Nobles' Club LXXXIX: Victoria of England

[Verarde]

I'm not going to play this game, but I think 1 NW would be great, as it picks up the rice without giving up anything else.

 

[Mylene]

That's true Keilah, decision is made easier by working cows as best tile for 5 turns.
Plains forest would only speed up our boat by 2 turns, while slowing down growth too much.

2h city tiles favor completing our first boat while growing if no 3h tile is available, optimal case would be finishing it when reaching size 2.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

grow on workboat -> whip worker -> complete workboat

Totally guessing here, but I think we can write this one off on general principles, as it essentially delays everything.

The usual whip worker approach puts you at (0/24,10/?) in 8 turns, and still produces the worker "on time" at T15.

Here, you grow to (0/24,23/?) in 9 turns. The worker trains up to 30/60 in 5 turns. Whip gives you five overflow, plus two hammers from the city finishes the boat on the next turn (3/22, 30/30). There's a turn of anarchy in there, plus a turn while the boat is in transit. So the worker is ready in 16 turns, the SW clams improved on T18, and you've invested 21 "turns" in unimproved tiles. The end state is something like (6/22, 2/x).

If you were to just go straight worker, you reach (0/22, 60/60) in 12 turns. 5 turns plus a chop puts you somewhere like 15/22, 30/30.

In summary - interrupting the boat built to whip a worker, delays the boat, and delays a chop. Consequently, you're ahead in real production, but behind in time.

grow to 2 on workboat -> complete workboat ASAP -> whip worker

As written, this one makes me twitchy; are we whipping off the improved clams? sneaking in a growth to size 3 somewhere?

going worker first and Agri->AH would be better for food/hammers. Yes?

It sure does make the comparison messy.

It really shouldn't be better -- worker first, farm the rice, pasture the cows, mine the empty hills, is essentially playing with one starting tech tied behind your back. See Mylene's point about skipping those techs altogether, or any obsolete SSC walkthru.

 

[JSS]

Emperor/Normal 1755 AD Conquest:

Spoiler :

I settled the plains hill, combined with moai statues it provided for a strong production capital. There's also iron in a BFC mine.

The Oracle went very late, somewhere around 225BC, but considering the start seemed quite easy with TGL + Colossus, i decided not to go for it and build workers and settlers instead.

Anyway, I built MoM in London, got to Music first, started my 1st GA with the GA and switched to pacifism (self-teched Philo) and went from there to bulb education and liberalism both once. Libbed Nationalism and built Taj Mahal in London. I launced my 1st cavalry attack on Genghis somewhere in the 1200's. Vassalled both him and Boudica gifting their cities back. Didn't like their land and I had more than enough production to take Pacal's land after considering I didn't lose that many units because of my huge tech lead. In hindsight, I should've taken Pacal's cities first in order to win quicker. After taking Pacal I could've taken the southern continent and continued from there to the other continent without having to make a detour from the South to Pacal and to the West. Also I would've had his cities online sooner. I guess I chose not to attack him first because he was friendly with me and Genghis was pissed, hehe.

Spoiler :

 

[Abegweit]

I guess I must be stupid. Went Agri-AH-TW and built a worker. Boring.

 

[Keilah]

Totally guessing here, but I think we can write this one off on general principles, as it essentially delays everything.

The usual whip worker approach puts you at (0/24,10/?) in 8 turns, and still produces the worker "on time" at T15.

Here, you grow to (0/24,23/?) in 9 turns. The worker trains up to 30/60 in 5 turns. Whip gives you five overflow, plus two hammers from the city finishes the boat on the next turn (3/22, 30/30). There's a turn of anarchy in there, plus a turn while the boat is in transit. So the worker is ready in 16 turns, the SW clams improved on T18, and you've invested 21 "turns" in unimproved tiles. The end state is something like (6/22, 2/x).

If you were to just go straight worker, you reach (0/22, 60/60) in 12 turns. 5 turns plus a chop puts you somewhere like 15/22, 30/30.

In summary - interrupting the boat built to whip a worker, delays the boat, and delays a chop. Consequently, you're ahead in real production, but behind in time.

I play immortal, and there, the worker-first build gets you a worker many turns before BW completes. You'd need to either mine a hill first, or tech Agri instead of BW to make worker-first competitive.

As written, this one makes me twitchy; are we whipping off the improved clams? sneaking in a growth to size 3 somewhere?

I'm confused. We're at size 2. We have one improved clam tile and an unimproved tile. We whip the worker, leaving us working the clams at size 1. Why would we need to grow to 3?


It sure does make the comparison messy.

It really shouldn't be better -- worker first, farm the rice, pasture the cows, mine the empty hills, is essentially playing with one starting tech tied behind your back. See Mylene's point about skipping those techs altogether, or any obsolete SSC walkthru.

Skipping those techs is certainly reasonable. I'm fairly certain I was correct, though, that worker+Agri->AH is the best possible food/hammer start here. Especially when you consider IMP, which profits extra from the cows and any mines you build.

Sorry this looks goofy, I'm not sure how to put a quote-within-a-quote

 

[mtr12]

Settle on PH, work Forested PH to a Workboat, and you have the rare textbook Workboat line!

 

[Keilah]

unfortunately there is no forested PH to work if you go NW. NE allows it but seems to be a much weaker location.

 

[The Oz-Man]

Had some free time, so I decided to play this one through. On Noble for the authentic Nobles' Club experience. Here's the full game:

Spoiler :

Settled 1NW per advice. Early tech path was Ag -> AH -> BW - Wheel, then on to Sailing, Masonry, and Mysticism in some order that escapes me. First four cities nabbed resources (Horses, then Copper, then Stone on that island to the south) before I started expanding toward Pacal. In the meantime I was rolling up wonders. Given the slew of islands to the south, Great Lighthouse seemed obvious, so I got it, the Oracle (Metal Casting), the Pyramids, and the Colossus while expanding to the east and into the islands.

I got an early GM thanks to the Lighthouse, so I sent him to Bibracte for a trade mission. Early gold on that scale meant I could crank the slider up to 100% for a good long while. Teching was ridiculous thanks to cottage spam and the Colossus, and Lighthouse-fueled trade routes with lots of island cities (plus Noble, of course) meant that my economy was easily staying afloat.

Mid-game tech path was basically an Optics beeline with a quick dip to Aesthetics. Got early Caravels in the water and found the huuuuuuuuuge other continent, then won circumnavigation easy. The hilarious part about this was that neither me nor Genghis nor Boudica nor Pacal had teched Alpha yet! I ended up getting it and Archery in a backfill trade with Darius, but I was miles ahead by that point and didn't really need it.

Around this time I built the Shwedagon Paya for early Free Religion. Since I'd met the other continent early, I settled on them as long-term allies with the possibility of a backstab later on. Mansa was good for some tech trades, but I had a pretty good lead on him and mainly used him to backfill. Ultimately, I think this was the move that won me the game.

Genghis DOW'd around this point and sent some galleys full of troups over to my Moai city (that boomerang-shaped island just north of the southern continent). At this point--and with my tech rate still rolling along at a ridiculous pace--I made a mistake and decided to tech Astronomy for Galleons to protect my southern flank. I figured I'd make up the lost Colossus income through overseas trade routes, but it didn't quite work out, and I didn't have enough surplus resources to trade for gold anyway. Early Astro wasn't so hot on that front, but being able to ferry support to the front was nice.

Next tech path was to Guilds for Knights, but I rolled along quickly enough that by the end of the troop spam I was able to upgrade them all to Cuirassiers, which I then used to smash Pacal. Boudica DoW'd and actually managed to capture the Moai city, but it was easy to get back. She brought in Genghis (they were buddy-buddy aaaaaaaaaaaaall game), who proceeded to use Sun Tzu's military strategy of Not Doing a Damned Thing. Cuirs killed Pacal, and by the time the war was over I'd built up a fleet of Galleons, some Frigates, and had teched Rifling.

So Boudica and Genghis didn't take long to roll over. I had sued Genghis for peace earlier since he had a nice purse of gold, but none of my peace-loving buddies on the other continent cared that I declared again later. Boudica went down quickly but built something like a zillion Triremes, which my Frigates tore apart. I took all of her cities since I was hoping Domination was possible just by grabbing this whole continent as well as mine.

Then I got Washington's map in a trade, and. Uh.

So Boudica got killed easily, and it wasn't hard to start rolling up Genghis. The best they could field against Cavalry were Longbowmen/Pikes, and near the end of the Celtic War I had Infantry for garrisons (I'd gotten Assembly Line through Liberalism, hilariously enough... did I mention Noble AI techs ridiculously slowly? ). I decided near the end that I'd just khapture all of Khan's khities... errr, cities... and go Diplo.

So I captured Khan's last city, and... immediately a vote comes up.

AP Diplomatic Victory.

Um.

The AP was Jewish (which was nobody's state religion), and Mansa held it, so he was the only candidate.

And then Mansa won an AP Diplomatic Victory.

Despite not being Jewish.



...yeah, okay, no, that was the dumbest thing I'd ever seen. I didn't even know he could do that.

Reloaded the last auto-save.

THIS TIME I left Khan with one city, took his capitulation, and spread Taoism there (I'd founded Taoism and Confucianism by accident... did I mention the Noble AI techs slowly?) to make Mansa's job harder. Then I sold Mansa Electricity, Radio, and Mass Media in subsequent turns. I also sold Darius Liberalism to let him switch into Free Religion for the "wisely chosen Civic" Diplo bonus before revolting to US, cranking down the slider, and building the UN in my Ironworks city (in that hilly country north of the capital).

The good news is that my rival was Washington, who had expanded like mad post-Astronomy and grabbed whatever lousy islands I hadn't settled in that archipelago. By that point Darius was at Friendly thanks to resource trades and running FR, Mansa was at Friendly because I'd been trading with him all game, and Genghis was Annoyed but didn't have much say in the matter.

Before long...

Diplomatic Victory in 1820. Later than I'd normally like, but I'd have gotten it out much quicker if I'd done a more strict Mass Media beeline, maybe getting Radio from Lib.

So what worked on this map?

* Great Lighthouse! The trade routes are always nice, but I can't overstate how much getting an early Great Merchant helped. Just a quick trade mission to the southern continent let me power my way through the mid-game, which in turn afforded me the luxury of teching Liberalism at my leisure.
* Early Optics! In my game, Pacal didn't explore at all (AIs won't trade much when they've found only you and nobody else), and the only other two AIs within reach were two lunatics with utterly lousy land. The other continent had very diplo-friendly rivals on it, so I was able to build up goodwill diplomacy early on for the later win.
* Shwedagon Paya! Normally I like using OR to spread the faith and build infrastructure, but being able to run FR early--especially thanks to the GM-powered economic boom--helped both diplomatically and with rolling up techs.
* Late Golden Ages powered by the Mausoleum! Kept the war machine humming and the economy moving nicely once the GM money ran out.

What did I do wrong?

* Teching Astronomy too early with the Colossus in hand! This was especially dumb as a Financial leader like Victoria, I think.
* Leaving weak garrisons on my southern flank next to Boudica and Genghis Khan of all people! I hate losing cities, especially on Noble. That city should've been bristling with Longbows, but I kept garrisons weak mid-game, and Boudica took advantage. This is an easy thing to neglect when building a trade-based economy powered by intercontinental trade routes since there's already a lot of ferrying things around.
* Having a muddled game plan near the end! At various points I had Diplomacy, Space Race, and Domination in mind as victory conditions. Had I just stuck to Diplomacy, I'd have won it much earlier.
* Not pressing the Maya earlier! I probably could've spammed Horse Archers and taken care of him early on, or even built the HA's and used merchant money to upgrade them to Knights later. Pacal didn't build much for me other than the Hindu shrine, so it was probably worth it to take care of him early.
* Underestimating AP cheese! Seriously, what was that.

So I was kind of screwing around, but this made for an interesting map. I'd never really messed with a trade route economy, and it's powerful stuff. Different game than what I'm used to on the whole.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Sorry this looks goofy, I'm not sure how to put a quote-within-a-quote

Better to split the quote into multiple blocks - is my conclusion after five years.

And your confusion was actually my confusion. I read "grow to 2 on workboat -> complete workboat ASAP -> whip worker" as "grow to 2 while training first workboat -> train second workboat -> whip worker"

My bad.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Whatever. That was stupidly frustrating.

1856 AP; probably should have just went straight AP, lol. I wonder if I can even win on monarch without using it >.>

Spoiler :

Unfortunately, Darius was getting way too advanced (WTH at all the advanced techs) and I didn't want to war with him, so instead I just took the easy way out with the AP. Washington didn't want to open borders so I caputured an island city and spread/gifted. Unfortuantely he had too many rifles and I was pushed back, but mission accomplished. I had just taken too long to fight Pacal.

Used the remaining army to fight Khan. Unfortunately he had a lot more than I thought and required more units to be shipped over because I had wasted too many units warring with America. >.> The war didn't even end, but whatever...

 

[BurN]

Playing this at Deity/normal atm.
Should I have added anything to the AI`s in WB? I extracted the saves in WB map, did scenario, picked deity, added archery to barbs. Should be fine then right?

Spoiler :

It`s just that the wonders are going quite late, makes me `wonder` what`s going on? I mean I built tgl at 400BC and ToA is still available to build as well.

@Zero

Spoiler :

Did you consider closing borders with Pacal? I think it cuts him off from getting foreign trade routes? As soon as I saw galleys from him in my borders I closed them anyway, else he`s going to claim my mid-game island cities.

Not that I feel I`m doing that great in my game though. Toaism is discovered, and I just teched lit at 400BC

@VoU: Thanks for your calculations, cause I dislike applying maths to this game. The game takes long enough without having to do the calculations. Went with your grow pop 2, finish WB, whip worker, chop 2nd wb. Then I opted to go hunting/AH, built 2nd worker on pop 3. I actually got agri/writing quite late. (BW, hunting, AH, archery, wheel, Myst, pottery,agri, writing).

What`s your opinion on skipping BW/Agri? I think the expansion will be in the same time frame. You don`t really need BW in this starting location as there`s access to unforrested hills. Something like build wb, build worker on clams, tech hunting/AH, build 2nd wb on clams/cows, etc. Means you`ll get archery/myst/wheel/pottery/writing quicker resulting in (ecomomical) safer expansion?

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

@BurN

Spoiler :

I didn't, I forgot about that. But he didn't settle any of the junk islands, I settled most of them to abuse TGL. For some reason the wonders were going pretty early in my game. I got TGL around 2000 BC. I'm going to have to replay the map I guess and see if I can do anything about him with the Iron you have, I forgot to give the barbs their techs too. XD Whoops!

 

[WelshGandalf]

Emperor, with huts, to 25AD:

Spoiler :

Why 25AD and not 0AD? Well I just researched Alphabet at 25AD.

SIP, 1 NW did not appeal - I wanted to stay coastal. mining -> BW (awww there's no copper even vaguely close!) -> agri -> AH, then stuff like sailing & mining.

First warrior found a hut, which spawned a barb warrior, which killed it. Doh!

Built wb, warrior, reached size 2 then went worker. 2nd warrior also died before long, to some wolves, despite being in a hill. Doh again. Barbs started coming at me so I took the unusual (for me!) step to get archery.

I had an early exploring wb, which found that we weren't semi-iso after all. However I still played friendly with pacal. He spread Buddhism to me so we are best buddies.

The capital has insane hammer potential. I get great lighthouse 900BC. I teched MC, built a forge and started on pyramids once I had hooked up the stone. 6 turns to go - if I finish it, great, if I don't, I'll have a massive pile of failgold so no disaster. Colossus will be the next build in the capital.

Settled 2 on the stone-island, one east to grab rice and cow, one north to work rice & have sheep in range (built a couple of cottages here), and one NW by the silver/deer/horses. Pacal has expanded a lot My 7th city will be a crappy one on the river further north (no food source!), then I will think about beating up pacal (nice cities, lots of cottages, and the Buddhist shrine).

I also met Mongols, who are at war with the Celts. As 25AD rolled around, I finished alphabet. No-one else had it, but everyone had iron working. I asked Pacal if he would give it to me - he said yes Shame he has a source too.

First great scientist just born. I have no city that has an amazing science output, so I'm saving him for philo builb (hopefully), which is my next target. Then tech for catapults and attack Pacal, whilst continuing to settle islands for more GLH/FIN/colossus fun.

Stats = 6 cities, 20 pop, 3 workers (oh yeah need some more of those ), 5 cottages. 61 sci @ 60% (break-even). Half way through teching aesthetics - already have maths, alpha, IW and MC.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

WOW. I got over ran by barbs while our neighbor went nuts and got 6 cities to my 2! All I could build was archers!

 

[Abegweit]

Spoiler :

SIP, 1 NW did not appeal - I wanted to stay coastal.

Spoiler :

Welsh, 1NW is coastal.

 

[Abegweit]

Immortal 1 AD

Spoiler :

I settled 1NW and went a standard tech route - Agri-AH-TW-BW. My first two cities went at the Deer/Fur/Silver/Horse location to the NW and the Clams/Fish/Whales/Copper location further west. Both great locations. Really, aside from a city in the east, they are the only decent locations within reach. The capital then built a couple of workers and a WB for the new cities and then followed through with the GLH.

Since I had both horses and copper, the barbs weren't much of an issue, although there certainly were lots of them. London got pillaged a bit in the initial rush which came before the copper was on line but I had two workers in the area so it wasn't a big deal.

I then went on a city building spree while researching MC for the colossus and triremes. The wonder build rate was very slow. The Oracle didn't go until 100BC. I wish I had known that was going to happen when I decided to self-research MC.

1090 AD

Spoiler :

Unlike the land dudes, the barb galleys were a nightmare, causing huge problems with my shipping. At one point I think there were five of them, spread all over the place. I trained two triremes and they both eventually reached 10HP. Still I only lost one galley and one fish net so I suppose it wasn't too bad. The main problem was the logistics, getting them to chase fishing boats towards my triremes. And unlocking the HE will be quite useful.

By the time the city building era ended in 640AD I had 21 of them, 16 in the islands. My two other mainland cities are the nice Rice location to the east and another further east which is drowning in Mayan culture. Still, it's better than some of the island sites. There's about 4 more locations available, all of them single-tile islands but I eventually got tired of the exercise.

In 1AD, I was running about 100 BPT at break-even. I'm now up to nearly 500 and taking the tech lead. Only Mansa and Mutal are competing but I am clearly moving ahead. Liberalism came in 960AD and I took Astronomy. I also managed to get the circumnavigation bonus. Even though Pacal beat me to Optics by a fair amount, he still doesn't have contact with the other continent.

Contrary to what somewhat else said, the real problem with island maps is production, not commerce. Only London is really good although Copper and Rice aren't terrible. Consequently I still haven't gotten Oxford since I haven't got enough universities. I'm planning on putting HE and Oxford in London (an odd combination, I know but what do you do?). Copper has the Big Statues and will likely get Globe as well. All this is in the works. I just got Lit a couple of turns ago and still don't have Drama.

Pacal and I are good Hindu buds right now but that's going to have to change - likely at Rifling because drafting is about the only way to get an army out of this empire. He's been at war with the Mongols forever. At one point, Genghis demanded MC from me. He could have asked for Alpha which both Boedicca and Pacal knew but he went for my monopoly tech. Anyway I gave it to him and he went in WHEOOHRN the very next turn.

Edit: on second thought, I think the best location for Oxford is Mutal.

 

[Abegweit]

@BurN

Spoiler :

Not that I feel I`m doing that great in my game though. Toaism is discovered, and I just teched lit at 400BC

I got Lit somewhere around 1050AD Aesthetics came a few turns before.

IMO, this is a tough map for Deity. Good luck!

 

[BurN]

@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. :/

 

[Abegweit]

Spoiler :

Didn`t you get massive maintenance from all those cities

Spoiler :

Oh yeah. Of course I did. Some of my cities had over 10 maintenance from the get-go. Still... they also had 2.75 x 4 income from trade routes alone. Every granary, every lighthouse, every courthouse improves the ratio. At one point around 300 AD I was break even at 30% research. Still doing more than 200 BPT even so. Just goes to show how broken the GLH is on water maps.