Nooble Challenge - Domination

[uncarved block]

I admire making the effort to try and get better by upping the challenge, but this strikes me as going a bit too far, especially if you haven't been "breezing through a Pangaea". As a Noble player myself, might I recommend a Lakes map? It's not as easy as a Pangaea, because you have to face challenges from all four directions (usually), and there's not a lot of production to be had. You meet everyone early on, meaning diplomacy is important (especially as you'll be vassalizing AIs, and often at war), and you won't get stuck out of the tech trading loop, as in this start. (Another option is the Hub map, which can be very challenging for warmongering.)

If you go ahead with this game, pursuing something like Obsolete's wonder spamming and GP settling might be in order. When you finally meet the other civs at Optics, you'll have the production to gear up for an intercontinental invasion, and might not even be that far behind in techs, unless Mansa is out there somewhere.

Good luck. Looks like a steep challenge from here.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Hmm I can't see domination being all that good of a plan really with an isolated start, but if that's what you want, you'll need to REX and cottage spam. Firstly, scout the coast to the east and west and see if there are any hops to islands available.

I'd probably switch to culture mode in this situation. You probably want stonehenge whatever you choose. If you do decide to switch to culture you want at least 1 religion so beeline code of laws and lightbulb philosophy with a great scientist.

At least you have a good late UU for intercontinental invasions but it is very very late indeed.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Just REX and prioritize sailing/astronomy..

Don't.

It's only Noble.

Develop your economy and you'll beat the AI teching on your own.

 

[Nevordan]

Wow, and I thought I was having bad beginnings in my games. Never been all alone before.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

It looks to me as though you need to reassess your priorities on that dot map.
Which is to say, where would you place your cities if the victory condition were "work as many cottages as possible"?

You may be able to get away with only a single shipyard if you drop the Heroic Epic into it, so do what you can to get at least one chariot promoted to the necessary levels.

 

[mice]

Yes, re. the coastal cities, which one is going to be your 'coastal production city'? The one that cranks out boats. You will get all those resources eventually.
I would prioritze choosing a good coastal prod city over grabbing silver.

Next advice, take the advice of players like DaveMcW and VoiceOfUnreason. They have a lot of experience.

 

[futurehermit]

My 2 cents:

You want astronomy + some kind of strong military unit(s) asap. You want to attack a weak opponent to get a foothold on the other continent asap.

Note: Save the forbidden palace to build overseas to control distance maintenance prior to state property. Build it asap in the enemy capital, which should be your 1st/2nd city captured.

I would say go for a straight shot for astronomy deviating only for techs you absolutely need. Once you get optics get a couple caravels out. Knowing the lay of the land will help a lot and getting the +1 move for your galleons will help a lot in intercontinental warfare.

I can assure you that dom from an isolated start is possible on levels higher than noble, so I wouldn't worry there.

Just try and get your tech pace as fast as possible. This is warlords, so if you can chop out the great wall to get a GE and use it on machinery that can help a lot en route to early optics.

Once you've bagged astronomy then I would go up for liberalism taking nationalism.

Build galleons while you are teching to cavalry. Prebuild h. archers (get the techs when they are dirt cheap) and try to generate a GM to upgrade them to cavalry once miltrad comes in.

Then go stomp a backward nation to get a foothold on the other continent.

On your home continent I would say prioritize good cities instead of more cities whenever possible. You want fewer cities because overseas maintenance will hurt (you can't delay SP for too long). So if you can be frugal on the cities on your home island that will help. Do make sure to build all the necessary cities though, just make sure they are good one as much as possible.

First city suggestion: Wheat/Marble/Cow/Elephant. Nabbing a couple marble-based wonders (oracle/GL/parthenon anyone?) will really help. Oracle-CoL would set you up for courthouses to help with expansion, nab you a religion, set up a philosophy lightbulb, en route to CS, etc.

 

[DaveMcW]

Coast+Lighthouse may not have the best production, but it's a great way to "store" population until you are ready to whip galleons or draft units.

 

[AnaNg]

It looks to me as though you need to reassess your priorities on that dot map.

Gently put Thanks. I had another go at it keeping cottages more in mind. Probably still not great and I near miss on a lot of the resources but better that then a city one off the coast and surrounded by desert, I suppose. There's also the potential for a cow/silver city up in the tundra but I'm not sure that's as much of a priority as a coastal production city and cottagevilles. Oh, and there's a rice resource down at the bottom in the magenta plot that doesn't seem to be showing.

Spoiler :

FutureHermit, thanks for all the info. I was getting a bit discouraged with some of the comments on still pursuing the Dom win. I didn't really want to restart because, well, it takes some of the challenge out of challenge (though to be honest I didn't quite have THIS much of a challenge in mind). And just going for a tech or culture win, well, I win those pretty regularly so again, not much challenge.

I think you're right on the first city (yellow on the dot map) then I'm thinking grey (Elephant/fish) which will likely be my coastal production city - I really want to get a galley out to see if that island to my south is inhabited or just a one-tile tease.

You lost me with a couple of acronyms/concepts:

Build galleons while you are teching to cavalry. Prebuild h. archers (get the techs when they are dirt cheap) and try to generate a GM to upgrade them to cavalry once miltrad comes in.

Do you mean use a Great Merchant to lightbulb Military trad here or send him on a trade mission for cash or does GM mean something else entirely?

You want fewer cities because overseas maintenance will hurt (you can't delay SP for too long).

Not sure what SP is, but it sounds important.

Thanks again all for the tips and advice I'll press forward with this bizarre start for a domination game and see what I can make of it.

 

[KMadCandy]

i'm not futurehermit, i don't even play him on tv, but i'm gonna step in and say ...

GM meaning merchant to do a trade mission for upgrade gold. you know how to tell which city'll give you the most gold before you send him on the boat, right?

SP = state property civic, you'll want it when your empire is spreading out over the globe on a continents map.

oh, and you'll want to do a "complete seafood check" someday. like, by the rice/copper in the west, i think your scouting unit didn't step out onto the westmost land tile. so there are water tiles we didn't see that might have resources. same down south, and by the cows east of washington.

ps i get east and west wrong a lot, rearrange if necessary.

 

[SickCycle]

I don't even know how to tell which one will give me the most gold rofl, enlighten us

I just guesstimate which city is the farthest from my capital/territory with the largest population heh

 

[AnaNg]

Yeah, what Sick said

(and total DUH on SP. Mental block on that, yeesh)

 

[KMadCandy]

it only works once the other guy's city is on your map of course. with your merchant selected, hit shift and then you right-mouse-click on the other city. keep shift held down (actually i don't know if you need to, but i do) and hover your mouse over the trade mission icon. it's greyed out, since you can't do it from home, but it'll show you how much gold you'd get there. hit the red "cancel last mission" button before you ever start it, rinse and repeat til you find the most filthy lucre!

in warlords, a very likely good bet is the city with ToA (if it's not yours). but i still check all the big/far away/coastal ones anyway since it's easy enough.

 

[vicawoo]

wow, there goes any reason to get calendar early. And you're going to need a lot of workers. There's not much need for great wall if you have chariots. You have marble, so oracle and great library.

How'd you explore the entire continent before even starting your settler?

 

[AnaNg]

One of the huts popped a scout for me and I built a brace of workers first.

I think the big reason to build the GW was for the engineer. Maybe use him for a lightbulb.

That said, I should probably build that before any shot at SH so I don't screw up and get the prophet.

 

[AnaNg]

Howdy Neighbor!

50BC and I found someone.

And just a short galley ride away too. In fact, I think I can just park a couple in the narrow straight there and just use them as a bridge. My troops can do boot camp on the barb city down there on their way off to war

Spoiler :

So thank god I'm not completely alone over here, it's sort of boring without the other civs scowling at you, nagging you for open borders and techs all the time (course I haven't researched Alpha yet which is weird for me, as I was trying to move along on the seafaring gigs.)

Here's what's happened so far. Left to my own devices I went on a tad of a wonder-buying spree. Stonehenge is in New York, GW, Oracle and Pyramids are in Washington and Parthenon is 11 turns away (Engineer from GW showed up and lent a hand on the pyramids, though maybe I should have used him for metal casting instead?)

Techs posessed:
All the first tier
The obvious ones for above wonders
BW
Writing
IW
Compass
CoL (and founded Confucianism)
And I'm in the middle of metal casting now, though with the presence of Alex I may switch to alphabet. Unlikely he has anything I want at this point though.

Finally got borders popped far enough to hook up copper and found some iron next to my proposed rice city site (red plot) just S of Washington.

I'm thinking I'll just drop a chariot off down south to scout around and see if anyone else is down there first while I switch production to war. Should probably jump back up the tree to construction? The war elephants won't be much good against the Phalanxes but the cats will help.

Cities are coming along, albeit a bit slowly though once SH dropped the monuments and I got the border pops I'm doing pretty fair. Once the courthouses finish and some of the cottages mature I shouldn't be in too bad shape. I have 4 cities which is probably one too many right now, but I wanted that iron and that site is likely the best (closest) place for cottaging. The jungle in the south is best but that's going to have to wait.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Fastforwarding 2710 years isn't good when you want input.

On 60% research you get Metal Casting in ~25 turns on standard map, normal speed, noble difficulty...what's that, a meager 20-25 beakers/turn? This is what you get for ignoring your economy in favor of romantic Optics beelines which, it turns out, you didn't even need in the first place.

You have Pyramids, you are on the way to Parthenon...with these wonders trying to cottage anything except your capital pre-Emancipation is a waste. Get Civil Service ASAP, go Bureacracy in the capital, irrigate the rest of your cities and run scientists. First GS goes for Academy in the capital, then bulb stuff on the way to Liberalism.

PS. Don't turn this into a wonderfest. It's a domination game, they build your wonders.

 

[futurehermit]

Fastforwarding 2710 years isn't good when you want input.

On 60% research you get Metal Casting in ~25 turns on standard map, normal speed, noble difficulty...what's that, a meager 20-25 beakers/turn? This is what you get for ignoring your economy in favor of romantic Optics beelines which, it turns out, you didn't even need in the first place.

You have Pyramids, you are on the way to Parthenon...with these wonders trying to cottage anything except your capital pre-Emancipation is a waste. Get Civil Service ASAP, go Bureacracy in the capital, irrigate the rest of your cities and run scientists. First GS goes for Academy in the capital, then bulb stuff on the way to Liberalism.

PS. Don't turn this into a wonderfest. It's a domination game, they build your wonders.

Beelining optics isn't romantic in this case. Even if there's another civ beyond Alex down south, being able to scout out the other continent early on is going to be advantageous. Also, if Alex is eliminated the other potential civ isn't going to trade or if you're alone after Alex, again no trading options. So getting to optics is still beneficial.

However, I 100% agree that the economy should NOT be neglected and furthermore that with pyramids + parthenon there should be specialists being assigned, especially with caste system available and pacificism one lightbulb away. From what I remember of the map though the challenge will be getting enough surplus food, the map seems low-food. Getting to CS for irrigation will be important (also opens up paper-ed lightbulbs).

Also, I agree that the game shouldn't degenerate into a wonder-fest since that ties up production that needs to go into military. However, given the possibility of an isolated start, I don't think the wonders in question were bad calls since they benefit the economy.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Yikes, using the Great Engineer from the Great Wall to "partially" build the pyramids... a Great Engineer will completely build the pyramids so you wasted any turns that you spent building with hammers. Ouch. You should know when your Great People are going to appear (look on the city screen), and if the Great Engineer was 100% chance to appear you shouldn't have even started building the Pyramids until the Great Engineer arrived in the correct city.

I don't like to "pollute" early GE sources though so I always know if my first great person will be an engineer for the pyramids.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

I disagree, futurehermit. A healthy economy that got important techs like CS will easily match such an Optics beeline in discovering the very Optics anyway. A sustainable techrate of 100 beakers/turn is quite doable by 1 AD, that's four or five-fold the current rate.

Really, AnaNg has Compass, but no:
- happy cap controller tech (Monarchy or Drama)
- production conversion tech (Alphabet or Currency)
- Math for improved chopping which is vital in the early game