Nobles' Club XCVI: Brennus of the Celts

[MrKlew]

@ Archon

Spoiler :

Thanks for taking a look. So are you saying I should have put in more farms to run mines and less cottages? Because I wasn't working any unimproved tiles. The capital had pretty good production: 1 unit/2 turns early then 1 unit/turn with bureaucracy. I thought the cottages would be better seems my tech rate was horrible. I see what you mean about the horse city, although I was eventually hoping it could work both pigs once Charlemagne's cities fell.

 

[The Oz-Man]

I'm not going to play this out, but the game is won.

Spoiler :

Louis and Toku are vassals, and Suleiman will be soon. Teching came slowly, but I have a lead that's not going away. It's just a matter of either spreading Hinduism to Mansa to win AP cheese or just storming through everybody, and I already feel like I've been playing this one forever.

 

[Archon_Wing]

@ Archon

Spoiler :

Thanks for taking a look. So are you saying I should have put in more farms to run mines and less cottages? Because I wasn't working any unimproved tiles. The capital had pretty good production: 1 unit/2 turns early then 1 unit/turn with bureaucracy. I thought the cottages would be better seems my tech rate was horrible. I see what you mean about the horse city, although I was eventually hoping it could work both pigs once Charlemagne's cities fell.

Spoiler :

Well, you are below the happy cap by a bit, and have 2 unimproved river grassland that can be worked, plus one more grassland that can be a 3 food farm. You can probably get an extra cottage or mind out of that.

 

[Amao]

Glad to see this thread is still running. I haven't played civ4 for a while and kinda lost interest. Also, can't find big trunk of time anymore.

Hmm, Maybe I could join the game No. 100.

 

[GGS]

Prince/Normal. Huts&Events. Opening thoughts.

We do appear to be positioned in a corner. Defence should be simple, but an organized ring settlement pattern is impossible. Like playing Turkey or England in Diplomacy.

A second city will be founded before iron is discovered. So, search for stone or marble (some wonders help) but improve the odds of a useful site by starting with AH as the deer buy time.

Commissioning another scout is tempting. A worker would seem a better bet.

 

[Quiver]

I've been shadowing lots of Noble's Club games for a while and really appreciate those who are keeping it going strong!

This game: Immortal/Normal/No huts or events

Game plan and progress to about 1200AD:

Spoiler :

SIP, 3-turn warrior to start. Scouted east and he made it all to meet Mansa and Monty before getting barbed. Warrior found Charlemagne who donated 3 workers to our cause, all poached from the Pigs-on-a-hill between his capital and Vienna in separate war declarations. Wiped him out and kept his 3 cities in about 1400BC.

Self-teched Alphabet and managed to trade for tech parity and started a world war with all civs at war by 25AD. I even declared on Mansa from afar because he's hated by all and cannot really touch me.

Got Great Library used Liberalism for Military Tradition. Built up a force of Cuirs and sadly had to backstab Louis. This worked well...except:

Mansa vassaled to Monty. Then Louis vassaled to Monty while I'm still trying to collect the French wonders. This puts me at war with Monty when I have been carefully racking up "Shared War" diplo bonuses with him.

Not really an existential problem yet because the vassaling caused closer civs to take up Monty's attention, but still, my main question is ...

... Is there anything that can be done to prevent the AI from vassaling to some other civ when you are winning a war against them? Logically, it seems like they should vassal to you if you are the one taking their cities, but I have often had them vassal to someone else. Very frustrating to suddenly have a new enemy because my victim vassalizes to the "wrong" civilization.

What can I do to prevent this?

 

[Quiver]

Victory at last....

Spoiler :

Took over 20 hours of playing time, but it was quite the romp. Used Cuirs, then Cavalry to dominate the world. Took advantage of Open Borders to raze Monty's core cities while his massive cannon-led stacks ripped their way through Japan. Kept Suleiman from teching by bringing him in against Toku or Monty. Eventually freed Mansa, who capped to me. Then got Monty to cap. Toku capped to Sulieman, but both were hopelessly behind in military techs and were no match for Alt-Cavalry builds.

Still don't know how to ensure that a civ caps to me rather than someone else. Looking forward to the next NC!

 

[dalamb]

... Is there anything that can be done to prevent the AI from vassaling to some other civ when you are winning a war against them? Logically, it seems like they should vassal to you if you are the one taking their cities, but I have often had them vassal to someone else. Very frustrating to suddenly have a new enemy because my victim vassalizes to the "wrong" civilization.

What can I do to prevent this?

I don't know the exact rules, but I have had the experience of an AI willing to capitulate to me on a particular turn, but the next turn he cap'd to an AI he wasn't at war with. I forget whether he offered to capitulate and I refused -- I might just have got the message from the BUG mod that he was willing to capitulate, and ignored it wanting to capture more cities. I have no idea how to tell that an AI is willing to cap to somebody other than you.

There are people who do know the rules, and if none of them answers here you might want to post your question in a separate Strategy+Tips thread.

 

[Archon_Wing]

If they're at war with more than one, they'll pretty much cap to anyone given the chance, so you may need to not be greedy and take it. The other is to bribe the other people out of the war.

 

[Quiver]

I found a saved game from a few turns before the event, so I ran some experiments.

There is no option for me to accept capitulation from Louis; it is red on the trading screen.

- If I continued doing what I had done in the original playthrough, the same thing happened: Louis capped to Monty even though he was only at war with me and with Toku.

- If I bribed Toku into peace with Louis: Same thing...Louis caps to Monty

- If I use Worldbuilder to give myself troops and take one more of Louis' cities before ending the turn, taking one more city from Louis makes him offer capitulation to me. So, he's close to it already.

- If I use Worldbuilder to replace several of Monty's core cities with ocean , then Louis doesn't capitulate to anyone.

- If I use Worldbuilder to add about 20 population to each of Sulieman's cities--thus putting him way ahead in score--then Louis still caps to Monty. Same thing if I also give Suleiman lots of Modern Armor so he's way ahead in power too.


Conclusion: I'm guessing there must be some random check made with each leader, and Louis somehow decides to cap to Monty even though they're not at war. While the other leaders' power and score don't matter, Monty has to be high enough so that Louis will consider it.

Seems like an un-controllable situation. It might happen any time you're on a rampage.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Oh, that's not capitulation. He offered vassal state to the other guy who's not at war, aka peacevassaling.

And yea, unless you can get a peace treaty from that new master before the coward runs to him, there's nothing you can do. It's one of the most BS features of the game.

Spoiler :

Monty will declare war on you right once he accepts Louis? Then demand 1 gold if possible from Monty beforehand.

 

[Quiver]

Ah.... Thanks for the info.

Spoiler :

I ended up just running through Suleiman's land with my stack and hitting Monty in his core. He kept his stacks occupied taking cities from Toku while I was busy razing his core.

Irritating "feature" of the game, but...one must learn to adapt.

 

[GGS]

Prince/Normal. Huts&Events. 950 BC.

Spoiler :

The opening builds were standard: wrk, war, war, set, wrk, chr, bar, set, GWs. The tech path was: AH, Whl, Min, BW, IW, Wri, Arch (not sure why), Pot underway. The opponents met - Charlemagne 3080, Louis XIV 2520, Mansa Musa 2440, Tokugawa 2080, Suleiman 1720. The huts were of little use 51 G, exp, exp, exp.

Vienne was founded in 1N of the horse in 2640; Tolosa 2E of the sheep in 1640.

The two closest HRE cities are fine and the Celts have the largest army in the world. The General Staff is confident that Aachen and Prague will fall, but after that it looks like a wizard will be required to serve as Minister of Finance.

 

[MrKlew]

Well I got up to around 1600, not where I'd like to be, but still winnable

Spoiler :

Finally killed Charlemagne in 1530, now I need to recover my economy and more importantly my tech rate. Charlemagne did build a lot of cottages and the Mahadabodi, so that should help.

Not sure what to do diplomatically. I had been trying to cultivate Louis and Mansa as my friends but Mansa ended up in a war with Louis and now he's the heathen and the AP has declared war. So Louis is my only friend. He is friendly but he's also my closest target if I want a miltary victory. Tokugawa is also close but now he is warming up to me and appears to be getting friendly with Louis and forming a religous block along with Monty. So it looks like if I go the military route I'll be fighting the whole world sooner rather than later. Looks like maybe going for space will be the best option. I've got good production if I can get the tech rate up.
View attachment NC 96 Brennus AD-1570.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[dalamb]

I have an awful lot of trouble finishing games, yet need to step my game up to Monarch, so I'm adopting some settings that might help with the psychology: New Random Seed on Reload (to avoid the really awful events, instead of editing the XML), and No Tech Brokering (to handicap the AI slightly, since I've rarely brokered a tech myself).

Given the trouble finishing games, I'd appreciate comments that help me advance from the position I'm at. Advice about past mistakes is helpful too but tends to make me go back and reload, which is another bad habit I need to break.

Given a plains hill start and deer in the BFC I figured SIP was optimal. I plan to tech IW reasonably soon after worker techs (before writing or any Oracle attempt) and try a bit of stomping with Gallics.

Spoiler :

Huts gave me some gold and a scout, which is why I've explored a little more than I otherwise might by this point:



Tech was mining > BW > wheel > agriculture partly finished, with pottery next. I built a worker > warrior > stonehenge, which isn't done yet since I also chopped a 2nd worker and chopped/whipped a settler, who is now about to find a new city. Here's my dotmap:

There's rarely any good way to avoid mountains on a highlands map, so I think these two sites are reasonably good with 1 sheep each, and both fit "settle towards the AI" (Charly is a little south of the southern city). The eastern city also has farmable grassland, so perhaps that's the best first choice -- although I'm less likely to lose it to Louis than the other to Charly). So, any suggestions about which to pick first? or are there better locations I'm not seeing?

 

[Pwu.380]

I too am trying to step up my Monarch game; advice would be appreciated.

Played to 950BC.

Spoiler :

Just SIP, and churned out warriors until 4 pop. At 2200BC I've settled my second city just to block. Crappy land, the plan is to just push out a Monument quickly and see what I can do with it later. As you can see Charlemagne beat me to it, I wonder if that was too slow?


;_;


At 1560BC I've settled a real city. In retrospect, I'm not sure that was a good place to settle.


And here is where I ended up. I think I'm going to settle another city above the horses as soon as that Settler is done.


My tech tree.

So...my economy...uh... <_<

Should I have been shooting for alphabet sooner? I feel like I'm falling behind here; I'm supposed to have a specialist economy but actually I have no economy. Should I have settled closer to turn a profit more quickly? I have terrible landgrab tendencies. I also don't have a grand strategic vision either, should I be gunning for one of the AIs or something? Thoughts on my play until this point?

 

[Quiver]

@ dalamb:

Spoiler :

Dotmap is good, especially since you can chop monuments for quick expansion to your food.

Re Stonehenge: Why? Prophet points aren't so great. On this map, barbarians are likely to be a royal pain, so Great Wall might be more useful. Maybe the failgold from a wonder even without marble/stone is okay on this map though.

Re the map: Food is scarce. Every city needs a food supply. In fact, all resources are scarce. Maximize the resource grab. Might need to acquire some from a neighbor.... Commerce will be especially difficult. That will make everything difficult.

Re ironworking vs oracle: What tech will you choose from oracle? Maybe the hammers are better spent taking better land from a neighbor?

Re Longterm plan: What victory condition? This map was a challenge to me. I decided to go military since I wasn't sure I'd be able to manage space. And I went conquest because I didn't think I could afford to keep cities for domination.

Also, you've probably explored enough. This map will have lots of barbs. Once you've found the neighbors, the reachable huts, and a couple city sites, your explorers are probably more useful as sentries to prevent barb spawning.

@Pwu.380:

Spoiler :

SiP is fine. But your next city violates the first rule of city locating: Must have a food resource. Only exceptional circumstances, maybe always war or a rare resource grab would call for violating that rule. Second city location is fine.

Re economy: Commerce is very difficult on this map. You probably want cottages asap. Chop the river forests into workers/settlers/barb defense/Prague capturers/something and get the cash flow up and going.

Crappy land = Need enemy capital.

This was a tough map to decide a victory condition. And barbs haunted me the whole game because I was unwilling to settle crummy cities in the tundra and the Great Wall was built too far away to capture. Might be a good game to practice a military victory?

All advice subject to the caveat that I also tend not to finish games too often because I enjoy the early game decisions so much!

 

[Archon_Wing]

@dalamb

Spoiler :

Yea, the sheep to the east is the way to go, especially if you pop stonehenge like that. Sheep to the south as well.

If you want to go IW, then you will have to forego any oracle attempt.

@Pwu.380

Spoiler :

I see you building an archer at 2280 BC. It's generally not needed so early, at least not until you get both Animal Husbandry and Bronze Working and see you have no strategic resources. Vienne has no food; should put it right next to the sheep. In general, you should always place cities that can work good tiles without a border pop unless you have stonehenge or are creative.

Personally, I would have gotten writing before pottery. But that's fine; however-- you'd need to take advantage of pottery more. Chop down some forests in your capital and mix in a river cottage with a farm or two. With neither cottages or scientists going, your tech will be very slow.

For this map, as played, I would run towards alphabet, math, and construction and kill people with siege, axes and maybe spears as needed. If you can trade Iron Working, do it.

 

[Pwu.380]

Re Archery 2280BC: Are you saying don't tech archery that early or don't build archers? Because if I am pumping dudes out I may as well make archers, but I can see a case for the former in bronze first and then making spears instead.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Both, teching archery and not building archers is even worse.

You want to build cheaper warriors to spawnbust; it's more effective then spending those hammers on archers defending cities. Barb spears and axes don't show up until a bit later, and by that time you will have seen all your strategic resources and decide whether you need archery or not. If you have bronze, you simply don't need archery at all (axes defeat all barbs, and you can get spears if you think someone hostile has horses.)