Nobles' Club CXXIII: Willem van Oranje of the Netherlands

[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 Willem van Oranje of The Netherlands, whom we last played in NC LVI. The Dutch start with Agriculture and Fishing.

• Traits: Willem is Creative and Financial. CRE means his cities can expand without needing to construct a cultural building first, which helps with early expansion. FINancial means he can afford a large empire and sustain a high tech rate.
• His UB: The Dike is a Levee that gives +1 on water tiles as well as rivers. It can be very powerful on a watery map, but comes rather late in the game.
  
  
• His UU: the East Indiaman, a significantly improved Galleon: 6 instead of 4, 4 cargo spaces instead of 3, and able to explore enemy territory -- meaning you can declare war while your invasion fleet is adjacent to its landing tile, instead of having to start outside the opponent's cultural boundaries.
  

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Terra, normal parameters.

Spoiler edits :

Took the first(!) map generated. Replaced the lake 1SW with a 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 123 Willem 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.

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

 

[blunderwonder]

Gonna give this a try

 

[Chase_2_Rabbits]

Oh yeah. That's a nice start. Gonna sober up so I don't botch it and try this on Immortal tomorrow

 

[Tall German Joe]

now that - that is a start.

 

[JSS]

dang.

Edit: Congrats, dalamb!

 

[dalamb]

I think the start was my birthday present from the Random Number Generator. I'll see how far I get into the game tomorrow (my actual 59th birthday).

 

[Giant Wolfman]

Happy early birthday dalamb!

Took this one for a spin on Monarch (No huts/no events), up to 700 BC

Spoiler :

SIP (No reason not too?) and went Mining, BW, Wheel, Pottery, AH while pumping out a worker, a couple work boats, and a settler. I founded my second city near the horses, and decided that given our commerce heavy start, Brennus's relative proximity, and the general blehness outside of our awesome capital, a horse archer rush was warranted. Managed to take Brennus's three cities. If that wasn't Sitting Bull and his annoying archers, I would keep pushing, but probably best to consolidate my gains for now.

The wonder and religion pace has been ridiculously slow. Zara and Cyrus (not exactly who I'd imagine) founded the first two religions. Stonehenge went in 975 BC and Great Wall in 950, so I gambled a bit and self researched CoL, founding Confucianism (before Judaism lol), and took Civil Service with the 750 BC Oracle. Seems really really slow, but I double checked and it is monarch so who knows......

 

[Smilingrogue]

Happy Birthday, Dalamb!

That's a really strong start. Three potential coastal cities including the cap, right there. Great Lighthouse ahoy!?

 

[Izuul]

Deity.. retired around 200 AD or so

Spoiler :

Despite the nice looking start, this is not even remotely easy on deity.

I went for GLH and got it early, but also got boxed in with 4 cities by Brennus. My tech rate was awesome early, but Brennus kind of ran away with 10-11 cities, the really strong Hindu shrine, and half of the world wonders. We have absolutely no hope of obtaining metal on our own here, but I was able to trade for some copper with Persia, and went after Brennus with cats, axes, and some HAs, adding maces a little later. Unfortunately, he was teching at an insane rate. He got Machinery in 4 turns followed by Engineering in 5 turns and traded for HBR in there somewhere for elephants too. I took two cities and was starting to make some of my own trebs, but he used the AP to stop the war. I don't think i could really defy the resolution b/c my cities were already getting war weariness from the stupid SoZ, and 5 more unhappiness would've made them useless. It was really a losing cause after that, there was just no way to keep up.

Early HA rush would probably be the strongest play here on Deity, but I'm not sure how you are supposed to diagnose that early enough to go for it.

I'll probably go back and boss this one on Immortal for some revenge.

 

[ben-jammin]

Izuul:

Spoiler :

Would you have been so badly boxed in had you not build the GLH? That's nearly 2 settlers+1 worker worth of hammers after all, though the lighthouse is obviously something you want here eventually

In any case, with just what's visible in the opening screenshot you wouldn't even have to decide on an HA rush until quite late. That is a ridiculous amount of commerce.

 

[The Oz-Man]

Has anyone tried settling on the gold here? It's definitely unconventional and slows down the city's growth a bit (lose a turn moving, worker takes longer to reach the corn), but you have a second gold, a 2 3 city tile, and can still work all of the food.

 

[Izuul]

Izuul:

Spoiler :

Would you have been so badly boxed in had you not build the GLH? That's nearly 2 settlers+1 worker worth of hammers after all, though the lighthouse is obviously something you want here eventually

In any case, with just what's visible in the opening screenshot you wouldn't even have to decide on an HA rush until quite late. That is a ridiculous amount of commerce.

Spoiler :

Surely could've gotten 5 cities without the GLH, possibly even 6 though that may have required some good luck in regards to where Brennus and I each decided to settle. 6 cities here would require grabbing the SE fish site + the pigs site and he went after both of those pretty early on in my game, so it's unlikely i would've gotten both without settling them with city #2 and #3 and that doesn't make a lot of sense without prior map knowledge. I think it would've played out with me getting 5 cities skipping GLH, still having no metal without trading, and Brennus likely still running away in tech, wonders, etc.

Maybe in another game where Brennus doesn't become such a beast so early it would be easier to breakout.

 

[i_imperator]

Now that is a start! And happy birthday Dalamb!

Exams are over, I'm on holidays and free once again, I might give this a try on monarch. My civ is a bit rusty! And I need to catch up on the pervious games!

 

[blunderwonder]

1580 Cav/cannon conquest

Spoiler :

early HA rush via chops, from 3 cities. took 4 of brennus's 7 cities, and very quickly, he did have a metal city, but he hadnt hooked it up yet, i got him expanding. Anyway fastfoward. ridiculous slow tech rate in my game. I was ahead in techs the entire game, lib'd rifling because cavs vs longbows was going to be quicker than cannons. Sb peacevasseled, and i then moa/brennus vassaled right after, i took most of mao's cities, char after i took 2 of his cities, zara after i took 1... and cyrs i took 4 or 5 of his cities to snag the hindu shrine that everyone converted to. zara finally capp'd after 1 city taken, and then i get to the end of the game and notice that theres a whole other continent lol... proably full of barbs but idk. also, i guess zara colonized an island, so churchill was also in my game, though he didnt appear until the very end, and vassaled the same turn as zara. not sure what was going on with this game, i had really great land after i took brennus capital i guess, but whats more, it seemed like the ai was going haywire, even with a hindu lovefest for the most part, idk if it had something to do with the other island or what but it was definetly strange to be the only person with math for a dozen turns, and the same story with edu and nationalism.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Immortal/Normal

~350 AD

Spoiler :

Is this WB save really immortal with all bonuses? AI research rate is slow even though their tech is fast. Odd...maybe it's due to a perfect 2 2 2 religion split (I'm running nothing).

Anyway, I worker stole Brennus and because it's immortal in terms of power for sure, he wouldn't take peace. Very annoying. So, I picked up archery after the BW path, then pottery. Even at 350 AD I've only build granaries, barracks, and stables except in my capitol where I also have a lighthouse.

It was laughably easy to prevent Brennus expanding towards me after the DoW. A few archers fortified here and there and settlers get scared to get near it to settle. This allowed me to literally settle the river rice north of his capitol (he was never able to expand north). He tried to sneak a settling party out west for the iron but I stopped that easily enough too. Eventually, I built up an OK quantity of HA, hard-deficit researched (somewhat off of pillage gold using HAs!) construction, , and slaughtered dozens of archers with virtually no losses. I have 9 cities with 3-4 more left for backfill and some promoted troops.

Tech pace is a joke. I'm easily #2 and not far behind #1 despite having fought all game just about. Next techs to grab are literature (heroic epic unlocked and then some) and feudalism (chain cap with noobyphants). This game is pretty much over already.

I'm scouting other AI. I've completed scouting on sitting bull and confirmed his only 2 metals are on my border (any border would be fine though), meaning I can DoW + pillage both of those + his horse on the 1st and 2nd turns of the war respectively, and prevent him from hooking any of them up after that. I have the production to replace catas now.

 

[Smilingrogue]

Has anyone tried settling on the gold here? It's definitely unconventional and slows down the city's growth a bit (lose a turn moving, worker takes longer to reach the corn), but you have a second gold, a 2 3 city tile, and can still work all of the food.

I debated that, but I immediately discarded the idea. We start on a Plains hill, so our city tile is already pretty good. By moving, we gain two commerce in the city tile, but we are really losing a gold tile to work for the rest of the game. That second gold can be easily worked by a quick second city. Is 2 commerce for some 30 turns or so (I am guessing we will start working the gold mine much sooner than 30 turns) really worth it to not have 7 commerce for about a 100 turns or more, depending on how long the game goes? (I am obviously ignoring the 1 free commerce the city tile gets no matter where it's settled).

 

[Chase_2_Rabbits]

Immortal NHNE, to 1300AD. Might retire...

Spoiler :

I'm so bad at this game

I got boxed in by Brennus, and limited to 6 cities. I see TMIT choked him and bluewonder went for a HA rush to avoid this problem. Probably smart with hindsight. That said, I managed to Oracle CivServ & build TGLight. Took Brennus' religion and bribed him on Bully, who became the punchbag in my game. Even with 6 cities, I still managed to Lib Astro in 560.

Problem was a lack of planning and lack of experience of Terra maps. I should have pushed my exploration/TGL edge and spammed the New World with cities (is it just me or is there not much food over there?) and gone for space or maybe an Industrial Era war. Instead I kind of tried to both colonise the New World and build an army in the Old World. With only a 6 city empire. So I did neither well, and wasted my window of opportunity.

All is probably not lost, but I lack the determination to plug on after I make big strategic mistakes.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If you really want to go to the new world, communism for state property is probably the best tech after astro. At that point you can basically work shop + water mill spam, allowing cities to grow respectably with tons of production and not much infra requirement.

 

[Robert FIN]

After winning Frederick NC, I will try to continue my winning streak with this one. Important game indeed. If I win this at Prince level, I'll let myself to try Monarch at the first time with Rammy. Its the chance to be a hero now!! The prince AI will pray me for mercy, but I will stomp it in this game and be a mediorce civeer after that. About the start; I'll probably SiP. I want to start coastal since we are the Dutch. Can't move South, since I cannot work the gold tile then. Cannot move North because then we couldn't work the corn tile AND we'd lose a clam. Can't move to any other tile too since otherwise we aren't coastal .. Am I correct?