Nobles' Club 286: Alexander of Greece

[Mr_Trotsky]

I though you couldn't gift away/liberate/etc. cities while there was a hostile unit nearby that city, or do barbs not count for that?

That’s my experience too.

Although I’m not sure if the AI is clever enough to realise a city is threatened if the hostile unit is a tile away from its cultural borders so I can imagine the exploit working so long as the barb can get to the city before the AI can move a unit in. Not sure though.

 

[krikav]

Yes, if an enemy is too close you won't get liberation bonus, but you can get fair trade.

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

I'm pretty sure I've gotten the liberation bonus as well, but I know for certain that at least the AI will take the city regardless.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

T170

Spoiler :

Golden age and three great scientists. I messed it up a bit and was just short of a great merchant.

Won lib with a bulb into education and another into lib and one into PP.

Having my points on a friendly Ragnar was a big help. I got some nice trades like theology and compass for civil service along the way

However, with philosophy gone on the other continent I didn't feel brave enough to go for anything more exciting than astronomy. Even that felt a bit nervy. After bulbing lib, I traded philosophy for machinery. The three turns to optics felt like an eternity but I got there and took astronomy next turn.

I met Saladin almost immediately and then wondering units introduced me to Giggles and Hannibal. Can somebody please explain how each founded their own religion but they're all in Saladin's religion? This was deeply unwelcome.

They have proved good trading partners though. After astro, I went for nationalism with HE fail gold. I was very pleased with myself for building the HE in Sparta.

I realised nationalism was a mistake when I met the other continent and saw that Hannibal and Giggles already had it. I got a tiny amount of fail gold and a tech I could give Saladin in return for him not killing me.

I also got engineering and guilds for it from Ragnar and WvO so not the end of the world. And I need it for drafting. And I will be drafting. The Globe is in Thebes. I've not gotten much play out of the Great Library in Thebes - just one GS after the golden age for the next golden age. I didn't want to build the Globe there but it was the only three food city that had any production to actually build the Globe. I built the national epic in Heliopolis because it has the Buddhist shrine so it has a decent number of great person slots to generate golden age great people when I'm not in caste pacifism.

Had to self tech gunpowder and chemistry. I picked banking up in trade somewhere and gave Hannibal chemistry for RP. He's the tech leader so I'm happy to trade with him. I can get economics, constitution and military tradition in trade but I think I'll hold on a bit.

I'm two turns from steel and I've just popped a great prophet for a golden age. The plan is to trigger that, try to get a GM or two, finish steel, tech rifling and then switch into theology and nationhood. I'll see if i can get a good trade for economics during the golden age so I can switch into free market too but this doesn't feel that important given everybody is in mercantilism apart from Hannibal and the next tech target is likely communism. Although the diplo points with Hannibal would be nice.

The Islamic bloc have signed defensive pacts with each other so they're off the table. Ragnar is a bit behind and also on my doorstep. He's the obvious target but also my only current source of iron and I won't capture iron for a long time. It's possible that Saladin will be willing to trade it once I go into theocracy; he's relatively close to pleased. I should check that.

Another option would be trade for military tradition and attack with cavalry given that they don't need iron. The trouble is that I've set myself up for a cannon attack with the globe, new cities built for drafting and a dozen or so slow built trebs in my HE city waiting for upgrade. Also, he's only two techs from rifling and I won't be attacking for another perhaps fifteen turns.

I also need to give some thought to whether I vassal him or wipe him out. If I got all of his land I'd have 44% of the world's territory. WvO is much smaller so I'd still need to take some of the Islamic continent for domination. I think that means vassaling him and then Willem is probably the better play. It'll also help to have someone "willing" to trade with me while the Islamic civs enjoy their love-in.

 

[Choggy]

Emperor NHNE.

Hello Civ4 Fanatics. This game definitely stands the test of time and I'm delighted to see this forum still alive x. Playing on Emperor because it's been a while...(2015 according to the unread messages in the inbox). To the mapmaker...great map, surprised me. To everybody else...play the map not the leader.

T80

Spoiler :

"Saw the 3 corn start, no happy resources so the cap is a settler/worker farm. Spotted Ragnar early on, his starting techs are awful so no fear of an early DoW from him at this level. The AI places a high value on access to resources, even if they can't work them, so knew roughly where he would settle his second city. Hatty goes after religions early,doesn't prioritise cities and without horsies she's a sitting duck. She can spam religions for me. Still no idea where the Dutch are but he's also a slow starter.

Fractal Map/Temperate so jungles slow the AI expansion down. Ignored the Amazon to the North and quickly realised there's only 4 Civs on our island. Simple strat - play the map not the leader, grab as much space as I could.. So I focussed on the 4 FP tiles for cottages and the gold for an economy and got into the face of a benign AI.

I thought the unforested hill in the BFC from SIP was copper (NC games used to give you this, back in the day. but this mapmaker clearly doesn't hand out such freebies any more). Had that marble been stone I'd have focussed on chopping out the Mids, but Philo trait without Rep from Mids is no way to build an economy, it's best spent on building the Mauselleum from Calender and setting up a 36, even 48 turn Golden age. Agg trait means warriors can defeat barb Archers in jungle hills so BW for copper can be delayed.

Savegame attached. 6 cities, about to grab a 7th. Struggling with taking a screenshot, never was one for technology and F12 on Steam puts my laptop into flight-mode. I'm sure there's a way of doing this but I'm buggered if I can figure it out

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

I thought the unforested hill in the BFC from SIP was copper (NC games used to give you this, back in the day. but this mapmaker clearly doesn't hand out such freebies any more).

Standard practice is still to make sure that a leader's UU/UB strategic resource is somewhere nearby, if not in capital BFC at least close enough for a second or third city to claim. And I try to make sure that they're close in such a way that they shouldn't get contested even on Deity .

Struggling with taking a screenshot, never was one for technology and F12 on Steam puts my laptop into flight-mode. I'm sure there's a way of doing this but I'm buggered if I can figure it out

Print Screen button, perhaps? That's how I take screenshots for the OP, IIRC.

 

[Fabled]

F12 on Steam puts my laptop into flight-mode. I'm sure there's a way of doing this but I'm buggered if I can figure it out

If you change the keybind for steam's screenshot it works really well. I'm using ctrl+shift+s right now but the point is you can put it wherever both the game and your laptop is happy with it.

 

[Choggy]

Emperor NHNE Lib 1320 (T192)

Found my PC screenshot button. Thanks!

Spoiler :

Ragnar went on a settling spree and then DoWed me although I knew it was coming. I took 4-5 of his cities in the peace deal, including his capital, and left him alive to settle the jungle in the north west part of our island which he is currently doing. We're back at war after he vassalled himself to the Dutch, and then the Dutch DoWed me, only for Ragnar to relinquish his vassalage half-way through the war, allowing me to separate-peace the Dutch and leave him at my mercy. The Dutch are looking to go to war again but I think that they're looking to Ragnar this time, not me.

I'm also at war with the Egyptians whohave obligingly built the Temple of Solomon and the AP in our shared Jewish faith, with only 4 cities settled and no access to metals they're offering little resistance and they'll be dead in a few turns.

Going to take Nationalism for the Taj Mahal. The 3 civs on the other island have a tech advantage over us and are sharing the same religion so I assume they're in a tech-trade hugbox - if their tech lead gets too large I'll have to vassal the dutch and use them as a tech trading partner to catch up but my preference is be to kill everybody on our Island first and then see what I need for Domination.