Nobles' Club CLXVII: Louis XIV of France

[dalamb]

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 Louis XIV of France, whom we last played in NC CIX; we last played the French under Napoleon in NC CXLIV. The French start with Agriculture and The Wheel.

• Traits: Louis is Creative and Industrious. Creative means border pops without needing monuments or other cultural buildings, plus faster libraries (perhaps getting scientist specialists online faster), theatres, and colosseums (for extra happiness if you're running the culture slider for a cultural victory). Industrious means faster wonders and forges.
  
• The UB: The Salon, an Observatory that gives a free artist. This is not a very strong UB, though it might prove useful in some cultural victories. However, standard cultural strategies often shut off research after Nationalism.
  
  
• The UU: The Musketeer, a Musketman with two moves instead of one. This can be a good stack defender that can keep up with mounted attacks.
  

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Pangaea, default parameters, several regenerations.

Spoiler edits :

Swapped us with

Spoiler another leader :

Charlemagne

to get the awesome start. Added the river.

Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine:

There are no hard and fast rules here: fun and learning are our primary goals, but we do suggest that you update your progress at various points in the game, using the Spoiler feature of the boards. You can post as often as you like; here's one suggestion:

• 4000 BC (starting thoughts, no spoiler required for that discussion)
• 1000 BC or so (how you decided to progress up the early tech/build paths, which AIs you have met, where you're thinking of putting cities, etc)
• 500 AD or so (after establishing some cities and a possible plan of action)
• 1200 AD or so (mid-game, Lib race, wars or peace, or whichever happened or didn't, met other continent if applicable, etc)
• 1600 AD (or when you have decided on a course of action and a specific victory condition)
• End of game (Victory!!! or defeat, no shame in losing, especially if you tried a higher level. Learning is what we focus on, not fastest win or biggest empire)

This is just a guideline. If you're trying to improve your game, then posting more frequent updates, in as much detail as you can manage, is the best way to get suggestions from other players. If you come to what seems like a major decision and you want some advice, post an update, regardless of what game-year it is.

We also welcome players to ask for specific game advice, as we have a number of stronger players who lurk and help out with solid tips, and of course, we help each other. Replies to specific questions should also be in spoilers, with a simple "@" in front of the person the answer is directed towards.

Special Thanks go to Bleys and TMIT, who really made this series a great one, r_rolo1, mapmaker extraordinaire, for his maps in the early days of the series, and all of you for playing.

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 167 Louis 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 Noble. 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.

 

[dalamb]

Reserved.

See the map edits before you flame about the start. Happy Birthday, Pangaea!

 

[dalamb]

With marble and stone nearby, plus IND, there's no excuse for missing whatever wonders you care to try for! Unless there's another IND on the map, which I didn't check. On the other hand, the BFC lacks an agricultural food resource, so you'll have to research fishing before building workboats and it'll be a while before a worker has much to do. So, perhaps a slower start.

 

[Pangaea]

Reserved.

See the map edits before you flame about the start. Happy Birthday, Pangaea!

Thank you

Looks like a sweet start, though I'm not a fan of coastal. Would be nice to settle on that PH, but that would not count as coastal I suppose, and lock out the Great Lighthouse. As you say, probably a slow start, as workboats often are, but once we get rolling, this could be a good game for settled specialists, for those who want to try that.

 

[Xunin]

How about settling on the marble (it appears to be coastal btw)? Looks like more flood plains to the east (move starting warrior to the marble first obviously). And leave the clams for another city.

 

[Ironlungs76]

How about settling on the marble (it appears to be coastal btw)? Looks like more flood plains to the east (move starting warrior to the marble first obviously). And leave the clams for another city.

I agree. Even if it's not coastal it makes for a much faster start. Flood plains, grassland riverside cow, PH start and both masonry resources in BFC. Leave the fish for another city IMO.

 

[duckstab]

Has it been two weeks already? I haven't gotten past about 1300AD with JC yet

Playing my usual noble/standard/huts.

I will probably SIP and grab those floodplains with my 2nd or 3rd city. Even with good land for cottaging in the latter location, with an IND leader on the coast and both marble and stone, GLH+Oracle+Colossus is awfully tempting.

For now, I plan to go Fishing->AH->Masonry->BW, then reassess after I see more of the map.

 

[Ironlungs76]

Went ahead and settled the marble...(IMM, NHNE).

Teched AH, Mining, Masonry, Writing.

Spoiler :

Stole a couple of workers from Charly, proceeded to build pretty much everything I put my mind to (given the land, or lack thereof, I decided against TGLH).

Oracled CoL and flipped JC to Confucianism making him universally hated

Just finished researching Nationalism and wondering where to go from here. Probably Cannons/Rifles.

Everyone hates each other and for once I haven't bothered bribing any AIs to war. I'll probably get attacked by Charly soon once he's made peace with JC (big stack on my border but he can't get to JC as he refuses to Open Borders with me after my Worker shenanigans!)

 

[Ironlungs76]

1824AD Domination, Immortal with a quite frankly dreadfully low score

Spoiler :

Some thoughts on the map, and the way my game went:

Spoiler :

Pericles and Brennus had way too much land. Pericles was at 18 cities and Brennus 17. Pericles vassalled Monty fairly early which made him a beast. Thankfully we had a shared religion but he still didn't like me too much (probably my 2 DoWs against Charly and my Vassalling JC).

JC backstabbed me in true style but he did so with hardly any troops. I can't remember seeing JC so weak on IMM before now. Unluckily for him he attacked me when I had just Lib'd Steel so Musketeers and Cannons wiped him up fast and kicked him off the continent to a couple of useless islands. Then I finally got round to finishing off off Charly who had 3 cities (vassalled him when I couldn't be bothered to build boats to take his solitary island city). Then killed off Justinian who only had 4 cities.

Teched to Rifles and DoW'd Pericles. Talk about stubborn to capitulate! I knocked him down to 2 cities before Monty abandoned him and he finally wanted to Cap. Sadly for him I'd had enough of him so I just killed him off and Vassalled Monty instead

Then Dow'd Brennus (by this time with Infantry and getting to Artillery) and took a few cities before the Domination limit was reached.

Settling on the Marble at the start was stellar, such a lovely production and commerce site. Thankfully so seeing as I was boxed in by c1800BC... Charly had no land, neither did Justinian.

Good fun map busting out of a tight spot but boy was Pericles annoyingly large and had troop power to match

edit: oh and I finished with 13 settled GP in Paris and ran Rep the whole game. The research from those alone (plus the Great Library scientists which were eventually obsoleted) was HUGE. And that's not including the settled GGs in my Heroic Epic city...

 

[Pangaea]

Have played a bit, on immortal. 650BC, no huts or events (added agri, hunting and archery for barbs).

Spoiler :

After looking closely on the food situation after moving the warrior, I decided to settle on marble to get both quarry resources in BFC. With 3 farmed floodplains, the food situation should still be okay, and another city can grab the seafood. Went on a wonder spamming spree. Settled a city between pig and silk west, but got beat to the wheat by Pericles and ideal position for gold by JC. Later on I settled and grabbed gold anyway. Have now landed a settler on the island north (after settling on the mainland for the two clams earlier) and trying to decide where to put the city.

Stole a worker from Charlie, and amusingly, stole a city too Prague (2S of stone) revolted to our side in 1360BC. Sometimes wonderspamming can have nice unexpected consequences. Have so far built Great Wall, Stonehenge, Oracle, Pyramids, Great Lighthouse, and will soon get started on the Great Library.

Getting a Great Scientist for the Academy will be by the luck of the dice roll, but here's hoping. Have so far settled a Great Spy.

Took forever to get Alpha, but eventually Monty of all people got there, so I could get slavery. Not often I get Caste before Slavery...
Opened with AH, Mining, Masonry, Mysticism, Writing -> Oracle -> CoL.

 

[Eketek]

Emperor / marathon / no huts / no events

Spoiler :

Upon reaching Bronze working, I noticed that my neighbor and good friend, Charlemagne, had the only source of copper around for miles in any direction, so I decided to plan a war settlement, to steal it from him.

As I was planning early aggression, one of my fogbusters recruited a nearby worker to 'the cause', leading to the unexpected:



(Apparently, Charlemagne didn't think he needed to defend his capital)

 

[Pangaea]

Question about map, early on.

Spoiler :

IS this truly a Pangaea map? There appear to be so many islands both north and south. I don't usually see that on Pangaea. Pretty sweet with GLH though

 

[dalamb]

@Ironlungs76:

Spoiler :

Oops. I forgot the check for how much land each AI got; makes it hard at IMM+ when they get too much.

@Pangaea:

Spoiler :

Yup, it's Pangaea. I've seen occasional islands before, but this one had more than usual, nearby even. Too bad using a scenario loses that information from the Settings tab.

 

[Ironlungs76]

@Ironlungs76:

Spoiler :

Oops. I forgot the check for how much land each AI got; makes it hard at IMM+ when they get too much.

Heh, no problems at all:

Spoiler :

I suppose a considerable part of the problem was of my own making by choking Charly

I can't recall seeing Pericles so dominant in a game before Plus Justinian deserves to get screwed over once in a while given his usual Rex tendencies *grumbles*

The start more than made up for it

 

[Doshin]

Spoiler :

Wow, you get boxed in here on Deity. On T12 the capital is already losing tiles to Charlie :

Spoiler :

Buddhist Holy City. Woooo.

Then, the 2nd city is culture pressed and the third has no food:

Spoiler :

I had a bit of luck to compensate:

Spoiler :

Copper!

Only worked the Mine for 2 turns.

Got the Oracle and Mids. Things are going well:

Spoiler :

My gift Settler was too late.

Time to defend against Rome with 3 cities.

 

[Fippy]

That hurts Doshy, JC my least favorite AI next door..
unlike Monty and so on, he's really dangerous with his Praets.

 

[Doshin]

@Fippy

Spoiler :

Yeah, it can be hard to deal with Praets in an early DOW, and sometimes it's game over. Luckily my capital will be the next target, which gets the hill/culture/Wall defensive bonuses, so I should be able to wait it out.

Gilgamesh might be my least favorite AI leader to border, because he always seems to rush me with his Vultures, and then pack my former cities with his stupid Protective Archers. Julius is most dangerous when he borders a builder AI and proceeds to take all of their wonders and cities without losing any units.

 

[Pangaea]

Victory in 1745AD, Immortal.

Spoiler :

Built many wonders in the beginning, and at some point decided to try for culture. Was reminded why I rarely do that, cause it's pretty boring at the end with just clicking End Turn. Before that, though, Charlie declared on me, so took him out. After that I tried to stay in the good books of the others, and keeping them occupied with wars, which they thankfully managed pretty well by themselves.

Was a little lucky with GArtists, got 9 of them (out of 17 non-GG great people), and got Legendary status on city 2 and 3 in the same turn.

 

[Krugi]

Monarch, Normal speed, no huts, T0 - T33.

Spoiler :

T0 - Settling in place seems viable, but I don't like relying on seafood at the capital, and without Mining (for Bronze Working) or Fishing as starting techs, the work boat cannot be produced handily, especially since I'll need to research Animal Husbandry as well. Instead, I'm eyeing that marvellous riverside plains hill with marble. Moving the warrior on top of it reveals that this site is indeed coastal while not actually wasting many tiles to non-Financial coast. Great! Now it will take me two turns to move there, but the payoff is a 2/3/1 city tile that makes Marble actually worthwhile to work, and the initial Worker finishes on T12. What's not to like? I'd like to be Bismarck here

T2 - Founded Paris on the marble. Build Worker (10t), research Animal Husbandry (12t). The forest north of Paris is unfortunately placed, but I'll accept it as the workings of Kismet. That is Bulgarian for "short honey".

T3-T11: We meet Charlemagne's scout from the southwest on T3 (he's 6 tiles away?!), and Julius Caesar's archer arrives from the east on T7. This map seems rather crowded. Charlemagne founds Buddhism on T9 and converts instantly. His humorously close capital becomes the Holy City. Wonderful.

T12 - The Worker is finished and named "W1". He goes 1N. I'll have a cow pasture (4/2/1) to work in six turns, which means 4 + 5 per turn for worker production from T17 onwards, so I decide to build another worker at size one, followed by a settler at size one. The second worker will be ready for action on T21.

T13 - W1 roads the forest for a turn. There's nothing else for him to do, because the tiles en route to the cows cannot be irrigated and Animal Husbandry is still a turn away. I considered working the riverside wine to speed up AH, but that would have delayed the worker, so I would have had one less turn invested into a road for no compensation whatsoever.

T14 - Animal Husbandry finished, Mining is up next (7t). W1 moves 1N and pastures the cows.

T18 - W1 moves 1S again.

T19 - W1 roads the forest (complete).

T20 - W1 moves 1SE onto the wine, and roads (1t).

T21 - The second worker is finished and named "W2" (I am roleplaying a Creative leader, you see), and moves 1SE to irrigate the floodplain. This floodplain will not be worked for quite some time, but I'll still manage to road all the tiles to my planned second city before it's founded. Paris builds a Settler (11t). Growing to size 2 and double-whipping the settler seems too slow, because Bronze Working is still at least 14 turns away and I'm definitely in danger of being assimilated into The Box, that is, the surrounding civilizations. As expressed by a simple syllogism:

I) I must build a civilization to stand the test of time. (Major premise)
II) All that which is put into a box will soon be forgotten. (Minor premise supported by empirical evidence)

I) + II) => Don't do the dumb thing.

T25 - I get my injured starting warrior killed in action against a pack of wolves at 33% odds, which I really should have avoided. So much for that syllogism.

T27 - I consider switching research to Fishing (5t) and put the settler (5t) on the northern cape, claiming twin clams and the finished cow pasture, but I decide that I want to make use of my Creative culture and prevent Charlemagne from settling the irrigated corn to the south-west of Paris. I can always backfill that site later.

T28 - W1 and W2 are both finished with their farms and team up to build a road towards my second city.

T32 - The settler is done and moves along the road, arriving at the planned site (1NW of the corn) without any movement points left. If I had roaded that tile as well, I could have founded the city one turn sooner, but the benefit seems dubious to me; it would have meant one less turn at 100% research, if nothing else. (Post-hoc rationalizations are very fun and you should try them.). W2 has a free turn to move onto the corn and road it (1t).

T33 - Orléans founded. The worker ensemble irrigates the corn. Save attached.

Paris will grow to size 4 while building warriors, then double-whip a settler. Masonry will be researched after BW, because stone quarries on plains, unlike marble quarries, are good stuff, and I plan to use this one for both of my cities.



Voici la France, et la gloire immortelle de nos aïeux. Our entire army has succumbed to a stray pack of wolves.

Help is always welcome, of course.

 

[Pangaea]

One thing you can learn that is useful at all levels, is binary research. Instead of teching at break even, like for instance 80% now. You tech at 0% until you have built up enough gold to tech at 100% until you get the tech. At that point you'll be more or less out of money (short of failgold or capture gold or selling techs), so turn off research again until you have enough gold to research the next tech you want at 100%. This makes better use of the multipliers, and it's very nice for trading purposes, because if you've put 10 into a tech at 0% and many AIs get it, you can change targets and get another tech instead, and trade for the one you have basically done no research into.