

St Petersburg is running 2 scientists for the philosophy bulb.
Unknown civ has built oracle (which was built before SH =o) and Ragnar built SH and TGW. Ragnar's been plotting for a while but it started before we had touching borders and he hates Mansa, pretty sure it's not me
Aesthetics just finished and can start failgolding Shwedagon.
I think I'll go masonry->mysticism->poly->literature (build glib) ->priest->trade for monarchy+alphabet?
With gold+ivory monarchy can be delayed for a while

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T175 :

Declared T111, Nidaros fell T113 and I took a ceasefire T115 to safely steal a crowd of workers.

Techrate started to lag behind significantly, but I was still in the trading game. Got CS+Calendar from Willy here.

Few losses and alot of kills, happy with the worker crew too.
Although somewhere here, I got entrenched deeply in the mental "Fog of war" basically just spamming units and charging onwards, domestic micromanagment was an early causalty.

In police state+vass+slavery+theocracy. Only one monastery in the capital accounts for all of the missionary spread. Yaroslov and Yakutsk never got any forges but I think all other core cities got theirs.

Traded for engineering after he became a vassal.

Don't remember who started the war, but Boudi and Monty where clashing and I continued to push with the slow moving army against Willy, but all new knights and fresh trebs where sent toward Monty, had to attack abit prematurely because boudica aske d me.
I was abit worried that he would capitulate to her because I couldn't do much to stop that, but then she holds a vote to stop the war against her, and after that Monty is willing to cap.

Willy sees reason too. Note the chain of units moving in the south toward Bella, the only target left standing that doesn't have rifling.

A GA gives me enough teching power to reach nationalism->MT, traded for the rest of gunpowder.
It's kind of good to have a few small vassals that doesn't tech ahead too much to keep bunnyhoping onwards in tech.

She offered me divine right, but i wanted liberalism. I had to remove the gold to get the deal though.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T176 Situation :

Abit of a tricky situation now... Yes I have alot of land/power/vassals, but the two remaining competitors are competent ones... Joined together by a defensive pact. And they are both very close to infantry too..
The only trade I can see any sense in is MT for MilSci with Bella, as that would give me a good trading whip with the other vassals. But she wants 750g to sweeten the deal.

The current standing army. Just started the 2GPerson GA and swapped to rep+nationalism+caste+merc+paci.

When I hit, I have a good opportunity to shoot down a large chunk of Boudicas army in these two cities. I could liberate them to Monty and he should be able to cushion most of what Boudi can throw at him.

I think I'll concentrate most of the 1-moving army in Toledo to stop revolt and to being able to upgrade it quickly then that army can push against Pacal.
Cuirs I might move home to pair up with cannons to catch Boudica offguard, the cuirs/cossacks from the western front can then possibly strike opportunisticly against Boudica.

Not sure how many GPeople I can manage to get out. Probably not 3 for a third GA, but perhaps I can get a bunch of merchants to fill upp the treasury. Trying to get up some of the cheapest infrastructure now too.
At the end of the GA, it's likely all war civics and unit again and for the rest of the game.

Sorted by lost troops.
If I get up to rifling+steel I might be able to wear them down with the help of the vassals.
Ofcourse I would love to get my hands on communism before the GA is done but thats probably not realistic.

 

[Nick723]

@krikav I’m glad you say your situation is not straightforward. On the few occasions I have done well on deity, I normally land somewhere like you are. It’s frustrating because you think the game should be won, but they really start to runaway in tech now and surprisingly hard to keep / catch up even with so much more land.

One other thing that strikes me from your screenshots is the number of farms you have. Did you build those, or are they mainly in captured cities. I rarely build a farm outside of improving or irrigating and agriculture resource...maybe I’m doing something wrong!

 

[krikav]

@Nick723

Spoiler :

Regarding not straightforward.
Thats the fun part, isn't it? A long chain of challenges where you have to overcome each hurdle to reach victory. First to stake out some land and simply survive, then catch more and more territory while also keeping up, and sometimes toward the end, actively working against some AIs closing in on a victory of their own.

I have been in similar situations to this current one often enough to be comfortable in them so I'm confident that the game is won here, however the path toward that might involve stuff like stangating and building up and teching for 50-70 turns before striking with mass tanks in the far away future...
But thats not elegant, it's also micro intensive and time demanding. So doing something more efficient earlier is certainly preferable.
I still remember a game where I ended up in a endgame slog with Boudica for ages (Last screenshot in this post: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/nobles-club-209-kublai-khan.647011/page-4#post-15486234 ).



Regarding farms.
I love farms and build alot of them. Alot of the farms in the conquered territory is me farming over cottages/hamlets (most pillaged before they are inside my culture).
Farms help you to regrow after whippings, or after you have done some caste-paci push and starved cities down. They also let you get up to maxpop fast.
I think it's much a matter of personal taste. I don't mind having a horrid economy and to slog along with outdated units en masse, and farms help more with keeping production up.
A more cottage heavy approach would be less sensitive to falling behind. In my game I only manage to keep tech up due to manipulating the vassals and brokering techs, and through the bursts in tech in golden ages.

I only quite recently got chemistry, and state property is not in, and I have been in slavery for a long time, so workshops are really not that exciting yet either, but had I managed workers better, most tiles should have been pre-workshopped by now, ready to pivot once those techs are in.

This medieval engineering breakout is an entierly different beast than a cuirstomp breakout too.
Here I needed alot of production early on, and I had no or at least very little need for teching power.
In a cuirstomp thats completely reversed, you need alot of teching power and only need a tiny bit of production to get 30-40 HAs out.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T212 :

Alot of teching and buildup later, and alot of brokering among the vassals I feel confident enough to strike.
I lost the T0 access to Hittite since Monty lost that tiles culture. :/
I thought I could lure out Boudicas main stack from HIttite by striking here, but she continued to hole up in there.

Very fair Bella, very fair!

She hit me on the hill! How rude!

Now I have everything I could possibly need.

Pacal was afraid of Boudica.

So we took a ceasefire, then he joins the team and then I promptly redeclare.
I was hoping Willy/Ragnar/Mansa would at least send some units down to the party so I wanted to keep the war going. But they basically didn't send anything.
Some cities that where under culture pressure, that I managed to get 10% culture in, I drafted like crazy, and when they where too angry to grow I gifted them back to the owner.

Sorted by killed.

Sorted by lost.

Gifted back all cities I could to see if I could get a conquest instead of domination that way.

 

[Nick723]

@Nick723

Spoiler :

Regarding not straightforward.
Thats the fun part, isn't it? A long chain of challenges where you have to overcome each hurdle to reach victory. First to stake out some land and simply survive, then catch more and more territory while also keeping up, and sometimes toward the end, actively working against some AIs closing in on a victory of their own.

I have been in similar situations to this current one often enough to be comfortable in them so I'm confident that the game is won here, however the path toward that might involve stuff like stangating and building up and teching for 50-70 turns before striking with mass tanks in the far away future...
But thats not elegant, it's also micro intensive and time demanding. So doing something more efficient earlier is certainly preferable.
I still remember a game where I ended up in a endgame slog with Boudica for ages (Last screenshot in this post: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/nobles-club-209-kublai-khan.647011/page-4#post-15486234 ).



Regarding farms.
I love farms and build alot of them. Alot of the farms in the conquered territory is me farming over cottages/hamlets (most pillaged before they are inside my culture).
Farms help you to regrow after whippings, or after you have done some caste-paci push and starved cities down. They also let you get up to maxpop fast.
I think it's much a matter of personal taste. I don't mind having a horrid economy and to slog along with outdated units en masse, and farms help more with keeping production up.
A more cottage heavy approach would be less sensitive to falling behind. In my game I only manage to keep tech up due to manipulating the vassals and brokering techs, and through the bursts in tech in golden ages.

I only quite recently got chemistry, and state property is not in, and I have been in slavery for a long time, so workshops are really not that exciting yet either, but had I managed workers better, most tiles should have been pre-workshopped by now, ready to pivot once those techs are in.

This medieval engineering breakout is an entierly different beast than a cuirstomp breakout too.
Here I needed alot of production early on, and I had no or at least very little need for teching power.
In a cuirstomp thats completely reversed, you need alot of teching power and only need a tiny bit of production to get 30-40 HAs out.

Thanks for detailed reply and congrats on the nice win!

Indeed that’s the beauty of the game, I guess I don’t quite yet have the feel for how to win in different situations but good to hear that it comes. Good to hear that you have to sometimes reset and tech a bit, I normally try to brute force my way through and throw away the game / get frustrated!

Also very interesting regarding farms. A) I have never considered pillaging tiles that I’m about to get and B) I haven’t really considered the different production / research requirements of different attacks. So things to think about thanks!

 

[krikav]

@Nick723 No problem at all. And thank you for asking. I try to post educational stuff in my writeups but it's hard to figure out whats relevant and whats not. Questions help alot.

 

[konata_LS]

Monarch level, from T160 to the end.

Spoiler :

Settings as below, no tribal village.


On T160, I was really confused about what to do next. Should I keep peace for a while and beeline MT? Should I attack with Cuirs first then Cossacks, or should I wait for Rifling and attack only with Cossacks? To find inspiration, I watched some Let's Play videos in which the players used Cossacks or Cuirs attack. Then I decided to attack with Cuirs first.

Stayed at peace until Renaissance era. Built Taj Mahal since there was marble. Lib MT, generated two GMerchants to upgrade my WEs and HAs. During this time, Isabella built AP (Judaism), she declared war on Mansa and called for a holy war. I defied the resolution because my next target was not Mansa; I didn't want Mansa capitulate to some AI neither.

Attack with Cuirs. Boudica capitulated on T217


Moved my stack towards the Mayans and DoW on Pacal. capitulation on T237


Izzy capitulated on T244


WvO capitulated on T249.


2 turns later, domination


Towards the end of the game, I just mechanically built Cossacks - moved them to the front - repeated .


To be honest, there was some luck in my game, as none of these AIs went for Rifling. Only Pacal had Military Science, but still no Rifling. The rest of AIs went straight to non military techs such as SMethods or Constitution. For unknown reasons, these AIs were eager to grab the free Great people from some techs, ignored Rifling and let their cities captured by Cossacks.

Thanks for the map .

Some personal thought about Inland Sea map:

Spoiler :

As far as I've noticed, Inland Sea seems a little different from Pangaea map - assuming both are Medium sea level. There are usually more land tiles in Inland Sea than in Pangaea. As a result, it looks like in an Inland Sea map, during the early game, AIs are often busy grabbing land, so some wonders might get built later than in standard Pangaea map. AIs' tech pace may be somewhat slower in Inland Sea during the early game, also due to their expansion.
But after the early phase, once they recover from expansion, AIs tech rate are more "explosive" in Inland Sea . Their stacks tend to be bigger as well, because they have more cities to produce units.

Above is only my personal observation on Monarch difficulty under Normal speed. On higher levels (like IMM+) or lower levels (like Noble), or at different game speeds, situations in Inland Sea vs. Pangaea might be quite different.

 

[konata_LS]

@CarpoolKaraoke

Spoiler :

Your tech rate looks really good

I also wanted peaceful development, but Ragnar's stack was too scary .

@krikav

Spoiler :

Congrats on your win! Nice and creative gameplay

What made you decide to do an Engineering rush? Because Russian starts without Fishing (so you can use GScientists to bulb Machinery), or because Elepults' Construction leads to Engineering?

An amusing thing: it looks like after Renaissance era, your attack goes to the opposite direction of mine . You attacked clockwise, Ragnar first, then Mansa - WvO - Izzy, and saved Boudica and Pacal for the final war. But I attacked counterclockwise: after getting Ragnar and Monty as vassals, I attacked Boudica - Pacal - Izzy and Willy.

@jnebbe

Spoiler :

One of the biggest advantages of SIP is it makes you connect marble much sonner .

 

[krikav]

@konata_LS

Spoiler :

No fishing and no fishing resource tilted me toward an engineering rush. I enjoy such warfare and try to steer the game toward that direction when the opportunity presents itself.
Not only can you bulb machinery, but you can also bulb engineering and thats what my first two scientists did.


Regarding your observation about inland sea I think you are correct. Oftentimes though, barbarians are problematic, here though I think we where enough surrounded that the pressure didn't get that high.
And the AIs tend to get more land and more rivertiles than pangaea/fractal, so they can get more dangerous.
Standard practice is to add an extra AI, which AcaMetis has done here!

But the map also feels abit more balanced, you don't get those situations where one AI spawns in the middle of a huge continent with another AI squeezed into a corner here, the AIs land on roughly equal footing.

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

For unknown reasons, these AIs were eager to grab the free Great people from some techs, ignored Rifling and let their cities captured by Cossacks.

You should watch some AI Survivor games sometimes. "Won't tech Rifling to save his life" is basically Willem.txt

 

[konata_LS]

@krikav

Spoiler :

Delaying Fishing and aiming at an Engineering rush are tempting in Inland Sea map, as the tech line Fishing - Sailing - Compass - Optics becomes less useful in Inland Sea than in Fractal/Continents maps; and GLH, so powerful in Archipelago, becomes almost useless in Inland Sea. The variety of attacking units makes the Medieval warfare tough but fun .

In terms of barbs, CRE looks quite good in Inland Sea map, as faster border pop diminishes the fog of war, thus it reduces the tiles where barbs can spawn. I made a comparison between the current Cathy map with NC 261, also Inland Sea but leader was Genghis. In NC 261, barbs are really troublesome.

And yes, Inland Sea are quite balanced between AIs. Add 1 AI makes the map more playable. In your game, Pacal and Boudica had similar number of cities, so they just signed Defensive Pact; one did not peaceful vassal to another.

@AcaMetis

Spoiler :

Some AIs are just not very military-minded . In my game I saw Pacal and Willem got Replaceable Parts and I was worried if they would research Rifling. But next turn, the Espionage at the bottom right corner showed they are teching something like Physics or Steam Power .

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

Demigod T144

Spoiler :

I've slowly been limping through this over the course of the week and this is where I find myself.

Settled in place for much the same reasons as carpool karaoke. I met Ragnar turn 2, near what turned out to be a lovely floodplains and pigs spot. I decided to go here for my first city rather than settling on the planes hill to the north of Moscow because Moscow didn’t really have tiles to share and working the cows and gold was good for pumping out settlers and workers. The pig spot required a bit longer to get going, and wasn’t
insta-connected, but it was going to be great long term and I doubted I’d get it if I didn’t go straight for it given how close Ragnar was. The lack of trade route income seemed a bit less important because of the gold.

I then went for the PH near the sheep and corn because I still figured I wasn’t quite ready for a helper city near Moscow. Also, this city got the sheep in the first ring and fog busted a lot of the north of the map once it had popped borders.

I then settled the PH north of Moscow about the time I got pottery meaning a helper city was then justified/useful.

I don’t remember the order but of the next four settlers, three were for my good friends Monty, Ragnar and Boudica. Monty was already plotting by the time I gave him his city but fortunately it was Boudica. He was cautious with both of us and didn’t have border tension with either of us. He was closer to her but I was much weaker, not even having metal connected, so I got a bit lucky there. I suspect I was the more likely target.

I can’t remember when exactly but I decided culture looked viable. I had perhaps the best traits for claiming enough land peacefully and I had marble for the key cultural victory wonders and also copper and stone so I’d be able to build the cathedrals for whichever religions I ended up with.

I also figured that Monty and Ragnar weren’t the worst neighbours. Ragnar is super easy to get to friendly if you share religions and Monty can be gotten to a comfortable pleased if even friendly might be difficult. I also thought it quite likely that they’d hate everybody else which would mean they wouldn’t open borders with anybody on the other side of the map who took umbrage at my religious preferences. I guess we’ll see how accurate this assessment of the diplomatic situation turns out to be.

Initial tech path was AH - BW - Ag - TW - Pottery - Writing - Masonry - Aesthetics - Mysticism - Poly - Literature

I thought about going archery because I didn’t settle the horse or bronze spots for a long time but decided I could probably just spam warriors and rely on creative culture to fog bust most of the map. I got lucky at least once though and I suspect archery might have been a better play.

After the above path I traded for monarchy, maths and monotheism. I did a double switch and then converted to Taoism (Monty’s religion) and then helped him convert Ragnar.

Then it was on to music, COL, bulbed philosophy with my first GS to found Hinduism (I always play choose religions), Civil Service, Theology and Divine Right to found Buddhism. Given the diplomatic situation (a lot of hate and not a lot of open borders) I really did need to found the religions myself. Only Monty has spread his religion to me.

I think it was after winning the music race that I filled out the rest of my land. I feel I got pretty lucky to get Vladivostok for a ninth city that's not very mediocre but the other spots were all ones I could pretty much take at my leisure.

I’ve just finished a golden age and I think I should win lib shortly. I’ll probably just take nationalism for the Taj. I can’t really see another tech that looks that exciting for culture.

I’ve not got a lot of experience of culture victories - and I’ve never dealt with deity AIs before - but it seems to be going OK.

My main concerns, apart from being killed by Monty, are a lack of health resources - not much that can be done as nothing has been up for trade - and being behind on infrastructure in culture city 3 (Novgorod). I cottaged all along the river whereas I think I should have just farmed so I could whip more culture multiplier buildings. My plan is to run as many artists as I can here to generate culture, and most of my great artists, so I won’t be working the cottages anyway. It's probably time to farm over them now.

Oh and of course I built the Parthenon, Great Library and Sistine. And I'm at war with Isabelle because WvO asked and he's a bit scary whereas Bella neither likes nor is liked.

 

[krikav]

@Mr_Trotsky

Spoiler :

I think your reasoning regarding pigs/floodplains is good, even though I ended up going for a insta-connected spot north by the sheep myself.

Regarding culture. I think printing press is nice for the extra commerce from villages/towns.
Hermitrage from nationalism is as good as Taj too.
Might make sense to tech as far as rifling before turning up the slider. That adds alot of safety and makes the rest of end-turning that much more relaxing.
Even if things are cool at the moment, it can be quite scary to start pushing borders agressively against Monty/Ragnar while you fall further and further behind in tech.

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

Ideally you'll be able to keep every AI off your back using diplomacy while you go full culture, and thus shave a number of turns off of your victory date by skipping any military techs worth mentioning, but unless you're extremely confident in your diplomacy skills I would definitely recommend teching at least up to rifles. Remember that Monty will happily plot and declare on you while he's already at war, so unless you can keep him at Friendly you are never safe.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

Spoiler :

I was left home alone last night resulting in a Civ binge before I saw comments on my game. I suspect my position would be better if I’d read the advice first. In particular, I’d have been reminded about the Ermitage and built it sooner rather than building it in Novgorod during a golden age when I should have been getting as many great artists as I could. Oops.

I won lib and took nationalism. I built the Taj and, eventually, the Ermitage. After winning lib, I traded for machinery and then self-teched printing press and traded for the techs down the banking line. This is where I stopped on the tech tree. I wanted guilds because I'd been able to trade for wine and spices and I thought grocers were justified given the poor health situation and I wanted banking for mercantilism. I think mercantilism helps, mainly for the great people; I'm not sure if the culture produced by an extra great artist exceeds the culture produced by two foreign as opposed to domestic trade routes.

In retrospect, rifling does look like it would have been sensible. I could have traded for gunpowder and then I'd only be two techs away. I guess my feeling was that I needed to stop somewhere and I'm often guilty of teching further than I need to. However, it's highly likely to be game over if I'm attacked as my army is something like eight warriors.

I have been and remain pretty confident with the diplomatic situation. Ragnar is something like +16 and Monty +6. I might be able to get Monty to friendly with another city gift giving me +2 for fair trade and +2 for city liberation plus something else (?). Even if I did, I couldn't be confident of keeping him at friendly because I may have to reject demands in the future. Also, I didn't want to gift him a city because he's Boudica's worst enemy and I want to keep her at pleased.

More importantly, he hates everybody else apart from Ragnar so I felt reasonably confident. He started plotting after I turned the culture slider on but by that point my borders allowed me to see all of his border cities and he wasn't stacking there. I was a bit nervous when I saw he wasn't stacking on Boudica's border either but it wasn't long before he made the most likely move and started war number two with Boudica. I was hoping for a long stalemate but Monty showed that a tech edge can't compensate for being a moron and he now looks in a bit of trouble after suiciding his stack. He's now seven cities, of which three are culturally pressed, against ten and no longer has a stack; Boudica, of course, has a stack. I don't mind Monty capping, as I'm confident I can keep Boudica at pleased, I just don't want early peace with Monty twiddling his thumbs. Although, I'd still be pretty confident that those two would be back at it soon enough even if there is peace.

I'm a bit more concerned about Ragnar who is having his bottom handed to him by WvO and his two vassals. Ragnar has lost three cities. One to the Dutch and two to the magnetic draw of Russian culture. He's down to seven of which two or three are culturally pressed. He's one tech from rifling but I fear that Viking citizens may be well advised to start polishing up their Dutch. This isn't great as WvO is the only non-vassal Civ that isn't pleased with me but I figure I could probably get him to pleased if I have to. It's just that he's been Ragnar and Monty's worst enemy on and off for the last few centuries so I've avoided buttering him up for a now.

I find it hard to work out how many more great artists I'll get but I figure I need to be left alone for another 45 turns at most. Given that I can probably beg ten tens if anybody turns up on my border, and it would take the AI a few turns to get to any of my culture cities if they did invade, I perhaps need to avoid being plotted on for a bit over 30 turns.