Nobles' Club 390: Ragnar's Viking Birthday Bash

[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 Ragnar of the Vikings, whom we last played in NC 354. The Vikings start with Fishing and Hunting.

• Traits: Ragnar is Aggressive and Financial. Aggressive gives all Melee and Gunpowder units a free Combat I promotion, and gives a +100% bonus to Barracks and Drydocks. Financial adds +1 to any tile that already produces at least 2.
• The UB: The Trading Post, a Lighthouse that gives a free Navigation I promotion to all naval units build in that city. Combine this with circumnavigation and cheap drydocks to create the fastest navy the world has ever seen.
• The UU: The Berserker, a Maceman with +10% city attack and a free Amphibious promotion, which negates the combat penalty for attacking from a boat or across a river. Given City Raider promotions and backed by a big boat to bombard down city defences these guys are true terrors to any coastal city.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Shuffle, Temperate climate, Medium sealevel.

Spoiler what is shuffle? :

Randomly chooses between Archipelago, Continents, Fractal and Pangaea mapscript.

Spoiler edits :

A strategic resource swap.

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 390 Ragnar 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.

All that preamble out of the way, as of the day of this post Civ IV is twenty years old ! Ragnar is planning to hold a party to match, but what's this? No one responded to his invitations? Well that just won't do. Time to head out there and bring his party to the people who ought the be celebrating along with him. Of course there's only one way a man like Ragnar would traditionally do that , but hey, if there's any time you can try something new it's a birthday party, right?

 

[AcaMetis]

Well there's definitely not a lack of plains hills, that's for sure. I assume 1SW is going to be the preferred settling spot, but who knows, maybe you could make a case for 1NE or even SIP. I will say that settling 1SW isn't going to block settling that island, if it is indeed an island - the "cities cannot be settled within two tiles of each other" rule only applies to cities on the same landmass.

What do the experts think ?

 

[a pen-dragon]

SOG seems to be better than 1NE, due to being closer to the corn (1 turn faster improvement), and immediate +2. Also better land. Commerce should not be a big problem here, so I do not think we need the additional commerce from a gold mine. 1SW has basically the same problems as 1NE, but has more fog.

We also have two suspicious non-forested tiles. Settling NE would loose one.

The scout is out of place. Maybe NE-SE or SE?

 

[chinemol]

SOG or 1NE if scout finds we are not ruining sth up north

 

[Thrasybulos]

Is this a @sampsa sponsored map?
SOG seems such an obvious move here...

 

[sampsa]

Don't think the conditions are optimal for SOG™, since the capital land is atrocious - thus no huge merit in growing even and could very well work the gold.

Pretty sure I wouldn't recommend SOG without FIN, with FIN I guess it's worth it. Hope there is claimable copper and a close neighbor.

 

[Thrasybulos]

I believe there are 3 mystery tiles which could impact the decision: 2N or the scout, 2E, and 2S2E.
Unfortunately, forests prevent us from revealing all 3.

Moving the settler on the Corn (with SOG in mind) and the scout NE then SE reveals:

Spoiler :

No Wheat/Cows/Sheep.

the capital land is atrocious

That's no Bureaucracy cottage wonderland for sure.
But it wouldn't take much for me to consider it actually pretty good (as a "pumper" capital):

Spoiler Would this be good enough? :

Spoiler Warning - Actual Spoiler! :

And how about the fact the 3rd mystery tile is Rice?
(I know, I have a real knack for choosing the wrong initial scouting moves.

 

[sampsa]

That's no Bureaucracy cottage wonderland for sure. But it wouldn't take much for me to consider it actually pretty good (as a "pumper" capital)

I mean yeah you can use it to build a wonder or two. It's just that there are a lot of plains, a lot of hills and no river (really). The main point of SOG in general for me is to grow quickly. There is no point to grow on horrible tiles.

 

[Izuul]

I really wanted this to be the SOG game, but, alas, I have to agree with Sampsa. There just arent any good tiles for the capital to work so you might as well work the gold and get the extra commerce. Theres enough food to support it, and what else are you going to do with that food - work a bunch of plains mines?

 

[pmarc]

The main advantage of NE over SW is the possibility of an island city SW, plus more chops, if you want to build the Great Lighthouse. And a hilly coastal capital with gold makes it very feasible to get GLH, even on deity. I would probably choose that over a stronger Bureau capital from coast tiles.

 

[sampsa]

The main advantage of NE over SW is the possibility of an island city SW, plus more chops, if you want to build the Great Lighthouse.

SW doesn't block any island cities (special rules for them you know). Yes NE has more chops. SW might settle on copper which would be great!

 

[Build2Much]

So, not sure if no one has actually played any turns of this or not, but I just wanted to make sure that you knew the “Special Guests” were a very nice touch!

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

As I am typing this message, there are 62 views and no updates. This could be a hard map.

 

[soundjata]

It is quite difficult to accept, but definitely true in CIV4 that early advantage X is better than later advantage XXX
SOG!

 

[sampsa]

SOG!

No no

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

So, not sure if no one has actually played any turns of this or not, but I just wanted to make sure that you knew the “Special Guests” were a very nice touch!

I played some turns.

Spoiler :

The map ends up very builder-style. Deity, turn 94.

Spoiler :

Rice, wheat, and corn are available. The long-term goal would be astronomy, cannons, and rifles.

 

[Build2Much]

I finished this one, 1862 Domination (immortal)

Spoiler :

I settled the gold, decided that since I could see the other gold in the distance I could work that with another city (honestly barely worked that gold all game because that city didn’t have enough food). Built a 6 turn work boat followed by a 10 turn worker and we were ready to go. I got a little lucky early - settled my 2nd city 4E2S on a plains hill south of cows and that allowed me to see into Cumae. I was building axes when their workers started suspiciously mining a grassland tile and I had enough axes so I declared in 1640BC and wiped out the Romans before they got Praets.

After that there was a Hindu love fest on our continent and with Spain we boxed Russia into a corner with 6 cities. Moscow has so many wonders - I only built one wonder the entire game which is very unlike me (Notre Dame which really came in handy, I had some big cities). I took Spain down to 6 cities and they capitulated, Russia peace vassaled the next turn and since they were no threat for culture I let them (I kinda wanted Moscow but didn’t seem worth the effort).

After that did the State Property thing, waited for my Berzerkers to become Infantry and went to the other continent with planes (and then tanks). Sid is still running the Incans, saved him for last and hit domination after taking 3 cities on 1st turn of war with him.

Thanks for the game, good use of Viking traits, imo.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

@Build2Much

Spoiler :

On immortal difficulty, I would have blocked off the land. Do not open borders with the Romans until I took all the spots that I wanted.

On deity difficulty, blocking off was not an option. The maintenance and upkeep costs would have been too high, and I would have fought too many barbarians. I had to let the Romans deal with some of the barbarians.

 

[Build2Much]

@sylvanllewelyn that's why I said I was a little lucky.

Spoiler :

had I not been gung ho already on an axe rush, I wouldn't have been ready enough to just go for it when I saw them mining the grass. If they had iron somewhere else I probably stall out as well, but getting Rome that early was a huge boost obviously and the game was effectively over unless I made a huge mistake (especially with Russia getting stuck in the corner and spending every available hammer on Wonders)