Nobles' Club CLXIV: Washington of America

[Noble Zarkon]

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 Washington of America, whom we last played in NC CXIII which was also when we last played the Americans. The Americans start with Fishing and Agriculture.

• Traits: Washington is Charismatic and Expansive. CHA means +1 (+1 more with a monument), which lets your cities expand faster sooner. It also reduces the XP for promotions by 25%, meaning your units improve faster. EXP means +2 , allowing bigger cities which synergises well with the CHA trait. It also gives faster granaries, harbours, and workers. The +25% bonus for producing workers only applies to , not , so you need to be working 4 to get the 5th.
• The UB: The Mall, a Supermarket with +20% and +1 with Hit Musicals, Singles, and Movies.
  
  
  
  
• The UU: The Navy Seal, a Marine with March promotion (can heal while moving) and 1-2 first strikes (one of few late-game units to have them).
  
  

Both the UU and UB are late game so you might want to consider a Space Race, on the other CHA is a good war mongers trait ........

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Pangaea, high sea level, pressed shore.

Spoiler edits :

Moved location of one resource slightly to give a better tactical choice early on.

Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine: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 number Leader 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.

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.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Reserved.

 

[Fippy]

Looks like one of those wonder starts
Not sure if i would settle on sheep or stone, sheep keeps the mysterious bfc resource that would most likely be hidden near that hut..and stone is faster.
But with exp i would do one of those for a faster worker.
That fish looks accessible from an island and is no worry.
Oh i forgot, after a border pop you get a 3h ph..SIP would be fine too unless you play Deity and want Tgw (settle on stone).

 

[dalamb]

My fogbusting skills are weak, but it looks like 2N of the warrior is coastal, so warrior 1NW to check if there is seafood there might be a good opening move, especially since he needs to get out of the corner anyway. I'm usually playing long games (preferring space, and not being a good enough warmonger to win before cavalry anyway most of the time) and so am reluctant to settle on sheep or stone and give up the long-term benefit for the short-term one. I realize the fast start from a PH or stone's extra is very important at the higher levels; is it critical at Monarch (my current level when I play at all).

 

[Fippy]

Yep sheep was an overreaction to exp worker hammers, i forgot you get that ph after 5 turns

Without high level pressure, SIP might be best here.
You keep everything and still get your worker in 13 turns (i think).

 

[Gumbolt]

I think SIP is best here. Moving just adds very little. Stone will be a nice 1f4h resource. Options for wonders here. You could even mine the sheep if you skip AH. Hmmmm.

 

[lymond]

Sheep makes for a nice early mine. A hidden seafood may make settling on stone worth it. If not, SIP.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

What about settling where the warrior is for the fish and then a second city for the wet corn?

 

[cseanny]

Definitely Mine the Sheep and skip AH for quite some time. And it does look like a Wonder start. Hell, SH, TGLH, and Mids should be doable on everything but Deity but then to grab necessary techs I see some slight delay in growth and working coastal tiles =/.

Who knows. Looks interesting either way.

 

[lymond]

What about settling where the warrior is for the fish and then a second city for the wet corn?

I'd rather focus on getting that worker out first. fish seems a slower start, and can be had with a city down there.

 

[Zacar]

Intuitively I'd settle on stone to make some of the coast tiles eventually workable, although this is not FIN, tiles are tiles. Hopefully the fish can be utilized from south with a remotely sensible city placement.. it is also possible that some other civ settles on the south side. I assume that is not an island and is part of the same continent if the map script works like the name says.

 

[dutchfire]

The UU: The Navy Seal, a Marine with Amphibious and 1-2 first strikes.

With March!

Starting with Agri, I might try a wonder strategy. Maybe mining -> masonry -> Bronze Working, settle in place and mine the sheep.

 

[diegovelasco45]

Downloaded and ready to go. Going to try emperor difficulty as promised. However since I started playing civ4 again I haven't won a single emperor game. Hopefully this is the exception.

 

[sampsa]

Immortal/normal/NHNE

1000BC (T75)

Spoiler :

AH-wheel-writing-mining-BW-sailing-masonry

I think that the AIs are a bit too far plus the start is a bit too slow to go for an early war. Besides, we have marble so it's easy to win Liberalism. Decided to go for a quick library in cap while 2nd and 3rd city built settlers @size2. Worked the lake a lot for much needed . Then wanted the GLH and went for math for chops, but maybe going straight to aesth-lit -line was better. Didn't get much trade value with math anyway.

1AD (T115)

Spoiler :

Math-(trade alpha)-aesth-lit-medi-ph-CoL-CS. Gave CoL+aesth away to about everyone for currency, calendar, monarchy, MC. Dunno if it was a good idea, as none of those techs are necessary right now.

GLH 775BC, GLib 300BC, NE 25BC, failed a bunch of other wonders. Maybe should have tried to get the mids, but didn't really bother.

It took a really long time for Hatty to send me Judaism (it's a jewish hug party). I'll spread it around to my cities that will produce and start golden age with music artist. 1st GS was used to an academy, 2nd was supposed to bulb philo but got a merchant. No biggie, just delays the golden age a bit. Diplo is good, neighbors don't like to build units, lib is in the bag (->MT) so the rest is a technicality.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

With March!

Well spotted, don't know how long that mistake has been in the template!

 

[dalamb]

Likely a very long time; I suppose if I'm feeling especially guilty I should track it down for penance.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Likely a very long time; I suppose if I'm feeling especially guilty I should track it down for penance.

It looks like Washington in the 3rd cycle is wrong although the other two US Leaders are correct, Washington was correct in the second cycle.

 

[duckstab]

I haven't done a Noble's Club in ages so I think I'll have a go at this one (at noble, which is what I still play). I'll move the warrior onto the sheep and then decide whether to settle there or in place.

I'm tentatively thinking AH->Masonry->Pottery->BW->Myst. Early Pottery because there are no early commerce resources around, and Mysticism because this looks like one of those games where Stonehenge could be worthwhile. With Washington, that's +1 and +1 in every city, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[bhavv]

Immortal / No huts 780 BC;

Spoiler :

Horrible boxed in start, I rushed to settle New York at the gold and got a monument and library up, but still cant keep hold of the Gold resource:

Managed to spam 4 wonders in the capital though:

Mostly peaceful neighbours, so I have enough time to set up New York and Boston before devoting them to permanent military output. I teched Aethetics and used it to backfil Alpha / Archery / Maths / IW . Medi / Poly, I got AH for Sailing

 

[sampsa]

To the end:

Spoiler :

Going first to CS then music proved to be too cocky, as I lost music to Asoka. Oh well, a dumb mistake. AI tech pace was really fast for immortal anyway, mostly due to shared religion. Had to waste a GM to start a golden age (1100 down the drain) to pump out 3 GS to bulb 2xEdu and lib. Cities built forges and barracks for the upcoming whipping. Pre-built some HAs too.

Declared on Asoka 1000 AD, he was running free religion via Swedagon thingy so nobody cared. Capture his core, capitulate 1080 AD. 1100 AD declare on Qin, rinse, repeat, vassal the world 1250 AD. Got rifling before the end and upgraded to cavalry.