Nobles' Club CXLI: Augustus of Rome

[Noble Zarkon]

Crikey!! I just have to rub my eyes when I see people being able to finish a whole game in 3 hours. I've clocked up 6 already, and am not yet in the ADs!

I genuinely don't get how you do it. Just send workers quickly to a nearby square and improve it? Are you automating them early on? What about builds? Wars?

Am I alone in this, or do others take a long time to finish games too?

It depends, I played this game on Noble for relaxation (usually play Emperor) and it was fairly straightforward, build some infrastructure, hook up iron then build Praets! Would never automate workers no matter what level I play. Wasn't any micro-management going on in my game either.

 

[cseanny]

Um.........LOL. This is a fun game but I have to be honest. I haven't played Rome in so long that I truly forgot how fu*%*#@ OP Praets are. I might have to change my vote for best leader Take the screen shots below (attachment so don't look if you don't want some spoils)......17 Praetorians versus 8 units from an Aggressive AI with 50% city culture as defense. So yea, even Deity AIs have little to no chance versus CR3/CR2 Roman Praetorians. Not really fair!

EDIT: I forgot!, the city is also on a hill!

 

[cseanny]

@ Thar

Spoiler :

The second attempt was much more focused.
I figured Oracle->MC will cost me a bunch of for techs I don't need, 100 for Oracle itself, and another 60 per city for the forges.
In contrast, Pyramids need Masonry (also useful for the high-yield stone), cost 200 and give a straight 25% bonus to all things military with Police State. Additionally, they'll let me run Rep later to drag my economy out of the gutter. So I went with Pyramids.

I played 2 games too. 1st on Immortal where I opened with an early Oracle and chopped some forges ended up getting me 13 cities before 1AD. However, in thinking back I should have grabbed the Mids too.

On my Deity game I grabbed both Oracle and Mids and only got a forge in my Capital. So yea, the other cities saved time skipping forges while the Capital could work more food and grow while still making 2T Praets. So I think you made the correct call in going for the Mids. I will say that the Oracle is a strong choice either way. Getting early MC lets you trade for Alpha amd greater backfill potential. Additionally, in my Deity game I used my early tech lead in "trade embargos" against every single AI in the game. Everyone was at war very early, and almost continuously. This made the AIs tech very slow and keep any of them from getting too strong. So Oracle still good!

 

[Pangaea]

Take the screen shots below (attachment so don't look if you don't want some spoils).......17 Praets attacking 8 Aggresive AI units in 50% culture and I lose ONE unit.

Not seen the screenshots because I've not yet reached 1AD, but it sounds like that combat round was very, very lucky (or are they all CR2 or - gasp - CR3 Praets?). I took down a barb city on a hill guarded by four archers -- and lost 3 units. Okay, that was unfortunate as all had winning odds, starting with 60-ish percent. But normally you would expect to lose a guy here and there despite winning odds, as you can't keep winning every single 80% battle.

They ARE very powerful though, and if gotten early enough can steamroll a map. The issue is the economy as you gain land. That is one of your strong points, so no issue there, but for many others it can become an issue of "Am I able to sustain getting more land?"

 

[cseanny]

@ Pangaea - Those units were all CR3/CR2. And yes sir, Praetorians are very powerful. From 900-350 BC I made 32 Praetorians and lost 14 (by 200 AD). 1 Dead AI and 1 vassal shortly after 1AD with nothing but Praetorian spam. Edit: I've killed 46 enemy units with only 14 losses, and that's w/out using siege, on Deity. So yea, to our delight OP indeed.

Economy wise, I used Oracle, Mids, conquest gold while going to Currency in 475BC. A few turns later I had TGLH and Colossus and my -18 gpt, in conjunction with building wealth and those 2 wonders instantly went to like +30 and higher as turns went on. @ 500 AD, in a GA my 14 cities are bringing in over 700.

 

[Pangaea]

Christ. Think it's best I don't try to compare with your games, or I want to jump out a window

Praetorian numbers are fairly similar here, though with fewer early losses. Got my first in turn 70 and produced pretty accurately 1 per turn for the next 20-25 turns. One AI virtually dead (took peace for techs, and currently waiting for his newly settled decent city to hit size two before re-declaring). Think I lost 6 Praets, and half of that was against that haunted Barb city. So yes, they are very powerful indeed!

(Edit: Opened the game and checked, and I didn't remember correctly. Have produced 21 Praets and 9 have died, by 350BC. Haven't built any for quite some time now though, as I was building research to limp to Currency post-war.)

To pick up the thread from a recent question: How do you wage your wars? Do you attack with weaker protected units first to weaken the best defenders, or do you go in with the top guys first, the so-called "can openers"?

 

[cseanny]

(Edit: Opened the game and checked, and I didn't remember correctly. Have produced 21 Praets and 9 have died, by 350BC

I settled 5 cities with 2 early wonders so I had a bigger base. I started 2T Praets from my Capital i the 900BC range (stopped in 500s).

Well, my 4 city unit pumps all had barracks so they all started the same heh. In general I start off with the unit that has the best odds to win. Exceptions are when odds come in under 50%. At that point I'm more willing to use a CR1 unit with 28 to 36% than I am to use a CR2 unit with 36 to 49%.

Other times I use a lower promoted unit is when I have a unit/s that only need 1 attack to reach the next level, especially CR3. So if my highest promoted units only have a 50% -60% win chance but only need 1 attack to get promoted I'll gladly send in a less promoted unit that will probably die and then repeat the process. Then the 2 or 3 badly injured defenders get mopped up and I get some key promotions. So basically, if you repeat this several times, then sure, you end up losing 3, 4, maybe even 5+ units but in return you get 4-5 units that will win virtually every time they attack. Well worth it.

 

[Pangaea]

Cheers. That is more or less how I conduct warfare too. Don't always remember to check, but I try to make sure they get that extra promotion if possible, like using a 9/10 unit to take a city. There are also times I'm using a CR1 to damage the top defender though, with perhaps 30% chance, instead of using a CR2 with perhaps 60-ish per cent chance. Maybe that is wrong as the CR2 guy may just win, but I've gotten screwed by the RNG so many times it starts to affect how I take chances, especially in early warfare when every unit counts, and losing one of your only top attackers hurts a lot.

My game was a bullett-trail towards IW for Praets. Founded one extra city, got straight to IW, built the Mids, changed to Police State, and got to work double-whipping (max 7 invested) and chopping down forests to get out a force ASAP. Then warfare, which was declared in 950BC. Pants down and all that It went well, it really did, but getting to Currency and saving the economy afterwards was a bit of a challenge. Considering Praets are so powerful anyway, it would probably have been better to do like you did, and expand the empire and improve the economic base first, and wage war a little later. The post-war recovery would be much more gentle, and you'd be able to re-supply the front lines a bit easier with 4-5 cities already up to speed.

 

[tijup]

Prince, Marathon, No huts, no random event, no tech brokering.
1180 AD, domination.

I mis-clicked on a chat with an AI, and took truce instead of capitulation. Safe that, I would have finished 4-5 turns earlier, by conquest instead, since it was my goal. pretty frustrating.

Awesome civ, excellent map. I had a blast with this UU.

Spoiler :

Beelined for IW, then DoW on Suleiman. A few turn later, I Dowed on Shaka, and left him with one city while I was razing most of the others.
I regrouped and waited for Currency to finish before DoWing Cathy.
I kept most of her cities, building wealth (in fact, in my whole empire, in the end, 22 cities were building Wealth to finance the wars, and 2 productions cities where pumping Praet and catapults.)

Later, I DoWed on Boudica, leaving her with 2 cities (I took her 2 techs for peace), then wiping Izzy (her TGW was becoming handy )
Nappy was an other story, since he started pumping longbows, I had to rely more on catapults to soften them. I wiped him completely too.
Finaly, I re-DoWed Shaka and Boudica, razing their cities to keep myself below the domination limit, but failed, and won a domination.

I had to self tech most of my research, since the AIs were so damn slow, Only shaka, who hated me, has researched alphabet, and he did'nt spread it.

A very nice game, I can't remember a game where I spent so much time warring

 

[Pangaea]

Update from my game at 1AD, a nice time to stop. Immortal.

Spoiler :

Had been waiting for a city Suleiman built to reach size two, but just when I had decided it was crap afterall I noticed Shaka had a stack on Suleiman's borders, so it was time to declare. Took one city and razed the other without losses.

Besides that I have been building Wealth pretty much everywhere up to now, to do some research. First to crawl to Currency, which was quite the task. Was building Research everywhere, and took two barb cities to fund research. The last city was taken on the same turn that gold would have run out, so the timing was immaculate!

Just got Literature this turn, after finishing Aesthetics after Currency (was researching it before I got Math and Alpha in war bribe with Suleiman, hence the postponed kill). Unfortunately MoM was built in Spain in 25BC, but I got a little failgold for it, and then gave Calendar to Shaka for 110 as he was the only one lacking it. Didn't really like to give up monopoly techs, especially to Catherine who is tech leader and very powerful, but I got Mono+190 for Aesthetics, and Calendar+165 for Theology, which was bulbed with a GProphet.

At max research I have 125 at 1AD. Not great, but not terrible either.

Some pictures.

Spoiler :

An overview. Have just now, very late, started on granaries in many cities.
Not decided where to put HE as both Rome and Antium are pretty decent for it. Rome is a little far away, but has more hammers, but shorter rivers. Capital was moved to Istanbul quite some time ago, and an Academy was built there in 350BC or thereabouts. I don't often get up an Academy before the Library in the capital!


It was expensive, but I bribed Shaka in on Napoleon after I wiped out Suleiman. Before that everybody else were at war. Boudica was getting banged up on by Cathy, Napoleon and Isabella. I therefore figured Shaka on Napoleon was the best, even if it cost me three techs and 155


Techwise it's pretty good actually, but going forward it'll be slow teching. Hopefully I can get to Music, and then I hope somebody will get CoL, worsening diplo relations between the others, and I can trade it for Theology or something like that. Would like Construction too, but the AIs are very stingy with it, as usual.


Finally, a look at capital Istanbul. Suleiman was nice enough to shrine it for me, so the idea is to build Oxford and Wall Street here, if the game goes on that long.

 

[marasaidw]

I just lost 5 praetorians in a row, lowest odds was 65% the rest were mid 70s

 

[marasaidw]

Monarch 100BC

Spoiler :

Well thanks I've managed to lose 6 praetorians with nothing to show for it. Shaka finally counter attacked and pointlessly threw his troops against me. So it's a stalemate and he's teching faster it looks like. I think the rng has lost me this game.

 

[rfcfanatic]

Crikey!! I just have to rub my eyes when I see people being able to finish a whole game in 3 hours. I've clocked up 6 already, and am not yet in the ADs!

I genuinely don't get how you do it. Just send workers quickly to a nearby square and improve it? Are you automating them early on? What about builds? Wars?

I know I'm a slow player because I like to think about most decisions and especially micro, but it's a bit ridiculous that I can easily spend 25-30 hours on a game, while others could play 10 games in the same time-frame.

Am I alone in this, or do others take a long time to finish games too?

Yep, the lack of micromanagement explains this. It simply does not work for me. It takes the momentum out of the game which causes me to become distracted away from a bigger picture. Getting too much involved in micro usually makes me too careful about taking decisive military action. Overthinking can even be worse than reckless action.

While I do some level of micromanagement in earlier part of the game and check city screens from time to time, the importance of micromanagement diminishes with the course of the game and by Renaissance era there would be no micromanagement at all. And Industrial era micromanagement...what's this?

I don't automate tile improvements, but I do send most of the workers into trade route automation mode soon after discovering Civil Service simply because they don't have much else to do. Generally, I do try to prioritize resource tiles first and stay away from building too many roads, but that does not always go as planned

 

[pigswill]

I'm certainly a slow player. Its taken me nearly two hours to play up to 1200bc!

Emperor marathon, no huts 1200bc

Spoiler :

Settled on the stone, started by knocking out a couple of workboats while researching masonry, got Gwall 3040, SH 2340 after second city. Third city 1600bc.

Techwise went masonry, BW, ag, myst, wheel, pots, IW (1660), AH, writing, just started on alphabet.

Declared on mehmed about 1450 once I'd got a few prats together. Razed badly placed city, captured capital, ceasefire to heal up, razed a naff iron city, captured Edirne.

I've got a GSpy wandering around who's proving useful as an invisible scout. 5 cities, 7 prats, couple of wonders. A reasonable start.

 

[Pangaea]

That's quick!

 

[marasaidw]

1AD update Monarch nhne

Spoiler :

War against Zulu's continues. I think I can gain ground but it will be long and costly. I just popped a great engineer, trying to decide to bulb metal casing or save for MoM.

Take a look if you'd like.

 

[Pangaea]

No pictures (not at home now), but wanted to make an update anyway as I played many hours yesterday...

800-ish AD.

Spoiler :

Most of the AIs were already at war on their own accord, but I also bribed Shaka in on Napoleon, creating a world war (me aside). Cathy was unfortunately banging up Boudica pretty well, taking several cities from her, and eventually she capped, making Cathy pretty damn strong. Based on war weariness it looked like Shaka was beating up on Napoleon pretty well too, but I didn't see any cities change hands. Despite Shaka being at war with Napoleon, he was an a**e with espionage, and busted a granary and polluted the water supply in Istanbul. I was already massing troops at this stage without having decided on a target, so he really screwed himself there...

Around 600AD I declared on him with a stack of some 20 Praets, a couple of elephants and a handful of catapults, with a train of more units flowing from Rome (GLib-NE combo, but good amount of hammers so 2-turning catas or elephants with Police State fuelled forges). HE was up in Antium and bombing out catas too, with most other cities producing Praets.

Figured most of his units were on the other side of the world, but he still had a ton of guys close by. His first city fell quickly, and then there were several counters that mostly went well, but he has catas, HAs and elephants, so we're sort of even there, which meant losses on both sides. However, we beat him back on numbers and tactics and march on towards Ulundi, which falls in 800-ish AD, despite the ridiculous RNG fudging me HARD, which prompted this thread...

Had acquired Feud in trade (think it was with Isabella) at this point, so hoped he would capitulate when his capital fell, but no go. Had to stop at this point yesterday, but we will march on towards a big floodplains city once I get home, and hopefully that will do it.

I really need to turn my attention towards Cathy before she gets out of control. A 13-city powerful AI with a vassal can become dangerous, even on Immortal. She's teching hard so I may not be able to do much when she gets Knights and such (Maces eat Praets for breakfast), but if I can cap Shaka without hurting him too much, that would be an obvious advantage. The West is already beaten up pretty well by Shaka and Cathy, so if I can cap Shaka and get Cathy under control, the game should be close to in the bag.

Economy is crap, but I'm in the odd position of having acquired Paper and Education before CoL(!), CS and Philo... I'm hoping that will slow down the others going for Lib, albeit Cathy already has Phil, CS and Paper... I'm not trading away Education, but if Cathy gets it herself, Lib is almost certainly lost. I double-bulbed Education btw. Prefer to single-bulb it, but research was crap, so it was either doubling up or spending half an eternity getting there. Thankfully CS (Buro!!) and Machinery is finally online now, so I have access to better civics and units. Terribly expensive to upgrade Praets to Maces though. Not exactly worth it.

 

[Pangaea]

@marasaidw

Spoiler :

Do others have MC yet? I presume not, in which case it's a good bulb. You are industrious so get cheap forges, and they will help in the war effort by getting out units faster, and better whips. Calendar is probably a bit away now, and if you're in a tough war with Shaka, it's better to go for the advantages (trade, faster units, better cities) NOW, than longer GAs in the distant future. You may still get the MoM by slow-building it, or capturing the AI which built it.

 

[ComradeNapoleon]

Let's get my noob on! (Noble difficulty)

Spoiler :

Settle on stone, WB -> WB -> Warrior x3 -> Worker -> Settler. Tech order BW -> IW.
Turn 5: I see the start of borders the next tile over. Turks/Portuguese, either way, Praet bait. If it's Joao might have to out-settler him.
Turn 20: Ooh, it's Suleiman, who founded Hinduism! Gib shrine pl0x :3
Turn 21: Second AI met, Boudica with Buddhism. I see cash in my future (hopefully).
Turn 29: Iron Working! And iron right near me. Gib.
Turn 41: Antium founded! Time to get those Praetorians rolling.
Turn 45: Stonehenge built; iron imminent.
Turn 53: 3rd City. Accidentally settled near horses \o/
Turn 80: Stack prepared, and war declared. Seems Suleiman got Judaism too, not that I'm complaining.
Turn 83: Took Istanbul. Turkey die soon after.

 

[marasaidw]

@Pangea Thank you for solving my problem. People will know how it goes later