Nobles' Club LXXXIX: Victoria of England

[Zx Zero Zx]

@Zero

Spoiler :

Wait till you see the galleys!

I built 3 warriors to do some pre-archer fog busting. And then 2x archer/settler/2x archer.

@abegweit

Spoiler :

Galleys were quite annoying in my game as well. I was a happy camper when I got MC from Boudica.

I must say this is probably the first time I built tgl (and only because it was still available so late). Didn`t you get massive maintenance from all those cities? Since I blocked Pacal by closing borders, I didn`t put a city offland untill I had some courthouses. The only foreign trade routes for me atm is with Boudica, which makes it even more unatractive to me. :/

I was ran over by the Archers before I could even be bothered by galleys! There was like 8 turns in a row where 2 Archers and 1 Warrior came into my borders to fight me. I didn't have time to build settlers .

 

[PeteJ]

425ad immortal

Spoiler :

I played this a few days ago so I don't remember exactly how I played this, but I ended up grabbing the GLH and the Colossus plus a bunch of fail gold via the stone. I was able to block off a little bit of land on the main island plus I grabbed some decent island cities. I'm contemplating whether I should attack Pacal now with maces/catapults or wait until lib. He looks pretty soft at the moment and I think I could probably vassal him pretty easily so I'm leaning towards attacking now.

Here's some screenshots:

The main land:

Spoiler :

My island cities:

Spoiler :

Tech:

Spoiler :

 

[SammyW1000]

Decided to SIP, thought about moving 1NW to get the rice but decided that I would leave that for another city and so hopefully be able to use those two riverside tiles north of it a bit better. Looks like most others decided the opposite...I’ll have to wait and see how that turns out .

One question - I've always been dead paranoid about leaving my 1st city undefended. So I'll either prioritise building another warrior (and delay other builds) or keep my starting unit at home (and delay exploration). Is there a period of grace on most maps where your city is unlikely to be at risk? At what point does it become essential that you keep it protected?

 

[Archon_Wing]

There are certain rules that barbs won't enter your borders until a certain time (Not sure exactly when but even on Deity you have until the mid-late 2000s BC) unless you have raging barbs selected.

Info here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7461350&postcount=6

The other exception is the "Barbarian uprising" event, but I'd suggest to turn them off if you want to learn.

 

[krikav]

One question - I've always been dead paranoid about leaving my 1st city undefended. So I'll either prioritise building another warrior (and delay other builds) or keep my starting unit at home (and delay exploration). Is there a period of grace on most maps where your city is unlikely to be at risk? At what point does it become essential that you keep it protected?

There are X ammount of turns before any barbarian units spawn at all.
Then there is a long time (at least long on noble), when the only barbarians that exist are the animals, and animals does not enter cultural borders.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Well this map isn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Well my normal strategy of Treb warring for a Vassal worked very well, and it exploded my tech rate. Ended up winning an 1800 Diplo because I was to lazy to win a Dom. It took me awhile to get the votes needed, a whole 150 years x].

 

[BurN]

One question - I've always been dead paranoid about leaving my 1st city undefended. So I'll either prioritise building another warrior (and delay other builds) or keep my starting unit at home (and delay exploration). Is there a period of grace on most maps where your city is unlikely to be at risk? At what point does it become essential that you keep it protected?

On deity barbs will enter your borders around turn 40. The lower the difficulty the longer it will take. However! To add an extra to your paranoia! Barbs will enter your borders before it IF they are in `combat-mode`. I`ve lost my capital once with only a worker out because: An AI placed a scout next to my borders -> Barb warrior attacks and kills it -> because it is in combat mode right next to my border -> enters my border at like turn 30.


@Zero: Grats on your win.

@Abegweit:

Spoiler :

I`m around 1000AD now and I can see your concern for deity. We`ve got a massive Mansa and Darius. Mansa with many cities and 3 holy cities. Mansa, Darius and Washington are all pleased with eachother, so they have been happily trading away.

However the easy part in the game is that first of all Pacal can`t really become so big and he is a soft target for curs/cavs/riffles. Secondly that Boudica and Genghis will be totally backward as they are warring much AND have crappy land.

I`m taking Pacal out quite unopposed with curs/cavs. And around 1100AD, only Mansa is ahead. I got cavs atm, with Pacal as good as wiped out, and IF I wanted to bother I could make a bunch of transports and take out Boudica and Genghis.

Taking out Boudica and Genghis is probably the safest road to victory (with SP) as I`m a bit suspicious of such a strong Mansa. But I already put like 10+ hours in the game and I`m getting a bit weary. I think going diplo vic can be pretty easy with such easy to please AI`s on the other continent. Though I find diplo rather unsatisfying. I`ll probably try to win space with cottage spam, sushi/mining corp and internet. (I`ll probably gift a crapload of techs to Boudica so she can take out Genghis with superior units as I got very bad relations with him. I just hope Mansa or Darius don`t win a crappy diplo victory at one point. If they do, I`ll probably reload and take the safe way, which is taking out Boudica/Genghis and go for domination with state property.

 

[Habitus]

IIRC they also enter earlier to pillage tiles on your border and then leave again.

 

[WelshGandalf]

Welsh, 1NW is coastal.

Doooh!

OK after seeing some other efforts here I decided mine sucked. I had played it on until 900AD but it was a tough game. So, I played it again form the start.

Emperor/1AD/huts

Spoiler :

Settled 1NW this time. I think the extra hammer is worth it.

Went for an odd opening, something like this....
Agri -> AH -> Sailing -> BW -> TW -> Masonry -> Myst
Built... WB -> Warrior (size 2) -> worker -> galley -> settler/warrior/settler

First settler settled a bit north, second hopped on the galley and settled next to the stone. I then quickly improved the stone, and my capital built stonehenge (which only needed one whip overflow and 3 turns of hammers ). My capital then mainly wonderhogged. I did miss out on the Pyramids by 1 turn - however the 500 or so gold funded defecit research for a while, so I missed out on the long-term boost to my economy but got a very decent short term one instead. It's trying for a SSE, so I hope to lib nationalism then tech consititution to get the bonus beakers I need.

The one thing that improved my performance this time round (8 cities at 1AD rather than 6 from my first effort, something like 27 vs 20 pop too) was not building infrastructure early on. 4 warriors can be a better use of hammers than a granary, especially in a city with as much food as the capital. My expansion meant that Pacal is much less of an influence this game (plus he doesn't have a shrine earning 15+ a turn).

Other differences....
- All those warriors fogbusted pretty well so i didn't have the barb issues I had first time.
- The mongols & celts share a religion and are getting on nicely rather than beating each other up.
- Pyramids went around 400BC this game rather than me taking them in around 200 AD in the first game.
- I can't grow cities beyond size 8 or so at the moment due to happiness issues - I never got representation from the pyramids.
- I did however get the free GA from music. When I get to CS, I'll head to monarchy, burn the GA on a golden age, and revolt into beauro/HR. Pacifism would be nice too but since I have no state religion & I don't really want one. I have 4 religions in my cities so free religion looks like a good answer to my happiness issues in the future.

 

[BurN]

Deity/normal

4000BC-1000BC

Spoiler :

As by earlier post, went 1NW, WB till pop 2, finish WB, whip worker, chop 2nd WB.

Tech path: BW, hunting, AH, Archery, wheel, pottery, myst, aggri, writing, sailing, Aest, lit.

1960BC: York founded @ sheep/rivers.
1600BC: Nottingham founded @ rice/cow.
1200BC: Writing.
1100BC: Hastings founded @ clam/horse/silver.
1000BC: Nothing special.

1000BC-500AD

Spoiler :

625BC: Canterbury founded @ deer/fur
550BC: Coventry founded ontop of marble. (Beat Pacal by 2 turns)
525BC: Trade Aest to Pacal for Alph.
500BC: Trade Alph to Boudica for IW/Priesthood. Also noticed nobody built GLH.
425BC: Meet Genghis who`s at war with Boudica.
350BC: GLH in cap. Ooook then?
275BC: Dow Genghis on request of Boudica. Genghis is totally backward so he won`t be a prob.
200BC: TGL in cap.
150BC: CoL to Pacal for monarchy+70gold.
100BC: Parthenon in Nottingham.
75BC: FIRST GS. Very late first GS. I somehow never found the room to run some. Used it to bulb phil and switch to pacifism and HR. Next GS will be for academy in cap.

75BC Tech overview:


100AD: Switch to Bur and Caste. Also founding some islands. Mostly ones that have some production.
300AD: Double bulb edu.
450AD: Bulb Lib. (1turn to research) + mainland city overview. 215 beakers, +2 gold / turn at 70% research.















Since Pacal is quite the tech AI and didn`t have Education yet, I decided not to finish lib yet. Research to Nationalism. I still have closed borders with him. At this point the priority buildings will be forges/barracks/stables for a cur war.

500AD-1200AD

Spoiler :

540AD: Dow Genghis again on request of Boudica.
580AD: Bulb part of PP.
640AD: Finish Nationalism. Pacal has self researched Edu now.
680AD: Finished lib and pick MT. Start finishing the partially bulbed PP and then off to Gunpowder.
740AD: Start Golden Age with GS.
860AD: Finish TajM. Also finished Gunpowder and start building Curs. Atm I`m ahead Lib/MT/PP/Gunpowder on Pacal and he`s teching constitution... bad choice my friend.
1020AD: Tech overview after I did some trading.



1020AD(again): Trade Nat+lib to Boudica to dow Genghis. And I dow Pacal afterwards with +- 20 curs.
1030AD: Capture Uxmal.
1060AD: Capture Mutal. (Angkor Wat, Spiral Min, AP)
1080AD: Researched Riffling. (Cavs)
1090AD: Capture Lakamha. (Oracle, Holy city shrine)
1110AD: Capture Chichen Itza.
1130AD: Capture Calakmul.
1150AD: Capture Mayapan.
1160AD: Capture Xukpi.
1200AD: Capture Oxuitza and Pacal is no more.



Mansa has a worrying tech-speed. As said earlier I don`t feel like warring so I left Boudica/Genghis to themselves.

1200AD-End

Spoiler :

Nothing much will happen. I`ll beeline computers and try to get some corps and hope it`s enough to win space.

1310AD: Empire from above. Capital has IW/NE. Mutal (Pacal`s cap) will have Oxf. Aside of the capital everything`s cottaged.



1390AD: Mining inc in Lakamha (Holy city). I`m not spreading it atm since WS isn`t up yet.
1540AD: Researched computers. Doing a nice 2k beakers a turn atm. Also I switch to Bur again... since I need Gorges Damn and Internet up AND more importantly Mansa`s culture is worrying with his 3 religions and his wonders from Radio/Mass Media. So if I`m in Bur, I can bribe him out of FS.
Tech-overview.


1590AD: Internet completed and robotics researched. At this point it`s clear that it`s going to be a tight race to victory with Mansa/Darius. Mansa is going culture and Darius for space. I could win from here with shutting off my research and replace everything with workshops in SP. Build/rushbuy mech inf non stop and wipe out Mansa and Darius with superior production/warring. HOWEVER as said, I`m not going to waste my time moving a billion units around.

Tech overview after internet.



1620AD: Finished Apollo Program.
1670AD: Finished Space Elevator.
1755AD: Launched space ship. Three turns before Darius.

However I lost the victory race. Mansa will achieve a cultural victory in 4 turns. Oh, well, I had esitmated it`d be a close call without warring. `T was a fun game anyways, with rediculous late-game techspeed from Mansa and Darius. I could reload to just after I finished Internet and go for domination win but I have peace with how the game went.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

@BurN

Spoiler :

Damn you beating my time by 45 years! How come you didn't whoop Pacy with Trebs? He hardly builds any units. Hell I was even able to get to Engineering before he got Machinery. It probably would have speed up your win by 50-75 years.

 

[BurN]

@BurN

Spoiler :

Damn you beating my time by 45 years! How come you didn't whoop Pacy with Trebs? He hardly builds any units. Hell I was even able to get to Engineering before he got Machinery. It probably would have speed up your win by 50-75 years.

Spoiler :

I think it`s the earliest I launched as well, though Mansa and Darius are mostly to thank for that. But at deity it`s quite standard to launch between 1750-1850. (not Pangeae ofc)

Not sure if attacking Pacal earlier would result in a better finish date. I`d probably have lib later and less things to trade with MM and Darius. I managed to trade with Darius quite a bit to keep up with Mansa.
Anyway I have pretty much no experience with treb-warring at Deity. Also dno if you checked the tech situation but Pacal was way ahead of me untill I started bulbing.

Edit:

Spoiler :

Actually I probably would have won if I went Electricity/Radio road earlier. Mansa built all the wonders on that branch which gives quite some culture. If he didn`t have those, I`d probably be in space before he got a culture vict. Oh well, mistakes happen.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Spoiler :

I think it`s the earliest I launched as well, though Mansa and Darius are mostly to thank for that. But at deity it`s quite standard to launch between 1750-1850. (not Pangeae ofc)

Not sure if attacking Pacal earlier would result in a better finish date. I`d probably have lib later and less things to trade with MM and Darius. I managed to trade with Darius quite a bit to keep up with Mansa.
Anyway I have pretty much no experience with treb-warring at Deity. Also dno if you checked the tech situation but Pacal was way ahead of me untill I started bulbing.

Edit:

Spoiler :

Actually I probably would have won if I went Electricity/Radio road earlier. Mansa built all the wonders on that branch which gives quite some culture. If he didn`t have those, I`d probably be in space before he got a culture vict. Oh well, mistakes happen.

On Deity it's all about attacking in the BCs x3. It can be done on any difficulty if you understand how to get there before other people.

 

[BurN]

Not sure if I follow you there with the 3x BC warring.

 

[WelshGandalf]

Well my Emperor game was won with a diplomatic victory about 1884AD, same turn I launched my spaceship.

Spoiler :

I built 11 wonders in my hammer-heavy capital which generated loads of great people, most of whom I settled there (I didn't bulb anything). I should post a screenshot of that...

Around 500AD genghis declares, so I have to get some troops going earlier than I wanted. He took 3 of my water cities a total of 4 times - none for more than 10 or 12 turns though before I took it back. He mounted one invasion on my mainland which failed.

Lib around 1080AD... took nationalism. 1450-1590AD was spent taking out the Mayans with trebuchets and drafted redcoats. I then upgraded to cannons and sailed them to Mongolia (with whom I was still at war). Took 5 cities via military and 3 as part of the peace deal to take my total to 27. Something really weird happened then - see my second spoiler.

I started catching up in tech with the other continent, who were all very peaceful with each other. I went to electricity (insta +100 beakers a turn) and then beelined the internet which got me 7 or 8 techs. I was now at 2500-3000 beakers.

It was looking close between my spaceship and Mansa's culture. Mansa also built the UN and the first vote was between him & the Persians. However with my Mongolian colony increasing in size, the next vote was Mansa vs. me, which I won. I then proposed a diplomatic victory which passed with Washington & Cyrus both voting for me. Good to see my early-game sucking-up paid off

I launched my spaceship (which I built in around 16 turns from the apollo program being completed ) on the turn I won. Mansa's third city was around 25 turns from reaching legendary at that point.

And the really weird thing was...

Spoiler :

When I attacked Mongolia & took 5 cities, they had 5 left. I started building forbidden palace in the first city I took. I negotiated peace as I wanted to concentrate on my economy. They offered me a city and capitulation, but I didn't want that because of the diplo hit. So instead I asked for 3 cities, which they accepted.

HOWEVER the very next turn, it said "you cannot carry on building the Forbidden palace" just like with a wonder and gave me some failgold. Why is this? I did not have the building anywhere else (I checked the stats screen), was still paying colonial maintenance and building it was no longer an option??

 

[Archon_Wing]

Did he sabotage your courthouses leading you to fall below 6?

 

[The Oz-Man]

Did one of the cities you got from him have the Forbidden Palace in it? National wonders usually carry over if you haven't built them yet (e.g., if you haven't built the Moai statues and capture an enemy Moai city, that becomes your Moai city if you keep it).

 

[WelshGandalf]

Did he sabotage your courthouses leading you to fall below 6?

No, I had loads of courthouses and no sabotage took place. Even if it had, I would've thought I would still have had the option to build it, but that it would be greyed out.

Did one of the cities you got from him have the Forbidden Palace in it? National wonders usually carry over if you haven't built them yet (e.g., if you haven't built the Moai statues and capture an enemy Moai city, that becomes your Moai city if you keep it).

Well, I did say...

I did not have the building anywhere else (I checked the stats screen), was still paying colonial maintenance and building it was no longer an option??

My working theory is that maybe one of those three cities did have the Forbidden Palace, but the code tripped over itself.

Consider this - A new gifted city has the forbidden palace, but I already have it. I would imagine what happens there would be my old one remains and the new one is deleted. My hypothesis is the code did this (even though my "old" one was unfinished), whilst at the same time noting that I could not build the forbidden palace anymore, and then noted that this meant I could no longer be building the forbidden palace so gave me failgold.

 

[i_imperator]

I'm gonna give this a go on Emperor/Epic, should be fun! I've always had interesting games as vicky, in fact i remember in my second domination win (i think it was almost 3 years ago now), i didn't know my slavery mechanics so i kept London at pop 4, and i still won the game . That's noble difficulty for ya!!

 

[TiglathPileser]

AbsoluteZero has a video series of this online if anyone is interested, he takes an interesting line of attack.