Nobles' Club LXXI: Churchill of England

[Kaosprophet]

I've uploaded more videos (link in sig). Game is now up to 640 AD.

Edit: 760 AD now.

Not sure if this is spoiler-worthy or not, but just in case:

Spoiler :

around vid 4 you were farming York while it was well past happy-cap, when you could have been building mines and/or whipping stuff. Any reason for that, or was it just being distracted by the video-making process?

Other than that, probably one of the better video series for noble/prince level players to watch.

 

[A_Hamster]

Difficulties mastered are opportunities won. - Winston Churchill

4000 BC: Tentative plans are SIP for PH bonus. Gold might be on a peninsula and a warrior shall explore in that direction. Queue: FB-Warrior-FB-Warrior. While Churchill is well suited for warfare, my preference is for REXing since it seems to give better results. However, if the neighborhood is too crowded, then there may be no choice but to rush.

 

[Capellan]

@kaosprophet
Spoiler-worthy for me, or for someone else? I haven't read the comment, just in case it's the former.

The focus of these videos is definitely Noble-level players. It's basic stuff like "Have enough workers. Be ready to improve your cities as soon as you settle them (or before, where possible). Focus your cities on what they're best suited for. Understand the basic logic of how war targets are chosen."

 

[Kaosprophet]

@kaosprophet
Spoiler-worthy for me, or for someone else? I haven't read the comment, just in case it's the former.

Others. Well, mostly people watching your video since it's a fairly generic question (hence why I wasn't sure.)

The focus of these videos is definitely Noble-level players. It's basic stuff like "Have enough workers. Be ready to improve your cities as soon as you settle them (or before, where possible). Focus your cities on what they're best suited for. Understand the basic logic of how war targets are chosen."

Definately well done, with those goals in mind: it's easy to follow what you're doing and why (though I might question or nitpick some of the minutiae, that's going beyond the point.)

--
In my game, I hit my usual wall: irrational attachment to friendly rivals. Killed off the pariahs, leaving a hug-fest and couldn't bring myself to backstab for domination (like I said: irrational.) Probably could have brute-forced a UN victory but I wasn't sure, so I just left it.

 

[A_Hamster]

Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.- Winston Churchill

Spoiler State of the Realm: 975 BC :

Priorities were exploration and expansion. First tech researched was BW, followed by Agr to AH. This way early cities could claim copper and Horses. Additionally, with two seafood tiles, whipping will be useful so Slavery is a must.

As a number of you have noted, I don't expand enough in the early game, and I will try to remedy that. However, I also want the GLH, since most of my proposed city sites are coastal. Additionally, I want to try generating GMs this game instead of GSs as is my usual policy. So I'll try to get six-eight cities by 1 AD and I want the GLH. Let's see what happens.

T46: The amusingly named Bradford Liberty founds York. (I'm using the random civ-related name option out of curiousity.) This is to claim the gold and cows.

Spoiler :

T72: The plausibly named Blaine Radcliffe Wright founds Nottingham to claim cows, horse, and eventually sugar.

Spoiler :

The neighbors:
T14: Met Mansa Musa's Warrior to the NE of London. (He will found Islam.)
T33: Asoka's Warrior to the south of MM. Founder of Buddhism, will found Christianity on Turn 35. So far, looks like a tech whore game, and eventually, easy targets.
T53: Meet Monty's Scout way to the south of MM's territory. As expected, he is Annoyed with MM and Asoka. AFAIK, Monty is not near me, so I can continue with peaceful expansion.
T59: Find Genghis Khan's territory to the ENE of MM. Interesting, have not seen GK for ages in any BtS game I've played. Most likely to be competing with me for the lands east of London. Warmonger bonus applies so he is annoyed with MM and Asoka, Pleased with Monty.
T72: Roosevelt's Warrior finds York. So one last AI is out there.
T76: 975 BC. Monty DoWs Roosey. (Where are they?) As long as they aren't near me, I don't care. Someone also completes the GW.

So I need at least three more cities to make the 1 AD deadline, that will be my priority.

Spoiler Power at T76 :

Spoiler The World as England knows it :

 

[Capellan]

Others. Well, mostly people watching your video since it's a fairly generic question (hence why I wasn't sure.)

Ah. I checked it, and the short answer is "because I do dumb stuff and/or don't pay enough attention sometimes". The specific thing you asked about is far from the only one of those in these videos

 

[dalamb]

BC 4000-1875

Pausing to consider another dotmap.

Spoiler :

Peaceful expansion, aside from a few barbarians my axemen dispatched fairly easily. I've been exploring with my Woods III axeman because he is reasonably safe from barbarians (though some axes have started to show up) and gets good movement through woods (which are still plentiful; the AI haven't got into severe deforestation yet). I'm at the point of thinking about expanding more, since I'm close to getting Code of Laws and can afford to be more spread out. My western dotmap is unchanged; here's my thoughts on the east. The barb city actually looks reasonably well placed; they aren't always.


Chronology:

• 1225 BC got within 1 turn of finishing the Oracle and decided to risk a CS slingshot rather than take CoL or MC immediately.
• 700 BC: Asoka, who'd been sending me missionaries, asked me to convert to Judaism, which I did. I was a little worried about the hit in diplomacy from Mansa, who was Hindu.
  
  In the same turn Roosevelt was willing to trade Alphabet, which led to a succession of trades:
  • Alphabet
    
  • Monarchy
    
  • Polytheism
    
• 675 BC: Roosevelt invited me into a war with Monty, who was (a) far away (b) likely to need a whomping eventually and (c) likely to get me a relationship boost with Roosevelt.
  
  Not only does Roosevelt like me better: Hatty is in the same war.
  
• 600 BC: I suddenly go DUH and realize I can now Oracle feudalism, which is nearly as costly as CS, might get me Mansa as a vassal eventually, and gives me Vassalage for unit promotions for the war, should I choose to participate actively.

Spoiler some events :

• 1750 BC:
  
• 750 BC:
  
• 700 BC: didn't realize two events could happen so close together.
  

Advice welcome on the dotmap; I'm not so sure the desert city on the marble is worth it, at least not for a while -- which could lead to an AI settling there. The AI is always settling places I consider a drain rather than a help, but they sometimes block decent sites I could have settled myself.

 

[Archon_Wing]

@dalamb

Spoiler :

Marble desert city is fine, just settle to the north or something and get the fish. I would place the green dot where it can reach the cow, probaly 2w of the cow. In any case, I'd want the cow to grow a city.

 

[kcostell]

Thanks for all the tips. When I get some time to play this weekend my plan will probably be

Spoiler :

This is predicated on the tech situation right now -- Asoka, Mansa Musa, and I are well ahead of the rest of the world (with me somewhat ahead of them), and nobody seems to like Mr. Khan so much to take pity on him and help him catch up.

1. Kill the Hanging Gardens for now and expand to another 3-4 cities (2 on the Western peninsula, a couple gap fillers in the east).
2. Beeline to liberalism, then to gunpowder/military tradition, then to rifling. Meanwhile, build trebuchets and horsemen.
3. Hawk liberalism/other artsy techs around, using the resulting cash to upgrade all the horsemen.
4. Go after a technologically backwards Khan.

My concern with Genghis isn't him attacking me right now...it's that I want to get rid of him but a war against him seems like it would be expensive at the moment due to his ivory monopoly and Keshiks.

This (warmonger with Cuirassiers and Cavalry) seems to be the strategy I follow almost every game.
I guess I need to stop using it as a crutch, but it always seems like the best plan...

 

[Um the Muse]

Hey, this thread looks interesting. I hope I'm doing this right.
I've played this to turn 150, which is c. 350 BC. I believe this is for epic speed, can't remember for sure. I just know it's not my regular, marathon speed (everything happens so fast! Lol)

Initial decision

Spoiler :

I decided to move my settler 1NE, mostly to be contrarian.

I also decided that, with two seafoods (one of which was shoreline fishies ), I might want to have this city build the Moai Statues and leverage the sea. EDIT: I forgot that you could see the cows and marble, so it wasn't that I got lucky on my second city; I'd planned it that way.

It looks like a got lucky with that decision. Moving there allowed me more space for my second city, and greatly improved my production capability in my capitol.

My situation as of turn 150

Spoiler :

So far, I don't think that I've made any tech trades, and my only resource trade has been to Mansa Musa. For some reason, I started out with a -4 to Asoka for "You have traded with our worsest enmy!!!" I've caved in to a demand each from Montezuma and Genghis Khan. That might be considered suboptimal; I'm just used to being behind in soldiers. I'm also still expanding, so I thought war was the last thing that I needed right now. Lastly, they were demanding something cheap (meditation, if I remember correctly)

A more serious mistake was building the Great Lighthouse. It appears that everything is on the same continent (so far, anyway). I'm going to have to build a city on some island somewhere to leverage it properly.

It feels so weird to have horses, marble, copper, AND iron nearby

 

[Um the Muse]

@Dalamb:

Spoiler :

That marble city looks great. I'll have to see if I can get me some of that. Have you considered 1S, though? The marble will give you the production to get your library (or monument, if you don't have writing) in a timely manner, then the fish will let you support all four specials. I think that that is worth losing the forest. You could even build a mine on the marble to get the first culture pusher, then build the quarry over it in when you're close to finishing it.

Spoiler :

The other spot seems, at first glance, a little spotty. If you're willing to make the kind of investment to clear out all that jungle, maybe it would be better to build on the river. Dyes along the river is nice, but that is a lot of unhealthy, especially since its a placeholder until you get calendar. The river would also make a good buffer, since it will likely be a border city, designed to block the AI's expansion.

In general:
No hurt intended, but is this map doctored? It seems too good to be true

 

[Capellan]

Since I now know the whole map, I checked the map spoilers

Spoiler :

Glad to see my hunch as to why Mansa knew about a random patch of distant land was right.

Not sure if there is any way to make a swapped AI 'forget' their initial tiles?

 

[i_imperator]

Emperor/Normal to 1ad

Spoiler :

I decided to Settle in place, the gold was too far away and probally not worth the move. This site is good enough anyway.

I think that was a good decision! Marble, i will probally go for the GL later so. After scouting the land and realising how much was there i decided to go GW and the great lighthouse. My tech went-Masnory-sailing-bw-wheel-pot-agr-ah-Myst-Monarchy-writing.
Builds were, WB-warrior-worker-GW-Settler-Lighthouse-The great lighthouse.


I traded monarchy with Roosevelt for alpha. I was probally the last to get alpha, mansa got to writing first so he had alpha early. I went for asethetics but mansa got that first.

Right now i've just finished teching lit for the great library and i am planning on going for Sistine after currency and col (which will hopefully be trades as mansa has them. I have to be carefull tho, mansa got lit early, si there's a chance i might not get TGL.



As for cities, right now i have 5 with a settler on the way, i find it difficult to REX while building wonders, For now i will probally backfill and take that northern barb city. Advice is welcome, and i will provide a save.

 

[Capellan]

More videos are up - uploading part 21 currently, which starts at 1450AD.

 

[Deonnim]

Prince/Normal 1000AD

Spoiler :

I thought I had autologging on in the BUG mod, but I find I was mistaken. I got caught up in playing this game, but have decided to check in now to try and get some advice. Early in the game I was able to throw the entire world into war, I even had an advantage with Horse Archers. The Mongols asked me to declare on Mansa, and even though I wasn't ready for the war I accepted. India was bribed in on me as well, which turned the whole world backwards. I trudged ahead, but didn't do so well with the war, Mansa showed up with Horse Archers and I decided for a peace treaty. I couldn't get to India without open borders so I peace treatied with them as well, giving them a Malinese city that I had previously captured.

I've included screens of all my cities, my kingdom, the tech situation and an overview of relations. I just finished researching Education. I plan on teching GP, then Lib, and bulbing Steel. I believe with that sort of lead I can wipe out Mansa and Asoka fairly easily since they are my tech rivals and at that point I should be able to stomp over the rest of the world. I would like to take out Roosevelt since he is wonder whoring this game and a little backwards, but he seems rather far away to take out.

Any advice would be fantastic. Thank you.

Spoiler :

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[Capellan]

@Deonnim

Spoiler :

Why is there a barb city on your borders at 1000 AD?

Why is there unclaimed land on your borders at 1000 AD? 5S of your most eastern city (the x-barb one) is a monster production spot if you spam farms + mines.

You need Chemistry as well as Gunpowder for Steel. I'd be tempted by Printing Press myself, since it will boost all those cottages you've been building, and is on the way to Redcoats.

Several of the AIs are close to Feudalism: I don't see much value in building Horse Archers at this time.

Edit to add: just finished my game. 1730 AD Domination at Noble/Normal. Rest of the videos will go up over the next few hours.

 

[kalidude]

Decided to move up to Monarch for this game since the Freddy game was so easy I gave up out of boredom.

2240BC:

Spoiler :

Build order was WB, Worker, Warrior, Warrior, Oracle (maybe 1 more warrior before Oracle). I decided to try and get the most advantage out of the marble as possible, so I went right for masonry and then the techs that would help me build the Oracle. If there had been land-based food resources, I would have teched things like AG and AH first.

Took Monarchy from the oracle but delayed the HR switch until I get BW and slavery. Thinking now this might have been a mistake b/c it may cause 2 turns of anarchy, giving me no benefit from having waited. I'm not close enough to getting BW that I will run into the "cannot switch civics because of recent revolt" thing. With not much for my city to do and still 20-something turns from hitting the initial happy cap, I decided to go for the rare move of 2 wonders back to back. I picked Stonehenge because free border pops for most of the game is nice, plus all the free monuments add +1 due to the charismatic trait. Hoping to also squeeze in GLH as my final early wonder.

Haven't met anyone yet and currently researching AG and then AH for the food resources in my next city. Trying to decide between BW and writing after that, I'd really like to get a mine on that forrested plains hill, and chopping should help with GLH, although there's an argument to be made for libraries/scientists/GS points.

Question: If I have a granary that will complete in 5 turns, and my city is due to grow in 5 turns, will the food storage thing happen before the city grows, or do I need to get the granary out 1 turn in advance of the city growing? In other words, which is processed first in a game turn, city growth or city production? EDIT: City growth is the answer. Needed to get the granary built earlier. D'oh!

Can someone please comment on my dot map? If it's hard to see, the gray one is second to last and the green city is last in the order. I'm trying to get in the habit of color coding my dot maps - red for production city, green or yellow for commerce, and gray means I'm unsure or it's a filler city. Thanks.

Spoiler :

 

[Um the Muse]

@ kalidude:
I can't even see your screenshot, for some reason. Also, how do you get it to show multiple colors?

 

[Capellan]

@Um the Muse
There should be a little palette toolbox somewhere on the screen when you enter the dotmapping tool. Pick colors there.

@kalidude

Spoiler :

I think you should get a couple more worker techs before you make too many dotmaps - you haven't revealed any strategic resources yet. That said:

1 is definitely the right place for a city. You can do either strong production (farms and mines) or strong commerce (cottages) there. Of course, for the latter you'll need pottery.

2 I don't like. It's one off the coast, so it will have 2 coast tiles you can't improve, and it will be very weak on food until its first border pop. It'll still be fairly weak after that, at least until you can chain irrigate.

4: it's a bad idea to dot map a city when you can't see 1/4 of its BFC. They could all be desert tiles. They could all be grassland iron too, but it's not worth the gamble I think

Finish 'henge, settle 1, do more scouting and teching. You're already planning to get AH I see; I'd go BW ahead of Writing, myself. You've got a lot forests you're going to want to chop.

Going HR+Slavery together should be only a 1 turn revolt, I believe.

 

[dalamb]

No hurt intended, but is this map doctored? It seems too good to be true

I confess to whatever doctoring I did in the "map spoiler" in the first post. In general, these days I often regenerate until we get something in the BFC that suits our initial techs, and in response to various comments over the months, try to figure out whether any AI has too much territory into which to expand unopposed (though for some maps it has become clear I'm not especially good at that part).

@Capellan:

Spoiler :

Glad to see my hunch as to why Mansa knew about a random patch of distant land was right. Not sure if there is any way to make a swapped AI 'forget' their initial tiles?

There's a feature in the WB to make it recalculate what initial map tiles each civ knows about, which one needs to use if one swaps civs or moves our initial worker/scout. I don't always remember to actually use it.