Ramesses II Noble Game

[Quoth the Raven]

Hello all. Being a longtime lurker here, I thought I would post up a game for others to try and have my play analysed too. I am a somewhat experienced Civ IV player, but I almost always play on Noble difficulty because I play for fun. I do not try for "optimal" play, as that is just not fun for me. I will be updating this thread with my game progress whenever I enter a new age or something interesting happens. Feel free to play along with me and post your progress as well.

Note: this game is pure unaltered BTS goodness (no mods).

Here are the settings (my usual):

I spawn as:

Here is the start:

The save is below.

 

[Quoth the Raven]

My empire just after researching Iron Working. I built Stonehenge in Thebes. I had a brief war with Elizabeth and Hannibal to steal a Settler from each of them.

 

[Pangaea]

I'm thinking "oof, that's a sucky start location", but in your second screenshots I see horses... (right? hard to see without resource bubbles).

Egypt + Horse ==>


I'm a little unsure about your intentions here, however. You say you play for fun, not "efficient", and presumably advice would be about more "efficient" gameplay. Like the implication of the above, that Egypt + Horse = Kill the map (especially on low difficulty settings).

For instance, building Walls? No, just no. But again, maybe you're doing that for fun or roleplaying reasons.

 

[Bandobras Took]

I'm a little unsure about your intentions here, however. You say you play for fun, not "efficient", and presumably advice would be about more "efficient" gameplay. Like the implication of the above, that Egypt + Horse = Kill the map (especially on low difficulty settings).

Sometimes you find tips that improve your game without killing the fun. Way back when the doctrine of the Strategy & Tips forum consisted of "Axe Rushes are the only true way to you've won the game at Liberalism," Obsolete's demonstration of fun with Super Specialists and Wonder Spam at Deity levels held more than a few ideas that flowed down to lower difficulty levels (up to and including the idea that Nuke rushes can be more fun than axe rushes).

One of the reasons I stopped advancing was I realized the fun was gone once I was spending more time on the math than on the actual game.

 

[Quoth the Raven]

After I finish this game how I am playing it, I think I will try it again but try to kill everyone with War Chariots and see how that works out.

 

[Pangaea]

Sometimes you find tips that improve your game without killing the fun. Way back when the doctrine of the Strategy & Tips forum consisted of "Axe Rushes are the only true way to you've won the game at Liberalism," Obsolete's demonstration of fun with Super Specialists and Wonder Spam at Deity levels held more than a few ideas that flowed down to lower difficulty levels (up to and including the idea that Nuke rushes can be more fun than axe rushes).

One of the reasons I stopped advancing was I realized the fun was gone once I was spending more time on the math than on the actual game.

I understand what you mean, and particularly the last sentence. I tried to play an SGOTM once, but it killed the fun for me, and I had to take a break from the game. It's supposed to be a game after all, and not boring monotonous work. For the most part I play using a "gut feeling", without worksheets, calculators, complex formulas and overthinking micro.

One of the prime reasons I prefer to play on Immortal is that I find it a "just right" kind of level, where it's possible to approach the game in different ways without getting brutally punished by the huge bonuses of the Deity AI. It's certainly rewarding to win on Deity, but for me it feels more like work, the margin for error is much smaller, and you tend to get forced down a narrow path of options if you're going to stand a chance.

For others, maybe Noble is that "Goldilocks" level where it's fun but also challenging. Nothing wrong with that. It's a game and you do what is most fun.

As a tangent, the other day I came over a post from some "Attacko" type character, talking about Amphibious War Elephant attacks. Fun stuff

 

[Gwaja]

Interesting game... Huge map, 17 AIs, No Tech Trading, and Complete Kills Required... hmm. ^_^

My few thoughts:

You picked an Industrious leader with Raging Barbarians, and you settled Memphis, your 2nd city on top of the stone. I reckon you were trying to go for the Great Wall and got beaten?

In my opinion, it would have been better to build the Great Wall rather than go for the Stonehenge. Since there is no tech trading in this game, getting an early Great Spy would have been very interesting!

I also share the same thoughts with Pangaea... building Walls is kinda iffy... I suppose they make your cities look nicer on the map, but other than that?

Also, you are Spiritual. Why are you not in Slavery yet?

You also built 2 workboats, but you are not putting both of them to use. You should think about building a granary in your capital ASAP and use its power for some whipping. All those food is not gonna be shareable with other cities, so you might as well leverage that and whip out something. Given this start, it would have been doable to whip out some stuff and apply overflow into the Great Wall.

Finally, unless you are Creative, even with the Stonehenge, I would settle next to the strategic resources, not 2 tiles away.

I think when I get back from work, I will try this one out tonight... looks like fun!

Hope you enjoy your game!

 

[Quoth the Raven]

Raging Barbarians is not really hard on yourself or the AI when there is that many AIs on the map. I play with it because without it there are hardly any Barbarians with that many AIs.

I went for Stonehenge because of the synergy with Obelisks. By the time I completed it I figured it was too late for the Great Wall, although I might have been able to do them both.

Napoleon, Suryaverman II, and Justinian I declared war on me around the same time. My army was pretty weak because I was settling probably too many cities. I managed to hold them off, but then Charlemagne declared war on me with a pretty advanced army. I do not think my game is winnable after that happened.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Out of curiosity, were you running the Priests enabled by the Obelisk?

 

[Gwaja]

If I recall correctly from looking at his save earlier this morning, I believe he was running one priest in his capital.

Obelisks are kinda strange building. It is probably the earliest building that lets you work specialists of any kind. However, Egyptian leaders don't start with Mysticism, so it is another tech you have to research at the very beginning, when there could be many other techs that are more useful. Since the general consensus is that priests are not desirable, obelisks get virtually no love, myself included.

Sure would be fun to just mass settle priests in one super city or found a whole bunch of religion and stuff. Brings me back the memories. ^_^

 

[Bandobras Took]

That's exactly the kind of fun that playing on Noble allows.

 

[Anysense]

Lower difficulties allow you to have fun in many ways. For instance, I rarely used slavery for roleplay reasons until I got to deity.

 

[sampsa]

I started whipping only when I found out that you don't whip the citizens to death, they just leave because they don't want to work so hard. Lazy bastards.

What is considered fun varies a lot. When playing a game, least fun I can think of is losing and most fun is the feeling of improvement. I was hesitant to post to this thread as I don't know if OP wants critique or not, but only looking at the screenshot from T89 I can see that there are plenty of things OP can improve on.

 

[elmurcis]

Lower difficulties allow you to have fun in many ways. For instance, I rarely used slavery for roleplay reasons until I got to deity.

Roleplay... Build GLH and Pyramids and run US from forever actually not that bad for workboats/workers and stuff (specially after Astro when can get very short on cargo space on ships.. even can "risk" and take just settlers and buy defense vs barbs into new land - if only rush buying would take production +% into account like whipping...)