Noble's Club CXXXII: Gandhi of India

[marasaidw]

Prince, 500AD

Spoiler :

Well I feel I'm sitting comfortable and am teching along ok. I'm planning on putting in the last couple backfill cities. After that I'm not really sure the plan. Should I go offensive against Darius with elepults?

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

@marasaidw

Spoiler :

Demographics screen says you are last in soldiers. Units! Units! Units!

Delhi: not obvious why it is so small - 21 whip penalty probably explains it. Hard to tell if you have overlooked forges, or just haven't had time yet. Of your current cities, Delhi is your obvious candidate for the National Epic (you can move the palace to Bombay), so the great library should be here, and the parthenon somewhere else.

Bombay: nice placement. I somewhat prefer putting it between the gold mines (stealing the corn from Delhi when needed) and using this corn to feed another city to the west, but this is a good choice. You should try to get an Academy here - if you are going to be grinding out a lot of research. Build the palace here for Bureaucracy bonuses on the gold mines and cottages.

Vijayanagara: good location. It's not clear to me that this location is a high priority; there's little concern that you will be beaten to the spot, so it's just a matter of how critical that copper really is. You've got room to expand peacefully at that point. Seems to have an awful lot of infrastructure in it.

Pataliputra: AHHH - unused corn! And you aren't working the silks either. Again, I think sharing the corn with the capital is strong, but if you were after the stone your choices are limited.

Varanasi: good. The warrior parked on the hill isn't doing anything for you. If you can get him to the bottom corner, you'll easy your barbarian problem considerably.

Agra: you aren't working the dyes ?!?!?! Tough location - I might have moved it inland to be near the corn.

Lahore: too many tile improvements. In isolation, there's no such thing, but Lahore is a junk city you've settled just to get the marble. So the farms, cottage, and mine are work that can be deferred.

If Darius is going to be a target (sure, why not) you should be scouting his lands.

 

[pomthom]

@Robert FIN

Spoiler :

OK. You are in a good position to win. However you might want to improve a couple of things ():

As VoU has already mentioned you are way way behind in tile improvement. This should be your #1 priority.

Also, a good way of saving your cities from the waste of working unimroved tiles is whipping. So yeah start by whipping 2 or 3 Workers and get on those tiles!

You want to go Culture: very good idea. However which are your 3 Legendary Cities-to-be? Winning by culture means heavy commerce in those 3 cities and dedicating other cities to support your strategy (like spamming Temples of every religion rather than say... Wonders for example ).

Also be mindful of swapping tiles between cities. Here's an example:

 

[Robert FIN]

Hey, Pomthom, here is my situation now:

Spoiler :

Have built several wonders, Trolltine for example.

I am busy but check the save, please.

Legendary cities will be Varanasi, Delhi and Viyanagara,

 

[marasaidw]

So i'm doing a whole bunch wrong, thanks for the advice. As to why I wasn't working calendar resources is cause I had recently gotten calendar and am just getting plantations up now.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

So i'm doing a whole bunch wrong, thanks for the advice. As to why I wasn't working calendar resources is cause I had recently gotten calendar and am just getting plantations up now.

You might consider learning the habit of reviewing your cities before hitting end turn. Once you are in the city screen, you can cycle through the list with the arrow keys and verify that your worked tiles are reasonable.

 

[pomthom]

@Robert FIN

Spoiler :

OK much better.

However I don't believe Vijayanagara is a very good candidate for Legend city, Bombay is far better commerce-wise.

Even now if I put 100% slider: Bombay gets more per turn than Vijay.

Vijay (+59/Turn)



Bombay (+63/Turn)



It'll be even more significant when you further improve your cottages and will be running Free Speech.

Speaking of which... what is this monstruosity??



OK, OK, you got Civil Service only 4 turns ago and you forgot to switch (happens to everybody). So make me that Bureaucracy switch right now!

Actually it might be more interesting to switch to HR as well to help build your temples and Cathedrals before switching back to Pacifism to spam GAs when you're set for the final culture push... not sure though.

 

[dalamb]

@robert: if you're going cultural, you might want to read jesusin's guide if you haven't already. It's aimed at higher difficulties but is still quite relevant. The key is getting cathedrals for several religions in your 3 legendary cities, which give +50% multipliers to whatever your base culture might be. To really time things right so they all get to legendary at the same time takes a spreadsheet, but basically you find whichever is going to be slowest, build the Hermitage there, and figure out where to put GAs for culture bombs.

Don't worry about whatever culture you get pre-cathedrals; you'll get almost all the culture post-cathedrals.

 

[pomthom]

@robert: if you're going cultural, you might want to read jesusin's guide if you haven't already. It's aimed at higher difficulties but is still quite relevant. The key is getting cathedrals for several religions in your 3 legendary cities, which give +50% multipliers to whatever your base culture might be. To really time things right so they all get to legendary at the same time takes a spreadsheet, but basically you find whichever is going to be slowest, build the Hermitage there, and figure out where to put GAs for culture bombs.

Don't worry about whatever culture you get pre-cathedrals; you'll get almost all the culture post-cathedrals.

True that. Don't use your GA's Great Works until later so you can use them on the cities that need them the most

 

[marasaidw]

@voice of reason
I do check almost every turn for tile utilization and whips. I've been finding my problem is that often with decent food I outgrow my happy cap faster than the whip penalties wear off, so i reduce food to keep from growing into unhappiness. It's undoubtedly a micromanagement issue, but I'm not sure how to handle it better.

 

[marasaidw]

All right 500AD again.

I went back and tried to fix some of the things you suggested. I'm still last in troops, but that's what I'm planning on focusing on next.

Spoiler :

I'm still thinking on elepulting the Persians to get some more land. I've thrown in with a French/Khemer/me hindu alliance.

 

[JSS]

Deity, 1822AD, Diplo (UN)

Spoiler :

I played this game until the 1500AD'ish last weekend, but got sick and didn't play until yesterday, so my memories of the early game are vague. Here's something I remember:

- I quite soon figured out that I'm in a corner, so I sent my initial warrior to spawn bust the corner on a forested hill to minimize the barb problem as much as I could.

- Tech went Archery -> Pottery -> BW

- Didn't feel like dying, so I spammed a lot of Archers and fogbusted the s*it out of the region I was in.

- Before I could do that, though, 2 barb cities popped up. One in the corn/gold spot near Darius, so I built 5-6 axes and took them.

- From there I built 10 or 11 cities in total and libbed MT. Upgraded a bunch of HAs and elephants (maybe?). Can't remember if they were horses or jumbos or both. My memories of the distant past from a week ago are very obscure and vague indeed.

- Attacked and subsequently took out Darius and left him on 1 city without vassaling him. I didn't vassal him because I preferred to have Chemistry from him in the peace deal instead. Somewhere during the attack I stopped for a while and upgraded ~half of my Cuirassiers into Cavalry to limit my losses, because I didn't want to stop after taking Darius.

- I did have to pause for a bit, because Isabella and Genghis both got to Rifling, so I teched to Steel immediately in preparation of killing them both.

- Sury had infantry at that stage and was going pretty fast, but he was warring with Zara and Isabella. Isabella had a huge stack of Conquistadors and Cavalry sieging one of Sury's border cities, when she declared war on me. She didn't attack my cities, though, because she was in Sury's territory and was attacking one of his border cities. I brought my stack over and wiped Isabella's stack only after she had taken the city. She accepted peace soon after.

- Although Sury had Infantry and Machine guns, I decided to switch targets and go for him instead of Genghis + Isabella. They were both annoyed at me, but were warring each other.

- I killed and capitulated both Sury and Napoleon with Cannons + Cavalry. Then I teched/stole my way to Infantry + Artillery, and killed Isabella and Genghis without having to stop at all.

- When I had capped them both, Zara conveniently built the UN. Easy diplo win.

 

[Robert FIN]

Ok, thanks pals, I will follow your instructions. By the way, when should I turn my culture slider up to 100% and stop research? After Lib+FreeSpeech?

 

[pomthom]

Ok, thanks pals, I will follow your instructions. By the way, when should I turn my culture slider up to 100% and stop research? After Lib+FreeSpeech?

Yep that's about it. Be cautious with Diplo and try to detect if other AIs might be plotting against you

 

[pomthom]

@JSS congrats BTW

 

[Wegason]

Noble, Normal, Huts & Events - 1935AD

Spoiler :

I think I have a lot to learn in terms of my approach. I need to avoid my Wonder building ways (which I have restrained somewhat), being more aggressive, and attacking earlier.

No save file to look at for which I apologise, in the 1900s and have done what I usually do, which is get to where I have tanks before going on the warpath. I did have a war with Napoleon when he invaded me, and with Suri as well who I have just wiped out with my tanks, cavalry, and infantry.

I think I have a lot to improve upon, I don't really specialise my cities much and usually end up with a capital that produces a lot of units, builds important wonders, and creates lots of Great People...

It is only since I've been reading up on here that I've started specialising my national wonders about, planning ahead and changing strategies slightly.

Has anyone else found Zara Yakob to be dominating? He's vassalled Napoleon, Ghenghis and Isabella. With Suri wiped out by me, only Darius, myself and Zara are independent and free. I think domination is out of the question and I've had to build the UN to try so I can control it and prevent Zara from winning a Diplo. I think a Space Race is all that remains.

I have excellent relations with Darius and Zara, though I could attack Darius and cap him before preparing for full scale war on Zara.

 

[pomthom]

@Wegason difficult to comment without a save or screenshots. However the best advice you can get from better players is at the very early stages of the game, where the most crucial mistakes are made

 

[Wegason]

I think that is an area I can certainly improve upon. I don't seem to have trouble winning at Noble level, just achieving any sort of early victory.

Save attached (I hope)

 

[Amao]

I think that is an area I can certainly improve upon. I don't seem to have trouble winning at Noble level, just achieving any sort of early victory.

Save attached (I hope)

For not so serious early victories on Noble, try get Construction asap, and use Catapults+Axes/etc to take down most of your neighbors. If you can mix Elephants into your stack, you may easily conquer your continent this way. If AI gets Longbows, then you might want to have Trebs to do the work.

Other map/resource based early rushes are: warrior rush, chariot rush, axe rush, and the most famous horse archer rush. DO note that most of these rushes are less and less effective as the level goes up.

 

[Robert FIN]

1850AD, Cultural Victory

My first Monarch Victory ever. My first Cultural Victory ever. My first Gandhi Victory ever. My best Score and Victory Date ever. My best and most enjoyable playthrough ever. That's fantastic, isn't it?

Spoiler :

So, I expanded up to seven cities in early game and researched fast. I got many good wonders and got many religions so my plan to Culture win was good. Gandhi is awesome leader, so underrated. He is in Top 5, clearly. I didn't got DoWed because I was careful in relations with the AI. All went good. I'm proud and happy!

Here is some screenshots:

Thank you so much for hosting @Pomthom, it was the best map I've played !!

Here is save from 1 turn before I achieved the victory. You can watch the culture victory movie and my stats there.