Nobles' Club CXXIX: Roosevelt of America

[Robert FIN]

Good going Robert.

But. You should not have tried to make Toku you trading buddy. He is ready to be plucked and that city would have given you an autobahn to His capital. After you take his main cities he will vassal and that will give you a happy face in many cities. Then he will trade.

Spoiler :

Bump! Didn't I tell you that I want to go for space? It is a good plan, I'll win that, right? Other chance is of course outtech my continent and own 'em with Rifles for instance. Then I made bad trade with Musashi deal. And yeah, thanks for the analyze, I appreciate it !

 

[Htadus]

Bump! Didn't I tell you that I want to go for space? It is a good plan, I'll win that, right? Other chance is of course outtech my continent and own 'em with Rifles for instance. Then I made bad trade with Musashi deal. And yeah, thanks for the analyze, I appreciate it.

If you are going to space get rid of him. Mansa, Wong and Hatty are better trade partners.

 

[Robert FIN]

Spoiler :

If you are going to space get rid of him. Mansa, Wong and Hatty are better trade partners.

Yeah, agreed but Hat and Mansa are being idiots and they still run Judaism.. I don't want to convert since otherwise I get the anger of my continent in my face. By the way, Wang is gonna get killed by the Hindus anyways..

 

[Htadus]

Spoiler :

Yeah, agreed but Hat and Mansa are being idiots and they still run Judaism.. I don't want to convert since otherwise I get the anger of my continent in my face. By the way, Wang is gonna get killed by the Hindus anyways..

Spoiler :

No you got it all wrong. Those two AI are your best science option and the fact that they are in the same religion is a blessing.

You, Robert, need to be the one to control how this game goes. So decide how you are going to finish this game.

Fast with 2 good tech traders or slow with no tech traders.

If you choose fast, kill off Toku and Inca and see if you can vassal Wong. Then switch to Judaism. This will speed up the game like crazy.

If you choose slow, then anything is good.

 

[Whutom]

I just had a read of the OP (since I just posted a thread myself asking for help on Noble difficulty!) but could someone tell me what a TGLH strategy is?? I haven't seen that acronym anywhere before...

 

[Robert FIN]

@Htadus: Are you recommending "fast" or "slow" union? Btw, I just noticed that the another member of fast union converted to Confusianism before I stopped my last segment. @Whutom: TGLH=the Great Lighthouse- wonder. TGLH- strategy means trying to get TGLH somewhat fast and getting the - bonus which is such a massive bonus to COASTAL cities/empire. Easy way to earn early on.

 

[Whutom]

First time on a NC playthrough so apologies if I have bad etiquette...

Spoiler :

SO I started and settled on the spot beginning. A very nice spot! AH was the obvious first tech, then horses popped beneath me. Ivory too. Looking really promising.

Got better as I found flood plains and spices to the north, nice future commerce city planned, Settled there (NY) and I found a few blocks southwest corn and more cows and silver. Plenty of luxury resources in my grasp. Founded Boston next to the corn & cows; can spit out some workers and settlers from that, the silver isn't in a perfect spot, I could have made it work in the second ring and still got both foods but that would have given me a lot of crappy tundra.

Met Brennus, shielding me from Tokugawa. They both, from first glance have pretty good sites. Hopefully I'll be good pals with Brennus, join his religion and such, he usually seems to found one himself. I'd rather have him as a pet dog than Japan, but if a war did break out it'd be him to get Japan, not me I fear.

Are these city placements ok??

 

[Whutom]

100 turns in...

Spoiler :

Change of plan...

Brennus was expanding away from me, and his capital looked too good. I chariot and horse archer rushed him (got Horseback riding from a tribal village!!!!) and made short work of him and got three cities, two were meh, need a lot of work doing but fairly good locations and he had the great wall - does this mean it now gives me all the benefits had I built it myself?

Met Huayna, Wang Kon and Mansa, all of whom founded their own religions so I might have to pick one good techer and commit to him. Traded Wang for sailing and one of the religious techs, Mansa for another. I got the impression Mansa was better for financial/teching but Wang is protective so hes not AS MUCH of a pushover if someone gets really annoyed at him and declares. Will get calendar after mathematics for another happy resource

 

[pigswill]

Whutom: you have the benefits of the Great Wall: barbarians won´t cross your borders. You might find your game goes faster if you research currency at this point: you can get currency faster by building research instead of archers becuase you don´t need more units at the moment.

 

[Whutom]

Update @ 670AD

Spoiler :

After wiping out the Celts my research stabilised at 20% and just been consolidating since, was going great on the points and the tech seemingly, now my borders have begun to clash with Japan.

Mansa and Hatty hate each other, Huayna and Wang hate each other, and Tokugawa, well, hates everyone. I don't know what to make of Huayna, Wang is too much of a flight risk since Japan and Inca are against him so I picked Mansa as my teching buddy who's just got out of a war with Haty. Will need a minor miracle to avoid a war, everyone has their own religion...

Japan has built a couple catapults and a war elephant placed precariously on our border so I anticipate he'll declare on me soonish, maybe? So I interuppted my Lib beeline @ Philosophy and am rushing engineering for pikemen upgrades and trebs incase of war. Founded Tao but didnt convert or try and spread, got the GL and going for Parth in my research cities.

 

[Whutom]

1200AD

Spoiler :

I have vassaled Mansa at his request, since Hatty and him hate each other but she's cool with me. I don't mind. I ordered him to do the Optics/Astronomy beeline whilst I get on with Lib. He's a good techer and is chugging along nicely.

Toku got too close for comfort with trying to settle RIGHT between chicago and Philly, hence I settled Houston (I know, not a great city but it was to stop him) and LA which had pigs off the bat due to other cultural borders.

I teched eng and guilds, then steamrolled Toku with trebs and knights, bringing pikemen along in the stack. His city, Satsuma, on the hill was such a pain in the backside though, longbows get SO many bonuses on hills...

Anyway I'll likely take Tokyo and leave Japan as a little husk in the corner as Kagoshima so I get more vassal happy faces, and he's trapped there for the rest of the game.

On a side note, Toku has negative relations with me for: -Close borders, Negotiating a trade embargo, declaring on him, declaring on a friend, beinging in a war ally, worried about rivals being a vassal AND trading with his worst enemies. I think that's quite impressive for Toku standard

 

[pigswill]

Whutom: Looks like you´re doing good and ready to jump a couple of levels. Two minor points:

i) I´d finish off Toku completly because the happy face isn´t worth the diplomatic hassles and a one city vassal is useless.
ii) You´ve got a major tech lead and won´t lose liberalism. Maybe research nationalism before lib (and music if you haven´t got it already) and go lib>miltrad.

 

[Htadus]

@Htadus: Are you recommending "fast" or "slow" union? Btw, I just noticed that the another member of fast union converted to Confusianism before I stopped my last segment.

I recommend getting rid of Toku and Capec. Take Wong as a vassel and direct him to learn techs you want to trade.

The key to get Mansa and Hatty Friendly is to Run their religion and running their favorite civic. This is easy with Hatty since she like OR and runs it freely from the early game. For Mansa it is a bit hard. You will need to run Free Market and you are going to need to help him get to Economics so he can run that civic too. In Emperor and higher he can do it on his own very well and will be a threat to you if you are trying to get the Free GM from Economics. But on lower levels it take him a while.

You can found and gift just junk cities to get + diplomatic points from them too.

 

[Robert FIN]

Spoiler :

Sniff..Its all gone.. Tokugawa the war pig is at my face..I lost cities..I ragequit..I know that I can get Rifling before him but what ever..he'll take half of my cities until that..no I don't give you save..I want to quit.

This is what I think of Tokugawa.

 

[JSS]

@Robert FIN:
Don't overestimate the power of a Monarch AI. If you know how to whip units, you can overpower him and push him back. Losing a city or 2 means nothing if you can regroup and crush his stack with 10/1 effectiveness.

 

[Robert FIN]

@Robert FIN:
Don't overestimate the power of a Monarch AI. If you know how to whip units, you can overpower him and push him back. Losing a city or 2 means nothing if you can regroup and crush his stack with 10/1 effectiveness.

Spoiler :

OK, maybe it was a little too much overreacting, but I want to move forward to the Victoria game. It just didn't go like I wanted. Tokugawa vassalled Wang and moved straight to me at pleased. Unfair. War Pig..

 

[sinimusta]

@RobertFIN: I took a look at your previous save. Just some very brief notes:
1.you had good land but a lot of it was unimproved
2.you kept war elephants and catapults as military police-> build archers or warriors if possible and move those fine units to frontline.
3.you had actually a good army.

If you want your first monarch win, reload, go kill toku when it was still easy and then take whatever victory that pleases you. Domination is probably fastest though. And get workers asap to improve the land.

Sry this was not very detailed.

 

[dalamb]

4000 BC - 660 AD
660 - 1210 AD
1220-1370 AD

Spoiler :

Summary: About to cap Wang, having taken all Huayna's cities.

After finishing off Tokugawa I tech'd to Rifling in 1570, upgraded all my elephants and HAs to cavalry, and built a few more. I also upgraded my CR II macemen to riflemen. By this time Mansa and Huayna had vassaled to Wang, so I knew I was in for a longer war than I had planned, but they were both wimps so I wasn't too worried. Since before I upgraded my troops I was about even with Wang in power, I wondered where his stack was; a spy found it in 1565 and I killed it with cavalry two turns later.

I've often ignored spying a lot in the past; I'm glad I had them scouting enemy territory this time.

Mansa broke free and made peace in 1615 AD without me having had to attack him. I killed off the Inca in 1650 and took Wang's last continental city in 1670. Unfortunately he had founded 3 stinking island cities (the two listed plus his capital):

I've found them via Hatty's world map:

Spoiler :

Two on an island with Hatty:

One by itself:

A pain in the rear to take. I've paused to think about what to do next. If I continue the battle it would also many turns of war wearniness and Yearning to Rejoin our Motherland in his former cities, but I don't really need them to do much more than expand their borders (for domination) while I prepare to take on Mansa and Hatty. If I take his capitulation, I'm faced with:

I have too few ships to attack the Egyptian homeland right now, so I would get Hatty to make peace with him first:

or even get Physics if I'm willing to give her a tech I'd rather not give away:

Alternatively I could take a ceasefire, let Hatty waste her time capitulating him, and attack her later. I thing getting him to cap to me is best.

Wang had the Statue of Zeus, which I failed to check for, so many cities were starving from War Weariness before I got enough rifleman garrison troops to them to bring happiness up to stable levels, and even then some of them would go into starvation in a few turns when war weariness increased. Somebody went into Emancipation, so that cause a lot of too. I should have taken more time to build garrison troops before starting the war, I think.

So now I consolidate while building galleons and frigates. I have enough cash to upgrade my remaining trebs and cats to cannons, which will make short work of the few enemy cities left on my continent, and will build enough galleons to get a large stack of cavalry landed in Egypt in one turn; capping Hatty will put me over the domination limit without bothering about Mansa:

Spoiler Egypt :

A lot of recently-conquered cities are in revolt, so I'll be closer to domination when they expand, but I don't know how to tell how many more tiles I'll need to win, so planning on more conquest seems like the way to go.

Hatty is ahead of me in some important techs but behind in military ones:

She will be attacking me with airships (having physics) but I'm far ahead in power:

Spoiler charts :

Edit:

Spoiler oops :

Going for emancipation at this point was a mistake -- I needed slavery in the cities coming out of revolt. I finished Steel instead of Democracy, upgraded my siege to cannon, and cap'd Wang (after getting the Hatty/Mansa duo to make peace with him).

 

[dalamb]

Spoiler :

After vassalizing Wang I was unknowingly close to domination; all I really had to do was let my recently-captured cities come out of revolt, expand to their 2nd ring, and capture Wang's nearest city on my continent to let the city nearest him expand to its full BFC. But there was no way to tell that until my cities did expand and I got told I was within 3 tiles of winning. I could have skipped all the shipbuilding and just gone straight for conquering the main continent.

Status:

Spoiler charts :

I built very few wonders, a bit of a disappointment when running an IND leader:

Thanks for the game, Robert, and for all the advice people gave other players, which I made good use of.

 

[Htadus]

^^
Good Job. But you did build the 2 important wonders: Glib and Taj.