Nobles' Club 362: Zara Yaqob of Ethiopia

[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 Zara of Ethiopia, whom we last played in NC 264. The Ethiopians start with Hunting and Mining.

• Traits: Zara is Creative and Organized. Creative gives every city +2 for free, and gives a +100% bonus to Libraries, Theatres, and Colosseums. Organized cuts Civic Upkeep in half, and gives a +100% bonus to Lighthouses, Courthouses and Factories.
• The UB: The Stele, a Monument with +25% . If Zara's Creative trait isn't enough to peacefully secure your borders early game, the Stele will give you an edge that few can match.
• The UU: The Oromo Warrior, a Musketman with +1 First Strike, immunity to First Strike, and a free Drill I (+1 First Strike chance) and Drill II (+1 First Strike, -20% collateral damage taken) promotion. As a side-effect this also gives them immediate access to the Cover, Formation, Pinch, Ambush and Medic I promotions. Musketman are usually ignored since their low , lack of inherit bonus vs. a specific unit type or on the defence and lack of access to City Raider promotions make them overall mediocre units, even through as the first Gunpowder unit they completely ignore Walls and Castles. Musketman that, with just 5xp, get 4-7 free shorts against everything not immune to First Strike are a slightly different story. Combine with Cannons (and, if necessary, a few Pikes to act as stack defenders) for maximum fun .

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Pangaea, Temperate climate, Medium sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

A few strategic resource swaps.

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 362 Zara 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]

Not the greatest start I've ever seen for sure. I guess send the Scout 1SW -> 1SE to check out the coast/area around that plains hill as best he can, send the settler to said plains hill if there's anything sufficiently enticing, and otherwise send the settler 1N to that plains hill? Really depends on what the scout finds where the settler should go, but both plains hills seem like good candidates for places to settle. Even if the southern plains hill is one tile from coast (than again, not like Zara starts with Fishing anyhow).

That's my quick read, what do the experts think?

 

[antimony]

I think I want to reveal the tiles east and south of the cow with the scout to see what I'm missing by going 1N.

 

[CGQ]

Spoiler Played a few turns of Immortal :

Scout revealed wet rice so decided to settle 1W to grab that. Unfortunately we lose the oasis in our cap but that +5 food should be worth the trade-off right?

From here I'm thinking BW, then chop settler at size 2 while on rice/PH mine. Then AH after?

 

[soundjata]

South of cow looks like an oasis to me.

 

[AcaMetis]

Come to think of it, you should be able to confirm that by checking the Cow and the grassland hill 1E of that tile. If it says Fresh Water than both must be adjacent to a fresh water source, and if both are than the desert tile being an Oasis is the only explanation.

 

[soundjata]

We have to have a few extra resources in our starting position BFC.
I would scout north (reveals more unknown tiles) and if nothing of value, probably SIP (keep the oasis and the mysterious tile 1E of cows)

 

[Build2Much]

My normal first move given a start like this would be to roll a new start. Hopefully we have neighbors with nice capitals we can capture!

 

[chinemol]

IMM T189

Spoiler :

missed the rice to the left, scout checked for potential north PH settle and didn't satisfy me. having read it was a pangaea, moved inward, found decent spot T2. fogbusted somewhat well. barb city helped a lot. didn't make contact till quite late (70ish no trade routes for another while) could settle the peninsula wholly. as of the game, I'm late to cuirs, but is it THAT late???

 

[Tecumseh1]

400 AD (immortal):

Send scout SE and settler 1N to plains hill on T1 so missed out on rice. But north didn't look good so decided to SIP on T2. AH->Agr-Wheel-Pottery here. Lots of rivers and not much need to chop with cow tile and a few hills. Second city 1S of wheat and 3rd city to grab that gold. Well west of gold is marble welp. I've been working on maximizing these kinds of resources/starts. So 4th city for marble/wheat/oasis. Fail golded a ton on Temple of Artemis and others which along with cottages kept my research slider at 100% for most of the time. Beeline literature and got great library and soon after National epic in capital. Trade around for monarchy a some other stuff, but tried to stay on focused research path. Won music easily too. Not 8 turns from civil service. Settled the horse/wine in the north 6th so I could get some HAs to help with taking 2 available barb cities. Took barb city a few turns ago and settled 8th city at 400AD. There is 1 more barb city to south which I'm going for next.

Not the best civil service/music dates but I have a strong tech lead. Capital is pumping out the scientists and switched into Buddhism (Isabella's one) for pacifism. Should be able to cruise to lib/cuirassiers and then kill everyone on the continent. Ragnar is in a few wars and Saladin doesn't like me because religion. But looks like Joao and Saladin may be on a different continent but reachable by coast.

 

[Tecumseh1]

My normal first move given a start like this would be to roll a new start. Hopefully we have neighbors with nice capitals we can capture!

The map is worth playing. Land is pretty good and lots of land to expand quickly and grab 7/8 cities without a lot of pressure. Encourage you to try!

 

[aitkensam]

IMM 1AD

Spoiler :

Fun map so far. Went south with scout so saw rice and settled 1W. 2nd city grabbed wheat and third went north to grab four resources in second ring (kind of dictated by barb cities).

Sent a chariot off exploring but was a bit too late to get alpha as early as could have been possible.

GLib and NE in Capital. The gems popped T112 which is nice but hasn't changed game much yet. Lots of fail gold from NE. Got a lot waiting for Parthenon and Paya.

Used swords to capture two barb cities. Managed to miss the iron entirely with settling pattern. Just settled Gems and Rice in south, beating Izzy by around 2 turns.

Not quite sure what to do about religion. Got a lot of Judaism from Izzy but most of the world is Buddhist. Might just stay without religion to be safe and wait for cuirassiers.

First scientist built an academy. Next could (potentially) found Taoism or wait for double Edu bulb.

 

[JaeRho]

Playing Nobles' Club for the first time in ages, and it's my first time posting.


Through 1100 BC (Emperor)

Spoiler 1100 BC :

Scout 1SW -> 1SE
Settled 1S. Get the wet rice with a later city. South is also good since the deciduous trees and coast make it more likely we are competing with civs to the S and E than N and W.
Recently learned to love an oasis in the capital. The extra commerce at the start gets AH before you finish farming the flood plain, and then BW by the turn after your first mine.
Scout finds Jungle and meets Isabella to south and starts to move east.
Nice spot for the second city next to the wheat. Took a more central position on the continent and decided to leverage creative steles to grab a ton of land. Always fun to play the leader for the UB/Traits, even if it isn't optimum.
Used barracks archers to beat back the first wave of barbs and then managed to catch barb city on SE coast with only two defenders for my third city.
Met Joao's workboat to the East. Must still be a ways off. Lots of space to work with.
Fourth city to South to claim horses and prevent Izzy from settling on my side of the Jungle.
Fifth city will claim the marble and sheep.
Plan to Beeline Lit and Great library and hope I can fog bust my corner of the continent with border pops.
Sixth city will probably grab the resources to the north. Try to time it with the great library and currency to keep my research from tanking.

Fun map. Wish I had played Immortal, but the start scared me off.

 

[Build2Much]

I am going to finish this one and I think I will prevail, but I got bogged down eventually. Was hoping one of the really good players would have shown the way

 

[CGQ]

Spoiler [SPOILER="Immortal Domination Victory :

This was a fun map! I peacefully expanded to 11 cities, managed to take two barb cities, including a pig/dye city that Isabella almost took and I got with only two chariots (Isabella weakened them then I just took them out lol)

A bit of a late victory but I was able to go the usual route of bulbing MT, rushing Isabella, upgrading to Calvary and rushing Ragnar, then Saladin, who I managed to kill. I finally rushed Joao who was the weakest one and once he capped, I ran culture 100% to get that sweet 64% land area and won domination in 1620 AD!