Nobles' Club 396: Elizabeth of England

[soundjata]

Me during the map rolling process:

Spoiler :

Oh hey, here's a map that easily gives you a civ and a half worth of space even on Deity, let's roll a more reasonable one. Oh hey, here's a map that looks like everyone is reasonably spaced apart, let's use that one.

Actual results: I've got good news and bad news .

Spoiler :

The good news: I give you a very powerful mid game techer.
The bad news: there is no mid game

 

[drewisfat]

Afraid I can't give any civ map a shot anymore. Starting a like a week ago it takes my computer a literal hour to load the game. Only thing I can figure is that some automatic windows update goofed it, or maybe it's because I'm still on Win 10. I actually specifically didn't upgrade to Win 11 out of fear it would goof the civ install lol.

Not sure how liz with floodplains/wet corn could be an inherently hard map, probably just bad stuff happened in your game.

 

[chinemol]

Afraid I can't give any civ map a shot anymore. Starting a like a week ago it takes my computer a literal hour to load the game. Only thing I can figure is that some automatic windows update goofed it, or maybe it's because I'm still on Win 10. I actually specifically didn't upgrade to Win 11 out of fear it would goof the civ install lol.

Not sure how liz with floodplains/wet corn could be an inherently hard map, probably just bad stuff happened in your game.

check hardware: checkdisk, memory scan
if no issues, reinstalling the game might help
Win 10 isn't suppose to update anymore but you can check errors using the DISM tool
change antivirus just in case

 

[konata_LS]

Me during the map rolling process:

Spoiler :

Oh hey, here's a map that easily gives you a civ and a half worth of space even on Deity, let's roll a more reasonable one. Oh hey, here's a map that looks like everyone is reasonably spaced apart, let's use that one.

Actual results: I've got good news and bad news .

Perhaps when AcaMetis generates NC maps, he needs to thinks of noble/prince players, as the initial goal of nobles clubs is to help the players who struggles at noble and below. And that creates a dilemma for people who want to play the same map on deity. Many winnable or easy maps at noble level become tough and grindy on deity . For instance noble AIs never settle their second city on T3 right next to the human player's capital, but deity AIs sometimes do. Not to mention all the deity barbs disasters and AIs discount.

The start looks interesting time to settle on piggy although

Spoiler :

although I avoid Pangaea-ish maps at the moment, because I'd prefer to practise with continents / fractal maps. I feel that my win rate on Pangaea has become steady now, but in continents / fractal settings my gameplay is bad or unstable. Plus I already won a Pangaea on emperor with Lizzy in the NC 305. So, this time I'll just watch

Spoiler :

Not even copper or horses. Damn..

Is Archer-pults doable? Although deity AIs might get very early feudalism. Deity life is tough without Ivory in the capital's BFC

Spoiler :

The bad news: there is no mid game

That's exactly what happened in all my off-line deity attempts . The game ended around T50 with barb archers or spears who captured my capital, or around T60 strike without the wheel. Never reached the classical era .

 

[AcaMetis]

Perhaps when AcaMetis generates NC maps, he needs to thinks of noble/prince players, as the initial goal of nobles clubs is to help the players who struggles at noble and below. And that creates a dilemma for people who want to play the same map on deity. Many winnable or easy maps at noble level become tough and grindy on deity . For instance noble AIs never settle their second city on T3 right next to the human player's capital, but deity AIs sometimes do. Not to mention all the deity barbs disasters and AIs discount.

I actually tend to look at maps more from the perspective of a deity player than a noble player, although not being a deity player myself that perspective can be a bit...murky...at times . In this case

Spoiler :

I mainly forgot about AIs founding religions. A deity AI settling their second city right next to you is one thing, that second city popping Buddhism or Hinduism and suddenly your capital is losing BFC tiles T15 or something is quite another .

 

[redmeat]

Is Archer-pults doable?

Spoiler :

I've also had IW pending, so might not be quite as bad as archerpult. Maybe some funky stuff - col, get 2 merchants, pray for iron and upgrade 20 warriors
Still, 3 cities vs projected 12 city Justi at that point? I'd rather have someone else "show me the way" as @soundjata said. There is probably a difference between maps that allow few options and little room for sub-optimal play, and maps that those with a habitually meticulous early game consider "inherently hard". Walk-throughs of the former are probably more educational for those who seek to tighten their game, and less interesting for the veterans who are after the challenge.

 

[sampsa]

I'm pretty sure archerpult beats stuff involving later attacks and GM upgrades. Just try to capture a military unit resource with first captured city. Ivory would be best I guess.

Hmm, I guess I need to play.

 

[notslin]

Hopefully you'll try on Deity!

 

[redmeat]

I'm pretty sure archerpult beats stuff involving later attacks and GM upgrades. Just try to capture a military unit resource with first captured city. Ivory would be best I guess.

Hmm, I guess I need to play.

Spoiler :

Yeah, and we may very well have iron. Gave up before knowing.
One specific question I'd have among controllable aspects (as opposed to holy cities as well as AI settling being RNG reliant) is: are we, prospectively within an optimality proposal, putting our 4th city down before t55 here? In hindsight, bumping off Justi might well change the game

 

[Build2Much]

Immortal - I failed in my first attempt (pulled the plug because I had obviously screwed up) but my 2nd attempt went really well and I won via domination in the early 1800s, didn’t attack anyone until cannons and rifles but out-teched everyone easily this time.

Spoiler First attempt :

SIP, settled 2nd city E on the river to share floodplains, 3rd on river hill W to share pigs and corn and get horses in 2nd ring. Biggest mistake was then settling 4th or 5th city to eventually get gems, created border tension with Charly. I probably also went pottery too early, didn’t chop enough, expanded too slow. HC wrapped his empire around me to the N, I tried to share religion with Justinian and Charly, HC DOW, Charly joined him. I quit.

Spoiler 2nd attempt what worked :

SIP. Founded 2nd city NE to get horses, Oasis, Corn. 3rd city to the west only to share corn, get the horses there and eventually dye. 4th city (and was probably the best move I made) right on the marble. That cut off HC and got me Great Library, MoM, NE (I mistyped HE, this is an edit) in the capital. I still was able to get 5th city on the river E to share cottages. Justinian eventually snuck a city to the NW in my territory but we never fought. I delayed pottery longer this time, also left the capital pigs mined for the longest time which was much better - needed the production.

I stayed out of all religions, Charly eventually vassaled Mehmed and Darius but I easily won Lib and took cannons around 1000AD. Cannons and Redcoats to take most of HC, a really tough battle with Charly who had so many units plus the vassals, but he maxed out at Cuirs, if he got to Cavs it was at the very end, I had infantry by the early part of that war, then rolled over the rest, the captured river cities in HRE and Incan lands were State Property powerhouses. Same with Byzantines but really late at that point. Never had to deal with the Mayans, Pacal just sat out on the coast and was a complete non factor.

Spoiler Edit - one last thing :

Getting the double horses was fine, but I never even built any mounted units other than 3 early chariots. Role-played redcoats instead. I’m not in front of it now, but I’m pretty sure Justinian never got access to horses. Charly in both games was the real military threat

 

[redmeat]

Congrats on your win!

Spoiler :

Getting the double horses was fine

I can see that. On deity Huayna settled the eastern ones t4/5 in both my attempts. Only remaining question: is it going to be a holy city? Not only immortal, also demigod alleviates the early pressure significantly here. And when you're locked in at 3 cities, HAs are just oh so desirable..

 

[Build2Much]

Spoiler :

HAs are definitely an option and for those confident with it it is almost certainly the very best play to capture the excellent Incan cities very early and walk over the map.

That initially unconnected 2nd Oasis/Horse city and then the marble city to keep him tucked in and small (and afraid of Charly) were very important.

 

[Build2Much]

So I just went in to look up when I actually founded my cities.

Spoiler Immortal city settle :

York (east Horse, Oasis, Corn) 2400
Nottingham 2000
Hastings 1280 (I mistakenly said I did this after marble)
Canterbury (marble) 1200
Coventry (clam) and Warwick (on River N of capital) 750BC
Newcastle (1E of lake near silk and desert tile) 500 BC

Then I loaded up the game on Deity

Spoiler Slight problem with my plan on deity :

Turn 5/6 Tiwanuku is founded between the wine/horses/corn

That is a completely different scenario.

 

[konata_LS]

I'm pretty sure archerpult beats stuff involving later attacks and GM upgrades. Just try to capture a military unit resource with first captured city. Ivory would be best I guess.

Yes, Ivory solves all the problems related to the lack of metal and horse. Some people might remember Lain did a somewhat archerpults in an old WK game.

Spoiler :

More exactly, that was still an Elepults attack in which Lain built many archers while waiting for construction and HBR. I'm not saying Ivory makes the game easy - even with capital Ivory, the WK map is still very hard. But Ivory indeed offers a reliable solution to a difficult, almost impossible situation.

Spoiler :

are we, prospectively within an optimality proposal, putting our 4th city down before t55 here?

That's tough on deity without map knowledge.
OTOH, it's definitely doable at Settler level with huts on: you only need to pop two free settlers from the tribal village before T50. Plus at settler level the human player has Agri for free. Who needs those free settlers. Just warriors rush your neighbours.

Spoiler :

With map knowledge about the horse location, things would be different. People can walk their settler around from T0 and settle their capital right next to the horse. But I guess you were talking about playing blindly, not relying on resource location .

 

[redmeat]

doable at Settler level

I played settler level for years. Well, I "played" like 2 games a year. No Idea what I was doing, then or now. All I remember is that I went for commando tank stomps with cyrus against archery units. And if there was another continent, I just nuked it, being a bit irritated that I still have to go there to clean up. Loading units onto boats is, after all, very tedious. That much hasn't changed. I don't think I knew you could vassal other civs.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

So I just went in to look up when I actually founded my cities.

Spoiler Immortal city settle :

York (east Horse, Oasis, Corn) 2400
Nottingham 2000
Hastings 1280 (I mistakenly said I did this after marble)
Canterbury (marble) 1200
Coventry (clam) and Warwick (on River N of capital) 750BC
Newcastle (1E of lake near silk and desert tile) 500 BC

Then I loaded up the game on Deity

Spoiler Slight problem with my plan on deity :

Turn 5/6 Tiwanuku is founded between the wine/horses/corn

That is a completely different scenario.

Spoiler :

Yes, depending on whether the Incas settle next to the oasis, the game is totally different.

I loaded the game on deity difficulty, the Incas did not settle the oasis. Including captured barbarian cities, I settled 7 good cities fairly quickly. I stopped playing. I could have gone trebuchets, curaissers, whatever.

Horse archers are not necessary. There's enough land to reach for catapults.

 

[AcaMetis]

Some people might remember Lain did a somewhat archerpults in an old WK game.

IIRC Lain pulled off actual archerpult against Napoleon in a Saladin game at one point. One could say it was a...PRO move .

 

[a pen-dragon]

Deity, third attempt:

Spoiler :

Frankly, although I did win my third attempt at this map, I relied significantly on map knowledge and a bit of luck, so this would possibly not be the optimal approach without map knowledge.

Now IMHO the problem on this map is threefold:
First, although lots of land is available, Justinian and to a lesser extent HC will expand into this land rather sooner than later.
Second, the three neighbours are all likely to get an early religion, and especially Charly and Justi are military threats.
Third, but least relevant, HC has a propensity to settle his second city close by, found a religion, build some winders and grab London's second ring.

Settling London further east to discourage HC is not worth it, due to moving away from the food.

In the east, two cities would be sufficient to cut Justi off: one 4W of London, sharing the corn and pigs, and the other one SE of the clams. Both these spots are sufficiently good to be viable cities, and they need to be because in my plan these are cities 2 and 3.

In my first game, I settled my second city in the center and Justi made cutting him off impossible, forcing me to plant the clams city one tile further north and proceeded to funnel settlers north... That would have been manageable (pults), but I was playing too quickly and got attacked ~ T70 with nothing better than warriors, so that was it.

This is a mitigation to problem 1. This can the be followed up by settling north, claiming space to backfill a city or two, resulting in at least 7 cities (London, two cutting of Justi, three cutting of HC and one backfill). This is sufficient to go for Cuirs.

Now of the three problems, the first one has been solced, the second is out of my hands, but I can still meddle with the third one:

My idea was to send the starting warrior towards HC's likely second city spot, get there before him, and DoW him, expecting that he would not fight my warrior with his archer escort and settle further away. Obviously there would be diplomatic ramifications, but only with HC, as we would probably not know anyone else at that point, so no "you DoWed our friends". That would make him my enemy, but allies would still be available in Justi and Charly. Even with the -3 HC would likely not be furious once the war ends, so the only relevant change to adopting another religion later on would be the absence of open borders. Anyway, HC is less of a threat than Charly or Justi, especially if he goes off to build wonders, so I was not that worried about the long term impact. He would be my first target anyways.

Unfortunately I was unable to put this into practice, as my warrior must have scared him sufficiently without a war, as he ended up settling 1N of the corn. That is sufficiently far away that cultural pressure should be manageable.

Now, my second game, I proceeded to fogbust the north, which was a big mistake as I was not fogbusting the west where I wanted to settle and a barb city popped up early, so on to game three.

My tech path was Agri -> AH -> BW -> Pottery. With a bit of luck (i.e. AIs researching AH), it comes in just in time for the worker not to loose any turns.

London then got a warrior out while growing, and then two settlers went west, settling on T37 and T44. I did not fogbust the south at all, as there were enough AI units handling barbs there.

Now I got lucky, and only Charly and HC founded early religions, with Justi adopting Charly's, resolving problem #2 from above. I obviously adopted that religion as well.

In the meantime, HC built wonders, so I claimed a city 2E of London's cows and only cut off HC after that. With Fin and lots of rivers I went for the classic cuir rush, going Nationalism immediately after CS, because the AIs were sufficiently far behind, and Taj is nice (even though I missed the marble). I was a bit late in producing my units, so I stopped after capping HC, as people were starting to get too close to Rifling, and finished up with tanks.

Re: Lain archerpult, there is also the Pacal game (31).

 

[sampsa]

Deity T33

Spoiler :

Agri-BW-(AH). Seems pretty easy to get 5 cities? Lots of forest so you can expand rapidly. If you can get 4-5 cities with this land and FIN you will win, unless you get declared when you can't handle it.

 

[aitkensam]

Immortal Domination

Spoiler :

Don't have time for much of a write up so hoping that pictures speak a thousand words.
Think I might have got lucky with the way religion panned out. Ended up in Judaism with Huayna, Charlie and Justinian. Spammed cottages. 300+ beakers at 1AD. Lib MT around 600AD. Ended up getting to cavalry before getting a suitably big stack (too rusty ><) so DoW'd Huayna with two stacks totalling around 25 cavs in 1000AD. Production was always a bit ropey so couldn't pump as fast as I wanted. Picked wars carefully as Charlie and Justinian were pretty strong (albeit hugely tech inferior). Thankfully their stacks were off in the west killing Mehmed and they didn't have much at home. Went Inca, Maya, Justinian and Charlie at once, then triggered Dom just before starting on Persia.

Images seem to have cut off a bit for some reason. They're 1AD, 600AD, 1000AD and two from the end around 13xxAD.

Thanks for hosting!!