Nobles' Club 358: Frederick of Germany

[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 Frederick of Germany, whom we last played in NC 276; we last played the Germans under Bismark in NC 336. The Germans start with Hunting and Mining.

• Traits: Frederick is Organized and Philosophical. Organized cuts Civic Upkeep in half, and gives a +100% bonus to Lighthouses, Courthouses and Factories. Philosophical gives all cities +100% generation and a +100% bonus to Universities.
• The UB: The Assembly Plant, a Factory with 2 additional Engineer specialist slots which gets a +50% bonus towards it's own construction when you've got access to Coal. Factories are staple buildings in basically any game that reaches Assembly Line, and the combination of Frederick's Organized trait and the Assembly Plant's inherent production bonus allows you to industrialize faster than anyone short of a SPI leader flipping into a quick (and painful) bout of Slavery.
• The UU: The Panzer, a Tank with +50% vs. Armored units. In >99% of all situations Panzers are just bigger, beefier-looking tanks with no relevant bonus. In the <1% situation where you're fighting a tank war, however, you'll be thankful that these guys turn one of the most dangerous units of the industrial era into target practice. As for Modern Armor, all else being equal Panzers actually get winning odds against them, albeit only barely. Of course any situation in which that's relevant is a situation where you're probably doomed regardless, but that's still not bad for a base 28 unit facing a base 40 unit from a later epoch.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Inland Sea, Temperate Climate, Medium sealevel, +1 AI to balance the field.

Spoiler edits :

A few strategic resource swaps, and your closest neighbour's starting position was moved a few tiles over to better balance the distance between said AI's two neighbours.

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 358 Frederick 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]

Usually I really hate mooving away to settle 1 tile from coast, but give the choice between a T1 plains hill settle+2 dead tiles and a T0 river grassland settle with 5 thoroughly mediocre tiles, ORG lighthouses notwithstanding, I think I have to choose the former. The scout I guess can go 1NE -> 1SE to scout the coastline and see if there's anything especially enticing along that coast and river (I wouldn't say no to say a wet corn, fish and a gold...if it's there), but otherwise the settler goes 1W and settles next turn.

At least that's my read of the situation. Have any experts noticed something obvious I completely missed...again ?

 

[Fippy]

Dead water (no seafood) isn't worth keeping imo..1w looks like a no-brainer

 

[aitkensam]

T4

Spoiler :

Wow. So many nice rivers. I want pottery and a million cities!

 

[chinemol]

Spoiler :

to crash the eco or not to crash the eco, that is the question. shall we suffer the slings and arrows of an outrageous barbarian? or take up arms against and inland sea of troubles? now seriously, barbs routed, costing quite a bit. also 2 settlers up north waiting in possition to settle and cut hatty off if she comes to settle. don't want to have big hatty on my face, but also don't want to crash everything pre-writing (limping there). sending settlers to the south to repeat the tactic there. big pump and org to carry the mid-game, hope to get courthouses everywhere

 

[Texas03]

Spoiler T57 :

A kingdom for an Agri/Wheel starter here. I'm just getting to Pottery now, no Mysticism to speak of. Went AH - BW - Wheel - Agri - Pottery. The Barbarians could still be dangerous from the south. I've only met Hatchet and Hammy. After Pottery the triple Plains Cow will start pumping settlers and workers and settle at least 9 cities is the plan.

 

[sampsa]

@Texas03

Spoiler :

Haven't played the map, but perhaps BW is too early? You have a lot of so straight to pottery after AH and try to get a cottage city or two going. Why do you care about mysticism? Instead of monuments just place the strong tiles to your 1st ring and you'll be fine.

Fine, I'll play

 

[ZPV]

Deity. I played this one twice from the beginning for the practice - I was in a position where being accurate with diplo, tech path, trades, GP management makes a difference.

Early game thoughts:

Spoiler :

My first thought at seeing the high production, low commerce BFC was for a Stonehenge gambit.
Either we get a bunch of failgold that will help pay for us to get the required early techs, or we get free border pops and a very early settled GP.
As it happened, only one of the religions was founded early, and we had "enough" space that an immediate settler wasn't required.
Both games built Stonehenge on t35 and then settled the Great Prophet on t60.

The tech path I ended up on was: AH-Myst-Agriculture-Wheel-BW-Pottery-Writing-Aesthetics
Wheel meant I could get trade routes, and BW is before pottery because the capital has no unforested river tiles except the one floodplain, and that wants to be a farm anyway.
For barb management I spawnbusted with two warriors in the south, and one warrior and the scout in the north. This meant I did have some spawn - and suicide into a woodsman warrior on the forest hill near the capital to get me to 10XP.

I forward-settled Hatty twice - on the hill by the wheat (for defence against the barbs), and on the marble and squeezed in one pair of cities to the south.

Mid game (Aesthetics up to Renaissance):

Spoiler :

Both games teched Literature and built the Great Library and National Epic in the capital.
Both games ended up on 8 cities - although the first one relied on a fortuitous barb city capture and the second didn't.

The Hatty-border cities also built/chopped wonders so that they would be able to keep some tiles - Parthenon and Sistine specifically. (The first game only got one wonder, but Marble City was on the wrong spot and I was slower).
The second game popped 2x great people outside the capital - one early guaranteed scientist, and one great merchant for horse archer upgrades.
I got a lot more value from tech trades in the second game.

Both games played Cuirassier rushes - the first one with a diversion to Education, the second without. The first one was almost on-time and just about took down Hatty before Rifling.
The second one was still kind of slow as far as Deity goes, but definitely on time and vassaled Wang on one city, and completely wiped Hatty.
The first game is probably not winnable at this point; the second one definitely is - none of the AIs are runaways and I'm not that far behind on tech.

 

[sampsa]

@ZPV

Spoiler :

Kudos for creativity, but it's just that usually it's not worth it. Slows down -production, slows down expansion. Is there something wrong with just normal empire development? There are plenty of strong city sites and ORG allows you to settle them quickly.

 

[ZPV]

@sampsa

Spoiler :

Normal development is probably 100% fine - although I haven't tried it. And I agree re: not usually worth it. I'm not sure it was worth it here either.
But this was specifically trying to get around the lots-of-hammers-but-nothing-to-build situation, because we're on 9 commerce until size 4.

 

[Tecumseh1]

@Texas03

Spoiler :

Haven't played the map, but perhaps BW is too early? You have a lot of so straight to pottery after AH and try to get a cottage city or two going. Why do you care about mysticism? Instead of monuments just place the strong tiles to your 1st ring and you'll be fine.

Fine, I'll play

I went AH -> BW -> Agri -> Pot. Agriculture was little suspect but I wanted to farm the plains hill next to the gold. I'm at T57 (immortal) and barbs are starting to go crazy. Glad I can get some emergency chariots now if needed. I also felt with gold that pottery could wait a bit more and there are bunch of forests that could be chopped. Need so many workers and settlers on this map

 

[Tecumseh1]

T57
So much good land. Harmless neighbor in Hachi. Map seems like some kind of inland sea/pangea. Expand to 9-10 cities and prepare for cuirs rush seems standard here? How many cities do we really need? Seems we could go for 15 lol. I'm tempted to try for space victory as Frederick has interesting trait combo that helps (large empire with lower costs + good research, useful for space).

 

[sampsa]

BW before or after pottery

Spoiler :

I think you are right, you can go just for normal BW-line before pottery. Use those trees to expand quickly.

 

[vvampiretheater]

Hi ! I'm going to participate on the Noble's Club for the first time in an attempt to get out of Prince. When and how exactly should I share my game so that I can the get the best feedback/improve the most ?

 

[antimony]

Deity T15

Spoiler :

The greedy plan would be to expand east or northeast to take those coast/rivers before Hatty, but with the barbs on this map script I'm thinking to settle rice-gold and then horse sharing SW cow. In this case after AH it would be Agri and then BW unless I want chariots for barbs instead of warrior spam?

 

[antimony]

Hi ! I'm going to participate on the Noble's Club for the first time in an attempt to get out of Prince. When and how exactly should I share my game so that I can the get the best feedback/improve the most ?

Welcome!

You should think of a course of action for the next few turns, maybe anywhere from 5-15 but depends of the amount of decisions at this stage of the game, and then post your ideas and get feedback. Before executing it to the next decision point.

I have an example where I did that here. That said I go perhaps a bit too far in calculating things in advance, this does not need to be in such detail:

Nobles' Club 348: Roosevelt of America

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...

forums.civfanatics.com

Fippy's guide is of great help for the early game and also shows when to stop and think of what should come next:

Beginner help - the basics

In this thread i will collect everything (i can think of) that helps new (or newer) players with founding their empire, and learning the basics of this wonderful game :) I will not get into advanced mechanics like keeping barbarians out, preparing war or annoying AIs, etc. which can be for...

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[vvampiretheater]

Welcome!

You should think of a course of action for the next few turns, maybe anywhere from 5-15 but depends of the amount of decisions at this stage of the game, and then post your ideas and get feedback. Before executing it to the next decision point.

I have an example where I did that here. That said I go perhaps a bit too far in calculating things in advance, this does not need to be in such detail:

Nobles' Club 348: Roosevelt of America

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...

forums.civfanatics.com

Fippy's guide is of great help for the early game and also shows when to stop and think of what should come next:

Beginner help - the basics

In this thread i will collect everything (i can think of) that helps new (or newer) players with founding their empire, and learning the basics of this wonderful game :) I will not get into advanced mechanics like keeping barbarians out, preparing war or annoying AIs, etc. which can be for...

forums.civfanatics.com

Spoiler T52 :

I did basically nothing but explore till T15, so here's T52 progress. The land is so so cottageable that makes me sad to have a philosophical and not a financial leader. My plans are to expand upwards since there's jungle and calendar resources below. I marked some city ideas but nothing definitive. This is at Prince.

 

[antimony]

@vvampiretheater

I would have put Munich 1N to get the wheat right away and leave space for a city on the coast instead.

I suggest building more workers to chop trees and build cottages rather than buildings now. For tech you don't need iron working, what you need is alphabet to get research from your and trade with AIs for any tech you're missing.

For most games you don't need a 'GP farm', many cities can produce GPs especially during a golden age, and indeed there are no good GP farms here, no tile with more than 4 food improved. It's better to play the map than try to force a certain play to capitalize on your leader's traits.

 

[Tecumseh1]

50 AD (immortal):
Doing OK but was struggling with 5 happiness cap for a while. 9 cities, ~180 beakers. Small army just a few swords and chariots for taking 2 barb cities. First to music at 50 AD. Guess I need to go for lib so gunpowder doesn't take forever, and take Nationalism with free tech. Eh, it's a lot of tech to get to cuirs.

 

[chinemol]

could use a better players' opinion

Spoiler :

the idea is to stay on buro for quin to like me and tech + sankore and keep teching to rifling. wipe hatty off the map with cuirs, vassal justi with cav, wipe genghis, then reassess. does it seem doable? think I'm quite low on troops and they are getting ahead in tech. took the detour towards eco for the merchant + free market, seems a mistake though