Nobles' Club LXVII: Hammurabi of Babylon

[GKey]

Way too rich. I guess for some types of play this is ok, but on deity domination it means that the AI's get too far ahead too quickly. It's like playing on quick speed.

AIs seems to be completely unprepared for such a map. I maintain 100% tech/wonder/score lead with partially automated workers and governors.

I'm dying to see what will you be able to pull off with such a start.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I'm definitely going to play this one, starting either tonight or tomorrow. Perhaps make it my first Prince attempt... Any tips for someone attempting their first prince game?

Basically your first concern above all else is to be improving food tiles. Due to Babylon's nice start techs, you will only need to worry about animal husbandry. You have gold and ivory, meaning you can grow your cities larger without running into unhappiness. Most of your cities should be churning out warriors, workers and settlers. If you see any other rival civs, it's best to place cities to block them from expanding in your direction.

Once you've staked yourself a decent amount of land, your next priority should be to get a library with and run some scientists; you should be fine with that.

Another thing is to not go crazy with the cottages. Riverside grassland is fine, but food is still more important!

 

[CuddlesKill]

Wow, that's a lot of resources. Will the AIs be similarly blessed (and know what to do with all their own resources)? The obnoxiously nice start a few games ago as DeGaulle played really easy, and I'd definitely consider bumping up the difficulty a level if the abundant resources plays in my favor more than it does the AI...

 

[Loz]

I started playing, but the map just seems much too resource rich. I like good starts too - but this map seems a little ridiculous.

 

[Zechnophobe]

First session was until 900 BC - Marathon Speed, since it was topical, with emperor difficulty. Gave barbs archery back.

Here's a funny game: Try to find spots NOT good to settle on in this map ;P.

Straight out the door, I went double worker, just to give it a try in part, and partially because everything looks worth a quick improvement in this. (If you can call 15 turns quick). Teched Mining - Animal husbandry, then masonry-mysticism

And more...

Spoiler :

Since we started with stone, and because there was such an incredibly pushable land, I decided that every little multiplier would be worth it, so I built Stone henge(2400 BC). AFTER buiding an initial settler at size 3. I rexxed like the devil, and ended up with 11 cities at 810 BC, where I stopped to write this. One of those was subverted culturally from Tokugawa, and two are on the rightside island.

I built a city in the middle of the triple gold, and a second city to the left of it a bit, as my first two. The intention was to always have the gold tiles worked by one or the other, but eventually to make one a heavy commerce city (academy, great library, etc).

Since things were going so smoothly, I chopped out the pyramids in 1680 BC, since with so much food, all cities would want substantial specialists, and... well yeah, you know how it goes.

I teched BW, writing, alphabet, currency, aesthetics, literature, music, code of laws. (Great Artist from music).

Great artist gave me a golden age to finish up chopped out Great LIbrary (860 BC) in Akkad, 3 Gold city and holy city of confucianism. Will be great for oxford-wallstreet later on.

Toku had the shortest war in history with me. He attacked with 4 or 5 units, which I was prepared for, and ended up suiciding them, and bribing for peace, which I accepted. I'll roll him soon enough.

I've traded for pretty much everything else, and am a clear tech leader at this point.

In conclusion, the AI seems completely unable to use the settings in this to their advantage.

 

[Htadus]

You call this full of resources map?
No gems!?!?!
And no silver!?
And where are my furs!?!?!11

Spoiler :

They are around...I found them just around 1AD

As for my game, I played at immortal and epic just for the heck of it.

Spoiler :

Settle in place and went for Hunting, AH, Mining, BW and then to writing and alpha via PHood. Next to math and CoL for CS sling. Revolted to Slavery and Buro

Settled 2 more cities and stole 2 workers from Toku with the original warrior. Got peace the turn before lerning Alpha Traded for some minor techs untill AI had Monarchy.

Second war with Toku after cats are around well before 500BC. Captured 4 cities and got peace.

Stopped at 265AD at last place with 15 cities and teching Engineering. Capital has a academy, the GLib and the HE. It is building maces and all others are about to start on cats and what not. I should kick off a GAge with the music GArtist.

The plan is to go after Inca for the nice Myds they have to go with the HG toku built for me. Inca has about 7 old cities and 3 new cities. I intend to attack from two fronts. I may have to whip the army.

Sweet map. This should be a fast space ship once I own the continent.

 

[Danelius90]

I'm definitely going to play this one, starting either tonight or tomorrow. Perhaps make it my first Prince attempt... Any tips for someone attempting their first prince game?

If you're winning comfortably at noble, prince shouldn't be too big a jump. Make sure you expand and specialise cities a little better than you may have been. The AI receive some research/production bonuses so you need to be more efficient.
Mind you, with such a good capital site, it may be slightly easier than a normal prince game. So definitely try prince

 

[huerfanista]

OK, this is pretty much the easiest map I've ever played. Emperor/marathon, thru 80AD:

Spoiler :

Settled in place and built a worker. Thanks to Hammi's great starting techs, I went straight for BW - figuring that with all these resources there had to be copper nearby. I hooked up the grains and gold, which powered me to BW very fast. My first city (built at pop3 and whipped for 1) went to the SE copper area. This eventually became by GP farm. I then teched myst>masonry and started putting into stonehenge in my 2nd city and hooking up the copper. Once the stone was quarried, I chopped the one forest and shortly afterward completed the wonder. Nice way to pop borders in an expansion city. I built another settler who grabbed the elephants/gold area. Both of my expansion cities then started cranking out unpromoted axes (I built a rax in the capital). I was able to hit Toku's capital around 2000BC with 5 axes and a spear vs 2 archers and 2 chariots. I tossed 2 unpromoted axes at his archers and won with all the rest. His 2nd city was on a hill with 3 archers, but again I threw cannon-fodder C1 axes at them first and cleaned up with CR2 axes. His 3rd city was on a hill and had 3 archers, but the same drill worked for them. Finally in 1740BC I took his 4th city on flatland with only 2 archers. Here's a shot of my 7 cities in 1720BC:

My tech path was something like hunting> fishing> pottery> writing> math> currency> calendar> poly> lit> music. I chopped out the 'mids in Babylon, which made getting to currency a breeze. I started building libraries, settlers, and workers and running rep scientists. HC founded judaism, which spread to me and Zara, so diplo has been a breeze. My CR3 axes have taken out 4 barb cities, all of which I kept (it's pretty hard to settle a city in a bad spot on this map ). I headed straight for lib after music: CoL (founded confucianism), CS, paper, edu (1 bulb), lib to 1 turn, nationalism, lib, and took MilTrad from liberalism in 20AD:

I've currently got around 14 cities, with 8 more good spots still remaining. I popped a GM just as I started researching Nationalism, which netted a 4500 TM to HC's ToA capital. This powered me thru nat very fast. I'm a couple of turns from finishing GP with a huge tech lead - I just traded CS to HC and Zara to backfill some stuff! Once GP is done, it'll be a straight shot to economics and rifling, and the continent will be mine. Zara helpfully built the AP, to temples and monasteries will be going up everywhere. I've built a bunch of wonders (HG, SP, Sistine, SoZ, GLH, GL, UoS, Parth). Once the Taj GA starts I'll spend a few turns pacifism for a GS to bulb PP, then into slavery to whip out any remaining universities, plus forges everywhere. Cuirassiers will be built and upgraded to cavalry, and that should pretty much wrap up this continent.

View attachment NC 77 Hammurabi AD-0080.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[LeftAdjoint]

Spoiler :

Nice to play something a little whimsical for a change. Plus, an opportunity to get even with Zara for last game. (and many other games of mine)

I got 15 cities peacefully including three on the eastern island. I built an absurd number of wonders for immortal, and just sat back and settled great people until the modern era. Big Buddhist love fest on my continent.

Basically made nothing but farms, running representation and going for Mining Inc. for production.

I would have easily won space if I went for it directly, but I wanted a military victory and got too preoccupied with hitting Tokugawa with tanks. Unfortunately he had a defense pact with Capac that I couldn't break when the time came. I desperately switched to space, and managed to launch only a few turns after Zara...

Taking his capital at an opportune moment, he launched a violent counter-offensive, cutting off my source of oil:

I protected my capital and tried to hold on for a few turns, and then...

Well I've certainly learned a good lesson here about sharing the continent with two super AIs.

Blistering tech pace. For immortal anyway.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Hah, finished game, conquest victory in 1358. (Marathon remember) Score of 809k points. Hilarious.More details later, marathon has exhausted me for now.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Some more details:

Spoiler :

It was pretty much constant war. My decision to make a grab for the pyramids turned out to be exactly right, since the incredibly abundant food on the map meant that cities were all capable of being GP farms.

First war Target was Toku. I waited until I'd libbed Military Tradition. Pumped out some cuires and ran him through. When he was 90% dead, he vassaled to Huayna... so I killed him too. I bribed zara into that fight.

When Huayna was 90% dead,k he vassaled to Zara (who he'd fought twice with.... I just donl't get the AI). So I upgraded my cuirs to cavalry and did in zara too.
Exterminated everyone but a small offshore eithiopian city which I vassalled to myself ( I had no boats, didn't feel it was worth the effort). That wrapped up around 1000 AD maybe a bit later.


THE REALLY FUNNY part of this game, was building Sid's Sushi. It granted 50+ food... and cost 80 gold a turn! This was absolutely hilarious. Instead of it being the most awesome thing ever it was rather ueless, though I did spread it to my globe/park city just so I could see how big it would get .

I spread sid's a bit for a while, and generally maxed out the main continent until Oil. THen conquered continent two in about 7 turns using bombers and tanks. See result at bottom.

 

[LeftAdjoint]

@Zechnophobe

Spoiler :

I also went directly for the pyramids, as soon as I considered what 10 cities growing on at least four seafood each would look like.

I did get Mining Inc, which seemed like a good use of the resources. I hovered briefly over the button for Sid's at some point, but yes, it's a little absurd in this game. Health and happiness caps were by far the biggest barrier. I didn't have even one city where I said "Hey, this should be growing faster."

I had a kid-in-a-candy store feeling through this entire game.

 

[huerfanista]

Emperor/marathon thru 910AD:

Spoiler :

Got the free GM from economics in 335AD:

In 605AD I declared on HC with a stack of cavalry:

He capped before 685AD:

Pretty good tech lead on this continent, the other continent is a joke:

Declare on Zara in 705AD, he had grens but they suck vs cavalry:

By 800AD he's my vassal, despite taking forever to capitulate. Tech screen shows that taking on the other continent will be pathetically easy. They don't even have guilds yet!

#1 in everything that counts, army is more than twice the size of 2nd place:

Currently running Rep, Bureau, Caste, State Property, OR. Popped a GE and rushed IW in Babylon, built the Kremlin, currently building SoL. Drydocks are up in most cities and galleons/frigates are being pumped out. This shouldn't take long once I get underway. The 2 early religions being founded on the other continent really hosed their tech rate.

 

[huerfanista]

1030AD Domination:

Spoiler :

Declared on Kublai, took 2 cities and threatened a third, and he capped. I gave back his cities, then did the same to Mehmed (except he folded after I took 1 city). That tripped the domination limit.

Not a bad K/D ratio: killed 200+ and lost around 30. Also, my highest score.

 

[GGracchus]

1780 Space Race win on Emperor/Normal

Spoiler :

With all those resources, I REX'd to 17 cities with no fighting. I blocked off Toku early from the northwest and built tons of workers while teching like crazy. Took Astro from lib, went to Democracy and cottaged everything up. With that sort of tech pace, I maintained a considerable tech lead. I had fusion in 3 turns by the 1600's. Got a 110k score without fighting a single offensive war. Ended up 5th in soldier count after I massed modern armor and nukes after launching my ship. The AI's teched pretty well too, two had Apollo completed and when I got to industrialism, I saw Zara and his vassal toku had infantry and decided not to attack, which had been my plan. I ran into unhappiness problems lategame with all my cities over 20 pop and 3 over 30 pop.

 

[jdros13]

Spoiler :

I played this on Noble and quite frankly it was so easy it was boring. I wound up stopping shortly after I took electricity from Liberalism....Not sure how much longer I could have waited but I knew I would be able to wait for a long time when I was decimating Zara and he was still showing up as #2 in the game after capturing his capital. I should probably move the difficulty up several notches if I'm going to play this map....and it is probably a pretty good map for anyone that has never been able to beat Noble!

I had my entire continent conquered by 100AD and had all the religions - I founded the later ones, the early ones all went on my land mass as well leaving the other continent religion-free. I basically started playing around with the corporations and was able to spam one of the other guys with Sid's Sushi just to see what happens. Every time I gifted him 1fish, 1 crab, 1 clam and 1 rice it earned me about 30 gpt. Since I had lots of those, I was earning about 300 gpt from them (I think it was Sitting Bull? Was a couple of days ago) from just that corporation. At the end I was earning close to 3000 beakers per turn as well and I wasn't really trying to max out the scientists....just had so much of everything.

It was a whimsical game...as I said, might be worthwhile to attempt to play a couple of notches higher than usual (for me that would mean immortal I guess) but for a very mediocre player like myself it was way too easy playing on noble.

 

[CuddlesKill]

Prince, 1830 AD Culture

Spoiler :

I tried to build a spaceship, but really botched the execution and didn't have enough cities geared for production to properly launch it in a timely manner. It was so bad and my tech so fast that I used the fusion great engineer to rush the space elevator, and actually got a fair amount of use out if it So three turns before the spaceship would have arrived in 1830, I "accidentally" won a culture victory, instead. It took me a while to realize that Sid's Sushi was not only giving me dozens of food per city, but more than a hundred culture before multipliers per turn per city, too, on top of using the culture slider for happiness to keep caste system scientists in business late...

I agree, AI has no idea what to do with all these resources! Actually, neither did I. I clearly could have been much more efficient!

 

[Zechnophobe]

Prince, 1830 AD Culture

Spoiler :

I tried to build a spaceship, but really botched the execution and didn't have enough cities geared for production to properly launch it in a timely manner. It was so bad and my tech so fast that I used the fusion great engineer to rush the space elevator, and actually got a fair amount of use out if it So three turns before the spaceship would have arrived in 1830, I "accidentally" won a culture victory, instead. It took me a while to realize that Sid's Sushi was not only giving me dozens of food per city, but more than a hundred culture before multipliers per turn per city, too, on top of using the culture slider for happiness to keep caste system scientists in business late...

I agree, AI has no idea what to do with all these resources! Actually, neither did I. I clearly could have been much more efficient!

Spoiler :

Ah, you accidentally a culture victory.
Sid's Sushi for me gave a base of 200 or so culture, and 60 food, by the end. In free speech that's 400. I was seriously considering trying to win domination via culture at that point! You could land a city, pop in sid's Sushi, and have it quickly dominate the area!

Civilized Jewler's was fun too, with like 20 gold per city (40 after buildings). Just there to try and help keep sid's alive.

I almost want to go back and play until 1600 and see how well I could max out my cities!

 

[FlyingSwan]

Emporer/normal speed-culture vic turn 217 View attachment NC 77 Hammurabi AD-1535 culture vic.CivBeyondSwordSave

Spoiler :

Pretty average time for a culture win considering the land and resources.Took lib in about 270AD for nationalism.Had a stroppy Toku DoW on me but drafting and the AP came to the rescue to end the war quickly.Had a bad run of popping GS rather than GAs.

Didnt build any cottages this game,just farms,workshops and mines and stayed in caste system throughout(apart from the short war where I went nationhood/police state/slavery).The only wonder I wanted to build and missed was Notre Dam.

 

[avw94]

This is an awesome start.

Spoiler :

I saw Tokugawa right away, and went early construction and feudalism. I capped him quickly. Huyna was starting to run away, so I took half of his cities with maces and capped him. I'm now debating whether to declare war on Yara or just leave him be.