Nobles' Club CLXVII: Louis XIV of France

[Doshin]

Deity NH/NE:

Spoiler :

I had to scramble a bit after Julius razed my 3rd city. Luckily the invading stack wasn't too large:

Spoiler :

HAHAHA. Eat my Walls.

After that, Charlie mostly kept Julius busy. I was able to snipe the great island city north of the capital, though:

Spoiler :

2 Archer and 3 Chariots almost defeated my rubbish stack, but the last unit took it.

The Sheep + Fish city became the new home of the Moai Statues.

When I wanted to make peace, I was 1XP short of a GG. So I gambled:

Spoiler :

GG = 20XP unit = Heroic Epic.

And then I made peace:

Spoiler :

This was timed for when I could resettle the Gold. It was a good war, given the GG and island city.

----

After that, the game was fairly straightforward. Pericles could have become huge, but an AP vote brought everyone into a war with Montezuma, who then ended up capping to Charlie.

I built a few wonders, switched into the dominant AP religion, and started a few Golden Ages. Eventually Justinian got to Pleased and was willing to trade Horses, which made the decision to go to war a lot easier.

I ended up winning Conquest in 1270 AD. Final pics:

Spoiler :

Thanks for the map.

 

[Seraiel]

@ Doshin: Very impressive, so as always ^^

@ pangaea: nice to see you go for a cultural victory you know that there are tons of cultural victories in HoF that need to be beaten and have bad dates?

No, seriously, well done. What I said is true though, most HoF-culture-games are horrible. I could win culture 11xx AD with a good game and a strong leader, HoF has nothing before 12xx AD iirc.

 

[Pangaea]

@ pangaea: nice to see you go for a cultural victory you know that there are tons of cultural victories in HoF that need to be beaten and have bad dates?

No, seriously, well done. What I said is true though, most HoF-culture-games are horrible. I could win culture 11xx AD with a good game and a strong leader, HoF has nothing before 12xx AD iirc.

Thanks. With a 1745 culture win here, though, I wouldn't exactly stand much of a chance at 12-1300 culture wins in the HoF (or however good they are). It was fun in the beginning when building wonders and such, but clicking End Turn forever and blowing some great artists here and there, it was a really boring end. I much prefer Conquest/Domination games

Very impressive games Doshin.

 

[Izuul]

Really interesting start, i wish i had seen this earlier. My first thought is to move off the coast and settle on the marble. Already have Ag so bothering with Fishing and WBs just for some clams doesn't seem worthwhile when compared to a 3H capitol and farming a couple of FPs.

 

[dalamb]

It was fun in the beginning when building wonders and such, but clicking End Turn forever and blowing some great artists here and there, it was a really boring end. I much prefer Conquest/Domination games.

If I ever go for a cultural victory again I plan to listen to some undemanding podcast while hitting End Turn.

 

[Krugi]

T33 - T101:

Spoiler :

I just lost an hour's worth of words to an unexplained browser crash. Here's the highlight reel instead.

Tech path

Binary research is amazing. Thank you, Pangaea.

Bronze Working (T35)
Masonry (T44)
Pottery (T49)
Writing (T58)
Fishing (T61)
Sailing (T67)
Mathematics (T77)
Alphabet (T88); trade with Justinian (Myst + Hunt for Writing) and Caesar (IW for Mathematics). Everyone else was somebody's "worst enemy", so no deals there, and Caesar was the only AI that had even bothered to research Writing or IW at that point.
Currency (T92-ish? I didn't write it down, it should be visible in the log)
Code of Laws (T96) - no religion, because Justinian Oracled the tech on T93
Calendar (T100)


Cities settled

Lyons (T52) - Would have been better 1NW, but I was afraid that it would have been choked by the Greek capital's culture. In fact, it has recently claimed several tiles from Pericles.
Rheims (T67) - at the double clams because Pericles founded Corinth on T65, a troll plant if I've ever seen one because it locks me out of settling the wheat completely, as I had intended. Rheims just works dual clams, as well as cottages for Paris.
Tours (T78)
Marseilles (T87? somewhere around that date)


Wonders built

The Great Wall (T61, Orléans) - by accident I had planned to have it sit in the queue at 131/150 . Almost all of that production was overflow from a double-whipped granary at 27/60 and 12/28 , accelerated by Stone + Industrious. The damn thing luckily didn't give me a Great Spy, and I managed to build an academy in the capital on T77. Back in NC 165, I was building the library around that turn.
The Great Lighthouse (T85, Paris)
The Pyramids (T96, Orléans)

Screenshots



Paris has exactly the right amount of floodplains needed to cottage all the riverside plains tiles as well, and then set up five grassland cottages (all riverside, too!) for a total of eleven cottages. The tile marked "post CS irrigate" could also be cottaged if I decide to have Paris work the cows - I'm not sure if that's optimal, given that two other cities share that food resource.

The lighthouse in Lyons is just being built to use the lake tile to its full potential at some point down the road. Lyons is producing GPP at the moment, so it doesn't exactly matter much. I could prepare double-whippable axemen at 4/35 and such, though.

Orléans was building wealth to buffer my deficit research. Therefore, I had Calendar online just as my worker had finished chopping the forest on the silk resource, and could immediately order him to build a plantation. I'm not sure what to have this city build right now (a market seems unnecessary), but I think I should aim to steer as much overflow into a forge as possible.

I've been in Representation and Caste System since T98. I'll grow my cities to their caps before amassing Scientist specialists like some evil genius.



I'm getting better at this game, I think. Gradually.

 

[Krugi]

Domination, 1690 AD (Monarch, Normal speed, NH/NE).

Spoiler :

T106 - Metal Casting
T108 - Aesthetics
T110 - Literature; trade Aesthetics to Caesar for Priesthood and Monotheism
T111 - Trade CoL to Charlemagne for Monarchy
T112 - The Mausoleum finished in Orléans
T115 - Civil Service. Research rate is 238bpt at 100%
T116 - Great Scientist born on Lyons. On that exact turn, Justinian founds Taoism. Not that I care much about that, but bulbing Philosophy seems pointless when nobody else is even close to Liberalism, so I decide to settle the Great Scientist in the capital for 20 additional per turn at 100% research.
T117 - The Great Library finished in Orléans
T124 - I decide to play GPP roulette in Orléans for a turn, stuffing nine Scientists into the city. The payoff is a Great Artist named "Frank Kafka" (what), and I fire a 12-turn Golden Age in response. Paper was researched somewhere around this turn, and I researched Machinery as well, because I was worried about JC assembling a stack of Praetorians in a border city.
T127 - Music. Great Artist settled in Lyons
T129 - The Colossus finished in Tours.
T130 - Education (bulb-assisted)
T135 - Theology; found Christianity. In hindsight, that was unnecessary. I had originally wanted to research Divine Right to trade it around later while getting a discount on Nationalism, but I could have gone to Nationalism straight away.
T140 - Julius Caesar suddenly has "enough on his hands right now". At this point, Nationalism is due in two turns and I have a Great Engineer saved up for the Taj Mahal. Bring it on.
T141 - The horns of war are sounding! Charlemagne declares war! Wait, what? In a display of his technological and military prowess, he sends in a stack of two longbowmen, two axemen and a whole lot of... spearmen?! I guess he's afraid of all the horse archers and elephants I can't build.
Nonetheless, I cannot disassemble his stack right now with my obscenely small army, so I start building Macemen and Crossbowmen while teching to Nationalism, planning to go Gunpowder -> Liberalism (Military Tradition). I'm not really worried about Charlie himself, but Julius will probably join this war soon and I don't need that Holy Roman nonsense opening another front right now. Barracks under construction in all cities.
T143 - Taj Mahal Golden Age.
T144 - Julius asks me to convert to Confucianism. It's a Golden Age and I'm hoping to get him off my back, so I accept, but it doesn't stop him from plotting.
T146 - He declares war. Six Praetorians move in against Paris, which is defended by four axemen. I revolt to Theocracy (no Vassalage yet) and whip promotable crossbows in Paris and Rheims.
T148 - Charlie's stack moves onto flat ground next to Orléans and is all but eradicated. A Great General is born in Tours and hops onto a conveniently-waiting Galley. I'll use him to give Combat promotions to all the axes, which should allow me to hold Paris while the units that killed Charlie's stack make their way over to the capital.
T149 - Sistine Chapel built in Tours. It might be madness to build wonders while under attack by Praetorians, but I like to make silly moves like that. If nothing else, the thing will help with a faster Domination victory. I'd certainly rather have it sooner than later. In other news, I mop up Charlie's few remaining units and he agrees to sign a peace deal.
T151 - Caesar's stack oscillates between Rheims and Paris, and I pick off some praetorians with isolated crossbow attacks out of the cities.
T152 - Liberalism (pick Military Tradition) [860 AD, I think]
T153 - I face the sudden realization that I don't have horses for Cuirassiers. I improvise again and build lots of French Musketeers, a wonderful unit in this situation, to quickly capture Caesar's city of Ravenna, which has the nearest readily available source of horses.

From there, it's a romp across the continent as I first take three of Caesar's cities, lose four 70-80% battles in a row against the last defenders of Rome wallbash while Caesar uses coastal blockades to cut me off from Ravenna's horses and stymie Tours and Rheims, sign peace, rebuild the lost Cuirassiers, drive Caesar off the mainland (he actually has a redout of five cities far off in the west, where he had captured two barbarian cities early on) and quickly subjugate Pericles, Charlie (with a hopelessly crushed Montezuma in tow), Brennus, and Caesar with forty units of Cavalry in the span of 120 years. Then the game ends.



For my next game, I will have to work out how to reach Rifling much sooner. I'm certain that I built too few military units in the early game. Even though Charlie and Julius didn't exactly threaten my cities, Praetorians notwithstanding, their stacks took 15 turns to deal with before I could strike back, and delayed my development considerably. Another mistake was not establishing a road link to Ravenna as soon as possible after capturing the city, as that left me vulnerable to a coastal blockade. Losing all my Cuirs at Rome was a bit unlucky, but there is no bad luck that could not be remedied by bringing more backup to the battle.

Once I had stacks of Cavalry, though, this game was all over. Pericles, the top-scoring AI at that time, lost three cities in three turns, and surrendered. I automated all workers and cities at that point.

I did not build a single Salon.

One neat trick I discovered this game: you can use Musketeers to move twice, then upgrade them to Riflemen on the same turn if they still have a movement point, effectively almost giving you two-move Riflemen for a turn, as long as they remain inside your borders, of course. I made use of this to threaten an enemy city whose first-ring tiles I had cultural control over.

This was a fun map, thanks!

 

[dutchfire]

Spoiler :

Settled on marble, nice site. Got some wonders and everything was going well. Julius decided to declare war on me and park a stack near my eastern gold city, but he has failed to take it for centuries now. Plan is probably to lib towards rifling, kill Julius since he's annoying me, then go for someone else. I would have hoped to flip Charlies city to my south ages ago, but it still hasn't happened although I have 60% culture.

 

[Hollow Bow]

Spoiler :

horse is very far away I wanted to oracle HBR and stomp everything .... maybe if I settle in the desert right under jules' nose .

hmmmmm

Spoiler :

1280bc horsearchers ... I wonder....

Hehehe, eat it, jules

Spoiler :

i'm gonna lose so many guys, but boy will it be fun

 

[Izuul]

Played on Immortal because i felt like playing one of those wonder whoring no cottage games.

Spoiler :

I don't have access to my earlier screenshots, but I'll try to post them later. Basically just built all of the early wonders except a few like SH, GW, and ToA which i used for fail gold. I got attacked by Charlie really early in the game, but not JC. His stack was all garbage and got destroyed trying to attack my hill capitol.

Got 300BC CS, won Music, and got 500 AD Lib MT without building a single cottage. Switched into PS + Slavery + Theo after Lib. Upgraded about 25 HAs to Cuirs and attacked Charlie first because he was plotting on me. I think i had 6 cities, one of which i culture flipped from Charlie. I did settle the copper island which i used to trade for horses with JC later.

I was a bit more aggressive with my Cuirs than I've been at times in the past. I did have a super medic, but i only bothered to heal extremely wounded units, the rest kept on rolling. I also fought JC and Pericles at the same time.

Couple of pics at the end:

Spoiler :

 

[Izuul]

Here are a few more details from my game including things like tech path and screenshots.

Spoiler :

I settled on the marble and teched AH first. I think the worker was out a couple turns before AH was ready so i just put a road on the forest tile 1N of the capitol which helped a bit later. I started a settler immediately at S1 after worker. This isn't something I've done often in the past, but there were several factors that went into my decision here. 3H capitol + 6 yield cow tile means that a S1 settler can still be built fairly quickly. The second best tile would only be a 4F floodplain farm that would also not be ready for quite some time since it requires 7 worker turns to improve. The map also seemed quite crowded, and i really wanted to grab the gold quickly to fuel early research. Gold city here is immediately connected due to coastal trade routes within cultural borders.

Also of note was my early tech path which was AH > Myst > Mining > Masonry > Poly > PH > Writing > CoL Oracle. Delaying BW is a fairly standard play for me with an IND leader + marble although sometimes it is better to skip Masonry in favor of BW to chop the wonder. Typically though research is the limiting factor and not how fast you can actually build the Oracle so delaying a fairly expensive tech like BW is good if you have enough hammers from other sources to get away with it and grabbing early Masonry can give a nice boost to fail gold generation. The presence of the stone was the deciding factor for me.

Spoiler :

I got my first revolt in Prague on T28! My settler is about to settle the gold site and I've started putting hammers into SH for fail gold while growing the capitol to S2.

I built my second settler as soon as Paris hit S2 using similar logic as above. There wasn't going to be a 3rd good tile for quite some time and i wanted to steal the pig tile from Greece which meant settling as soon as possible to get the culture working on it. I think i built a 2nd worker right after the 2nd settler, and then started growing to get ready to build the Oracle. That was completed in 1800BC and i took CoL since it's essential for CS later. I used my mish to spread Confu to JC.

I got pretty lucky with Alpha and JC (of all people) actually had it in 15xx BC. I had to feed him Oracle techs for a few turns until i could give him CoL for Alpha. I did get a small tech or two back like Hunting and maybe Sailing. I thought it was pretty safe to trade CoL to JC since his tech trade requirements are pretty high. I was still teching Aesthetics at the time and didn't want to wait that long.

I finished the Mids in 1280BC with the help of some chops. No Math as the Immortal AI were slow here and i had to eventually tech that myself.

I settled the copper + clams island 4th with Lyons (pig city) whipping both the galley and the first WB to get it running. The capitol whipped the settler at S6 with OF nearly completing a library.

Spoiler :

In 975BC Charlie declared war on me and sent a stack comprised of 2 axes, 1 spear, and 2 archers towards my capitol. I had 3 archers by the time he attacked 3T later and all 3 of them survived which prompted him to make peace. Shortly after that Prague flipped to me in 800BC which was really nice and just pay back.

Spoiler :

My tech path after the Oracle stuff was Aesth > Lit > Math > CS > Music > Paper. I probably would've done things a little differently, but the AI was useless for trades here. I might have pushed for CS earlier but Math just never came up for trade so i went for Lit first and then eventually had to come back and pick up Math myself. I think i was finally able to trade for Currency in like 175BC, and i was the first person to get Metal Casting in 75 AD. lol

I grabbed all of the useful marble wonders and a couple others as well. TGL in Paris, Parth in my gold city, and MoM was chopped in my pig city. I also got a super late GLH in Paris. 5 of my 6 cities were coastal and nobody else was building it, so why not? I got the HG too.

First great person as a prophet which i settled, but the 2nd was a scientist which i used to bulb Philo. The 3rd was another settled prophet. I think my first civic switch was Slavery + Rep when i finished the Mids about 1240 BC (yep no Slavery until like T70) and my second was Bureau + OR. I never ended up using OR because i delayed switching into my religion so that was probably a waste of money, but oh well.

Eventually i triggered my first golden age with the Music GA and i used that to switch into Philo + Confu to generate 2 merchants and 2 scientists for Lib and Cuir upgrades plus build the Taj in Paris to extend my golden age (it spanned 37T in all). The game was basically over at that point. Here are some pics from the build up:

Spoiler :

My original galley died to a barb galley protecting my clams so you see me replacing it here I did capture the barb city up there as reprisal though.

 

[Bjarkov]

T33 - T101:

Spoiler :

Wonders built

The Great Wall (T61, Orléans) - by accident I had planned to have it sit in the queue at 131/150 . Almost all of that production was overflow from a double-whipped granary at 27/60 and 12/28 , accelerated by Stone + Industrious. The damn thing luckily didn't give me a Great Spy, and I managed to build an academy in the capital on T77. Back in NC 165, I was building the library around that turn.

Spoiler :

If you've switched away from an almost-built wonder for fail-gold, there is no reason to keep it in the queue. Removing it from the queue also has the side-effect of letting you build the wonder in a different city and cash in fail-gold for both production sites.

If you manage your cities carefully, you can generate big overflows using Slavery and put the overflow into the same wonder for all your cities (1 city per turn, per available wonder). It lets you convert people to gold at a much higher rate than whipping warriors, the downside being that the gold payout is delayed until someone actually builds the wonder.

 

[FlyingSwan]

emp/normal huts

View attachment NC 167 Louis AD-0001.CivBeyondSwordSave

settled the marble then worker 1st while teching pottery>writ>alpha.Improved the 3 FPs and grassland with cottages which got me into tech trading on turn 46(i think).
Improved cows and whipped in a settler at size 5 after some carefull trades for BW,myst,poly etc.

Spoiler :

managed to get monty to dow on brennus about turn 58 just using basic techs and math.About the same time I built the academy.Built oracle in my 3rd city to get CS about turn 72.1st to CoL so I sent the missionary to justinian to spread some tension with the AI.Went for GLH,mids while whipping 2 more settlers in to settle the island.I went the music route and got the great artist.

Built the Hanging gardens in the cap,then realising I only had 5 citys switched to another settler-whipped him in and sent him to the west to secure the silk.Had to culture bomb the city though to pick up charlys corn,il probably have to build some monastarys or something in that city to keep up the pressure.

After that it was collosus then great library,National epic next,5 turns from education so fingers crossed its looking good.Its 50/50 what great person I get nxt turn-engineer or merchant.

 

[Pangaea]

If I recall the map correctly, the capital doesn't have food from marble spot, so it was needed to farm all those floodplains.

 

[FlyingSwan]

@pangaea.you have the grassland cows to the north-which you can share from time to time with 2 other citys for the hammers.I didnt farm anything for the capitol and got to size 13 comfortably.You can sacrifice quick growth for a good tech rate-I was on 158 beakers at 1AD-just depends on how you wanna play it...

View attachment NC 167 Louis AD-0800 lib steel.CivBeyondSwordSave

Libbed steel whilst building trebs for quicker cannons,Taj on its way to coincide with rifling and civic swaps-police state/nationalism/theocracy.Happiness becoming an issue so gonna self tech drama for the cheap theatres.

1630AD domination View attachment NC 167 Louis AD-1625 VICTORY.CivBeyondSwordSave

Bit of a slog with rifles/cannons till the cavalry arrived.Map is definatley a good one to go culture victory,thanks to Dalamb for posting it

 

[reddishrecue]

Thanks to everyone for sharing your noble wins.

 

[rfcfanatic]

Settling on Marble may seem quite lucrative...but first let's see what the Warrior would reveal. Settling a starvation city on Marble could do no good while the starting location has lots of food around.

Noble/Normal/NHNE

 

[Izuul]

You can see from the opening screenshot that a city settled on the marble would have at least a grass cow and 2 FPs. That easily enough to warrant going for the 3H city tile.

 

[reddishrecue]

Settling marble gives all of that plus a extra hammer in the capital at the start.

 

[rfcfanatic]

@Izuul, @reddishrecue
I settled on Marble. No regretz so far.