Nobles Club CXXXVII - Churchill

[elitetroops]

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 Churchill of England, whom we last played in NC LXXI; we last played the English with Victoria in NC CXXXI. The English start with Fishing and Mining.

• Traits: Leader is CHArismatic and PROtective. CHA means +1 in each city and an extra for monuments and broadcast towers; this can help a lot with early city growth. It's also a warmongering trait, since unit promotions require 25% less XP. PRO means archery and gunpowder units start with City Garrison I and Drill I; along with CHA that means they can reach CR III and Drill IV sooner than most (4 and 8 XP, respectively). It also gives a discount on walls and castles.
  
• The UB: The Stock Exchange, a Bank with +65% instead of +50%.
  
  
• The UU: The Redcoat, a Rifleman with +25% vs gunpowder units, and the only UU based on Riflemen.
  

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Hemispheres, rocky, low sealevel and 2 extra AI

Spoiler edits :

Moved one AI one tile.

Spoiler which AI moved :

Moved augustus 1W.

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 or 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 for most 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_CXXXVII_Churchill_Noble" (or Monarch, if you want the AI to start with its usual Archery bonus tech, or Immortal for Archery+Hunting, or Deity to add Agriculture). This allows you to 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.

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.

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.

 

[elitetroops]

Wins:

Pengu - Immortal, diplomatic victory 1880 AD
byang08 - Emperor, space race 1947 AD
elitetroops - Immortal, domination 1882 AD

 

[Aje]

Hmm...interesting start.
I think there could be some discussion on where to settle on this one.

Is it coast 1E2S of settler? It's harder to gaze from the iphone than from the laptop.

 

[elitetroops]

Looks like coast 1E2S, yes. I also think figuring out where to settle is the first question here. SIP to waste a floodplain is not very tempting. Everything else loses a turn, but I think that is a smaller loss than the floodplain.

Warrior can of course help in our decision. I see NW and NE as possible moves for him. NW tells us what lies further along the river and NE puts him on hill to reveal a lot in that direction. I don't think E or SE can reveal any more useful info than NE.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Yeah not a great start, no real food to be seen, about to take this for a spin on Emperor (trying to decide what level to go for EQM so this will help!

 

[Strickl3r]

Moved Warrior 1 W

Spoiler :

Saw the corn, but settled 1 S anyway.
I couldn't stand SIP even though there is corn, because the start and surrounding land looked like there are a lot of coastal spots in the fog, so i gambled and thought: ''oh well, if it's just gonna be 3 FPs i can at least build the GLH in the capitol.''
In this case i kind of hate 1 off the coast, normally i don't bother much.

+ There is kind of a good chance for at least one seafood tile and we start with fishing and can beeline BW.

So turned out to be ok to go 1 S even though i didn't know that there actually was sea food.

As for a 2nd city i settled Copper/Pigs, but seems to be that warriors are easily enough to fogbust on this kind of starting area.

 

[Patchface]

Is that water 2S 1E of settler?

If so, food has to be 1N 2E of settler. Warrior should reveal it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Settle 1N removes almost all chance of killing seafood, gains a FP, and doesn't lose food (fog peek trees even in SS, only a tiniest chance you lose a deer in trees).

 

[Pangaea]

Settled 1N after moving the warrior NE.

Spoiler :

Only 10 turns in, but it looks a decent choice. Loses some forests, but gains a FP. SIP would get two sources of food, but I kinda like an extra floodplains for cottages. As I suspected the slight declination in the north gazing was a lake, so I can always put some farms there if food is lacking.

For Immortal it was Archery, Agriculture and Hunting to the Barbs, right?

 

[Izuul]

Yep, that's right.

 

[Pangaea]

Yep, that's right.

Thanks, good to know they had the right stuff, though I wasn't ecstatic about the Barb spearman I noticed in the middle of another AI's territory, who then went on to murder my poor warrior there.

Had a poor 100 turn attempt.

Spoiler :

Settling 1N was okay I think. But the 2nd city location was sh*t. The idea was to block Caesar, so I settled west of the capital to grab those crabs. Problem was, he built stonehenge and swamped it with culture. I Oracle'd Code of Laws and was lucky Confu was founded in that city, so it eventually won back the crabs, but it was a useless city, apart from working the gold here and there.

Also founded a city to grab NW gold and sheep, which was okay, but by the time I grabbed what was intended as a GP Farm with fish, corn and pigs, Hammurabi had already stolen the corn. The good thing about the game was that both Hammurabi and Caesar became Confu's, so we had a good thing going with that, which might have turned out well long-term if my cities had been done better. Easy to get boxed in here.

Maybe it would be better to rush AC very early on here, before he gets copper hooked up, and at least before he gets iron online. How are you guys starting out?

 

[Pangaea]

New and better (?) attempt. 1000BC

Spoiler :

Didn't want to get landlocked again, and knew the terrain and opposition, so decided to rush Augustus before he could hook up copper/iron.

His worker was roading to the corn, so I took the chance and declared on him and worker stole. He asked for peace shortly after. Went AG-BW-Wheel-Pottery-AH. Could have done AH before Pottery as I never got to build any cottages anyway. The reason for that is that after founding a city up N with all the food, I went into fullscale chop-whipping of Axes, as often as possible double-whipping from pop 4. Attacked him in 1560BC with 8 Axes and a row more on the way. Took all his 3 cities and August was slayed in 1080BC.

Of course, now the economy is in tatters again, but at least I have land!

Map-warning, in case you don't want to see it. 1000BC.

Spoiler :

The idea here is to research Aesthetics and hopefully get Alpha and Math from somebody, and then make my way up to Currency. Will need to delete a pile of units again (have 15 surviving Axes) and hope I can crawl there in decent time. Am thinking it may be worth it to pump out a couple settlers and secure the other golds, just to fund research. But Hammurabi will probably get the northern one any moment now. he spammed cities like heck in the first try.

 

[elitetroops]

@Strickl3r: Did you mean 1E? If so, what made you choose E instead of NE.

Regarding settling:

Spoiler :

I think there's a lot of decent options here, it's hard to make a big mistake. I preferred 1N (after moving warrior NE) as I didn't want to risk finding no resources if moving south.

@Pangaea:

Spoiler :

Interested that you got that boxed in... I tested the map on EMP and expanded peacefully to 11 cities on the continent (4 of them in the rainforest towards Isabella). And this was before I moved AC one tile further away from us. It felt like this one tile made a big difference as he was a lot more in our face when one step closer. (One step further away and it's now also possible to settle 2 cities between Rome and London if you settle on the starting longitude).

My current game, Deity, 900 BC:

Spoiler :

My first Deity game ever eek:), just to see if I can even survive the BC's. By 900BC I have 5 cities, the two Western neighbors blocked of (both at pleased so they can't DOW me) and room to settle 3 more around my cap plus a barb city to capture on then SW peninsula. With AC and Hammy we have a big religious lovefest, while Buddhist Isabella isn't too happy with us. But with protective archers on the junglehill chokepoint I think I could easily hold back any attack from her.

Probably need to restart though. I realized a few dozens of turns in that I forgot to add archery to barbarians. Immediately added it but soon afterwards I found a city up in the tundra (next to deer north of horses) guarded by 3 warriors. At the time I thought that the AI is cheating so much anyway on this level so I shouldn't feel bad about taking the city, which I did, but now afterwards it feels like cheating. Even if I would somehow manage to win the game, I couldn't count it as a true Deity win, so I rather start over. Though I doubt I'll be able to get this much land a second time. It was very tight with a couple of spots I settled when an AI settler was only one turn away from grabbing it.

 

[Pangaea]

@Pangaea:

Spoiler :

Interested that you got that boxed in... I tested the map on EMP and expanded peacefully to 11 cities on the continent (4 of them in the rainforest towards Isabella). And this was before I moved AC one tile further away from us. It felt like this one tile made a big difference as he was a lot more in our face when one step closer. (One step further away and it's now also possible to settle 2 cities between Rome and London if you settle on the starting longitude).

@elitetroops

Spoiler :

My first city location in that game was terrible, 2W of gold, so that was one reason, but both Augustus and Hammurabi also settled towards me, and spammed cities pretty mercilessly. I didn't settle any to the east as I hate to settle into the jungle, and haven't seen Isabella yet in any of my two tries, but it sounds like there is ample land to settle in that direction too. I much prefer to let the AI settle and clear the jungle though, and then conquer them.

Think I'll continue with the 2nd attempt and see if I can rescue the economy. I had another look at Antium and decided it was sh*t, so deleted it upon capture. Made a very concerted effort at getting GLH in Rome, but the turn after I had chopped the last forest in Rome, somebody else built it. Damn! Hoped it would help me recover But before night-night, I did manage to whip out a settler and just beat Hammurabi to the gold up north. It will be a culture fight for food though.

Again, really, this shows there is fight for land here, and it's hard to get all the good land around the capital unless you perhaps go all out on settlers early.

 

[Pangaea]

Aren't people playing this one?

1AD now.

Spoiler :

8 cities by 1AD, while Hammurabi and Isabel have 9. Economy is still tanked, but I'm crawling towards Currency. Got Aesthetics and traded Alphabet with Izzy (the bint only gave me 300-ish back, so had to do a third of Alpha myself), and got IW+something from Hammurabi. I wanted Math, which he had, but he wasn't sharing it.

Have managed to block off Hammurabi due to the Roman war, so have the south to myself. Am therefore thinking about settling some more cities soon, with a few off on the islands with food. Haven't settled into the jungle towards Izzy yet, but maybe I will eventually, unless she gets there first. The good thing here is that there is enoug happiness resources (with trades), so despite not having Monarchy the happiness cap is actually 10 in the capital. Not bad at all.

The other continent (that's how hamispheres work, right?) seems very busy on wonders and religions, so hopefully they're beating themselves bloody too. Izzy founded Buddhism, which just spread to a city, but I'm holding off with changing until I see if we manage to build the Pyramids. Only 4 turns left now, so it's a win-win. Either we get it and can boost and , or we get a lot of failgold, which will power me to Currency.

I have no military though, so I hope Buddhism spreads to Hammurabi soon too, and we can all get along swellingly

Spoiler :

 

[Izuul]

Aren't people playing this one?

I played long enough to do this (Imm 50AD):

Spoiler :

 

[Pangaea]

@Izuul

Spoiler :

Wow, that's a scary-looking stack of ele-pults. Did you head more or less straight for construction?

Not a good update, 600AD. Damn economy

Spoiler :

Seems like I just can't handle the maintenance costs on Immortal. It's slaying me again, and I have Pyramids to help me out with research as well. 600AD, running 10 specialists... -21/turn

When Hammurabi started plotting 10-15 turns ago I had to cut down the rest of the forests and whip out a defence. He's steaming ahead in tech though, and I noticed longbows and catapults. If/when he attacks, it will be rough. But one advantage is I have construction now, so have started producing elephants. The only good thing in the demographics is I have a high population, so can whip out a bigger army when he presumably declares.

Would some of you better players mind takinga look at the save and telling me what I've done wrong and should have done differently?

Spoiler Map :

Spoiler Trades :

Spoiler Demographics :

 

[elitetroops]

I'll look closer at that save when I have time later, but for now a brief question to Pangaea and Izuul:

Spoiler :

You both went after AC first. What made you pick him as your first target? I thought Isabella would be a natural target as it's easy to be friendly with both AC and Hammy and you don't need to worry about being backstabbed by them.

But it will be very interesting to see how your games develop!

 

[Izuul]

@Izuul

Spoiler :

Wow, that's a scary-looking stack of ele-pults. Did you head more or less straight for construction?

Spoiler :

Pretty much straight for Construction then HBR. After that Currency > CoL, and now working on CS.

I'll look closer at that save when I have time later, but for now a brief question to Pangaea and Izuul:

Spoiler :

You both went after AC first. What made you pick him as your first target? I thought Isabella would be a natural target as it's easy to be friendly with both AC and Hammy and you don't need to worry about being backstabbed by them.

But it will be very interesting to see how your games develop!

Spoiler :

Izzy is a mile away and through a good bit of jungle as well. It would be a mistake to pursue her early in the game IMO. AC is much, much closer and has better land to take here. Besides when i zoomed in to add the barb starting techs i saw that we had BFC copper so i stole a worker from AC and stunted his expansion for a little bit. He never liked me too much after that.

Also, Izzy is extremely easy to get along with if you run her religion. I could still switch sides here pretty easily.

 

[Pangaea]

@Izuul and elitetroops

Spoiler :

Pretty much Izuul wrote really. AC is close, has good land and can easily become a military threat. Izzy is a mile and a half away. She'd have longbows before my Axes get there

It felt more and more like the game was getting away from me, falling further and further behind on tech and not able to get the economy started. Had a lot of decent land after the war so I hoped it would propel me ahead once it developed, but it hasn't happened at all. The economy is in tatters and research is only crawling along thanks to Rep scientists. I'll try to whip some courthouses when I fire up the game again and we get to CoL, but other than that there isn't much I can do. Hammurabi will attack at some point too, with catas and other nasty units. Won't be a cakewalk.

Would appreciate if you (or somebody else) could take a gander at the save so I can at least improve for the future. Tried to focus on cottages in the capital this time, but it doesn't seem to help a great deal, despite having gold. Maintenance is simply murdering me.