Noble's Club XVI - Shaka

[KaytieKat]

Hi

To load the game from the game screen, first drop it in the world builder saves, folder, then from game menu click single player then play sceneria and you should see it as one of choices to pick.


as for city location:

Spoiler :

As for moving one north. I dont see anything wrong with that. I didnt consider it only cuz my scout went off south first so I never saw the fish until after I setlled in place hehe. And you are right production isnt as high as most spawning site. Not just lack of hills but not much to chop either. That main reason in my game I didnt build hardly any wonders in my cap. I just decided to save the trees for the ONE wonder I wanted most--GLH and ignored other early wonders till I got that. In way it might have helped my game a lil. Since I decided early on wonder whoring wasnt gonna happen I mainly focused on making units which helped me deal with neighbors before they got out of hand

Kaytie

 

[Bleys]

2 - Everyone is settling in place, but with so little hills and the fish in the north wouldn't be better to settle 1N?

I agree, it turns out to be a great spot, too, but there is no other city that can get that fish tile in the BFC. The corner is too awkward to try unless the settler is moved.

A few did though, I did. Its actually not a bad choice to settle in place, considering we dont know about any hidden resources on turn 0. If we were on a plains hill, I likely would have settled in place as well.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I actually settled 1E for the express purpose of an extra hill.

 

[Fierabras]

@Kaytie

Thanks for explaining about BAT, I wasn't sure if it was just more unaltered gameplay flavor.

@bramirez, on starting position

Spoiler :

The fish resource was not visible for me when starting. It depends where your scout is generated, which can be different for each start of the savegame.

 

[bramirez]

Thanks all for the tips.

I did a test play yesterday and by turn 100 was allready third or fourth. I will try again this weekend. Hoping this isn't cheating too much.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Why do you care about the score? Score means nothing. I was dead last on the last LHC game, and got a culture win.
I don't even know how score is generated.

 

[Fierabras]

Monarch/Epic, 505 AD

Spoiler :

I needed Currency and CoL to improve my economy and to speed it up I used my first GP for a golden age:



Without anarchy I converted to Hinduism and switched to Organized Religion.

After Currency - CoL I teched Construction - Horseback Riding and traded CoL for Monarchy and some gold. The tech pace is still rather slow, but that's because I'm going for growth first. Saladin is getting ahead fast, so I need to be careful to keep my defenses up, but elephants and cats should be enough.





I have still some room left to settle some more cities, but I need to be fast otherwise Charlie and Pacal are going to take the spots:





Calendar will be next and all the calendar resources will enable me to grow further. I need some more workers and courthouses to be able to build the Forbidden Palace (in Akkad or Babylon). I think I'll remove Pacal from the continent, because with Dur he won't be able to reach my continent anymore before Optics.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Prince, Epic, 1854-1972, the end:

Spoiler :

The plan was to start spamming some tanks and declare war on Saladin in a few turns. But the diplo situation was kinda unpredictable, with a somewhat hostile Gilgamesh and his really hateful vassal Charlie a few ocean tiles away.
Overall, a lot of requests to stop trading with X and declare war on Y in this round.

1954 - At the very beginning of the round Pacal offers a defensive pact. Useless if we are going to attack Saladin, but could be handy if we decide pursue a non-military victory.
Not ready for a long war vs Saladin yet, so we accept. At this point we are still behind on the tech board, but the new land is obviously enough to get a strong lead in the modern era.
So the new plan comes together: we'll try to stay out of trouble (still building a strong military) and launch our spaceship.

1879 - Saladin declares war on Huayna and Huayne bribes Pacal vs Saladin. Good news, our very unfriendly neighbor will be be busy oversea.
I don't remember all the wars of this round, but at some point Hatty declared vs Saladin. Overall, Saladin managed to capture quite a few cities from Huayna and Pacal and didn't lose any.

1896 - UN completed by Gilga and we are the new secretary.

1904 - My first resolution is to ban nukes, and it succeeds. As said above, diplo situation is totally unpredictable and I don't want my capital nuked back to the stone age by some psycho.
In the same turn, global warming strikes near kwaDukuza:



1936 - Pacal, now at peace with Saladin, offers a defensive pact and we accept. Some cities are just spamming units and our power ratio vs the possible enemies is raising. This pact should definitely secure a peaceful completion of our spaceship.

1942 - Space Elevator, half-rushed with a Great Eng:



1948 - We lost Huayna's votes somewhere and Gilga is finally the new UN secretary. We have a strong tech lead at this point:



1963 - Gilga and Charlie declare war on Hatty. She's still at it with Saladin. And Saladin is still at war vs Huayna. That's probably where we lost HC's votes, by refusing to help him vs Salad.

1965 - The Spaceship is launched.

1972 - And victory:



The score:



Power:



Demographics:



Tech. Pacal wasn't so far from launching his SS:



And Gilga was definitely going for a culture win:



Diplo was interesting at the end:






Overall, I think I should start to put some work into diplomacy. I think diplo and tech-trading are the two main differences in the jump from Noble to Prince.

And I've learned a big lesson from this one. A hostile neighbor on the same landmass can be a major PITA in the late-game. There was some kind of espionage-report on every single turn from the '900s. All from Saladin. He even managed to destroy my SS cockpit. He destroyed the same aluminium mine no less than 10 times, not mentioning 12-15 cit buildings here and there. At the end I was spending 548 EP on him alone, had spies stationed in all the main cities and doing counterespionage missions. And he was still able to annoy the . .. .. .. . out of me.
Very annoying indeed.

I'm still happy, as I'm winning pretty much every Prince game, lately. But I still need more work before moving up. Both this and the LHC game was kinda "ugly". I don't know how to explain the feeling, I just wasn't in total control of the game.

Still, a win.

 

[byang08]

Spoiler :

Ok first dilemma, I don't know if I should build my 2nd city at where my settler is or one tile to the north. The outline signifies where I plan to build another city. If I move my settler one tile north, then the northern most three tiles the city will get are one plain, two grassland, all by the river, in exchange, the city won't be able to work on the banana, but the other city will. If I build the 2nd city in place, it will lose two river tiles, one plain one grassland, in exchange for a grassland hill and banana. However the banana will eventually have to be shared by the other city although that's not a problem since bottom left has plenty of food anyway, I'm planning to make it a GP farm. I will cottage my 2nd city.

Also, I'm looking to rush Stalin, I built a barrack before my settler so I'll know where the copper is, turns out it's right near my capital, however my 2nd city will be surrounded by jungles and probably won't be able to produce any units fast enough for the rush, there aren't a lot of forests I can chop either. This is my first game at Prince level so I'm not too sure whether I can pull an Impi rush off or not. Also by the time I research IW and chop down some jungles it will be way too late for a rush. So, will hold off on the game until I receive some advice. Thanks

any advice for me?

 

[bramirez]

any advice for me?

Spoiler :

I am no expert but it seems a bit hard to rush Stalin. Too far away. Even if you have Bronze near your capital.

I would move your settler one north - use the river tiles and use the 3rd city for the Bananas.

When you get Iron Working you can then plan if the 3rd town is in a good spot or not.

But again Stalin seems to far off.

 

[dalamb]

Not many posted this early, so most of the spoilers seem to be don't-read-yet for me; I hope someone can give advice on what follows:

Spoiler :

My scout started a bit further north and saw the fish, so I settled 1N. Tech AH > mining > bronze > wheel, will go pottery > fish next. Built worker > ikanda > warrior > warrior and am ready to send that 2nd warrior off to find a city.

The prospects aren't all that great IMHO.


I think I want light green for the stone ASAP -- might be able to get stonehenge before somebody else does, but aside from the pigs and stone it seems like a weak location. Red gets another bronze plus ivory but is weak for a production city.

After that, it's really not clear at all. To the west brown has 2 food and nothing else; dark green is a bit far away. Nothing northwest works until Iron Working.

I've seen Stalin; maybe I might try an axe rush, though that far away might mean crashing the economy, even with the Ikhanda for the maintenance discout. The Impi seem like reasonable scouts but I've never heard of anyone proposing "spear rushes" so I don't think they're likely to be great city-raiders. Anyone care to correct me?

So next techs might be masonry for the stone, IW for chopping the jungles (and see if my prospects improve with wherever the iron is to be found). If a fishing boat finds anything interesting within coastal movement range I might need sailing for galleys.

 

[Roxlimn]

dalamb:

Spoiler :

Don't wait for stone if you're getting Stonehenge. The value of Stone for that is kind of questionable - won't get hooked up fast enough. If you don't care much about Stonehenge, don't settle a questionable spot just for Stone for Henge.

 

[Fierabras]

@byang08 and bramirez, starting strategy advice

Spoiler :

Settling 1 tile north makes a significant difference with settling on the settler starting spot. For an early rush it's preferable to have 2 productive cities. In comparison, I settled on the spot and build my 2nd city on the coast between the wheat and the copper.

I'm having a hard time suggesting a good location for your 2nd city to the north. With hindsight, settling your 2nd city south, might have been better, because IW is still a long way to go.

Although Stalin is far off, impis start with mobility and can travel fast through all that jungle, which makes it a better unit to rush than axemen, because they arrive earlier in Russia. I would say 6 impis are as good as 5 axemen in this case.

 

[Fierabras]

@dalamb, on impi-rushing

What impis make unique is that they start with the mobility promotion, which makes them the fastest early unit. A spearman isn't that bad in combat strength (4 vs. 5 compared with an axeman), but mainly the impi's speed gives a good chance you're up against one less defender in the city you want to rush.

 

[Fierabras]

Monarch/Epic, 1610 AD

Spoiler :

After hooking up the Calendar resources, I was ensured of some further growth. In 550 AD Confucianist Gilgamesh declared war on Buddhist Charlemagne, which was fine by me as that would keep them busy a while. As planned, I removed the Mayan presence on my continent with my war elephants and cats:



I revised my dotmap and settled 3 more cities to fill in the blanks:



Due to me low science percentage I was still trailing in techs and I needed some better military units in case Saladin would backstab me.

Metal casting for forges and Civil Service for bureaucracy first. With bureaucracy the tech pace was finally picking up. After machinery I could at least upgrade some old melee units to macemen. I then decided not to go for the usual Liberalism path and go for the economic techs. From experience I learned that when you have a massive empire, you need Guilds/groceries and Banking/banks to maintain it, therefore:

Feudalism - Guilds - Banking

By now I had a lot of maturing cottages, so I beelined to rifles:

Gunpowder - Paper - Printing Press - Replaceable Parts - Rifling

I actually traded Guilds for Engineering with Saladin and started to build trebs while I teched:

Theology - Philosophy - Nationalism

after which I switched to Theocracy, Mecantilism and Nationhood. I then took my science slider down to 0% and with +400 gold per turn I upgraded a lot of units (impis!) to rifles. I let my science specialists backfill techs like:

Aesthetics - Drama - Compass - Optics - Literature - Music

In 1395 AD I somehow generated a Great Spy, after which I switched builds from trebs to spies, because I used my Great Spy to infiltrate Arabia and was going to use spies to take down city defenses with the 'Support City Revolt' mission. After drafting a lot of rifles I declared war in 1535 AD:



I also used a smaller stack to the north to take out the northern Arabian cities. I didn't have much use for the trebs and sacrificed most of them for collateral damage.



In the following screenshot you can still see the routes of conquest:



In 1610 AD I declared peace with Saladin, otherwise he would vassalize himself soon. I didn't get any useful techs out of it though:



Oddly enough nobody has gone for Liberalism yet (or have the still uncontacted Incas teched it already?)



Hatshepsut is a good trading partner as she is providing me with a lot of Market and Grocery resources:



I also did get more wonders after only having the Pyramids for most of the game:



Too bad only the shrines are really helping me out (another one in another former Arabian city).

As for winning this game, Domination seems to be in order, but I'm leaning towards Space Race with my massive economy.

 

[dalamb]

@Fierabras: thanks; I may try that.

 

[dalamb]

previous: 4000-2725 BC

Spoiler :

I built two cities close by, and conquered the Russians with the Impi rush (inspired by Fierabras' comments: ). I heard one should have 4-5 cities by 1000 BC, so I've managed 4, and upon reflection this may be one of the few times I've had that many by that date. I thought about trying to take Akkad but the Russian archers were bad enough against my Impis, and with Moscow so far away from everything else I figure I need to work on my economy.

I explored with a fishing boat and found Charlemagne's islands, and will send a galley with an exploratory Impi while bringing the boat back to build fishing boats by Nobamba. A hut gave me a map showing land to the east, but that's going to take caravels.

I could try for the GLH and a TRE like I did with NC 15 (Roosevelt) but maybe it's too late for that given the time I've spent warmongering. Anybody have a feeling for how many turns, at noble, it takes before an AI builds it? I expect to tech for Currency and Code of Laws before long, but now it's IW for all those jungles.

One question: I've had cottage cities and production cities in earlier games, but never explicitly aimed for a GP farm. ISTR the main requirement is lots of food, and the dark blue city in this dotmap has 3 of them. So, is that a good location for a GP farm?

Spoiler dotmap :

post-Calendar I might build the orange city (next to a river).

 

[Fierabras]

@dalamb

Spoiler :

I had some luck with my impi-rush against Russia, because Stalin did not have Archery yet. After that I even (with some risk) rushed Hammy, but 6 cities (with 3 remote) in 1200 BC is hard on the economy.

You are right about focusing on the economy, it's a big priority. The Great Lighthouse would be useful, so I would say go for it. If you don't get it, at least you get the gold to support your economy.

For a GP-farm I would suggest Moscow, because besides food resources you need farms and Moscow has a river close by, but the blue location doesn't.

 

[pigswill]

Spoiler :

Shaka always seems to get typecast as a warmonger. Not in this game. Space victory it shall be (or perish in the attempt). No declarations of war, no stacks of impis racing across the plains and jungles.
If someone (Uncle Joe for example) were to declare on us then that's a different story but no, live and let live is our motto.

So far settled 1N of starting position, bit of luck with huts (2 lots of gold and AH), settled a city down south (Um..) and a couple more in the jungle. Um.. got the Oracle for CoL and Confucianism. Sent confu missionary to Hammy hoping to convert him. Sally's Hindu, Chuck's Buddhist (though I don't know where he lives), Joe's an atheist and is already annoyed.
Got alphabet, traded for IW (nothing else worth trading), heading towards maths, may have a go at Hanging Gardens (need masonry and stone connected).

 

[assass1n]

Prince/Epic : Space

Spoiler :

I just about made it to space with the Internet
No warring between 1 AD and 1400 AD is costing me bad