Nobles' Club 288: Julius Caesar of the Romans

[Heathcliff]

@konata_LS

Spoiler :

You wrote: Since you're an Immortal player, maybe you could give some advice or constructive criticisms to #9 ? He/she only had 5 cities in 300AD at Immortal, which is unusual when playing as Rome + Iron nearby. ..
I write:
Looked like he had a hard game, he tried to tech with 5 cities, but then got attacked by both Shaka and Ghengis and now the situation looks bad.
Dont think you could just sit back and tech in this game because of the aggressive neighbors. If you had peaceful neighbors you can tech to cuirrassers.

 

[konata_LS]

@Heathcliff

Spoiler :

That's very kind of you. As written in the original post, "it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice".

Certainly your comments about the tech path and neighbors will help the player at #9 .

@krikav

Spoiler :

Posting the gameplay is always appreciated for NC games, even one screenshot with a few key words.

Interesting to see a peaceful REX as Rome TBH, JC's traits can handle REX quite well.

Judging from your screenshot, Shaka and Zara are at wars. Maybe you'll have some opportunities for dogpile wars later? With Genghis and Shaka, I don't think these AIs will stay at peace for a long time.

It seems Hindu became the main religion in your game. In my game, the situation was the opposite: most people were Buddhist.

 

[konata_LS]

From T144 to the end:

Spoiler :

Settings as below, no huts.


Sometimes it was hard to understand AI's behaviour. On T147, Ragnar's stack went through Sury's land and DoW on Charlie
(yes, as some people have noticed, many forests left unchopped in 740AD, because I didn't build enough workers )


The next turn, Charlie bribed Sury to attack Ragnar. And Zara dogpiled Ragnar as well.

The scouting chariot noticed Shaka had a impressive stack near Zara's border. Very good


Several turns later, Shaka DoW on Zara. Everyone was busy killing each other, except my vassal Genghis and me :


When Shaka lost his main stack within Zara's border, it was time to backstab Shaka . He quickly capitulated:


Next target was Zara. He capitulated on T216:

During my war with Zara, Ragnar capitulated to Sury.

Charlie capitulated on T221:


Then it was Sury and Ragnar's turn :



Next turn, conquest:


Praets are cool


The AIs in my game were largely slowed down by their endless wars. None of them got PP or Chemistry at the end of the game.


To my surprise, Julius is quite good in Inland sea map, maybe because Praets + IMP help getting a large empire and ORG is great for funding that empire?... interesting .

Thanks for the map

 

[soundjata]

Deity, NH/NE

Spoiler T88 :

Whipped out the first settler. Agri->BW->Hunt->Archery->TW->Pot->AH->Myst->Writing.
Probably expanded too much, Setia and Circei doesn't contribute much and have been saving up gold ot tech aestethics for ages.

View attachment 612957

Man it's too much REX
~30 per turn in the first 80 turns of the game... Voodoo magic!

 

[krikav]

Yeah, it's easy to get carried away with IMP.

 

[pigswill]

Emperor Normal 1140ad

Spoiler :

SIP. Rexed peacefully up to 8 cities. research was all over the place, built a few prats. Shaka and GK declared the same turn, Shaka's stack was pretty naff and died without doing anything. GK captured a city before I eventually fought back, recaptured city and a couple more of his to get peace. Then back to peaceful research, once again GK declared shortly before I got to lib. Most annoying.Eventually libbed steel 1140ad. Missed Pyramids by one turn . Most annoying. Got Notre Dame. Time for war.

 

[konata_LS]

@pigswill

Spoiler :

Surviving the early attacks from two unit-spammers is already an achievement Lib Steel is also nice!

Maybe is it possible to bribe Shaka to attack someone? Since you're ahead in tech. If you don't bribe Shaka, Genghis may do that against you. Also, I wonder if the first DoW from Shaka was due to GK's bribing. When unit-spammer like Shaka plots a war, he usually brings 10+ units, not a naff stack; but if GK bribes Shaka to attack you, Shaka might only have time to prepare a "mini-stack".

Cannons + Praets are efficient against AIs' Medieval units . Look forwards to seeing how your war will be going .

 

[chinemol]

hey there. long time no post.

Spoiler :

played on emperor, settled 1s. nice game, got the river valley, 3 coastal cities and GL. GK was at war so no biggie, plotted to take him, but buddism founder shaka got saladin. reloaded many times to try to prevent such oversight, in the end had to feed him every tech to keep him not huge while i conquered GK (engineering). saladin peace vassaled to me while at war with shaka. took him out with cuirs the rest is pretty irrelevant

thanks again for this games!

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Monarch, normal speed, no huts, no events, T251 (1705AD)

I don't like the idea that taking another capital early with warriors is often the optimal move. It is highly luck-based and not how civ should be played. Monarch is the lowest level where the other players start with archers.

Spoiler :

I am, however, not averse to opportunistic worker stealing. It was not planned but I took the one that just showed up.

I can mess with the Oracle on monarch. I have always wondered if civil service is always the best choice if the capital is not hall-of-fame quality.

Monarchy increases happiness and there is wine nearby. The leader is organised so civic upkeep is not very relevant. One single promotion for new units seemed a weak alternative to a bureaucracy capital. However, this unique unit has +2 base strength. Promotions are stronger for units with higher base strength. If vassalage is ever worth it, this is it. It also meant I hardly built barracks as I kept pushing the war fronts. The production that would have went into barracks, instead went into organised courthouses.

Since I was not getting civil service until fairly late, I would use the capital as an early GP farm

I am trying to take advantage of the unique building, the forum. If you don't mind what type of great person you are getting, the forum is giving 4-5 GPP per turn. (Aside: the courthouse in the capital is not a mistake. I would have a lot of cities, the capital will become large, and courthouses are half-priced. I think it's worth it.)

With some research planning, I didn't mind what type of great person I got

Note I prioritised calendar even though I was not lacking in happiness. If I got a great engineer, I would rush the Mausoleum of Maussollos. I normally get a 5 golden ages in a science game, one from Taj Mahal and 4 from great persons. The MoM gives me 20 extra turns of golden age. Otherwise I would have had to build it the hard way, without industrious and without marble. I would still do it.

Since I didn't need civil service early, I prioritised engineering and guilds, for knights. Even with pushing two fronts at the same time, the units still took a long time to reach either front.

Communism at T184 (1240AD)

In the end, this was the only player I never declared on(?)

Line up all the spaceship parts

 

[konata_LS]

@sylvanllewelyn

Spoiler :

Interesting to see people do Space in an Inland sea map
Feudalism is a safe choice when you're sandwiched between Annoyed Sal and Cautious Genghis.
In a long game like Space, courthouses are often worth building, especially with ORG leaders. Besides, extra- may help in the war when sending spies to put enemy cities in revolts.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

@konata_LS

Spoiler :

Was I supposed to go cultural on this map?

The map was not suitable for space victory. There is an abundance of riverside tiles but no bananas, no sugar, no crabs. I had to research medicine early to build hospitals. The food resources density was not sufficient for a very solid GP farm or Globe Theatre draft city.

If I were playing on deity then I would adopt Saladin's religion. Go counter-clockwise until the Khmer capitulates and the game is won as there are no other good techers in the game.

 

[Fish Man]

Monarch, normal speed, no huts, no events, T251 (1705AD)

I don't like the idea that taking another capital early with warriors is often the optimal move. It is highly luck-based and not how civ should be played. Monarch is the lowest level where the other players start with archers.

Spoiler :

I am, however, not averse to opportunistic worker stealing. It was not planned but I took the one that just showed up.
View attachment 613728

I can mess with the Oracle on monarch. I have always wondered if civil service is always the best choice if the capital is not hall-of-fame quality.
View attachment 613729

Monarchy increases happiness and there is wine nearby. The leader is organised so civic upkeep is not very relevant. One single promotion for new units seemed a weak alternative to a bureaucracy capital. However, this unique unit has +2 base strength. Promotions are stronger for units with higher base strength. If vassalage is ever worth it, this is it. It also meant I hardly built barracks as I kept pushing the war fronts. The production that would have went into barracks, instead went into organised courthouses.

Since I was not getting civil service until fairly late, I would use the capital as an early GP farm
View attachment 613731

I am trying to take advantage of the unique building, the forum. If you don't mind what type of great person you are getting, the forum is giving 4-5 GPP per turn. (Aside: the courthouse in the capital is not a mistake. I would have a lot of cities, the capital will become large, and courthouses are half-priced. I think it's worth it.)

With some research planning, I didn't mind what type of great person I got

View attachment 613730

Note I prioritised calendar even though I was not lacking in happiness. If I got a great engineer, I would rush the Mausoleum of Maussollos. I normally get a 5 golden ages in a science game, one from Taj Mahal and 4 from great persons. The MoM gives me 20 extra turns of golden age. Otherwise I would have had to build it the hard way, without industrious and without marble. I would still do it.

Since I didn't need civil service early, I prioritised engineering and guilds, for knights. Even with pushing two fronts at the same time, the units still took a long time to reach either front.

Communism at T184 (1240AD)
View attachment 613742

In the end, this was the only player I never declared on(?)

Line up all the spaceship parts
View attachment 613743

Nice! Dunno if you've been following my posts or figured it out yourself, but that's definitely a respectable space date and close to optimal on this map. I may give the old praet rush a shot, on deity this time...

 

[Pangaea]

Sometimes it was hard to understand AI's behaviour.

Welcome to Civilization 4

Only 5 hours played though? Holy mother. How is that possible. I'd be at turn 30 by then or something, haha.

Also, I see you don't have BUG installed. Have you looked in that? It's a fantastic mod that gives you easy access to more information without clicking through many screens, like a more organised scorecard. I (and most others) recommend to install BUG in CustomAssets, and then install BULL as well. Means you can play forum games like this with the mod active, without needing to have it run technically as a mod, which would impact what savegames you can load as well. It's a great option

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Nice! Dunno if you've been following my posts or figured it out yourself, but that's definitely a respectable space date and close to optimal on this map. I may give the old praet rush a shot, on deity this time...

Many posts, including yours, plus some of my own ideas. The date is quite far away from the optimal because my goal was to use the UB, the forum, which I shaped the whole game plan around. It's not the optimal overall strategy because it's not meant to be. Micromanagement can reduce the time by several to ten turns but I can't be bothered.

Two macro-decisions I was unsure about:

Spoiler :

1. I built windmills on non-riverside hills and minds on riverside hills. I was trying to get more tiles with both production and commerce for golden ages. Obviously ignore desert hills. I am unsure because I only do serious space-race games with the FIN trait. With FIN I do the opposite - - I build windmills if the hill is riverside and mines if not-riverside (to smooth out slavery cycles).

2. In hindsight I felt the original capital was not good enough for the Oxford University. If I didn't, all the production that went into libraries and universities could have been spent elsewhere. I say that the capital has to be super-good for OU because I like moving the capital to the ironworks city near the end. The Three-Gorges Dam and Apollo Project can be real bottlenecks. If you SIP, would you build the Oxford University there?

 

[konata_LS]

@Pangaea
Thanks for suggestion!

I would surely play with Bug/Bull or Buffy if I could. In fact, shortly after I came to CFC, lymond and krikav suggested me to play with Bug and Buffy so that I could get many useful reminders and play BOTM with others. But after several days' installation / uninstallation of Civ 4 and Windows, my computer still cannot run Bug correctly . I also tried the solution offered by the nice lady at #8, it didn't work neither. All the UI disappear in Bug and the city screen becomes all black. Maybe because my computer is full of special characters like "é, è, â" . So I have to survive without Bug and manually check many things .

It seems people like you and krikav play very carefully, think prudently about each decision; your games often last more than 10 hours. OTOH, some players like TMIT and Henrik play very fast. The game would last less than 5 hours if you set most of your cities in Production Automation

@sylvanllewelyn

Spoiler :

Good point about health issue in this map. +1 from windmills may compensate the negative effect of .

Some inland spots with 10+ riverside tiles are more suitable for OU than SIP, maybe? Usually you want your OU has as many cottages as possible. But I'm not expert on OU, because most of my games end in dom/conquest and I rarely build universities.

 

[dontworryabouttsunami]

Immortal, no huts/events, choose religions (for fun! It's boring when Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism always dominate)

Spoiler To 1AD :

SIP, Agri, BW, Hunting, Sailing because there were lots of rivers around and I didn't want to have to build roads. My first city went to get the Clam and Stone to the north. Copper was a ways away so I went for Archery after TW and Pottery.

The barbarians gave me some trouble trying to claim the Cow / Copper site.

After that I teched Masonry, and then selected IW as a placeholder while considering whether killing someone with Praetorians made sense. But I forgot to choose something else and wound up accidentally teching IW. Whoops! I kind of got away with it though, as I was able to trade for Alphabet.

Never been on this side of this deal before!

Sal founded Islam and eventually demanded that I convert, which I was happy to do. Genghis Khan and Shaka are also both Muslims

I finished the Pyramids around T90, teched CoL to begin running scientists (which I traded to Sal for Math), Currency, Civil Service and then picked up Calendar. Expansion was pretty continuous, pushing as far north as the Pig/Sheep site south of Mongolia and the southwestern Copper bordering on Arabia. After the Pyramids I plopped down two final cities claiming Incense and Dye, putting Rome at #1 in cities.

Meanwhile everyone decided to go to war with each other. Rome was the only civ that refrained from war in the classical period I stayed out of trouble by gifting people techs if I became their worst enemy. Genghis had me a bit nervous while he was plotting, but Charlie was his worst enemy so I figured he was probably the target, which turned out to be the case.

Tech & Diplomatic situation, 1 AD

I'm kind of paying for my unorthodox tech path now, since I want Music but don't even have Aesthetics yet. No one else has it either though, so whatever. I am planning on bulbing Philo (GS in Rome in 4 turns (first one built an academy)) and then hopefully using Pacifism to get enough guys to bulb Education, while teching to Music with my gold. Then Lib Military Tradition and get a quick conquest win.

Here's my empire circa 1AD

I'm not actually building Forums, I know those won't contribute anything. Those builds will be changed. Paper was also a placeholder that I won't forget to change this time Meditation is next.

 

[dontworryabouttsunami]

Spoiler To 425 AD :

I traded CoL to Surry for Meditation and 50 gold to save a turn, was pretty luck to get a GS in Rome for Philo (something like ~75% chance), got the GA from Music and started a Golden Age, in which I ran Pacifism (I had already revolted into Rep, Bureau, and Caste) and got out two scientists for Education. I was able to tech Theo and Feudalism in 5 turns total in anticipation of switching into wartime civics at the close of the GA. Then I teched Nationalism and Paper and double bulbed Education. I might have made a mistake switching civics so soon though -- I'm now in US (plan is to turn slider off and buy my army), Vassalage, Slavery, Theo, but dropping out of Rep and Caste has cost me probably about 150 beakers per turn. I only have Lib and Gunpowder left to tech though.

Unfortunately most of the world wars have cooled off; I think Shaka made peace with Sal after taking a few of his cities and more disturbingly, Genghis made peace with Charlie and then started plotting war again on the next turn. He's pleased with me and agreed to give me some gold and a peace treaty though, so it can't be against me, right? Anyway, hopefully not long after the peace treaty expires I'll be ready to attack him. I was a little concerned, remembering what happened to Araius, but I think even if someone attacks me right now with my pants down I can probably whip out enough promoted longbows to hold them at bay until I get Cuirs.

Tech situation (I've been selling tech left and right to keep my slider at 100% and they're still all eating my dust):

 

[hankinsohl]

Diplomatic Victory, 1919 AD, Emperor, Normal Speed

Spoiler :

Fun map.

Settled in place. Got Iron working early and sent my third settler out to claim the iron.

Built a bunch of Praetorians. Genghis Khan, at best is a questionable ally - and on my border to the North was absolutely my first target.

I DOWed on him with about 10 Praetorians and more on the way. Reduced him to 1 city and took peace for a bunch of tech. Meanwhile, Charlemagne DOWed on GK. When GK opened borders with me (for whatever reason) I took the opportunity to camp his single city with a large stack. GK built a bunch of units in his single city - Charlemagne sent a huge stack against this - and took GK's last city - albeit with huge losses.

And this was what I was waiting for.

I DOWed on The Holy Roman Empire and wiped out his remaining stack.

I was easily able to capitulate The HRM with catapults and elephants as his stack was depleted.

Along the way, I adopted Hinduism as this was the religion of peaceful Arabia to my south (and several other AIs were in Hinduism as well).

I next attacked the Khmer - with unfortunate consequences. Shaka was in Buddhism - and I was his worst enemy. I thought I was safe - due to vast distance and numerous intervening civilizations - but no!

After I took 2 Khmer cities, Shaka showed up with a huge stack with a ton of cannons. I was outnumbered, and out-teched badly. Fortunately, Shaka took peace - albeit for roughly 1.5K gold and some tech.

I took a pause and teched to cannons and built a huge stack. I was worried that I would need to fight the Khmer and the Zulu simultaneously but Shaka stayed out of this conflict.

After a short time I capped the Khmer.

Next I attacked the Vikings - but I was badly outteched. My cannons were dying en masse to Viking Infantry/Artillery. So after capturing 2 Viking cities I took peace for some tech. The Vikings were down to just 4 cities at this point - and unfortunately, they vassalled to Ethiopia.

I then teched to Artillery and resumed warfare with the Vikings. Meanwhile Shaka dowed on Arabia. I was worried that Shaka would make quick work of Arabia and sent a Curriasser with visibility down south to monitor.

I clicked on Shaka to see what peace with Arabia would take - and misclicked acceptance - tech plus 2K gold or so. I reloaded to avoid this mistake.

Strangely, Shaka's siege never seemed to appear. He suicided into Arabia's protective defenders.

Arabia with 6 cities overcame Shaka, took numerous Zulu cities and eventually capped him. I was too late to realize this danger and wasn't able to bribe Arabia off war.

At any rate, this didn't matter.

I used some specialists to get a golden age, revamped my 20ish cities or so. I DOWed on Ethiopia and captured the Viking capital which had the Pyramids. I switched to Police State/Nationalism/Caste/Theocracy under the golden age and pushed onwards.

Eventually my 30 or so cities were too much for everyone else. I had to stop warfare and retool my cities - as I was up against Modern Armor with Tanks - but that wasn't a big deal.

I capped Ethiopia and along with way the Vikings disappeared from existence.

I was on my way to crush Arabia and his vassal the Zulu - with 35 or so cities and 3 capable vassals - but instead took a UN diplomatic victory just to speed up the inevitable.
===
Takeaways from this playthrough...
1) I need to pay much closer attention to politics. I would have won victory much more quickly if I had kept Shaka from DOWing on me.
2) The AI's biggest weakness is warfare. Leverage this as much as possible.