Nobles' Club 377: Gandhi of India

[unknown_civ]

So much to piece together. I appreciate all the feedback, now I just need to slowly consume it and make many corrections.

Earlier some screen shots were asked for, so Ill put them below.

Spoiler warlord :

I ended up with Theology as I had 2x Great Prophets hanging out and I wanted to tech trade. I had another GP which keeps a golden age ready when desired.
My civics do need lots of work. I tend to jump to Universal Suffrage, then with lib, free religion/free speech, then emancipation and finally environmentalism.

Thanks!

 

[Fippy]

You should consider a shadow game thread
So peoples can focus on helping only you there.

Noble difficulty works better than Warlord cos you get no extra bonuses (i think very few here would be used to them).

I cannot remember if it's included in my help thread, but..
the governor & UI suggestions should be ignored by default.
Blue circles, techs (always sailing etc), builds..those are what the AI picks as result, but we ofc want better.

Your tech slider should usually be on 100% or 0%, break even points are unimportant.
All of that can be learned quickly with shadow games.

 

[aitkensam]

Played through to 520AD on Immortal

Spoiler :

Astro just in. Yay for finally having enough health resources. Astro should have been earlier but I polluted the gene pool with Oracle and got three prophets (two settled). Met everyone now. Circumnavigation next turn. Got Music artist. GLib and NE in Capital. Just settled a bunch of new cities. A couple more to settle soon and hopefully will finish MoM before others. Pacal just asked to switch to Tao. Might switch out later if diplo dictates but hopefully can get to friendly for Philo first. Giggles is pretty big but should be fine as long as diplo is okay.

 

[Texas03]

Turn 73 IMM

Spoiler :

I assume we are alone with Pacal here, so he better get a religion. I didn't go for Oracle or whatever in favor of settling in Pacals face twice and effectively blocking him off. The gold city doesn't have food, so I'm not sure if it wouldn't have been smarter to just work the gold at size one the entire time. As it is, I was really hurting from the starting techs here, slogging through to Pottery. Another big problem were the Barbarians. They required tons of fog busters and Chariots. Now though once I have Libraries up I should be in a good position. Depending on the tech pace this continent alone may or may not be enough to get to space. So far the land is looking very good with several prime cottage spots. I'm not worried about Pacal, but I need to scout him.

 

[danjuno]

Clearly the answer is to settle on the plains cow!

 

[chinemol]

Spoiler 1915 diplo win :

played the opening twice. First time moved warrior to reveal pigs, settler to the riverside hill since still the river and inland position in a semi iso seemed better than a plains cow. Moved 1 west of that to claim more river and happily found the gold in bfc. Only mistake, but a big one, was overexpanding.
Replayed respecting the settling position (though working gold prevented specialists) but added the no vassals setting. Settled less and played mediocre semi iso, despite getting TGL. Detoured to get TgL, somehow didn't buld national epic. Had to self tech alpha, self teched calendar in an idiotic attempt at going for MoM. Met everyone, befriended the warmongers best I could. Got astro (1 bulb), Libbed Military tradition, but forgot how to play the game and got guilds. Anyhow, knights are cheaper than cuirs and got the economics merchant to pay for the upgrades. Wiped pacal. settled couple extra cities. Played peacefully, prioritizing state property, but then gilga got rifles and the whole strategy of mounted attack genghis went out the window as they tend to trade it away. He didn't, of course, missed oportunity. Went the mass media route (wonders included), filled in demo, then tanks.
Hatty put up little to no resistance. Gilga was at war with wang kong. He was the main rival, completed space program. Also, puting up votes for enviromentalism and at war with wang kong still.
Advanced flight route and pounding from the sea. Reloaded couple of times since I didn't do this quite well. Razed couple of cities, bribed alex in while Genghis did little to Wang Kong, who ended the game with his 9 cities unconquered. Alex friendly, Gilga lacking pop, called the vote and it passed.
Must be the lowest score in a while. At least this one I finished

 

[unknown_civ]

2000 Space Win - Warlord. For me a significant win, and much learning to go.

Spoiler Story :

I followed a pen-dragon's advice to revisit, review and fix many things.
* Added farms and grew Agra and Pataliputra
* planned my war on pacal. Took many turns to prep (1777 is when I moved forward, 1782 3x cities captured, 1784 capitulation) as i went after rifling, put in those riflemen to work with many of the old units (some upgraded, some not).
He capitulated. I kept pacal as my vassal for the rest of the game.
I did have a citizens revolt issue with 1 city for the rest of the game. As my extra units were all in another recently taken city (which had no revolt issues), I let the new city slow build wonders, which it did well at. I could of put more military units there over time, but ... (yes, easier level thinking...)
*I switched civics a few times to find a good balance. I ran mostly representation, free speech, free religion
* I did add many few granaries.
* I then teched up and planned out who to take next, thinking of domination victory. I noticed Egypt (vassal of Sumaritans), had 3 cities building huge amounts of culture. 1 of the 3 would of hit 75K (epic), so I plotted agaist her and him, using Infantry, tanks, so forth.
I was ready in 1911. 6x loaded transports, a few destroyers, a couple of spys already in place.
Egypt city of Thebes had 7 or so riflemen, a couple calvery and a few air baloons. Sort of a messy start I was thinking.
* Same time good old Genghis was pestering everyone, with a landmass to himself, and still pumping out longbows with a few musketmen. So I went in to remove Genghis from the game. I figured much higher chance of success.
I did a save in case I want to go back to see how bad trying to take Thebes would of turned out.
* I succeeded with removing Genghis, but what a long slog fest. I never seen any peace offering or capitulation from him, even when he tried to sneak out a last caravel from his final city.
*Genghis did suprise me, as first time I have seen stacks of caravels and galleys. I am glad a had many transports and battleships around. He released out at least 6 stacks of 5 to 6 ships in a stack. I was able to take a few near launch though 2 stacks got across close to my land. I paid to finish off a battleship, and a couple transports there stopping him from making land.
*I did watch my gold dwindle until I remembered to keep a better eye on civics, I flipped to state-property and no gold issues due to distance. I still did let them all build banks/markets/courthouses so forth anyhow in case I needed to gold to buy units.
This moved me to 40% land (needed 60%+), and was near population requirement.
No choice but to pick up another island, either Egypt/Sumaritans( just a few techs behind), or Alexander (further behind) and Korea (on par with tech).
Korea asked me to join war against Alexander, I moved a few ships near by, and he quckly went for peace, which I took.
I was stretchen thin on extra military units (other than naval), and it was 1am.
Apollo was almost finished building, so i figured I could "space bar" (next turn) my way to a win if everyone was peaceful.
late Mid 1980s, I launched for space. UN was built and I did not win the vote, but Sumeritan first choice of free speeh failed quickly.
3am, Won the space race in year 2000. I was at Future tech 3 when I last cared to look.

I believe this is my first warlords win.
I will work on the Club 376 a bit, then go over a few other peoples noble shadow games to improve further prior prior to doing a shadow game myself.

Thanks for the comments/suggestions.

 

[aitkensam]

Immortal 1525AD Domination (and Conquest). Fun game, thanks for hosting!

Spoiler :

Continuing from Astro, I decided to tech to Lib->MT as the spacing of the AI meant they weren't trading much and were teching really slow. Killed off Pacal while building up Cuirs, then DoW'd 14 city Giggles (with peace vassal Hatty) while his tech was still backward and Cavalry were arriving. Teched on to Communism while vassaling Giggles then killed the rest quickly. Alex gave up without losing a city (although I did murder a nice stack of useless units)! Never faced anything stronger than longbows, pikes and knights. Smooth sailing.

 

[tlhingan]

Spoiler T100 or so :

And what are the odds that all 8 seafood on our mini-continent are the same type? Not high. Harbors are supposed to be worth more than one health pre-Astronomy.

 

[pmarc]

Continuation to 1280 AD (deity)

Spoiler :

Paused research after Writing, and once I saw Pacal was on Monarchy I decided to tech Alphabet to trade for it. I also gifted him a city for +4 relations (no liberation bonus sadly because his capital is all the way down the island). Got him friendly eventually from that + shared civic, before even the religion. Pacal was really not prioritizing religions on that game, I self-teched Code of Laws and Mathematics to bulb Philosophy and found Taoism. Got Civil Service just before 1AD, then decided to tech Nationalism for a Taj golden age while trading my upper tree techs to Pacal for the pre-reqs to Optics and Astronomy. Bulbed Optics in 475 AD, then teched Paper and double-bulbed Education. Golden Age started in 680 AD and I'm ready to Lib->Astro.

Like @aitkensam, my plan was Cuirassiers -> Cavalry, but Pacal got Rifling early, so I'm staying allied with him while attacking Wang Kon and Alex first. I was able to take all of Korea (I don't think WK could capitulate to Alex because the Greeks were not in the top half of the scoreboard), then sneaked attacked Alex's damaged main stack with my Cavalry. It will take time to get through his massive army, even if it's pre-Gunpowder, but I'm trading favorably and on my way to Communism for the endgame economy.

 

[Henrik75]

Deity Playthrough to t150

Spoiler :

Anyone else get attacked by pacal at 800bc?

Feeling a little unlucky here

Despite defending for my life with archers and axes, made a solid recovery and still got to astronomy by 700AD, and we'll see how the rest of the game pans out. Philosophical rocks!

 

[soundjata]

Everyone loves a gandhi game

 

[jorissimo]

Slowpoke as always but I wanted to know what the buzz was all about.

Immortal t46, important decision moment:

Spoiler :

I basically followed notslin's opening thoughts. Moved the warrior 1NE, revealing pigs and justifying settling on the northern wine. Then I went Agri - AH, letting the cap grow to size 2 while building a warrior (2), to then time the completion of the fast worker with finishing AH. After that, I built a warrior (that I didn't finish) while growing to size 3 while the fast worker improved the pigs. He then moved on to the cows and after that started roading to Bombay. I lost a turn there because there was an archer roaming around and I used my fast worker as a scout to make sure the coast was clear before moving my settler onto that hill. I settled Bombay where I did and not 1E, because I didn't want to waste the capital's river grassland on farms, and the horse would come into our borders on t50 anyway. After AH, I went TW - Pottery, and I'm currently teching BW. After the first settler, the capital finished the warrior (3) and built another one (4), while growing to size 4. It then started on a settler. The southern spot was looking good to block Pacal, but he built a city 2 tiles below the sugar, so I'm not sure if the culture battle will be worth it. There is, I realize now, a possibility for a Horse Archer rush here with such a close target, but this might be semi-iso so maybe it's not a good idea to eliminate my only neighbor. For city 3 the fish spot also looks nice and it has a forest so a boat can be chopped. The land to the west looks great and we can cut that whole chunk off from Pacal. Defending it looks little difficult however, and I have a good chance to lose the warrior in the SW to the barb archer. Not completely sure how to proceed.

 

[soundjata]

@jorissimo

Spoiler :

You are fogbusting the south, where Pacal resides, and the land stinks. Why?

 

[jorissimo]

@jorissimo

Spoiler :

You are fogbusting the south, where Pacal resides, and the land stinks. Why?

Spoiler :

His border only appeared like last turn and there was actually quite a lot of barb activity there until just now. But yeah now it makes sense to move them west and north.

 

[notslin]

@Henrik75

Spoiler :

As an inexperienced player (at least on Deity), semi-isolated feels really scary.

Massive respect to people who play these maps.

Sure, if the AI doesn't plot at pleased, I guess you can gift a city, or something like that.

But if the AI does plot at pleased, getting the tactics right feels overwhelming. Maybe you can strategically settle a city for the AI to target? Then, I guess you need to make sure you have enough defensive capacity while scouting, begging, etc.., until he declares.

It reminds me of a Lain Let's Play (I won't spoil which one) where he had horrible land and was semi-isolated with a hyper-aggressive unit spammer. Somehow Lain still won... But it wasn't easy...

At least Pacal is not that much of a unit spammer. It's impressive to me when people are able to play through a DOW when semi-isolated.

 

[Henrik75]

Spoiler :

yes, semi isolated and forced to engage in war is probably the hardest setup to play on deity. Because while you fight a caveman battle to the death, who builds way more units than any other difficulty level, the others run away and tech tech tech. I managed to get out of it after a few turns by capturing my gift city then regifting it back for peace LOL.
Early wars SUCK on deity because its so hard to get out of them, they usually want a city or tech because they have double your power and triple your population.

Now i have found out hatshepsut has almost every single wonder and 11 cities and a tech lead, so this will be challenging. She managed to charm gilgamesh not to attack her but i get ganked by pacal, WTH!

Pacal might not be a big spammer but he techs like a beast. He was halfway through construction already for his 800bc DOW.10 turns later he had longbowmen. He then proceeded to win lib at 600ad despite isolating himself and engaging in a caveman battle. What a machine! Hatshepsut only overtook him later on with a land advantage and mausoleum enjoyment

 

[Henrik75]

don't know where to move the warrior, but unless something is found next to cows, the settler can move on hills to explore (riverside or south ph i'd guess). not gonna try deity, so wasting turns beats plains cow. also in my mind philo requires good food to be useful

Its actually the opposite, with philo you can do things with low food you cant usually do. For example the fact a scientist takes 9 turns instead of 17 meant i could work a 3 food and 2 food tile in a size 4 city while running 2 scientists, slowly starving down from 50%~ food (granary) and get the guy out before i starve down a size. Kinda insanely helpful here.

You can thank a barb galley for putting me in that situation

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

yes, semi isolated and forced to engage in war is probably the hardest setup to play on deity. Because while you fight a caveman battle to the death, who builds way more units than any other difficulty level, the others run away and tech tech tech. I managed to get out of it after a few turns by capturing my gift city then regifting it back for peace LOL.
Early wars SUCK on deity because its so hard to get out of them, they usually want a city or tech because they have double your power and triple your population.

Now i have found out hatshepsut has almost every single wonder and 11 cities and a tech lead, so this will be challenging. She managed to charm gilgamesh not to attack her but i get ganked by pacal, WTH!

Pacal might not be a big spammer but he techs like a beast. He was halfway through construction already for his 800bc DOW.10 turns later he had longbowmen. He then proceeded to win lib at 600ad despite isolating himself and engaging in a caveman battle. What a machine! Hatshepsut only overtook him later on with a land advantage and mausoleum enjoyment

Funnily enough I had intended for this to be a relatively "easier" semi-iso situation. The best techer on the board is on your island, is supposed to be easy to befriend given his usual tendency to go for a religion/Monarchy as a favorite civic/maybe a city gift, and the jungle belt between the two of you should delay Land Target status before one of multiple factors brings him up to at least Pleased. Of course with that quality land long term he will become a threat later in the game, but no navy required to transport an army to his cities. Meanwhile the other AIs are either semi-isolated themselves, one decent techer and one psycho you'd expect to end up fighting once or twice, or fully isolated, meaning runaway techers should be unlikely.

The AI apparently saw this as a challenge, and decided to defy my every expectation...again .

 

[Henrik75]

@AcaMetis

Spoiler :

Its just me I think, game has it out for me. I have even lost at 100% odds before and a few 99.9s

Definitely would have been an easy game if I was left alone, managed to block off Pacal and get 10+ cities before taking his later on. It's a lot more interesting with this delay. I think he only attacks the player 1 in 20 games when he's feeling blood thirsty, no one else seemed to get attacked by him.

Your expectations went out the window, Hatty and Gilgamesh started going out with each other and stayed friendly all game with religion and civics sharing. Genghis attempted to land grenadiers and trebs into Hatty's artillery and that didn't quite pan out. Alex ran over Wang as he did in most people's games it looks like. Wang is not a very good fighter. However if you don't feed alex tech, he's quite irrelevant only getting assembly line at 1800AD while the lovebirds have mechs.