Nobles' Club 316: Suryavarman II of the Khmer

[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 Suryavarman II of Khmer, whom we last played in NC 293. The Khmer start with Hunting and Mining.

• Traits: Suryavarman II is Creative and Expansive. Creative gives every city +2 for free, and gives a +100% bonus to Libraries, Theatres, and Colosseums. Expansive adds +2 to all cities, gives a +100% bonus to Granaries and Harbors, and a +25% bonus to Workers (note that the worker bonus doesn't apply to excess directly converted to ).
• The UB: The Baray, an Aqueduct that generates 1. You're not likely to need an Aqueduct early game thanks to the +2 from Expansive, but if that alone isn't enough to keep your cities alive after industrializing than the extra food and health from the Baray definitely will.
• The UU: The Ballista Elephant, a War Elephant with the unique quality to target mounted units first outside cities. It makes flanking a Ballista Elepult stack a risky prospect, since even if you have a stack defender that can keep up with the mounted units they'll not be able to defend them from the wrath of the elephants next turn. A well put together Eleput attack is generally enough of a bulldozer to not really care about minor details like that, though.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Continents, Temperate Climate, Medium Sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

None. Seriously, not even strategic resource swaps, literally zero edits on this map. First one I rolled, too. This one's a real winner .

Spoiler isolated? :

Not 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 316 Suryavarman II 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]

Despite the fact that SIP doesn't get the EXP working bonus on T0 I think I'll still SIP. 3 turns for a border pop (thanks CRE) to get the 3 plains hill forest is a fair compromise for keeping wet corn directly adjacent if not in general. That's still a 12T worker if I mathed right, and a 12T worker that can improve wet Corn immediately at that.

Or so I think, anyway. What do the experts think ?

 

[migalhone]

SIP doesn't kill a cottage-able riverside tile, provides freshwater, can work wet corn, allows us to work the gold, secures a whole lot of forests... SIP seems to be a good move.

The plains stone/ivory do make me wonder if settling west first on the Gold then settling 2nd city on either ivory/stone (for increased production on both cities) would be a valid strategy.

Not sure where would direct the scout: south seems to be more floodplains. So either 2 SE to the revealed plains hill, or one move NE then react accordingly?

This is a great start nonetheless!

 

[Fippy]

Settling on stone would be very tempting, good area around there as well.

 

[migalhone]

Settling on stone would be very tempting, good area around there as well.

For the 1st city? I mean, if we settle on the stone we won't be able to farm the corn before border expansion anyways.

 

[Fippy]

For the capital yup.
Only gold speaks for SIP, but with a high early happy cap and other decent tiles (Jumbos give 2) it's not that urgent.

For deity, settling on stone gives TGW option which can be important if there are large barb spawn areas.
SIP isn't river connected.

 

[migalhone]

If SIP, would the corn be irrigated instantly? Or would we need Civil Service for that?

 

[Fippy]

Corn is always irrigated (river), doesn't matter where you settle for that
Shown by the extra

 

[sampsa]

I know I wouldn't SIP with an EXP leader.

 

[migalhone]

I know I wouldn't SIP with an EXP leader.

Ivory/Stone settle then? To get workers out faster?

 

[Rusten]

I know it comes across like a joke but I'd probably settle on the gold.
There looks to be a plains forest 2W and with all the luxuries available (already +2 happy) I don't think a gold mine is that much better than cottaged flood plains.

 

[sampsa]

I know it comes across like a joke but I'd probably settle on the gold.
There looks to be a plains forest 2W and with all the luxuries available (already +2 happy) I don't think a gold mine is that much better than cottaged flood plains.

Oh to most people it's been sounding like a joke every time I've mentioned it, to the point where I don't even bother anymore.

Ivory/Stone settle then? To get workers out faster?

All three resources would keep the corn, so I'd pick between them. Yes, the main point is winning many worker turns. I'd rather go on the stone than ivory, to have a stronger BFC and easier fail gold. That could be a 2nd city though, which would mean capital on gold. If you are moving away from gold you might as well settle on it.

 

[dankok8]

Great to see lots of food plus two happy resources unlocked from the start! I love Sury so might give this one a go. Thinking to SIP because we can work the plains hill forest and still get a 12 turn Worker.

 

[sampsa]

Thinking to SIP because we can work the plains hill forest and still get a 12 turn Worker.

You can't, because fph is on 2nd ring. It's T13 worker (SIP) vs T11 worker (settle on res).

 

[AcaMetis]

Did I miscalculate? 3 turns of +3+1=12/60 on T3, 50/5...huh. How'd I mess that up?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I know it comes across like a joke but I'd probably settle on the gold.
There looks to be a plains forest 2W and with all the luxuries available (already +2 happy) I don't think a gold mine is that much better than cottaged flood plains.

Tradeoff seems to be that you can't get stone hooked as fast, if you want it. The early worker turns seem nicer when settling the gold though (at least eyeballing it), and it will have an easier time being productive.

 

[dankok8]

You can't, because fph is on 2nd ring. It's T13 worker (SIP) vs T11 worker (settle on res).

I just trusted AcaMetis and didn't calculate. You're right. That's what I get for trusting a map creator with something related to the map.

Anyways there is a small chance of losing some resource 2W if moving to settle the Stone... either way I'm thinking SIP or on the Gold. I still tend to think losing the Gold tile hurts. The boost is quite nice. Am I wrong? I'm guessing the logic is since food rich cities should be whipped early on, working the Gold isn't always plausible because then it's hard to grow because the Gold tile is 0 . So essentially by working the Gold we are slowing down early expansion which can be a bad trade-off.

 

[Fippy]

You could move the scout NE and look what's around stone, before making your decision.
SE scouting isn't needed..we can see all floodplains.

 

[sampsa]

I still tend to think losing the Gold tile hurts. The boost is quite nice. Am I wrong? I'm guessing the logic is since food rich cities should be whipped early on, working the Gold isn't always plausible because then it's hard to grow because the Gold tile is 0 . So essentially by working the Gold we are slowing down early expansion which can be a bad trade-off.

It hurts in some ways yes. It's a useful tile especially before granary, because that's when you are slow building some workers/settlers. For sacrificing that -2+3+8-tile you get +1+1 though, which is nothing to sneeze at. By T23 (when SIP improves gold) SOG has already generated +22+22 passive income. -wise SIP will never catch up, -wise surely, but earlier cottages and more of them will compensate.

Also, two details push you towards taking the fastest start you can here: an abundance of good tiles (fps, green river tiles) and EXP. Former because it makes sacrificing one tile a smaller thing and because you want to grab the good land before others do. EXP because cheap granaries makes 3-pop whipping settlers very enticing. Two extra help a lot here as well.

 

[Simple Machine]

I took a stab at this:

Spoiler :

T0 - settle on gold; I had moved my scout NE and then E, and saw there is coast further east, so I wanted to move further inland to grab more space
T10 - agriculture
T11 - Worker 1
T24 - BW

And here I am at T29. I've just finished a settler and am debating where to settle; and 1 turn away from reaching archery, as I did not see any copper. Just switched into slavery.

Maybe this was just poor risk management on my part, but while my scout was fogbusting the coastal area to the east, he was swarmed by two archers, and the only way to escape was to blind run two spaces into the fog, where of course there had to be a barb warrior .

I put my save here because I'm not sure where to go next. I have a fogbusting warrior to the north of my capitol and am thinking about where to settle - in general should we go directly towards Catherine or not? The options seem to be:
- 2NW, 1N of capitol? The red culture nearest there is Russia's capitol
- 3S, 1E of capitol? I def want to wait for an archer before going there
- either on stone or ivory 3E of capitol? Also will need to wait for an archer before going there. Won't be an instant river connection if I go there
- another place I'm not thinking of?

There is also holy roman culture 6W of our capitol.

In general, I think the space to our east is safe from the AI; only barb cities are a threat to spawn there. We have two imperialistic neighbors though, one of whom is Cathy, so its a tough crowd. Either way Cathy will probably settle in my face soon, so I might as well grab the Cow/ivory spot NW of my capitol? Since Russia and holy rome are also close neighbors to each other they may end up in conflict with each other too.

Should I plan to gift a city to Cathy later? Maybe some pizza trash in the desert close to charlie so she can bother him some more