Nobles' Club CXXI: Brennus of the Celts

[pigswill]

1390. Monarch normal. Conquest.

Spoiler :

SIP. Got horses early. Ignored copper. Stomped the Yanks with chariots and HAs, stomped the Mayans with HAs and elepults, capped the rest with elepults. Didn't bother with GPs or wonders (well I built Notre Dame late game). First time in ages I've caught 'one more turn' fever.

 

[Gebstadter]

Dateline: 200AD.

Spoiler :

I've expanded up to 6 cities, using the enormous food surplus at Bibracte to fuel settler production. Might still be somewhat behind on workers. Settled directly on the Marble SW of Bibracte and used that Marble to build Oracle, obtaining Metal Casting. I've teched up to Literatue and I'm now working on GL in my cottage city, assisted by the same Marble.

Roosevelt is more or less boxed in but still has a pretty respectable GNP, probably thanks to his cottaging. Current plan is to war with him in the near future, though my initial plan of "Roosevelt has Axemen, so spam Chariots" is probably a terrible plan since he has access to Iron and has started building swords. Right now I'm focusing on winning the Lib race, so I might grab Gunpowder from Lib and use that to attack him. Roosevelt stole the rice from Vienne so I am looking forward to exacting my revenge on him.

Thinking it's probably a good idea to move my capital to Tolosa (cottagetown) soon, then make Bibracte a GP farm, possibly building National Park there to leverage all that forest.

Demographics screen says I've managed to climb to #1 in GNP and Production. It's not visible in the screenshot, but I'm also #1 in score.

Suryavaraman has been WHEOOHRN for a while, but he's Pleased towards me and hates Sitting Bull, so I'm pretty sure that's not a problem.

At press time, a Barbarian galley was pulling up next to Gergovia, probably about to ruin my day.

 

[zampa86]

How long does one of these usually last for? When do you guys start the next? (I really haven't played any other map types than the ones involving one big landmass where all opponents are. So figured I'd try my luck in the next one. (The thought of having to build sea unit scares me. xD)

 

[Tall German Joe]

this one IS a "big landmass where all the opponents are" - a pangaea map. no sea units, other than workboats, required. however, i believe the next nobles club will be posted on the 17th of may.

 

[tijup]

That was quite a challenging map for me.
I had to restart it in the early BC, I was too slow to expand, and make numerous mistakes as I was not paying enough attention.

The 2nd try ended in 1582AD, by domination.
(noble, marathon speed, no huts)

Spoiler :

I expanded towards Roosevelt, aggressively setting around its border. I DoW a couple of times on him to steal workers, and finally rushed him with axemen.
I don't remember exactly the tech path, but at first, it was ag - mining - BW - Wheel - pottery- writing. After that, masonery then headed to priesthood.
I got the oracle (took MC), built the mids, lost MoM. At one point, I got the GL.

Religion wise, Roosevelt founded buddhism, Pacal hinduism and Judaism. Religions changed quite a bit between those three ones for milleniums, and I switched back and
forth to please one or the other AIs. (to keep them at pleased or friendly)

Eventually, Pacal was DoWed by all AIs, and I DoW as soon as I got asked (290BC). I got it down to 2 cities. I took the Hunduism Holy city and its shrine, and didn't pursue
further. My economy was pretty stretched by that time. By 610AD, I was rebuilding and leveraging my territory.
War broke off from time to time between the AI, and Pacal peacevassalized to Hammurabi.
I did a couple of phony wars with SB, but since it has to pass through Babylonian's and Kmerh's to get to me, I never saw one of its units.

In the meantime, I tached to Liberalism (bulbbing my way up), effectively pausing it at one turn, while catching up on old techs, and heading to rifling. I used Lib to tech
rifling.
Once there, the game was over, I simply mass produced riflemen, updated 2 dozens of macemen (CR1 and CR2). At that time, SB was dogpilled by every AIs, and I took the
opportunity to backstab Hammurabi and Pacal.
Hammurabi vassalized to Survy, and the world went nuts. I got DoWed by Toku, Survy, and SB at the same time. Too bad for them
I finished Survy and Hammurabi, made Survy capitulate when he reduced to 2 cities, SB capitulated when I took only one of its cities (I was suprised). As I was regrouping
to attack Toku, I reached to domination point.

I was a challenging game for me, since I got to play more on the diplomatic side of the game, instead of bullying my way around.

A good game, thanks for the map.

 

[dalamb]

@zampa86: Tall German Joe is correct: the next map, with Frederick, comes out this Friday (hosted by Robert FIN). There's always a tentative schedule in a spoiler in the first message. Games are usually every two weeks, with occasional delays.

 

[awldune]

1515 Monarch Normal Conquest

Spoiler :

I teched Ag, Mining, BW, Fishing. Built one worker and then a lot of warriors to fogbust until I had fishing and could chop out some work boats.

I built Great Lighthouse and Pyramids, it's been a while since I played a map with early stone and a hammer capital.

Ele-pulted Roosevelt, not sure if that was ultimately helpful. Had some economy issues even with TGL and Mids.

Still, won Lib and took MT. Cuirs took out Hammy and Pacal peace-vassaled to me which was nice. Next Sury who was the strongest AI. SB was easier than normal to take out. A lot of non-hill cities. Finally Toku.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

IMM/Normal

Tried medieval warfare...

Spoiler :

Well, mostly I was messing around all game. I didn't chop any trees at all, so my capitol grew MASSIVE and was pop 20 by ~ mid AD's. I was obviously backwards in tech, not even close to lib and kind of trade-chipped with the civs that were more behind just to get to engineering.

But, I was quickly able to 1/turn trebs, maces, and whatever else I wanted in the capitol. Sury took toku as a peacevassal and DoW'd sitting bull, capturing gobs of cities. I went for Hammurabi largely because he was a pariah. While he was researching chemistry, he had essentially the same units as me, but less of them. I trounced him easily, he capped, I gave all cities back.

I was desperate. I was about to simply gift hammy units and hope he could upgrade them for me, but then I noticed that ~1300 AD Roosevelt and Pacal still could research replaceable parts. I quickly amassed forces near roosevelt, DoW'd, and he entered my borders with a ton of maces and a few chariots (??? knights? He had them, this was odd). I obviously just shredded that with shock crossbows then went in with treb/pike/cr III maces. I took 2 cities and thanks to great war success (lost very little vs non-hill with CR II or III treb + CR III maces) he capitulated.

Pacal still didn't advance in tech. Quick look in victory screen told me he was going culture. During the roosevelt war, I bribed sury out of war with sitting bull so he didn't get another vassal. I would come to regret that. Pacal had grenadiers, but I had combat III knights and CR III trebs each 1/turn out of gate from capitol (and enough trebs to blast away a castle in 1 turn) so grenadiers were comically not that scary. Unfortunately, Sury took him as a vassal shortly into the war. Fortunately for me, that meant hammurabi would be sponging the stack .

Pacal got close to rifles after I took his capitol (hard-coded to end culture attempts) and he actually did get cuirassers (and sury gifted him horse to build them), but it was far too late. I killed pacal easily and sury was not quite to rifles when I retook babylon and gave it back to hammurabi. Why? Sury was also going culture, not that I cared. I could easily have beaten him by simply deficit researching to steel regardless.

But since he was kind enough to get out of the war after I killed Pacal and took back babylon, I did that. I only bothered teching to rifle/cannon, and even though it took until early 1800's AD I capped him after taking probably 10 cities off sury (3 way stack splits). I was fighting toku when UN victory came up and I just took that. Toku was researching fission but didn't have rocketry yet. He had machine guns, but those are only so-so vs CR III cannons. He got lucky.

So apparently I got away with capping 3 civs with only medieval units. Awkward, but not unheard of.

 

[martin.vojtisek]

Monarch, Epic, Better-Bug-AI mod.

Domination in 1752

Spoiler :

SIP, Bibracte built worker, warrior, WB, worker, warrior, settler, settler, settler, worker, WB, settler with a whipped galley in between to protect seafood, warrior, library

new cities built worker, monument, then what was needed - workboar, warrior, granary, library

Research went: Agriculture, Wheel, Fishing, Mining, BW, Potery, Sailing, Writing, Aesthetics, IW with some switching to alphabet, as the AI didnt research alphabet and i was impatient. but i traded for alpha with pacal for aesthetics at the end anyway. so it was just wasting turns

then currency, CoL and some trading to fill the priesthood, masonry, monarchy etc.
the research polytheism, literature and built the great library, construction, civil service

I had small troubles with barbs, and had to defend with warriors against an axeman, but after that it was fine.

I didnt build any wonders, only later GL and Taj Mahal and national epic in bibracte and Heroic Epic and West point (while I was waiting for rifling) in Gergovia
barb troubles:

Spoiler :

some stupid moves followed, like having gergovia undeveloped for so long and having it building settler at size 1... Bibracte should be growing to higher size and not building a settler...
50BC:

Spoiler :

Researched HBR and built stables everywhere, as I was planning long time either cuirasier or cavalry war. Then researched music, liberalism for military tradition (1230 AD) and research to rifling. traded for some tech like feudalism, but tried not to give away music or military tradition. GA from music used for golden age, two scientist born used for double bulbing education.

I switched to Judaism sometimes later (around 850 AD), to keep Roosevelt, Hamurabi and Sury pleased or later even Friendly. Pacal declared and attacked with one catapult.
I took one city with elephants and signed peace for money. Then he declared again when I had some cuirasiers ready, and reserched to rifling. When I started building cavalry, it was virtually war until the domination. First Pacal, then Roosvelt as he was teching quite well, probably because he had the Great Lighthouse. Then Hamurabi, then Sury.

Good thing was, Sitting Bull was in war with Tokugawa for a long time, Toku vassalised to Sury, and SB and Sury were fighting all the time then. When I attacked Sury, I managed to shred two of his huge stacks in SB territory, so it was quite easy then.

I felt kind of bad declaring on Roosevelt and Hamurabi when they were Friendly of Pleased towards me.

Spoiler :

For some reason, only Roosevelt was getting close to Rifling, but that was just before I killed him. All the others didnt research it, even though they had Replacable Parts researchable for so long. That was quite lucky for me, still I dont understand it. i was also lucky that nobody peace vassaled to anybody when i was conquering them. I normally play with vassal states off, so I am not very familiar with it.

Thank you for the game, next time I should try something different then Cavalry though.

 

[martin.vojtisek]

1515 Monarch Normal Conquest

Spoiler :

I teched Ag, Mining, BW, Fishing. Built one worker and then a lot of warriors to fogbust until I had fishing and could chop out some work boats.

I built Great Lighthouse and Pyramids, it's been a while since I played a map with early stone and a hammer capital.

Ele-pulted Roosevelt, not sure if that was ultimately helpful. Had some economy issues even with TGL and Mids.

Still, won Lib and took MT. Cuirs took out Hammy and Pacal peace-vassaled to me which was nice. Next Sury who was the strongest AI. SB was easier than normal to take out. A lot of non-hill cities. Finally Toku.

I wonder what are the factors for vassalising people. I could not get anyone to capitulate reasonably early in the war.

 

[martin.vojtisek]

1390. Monarch normal. Conquest.

Spoiler :

SIP. Got horses early. Ignored copper. Stomped the Yanks with chariots and HAs, stomped the Mayans with HAs and elepults, capped the rest with elepults. Didn't bother with GPs or wonders (well I built Notre Dame late game). First time in ages I've caught 'one more turn' fever.

Nice, I was thinking about construction early and some elephants wit catapults. I was worried about falling behind in tech though as lot of people were in judaism, friendly with each ohter. And I just prefer cavalry so much. Maybe next time I will try.

 

[awldune]

I wonder what are the factors for vassalising people. I could not get anyone to capitulate reasonably early in the war.

I had a tech lead and like 35 cuirassers, both of which help. For Sitting Bull I was able to attack into several large cities that weren't on a hill so I had very good "war success" and almost no losses. SB did not have muskets.

 

[awldune]

Monarch, Epic, Better-Bug-AI mod.

Domination in 1752

Spoiler :

Research went: Agriculture, Wheel, Fishing, Mining, BW, Potery, Sailing, Writing, Aesthetics, IW with some switching to alphabet, as the AI didnt research alphabet and i was impatient. but i traded for alpha with pacal for aesthetics at the end anyway. so it was just wasting turns

I watch a ton of LPs and I often see AZ trade Aesthetics for Alpha, but I find on Monarch and Emperor it is better to go ahead and start self-teching Alpha if nobody has it yet once you have Aesthetics. Then you can sometimes trade Alpha for IW and possibly even math while keeping your monopoly on Aesthetics until something bigger becomes available.

 

[martin.vojtisek]

I watch a ton of LPs and I often see AZ trade Aesthetics for Alpha, but I find on Monarch and Emperor it is better to go ahead and start self-teching Alpha if nobody has it yet once you have Aesthetics. Then you can sometimes trade Alpha for IW and possibly even math while keeping your monopoly on Aesthetics until something bigger becomes available.

OK thanks, will do next time.