Nobles' Club CXXIII: Willem van Oranje of the Netherlands

[Hollow_Bow]

Tried it on immortal but this one was a bit too easy (and my comfort level used to be emperor, so normally immortal is HARD for me).

Spoiler :

Dreamstart with everything perfectly timeable + Brennus dude next door to workersteal=>horsearcherstomp or GLH => religion sharing + 2 x gold + crapload of forests + phants not far.....

Nicely relaxing if not very challenging

 

[CivNoobie]

looking at the games right now and i cant believe what some of you are pulling off on immortal that i can't even do on noble

 

[GoldenHawk]

Tried this one on monarch (one of my first games on monarch, haven't gotten a win yet). Seemed pretty easy so far, especially since the tech pace was slugging ahead like a turtle on sunday morning. Oracled philopsophy somewhere around 520 BC(?), simply because I already had CS and didn't have anything better to take. Also choked Brennus early on and got 2 or 3 workers out of him, and then left him alone when I felt he was no longer capable of anything serious (although probably should've continued longer).

Anyway, I feel I'm in a strong position now, possibly aiming for either rifles/cats(cannons?) or cavalry/cuirs, and if that doesn't work out I'm pretty sure I could pull of space.

Few points that I'd like some advice with are as follows...

- I'm at a complete loss at what to improve (as evidenced by the tremendous amounts of useless roads). There are a lot of plains and while I know that plains cottage is a bad improvement, I'd rather build it that let my cities work unimproved tiles. If anyone has any advice on this it would be most appreciated.

- Also city specialization. I'm really bad at this, and especially when it comes to early game. Later on it gets easier when other improvements become viable, but early on I just don't know.

Thanks for the map and any input would be greatly appreciated.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Anyway, I feel I'm in a strong position now, possibly aiming for either rifles/cats(cannons?) or cavalry/cuirs, and if that doesn't work out I'm pretty sure I could pull of space.

According to the demographics screen, you are last in soldiers, and last in land. Mao already has double the land to work that you do. You're position may be "strong" now, but it promises to get weaker before you cinch the win, if you don't pay attention.

The usual remedy in this situation is to boost your military, and then leverage the military to fix the problem with land.

I'm at a complete loss at what to improve (as evidenced by the tremendous amounts of useless roads). There are a lot of plains and while I know that plains cottage is a bad improvement, I'd rather build it that let my cities work unimproved tiles.

Your workers are running out of things to do because your neighbors are developing your land.

You might be better off with some farms, especially around your production centers. Sure, a plains farm is 2F/1P right now, which isn't too exciting, but it also spreads irrigation, which means you can add some green 3F farms (a little bit better) to take advantage of those mines.

Also city specialization. I'm really bad at this, and especially when it comes to early game. Later on it gets easier when other improvements become viable, but early on I just don't know.

Basic early game specialization: the capital concentrates on research, cities with food and hills concentrate on units, otherwise cities concentrate on commerce.

It's not the only way to do it, of course, but it's a start.

If the map happens to deliver a production monster, you consider wonder spamming there. If it happens to deliver a food monster, you consider turning that into a GP farm. But often these ideas wait until you capture an enemy capital.

 

[GoldenHawk]

Advice

Thanks for the advice. I evaluated my situation a bit more based on what you said and you're right, I might not be in such a good shape as I thought...

The military is definitely a problem, but I've justified it with keeping a close look WHEOOHRN and I didn't really feel threatened by any AI as the only ones I have border with (Brennus and SB) are still rather backwards. But I will have to fix this anyway...

The land is apparently the real problem, as is my scouting. I should probably scout out Brennus' land fast and prepare for war (I'm thinking cuirs with lib MT). I'll have to see how that goes, but HBR is a must soon so I can get stables set up for whipping.

Things that I'm confident with right now are my tech rate (~250 BPT at 100% slider) and my diplo(which isn't as bad as it usually is, though it's still pretty crap... Oh well, I'll try to fix that).

If the tech pace doesn't pick up I'm hoping I can take out atleast 2 AI with cuirs, but given my skills and the fact that I'm up against SB and Brennus that might be a little bit optimistic...

Anyway, got a lot of decisions to make now and I'll see how this turns out.

Edit: Ditch that, don't have iron, and don't have any means of acquiring it. Any ideas?

 

[dalamb]

I was unhappy with my two previous attempts at this. So I restarted at Epic speed instead of Normal, without the distraction of huts, but I kept events. I turned off barbarians to avoid what I consider another annoying distraction. I also set No Tech Brokering so I could trade around bait like Aesthetics more easily across more turns without the AI trading it among themselves.

Spoiler :

The previous attempts were a too-slow chariot rush against Brennus, and a similar too-slow horse archer rush that wasn't much better. This time I decided to actually rush, and set all four cities to building horse archers as soon as possible. I killed off Brennus in 20 BC, capturing the iron southeast of Cahokia (which Brennus got this time, unlike at least one of the previous games). I've stored my HA army there, so it's pretty darned secure.

I didn't record the full tech order but believe it was approximately Mining > BW > wheel > pottery > AH. I then made what was probably a minor mistake, going Myst > Medit > Priest for the Oracle -- when I knew I was going to deliberately risk losing the oracle by rushing horse archers. After that I got back on track with HBR (building stables and barracks in all 4 cities) > hunting > archery > writing > math > aesthetics. I managed to trade Aesthetics for Alphabet with Sitting Bull, then self-teched Currency. Thus even after conquering Brennus my economy isn't in too bad shape.

Approximate chronology:

Spoiler chronology :

• 4000 BC: settle in place
• 3125 BC: the "truffles" event gives me a nice 33 riverside grassland tile, which I cottaged as soon as I could.
• 2950 BC: the "health herbs" event gives me +2 everywhere
• 2275 BC: founded Utrecht SW of the riverside rice near Sitting Bull, in part to cut off Brennus from expanding that way.
• 2000 BC: found The Hague N of the stone
• 1600 BC: found Rotterdam 1SE of the horses; this was a better production site than the coastal location the game recommended with a blue circle.
• 365 BC: alphabet from Sitting Bull and Iron Working from Zara, each for Aesthetics
• 350 BC: attack Brennus with 12 horse archers. This let me steamroll Tolosa (north of the elephants) and Bibracte without having to slow down, but not quite enough to keep going to Georgovia (the iron site).
• 335 BC: got Tolosa
• 305 BC: got Bibracte
• 290 BC: Great Scientist born in Amsterdam; I built an Academy and stopped running scientists so I could get better production.
• 215 BC having healed up my units, I took Georgovia.
• 155 BC: with a couple of unwounded units from my original army and a couple more built later I auto-razed a city in a bad location SE of Georgovia. A great general was born, and I created a supermedic.
• 65 BC: monarchy form Cyrus; the trade probably involved Aesthetics and cash, but possibly another tech also.
• 50 BC: got Vienne (coastal city 1NE of Brennus' coastal sheep)
• 20 BC: razed Brennus' last city in a bad location SW of Vienne.

Somewhere in there gems showed up next to The Hague, so with that and ivory I'm in good shape happiness-wise.

I'm now consolidating (building courthouses everywhere, primarily). The Oracle is gone, but I'm trying to get the Great Lighthouse in Amsterdam, with 19 turns to go. It's not likely to happen but might be possible, since this seems to be a slow game for the AI. I should probably switch to Hereditary Rule, but am 13 turns from Civil Service and was somehow thinking I should do both at once -- but perhaps that's silly because it might take 2 turns of anarchy anyway (sometimes I think I get 2 civic changes for a single turn of anarchy, but I haven't nailed down what the circumstances are).

Current status:

Spoiler :

• Charlemagne and Cyrus are Hindu and everyone else (including me) is Buddhist. Cyrus is Pleased because of +4 for favourable trading, +1 for open borders, and only -2 for different religion. Charly is Annoyed. Were I of a mind to continue warring, he'd be the obvious choice.
  
• My original territory:
  
• The former Celtia:
  
• Charts. I'm in reasonable shape but China isn't far behind in power, so I think I need to keep building troops. I am directing to Cyrus to peek at his demographics, and after that will do the same with Sitting Bull.
  
• The tech situation. I'm ahead but can't be complacent; I'm glad that this time I won't start falling behind because of a weak economy and consequent low slider.
  
• Current demographics: slightly worrisome since someone else has more land and my nearest rival for troops is not far behind me.
  

The major decisions to make (advice appreciated!).

Spoiler :

After consolidation, I am wondering about continuing to war. My horse archers will be moderately effective until someone gets Feudalism, which might not actually be terribly far in the future since apparently some AI favour it. I can go for elepults and supplement them with some anti-spearman axes, I suppose, but I wonder if I should just settle down and tech to cuirs, which I can do now that I have iron and which some people advise is a great strategy (I've never managed it in the past). Any recommendations?

Are the two islands to the east worth settling if I don't get the GLH?

I expect to ignore the new world and conquer or dominate the old.

 

[Robert FIN]

Cannot give you much advice Dalamb, but I'd go for

Spoiler :

HRE

next. Good work with the finished AI leader !