Nobles' Club 310: Gandhi of India

[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 Gandhi of India, whom we last played in NC 234; we last played the Indians under Asoka in NC 295. The Indians start with Mysticism and Mining.

• Traits: Gandhi is Philosophical and Spiritual. Philosophical gives all cities +100% generation and a +100% bonus to Universities. Spiritual allows you to swap state religion/civics without suffering Anarchy, and gives a +100% bonus to all Temples.
• The UB: The Mausoleum, a Jail with +2. Combine it with Gandhi's ability to quickly (and cheaply) swap into Police State to keep your cities functional during a long, dawn-out war, or build them during a Space Race to offset Emancipation unhappiness while boosting your generation.
• The UU: The Fast Worker, a Worker with 3. A very powerful UU in the right hands, these guys can chop forests and improve distant tiles faster than regular workers could ever hope to manage.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Continents, Temperate climate, normal sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

A few strategic resource swaps, and both polar ice caps were pushed back a wee bit (otherwise they'd trap at least a hundred ships ).

Spoiler isolated? :

Semi-isolated.

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 310 Gandhi 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]

Seems like a straightforward case of "SIP" to me. The Warrior can't do very much at all in terms of scouting, and although moving into the rivers down south would be tempting it's not "move away from double wet corn" tempting. So, eh, yeah .

Or have I, yet again, missed some sort of incredible power play that the experts are able to point out ?

 

[drewisfat]

I'd scout that fog 2E of the warrior. If there's any resource at all there, I'd settle on the hill the warrior started on, otherwise SIP.

 

[sampsa]

I'd scout that fog 2E of the warrior. If there's any resource at all there, I'd settle on the hill the warrior started on, otherwise SIP.

2T, less forest, less green river, loses fresh water... ok gain 1T with the worker, but still, the price seems a bit steep. Probably wouldn't do it for any less than gems.

 

[drewisfat]

By my count it's gaining green rivers + doesn't kill forest + puts the calendar bonus tile in bfc to work at start. Just noticed only 1 hill tho

 

[sampsa]

Hmm, on warrior has 3 green river tiles in the south plus the mystery tile. I haven't done any fog gazing magicks (assuming SIP), but are you saying they are all plains?

 

[konata_LS]

Satan's voice : the wet Corn is the best tile to settle on <-- : don't settle on the corn. Just don't .
^just joking

SIP seems already good. Agri-BW looks evident for such a start. Is there the coast line up north...? If there are some fish or clam nearby, research Fishing after BW is not a bad idea . The 2 from lake tile is a temporary solution to early commerce. With a PHI leader, if there are several high spots like this capital, Caste might be a decent solution to generate more GScientists. Given that Gandhi is SPI, people can switch between slavery and Caste without suffering anarchy.

These forests are especially nice for India, as Fast workers can move into the forests and start chopping on the same turn.

Spoiler :

Since it's semi-isolation, we have to research Fishing-Sailing after all. PHI + high + Caste would easily get the 2 GS for Astro bulb. Of course, the civics depend on the land and the neighbour. If we're semi-isolated with Shaka or Monty, it'd be better to stay under slavery and whip units.

Still in the middle of some other games . I might try this some times later, as the start looks interesting.

 

[drewisfat]

2W is green river, a couple others depend on the river. I'd settle on the hill if the warrior reveals a farm/mining resource as that would save 1-2 idle worker turns til BW. Otherwise the fact that you have nothing to mine kills the idea. Mostly though I just want acametis to keep being wrong cuz it's funny

 

[Fippy]

In reality he just wants the desert closer, for a nicer view out of his NE palace window.

 

[Whisker]

Playing with Buffy, no huts + random events on.
The tile south of our settler, where hut used to be is forested, what gives?

 

[sampsa]

Playing with Buffy, no huts + random events on.
The tile south of our settler, where hut used to be is forested, what gives?

Huts can be in forest. It makes the forest graphics a bit unclear so it appears in the screenshot that the tile is non-forest.

 

[chinemol]

Spoiler :

setteld in place, got upper hand on land despite building stonhenge after the third city, bad tech pathway got me to be lacking trade routes and improved commerce tiles for quite a while... fogbusted relatively well, just one unexpected archer since I assumed the map ended one tile north of were it actually did. also a galley, but had metal casing by then. libbed astronomy, but they are teching FAST. cathy vassaled hatty, but she is still liked. lovefest big continent other than that. think i'll just wipe 6 cities charly with cuirs and beeline comunism. expanding overseas seems counterproductive otherwise. everyone will hate lincoln once they meet him so vassaling him is putting a target on my forehead and invading the big continent seems unwise till communism + cannons. problem is if I go for lincoln then I lose the window to use cannons effectively on the big continent

1874 - 11 hs 49 min monarch conquest

Spoiler :

cuirs to wipe charly. shaka peace vassaled him before the end to no avail. cathy + hatty declared on me. hannibal too. no troops on the ground, only a failed amphibious city attack. bought some time, signed peace and found a big cathy stack on a colony island. declared and wiped it --->peace. shaka had declared on lincoln and taken 2 cities. declared on him, took one city with a stack. a second was on the way to lincoln. the main stack took a city, but while advancing to the next one found a cathy stack marching straight towards it and the just taken city. cease hostilities + gift the city back to shaka to avoid getting wiped out. next turn declared again and took lincoln cities back, from shaka. lincoln agreed to vassal, so I did. gifted the cities back. peace and mased more troops and ships, pounded shaka hard, capped 3 cities after. cathy and hatty next, hannibal was the last one, just one city was enough

long game, low score. not a hard map, but required a lot of time and pacience

now... how on earth did cathy manage to be at peace with shaka despite her having hatty as a vassal goes beyond me. hannibal also was at peace, despite having a different religion. lovefest + trading was a nightmare, hope you guys better luck in this department

 

[konata_LS]

From T0 to T149

Spoiler :

TBH I'm not comfortable with Emperor level yet . Usually I would prefer to avoid semi-isolation, because what if we're semi-isolated with Shaka or Genghis? Semi-iso with warmonger is probably one of the most difficult situations. Even if we're semi-isolated with a peaceful AI, we have to self-tech most of things, at least before getting the neighbour to Friendly. As self-teching abilities become important in semi-isolation, Gandhi and Mansa are probably the only two leaders that I dare to try semi-isolation at Emperor. Mansa is definitely a strong leader with FIN cottages + 3 water tiles; plus, some extra under binary research from his UB - even 2 or 3 per turn - is very nice before Optics, when the human player has no AIs to sell techs. Gandhi is also very good: PHI gives more GScientists for bulbing; SPI offers great flexibility in both empire management and diplomacy. In comparison, Isabella's traits are nice, her UUs powerful, but her traits don't offer any direct research boost, which is tough for semi-isolation (the recent NC 306).

Settings as below, no huts:


SIP. Agri-BW-TW-Fishing-Pot. Moving the mouse to my score showed 1000+ land tiles. The game might be long . On T2, met Charlie's scout and started worrying about land grabbing. Chopping and whipping settlers to block Charlie. Charlie founded Buddhism. He should be pleased after his religion spread to me. The real danger was the period between "Charlie connects his metals" and "Charlie spreads his religion to me".

The on the bottom right corner showed Charlie went for IW after religious techs, then he went for Alphabet. Some turns later, Buddhism spread in Delhi and I converted to his religion immediately. The problem was, he only became pleased after his got Swordsmen. Under semi-isolation, it was impossible to know whether Charlie started plotting when he was only Cautious. When Charlie's stack of Swords and chariots were wandering around my borders , I put nearly 100 into AH then begged the rest of AH from Charlie. 2 turns later, Charlie moved that stack away . Maybe this beg looks paranoid, but better safe than sorry.

Given that there were stone and marble in my land, I decided to go for Aesthetics-Literature and GLib. The oracle was built in 1680BC, which made me believe that wonders would go fast in this game. In such case, failgold became quite tempting . I was dreaming about using failgold to fund my research towards Astro .


But the game proved me wrong .

Only Oracle went very early, the rest of wonders were built insanely slow. In 760 AD, three of my cities are still building Mids, GLH, and the Colossus for failgold. It was not normal - in NC 282, AI Pacal built the Colossus in 125AD at Monarch. Why don't these Emperor AIs build Colossus even in 700AD?
(and yes, as some of you have noticed, the CH in Delhi was due to a misclick )


The plan of getting failgold pathetically failed . Not only the Aesthetics detour failed to fund my research, building wonders for failgold also distracted myself from building enough workers. Had 7cities but only 4 workers. I probably fell into the "failgold trap for newbies" - blinded by failgold and neglect building workers .

Lucky discovery of Silver in 1AD. But Charlie stole Aesthetics from me


Stealing Aesthetics was not enough for Charlie. He also stole Literature :


The situation became really weird: as shown in some screenshots above, the first GGeneral was born in 25AD <--a little too early for Emperor AIs. Another 2 GGenerals in 300AD and 475AD:


From 600AD to 740AD, 3 GGenerals What happened between the unknown AIs?


The lack of failgold and shortage of workers indeed slowed down my economy. Sent caravels but only met Lincoln, and he didn't want to trade any tech to me . Had to self-tech Maths and Calendar. Ended up in 780AD astronomy

Currently have 7 cities. There is a Ocean Fish spot to backfill after Astro. Trade my Copper to Lincoln for Silk + Pig.

Tech situation after Astro: Lincoln doesn't want to trade Hunting - a tech that all the Emperor AIs already have. That means Lincoln is probably isolated.


Two caravels are still looking for the unknown AIs. I need to know what happens on the other continent(s). With 6 GGenerals born in far away land, the least thing I need is a monster AI with 20+ cities and several vassals .

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

now... how on earth did cathy manage to be at peace with shaka despite her having hatty as a vassal goes beyond me. hannibal also was at peace, despite having a different religion. lovefest + trading was a nightmare, hope you guys better luck in this department

If there is one thing this game's AI is exceptionally skilled at it's subverting expectations, I've found .

 

[georgjorge]

@konata_LS:

Spoiler :

I realize that hindsight distorts things. However, it seems to me that the one thing better than getting failgold for Pyramids and Great Lighthouse is actually having them built in your cities (while - as you do - having coastal cities and being Philosophical, so a pure specialist-driven economy becomes even better)...

 

[konata_LS]

@konata_LS:

Spoiler :

I realize that hindsight distorts things. However, it seems to me that the one thing better than getting failgold for Pyramids and Great Lighthouse is actually having them built in your cities (while - as you do - having coastal cities and being Philosophical, so a pure specialist-driven economy becomes even better)...

Thanks for the feedback.

Spoiler :

Yes, looking back at the situation, probably GLH is a good wonder that should have been built. Mids become a little tricky, as the only early - in our island is a desert gold mine. Plus, most city spots except the capital only have one food resource (a dry wheat, a single clam, a lonely fish...). The low happy cap creates some dilemma between HR and Rep: with Rep most cities would be limited at size 9 or 10 while HR can give me a size 15 capital.
But I agree that Mids are definitely an interesting option. Mids would change completely some city placements. In my game I kept both corn to my capital. If I decided to build Mids from the moment that I saw the Stone, I would need to share a corn to another city.

 

[sampsa]

@konata_LS

Spoiler :

I would definitely go for Mids on emperor or immortal. Agra 1E to claim everything to the first ring would've been clear to me, as coastal access is of very little value. Judging from your screens, worker management could be improved a lot. Way too many unnecessary roads, way too many forest left, not all green tiles are improved by 1AD and some pointless workshops laid down instead of cottages/farms.

So my advice would be to respect the basics more. Food to the first ring, and worker management order 1.improve food 2.chop 3.cottage(/farm) 4.connect.

 

[konata_LS]

@sampsa
Thanks for the advice

Spoiler :

Yes, Agra would have been better with sheep + wheat + stone in the first ring. The worker management is one of the things which slow me down the most. Many forests left and unimproved tiles are the result from "7 cities 4 fast workers" . Also a grassland spice needs a plantation. With better empire management, the astro date would probably have been at least 200 years earlier.

 

[sampsa]

T50 demigod

Spoiler :

With three 6 yield-tiles and a fantastic early game UU, I think you should have 4 cities and at least 4 workers (I have 5) by T50. Perhaps going for the gold-city 3rd was better, as was very weak. Now pre-chopping capital and having three workers around stone to improve it asap at masonry. I lack AH, fishing and pottery which is a bit annoying, but I think can't delay masonry much more and I'd like to get some GW-failgold.

Note the roads. Capital is off the river, so the roads 1SE and 1SW are important since they connect to the river trade networks. The road NW of capital was built to settle 1T faster (also needed to road the tile under Pataliputra), but gives nothing else. Note that corns are not connected, because it's unnecessary. Copper is not connected, because it's unnecessary (barbs are totally under control already).

 

[konata_LS]

@sampsa

Spoiler :

After comparing your first 4 cities with mine, I think my delay of that Gold & Clam spot is probably a mistake. I was too greedy to grab land, settled the northern Fish spot then the southern crab & deer. The result of these distant and low cities is only +5 per turn at 0% for many turns, which indeed slowed me down.

I understand that you work the desert gold mine because the surrounding land is weak . But still, it seems a little weird when people see sampsa work a gold mine instead of settling on it .

By the way, there is a new map which gives you several gold tiles to settle on

Spoiler Henrik's new videos, IMM 59 :

Apart from the capital, it's also possible to settle your second city o a gold <--just joking