Nobles' Club LXXXIII: Peter the Great of Russia

[MeowZeDung]

~500AD

Spoiler :

I decided to go with a SE, on a whim really. Just didn't feel like cottage spamming I guess. As a result of my unfamiliarity with it my economy is tanking. Hard.

I was able to effectively whip/REX to 6 or 7 cities before me and Cyrus were rubbing elbows, at which point I moved in with Axes/Catapults. It is already apparent that we are isolated so my plan is to take the continent for myself and then beeline Mass Media for a diplo attempt. I took two cities and unfortunately couldn't take his capitol before the economy tanked (literally had 3 strikes and 2 units disbanded, that's how hard I was having to MM commerce/wealth building just to break even, and sometimes not even that). Took peace for 4 or 5 early backfill techs. Ten turns later I rolled back in, took the capitol and razed another city, heading for his remaining cities now.

Some mistakes imo:

Not understanding SE well enough. I'm running ~8 scientists at any given moment, but I should have taken a better tech path for bulb effeciency. I think prioritizing Math/Construction/Currency was necessary, but I shouldn't have gone for Aesthetics (wanted parthenon, not the best decision given the situation I suppose)

3 GS so far. The first built an academy in the capitol, the second bulbed alpha :/ (that one was the mistake) , and the third gave me a much needed golden age.

Being crappy at war

 

[WelshGandalf]

@ MeowZeDung - what difficulty are you playing at?

And some spoilered stuff mainly aimed at Meow...

Spoiler :

I did SE too and got 5 great people by 250AD (and another 7 by 1300AD) so doing a bit better than you in that regard. Did you get pyramids, they're a big help obviously, to help keep your tech going. I'm still mastering the SE myself.

I had 6 cities but didn't attack Cyrus until cuirs. With 6 cities and no war draining your econ, I found keeping economy going fairly easy actually, more so than I expected. I sat the slider at 0% most of the time and got plenty of beakers from representation/caste, my capital had an academy too so each scientist there gave 10.5 beakers each.

I dunno if it's better to wait to attack with SE, as you can quick-ishly bulb to lib and then attack with superior troops.

Anyhow you can read my spoilers where I went into a bit more detail. To be fair my war didn't go outstandingly well so I can learn more there. Once I finish the game I will put a final spoiler up.

 

[MeowZeDung]

@WelshGandalf

Spoiler :

Monarch, no huts. I'm not that great a player

I agree, it would have been better to rex to 7ish cities and wait for knights/currs/cavs even to attack since Cyrus isn't a warmonger anyhow. I was a fool to not attempt the mids. My logic was that no stone = no mids, but rep is such a big deal for SE that it would have been worth it. Especially since they didn't get BIADL until turn 148 in my game!

I managed to mop up Cyrus pretty easily with my 2nd DOW. I even got the economy back up and running with a massive round of market and courthouse whipping followed by a switch to Caste System. Ran merchants in about half my cities and started my 2nd GA with a GM/GS. I had another GS just sitting around because I foolishly took sailing as part of the cease fire with Cyrus, now he just wants to bulb compass Should have just settled him I guess. Then I went and trashed my econ again by expanding to 19 cities, convinced that I needed to control the entire continent asap instead of keeping it fogbusted and taking my time. Abandoned the game

I think I'll try again though, just because I want to get used to SE and Peter is a good leader for it. Cottage spam has gotten boring.

 

[jwez11007]

After awhile off of CIV I decided to try out a couple of these NC games. Emperor/Epic huts and events on

Spoiler :

This has been a bit of a challenge, mostly due to rusty gameplay. Given the lack of early happy resources and wet corn in moscow's BFC I chose to mine the pigs for the starting portion of the game. Upon seeing cyrus positioned to block me off from the continent I figured a horse archer rush would be a good decision. With marble nearby I prioritized hooking it up with my second city and setting up to oracle HBR. Expanded to a third city to the west and optimized all three of them for hammers. Pumped out an army and invaded the persians nabbing four cities including their capital before calling for peace. Unfortunately they are still expanding into the southern part of the continent and I have tanked my economy.

Looking forward to trying to turn my economy around and get to another military tech in time to finish off Persia before going on an overseas roflstomp. I'm predicting mushroom clouds before the end

 

[WelshGandalf]

@ MeowZeDung

Spoiler :

I find that on Monarch, if you really want a wonder you can get it. Since I wanted to practice the specialist economy I went for the Pyramids hard. Lots of stuff to chop though which helps.

I think your war-like approach is perfectly viable, on Monarch & maybe emperor too you can easily win with your rushing or my teching/wonder-building.

And for the rest of my game....

Spoiler :

Space victory 1912

I took ages to finish Cyrus off. I took 3 or 4 of his best cities with cuirs, but then didn't have enough to carry on really. I think I should've just gone into slavery and made sure I had enough to finsh him off. I'm just way too nervous about economy crashing I guess.

Anyway I finally finished him off 1812AD, frankly disappointing given my record lib date of 1000AD for MilTrad. Anyhoo, I then settled a few marginal cities which took me to 28 cities. I met everyone and generally got on with everyone, well except for Monty ofc . I founded cereal mills as that seemed to be a good choice given the resources I had, which netted me +7 food a city I believe. I was level-ish with the others techwise, perhaps a little behind. I fired off my third golden age and went into representation/FS/caste/free market/free religion for some specialist fun backed up with some ex-Persian towns, free market for the corporation and free religion for the happiness to fight my lack of emancipation and the +10% science boost.

I headed down the tech tree to the research institute. This is a freaking great building especailly if you're running representation/FR - it gives you +25% on your existing science PLUS 26.4 beakers. My science rate accelerated to over 3000 beakers a turn as I pulled out a clear lead in the modern era. The spaceship was built in pretty quick time - the 2 engines were 8-turn builds, and 2 turns after they were done, everything else was done also.

Fun game, and I had so many great people... next one needed 4200 GPP I believe. I used 6 on golden ages, 2 to rushbuild, 1 academy, 1 corp founding, 5 or 6 bulbs and some settling (including 1 near the end which shaved 1 turn off my win turn thanks to the bonus hammers).

 

[MeowZeDung]

@WelshGandalf

Spoiler :

I reloaded for a second playthrough last week actually, and I found what you said about wonders to be true. I got the Oracle, Mids, ToA, GLib, Parth, and MoM all while rexing to 7 cities and running a SE. Kind of hard to screw up a game when you land that many wonders

Built an academy and bulbed my way through Paper/Philo/Edu with five GS, built the Confu shrine with a GP and spread to all Persian cities, and rush built the ToA with a GE, so 7 great people this go around. I eventually got bored and abandoned the game, but I definitely picked up some good experience with the SE. Thanks for your feedback!

 

[mtr12]

Monarch/Normal, No Huts/Events, here we go...

Last few posted games I've had Stone, doubt I'll have any this time tho . Time to learn how to work without Henge.

Spoiler :

SIP, Techpath: Agr --> AH --> BW, so far.
Good Bureau Cap, Pig/Marble to the East, mediocre Deer/Sheep city to West, rest of land is looking pretty crappy.

Might do a sorta SSE-style thing this game cause of the Marble, Oracle/GLib should carry me into the Renn.


Eh, it's 1030 and I'm nowhere close to Lib, my tech's in the crapper, and I'm limping along to a Sword/Cat War against Cyrus, who basically had 13 cities to my 5 before the war began. Well, I took 2 and settled for peace, and will war with him again in a bit.

Also I got like 3 Great Spies, so I stole like 5 techs from Cyrus, including Feud.

Nvm, I resign this game, the production just isn't there to win Space, and I'm only barely keeping pace with Zara.

My strengths this game:
-Espionage/Stealing
-Tech Trading

My weaknesses this game:
-Fuarking terrible worker management
-Bad buildpath management
-Failure to know when to fight Cyrus and when to chill

If Cyrus can be defeated by a Sword/Cat rush, leaving the entire continent to me...well, that might change the fate of the game. Might be doable on Monarch.

 

[mtr12]

First Monarch Culture win, yay!

Spoiler :

-Never mind, Chariot-rushed Cyrus, got 15 cities.
-Got a mass defensive pact with the Zara/Peri/Qin lovefest, basically everyone was united by Judaism and their virulent Monty hate.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler :

I have done a first attemt at this map.
It's quite a challenge!!

Settled in place.
Went Agri -> AH (I see no point going AH first, with wet corn around.) -> Wheel -> Pottery, the worker improved corn, then went up on the plains hill, started to improve the mine one turn, then went to the pigs, pasturised them and returned to the plains hill to improve that.


Started to build a settler at pop3. Settled at the coast following the river.
The idea with this city was to work up a few cottages for the capital, and since it could share the corn, and had a deer (and we started with hunting) this felth like a very strong choice.
Allthough I don't see anyone else mentioning this, so I am abit curious what you think about it.

I continued to tech BW -> Myst -> Masonry -> Polytheism -> Priesthood.
And settled my third village SE of the marble. Claiming copper and pigs.


I thought that a city down on darius river is overly-ambitious, but I saw a nice site for a city down there, on the plains hill, NW of the little lake, by the wheat.
(This was my 4:th city.)

I managed to chop out the oracle at this site, but my economy was to badly hurt, that I could not manage to get writing in time..




I will probably re-play the opening tonight, and if anyone have any pointers as how to improve, I would appreciate them.

 

[ecuwins]

Be ready to throw down and work cottages the minute Pottery comes in. Use two workers per tile. You are Exp with a lot of hammers, there is no excuse for too little workers here. Also, don't be afraid to not chop the Oracle if it delays it to the same turn as Writing. Save the trees for something else.

 

[mtr12]

Yeah, this is perhaps one of the most difficult NC games out there.

Except maybe for that troll Tokugawa map where everyone had their own island.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler :

I did two new attemts, both at rushes.

Settle the horse city first, and made a try for a HA rush.
Allthough I did dominate cyrus eventually, costs were high, and I did not have him finished by 1200 AD, and I guess that I would be hopelessly behind if continuing with that game.

Axerush didn't go well either. It seems that once I expanded at the copper, cyrus saw that as a invitation to settle 3 more cities right on my lawn.
My horde of axemen did not fare well, against a swarm of archers in hillcities neither...

If one is planning to take out cyrus early, I would guess that swords and/or catapults is the way to go. I get a feeling that trebs come too late, and require too much investment in war-techs to early.

 

[mtr12]

I did a Chariot Rush that worked on Monarch, but Chariot Rush is generally a terrible tactic so I wouldn't use it on Emperor.

Yeah, I think Sword/Cata is our only hope, unless you want to try to Oracle CoL for Confu and get Cyrus to Friendly, then beat up on the Monty/Isabella crap continent. Even if you did that, you would have to contend with Zara, who might have won Space by then


Gonna play MS Charlemagne now, last time I tried it I failed miserably. It's a difficult map too since every enemy is a warmonger.

 

[dalamb]

Folks, even though this game is "old", it would be nice to spoiler stuff about who the opponents are and what the territory is like.

 

[krikav]

Folks, even though this game is "old", it would be nice to spoiler stuff about who the opponents are and what the territory is like.

True, sorry for beeing sloppy.

And thanks for a very enjoyable map.

 

[krikav]

I did a new attempt yesterday, and I am somewhat pleased by the result so far.

Spoiler :

I ignored the marble early, no oracle gambit.

I expanded toward Cyrus quickly, settling the horse city and a city just east of the wheat, on a plains hill NW of the little lake, down at cyrus territory.
This was a nice spearhead in his territory.

In total, I managed to get 11 cities, this including fishing-villages up in the tundra though.

I built 4 settlers and sent them down to his tundra, settling them in awefull locations (blocking out fish and other food resources)
I did this to hurt his economy, and to improve relations.

I'm now at around 1100 AD.
Pericles has vassalized to Zara, and they are both monsters.

Through some tech-trading, I have gotten way ahead of cyrus, and I am now 4 turns away from rifling.

Since cyrus army cosists of alot of knights/pikes, I thought rifles would be a good idea.

The plan is to anihilite cyrus, and claim all the land for my own, and win a space victory.




I have not managed to get a lvl 4 unit, so I have no heroic epic. The bronze site and the horse site are both in excellent shape to built units though, and I do have a considerable outdated axe/catapult army I never had oppertunity to use.


My capital is heavily cottaged, and has oxford, national epic and I have also settled all scientists there (I fealth there wer little point bulbing, since cyrus was a lousy trading partner, and everything I would have traded would benefit him.