The Emperor Cookbook is a concurrent succession game series to help readers learn how to play and win at Emperor level in Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword, v3.19

Some of you may be familiar with the previous Monarchist Cookbook games. We decided to raise the level of difficulty to Emperor. Because we are always playing from the best save, this difficulty should be approximately equal to Monarch/Emperor level difficulty.

Our Emperor Cookbook game features Shaka. We will be playing at Emperor difficulty, Epic, with a standard sized map. Huts and events are disabled for this game, as they tend to make things more random.

Here is the info on our leader, his unique unit and building as well as our starting position and settings:




Our Fearless Leader:

http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo195/gummby_2008/shakacblead0000-1.jpg

UU:

http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo195/gummby_2008/shakacbuu0000-1.jpg

UB:

http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo195/gummby_2008/shakacbub0000-1.jpg

Starting position:

http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo195/gummby_2008/shakacbstartloc0000-1.jpg

Settings :

http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo195/gummby_2008/shakacbsetting0000-1.jpg





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Round one lasts from 4000 BC - 1500 BC.

Please play this Round and submit your Report into this thread by next Sunday if possible. (This time frame may change once game is up and running!)


IMPORTANT : Please use spoilers if you want to discuss opening strategies prior to starting the round.

At the end of your Round, please remember to name your save with your name, game and Round # & game date (i.e. "EC2 Round 1 MyName BC-1500.CivBeyondSwordSave"). (And please don't forget to attach it to your Round report, either! ) Please also state your usual difficulty of play.

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Roster:

YOU! - contributor, voter - our most important fixture, the readers who follow the threads and play along.

Now that we have upped the difficulty level, we will return to the 'best ball' system of selecting and playing saves. What this essentially means is that after we have completed each round, everyone will have a chance to vote on which save is in the best position. The winning save will be used for the next round.

If there is any player who is strong at Emperor+ level, it would be great to have you post your saves to show us how it's done. However, I request that any of you who realize your round was far superior remove your save from the voting. This rule is intended to ensure that the game doesn't get into a overly strong winning position after only a few rounds (because what fun is that? ).

Voting Rules:

1. You may NOT vote on your own save (but you are encouraged to state the strengths and weaknesses of your save).
2. For your vote to count as winning save you are expected to have voted for 3 other saves where possible. There is an element of fair play expected from those that vote and tactical voting is to be discouraged.
3. Only those who have posted a round may vote (those who are shadowing are always encouraged to express their opinion!)
4. Don't vote on a save that has voluntarily been removed from the running by the person who submitted it.
5. At the end of each round you can vote on 3 saves for first, second and third place. I believe that these votes should be made publicly in order to allow for as much discussion as possible. I strongly encourage you to explain why you are voting for a particular save. This is one of the best ways to learn, and that's what this game is all about! If you feel uncomfortable voting publicly, PM me with your vote.

After a couple days for voting and discussion a winner will be declared and we will move on to the next round using the winners save.

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A special shout out goes to Soirana who provided us with the map again!

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And with that, let the Game begin...

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Intrathread links (ToC): (note, the turn sets are subject to change, this is a tentative schedule to get this first round underway, we are still trying to find the best length for each round)

Round 0: The starting save (this post)
Round 1: 4000 BC - 1500 BC- Playing
Round 2: 1500 BC - 400 AD- upcoming
Round 3: 400 AD - 1100 AD- upcoming
Round 4: 1100 AD - 1500 AD - upcoming
Round 5: 1500 AD - 1700 AD - upcoming
Round 6: 1700 AD - 1820 AD - upcoming
Round 7: 1820 AD - 2050 AD - upcoming

When you post your saves can you state your normal difficulty level you play so people can vote accordingly. I want to encourage more people to play at higher levels. :)

If theres any issue with the saves or I have missed something please let me know asap.

As for Monty we can always play him next so dont panic!

Yay!! Been waiting for this for a few days!

Signing in. Monarch player hoping to beat emperor.

I used to play the Monarchist Cookbook once upon a time so I will give this a try. Never won at Emperor though!

I used to play the Monarchist Cookbook once upon a time so I will give this a try. Never won at Emperor though!

Always good to have new players at this level. Should be a fun game cant wait to see what Soirana has done with map.

To 1500 BC


Well, looks like Soirana had some fun with the starting position again.
I didn't want to play the best possible way but the most interesting way I could find!
This meant I moved the capital as I didn't like all those brown tiles.

Unfortunately I fell for the trap (built on top of the copper while I knew there were Crabs) thinking a rush might be pulled off. (Which i still think can btw).

Economy is in the dumps for a few turns while the cottages go up.

http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20000-1.jpg

Struggling Immortal player signing in ...

Doesnt look like a great start.

Wow kossin, that was fast ... So tempted to have a sneek peak (but will not).

This looks like a good thing to try. Im on prince now so I expect to get wupped but good but Im willing to give it a shot! After all a little pain never hurt anyone.

Signing :)

Let's get this Zulu thing rollin ;)
Btw, looks like a more temperate than african start to me :crazyeye:

Round 1 - 1500 BC (so-so Emperor player)


Decide to settle 1E on the wines. Had moved scout to the forested plains hill and saw some green and wanted to pick it up. With two food resources already I didn't expect to find the cows to the west. Decided to stick with it though - settling on wines provided an extra commerce to speed up early tech, plus I could work the 3:hammers: hill to take advantage of the expansive trait (took 5 turns off worker build).

Tech went AH>Mining>BW>Fishing>Sailing>Masonry>Wheel (1 turn left)

Builds were Worker>war>war>war>settler...I forget what after that

I quickly realized we're on a pennisula, with protective Giggles on the other end. Quickly confirm no horsies and copper in a bad place for a rush. Decide to head for GLH since 5 of 6 planned cities will be coastal.

Current stats:
3 cities with 4th settler in 4 turns
3 Workers
GLH in 2 turns
Penninsula fogbusted (need to improve to prevent galleys though)

http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt134/dualmaster333/EC2/Civ4ScreenShot0009.jpg

I see two good cottage cities (cow-corn-wine and western corn). Tech situation:

http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt134/dualmaster333/EC2/Civ4ScreenShot0010.jpg

I stupidly forgot to turn research back on for a while, but we have plenty to deficit research through pottery/writing, then we'll need to throw down cottages and libraries.

We also have a workboat out for scouting, except a frustrating map problem:

http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt134/dualmaster333/EC2/Civ4ScreenShot0007.jpg

That really really sucks - I was trying to check out the island to the northeast - getting a city or two up there would be good for trade routes. Now I think we need to settle a city on the isthmus so gain sea access to the northeast. EDIT-Just realized my planned double crab-copper city would allow access around that.

Long term plan is to support economy with GLH while getting a military to go after Giggles.

@Kossin
I like your capital location MUCH better than mine - it allows better use of the terrain by other cities and has great production.

I don't much like the idea of a rush. Gilga is protective and his capital is on a hill. In your game he also founded an additional city on the isthmus, so he'll have plenty of time to stack extra archers/vultures in the capital while we walk through his territory. Perhaps it could be done, but I was thinking it would be better to wait for siege?

Edited

Just starting to play immortal level with mixed success.
I played till 1500 BC but will post later.

To 1500BC Monarch player

Settled in place. started worker Ikh, settler @size 4, worker, war, chopped archer, settler, arc, worker, settler current.

tech path AH no horses, Mining, BW copper NE of capital, arch (mistake), myst, fish, TW, Pottery current.

3775BC meet Giggles to the SE.

2450BC Settled blocker city on gigles.

1975BC Settled Nobamba planned commerce city to the east.

Lands. Only see 1 happy resource. All 3 cities have Ikhanda's. Blocker and nobamba have monuments.
http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/EC2Shakalands0000.jpg

Explored our lands and have room for 7 cities peacefully. Wasted beakers on archery as I wanted to block giggles and not settle copper site. Which is why I don't have pottery yet. No writing either. Can only use 50% slider to break even. Thought of rushing Giggles but him being protective I decided against.

I can't get the city overview screen to show what units I'm producing.

settler in capital. wb being built in other 2 cities. Settler to copper site has 2 seafood. But was planning to use 1 to explore. Have landmass up to the NE.

5 archers
3 workers
1 warrior
1 WB on fish in blocker city.

@kossin

Nice moving settler for the coastal capital. I hardly move settler more then 1 turn. While i understasnd the city placement on copper for fast access. I think the 2 crab copper city is more efficient. I plan thats as our semi GP farm since it really on has coast and the seafood and copper to work. But I like you approach to find better capital location.

@dualmaster


Like your save. Good call on GLH. We have similar city spots scouted. I moved the scout SW and saw the cows only reason I settle in place. I probably settle on wine otherwise. Like you have WB scouting already I just started building mine. Although I have WB ready to be put on fish in my Blocker city. All in all I think your in way better position then me. Nice save.

Signing in. Wow there's already quite a few posts, when do we need to get the first round up by?

Will try to play and update tonight.

BTW - Monarch player looking to move on ... ;)

Oops, forgot that I'm still on 3.17 :sad:
Can you post the WBsave so that I can shadow ? I won't be submitting saves, still I can handle a small write-up (for what's worth)

Can't move to 3.19 as for now - I'll have to buy the game anew as I broke my game-cd prior to moving on to the new patch... :mad:

Can't move to 3.19 as for now - I'll have to buy the game anew as I broke my game-cd prior to moving on to the new patch... :mad:

Mmm... Yoiu really need CD to install patch?
Since 3.19 comes with NoCD [I believe so], i would advise installing sort of crack. Unless your feeling get hurt for having cracked game for five minutes...

@dualmaster, I guess that's what Soriana meant when he said that he planned to add a few wrinkles. This will probably affect the AI more than it will affect us.

@mjg5591
Two things I noticed on your save:
- Barbs could spawn at the west end (mostly concerned with a city showing up), you have an extra archer that could fogbust there
- You built a couple farms that aren't getting used, but don't have roads between the cities, thus no trade routes. Building roads would improve the economy significantly.

Archery and Myst are nice, though perhaps less critical than pottery writing. Unless Gilga comes for us :rolleyes: Having Ikhandas up is nice, though perhaps not critical.

Mmm... Yoiu really need CD to install patch?
Since 3.19 comes with NoCD [I believe so], i would advise installing sort of crack. Unless your feeling get hurt for having cracked game for five minutes...

Haven't found the nocd - I can still patch but won't be able to play :( - unless you have one to share ;) Is it confirmed that 3.19 comes with nocd ?
EDIT: Looks confirmed - found the info on concurrent forum (link disclosed - site name starts by an A and has .net extension ;) ) - I'll make the upgrade asap. Is it ok to play with BUFFY on ? I'm kinda used to play with BUG

Edited

Monarch player. Images have been added.


Settled in place after using one turn to find cows to the west.

Teched AH>Mining>BW>Wheel>Mys>Writing(partial)>Fishing>(planned on returning to Writing)

Built Worker>Warrior's for spawnbusting (think I built 7?)>Worker>Settler>Worker>Settler>Ikhanda>Settler>Warior>Monument>Warrior(I had hoped to have Writing by now, but had to sidetrack to get Fishing.)

Economy is about crashed, but four cities are up and all will be able to get Libraries up quickly. Ikhandas and Working the Crabs/Fish in about 15 turns should help the economy recover enough to get Writing and Pottery without too much delay.
Copper should also be hooked up in about 20 turns. With the placement of it, I don't think that a rush pre-siege would have been a good idea. If I am lucky, I may be able to chop out the mids.

Settled last city further north than I had orginally planned because I wanted a production city that could still run two scientists. This also leaves space for two cities in the south that can share the sheep, chop libraries, and take advantage of the possible mids.

Thoughts:
Little worried about an early attack from Giggles
early Mysticism + Stonehenge would have really helped on this map.
That copper placement was evil.
I am a bit surprised at the focus on cottages on such a brown and gray map.

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/5011/civ4screenshot0010s.jpg

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/3381/civ4screenshot0000.jpg

Patch 3.19 comes with no cd required in the patch. As for the game its budget price now isnt it? I dont think this forum endorses any kind of non firaxis patch so please dont get this thread stopped on that account. ;)

Let give this round a few more days. I need time to play too. Fri/Sat time maybe. See how many more need to post by then.

All 47 saves should be in by then. :lol:

@dualmaster


My thoughts leaving the west spot open for barbs was to try for a level 4 unit for HE. Should I just fogbust it?

I just teched writing the workers are roading now. The farms are ther because workers had to wait for TW for roads.

As for mysticism, I teched it for border pop in blocker city for the fish. Archery was a mistake though. Warriors could have done the job.

Ikhanda's were built for the -20% maintence. Plus for future wars.

Thanks for the advice.

Emperor player till 1500 BC


After some scouting, I thought I would be alone, but the last direction of scouting uncovered our neighbour Gilgamesh. I decided to use my scout + some warriors to fogbust and used my first settler to block Gilgamesh. It is quite a distance to my capitol for a first city, but it's a price I'm willing to pay. Not super land, but enough for 7 decent cities and perhaps some more as to the east there is some oversea land visible.

My 2 screenshots show the empire as it is now. The plan is to make one more city west of our capital with the corn. A maoi statue city with the 2 crabs + copper to the north coast and a city next to the other corn to the east of the capitol (I don't have dot map). Perhaps after that some more expansion to the oversea land, if that isn't possible, maybe we have to go at war with Gilga :( not my favorite AI to fight.



edit: Can someone tell me how to get screenshots in your text instead of just attached files?

I'm a Monarch level player, but I figured I would give this a shot. I don't know how to post any screenshots, but feel free to have a look at my save.

So after looking at everyone else's saves now, I realize that I got a bit lucky by having gold pop up on one of my mined hills. It did not impact my gameplay very much though because it didn't happen until around 1650 BC.

Other than that, I settled in place and, in addition to the capital, I have a blocker city on the isthmus, a copper/crab city up north, and a nice, balanced city between the capital and the blocker. I just started to tech writing as the economy is beginning to crash.

I'm a Monarch level player, but I figured I would give this a shot. I don't know how to post any screenshots, but feel free to have a look at my save.

Looking pretty nice, but you got really lucky with that gold mine :P. Thats a BIG boost to science and also nice because of the lack of happiness. Difference with me and you is mostly that i went for pottery before mysticism (and writing but I couldn't get there yet because of no gold :lol:) and that you went for the crab city very early. I'm not sure if it's better to wait a little with that city because it takes quite some time before it's contributing to your empire. On the other hand the earlier it's up and running the better :)

monarch wantabe

Settle in place

Tech AH>Mining>bw>fish>sailing>myst.wheel
Builds worker>warrior x4>settler>,,,

3375BC - Met Giggles

i've got 4 cities and 4 turn from the wheel

Round 1 - 1500 BC (so-so Emperor player)


GLH in 2 turns


I will perm disable GLH ifi ever make map for EC again.

monarch wantabe

Settle in place

Tech AH>Mining>bw>fish>sailing>myst.wheel
Builds worker>warrior x4>settler>,,,

3375BC - Met Giggles

i've got 4 cities and 4 turn from the wheel
I think the wheel + pottery is stronger than fishing + sailing to connect your cities, because it allows faster cottages. Sailing opens the possibility for the great lighthouse, but it doesn't really look like you are going for that. Right now your workers are making useless farms (you have enough food to grow in those cities) instead of powerfull cottages. Other than that good city placement + expansion.

Prior to posting my full report (hard to do it @work :D ), a penny for a thought ;)


- no early rush viable - protective archers in the hill capital :sad:
- Ikhanda kicks @$$ - not only it cuts maintenance but it raises the power rating giving a second thought to Gilgi prior to his Dowing us for space - a boxed Gilgamesh is usually fast to raise a Vulture stack
- OB required fast to 1/ see Gilgamesh metals 2/ contact other AIs
- Pottery is needed fast - mature riverside cottages can save us if early war comes

My early thinking would go along the Zulu line - fight fast. Can't rush, so let's do an attrition war denying him metals and pillaging whatever available (leave him horses - they'll do greatly against our pillaging Impis :lol: ) while either going full axes/impis (not optimal against Prot Archers on a hill, still we can manage a hit methinks, especially if moving fast) or climbing Construction line and later going cats/axes/impis - IW seems sketchy, not sure something lies around, and it costs the same as Math.

GLight is a nice move and I'd be :goodjob: pretty much if we were playing anyone else. Still 1/it doesn't fit Zulu philo 2/makes the game cheesy and won by 1500BC, especially given the peninsula situation, thus uninteresting. It's like getting currency from a hut in 1500BC. Sorry ;)

Moved the scout north to start and the settler south as I didn't much like the starting spot. Settled on the coast and tried to get a settler out quick to block giggles. Have a few cottages going although the tech rate is hardly stellar. Fair amount of decent land to settle although there aren't any extremely powerful city sites.

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/8576/civ4screenshot0000p.jpg

Hopefully this time I'll manage to finish this one without getting distracted :)

That really really sucks - I was trying to check out the island to the northeast - getting a city or two up there would be good for trade routes. Now I think we need to settle a city on the isthmus so gain sea access to the northeast.


what is mine mistake in WBuilding. I fixed that issue southwards. Not sure where that happened probbably while messing up with some home brewed conversion tool. Was not intentional. Rather contrast i belived you can sail arround your neighbour.

Well, i guess it is a fair deal you learn Emperor, I learn map making:) [I really like to monitor how AI's develop in dozen games - and they are still dead stupid in all of them - especially on city placing...].

Looking pretty nice, but you got really lucky with that gold mine :P. Thats a BIG boost to science and also nice because of the lack of happiness. Difference with me and you is mostly that i went for pottery before mysticism (and writing but I couldn't get there yet because of no gold :lol:) and that you went for the crab city very early. I'm not sure if it's better to wait a little with that city because it takes quite some time before it's contributing to your empire. On the other hand the earlier it's up and running the better :)

Well, like I added above, I don't think the gold made much of a difference because it came so late in the round. That being said, all other things being equal, it sure would be nice to have going forward if people like my round.

Here we go ...

Settled in Place. Played one extra turn to 1475 BC before I realized I went passed 1500 BC, hope that’s ok …

I’ve got 4 cities up and a spot selected for one more, my thoughts are TGL + Colosuss, except for the capital all the other cities are coastal. Since the land is not the greatest I thought of using the coastal tiles to maximum effect.

Tech Order – AH > Mining > Wheel > BW > Mysticism > Pottery > Fishing > Masonary

First City build order – Worker > Warrior > Warrior > Settler > Worker > Warrior > Warrior > Worker > Warrior > Warrior > Settler > Settler > Granary > Worker >

http://i664.photobucket.com/albums/vv8/shafi79/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg

what is mine mistake in WBuilding. I fixed that issue southwards. Not sure where that happened probbably while messing up with some home brewed conversion tool. Was not intentional. Rather contrast i belived you can sail arround your neighbour.

Well, i guess it is a fair deal you learn Emperor, I learn map making:) [I really like to monitor how AI's develop in dozen games - and they are still dead stupid in all of them - especially on city placing...].

Fortunately it's not a big deal as a city for the crabs will let us get around it. I didn't even notice when looking at the map but when my workboat got there I was left rather confused :crazyeye:

@Shafi
Can't actually open the save right now, but I wouldn't be too confident about getting GLH with where you're at. You still need two techs (Sailing and Masonry) and your science rate is low. You would also have to build a light house and the GLH but your three coastal cities have poor production. At this point you would probably be best off getting writing to boost your tech rate.

@pawelo
I don't think the GLH is overly cheesy. It looks like a lot of us are just learning emperor, so using a solid strategy that is well adpated for the map seems in the spirit of this series. I know what you mean though, it is going to be very powerful on this map, but that will just help us learn the power of trade routes (something that I at least often neglected at Monarch and below).

After finding the eastern isthmus the plan was to block off with a panama canal/hill city
and then get the econ in shape for a rex over the region plus the fish island.

Have only one worker so need to focus on a few more of these
I have a library in blocking city which will pop borders soon.
Cap will also have library done in a few turns and can then start whipping settlers and workers.
Have saved up about 160 gold for deficit research once library in capital is done.
Entire area is spawn busted and there are three crappy tiles where a barb city might spawn.

Two Ikhanda's built and a work boat for initial exploring done and another will come soon.
One of these can be used to net crabs later.

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/3381/civ4screenshot0000.jpg
http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/3413/civ4screenshot0001.jpg
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/845/civ4screenshot0002i.jpg

Edited

For next time some of the submitted file names make it hard to review other games as they are all the same name.

@nares

Archers cannot spawn because all three fogged tiles are within two tiles of my warrior.
A city can spawn i thought in fog but maybe I am wrong about this second point.

@Nares,mc-red
Barb cities can indeed spawn in any fogged area, even in you have a unit 2 tiles away.

Further starting location discussion

Starting screenshot discussion
Looks like the northern plains band; hopefully there's a juicy resource site somewhere in the tundra that's undoubtedly to our north.

Of course, there's grassland/plains leading into desert to our south. We probably won't be able to expand as far as the jungle, but you never know.

I'm looking to settle 1E. It may very well miss a resource 2W of the current settler position, but it holds onto the six other possible tiles a resource may be hiding in.

Then again, 1E sacrifices the city's chain irrigation, meaning one tile will need to be wasted on a farm to irrigate that rice (especially annoying because apparently all the surrounding tiles are plains or hills).

Because we're expansive, I'm working the 3h plains hill while building a worker first. In this regard, 1E is certainly superior, because it picks up the plains hill in the inner 8, though it does move the rice to the outer 12.

I agree with east being the direction to head, but what about moving the scout on the hill 2E first and seeing whats on the otherside. If there is another forested plains hill, pretty likely given our surroundings, what about building on the plains hill 2E. This would give us our worker 2 turns earlier than settling 1E (even with the delay of 1 turn settling). With agri/hunting I don't have the exact numbers, but I assume we can develope animal husbandry before finishing our worker, especially since it has to move one turn before working the sheep.

We lose the rice, but unirrigated rice is only 4 food. While foods arguably>resources at the start even assuming that we don't have as good of a food spot east of the forested hill, the extra resource from our city plus working a 3 resource tile (such as the wine) would result in 4 units of production (plus 3 commerce in this case). Also, it would likely benefit us in producing our next worker.

Much of this banks on having a second resource east of the forested plains hill, but even without that it seems tempting to me, given how bad unirrigated rice is.

Ahh, just saw that you had already posted your play to 1500. Somewhat removes the usefulness of my post.

I'll bite. I'm a monarch player, with a little success on emperor. Round 1:


I moved the scout SE-SE, and decided to settle 1E to grab some nice riverside cottage land. All those brown tiles were depressing. :lol: The opening build order was worker, warrior, warrior. I started research on mining and sent the scout to explore eastward along the southern coast. I found Gilgamesh east of the peninsula - ugh! No rush in that direction. :mad: I then circled him around the coast counter-clockwise and revealed all the tiles in our part of the world.

When mining completed I started mysticism, planning to chop out Stonehenge, one of my favorite wonders: cheap, and we'll pop borders quickly, especially for those fish to the north.

The worker farmed the rice and mined the 2 hills. Tech order was BW, AH, wheel, pottery. Once BW came in, the worker chopped the plains hill 1E of Ulundi and then went to pasture the sheep. 1 warrior was sent east to the blocking city site. This city would be able to built 3 workboats for its' own fish and the 2 crabs to the north. The second warrior was sent to the northern fish site, which also has the copper revealed by BW. The copper will come online a lot faster if I can grab stonehenge.

With the single chop and working the 2 mined grass hills, stonehenge finishes in 2650BC, with the city at size 4. I start building 2 settlers, and will whip the 2nd one for 2 pop. I adopt slavery in 2075BC and whip the second settler in 2000BC. The first one is sent east. Once the worker finishes mining the plains hill, he starts roading to the first city, uMgungundlovu. Once there, he chops a grass hill to push out the workboat, and starts the city on a second one. He is currently 1 turn from finishing a mine on that hill, which will get the 2nd workboat out in 11 more turns.

The second settler is sent to the fish site, and 2 more warriors are built. The are sent west to spawnbust the remainder of the island. Ulundi gets to size 4 and a worker and settler are queued. Current research is writing, which will finish in 9 turns with a little defecit research. Borders on the first 2 expansion cities have already popped.
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0156.jpg
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0158.jpg
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0157.jpg

Edited

@dualmaster

What part of philly you in? I live in philly also.

Here gos my offering. I am a Prince player who tends to open well but fall behind later. Not sure how I feel about this start as Im not familiar with how I should look at this point on Emperor except that its not as good as Im used to lol.

Boy I sure hope there is some Iron around but I decided to get other techs first as Im scared of a Tech deficit against the Emperor level AIs. My start was an attempt to get my two best commerce cities running ASAP. I think I went to crazy on the roads and should have gone straight for more chop and development except there's not really much to build with the tech choices I made. Please critique my start as Im here to learn to play at the real difficulty settings.

@MaximumPain
You don't need to connect health resources at the start... you don't have unhealthiness. Especially the Sheep, they are riverside so you already had them. Those worker turns would have been better put:
chopping
roading to Gilgamesh and your other cities.

Try to avoid unhappy citizens: they cost maintenance and don't add anything. You might also want to choose riverside improvements over non-riverside ones, for example, the mine in the capital is non-riverside while you can get an extra commerce by building a riverside one.

To 1500 BC

Build order was : wrker/war/set/wrk(chop)/war/set/wrk/war etc
Research: AH/Min/BW/whl/myst/now writing

empire
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0196.jpg
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0197.jpg
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0194.jpg

This looks very interesting. Boxed in by our creative/prot friend gilgi...who I hate. Settled the blocking city first to the east then filled in backwards. Was thinking get to writing as quick as possible for open borders and explore rest of island. But, my research rate has been atrocious. However, I am done writing in 9 turns I think but no pottery...:( I probably should have went wheel pottery to start cottaging the eastern cities especially the one in the middle by the cows. However I do have ikandha's in all cities cept the southern one and just chopped monuments in all cities except for my cap. I have some more potential city sites mapped and most of the island already barb busted. Any constructive criticism is welcome.

So many saves to go through,

@huerfanista

Try and connect roads to gigles for trade routes. The worker near uMgungunlovu didn't finsh the road from capital either. This will help with your economy.

@MC

Like how your already scouting giggles area. Only save I've seen so far that has.

@WFU

Yea that gold popping in capital is huge. Not just for the economy but for the happiness. We only have 1 resource (wine). Try to connect to ggiles for trade routes with roads.

@MaximumPain
You don't need to connect health resources at the start... you don't have unhealthiness. Especially the Sheep, they are riverside so you already had them. Those worker turns would have been better put:
chopping
roading to Gilgamesh and your other cities.

Try to avoid unhappy citizens: they cost maintenance and don't add anything. You might also want to choose riverside improvements over non-riverside ones, for example, the mine in the capital is non-riverside while you can get an extra commerce by building a riverside one.


Yeah I was mostly making them because I didn't want to super chop just yet as I don't have a lot of great stuff to build yet. A road to Gil would have been a good thing instead of just connecting the already connected by river health resources it was just busy work for all those workers. Whats interesting is that this is the first game where I feel Ive built enough workers normally I always have a shortage and its a definite weak spot in my game. Now I need to get better at what to actually do with all those workers.

Thanks for the input.

I think the wheel + pottery is stronger than fishing + sailing to connect your cities, because it allows faster cottages. Sailing opens the possibility for the great lighthouse, but it doesn't really look like you are going for that. Right now your workers are making useless farms (you have enough food to grow in those cities) instead of powerfull cottages. Other than that good city placement + expansion.


ah, thanks. Itend not to build cottages soon enough. The jump to emp is pretty big. but that's what this is for:D

@MaximumPain

Try not to have angry citizen's they hurt the economy. Also might want to whip the library in city#1 it will become unhappy next turn. Then maybe run some scientists. Maybe whip granary in ither city also. Maybe OB with giggles and scout his land.

I like that you have pottery and writing though for the economy.

Emperor player



Didnt like the look of the capital with plains all over the place, tried my luck further south and got REALLY lucky that there was some wheat below me along with another river area for more sexy cottages. Lost a turn moving the settler but i feel its worth it.

Scouted around, met giggles, definetly not one of the first people i would have liked to see on the list, but i guess we had to have a protective trait early or it would have been too easy eh. Vultures are going to rock a sword army and theres no horses around for a HA + cats rush either, not to mention that we can expect to be trailing behind in tech unless theres some juicy islands around.

Tech went the usual, AH / mining / BW / wheel / Pottery / myst ---fishing (current). Made a few warriors to fogbust so i didnt have to worry about archery for a while, threw three cities up with rivers around to cottage the crap out of incase an axe rush became no longer viable, and moved the last settler up there where im still debating on whether to settle on the copper and rush giggles, or to use mysticism/slavery and get a monument by the time fishings done to snag the two crabs and the ore aswell and make a better city about it, though the hills would make a nice production site...still not sure :P Really wish i could have gotten some sort of cash from failing a wonder or whatnot, just didnt have the time to tech anything else or the econ wouold have crashed big time. Also didnt get a chance to cottage the wine in time, that should bring a lot of commerce aswell.

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/2179/ecshaka1500bc.jpg (http://img11.imageshack.us/i/ecshaka1500bc.jpg/)

http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb278/Tilvar/settlerwhere.jpg

Edited

sigh, always forgetting something small and dumb. sorry about that :P

Planning on throwing my hat into the ring, but a quick question: can we WB the save to eliminate the odd coastal/ocean problem in the northern region?

I keep falling asleep so not had a chance to play my round yet! Will do Friday/Sat. Its always nice to get as many saves as possible on the first round.

Played Emperor. Warning: no screens
Played my round out and I'm not posting save yet though. I settled on wine and set up second city at the sheep-wheat spot for early GP farm. Corn-cow-river will become my capital in the future as its very cottageable and old cap will be production center. Decided not to go GLH because I don't have any cities with any production on the cost. Wished i could though.

My round


Not the greatest shot but a small base to what I was up to.
Being boxed by Creative/Protective Gilgamesh we have few ways other than fight to in this one - sooner or later

My aim was double:
- as we have no idea whether Gilgamesh is boxed or not, first of all build decent power not to get vulturised
- prepare a pillaging war prior to a serious invasion - deny him metals and fight only (well, only?) against his archers

Therefore an early bronze was necessary as we lacked horses. Cottages are up and working to speed up the research and Writing is due in 5 for OB and library in Ulundi

Three workers (one too few) and several impis, no serious fogbusting (got carried away from it :blush: ), three cities and another settler soon on his way.
All worked tiles are improved.
We still have room for 4-5 decent cities.
I'd go the Construction way for Cats and DoW G as soon as possible with cover axes/impis + cats.

A screenie:

http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/894/zulu1500bc.jpg

@dualmaster


No offense intended, sorry.
I was trying to point out what I consider a game-breaker - I pretty agree that most people are learning to play Emp but such a huge advantage will just make this game a level of difficulty lower
Anyway, good job on getting it - seems to me pretty much in the bag given the early date :goodjob:

I can't load this game with BUFFY or BUG 4.0. What mod is used with the save and I'm surprised no one asks?

naturally none. Should go as long as BuG is in custom assets folder

@dualmaster


No offense intended, sorry.


None taken ;). You may be right that it will make things too easy.

Regarding the save:
- I like that you have a military. Might be better to be building axes instead of impis now?
- Some potential for a BCs war perhaps?
- Good teching and already have some cottages down.

Also a good question as to whether Gilga is boxed in or not. He is definitely in contact with another civ at least (his EP ratio with us is low).

Wow, so many people playing! I do okay at Monarch, this is my first try at Emperor that I can recall. Since I'm new to this level any comments are much appreciated. I believe the save is in BUFFY, so apologies if that's inconvenient for anyone, my mistake.

Turn 1: Scout 2SE, looks like better-looking land to the east. Settle in place to at least get the rice and sheep, and hey guess what, a bonus cow. This is definitly going to be a specialist capital, so much brown. Start to build worker, but then realize it will only cost 2 turns to let the city grow first because I'll have expansive bonus at size 2. Research AH.

Turn 11: Ulundi grows to 2, start worker. Looking like city #2 may be just to the SE on the river.

Turn 16: Find coast to the W. Hmm, surely I'm not isolated.

Turn 17: Research Mining.

Turn 21: Buddhism FIADL.

Turn 26: Worker finishes. I have a warrior half-finished but decide to start a 2nd worker.

Turn 27: Research BW. Find coast to the east, some land visible across the water though...

Turn 28: Move down the isthmus and I see some purple. Now I'm thinking in terms of a blocking city for spot #2. Argh, it's Gilgamesh, which means a creative AND protective neighbor. I'm thinking a production city 1N of the corn, and a commerce city on the coast NE of the sheep.

Turn 35: Hinduism FIADL.

Turn 42: My scout gets picked off by a lion, going to have to be careful escorting that settler. Hope Gil doesn't beat me to the spot.

Turn 47: City grows to 3 and my 2nd warrior finishes, time to chop out a settler. Gil adopts slavery so we're getting BW at the same time.

Turn 48: BW in, research Wheel.

Turn 51: Gil is the #1 most powerful civilization, how nice. I'm #5.

Turn 59: Blocking city founded 1N of corn.

Turn 60: Research Mysticism.

Turn 61: City grows to size 4, start another Settler.

Turn 65: Judaism FIADL.

Turn 68: Stonehenge built somewhere. Revolt to Slavery and 2pop whip the Settler, overflow goes into a Worker.

Turn 71: Sheep city founded.

Turn 73: Research Pottery.

Turn 84: Forest grows near blocking city, how nice!

Turn 85: Great Wall built somewhere.

Turn 87: Research Writing.

Turn 88: Mahabodhi built somewhere.

Turn 100: Writing due next turn. Settler built in 3 turns to found corn city to the west, another settler due from blocking city to hook up copper. Next build is library in capital to run scientists. Seems like I have to beeline Monarchy for happiness next.

Didn't do as much chopping as usual this round... hopefully all those trees will serve me well later!

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z22/fnurt/Civ4ScreenShot0010.jpg

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z22/fnurt/Civ4ScreenShot0011.jpg

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z22/fnurt/Civ4ScreenShot0012.jpg

naturally none. Should go as long as BuG is in custom assets folder

I have BUFFY in my Mods folder with it set as default in the .ini file. Do I need to put another copy somewhere, or is it in the wrong place to begin with?

So many saves to go through,

@huerfanista

Try and connect roads to gigles for trade routes. The worker near uMgungunlovu didn't finsh the road from capital either. This will help with your economy.


@mjg5591

I haven't tried to open borders with him yet - I don't have writing, not sure if he does either. I didn't road the last bit to uMgungundlovu because I wanted to get that mine up ASAP to speed up the workboat production for Nobamba's crabs.

Hello, first time for any of these cookbooks. Right now I'm struggling with monarch so Emperor is one too high for random play for me (might have a chance if I regenerate until I get a dream start).

I didn't have much time to play this, and played a bit fast, made some mistakes. But I think it managed to be competitive.

Final screenshot:

http://i759.photobucket.com/albums/xx236/pholtz/cookbook.jpg

4 cities, 3 workers, but soon to be 5. Pottery recently discovered, so ready to make cottages. Cities #2 and 3 have monuments. Capital and city #2 have Ikhandas. City #3 is positioned for the copper and both seafoods, it will pop its borders in 11 turns?.. then the copper can be mined. No excuse why the corn near city #2 isn't farmed yet. One boat is off the west end sailing to work the crabs. Copper city is building an Ikhanda, could be changed to another work boat. I built the monument by assigning a General specialist for the extra hammer. Quicker than trying to grow at +1 food. Economy is even at 50%, should increase as we build some cottages.

I did have an attack by a barbarian archer, but a Warrior with cover fought it off, it's still glowing blue for its second promotion. I think 2 cover warriors can fight off any barbarian archer that might show up until we get the copper working and Impi's/axes. Or a warrior could fog bust.

Details:
- I moved the scout, saw the cows to the west of the starting position, so settled in place.
- worker first created at 3500 BC, researched AH - > mining
- after making a circle around the town, went the only open direction and met Gil in 3300
- built Ikhanda while expanding to size 3, then warrior then settler
- 2600, settler produced, switched to slavery. Going to settle the river to the east first, chop a worker, then chop/whip a settler for the copper
- wheel - > fishing but changed my mind with one turn in fishing, to research mysticism
- 2175 got myst, building monuments in two cities... now researching fishing.
- 2000 make trade with gil, sheep for pig, no direct benefit or hurt to me, hopefully plus diplo
- 1700 a cover promoted warrior fights off an archer
- 1600 Nobamba the copper city finishes monument
- 1525 4th city founded 4 cities , soon 5 workers, 11 turns until copper.. even at 50 %. ready to build whip/granaries.

naturally none. Should go as long as BuG is in custom assets folder

Yep. That's a problem for me as custom assets conflict with mod I usually play with like BUFFY. I avoid putting mods in custom assets like the plaque. Too bad these games can't be played under a consistent mod or WB save. This isn't the only one I've had issue with, but surprised that no one brings it up. I don't play games without a mod.

First time poster. Prince player (Um, I've played Prince twice and started another game on Monday...) making step up both to emperor and epic (bit of a shock the difference between the normal and epic speeds). Don't think saying that I've dropped my economy into the toilet needs to be kept in a spoiler.


Didn't play the year 1500 round as I wanted people to have options. The worker in capital should be whipped (one pop point and gives good overflow) but you could pick either a settler (economy is already screwed but I finished off the round after getting back from the pub :rolleyes:), worker or something else for the resulting overflow. Ignore the dot mapping I've done because it's a bit of an experiment.

Start: Took a gamble and set the scout off to see if I could uncover something nice to the East and justify starting on the Wine (grab the happy resource even at the cost of a winery spot). Settled in place and then went back and forth over my start for the rest of the round. In the end I was glad because while it limits additional cities somewhat there is the little island (or it appears to be an island at least, should be the North pole above that I think) and it saved me from any major spawn busting.

Scouted South, then West, Round the North and then East. When I saw the thin piece of land I was already thinking to block rather than rush, when I saw the island that became the secondary objective and reinforced blocking and when I saw a protective leader with a badass axeman replacement any idea of early war went straight out of my head.

Settler took the closest point I felt was good for blocking (needed a border pop but

Build order: worker-part of a warrior-part of an ikhanda-settler at 3 pop
Tech: AH-Mining-BW-Mysticism? (stopped taking notes, got wheel and went fishing before pottery to save some costs on the that tech as my goal was reasonably early sailing for the island anyway)

Took first settler off to block Gilg, chose the spot which needed a border pop because I liked the site, limited barb spawn locations, would have lower maintenance and getting any good land for the fish site would need a border pop and 2 techs anyway (want sailing for lighthouse to really work that site). Dropping Warriors with a promotion available in fish town in case gilg comes looking (not great defense but I'm hoping to get friendly with Gilg, was mainly hoping he'd get a religion spread to him and/or writing for open borders but he hasn't been doing my work for me).

Lack of happy resources killed my thinking a bit but got lucky with my scout lasting for ages. Ikhandas are to go up everywhere for maintenance reduction and quick building of troops incase Gilg gets trigger happy but I think I've spread my objectives too thin.

Please feed back, I see a lot of waste in my little empire, economy is a bit trashed and my build priorities seem a bit questionable to me (all of which I have decided to blame on going out half way through the round). Also sorry if the write up is rambling as it's my first, I stopped taking notes and I really shouldn't be doing this at work.


Edit: Clarification of my diffculty level.

@Ambro
Prince>Emperor is indeed a huge jump! You should still do fine in the cookbook so I encourage you to continue. Whatever you learn here can be used at lower levels.
Normal>Epic is indeed a funny feeling. Having just moved back from Epic (to Normal) it kinda feels awkward now, especially the workers. It does make the game easier though.
About economy... as long as you have Pottery and/or Writing you'll be fine on Emperor. Moreover, being Shaka the Ikhandi are wonderful for reducing early maintenance.

Yep. That's a problem for me as custom assets conflict with mod I usually play with like BUFFY. I avoid putting mods in custom assets like the plaque. Too bad these games can't be played under a consistent mod or WB save. This isn't the only one I've had issue with, but surprised that no one brings it up. I don't play games without a mod.

Well, you cannot merge saves with mod and without it easily. Most people either play without mods or with BUG in custom assets so intial and subsequent saves are tailored for them.
It is not hard to put initial save as WB, but you can not crossload saves and not seeing others is loss of whole point of playing cookbook. Requiring players to make WB saves at end of each round is total nonsense.

Well, i would like to play cookbook under fall from heaven mod personally;)

I have BUFFY in my Mods folder with it set as default in the .ini file. Do I need to put another copy somewhere, or is it in the wrong place to begin with?

I will try contacting some BUG experts. I do know how this instalment works but since BUFFY [especially HOF part] cames with some changes in files i am not 100% sure interchanging saves won't create nonsense.

One thing i am sure you should not need another copy without fixing ini.

Well, you cannot merge saves with mod and without it easily. Most people either play without mods or with BUG in custom assets so intial and subsequent saves are tailored for them.
It is not hard to put initial save as WB, but you can not crossload saves and not seeing others is loss of whole point of playing cookbook. Requiring players to make WB saves at end of each round is total nonsense.

Well, i would like to play cookbook under fall from heaven mod personally;)

Yeah, I see what you mean about WB saves not working with this type of game. I've seen this type of issue causing confusion before and a lot of folks mentioned that they do use the BUFFY mod. I guess what I'm looking for is some consistent solution that allows us to use a mod without custom assets, as that's prohibitive for many. I'm fine using BUG and do have it installed, but there's no mention of mods in the initial post. I've reached a point where I just don't play without some kind of mod.

Ha - FFH would be great too. Funny - I played FFH for a very long time without actually learning to play CIV correctly.

I'm fine using BUG and do have it installed, but there's no mention of mods in the initial post. I've reached a point where I just don't play without some kind of mod.


Cause BUG in custom assets crossload with no mods. Do not think with BUG set in mod folder you can load save. One of solutions is dual install [sucks honestly.]

Seems to be lots of people playing this one, I'll jump in aswell.

Recently got back into the game after a long break, and have almost got the hang of winning on monarch. Time to dip a proverbial toe into emperor.

My round.

After not a lot of consideration I settled in place. Teched AH>mining>bw>wheel>pottery. Built worker, grew to size 2, built settler etc.

Not entirely happy with my city placement. South and west were ok, but the eastern city could be better imo. Not sure exactly where to go from here. Its gonna be a tough game if theres no iron around.

Finished up with 4 cities, 5 workers, 4 warriors and the scout

http://i727.photobucket.com/albums/ww275/Solar88/cookbook1500.jpg

My round.

After not a lot of consideration I settled in place. Teched AH>mining>bw>wheel>pottery. Built worker, grew to size 2, built settler etc.

Not entirely happy with my city placement. South and west were ok, but the eastern city could be better imo. Not sure exactly where to go from here. Its gonna be a tough game if theres no iron around.

Finished up with 4 cities, 5 workers, 4 warriors and the scout

http://i727.photobucket.com/albums/ww275/Solar88/cookbook1500.jpg



I think coastal would have been a lot better for your western city, as there is no juicy land on the east side of it. Also you didn't manage to block Gilgamesh as well as others in here. So I wouldn't vote for your save, but other than that it's pretty ok :)

@Ambro
Prince>Emperor is indeed a huge jump! You should still do fine in the cookbook so I encourage you to continue. Whatever you learn here can be used at lower levels.
Normal>Epic is indeed a funny feeling. Having just moved back from Epic (to Normal) it kinda feels awkward now, especially the workers. It does make the game easier though.
About economy... as long as you have Pottery and/or Writing you'll be fine on Emperor. Moreover, being Shaka the Ikhandi are wonderful for reducing early maintenance.

Thanks for the positive comments Kossin. I'm more than happy to have constructive criticism too though.


I do have pottery in my save (and thought I had more than 3 workers but can't see them). Further I have no idea what my worker is doing 1 se of my capital, appears to be building something but god knows why I'd be building something there right now.
Probably should have gone writing before sailing for open borders and libraries but I really want to get on that island asap and I was assuming that on emperor Gilg would pick up writing early and open borders (and hopefully therefore relationship bonus and trade routes but that appears to not have worked out very well at all).

@Ambro
You have to wait for Immortal-Deity for the AIs to get Writing before you usually. At least from my experience, I've rarely seen an AI with Writing on Emperor before me.

Okay i took the plunge.



I settled in place and teched to AH while building a warrior.

Once city reached size 2 and i finished warrior I built a worker (15 turn build).

I sent my warrior and scout exploring. Eventually losing the scout to a bear! Grrrr.

Warrior survived long enough to worker steal off Gilga. (Big no no leaving a resource on Ai border on a cookbook! Hehe!!)

Teched from AH to mining to BW then to Myst.

Chopped out first settler with 3 workers. 2nd soon followed.

I have no idea how Gilga got to 3 cities so quick!!! Luckily I was there to pillage a few resources although he has produced a few archers so I cant get the 2 further workers I stole home. He will take peace now and still has 3 cities and no copper hooked up yet. He does have a worker left.

I have built monuments in most cities. My 5th city (to be) has a settler near location ready to build it.

The copper city was tough. As i didnt build Stone Henge I had no real way to reach border pop 2 easily. So I built on hills below copper.

5 cities by 1475/1450 isnt bad really for Shaka. Impi are on the way but gilga has lots of archers.




Photos


Map
http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo195/gummby_2008/zuluck10000-1.jpg

Cities

http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo195/gummby_2008/zuluck20000-1.jpg

units

http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo195/gummby_2008/zuluck30000-1.jpg




@ Soirana
Having just played my round and looked at spoilers I notice someone is 2 turns off TGL. Poor you!!!! lol Foiled again!!! It would seem rude to vote for that save later. In my heart I couldnt see shak building a lighthouse anyway.

I'm going to start comparing the saved games to mine, not because mine is the best, far from it, but because I know it better. I'm looking at techs researched, city location, economy and worked tiles. Then of the ones 'ranked' higher than mine, I can pick my three votes.

@Mike(mjg5591)
Our capitals and second city are in the exact same place. Your third city blocked, mine was for the copper... toss up. The main problem I see with your game is lack of connection between your cities, either with roads or sailing. Because of this you're a bit behind tech wise.


@duelmaster
A different approach than mine. GL instead of copper, Sailing instead of roads. Might be a bit behind in tech, but the GL will correct that shortly. You are fog busting, I prefer just fighting off the occasional barb for the experience, and if they found a city, it might be where we want it. But with you not going after the copper, we may need that fog busting. Probably better than mine because of the early GL.


@kossin
Good location of capital, and second city. Copper city poorly placed. I agree with others that an early rush with Impi's, Axes only is probably out. Not sure why, but you are a bit behind in tech, and with only 3 cities have negative cash flow at 50%. For these reasons I would have to rank it a bit lower.

@Narres(Africa)
Good city locations, but no connections between them. I think this late you need either roads or sailing. Good job on keeping up on the tech without the connections. You are building cottages a few turns earlier than me. But with three cities you are even at 40%, that's a bit worse. In my opinion, a bit too much fog busting. An occasional Barbarian doesn't hurt, if you are ready for him. I would have to rank it a bit lower.

@smitsk
Four cities, same as me. But you are getting even at %20 so the economy isn't as good. I like your copper city (same as mine :), even up to the number of turns until border pop). But because of your economy, you are at least a tech and a half behind. Not sure why. The choice of the city near Bulawayo for you, uMg for me is tough. I like you getting more production, but you give up the cows. I think 1W or 1N of the corn are better spots. My position 2W of corn isn't that good in production :(. Have to rank it lower because of research/economy.

I'm sorry, that's all I have time for now. I'll try to look at more saves after work. One problem with some of the saves that I see is the lack of the personal name on the save.

Slow down Pholtz not at voting yet!!! :lol:

Sorry, if I'm too quick on this, but with so many games, I've got to start looking at them. Feel free to ignore the spoilers until voting occurs.

Comment/question on GLH:
Looking back over some of the comments, I notice that some think that duelmaster's game with the GLH only 2 turns away is a game breaker. I'm ignorant enough that while I see the GLH as a very good thing to have, is it that big of a deal? If another game gets voted to continue, I would like to see duelmaster's game carried on to the next stopping point just to see the difference.

Edit: spoiled :)

Sorry, if I'm too quick on this, but with so many games, I've got to start looking at them. Feel free to ignore the spoilers until voting occurs.

Looking back over some of the comments, I notice that some think that duelmaster's game with the GLH only 2 turns away is a game breaker. I'm ignorant enough that while I see the GLH as a very good thing to have, is it that big of a deal? If another game gets voted to continue, I would like to see duelmaster's game carried on to the next stopping point just to see the difference.

That should really be in a spoiler.



We used GLH last ECook book game so I am quite opposed to it really. Wont lean much using it each game. Should of banned it really.

Edited

Regarding my strategy:
This is the first Cookbook I've done/followed.....I had no idea there was so much hate for GLH! :p I understand where you're all coming from though.

Maybe I should submit a new save with mass impis just to please this bloodthirsty crowd :lol:

@ dualmaster


I don't hate GLH as the wonder - don't get me wrong. I just think that on this type of game it's a breaker. Coupled with Organized and TOA it would have been too much :D
On of my first games on Immortal as Hannibal I managed this crazy move GLH + TOA and early courthouses, plus aiming for his UB for even more TR money, and this was it - the game was won despite less land than other AIs. Tech-edge, rifles, home run.
Anyway, cottage & Ikhanda might just work like the GLH - especially given the fact that you have only two coastal, so the impact is less than if you'd have six-seven shore-cities.

@pholtz


I took a look at your save. You did almost exactly what my first instinct was. I changed my mind when I thought about the production restrictions on those sites and decided to go FE/SE and wait to lay cottages. I think your game has a lot of potential , but you need to get another city or two up stat so that you can actually build an army fast enough, if only for defense. Hill by the fish and 2S of the western corn seem best. I do worry about Barbs from the west when copper isn't online yet.


Also, in my defense:


I agree that the % is a bit low. In most games, cash from huts would let you deficit tech into Writing (or at least much closer) by this point in the game. I forgot we had huts off.

However, in my defence, Fishing will come next turn if you push up the slider, so I am not much further away from Writing (then masonry>Math>Construction) than you are. Also, the difference between 20% and 40% is only 4gpt. Working a couple riverside tiles and the fish/crabs and getting Ikhandas up will get my save to close to 40-50% in 20 turns max. Writing should also be in then and libraries can be prechopped in 3 of my 4 cities. Conservatively, 40-50% + 12-18 beakers from specialists by 700BCish is likely to be scientifically and militarily stronger than the cottage city I have seen in many of the posted saves.

I would also be able to afford to settle 1, maybe? 2 more cities (one production/GP city 1E of the Wheat, one future cottage 2W of the cows , or a hybrid city on the western peninsula. I wouldn't settle untill after masonry, so I would let the flow of the game dictate the choice.

The reality of this game is the Giggles must die and that that isn't going to happen before cats. Hence, we need to beat him to Construction AND be able to rapidly build/whip an army. Whipping away cottages is rarely optimal. Running an early FE/SE is usually better when you know that you must go to war.

An extra bonus may be the Mids. At 50%, commerce would be generating about 12-14bpt, plus at least 12-18 bpt from scientists. That gives us about 30 bpt quickly (i.e Masonry in about 8 turns after Writing). With all that forest available and plenty of time to pre-chop, getting the Pyramids is very possible, though admitedly unpredictable. Even if it is missed, the chops will generate a lot of cash to use for deficit teching or for supporting an army.

I would obviously welcome anyone's comments or opinions.

My first thoughts on overall strategy [EDIT:](don't read unless you've played the round or are not contributing a save):


I don't see any chance of pulling off a successful rush against Gil, as others have said. However, I think a pillaging war against him while teching sailing and settling around him would work well. Shock axes will stand up very well against vultures (6.75 v 6.6), and shock impi pillagers will also do well if you can keep them in the woods (losing a couple to take out metals, OFC). Once Gil is without metals and pinned in his cities we could head for cats/swords and take him out for good. I think settling around him is also key so that other AIs don't gobble up all of the land and become too big.

The land we have is not really impressive, and we don't know what kind of land Gil has ATM. If he has a lot of good land, he will become very strong and a real danger. Shaka is built for war - let's use that.

That said, when looking at the saves I'm going to favor early copper hookup, and early writing + OB with Gil for scouting will be a big plus. I also think that not having a blocking city on the peninsula will be a negative, especially if Gil already has a city there.

Just my .02:commerce:

EDIT: Also, I don't have any compunctions whatsoever in using the GLH, especially on this map. It would be a big plus for this strategy (already have sailing + economic boost for war/REX).

Edited

The debate cont'd.



Not against GLH just dont feel we will learn much by it if we use it for every cookbook. I dont deny the save would be a strong save to continue. Although a creative neighbour would be a pain with slow expansion

In term of my save



I had kept Gilga down to 3 cities and more importantly kept his copper pillaged!!The issues would be Impi vs excess of whipped archers.

Does anyone need more time to post a save? We could finish the round for tomorrow 12gmt? Or tonight around 20:00GMT?

Pends who else wishes to post. I know Kossin is itching to vote and post a second round with the winning save. :)

The debate cont'd.



Not against GLH just dont feel we will learn much by it if we use it for every cookbook. I dont deny the save would be a strong save to continue. Although a creative neighbour would be a pain with slow expansion

In term of my save



I had kept Gilga down to 3 cities and more importantly kept his copper pillaged!!The issues would be Impi vs excess of whipped archers.


I don't think impis vs archers is any issue at all. The AI hesitates to attack warriors with archers (at least for a while). Impis would do fine and could easily be fortified with axes.


@Nares

From the looks of it, we won't be able to settle around him. That's his capital just across the land-bridge. More realistically, we couldn't afford to settle around him, either financially or in a strategic sense. If he declares on us, any cities on the other side of him are a lost cause.

Well, how on earth can we declare on US since my strat is based on declaring on HIM first and pinning him after pillaging his metals. He's not gonna attack axes with archers, trust me. Financially, I think it's doable if we have the GLH, and perhaps even if we don't. Gumbolt's save has already accomplished the pin, it need to be reinforced with impis and then axes. Recovering the economy after a rex like this is what emperor players are supposed to be good at. :lol:

To be honest, I see more strength in the Stonehenge save because it has metal online already (and best settled the copper site), and has some military up, hopefully keeping Gilgamesh disinterested long enough to get some diplomatic immunity built up.

Well, I've only seen one save with 'henge, and it's mine. ;) And I don't have the copper hooked up yet (maybe in 10-15 turns or so) and my only military are warriors. Did I miss someone else's save? :confused:

I don't think impis vs archers is any issue at all. The AI hesitates to attack warriors with archers (at least for a while). Impis would do fine and could easily be fortified with axes.


@Nares



Well, how on earth can we declare on US since my strat is based on declaring on HIM first and pinning him after pillaging his metals. He's not gonna attack axes with archers, trust me. Financially, I think it's doable if we have the GLH, and perhaps even if we don't. Gumbolt's save has already accomplished the pin, it need to be reinforced with impis and then axes. Recovering the economy after a rex like this is what emperor players are supposed to be good at. :lol:



Well, I've only seen one save with 'henge, and it's mine. ;) And I don't have the copper hooked up yet (maybe in 10-15 turns or so) and my only military are warriors. Did I miss someone else's save? :confused:


I think you missed a save.

One of the save had Sh and used the 2 crabs copper city spot for a city. I almost think Soirana was tempting us with that city.

You will also note that Gilga has 3 sources of ivory to use. We face peirilous times ahead. Kill Gilga. lol

I think you missed a save.

One of the save had Sh and used the 2 crabs copper city spot for a city. I almost think Soirana was tempting us with that city.

You will also note that Gilga has 3 sources of ivory to use. We face peirilous times ahead. Kill Gilga. lol

I re-read all of the posts and I can't find a save other than mine that has stonehenge. Who posted it? :confused:

lol it was your save!!

lol it was your save!!

Thought so. ;)

I still like your save the best. You were the only one with the cojones to go after Gilga. :hammer:

Well Soirana must have listened to me giving our neighbour an extra settler and gold in BFC. Just glad it wasnt Justin. I dont normally approve a worker steal but if its me its okay.

I wonder how many cities Gilga will have in the other saves. The AI do like whipping archers and workers.

It would be nice to see starting Wb save and the finished save for the CkBk.

Edited

Here is an analysis of the saves so far. Sorry but for those who did not label your saves they are called unknown 1-4 if they are in the running we can find the correct owner.

This is not an attempt to vote yet just a posting of what I think of the saves so far including my own. All criticism is aimed at being constructive I hope.

Ik = Ikhanda, Mon = Monument, Gr = Granery, Lh = Lighthouse, Lib = Library

Gumbolt
Bronze Working, Pottery, 10 to writing. No fishing
13 pop & 1 Settler
6 workers
8 warriors
2 Mon
3 Ik
1 Gr
Good roads and bronze hooked up. War with Gilgamesh already. Culture bocks if peace can be attained.


Ambro
BW, Pottery, 27 to sailing.
10 Pop
3 Workers
8 Warriors
2 Ik
1 Gr
2 Mon
Ok roads but it will be a bit until bronze is hooked up.


Pholtz
BW, Pottery, 10 to writing
9 pop
3 workers
1 workboat
6 warriors
2 Ik
2 mon
Good roads and bronze soon. Poor block on Gilgamesh.


Solon
BW, 1 turn to writing no fishing yet.
12 pop
3 workers
5 Warriors
2 Ik
3 Gr
2 Mon
Good roads, good block.


Pawelo
BW, 5 to writing but no fishing.
9 pop
3 workers
2 warriors
5 Impi
1 Ik
1 Gr
2 Mon
Good roads, good block on Gil.


Teelman
BW, 4 to writing, no fish or pottery.
9 pop
8 Warrior
3 worker
2 Ik
2 Mon
Excellent block, good roads.


MaximumPain
BW, Pottery, and Writing, 8 to mysticism.
12 pop
3 workers
6warriors
2 Gr
1 Ik
Good roads,2 hamlets, poor block on Gil.


Huerfanista
BW, Pottery, 9 to writing.
Stonehenge!
7 pop
1 worker
4 warriors
3 mon from stonehenge
1 good road but poor infrastructure otherwise, Excellent block on gil.


Mc-Red
BW, writing, archery. No pottery, just starting the wheel.
6 pop
1 worker
1 work boat
6 archers
2 warriors
2 Ik
1 Library
Poor infrastructure and of course no roads. Excellent block on Gil.


2nd half is coming later today

@MaxPain

:goodjob::goodjob: Great job on the stats there!

@MaxPain

What the difference between an excellent block and a poor block in your analysis? It appears to be settling on a hill, even though it makes for a poor city as a result (misses fish, 1 hill to work, shares corn). In my placement, leaving the easternmost tile forested will provide good defense, the fish can be worked, 2 hills can be worked, and the city can act as a canal. I'm not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand the use of a pejorative ("poor") when describing what would otherwise be considered superior placement (in my mind). We're not Charlemagne, after all, planning to stock a hill city with protective archers, are we? :lol:

Realised I didn't put my save in my last post, so here it is. Not as though I expect it to be taken (I wouldn't) but for comparison or something eh.. Pic and info is on page 4

@MaxPain

What the difference between an excellent block and a poor block in your analysis? It appears to be settling on a hill, even though it makes for a poor city as a result (misses fish, 1 hill to work, shares corn). In my placement, leaving the easternmost tile forested will provide good defense, the fish can be worked, 2 hills can be worked, and the city can act as a canal. I'm not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand the use of a pejorative ("poor") when describing what would otherwise be considered superior placement (in my mind). We're not Charlemagne, after all, planning to stock a hill city with protective archers, are we? :lol:

I consider an excellent block one that controls the isthmus completely, a good one that blocks the rout onto our section with culture, and a poor one is one that can develop into a full block but is not there yet. I called your poor because it wont culture block until nobamba grows and you have nothing building culture there yet. My save has the same issue but is even worse as after a culture pop I still wont be blocking Gil.

Edit looks like I screwed up on that and you should be rated as an excellent block as you do control the whole Isthmus and are on the hill. Thats the best block that can be had at this point. Sorry about that.

Here is the second half.

Ok heres part two. I will talk about what I think in more detail later I just wanted to get these stats out there now.


Shafi
BW, pottery, 21 to masonry.
10 pop
4 workers
7 warriors
1 Gr
1 Mon
Great block, good roads.


WFU03
BW, 1 turn to writing, no pottery.
7 pop
4 worker
5 warrior
2 Ik
1 Mon
Good roads, excellent block. Bronze will be available soon.


Smitsk00
BW, 3 to fishing, no pottery
8 pop
3 worker
8 warriors
3 mon but 1 is in the capital?
1 Ik
Good roads bronze hooked up soon. Good block on Gil.


Afrika
1 turn under the stop time.
BW, writing in 16 turns, pottery.
5 pop
1 settler
4 workers
1 work boat
5 warriors
1 Gr
2 Mon
2 IK
Poor roads but a good block on Gil.


Mike
BW, Archery, 16 turns to pottery.
9 pop
3 workers
5 Archers
1 Warrior
3 IK
2 Mon
No roads, Excellent block on Gil.


Dualmaster
BW, Sailing, wheel in 1 turn.
10 pop
3 workers
5 Warriors
1 Work Boat
1 Ik
1 Lh
2 turns until great Lighthouse.
No roads and poor block on Gil.


Here are the 4 unmarked saves.

First
BW no fishing or pottery
10 pop
4 workers
2 Archers
3 Warriors
3 IK
1 Gr
Good roads, excellent block.


Second
BW, Sailing, 4 to wheel.
10 pop
5 worker
5 Warrior
3 Ik
1 Lh
1 Mon
Excellent block and of course no roads.


Third
Archery but no BW, 1 turn to sailing.
9 pop
3 workers
4 archers
1 warrior
1 Ik
1 Gr
Excellent block.


fourth
BW, Pottery, 6 to fishing.
11 pop
1 settler
4 workers
7 warriors
2 Ik
Poor block on Gil.



Thats it for no. I will say more once we are cleared to discuss actual voting.

Edit ~ Ill try to get to Solars yet tonight.

Edit 2 ~ Already had one mistake pointed out so please check the entry and let me know if I screwed up yours and I will fix it straight away. This turned out to be bigger then I expected.

Thanks for your patience.

Ok here's Solar's amended.
BW, pottery, writing, 3 to myst
10 pop (4 cities)
5 workers
4 warriors
3 ikhanda
2 granary
1/2 a library in cow/corn city
bad blocking ( :/ )



No matter what happens this has been a great exercise in seeing the effects of building an early wonder on population and growth. Only Dual master managed to come out of the wonder project with a respectable population and his save is hurting for buildings. I usually love to get wonders but was to scared of the AIs in what I thought would be a game way over my head. I still think I have a lot of work to get to this level but seeing my offering up against all the others have given me hope for my game.

Thanks all and good luck.

@MaxPain

:goodjob: Thanks for doing this. That's a lot of saves!

@MaxPain

You should also consider reporting gpp/turns to first gp. AFAIK, mc-red (possibly, if any scientists are assigned from his library) and I (GP from henge for quite a while now) are the only ones generating gpp. For example, in my save Ulundi has 90gpp already, and is 30 turns from popping a GP (2:hammers:5:gold: when settled).

EDIT: Also, you didn't mention that I have fishing.
EDIT: Disregard that. I see that you're only mentioning fishing when it hasn't been researched. My bad.

[QUOTE=MaximumPain;8597261]Ok here's Solar's
BW, Pottery, 9 to writing
7 pop
1 worker
4 warriors
3 Mon due to Stonehenge.
Excellent block and one good road in place.


That Doesn't sound anything like my game. I have:

BW, pottery, writing, 3 to myst
10 pop (4 cities)
5 workers
4 warriors
3 ikhanda
2 granary
1/2 a library in cow/corn city
bad blocking ( :/ )

@ solar

Like that you have 5 workers already. Pottery and writing in to help economy. Some cottages down already.

Couple things I saw in your save. I would have OB with Giggles to scout his land. Also could trrade sheep for his pig. Not that we need the health, but for diplo. Also worker in Bulawayo is chopping a forsest plains and could be chopping forest grassland. Typically try to chop grassland before plains. Also don't like placement of Bulawayo one of the coast.

[QUOTE=MaximumPain;8597261]Ok here's Solar's
BW, Pottery, 9 to writing
7 pop
1 worker
4 warriors
3 Mon due to Stonehenge.
Excellent block and one good road in place.


That Doesn't sound anything like my game. I have:

BW, pottery, writing, 3 to myst
10 pop (4 cities)
5 workers
4 warriors
3 ikhanda
2 granary
1/2 a library in cow/corn city
bad blocking ( :/ )


Heh yeah looks like I did Huerfanista's save as yours very sorry.
Ill fix it my entry as well.

Looks like it's me who is confused.

Even if you do still have 10-15 turns to get Copper, anyone else who settles that site is looking at a significant number of turns to grow to pop2 to whip the monument. Basically, 3X as long as it will take you. Even if they've settled it already, it'll still have a significant number of turns to growth (unless they settled it awhile ago, in which case they're either :crazyeye: or :king:).

@Gumbolt
I just took a look at your save. Looks great. Choking a Creative leader is the only real way to deal with them in the early game. Keeping his Copper pillaged is excellent, but he'll quickly escort workers with archers. The race is on to get some impis down there.

Quick question, though. You mention having difficult getting that pair of workers back because of some archers. Exactly how many archers are we talking about? I see one roaming to the SW, but otherwise don't have any numbers on Gilgamesh's cities. Also, how long ago did you declare war?

Here's the thing. I don't know about a protracted war against a creative leader. Now we also know that we'll pick up -1 YDWOOF! with Kublai each time we declare against Gilgamesh, so taking peace may not even be extremely desirable. That said, if you've been at it awhile, he may be in full-out military mode and may be more difficult to crack than he appears to be at the save.

Back at the GLH, I think the best summary of it is that it's uninspiring, and it won't make for an exciting read if it's the staple of every game. Likewise the Pyramids and the Great Wall, and to a lesser extent the Oracle (at least there's some potential for variation here).

Yeah he has quite a few archers he has whipped. Nothing more to date though. He has one worker wondering around. Once the impi in the capital is built it can reach the workers and hopefully escort them home. The warrior has woodmen2. Trouble is Gilga keeps blocking route with archers. His cities wont be happy if he keeps whipping them.

End of day he has been restricted to 3 cities while I will soon have 5 going 6. Not sure who else is on our island but gilga and mongals are at pleased status.

That being said because of the workers I have highest pop count and will have most cities out of all the saves. I can still push in another blocking city for the fish too.

I will close the round in 8 hours. (when i wake up!!)

@Gumbolt

As it's my first Emperor CB - what's the purpose of the vote ?
Should we go for the best one or the greatest learning-value one ? Or something in between ?
It's rather important to know which way to go - there are some games that went much better than the others, although it might be more challenging to skip games with wonders ?
As the round is pretty wrapped up, I won't spoil by saying that your game is very strong in terms of scouting value, putting some light on important questions every other player is facing. Also, you are already running the strat I was planning for the next set :goodjob:. Only thing is that if we go for your save it's almost as easy as with TGLight built.

So, the question is - what's the 'big picture' behind the decision as for which game to vote ?

Thanks!:cool:

@Gumbolt

As it's my first Emperor CB - what's the purpose of the vote ?
Should we go for the best one or the greatest learning-value one ? Or something in between ?


The one you want to play from. Nothing can prevent you from coting for best, most interesting, best dealing with Gilga or having GLH save.

Let's be honest AI's are doomed to loose [although i do remember cookbooks were people lost - in all saves or something like that]. Their doom should provide entertainment for players

Edited

@maximum pain


It should also be noted that my save has 60% of Writing completed. Fishing is really just 1 turn away of the slider is pushed up as well.

I agree, the monument in the capital seems silly. I was running at 10% and didn't want to produce a unit that I would be forced to immediately disband. The fact that my capital is going to have nothing better to do than pump upgraded warriors for the next 10 turns really annoyed me. I was going to get out 1 more worker as soon as I got 1 more gpt.


As for general strategy:


I like the idea of choking giggles. I opted out of it becasue I have very little experience choking and was wary of losing the two crabs. That being said, now that a choke has started, I like the idea of trying it out.

I am very wary of any save that doesn't have copper online or at least has it comming very soon (<20 turns).

I am also wary of saves that focused only on building cottages, but whose city sites are production poor. Whether Gilgamesh is conquerable or not is up for some debate, but we are going top have to fight him at some point. Whipping away cottages is not a good plan, IMHO.

I will also mention that I do not think settling on the wine was the best move. You lost the cows for 1gpt and marginalized the potential of a cottage city near the grass cows. I know that it was a bit of a blind guess at the time, but IMO, not optimal in the long run. If I had to do it over again, I think the southern coastal spot would have been best.

We will go ahead and vote for 2-3 days. Hopefully finish by Sunday/Monday or when all that have played have voted. Its not always about voting for the best save but the save that will be most interesting or challenging to play. Anyone that submitted a save is free to vote.

Please rank your top 3 in order.

First place 3 points.
Second place 2 points
Third place. 1 point.

PLEASE NOTE!! To keep voting fair you cant vote for your own save. You are expected to vote for 3 saves and give reasons for your voting. Remember this is a learning game. I would encourage everyone to act within the spirit that the cookbook is intended.

Anyway here are the saves:

Kossin (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232474&d=1256680048)

Dualmaster (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232485&d=1256685974)

MJG5591 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232489&d=1256690699)

Nares (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232499&d=1256703038)

Smitsk00 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232502&d=1256706175)

Oranje Willem (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232519&d=1256727378)

WFU03 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232521&d=1256728004)

Cripp7 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232541&d=1256741714)

Steve250 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232542&d=1256743377)

Shafi (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232549&d=1256745415)

MC-Red (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232551&d=1256748084)

huerfanista (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232557&d=1256754114)

Maximum pain (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232565&d=1256761381)

Teelman (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232569&d=1256762808)

kbo (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232593&d=1256771929)

Pawelo (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232618&d=1256786066)

Solon70 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232633&d=1256793779)

Pholtz (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232638&d=1256799898)

Ambro (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232663&d=1256818046)

Gumbolt (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232713&d=1256849791)

Cabert (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232905&d=1256990375)

/Solar/ (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232842&d=1256948811) So many saves was bound to miss one. Sorry for that error!!



Voting will end on Monday 6pm GMT or at the point where everyone from this round has voted or there is a clear winner.

Only 20 votes Kossin where are the other 27 that voted in the poll. :eek::eek:

Overall vote for the save you think will be most interesting or best save to go forward with. Fact someone has gone the wonder route shouldnt go against them although we may ban the GLH next map. :lol:

Perhaps Soirana could just world builder it in our capital on the coast next time. ;)

@maxpain

Appreciate the summary.
Just want to point out that i have 160 gold in my save and a library in capital partially built. This will allow me deficit research on any techs I lack at a very good rate.

On roads don't forget rivers. Once the blocker pops borders next turn only 2 roads are needed to connect to giggles and two more to have all three cities on trade network.
[edit: 3 roads to connect all cities]
Alternately a deficit run on sailing would do the same.

Also I have scouted a lot more than most saves.

I feel the main problem with my save is lack of workers







An observation about cookbooks as this will be my first.
I think scouting efforts are greatly discounted by observers as everyone will have benefit of the scouting for whatever save we start with next.

A couple of comments on the recap and one on my save in particular:

1. Excellent job on the recap...it definitely helps to see some numbers on this
2. It would have been helpful to also have the number of cities each save had as well. Some have 3 and some have 4.

3. One HUGE difference in my save is that it has another luxury resource. I had gold pop up in the BFC of the capital in the last few turns of the round. I just want to make sure people realize this (either for good or for bad) when they are voting.

@smitskoo

Very interesting observation about not settling on wine.
I will go back and look at this.
Was this knowable at the start though?

Theres no need for spoilers now voting is taking place!!!

One advantage we do get from doing these series is seeing what land the Ai has from all the saves. We know we have at least 2 Ai on our continent.

Question is are we going for a rush or a peaceful sciencegame till later techs? What to do next????

Theres no need for spoilers now voting is taking place!!!

One advantage we do get from doing these series is seeing what land the Ai has from all the saves. We know we have at least 2 Ai on our continent.

Question is are we going for a rush or a peaceful sciencegame till later techs? What to do next????

Good question. I was definately angling for the peaceful bulbing approach with HR and hopefully but not necessarily religion to keep giggles happy.

Your choke of giggles though has pretty much reduced him to a non entity and all that land seems too good to pass up.
Successful handling of the cleanup and then the economy would pretty much mean game over. Still a lot to do and learn in the next few rounds from that process.

hey I'm here!

Too late for a submission?

Here it is anyway, although I saw other games better than mine without even having to compare really hard.

First step : I think win is a weak tile, and I saw green tiles to the east so I settled on the wine = I missed the cow to the west :mad:.
I wanted an impi rush, so tech to BW straight, then saw where the copper was and got a bit disappointed.
Too late to change, so I settled on the copper, built a road towards it.
Next steps include AH for the sheep and potential horses, no luck there.
Then mysticism for monuments, although I didn't build one yet :smoke: then fishing (duh!) and pottery.
Now going for sailing, because whatever we did in another game, it's the only way to go now.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232906&stc=1&d=1256990829

hey I'm here!

Too late for a submission?

Here it is anyway, although I saw other games better than mine without even having to compare really hard.

First step : I think win is a weak tile, and I saw green tiles to the east so I settled on the wine = I missed the cow to the west :mad:.
I wanted an impi rush, so tech to BW straight, then saw where the copper was and got a bit disappointed.
Too late to change, so I settled on the copper, built a road towards it.
Next steps include AH for the sheep and potential horses, no luck there.
Then mysticism for monuments, although I didn't build one yet :smoke: then fishing (duh!) and pottery.
Now going for sailing, because whatever we did in another game, it's the only way to go now.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232906&stc=1&d=1256990829




I can add you to the vote if you want Cabert. No one has voted yet!! Not sure why. :crazyeye:

You forgot me.

I think its fairly clear which save is the best. In order to do well we have to go on the offensive. There isn't enough land to just sit back and tech. If we don't have any iron then we'll probably have to wait untill gunpowder which seems way to long a time for shaka to turtle for with only about 6 cities. The best situation to be in is to have done as much to gilga at this point as possible.

I'll vote tomorrow when I've had a chance to look at all the saves.

I can add you to the vote if you want Cabert. No one has voted yet!! Not sure why. :crazyeye:

too many saves

@smitskoo

Very interesting observation about not settling on wine.
I will go back and look at this.
Was this knowable at the start though?




Settling on the wine would definitely have seemed like a good idea. No one could have known that it would crunch city sites. Just bad luck.

I'll vote if you let me, but I agree there are too many saves.
I DLed all of them, but won't go into detailed analysis of each game.
I'll just give a little more thoughts to the one I'd be willing to play from.

I'll vote in a few minutes if we're not waiting for more games.

Here is my short list, with spoilers although I don't think it's necessary anymore.

I found 4 games I'd be willing to play from.

Gumbolt

good expansion, copper ready
building axes from there sould lead to a quick eradication of gilgamesh.
Not sure impies are going to help a lot, maybe 1 or 2 for further copper denial, but axes will do better vs creative cities.

Dualmaster

close to GLH, need I say more?

Huerfanista

good block, stonehenge providing a great prophet soon to fund further expansion


Kossin

ready for an axe rush
+ best capital placement

If I shall vote already, I'd give
3 votes to kossin,
2 to gumbolt,
1 to dualmaster.
Of course if other games are submitted, I'll check further.

Ok I'm going to vote. I looked at every save to do everyone justice but its still a little overwhelming.
My basic criterion was the focus of the game plan. How is the civ placed to deal with giggles. Either a peaceful or aggressive. Some saves looked like more generic starts and I think the start calls for extremes. Gamble you can keep declare at pleased giggles pacified or take him out as threat.

1. Gumbolt - aggressive - great choke
2. Kossin - agressive - elements of rush in place
3. WFU03 - can be played peacefully at start IMHO

So here's my thoughts:
There's two ways to go:
1.) Early rush on Giggles.
2.) Focus economy and tech to Construction+IW for a sword+cat war (IF we have iron).

Unfortunately our land is not that great for an economy. We have some cottage land but not enough happiness to work a lot of it. Meanwhile we know Gilga has gold in his BFC to tech ahead fast. Some people have also mentioned specialists, but again we don't have a ton of happiness so our cities will be small. So I think we'll fall behind on tech quickly UNLESS we have the GLH. But since many people seem to dislike that, I think the only good option remaining is to rush Giggles.

Thus, when looking through the saves, my requirement is that copper must be hooked up (or close at least).

3 points - Gumbolt - Nice choke. Settling 5th city would hurt more than help, as we already have cities working unimproved tiles. With Ikhandas in all cities and granaries in two, this has best infrastructure to build/whip an army. Combined with a choke to slow Gilga+deny copper and two stolen workers this probably has the best chance for a successful rush. Particularly with Gila's city setup in this save, even if we just take Uruk we can get an awesome city (serious production and the gold will pay for itself) without having to worry about cultural pressure (in other saves he has a city to the north which would encroach on Uruk).

2 points - Kossin - Nice setup for rush. Ikhanda in all 3 cities with 2 axes, 1 impi and more on the way. Should be teching writing not myst though. Copper city is in a lousy location but oh well. Best capital location (and lets me try to build the GLH :lol:)

1 point - Huerfanista - Stonehenge is nice to have, though far from critical. Has "best" location for copper city, however copper is not connected and won't be for a while. Severe lack of workers. Would have to be a late rush.

Why so many votes for Kossin, his copper city is really crappy and Gilgamesh is one of the hardest AIs to rush fast (culture bonus from creative and protective and powerfull early UU). I'm not sure if it's the best way to go, but maybe i'm wrong.

Here are my votes:

1. Gumbolt - I think pinning Gil early is a good approach, and no other save can possibly accomplish this before he has his metals hooked up and becomes too big to handle. Also, the most cities and workers, copper already hooked up, no need for a blocking city. :lol:

2. Dualmaster - doesn't have a blocking city (but can get it soon, hopefully before Gil gets a settler there), GLH will be extremely powerful on this very tough map, poor teching but lots of gold for defecit research and GLH will help, best economic potential for a peaceful game.

3. WFU03 - has copper city founded, can get it hooked up in a reasonable time (~34 turns if monument is whipped @ size 2), good blocking city, 1 turn to writing.

Edited

Nares,
I do like the production site idea. For me I think I settled by the river for:
1. Easier trade route
2. Was planning to share the corn with blocker.
3. Was planning to help grow cottages for the capital
4. Freshwater

The only thing I usually do with plains early is farm them.

Alright,

I'll be going on with voting, however there is one big winner afaik : Gumbolt.
Your worker-capture, attrition war crippling Gilgamesh eco is the way I was planning to go around 1000 AD. Also you have managed to block Gilga up to only three, making him a fairly easy target.

So:
3 pts - Gumbolt
2 pts - Huerfanista for the Henge - a cool way to fight creative borders + prophet to get Confu or Tao later (Mongols are unlikely to found a religion methinks)
1 pt - WFU for luck and early gold - it will do good to size the cities up and will finance the rush a bit

Most people has already commented upon other games - I'll just add my 2 cents on Kossin - I don't think the capital is revolutionary better where you placed it rather than in place, and although you have a good war machine running, teching monuments only now is pretty late for me.

Edited

My votes.

1. Gumbolt. Choking giggles really makes him easy to take out. Plus keeping his metals away for no vultures.

2. Dualmaster. GLH for this tough starting map is key to economy. As for people thinking its an exploit, So is choking. I can see people not voting for it cuz last EC had it, but alot of new people playing this EC.

3. Toss up. Kossin if we are rushing. Axes online already is nice. As for it's city location, only way to get copper hooked up that fast.

3. Toss up. WFU if peacefully. Gold is hard to ignore for the economy and the happiness. We only have wine for happiness. Gold would help us grow alot.

@maxpain

Appreciate the summary.
Just want to point out that i have 160 gold in my save and a library in capital partially built. This will allow me deficit research on any techs I lack at a very good rate.

On roads don't forget rivers. Once the blocker pops borders next turn only 2 roads are needed to connect to giggles and two more to have all three cities on trade network.
[edit: 3 roads to connect all cities]
Alternately a deficit run on sailing would do the same.

Also I have scouted a lot more than most saves.

I feel the main problem with my save is lack of workers







An observation about cookbooks as this will be my first.
I think scouting efforts are greatly discounted by observers as everyone will have benefit of the scouting for whatever save we start with next.

Agreed on all points. You look to have the second best scouting as Gumbolt has his scout loose on the far side of Giggles. I think your save is hurt by the 6 pop in combo with the shortage of workers. As far as roads I tend to think of them also in a military context as in helping my units get to the front as soon as possible as well as shaving off the turns it takes for workers to get their work done so rivers don't much apply, also everyone gets the rivers but not every one has good roads. Connecting to the AI is a big deal as I am learning but I think sailing will get that done. The road to Giggles will be nice when the troops start marching (make that vital).

This is my first cookbook and my first real attempt at an analysis of a bunch of saves at once so I know I missed some things like the state of people economy's, bank accounts, and great people progress. I think I will try to a better job next time around and would like to establish a regular format for what would be covered under just such an analysis.

For third place I chose Pawelo for being good enough in tech and population and having the bronze hooked up and ready.

For second I chose Solon For having good tech and 12 pop as well as a lot of grainerys and Ikhanda in place already. This save also has the monuments in place to keep up the culture block.

First place clearly goes to Gumbolt for being the aggressive bastard that he is and smacking around Giggles early. He has superior scouting due to slipping past Giggles with his scout and I believe peace will be possible with him as well. In addition to all that Gumbolt has the most pop at 13 6 workers in play and his bronze hooked up.

Thats all for now, I need to go clean house or my domestic supervisor will cut my balls off.

I can't believe how many people are seriously talking about a rush! There's no way we're ever gonna do it. There's not enough production, hilled protective archers with walls will be impossible to take down before catapults, it'll cost 3-4 axes each and Gil will spam a bunch of them. I'm all for a pin, but IMO a rush has no chance to succeed. Even if we can keep him to his 3 current cities, a pin will be very expensive in unit maintenance and will slow our research considerably.

1st: Dualmaster: I know we used GLH last game but I just dont see any way around NOT using it this game. As huerfanista said, I just dont see a rush against Gilgi working even with denying the metals. I could be wrong but I just dont see us being able to outproduce Gil at the moment to take im down.

2nd: KFU: Popping gold is huge. Another happiness plus added moolah.

3rd: Huerfanista: I like the SH with a GP on the way.

1. Gumbolt - Awesome early DoW on Gilgamesh! Probably can get the most cities out of the lot.
2. Dualmaster - GLH. Need I say more?
3. Huernfanista - Stonehenge avoids the pain of building Monuments.

@Gumbolt
I thought you should have closed the voting round around the 25 votes mark too ;)

Regarding my save: I'm actually surprised it has gotten votes. I found it rather badly played myself. Although the rush can probably be successful, especially with an aggressive leader, and Shaka :devil:

I can't believe how many people are seriously talking about a rush! There's no way we're ever gonna do it. There's not enough production, hilled protective archers with walls will be impossible to take down before catapults, it'll cost 3-4 axes each and Gil will spam a bunch of them. I'm all for a pin, but IMO a rush has no chance to succeed. Even if we can keep him to his 3 current cities, a pin will be very expensive in unit maintenance and will slow our research considerably.

I wasnt actually planning a rush. I was merely slowing him down while I out rexxed him. I would be interested to see someone do a rush on Gilga though.

There is still the option of whipping out units on top of production. With a few granaries the cities will recover quickly. We dont want to be boxed in by an AI all game. This is epic not normal speed so rushing is always possible. There is land by sea to explore North of Gilga.

Perhaps if we truly want to learn the game from a tough start we should deny ourselves the GLH and the worker steal save. We will still have the advantage of picking the best saves in later rounds. Theres nothing in the Cookbook rules that says we should be trying to win the game. You probably learn more by losing.

Then again if we start restricting the cookbook no one would play. Last cookbook someone worker stealed and went for GLH so its nothing unusual. Perhaps these are just strategies that are part of the game. It's an interesting debate on how we should go forward though.

Regarding my save: I'm actually surprised it has gotten votes. I found it rather badly played myself. Although the rush can probably be successful, especially with an aggressive leader, and Shaka :devil:

Aren't you just curious?
I think it's an almost sure thing it will work, because you went for axes instead of impies :lol:

edit: I tried and it doesn't work well.

Aren't you just curious?
I think it's an almost sure thing it will work, because you went for axes instead of impies :lol:

If Kossin save does not win i would be happy for Cabert or Kossin to shadow it for a round to try the rush. ;)

Not quite ready to vote, but listing the , imho, "best" saves that I'm considering at the moment.

Duelmaster
WFU03
pawelo
Gumbolt
Huerfanista
Cabert

Sorry about my earlier rankings, it wasn't intended but looking back it came across a bit negative. In looking at the saves I think access to copper was vitally important, then amount of research already done. Then the weird stuff, like wonders, and starting a war with warriors :), blocking etc.

I've spent a little time looking at all the saves, going to go back and look at these with a fresh eye later before I vote.

I do have a question for you all. Why did so many, including some of the saves in the above list put the "southern" city 2 east of the wheat or 1 sw of the sheep. I put my city 1w of the sheep. Putting the city there has more overlap, but the other site just adds more ocean. I would rather have overlap, which is not a bad thing at the start than ocean. (overlap does limit eventual expansion of the city once you get up to the middle ages, but it allows important tiles to be worked when they wouldn't be. For example if the capital needs to concentrate on all food after a whip, the other city can take over a mine, or if the capital needs to not work a cottage, the other city can keep it working.) I really don't see what the ocean does for you.

And imo, I don't think Kossin's save is as good as the above. It falls behind in techs. I think the visual appearance of the axes affects the feeling :)

And imo, I don't think Kossin's save is as good as the above. It falls behind in techs. I think the visual appearance of the axes affects the feeling :)
agreed.
I tried the rush from his save, and suddenly noticed it didn't have fishing yet, and that it was 10+ turns away.
Is it acceptable that I change my vote, now that I tried playing from there?

I do have a question for you all. Why did so many, including some of the saves in the above list put the "southern" city 2 east of the wheat or 1 sw of the sheep. I put my city 1w of the sheep. Putting the city there has more overlap, but the other site just adds more ocean. I would rather have overlap, which is not a bad thing at the start than ocean. (overlap does limit eventual expansion of the city once you get up to the middle ages, but it allows important tiles to be worked when they wouldn't be. For example if the capital needs to concentrate on all food after a whip, the other city can take over a mine, or if the capital needs to not work a cottage, the other city can keep it working.) I really don't see what the ocean does for you.

My plan is to make it the Moai city. Thus ocean tiles will produce some :hammers: and it leaves more space for the capital.

Last cookbook someone worker stealed and went for GLH so its nothing unusual. Perhaps these are just strategies that are part of the game. It's an interesting debate on how we should go forward though.

I actually don't build the GLH in too many of my games, but this map just screams for it - almost all our cities in the near future will be coastal. I'm actually surprised more people didn't go that way as it is the optimal strategy IMO given the map. But I'm curious to see how this plays out without it....hopefully some people attempt the rush while others attempt to play peaceful for a while.

agreed.
I tried the rush from his save, and suddenly noticed it didn't have fishing yet, and that it was 10+ turns away.
Is it acceptable that I change my vote, now that I tried playing from there?

I would edit your earlier post and make a note on that post to say why you did it. ;)

I have not viewed the saves yet but I will do at some point before i vote. I need to set aside a few hours for this. :lol:

Edited

We're going to need to use impis to keep Gilgamesh choked. Cover impis basically destroy archers with no defensive bonuses. From there, it's easy to promote up to march. A swarm of march impis will keep him suppressed indefinitely. I'm looking for eight impis to suppress his three cities.

I replayed the round from the 4000BC save, with the knowledge of where the Copper was. I moved my capital to the strong eastern production site from my entry for this round. Basically I built a warrior, declared on Gilgamesh, settled 1S of the Copper, pillaged Gilgamesh's Copper, lost the warrior but had impis online shortly after, and choked him.

I've got a half-dozen impis choking his two cities, while I've just settled the Wine at the starting position. I'm trying to leave him room to move the settler he has camped in his capital because I really want him to settle a third city (to keep Kublai and Charlemagne out), but he won't bite.

While I'm still sitting on a strong economic position (I was at 80% until settling a third city), I can't field a major axe army as quickly as we can with Gumbolt's save. My intent would be to further settle our lands while getting together a stack to at least take out one of Gilgamesh's cities. Meanwhile, I would tech Alphabet->Currency (with whatever fillers I need, such as Fishing/Sailing).

We'll see how that translates to Gumbolt's game, where we don't have impis out yet and our tech rate is far inferior, but our production capacity is much greater.

IIRC, Gumbolt already has at least 1 impi on the way to Gil.

And if we're all going to play "what if..." by replaying the start and playing from others' saves, I could have easily founded hinduism by going myst> poly in my game and spreading to to everyone on our continent. :crazyeye: It went very late. That might have been fun to play from. :mischief:

I wasnt actually planning a rush. I was merely slowing him down while I out rexxed him. I would be interested to see someone do a rush on Gilga though.

There is still the option of whipping out units on top of production. With a few granaries the cities will recover quickly. We dont want to be boxed in by an AI all game. This is epic not normal speed so rushing is always possible. There is land by sea to explore North of Gilga.

Perhaps if we truly want to learn the game from a tough start we should deny ourselves the GLH and the worker steal save. We will still have the advantage of picking the best saves in later rounds. Theres nothing in the Cookbook rules that says we should be trying to win the game. You probably learn more by losing.

Then again if we start restricting the cookbook no one would play. Last cookbook someone worker stealed and went for GLH so its nothing unusual. Perhaps these are just strategies that are part of the game. It's an interesting debate on how we should go forward though.

Hey, I'd love to be proven wrong (but I doubt I will be :lol: ). I've rushed protective civs before (as Egypt with WCs and horses in the BFC), but other than that it's very painful. Besides, it's already 1500BC and we're nowhere near ready to seriously attack in force. That hardly qualifies as a "rush".

Edited

@Nares

If you shadow far ahead please post in spoilers precising it's a shadow and the game year.

Edited

It's the same 1500BC date. My mistake. I edited it out.

Me too :D

No offense taken. Well done btw, to achieve it by 1500BC :goodjob:

My votes:

Techs was my number one decision criteria. Should have had all the first column techs, plus BW, and pottery.

1. Huerfanista - among the tops in techs. I like the double crab city, but the only way to do it effectively is with Stonehenge, which he has. Good blocking city. Drawbacks, only one worker, and still need to connect copper. Also, I would like to see the game from this point.

2. Gumbolt - behind one tech, no fishing. But the warrior choke looks like fun. I would like to see alternate ways to continue with the choke/make peace or whatever. Copper is connected but no double crab copper.

3. WFU03 - tough choice for third. Most of the top saves were behind Huerfanista in tech. WFU03 has no pottery. It has the double crab copper city, but no monument yet. (Should have been building monument with a Citizen instead of fishing a coastal square.). I chose this, because it will be tougher to recover from, and would like to see what the better players do with this.

If anyone is interested I started a Monarch game with Shaka before this started. It is the subject of the thread "Just another Monarch game". Seeing two different Shaka games might be fun for some of you. Besides I'll probably need help. And thanks Huerfanista for your help there.

Gumbolt's choke is certainly one of the most interesting saves, however I'm not certain it really achieved all that much. Because of the map outlay it hasn't allowed any additional land to be secured compared with any of the other saves, which is generally one of the main reasons for a choke. He's been slowed down certainly, but taking out his protective archers on a hill, particularly if he gets walls there before getting enough enough axes will be a hard slog.

And of course if you make peace now, you'll have trouble with trading and relations with gilg in the future. Slowing him down may also of had the side effect of giving Kublai more room to expand, perhaps making one stronger opponent instead of 2 average ones. Of course I'm just playing Devils advocate and haven't decided which saves to vote for yet ;)

@ Nares

Do those 3 grassland tile really make you want to keep that city as your capital? This site was never a keeper and by moving onto the wines, you hurt your next best option.

I can't believe how many people are seriously talking about a rush! There's no way we're ever gonna do it. There's not enough production, hilled protective archers with walls will be impossible to take down before catapults, it'll cost 3-4 axes each and Gil will spam a bunch of them. I'm all for a pin, but IMO a rush has no chance to succeed. Even if we can keep him to his 3 current cities, a pin will be very expensive in unit maintenance and will slow our research considerably.

Some of us thought about the production issue, but get no love from the cottage mongers.

At the end of the day, with giggles next door (he will attack if we don't), Copper is King. This narrows my choices down to saves with copper or those that will have it soon: kossin, WFU, Kbo,Huerfanista, pawelo, Gumbolt, pholtz, and myself.

kossin and kbo: sorry the slow tech situation eliminates both.

pholtz: as I said earlier, I am wary of your production potential.

pawelo: built for an early rush that won't work, but good job at getting it ready!

I dislike diplo vics, so giggles will have to be killed eventually. Best bet is beating him to contruction, while keeping him weak. Therefore:

#1 Gumbolt
#2 WFU03 (GO DEACS!)
#3 Huerfanista

Edited

But we have very poor land, and there's no telling how much he has.

Absolute nonsense. Land is mostly okay.

1st: Dualmaster. Never played a cookbook before so have no qualms about using the GL 'again'. Plus I think I would find it more helpful to play out a peaceful start to a victory on a map like this.

2nd: Gumbolt. Obvious reasons. If we want to take the game to gilga early this is by far the best save for it.

3rd: Huerfanista. Hard to say though, lots of save that are fairly even. Has some decent techs, and the GP could be useful I guess.

With Impis we might be able to continually worker steal from Gilga. I suspect we can still steal another 2-3 workers from him. The danger we could face is the Mongols dow us. Although Gilga will need something to bribe him with.

You forgot me.

I think its fairly clear which save is the best. In order to do well we have to go on the offensive. There isn't enough land to just sit back and tech. If we don't have any iron then we'll probably have to wait untill gunpowder which seems way to long a time for shaka to turtle for with only about 6 cities. The best situation to be in is to have done as much to gilga at this point as possible.

I'll vote tomorrow when I've had a chance to look at all the saves.

My mistake I will add you to list of saves. We will close voting strictly at 6pm GMT Monday. We are behind a day from the usual schedule.

How would people here consider using a standard immortal map for next cookbook? As we are using the best saves it would seem like emperor saves anyway. Just an idol thought.

#1 Gumbolt because even though I don't know how to follow up on a start like this, I would like to learn!

#2 Huerfanista because he found the only solution to the crab-crab-copper site... although I may be overrating the importance of having an optimal city there.

#3 Dualmaster because of the GLH, nuff said.

Some interesting starts and this was a good learning experience for me, and hopefully for others.

1. Gumbolt
2. dualmaster
3. Huernfanista

Current vote scores after 14 votes.

Gumbolt 36
Dualmaster 16
Huerfanista 14
WFU03 10
Kossin 8

Overall theres 8 votes left. A final 2 votes would give a clear winner.

Personally I would like to see us learn to win Emperor without the TGLhouse. Although I dont Dualmaster save could be a stronger save due to the extra trade routes.

WFO did get gold. The copper and crabs city would need a monument to be useful. Without Stone Henge this seems a tough ask.

Huerfanista - His Stone henge gambit seemed a good idea. I do wonder if he could of got a religion. No one really tried it seems. Not even sure if the city is a great location or not.

Kossin seems set up for a rush but no fish. I dont doubt the warmonger inside her. I think Soirana probably placed that copper to taunt us!!!

First place clearly goes to Gumbolt for being the aggressive bastard that he is and smacking around Giggles early.

I dont mind being one them. Its what Shaka would expect of anyone playing him. I did actually take your comment as a compliment. We cant all be like Ghandi and hope our religion converts the known world. :):):)

Edited

Edited

On the voting front if not all people vote we could close the round early. I will take opinions on this.

On another matter. It would be interesting playing a cookbook with the intention of a peaceful start. I tend to find when you do a early rush on a AI it gives your game a huge boost. Yes its good to know how to be a good war monger. Its also good to know how to set up specialist or commerce economy whilst rexxing peacefully.

My hardest games on Emperor have been where the Ai start 14-20 or so tiles away in a place where rushing is not the obvious option. This is especially true when starting near a financial/imperialist. Or a creative leader with copper in the BFC. Justin with gold and copper can tech and expand crazily.

Low sea levels can really up the difficulty of a save too. The downside of the cookbook is you cant force someone to play peacefully. Someone is always going to build axes/ sword/ chariots/ elephants and wipe out an AI. The other extreme is having a save where the GLH/Mids are used to give a huge starting advantage. Then again these all parts of the game.

You would need a save that had space to allow a peaceful rex. The Napolean save somewhat did this but you do reach a year when the rush becomes too irresitable. Elephant rushes and HA rushes were in full flow on that Cookbook.

Close the round early, I can't fathom your save being outvoted.

Peaceful start: last cookbook we did not rush so...

Low sea levels is a no in my book, we'd rather just play an Immortal Cookbook on standard settings. It lags more too.

Really, if some players find this too easy, there's 2 options:
the Immortal Cookbook (currently run by Soirana)
a Succession Game with variants (which I'd be willing to join/start if there's interest!)

Edited

After beating the war drum myself, my current thinking is that this is going to be a very tough game to win via early war (it's pretty obvious that we'll be playing from Gumbolt's save). If Gilga has some cities that are not on hills, we may be able to take a couple of them with axes (swords would be better - maybe we should tech aesthetics and trade for IW?), but realistically we have no hope of taking down Uruk with axes - there'll be too many archers in a hilled (and probably walled) capital with high cultural D. Unit maintenance will be a problem. We'll probably need 3 axes/impis per city to do a proper choke. I think there's a real need to put a hold on any more cities on our mainland, or our research will be in the toilet along with Gilga's. This could be complicated by any religions founded on the continent - we'll have to hope that they spread to us or we could be on the short end of a religious war. One of the peaceful saves would certainly have been easier to play from, although I don't know about getting to a VC.

Well, I'm counting on you emperor warmongers to show me how to win this. :lol:

BTW, does anyone else think that this map looks like Shaka started isolated on a small continent and a land bridge was WB'd in. :rolleyes:

You could have a game (not this one but a future one) where there are 2 divergent paths chosen one of peace and one of war. Players could then chose which path to follow. Problem is that sometimes you must make war and that can set up a political situation that causes more wars and so on and so on....

My problem is that I like to fight and my strategy's mostly have that in mind at some point. If I start peaceful its only because I dont see a good chance of a successful war or dont want to piss off the AI to early. When playing two levels above my normal difficulty such as this game I was scared to get in Gils face as a protective with a nice early UU that is a counter to Shaka Zulu's Impis.

More in-depth discussion on strategy would help keep everyone on the same page. Consider cutting the rounds in half, or at least the first round. Discussing what to do about our land and Gilgamesh would have been more pertinent 50 turns ago than discussing the success of your rush v. the success of the GLH.

Basically, it could be more educational if we're all taking a similar approach. It would highlight more subtle differences in gameplay. For example, how to settle that Copper best could have been a great discussion if we were all planning on rushing.

That would be interesting if everyone wanted to play the same strategy. I think this map was designed to slow down Shaka. He would walk over a religious Ai that played peacefully. Then again this would restrict gameplay and flare for people to try something different. I think the cookbook should be kept different to a walkthrough style of thread.

For me its fascinating to see how different players have placed their cities and the different approaches to early builds and techs. In a way the voting part should encourage debate and disicussion on how people have played. You could change round lengths but its nice for a player to stamp his mark on a round.

For instance I liked the way Heur's Stone Henge save worked out a way to use the copper and the sea resources. When I was planning a copper city I looked at that city location and just thought this site will take 30+ turns to reach size 2 before i can whip it or build a monument and my settler moved on.

Having looked back I can now see a great capital site east of my current spot.

I think if people just say 1st A 2nd B 3rd C you learn less. That being said this round with 22 saves has given a chance for some real debate.


Anyway i think Kossin is right we should close the voting and start the next round. The fact my save was winning has not influenced this decision. ;) It is unlikely that everyone would of voted anyway by tomorrow.

Let me do a post and we'll start the next round.

I agree that your save should take the round considering the vote lead you have. If this were an American election it would have been called :crazyeye:

Lets roll!

Okay closing shop early on this round as there is a clear point leader.

My votes

3 points to Dual 2 to Heur and 1 to WFU.

Current vote scores after 15 votes.

Gumbolt 36
Dualmaster 19
Huerfanista 16
WFU03 11
Kossin 8

Congratulations to Gumbolt (Me) the winner of this round!!!

The next round will be played over the next 4-5 days with voting over Friday- Sunday.
The round will finish Friday time 1800hr GMT.

The next round will be played from 1500bc-400ad. Lets get playing people.

Here is the winning save to be used for the next round:

Gumbolts save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232713&d=1256849791)

Please ensure when you post save you rename with your name.

Round 0: The starting save -
Round 1: 4000 BC - 1500 BC- Completed
Round 2: 1500 BC - 400 AD- Playing
Round 3: 400 AD - 1100 AD- upcoming
Round 4: 1100 AD - 1500 AD - upcoming
Round 5: 1500 AD - 1700 AD - upcoming
Round 6: 1700 AD - 1820 AD - upcoming
Round 7: 1820 AD - 2050 AD - upcoming

The main problem I think, is not that we can or cannot take Gil's cities, but what do we do with them? If we raze, the third civ.. forget who, will just expand more. If we conquer we run the risk of stagnating our economy. It will be interesting to see how this is handled by everyone.

Round 2 - to 400AD


Boy was the start fun! I got bored a bit later toward the end and several cities got neglected as a result.

Economy is crashed at the start, Writing is still far off. I set my workers to Cottage things up to survive while building more Axes.

I had to MM cities so that I did not go on Strike a lot of times :)

Once Writing was in, I built a few Libraries and ran some scientists. Techs were Fishing>Sailing with Trade Routes in mind.

I kept Gilgamesh's copper pillaged and captured some more workers while harassing his Archers with an Impi.
Once I had 11 Axes, it was time to start the real war.
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20000-2.jpg

Since Uruk was heavily fortified, I went straight pass it to this city:
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20001.jpg
Which was razed because Economy was still in the trash.

Reinforcements found this city only protected by 1 Archer:
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20002.jpg

I also took his copper city but forgot to picture it apparently. (Too lazy to go in autosaves atm).

Then, in true stupid AI fashion, Gilgamesh took all but 2 archers out of Uruk to send at me. I had Axes nearby that killed his ''SoD''.
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20003.jpg

Since my units were weak, I did not want to chance luck, so I took a quick Cease Fire to heal up.
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20004.jpg

I redeclared 3 turns later, to find this :lol:
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20018.jpg

Expected result:
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20005.jpg

With the gold, I researched Alphabet in a hurry at 100%. I also sent a few guys exploring and found this guy:
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20006.jpg

A pain to kill but a good friend that spreads religion.
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20007.jpg

I traded Alphabet for Mathematics and IW (no images).

Most cities were then set to build research while heading to Currency (unfortunately, KK also went this route so I only got 1 tech out of it).
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20008.jpg

At this point, the economy was fixed and I kinda got bored.

Researched CS next and moved the Palace to the second city (finishes this turn), uMgungundlovu as it can work quite a few cottages. I spawned 2 GS this round, the first was settled here and the second made an Academy.

Took a trade for 100 gold+Masonry with KK and placed research on Construction as a placeholder. If they are willing to trade it, then Paper or something else should be researched instead.

Why Construction you ask? Look:
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20016.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20017.jpg

They both have room for a bazzillion cities. Plus we'll have Elephants so we can make a good dent here. While KK has more power, he is the natural target : more aggressive, still might DoW us at pleased, Charlemagne might move to Friendly somewhere in the future and this ;)
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20014.jpg

Yea, looks like we're getting the GLH after all :lol:

Some informative screenshots in the spoiler below.

http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20009.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20010.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20011.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20012.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20013.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu58/kossin1/EC20015.jpg

Edited

:lol: I had the evening off and could have played it hours ago actually!
There are definitely several warriors that can be deleted, but with the amount of units incoming, a crash is pretty inevitable.

@Kossin


Same result but eco-wise much worse.
Got sloppy...
Also, as I'm playing without Bug I tend to forgot the tech-trades.
:goodjob: for your state of the union :)

Its worrying three people have viewed Kossin save before posting theirs!! It would be nice to see some people play this save peacefully. Although i suspect Gilga's demise is inevitable.

Its worrying three people have viewed Kossin save before posting theirs!! It would be nice to see some people play this save peacefully. Although i suspect Gilga's demise is inevitable.
peacefully?
you seem to forget the save you gave us was in the middle of a war...

here is my game, before I check Kossin's save.
I overplayed a turn, so I reloaded the autosave from 400 AD.


Quick writeup:
on the initial turn, science was at 30%, no gold in store, no writing in, no fishing :cry:

My goal was to keep pillaging to fund at least a bit of research.
Gilgamesh was helping, by continuously improving land within reach :lol:.

After I while, when I had a nice number of axes in his territory, he sent a SoD towards the blocker I made with the settler we had on the initial save (one more city sure didn't help science, but I like fish). I promoted my axes with cover and whipped his stack away.
That left his capital with 1 (yes one!) archer vs the 4 axes I had nearby.
I took it and kept it.

on the science front I went for writing (duh!), whipped a few libraies, went for fishing, then maths, I lightbulbed alphabet, and traded a bit.

I razed a few cities on the trail, kept his pig/iron city (hi Kmadcandy;)) then sued for peace.

I teched for MC, for the colossus, and construction for catapults.
Soon time to resume war.

@Cabert
Bulbing Alphabet/Mathematics and lower-end techs is usually not a good use of the GS, was your economy in the shambles? Settling is usually better in these cases. Interesting idea about The Colossus, it could work to some extent given the amount of water on the map.

@Gumbolt
Don’t worry for the views – I have played my round roughly at the same time as Kossin, just haven’t had the time to post my report ;)

Short report – we have more than 20 games going so I’ll do it ‘à la Cabert’ :D


One simple statement resumes this whole round :
The AI is too dumb for its own good
Plain and simple, however true. Only things giving AI a winning chance are – huge bonuses Emp and up ( especially on Deity ), poor human starting location, bad luck and sloppy human play.

With this in my, the goal was to continue hurting Gilgamesh while building up the stack to take over his empire.
So Writing was the first goal. Eco-wise, I focused on cottages, libraries & Ikhandas – researched was mainly done by Sci specialists. I also discovered that we might have an early shot on FP – with 8 Ikhandas we can go for it.
Built up many (many many) axes to replace quite obsolete warriors. During this war, Gilgamesh offered me several warriors, and let me kill his archers happily in the open on many occasions, making sure my axes get CR promotions (plus Cover of course).
First hit was pig-iron city of Kish that I’ve razed in T129. With the raze money, I got to IW and detected iron pretty much everywhere on the map.
Side-comment – it looks like someone has extensively played with the WorldBuilder :D
Next I went for Eridu, the ivory-cow-copper-wine location, which I kept – good city and blocking purposes vs KK.
The final wave, composed of swords – one of which was GGen CR3 guy – took the remaining cities – first Uruk, kept of course, then razed northern Lagash and southern corn location Ur. War finished lately – in turn 171 – could have been much faster on an afterthought.
Got currency for cash – eco hurts badly. On my way to Construction – KK should go down next :)
Settled the isthmus city and a southern blocker on double gem & corn.
Cities building up and going markets for cash.
Scouted almost the whole continent.
Nine cities up, research is still a little bit painful but recovering.

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/6229/zulu400ad.jpg

Happy to have wiped Gilgamesh – great and funny round :)
But…

Kossin did much better – I got sloppy in many ways:

- Built too much units and finished disbanding several of them to get the eco back on track
- Self-researched Currency and missed the trading window – still no Alpha (bad bad bad!)
- Let Charlemagne settle the pig city – more space for him, should have kept Kish maybe ?
- Let the war continue for a far too long time, should have built a neat SoD and finish it faster instead of roaming around happily capturing workers and killing archers.

Anyway, screenies to follow – no image posting @work.
Well no save posting neither :)

To be completed soon.

Its worrying three people have viewed Kossin save before posting theirs!! It would be nice to see some people play this save peacefully. Although i suspect Gilga's demise is inevitable.

Yeah, you did leave us in the middle of a war if I recall. I might try the peaceful route once I give the save a good look-over though.

Yeah, you did leave us in the middle of a war if I recall. I might try the peaceful route once I give the save a good look-over though.



I have taking the offensive method. Need a break as my head is killing me. I do fear this round will bring out the warmongers in many here. I think the key to this round is fishing and writing for economy. I dont think we will see any stone or marble till we reach another continent. Its fair to say the neighbours are nasty warmongers.

I played this map as a shadow to 400 AD, and I think Soirana outdid himself designing this map. It's quite an interesting layout. Finishing off Gilgamesh will not be the end on this map :)

I have completed my round.

It was a torrid affair on the brink of strike 90% of the time. It seems we have 1-2 too many cities for a rush really. That and being on a continent with 2 imperialist Ai thugs.

I lost many units wiping Gilga from the face of the planet. Thankfully only facing archers made the job slightly easier.

The danger was KK and HRG back filling his land. Soirana is evil when it comes to making maps. Loving the ideas though in terms of the map. Its like a mini adventure playing out the maps.

I managed to pop 1 GS which I used in 400ad for philosophy. it would appear no other Ai has this yet.

I have started a war against the mongols as they took the ivory, copper and were about to lay another problematic city. I need to block them off. I tried to build the GLH but was thawted a few turns before completion.

In terms of tech trade I suspect if we tech 2-3 turns of construction we will soon have phants. A new war is in progress. I have seen no stack from KK yet. Perhaps he doesnt have one?

In terms of my save I am in dire need of court houses. I also need to lay the gems city asap.

Overall looking at Cabert and Kossin saves. Kossin managed to wipe out gilga and has used court houses and has a great tech rate. The new palace makes huge sense. I wonder if Gilga old capital would of been a good site?

Cabert has left a weak Gilga and has a reasonable science.

Overall I think I built far too many cities for this to be a classic rush save. I wont be suprised to see a few people build the Great Light House. Its still very possible even with a rush. I was only 2-3 turns short.

@gumbolt

wow, you seem to like the 0% science!


@kossin

I lightbulbed alphabet on a time where I didn't want to build more troops (0% science and losing money = not a time for more units). So I could build science towards currency.
I self researched maths, in order to get currency, and lightbulbing alpha opened up a few "good" trades, including sueing for peace with gilgamesh.
I don't think I played it all very well, but lightbulbing certainly wasn't a mistake. I agree that on a general basis you're better off with an academy, but what good is an academy when you're at 0% science?

I'm not sure finishing gilgamesh is such a good thing. In my game he's so weak he's hardly a factor, but he's a trading partner nonetheless and he prevented charlie and kublai from snapping more land.
I think I'm in a winning position, and I guess you're too, although I have the feeling your AI opponents are stronger than mine.
However, I think your save is superior to mine, because of CS already in which is just worth more beakers than MC.
I didn't check the infra in place, but I guess you have all the courthouses and such in place.

@gumbolt

wow, you seem to like the 0% science!


@kossin

I lightbulbed alphabet on a time where I didn't want to build more troops (0% science and losing money = not a time for more units). So I could build science towards currency.
I self researched maths, in order to get currency, and lightbulbing alpha opened up a few "good" trades, including sueing for peace with gilgamesh.
I don't think I played it all very well, but lightbulbing certainly wasn't a mistake. I agree that on a general basis you're better off with an academy, but what good is an academy when you're at 0% science?

I'm not sure finishing gilgamesh is such a good thing. In my game he's so weak he's hardly a factor, but he's a trading partner nonetheless and he prevented charlie and kublai from snapping more land.
I think I'm in a winning position, and I guess you're too, although I have the feeling your AI opponents are stronger than mine.
However, I think your save is superior to mine, because of CS already in which is just worth more beakers than MC.
I didn't check the infra in place, but I guess you have all the courthouses and such in place.


I guess instead of trying to tech alphabet I should of gone for COL but I was missing quite a few tech. Getting Alphabet allowed me to trade for IW, Archery and a number of other techs. Asthetics was also useful for trades. I do have Philosophy and once Courthouses are in place i am in good stead. If i part tech construction I should be able to trade this with HRG and begin a phant rush.

Tech wise I am still quite in this game. KK capital has the great lighthouse so would be worth capturing!!. ;)

Haven't looked at the other saves yet, but I'm not a huge fan of mine. I couldn't ever really get my economy back on track after Gumbolt's save. Gilga is a non-factor, but still there on life-support. Khan and Charlemagne are big worries at this point though.

Save and screenie updated in my last post.

@Gumbolt

I agree on your conclusion - too many cities :lol: Anyway, the Philo shot was :goodjob:

@cabert

Too bad Gilgamesh is still alive, anyway good shot too.


@Kossin

Great shot, some more things in my post.
Got too sloppy, otherwise this was the result I was pursuing

Its worrying three people have viewed Kossin save before posting theirs!! It would be nice to see some people play this save peacefully. Although i suspect Gilga's demise is inevitable.

Yep. I got impatient and played my own save through 1 AD (BTW I missed the mids and was short of what I thought I coud accomplish by about 30 turns)

Gonna sit out this round and try to get a winning save in for G-Major 61, which has been a bit time consuming.

400ad report

I continued the war against gilg, building axes and running scientists to keep the research crawling along once libraries became available. I managed to capture one of the cities on flat ground first. Then after building some more axes I maneuvered the axes around until the ai, in typical stupidity moved a bunch of archers out of the capital.
I took peace after that as gilg still had 2 more hill cities with walls left.

Just been trying to get the economy back on track since then, with courthouses and markets/wealth building. Managed to get Confucianism holy city so the other ais probably aren't that advanced.http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/3285/civ4screenshot0001y.jpghttp://img511.imageshack.us/img511/7774/civ4screenshot0002.jpg

Having looked at the other saves I think Kossin's save is going to be very hard to top, managing to completely kill off gilg and a very powerful economy to go with it.

@Gumbolt
I'm just curious as to why you declared on Kublai? Seems like a rather strange move with your economy the way it is. ;)

400AD save:


I don't have any shots of the early action in this round, but it wasn't very exciting. Gumbolt left Ulundi with a chop going into an impi on his first turn of production, so I cracked the whip for 2 pop (yes, I know about the penalty for the 1st turn whip) to get 2 impis out back-back. I sent them to reinforce the lonely W2 warrior camped outside of Uruk. The first one went straight to the copper and found a mine, which he pillaged ASAP. It must have been freshly completed, because no vultures were produced. Whew!

I tried to micro carefully, and I succeeded for a while. :lol: I carefully counted hammers to get optimal whips, and avoided putting any cities into unhappiness. I also liberated a lot of axemen from the trees in our neighborhood. Once I had a good stack of about a dozen, I sent them to Uruk. Research had been turned off at the beginning of the round to accumulate :gold: to pay for the unit maintenance during this phase, and it's a good thing I did. When the stack arrived in theater, I sent them directly to the copper city and captured it with about 1 axe per archer losses (he had 3 archers defending). I healed up and moved everyone back towards Uruk except for a wounded axe and medic1 impi. Gil immediately moved 4 archers out of Uruk to try to retake this city (the axe and impis were healed and killed them all), which gave me the opening I was waiting for. With only 3 archers defending, it fell easily, with about 4 axes lost, in 725BC:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0174.jpg

All of my attacks followed the same pattern: The first wave of attackers were promoted to cover for the best odds against archers. The remainder were promoted CR. The pig city SW of Uruk was next, defended by 3 archers. I razed this city, planning to resettle some green land a little farther west. Unfortunately, Gil had snuck a settler past my to the southern coast to claim the corn, but instead of settling to claim the gems, he just had a bunch of hills. :mad: I had to wait for a fresh stack of cannon (or archer) fodder to arrive from the homeland, but the end result was the same:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0175.jpg

This city was also razed, and I moved the settler that Gumbolt provided to where it could claim the corn and 2 gems. I kept settlers stationed with an axe escort at the double gem and pig-corn sites, and stationed an impi south of the pig-corn spot to see when BK would move a settler up there. Maintenance at this point was right on the hairy edge of going to strike, and it prevented me from running more than a couple of scientists in the libraries that I rushed out at the end of the war. I settled both cities when the HRE settler showed up.

In 305AD hinduism spread to us. Since both BK and Kublai are hindus, I converted ASAP:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0176.jpg

I finally finished researching alphabet in 400AD
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0177.jpg

and immediately made the following trades with BK and Kublai:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0178.jpg
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0179.jpg
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0181.jpg

Tech trading sitch:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0182.jpg

Relations with the neighbors:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0183.jpg

Active deals:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0184.jpg

The Zulu populace:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0185.jpg

Cities - Uruk:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0186.jpg

uMgungundlovu:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0187.jpg

Ulundi:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0188.jpg

Nobamba:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0189.jpg

Eridu:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0190.jpg

A shot of the zulu empire:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0191.jpg

And finally, our research to date:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Emperor%20cookbook%20Shaka/Civ4ScreenShot0165.jpg

Research is currently set to aesthetics, which is probably the best trade bait if we want to go peaceful for a while. It has no turns of research into it yet. I've done no scouting of either Kublai or BK's land - I couldn't afford to have any impis outside our borders (yes, it was that tight until very recently), but they can quickly scout out the neighbors now that finances are starting to settle a bit. The borders have just popped in the gem city, so they will be online soon. I was just about to send a slew of workers there at the end of the round.


233264

For those who've played already:


I obviously have a long way to go to master emperor. :lol: I'm amazed at how much research many of you were able to accomplish during the war. I shut off research right from the start and set all cities to *axes, but it certainly seems like this was sub-optimal (to say the least). It'll be interesting to look at some of the other saves. Kossin's in particular seems to stand out. :goodjob: And Gumbolt certainly seems to have a need to scratch the old war itch. :lol:

to 400AD

EDIT: I'm removing my save.

Edited

When I voted for Gumbolt's save I said that I hadn't played many positions like this one so I wanted the experience. I've done many early rushes, but I've never really gotten comfortable expanding to the point where the economy totally crashes. So a learning experience it was!

Honestly, I didn't even know how to begin this round. Am I supposed to take peace sometime soon? Am I supposed to keep his copper pillaged with a couple units while I peacefully expand? Am I supposed to build units for total war in order to wipe out Gil altogether?

Normally, I'd choose the latter, but the PRO trait had me worried. Soooo many units needed in order to take out those archers on a hill. Finally I decided I'd go with total war anyway, expecting to fail but figuring I'd at least learn something. Funny thing is, from glancing over a few of the saves just now, seemed like my strategy was just fine (which surprises me) but my tactics ended up lacking. Okay, so I learned something, just not what I expected to learn.

So I started off building axes and a couple Impis, and escorting those stolen workers home. On the way home they roaded the path to Gil in hopes that a great many troops would soon be invading. In 1150 BC I met Charlie, somewhere to the south of Gil.

With a little stack of 8 units or so I went roaming around Gil's lands looking for an easy target. My economy was really stretched, I had to micromanage something fierce just to grab a couple more commerce tiles and keep my gold from running out. Every once in a while, just as I thought I was broke for sure, I'd manage to pillage something for a little spare change. Once writing finished in 950 BC, I quickly got a library up in the capital and started one in the southern city as well. At times those scientists were the only research in the entire kingdom! I also made a small army of workers that unleashed cottage spam on everything green - not that I could grow my cities or anything, but they ran out of stuff to do.

After much tedious army building, I finally captured Gil's southwestern city in 470BC. I decided to keep it because it had the nice pig tile and seemed like a convenient base of operations - only problem is, without Sailing it wasn't hooked up to my trade network yet. Meanwhile Confucianism was founded while I was still plugging away at Alphabet. Hmm. Finally, at what seemed like a ridiculously late date:

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z22/fnurt/Civ4ScreenShot0017.jpg

Also, about this time I popped my first GS and used it to bulb Math. Okay, now we're in business. This whole time I'm trying to restrain myself from just giving up because I feel hopelessly behind... but backfilling techs is a wonderful thing, as it turns out. First, let's see what Gil will give up for peace:

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z22/fnurt/Civ4ScreenShot0018.jpg

Okay, that works for me. Then to see what I can get for Math:

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z22/fnurt/Civ4ScreenShot0019.jpg

And Kublai traded me IW for it... a pretty nice haul I'd say. Looks like Gil has plenty of iron, only he doesn't know it. I kept checking the tech screen to make sure he hadn't researched IW yet. Meanwhile, Charlie finished the key expansion tech I was looking for - Monarchy! Now all I have to do is trade him for it...

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z22/fnurt/Civ4ScreenShot0019.jpg

Argh! Nothing else to trade with. So I started researching Monarchy myself, checking every turn to see if I had enough beakers in it for Charlie to do the deal. Finally around 40AD we worked the swap of Alphabet for Monarchy, and my cities can grow at last!

Also, that same turn my peace treaty with Gil ran out, and I immediately DoW on him again to see if I could keep the copper pillaged. Back home I had mined iron and was building swords in hopes of finally taking down those cities on hills. Gil only managed to build one vulture before I pillaged his copper again, and it promptly killed itself on one of my swords. I took my stack to the SE of his capital and razed a couple cities, and the stack returned to his capital just in time to meet a new group of swords I'd built up north. Unfortunately, Gil seemed to have built another city somewhere that I couldn't locate. Maybe it's on another landmass via galley?

Kublai came a-begging:

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z22/fnurt/Civ4ScreenShot0024.jpg

I decided to give it to him because I couldn't afford any more trouble. One error in judgment is that I never got around to converting to Hindu - no downside since everyone is already there. Someone somewhere built the AP in Buddhism though. As the turnset came to a close in 400AD, I had a big stack at the gates of Uruk, ready to cripple Gil once and for all. The world:

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z22/fnurt/Civ4ScreenShot0026.jpg

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z22/fnurt/Civ4ScreenShot0026.jpg

Cities:

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z22/fnurt/Civ4ScreenShot0028-1.jpg

7 cities, soon to be 8 once I take Uruk. Still some room to expand, but not sure I can since I'm still working on Currency and lack CoL. Demographics screen shows I'm lagging quite a bit behind:

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z22/fnurt/Civ4ScreenShot0028-1.jpg

Still, seems like I might have a playable position... not that I expect anyone will want to play it! Since I've never won at Emperor I'm not too disappointed, but the obvious problem is that that war went on and on and on. At normal speed a war like that would have taken us straight into the Middle Ages.

So what did I learn? I need to develop a singleminded focus on building units when it's wartime, because overwhelming force is the key to winning battles and getting back to building. I always seem to underestimate how many units I need, which means I send them into battle in dribs and drabs, I decide I need more so I wait around for the next wave of reinforcements, and so on. What I see other people doing is making a judgment about how many units they need (I guess that comes with experience), patiently building that stack within their borders, and only unleashing the war machine once it's good and ready to go. I'd be in a much better position this game if I could have finished the war 20 turns ago.

@Nares
The island city, Nongoma, gets 2 trade routes of 3 commerce instantly upon settling (after Currency). It has 5.44 upkeep cost so imo it's instantly profitable. Moreover, since Kublai has the GLH, better me than him. If my save is taken, I plan on an elepult war with KK to weaken him and take Karakorum for the GLH, all our cities except 2 are coastal. Moreover, these AIs aren't particularly known for their fast teching so in the unlikely case that it favors them more than I, it allows for more trade options which is good like you pointed out.

I gave it a go and even decided that I'd try the peaceful option, not a tactical choice I just thought it might be interesting to try out (and what I'd planned in the first round with my save). I was wrong...

Just as a disclaimer; it's not the saves fault that I found this round dull. It was completely my approach to it which I just kept compunding by doing silly things, might even replay it some time to try it properly.

You may notice my save isn't here. I didn't lose or even lose any ground on the AI, I managed to sustain peace, tech, meet charlamagne, settle the island, am looking likely to get the great library (several turns off but I don't think anyone else has teched Lit although guessing a bit due to not knowing everyone) and am teching music hoping to get the great artist (KK beat me by 2 turns to Code of Laws to found Confucianism but then again I wasn't racing and I can see his tech situation so he at least isn't going to stop me).

Game looks winnable from where I am but it would be a dull dull game (culture victory seems a decent choice but I think I'd go crazy waiting for it). Getting economy back on track after the war was a bit of a trial and due to slow teching and limited build options resulted in about 4 million workers being built. Probably should have waited a couple of turns before using the settler that we had at the start to keep economy alive a couple more turns, was also a bit slow to get rid of obsolete/unecessary units. Used peace with gilgamesh to teleport the settlers closer to home by running them around to the second warrior (only had to dodge one archer I think). The other continent (presume it is another continent anyway) has the AP so uncerimonius end to game is possible, darn buddhists.

Good news is that KK is on his own with confucianism but both hinduism and confucianism has spread to us so we can choose which side we want and spread them about for future free religion. Finally got a happy resource from wine after teching monarchy (and traded a cow for some cash). No-one has gone into wheoohrn mode so far and everyone else hates each other instead of us it seems.

I'd taken a copy of Kossins save to compare after I finished mine and frankly his just looks better by a mile. While he less techs he actually has a better tech rate, more land, troops, stuff for his cities and workers to build, resources to use and trade and I'd spent the last 20 odd turns just hitting enter on my game so I'm not sure I'd actually play it if it got through (moot point as it wouldn't, I got bored and plonked some horrible cities down out of spite so I really don't think anyone would want to try and develop those as well as a city with no production which I've set off on a 300 odd turn build project).

Sorry for lack of screens, I took some but I don't want to remind myself of all the crazy things I did in the end. Definately going to go with what I feel like I should be doing next time rather than force myself to play a strange tactic.


@Kossin
Liking your save. Should be nice to play from if it gets picked. Lots still to do on it but it seems a strong position to me. Not overly fond of being wedged between two civs usually but it should work well to when fighting KK. Shame he didn't found and switch to Confucianism like he did in my game (although that might make it a bit too easy if you can gaurantee Charlamagne being on your side).

Edited

@Nares

Good points, I had still not realized that a city could be used as a Trade Route by more cities than the amount of Trade Routes it itself has. Thanks for the heads up.

After studying some of the other saves, I decided to replay this round to see whether i actually learned anything. :lol: Much better this time:


Instead of shutting off research, I scrounged around for some additional :commerce: to speed it up a bit, then built 3 libraries (using whip overflow from axes so that I could accomplish 2 things at once). This actually got me alphabet at a much earlier date, which led to better trades and enabled me to build research once I had the military situation in hand. I played to 415AD and just finished MC (chopping a forge and colossus in Uruk), I already have currency, construction, calendar, CoL, and started research on CS. If I was playing further from this save (which I might once subsequent rounds of the cookbook are done) I'd head for machinery next. I'd start a phants/cat war with Kublai, later switching to maces/cats, then maces/trebs for BK. Capital would be moved to Uruk once colossus is done (it has a settled GG and is by far the best production city).

tech:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Civ4ScreenShot0168.jpg

land:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Civ4ScreenShot0170.jpg
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn76/huerfanista/Civ4ScreenShot0169.jpg

Lots of good production cities coming online, which will get courts/forges and then start building units.


Any critiques would be most welcome from you emperors out there. I feel like I've learned a lot already. :goodjob:

Edited

huerfanista, nice going on the 2nd attempt! Maybe I should try that exercise myself. One comment:

On my first try, I made the mistake of settling the western corn city right away, which put a lot of unneeded stress on the economy. You seem to have taken the opposite approach of never settling it at all! I think it's worth building, I like the spot 2S of the corn for coastal access. It can run 4 cottages and has pretty solid production, even though units that get built there have a long way to travel. I mostly just ran the cottages full-time.

huerfanista, nice going on the 2nd attempt! Maybe I should try that exercise myself. One comment:

On my first try, I made the mistake of settling the western corn city right away, which put a lot of unneeded stress on the economy. You seem to have taken the opposite approach of never settling it at all! I think it's worth building, I like the spot 2S of the corn for coastal access. It can run 4 cottages and has pretty solid production, even though units that get built there have a long way to travel. I mostly just ran the cottages full-time.


Well, I guess I was just too paranoid about the economy. It's definitely worth settling at some point, but I probably wouldn't do it until CoL came in and courthouses had stabilized the economy. By the end of the round I was already thinking of the zulu homeland as a provincial backwater. :lol: I used that settler to claim the double gems spot near Charlemagne.

@huerfanista

Nice second shot!

What is the shape of your Sumeria part ? Can't see the save until later this evening

For those who've played already:


I obviously have a long way to go to master emperor. :lol: I'm amazed at how much research many of you were able to accomplish during the war. I shut off research right from the start and set all cities to *axes, but it certainly seems like this was sub-optimal (to say the least). It'll be interesting to look at some of the other saves. Kossin's in particular seems to stand out. :goodjob: And Gumbolt certainly seems to have a need to scratch the old war itch. :lol:



A few questions have been put my way.



Okay I had an itch!!! KK had built two cities grabbing the copper and the ivory and was about to settle a third city. I took the decision to use my excess units to destroy his cities crippling me with culture. My scouting Impi had found no real stack anyway.

My war has destroyed 2 cities and destroyed a stack of three that had a settler. Like Kossin I plan for a phants war. Perhaps i could of used some court houses. lol

I wonder if my save at 1500bc would of been better if it just had 2-3 cities. The downside being that the copper city was never going to be great however it was placed.

Still the save has certainly tested some of you on how to manage a crippled economy. Thats not a bad thing!!

Edited

@huerfanista

Nice second shot!

What is the shape of your Sumeria part ? Can't see the save until later this evening


I corrected the duplicated screenshot, so you should be able to see the eastern lands now. I didn't attach a save, since it's a replay. I can attach one if you want to look at it, though.

Yeah, it was a major improvement over the first shot. It's still nowhere close to Kossin's, which looks to me like the one to beat so far. Gotta say that I'm really glad I decided to try this game, even though it's beyond my pay grade. :lol: I'm learning a lot.

@huerfanista, good idea to try again.

@pawelo, I left gilga alive purposely.
That decision can be discussed, but it's not an obvious problem.
There are good things and bad things on his being alive.

@ gumbolt, I agree that being able to salvage a crippled economy is a required skill at all higher levels.

Hi Guys. Mind if I join the party.

I played the starting position through to 1500 BC but was too late to post it for the discussion. I grabbed the preferred save and played through to 400 AD. Normally a Prince / Monarch player and looking to move up to Emperor. As the name suggests, I can only win by conquest or domination - six years of CIV III and IV and I have never won by cultural, diplo, or space; never seen seen a city I haven't wanted to take over.

You're welcome to join at any time you'd like. The goal is to learn so keeping players away would be :crazyeye:.
Just write a short report and upload your save/screenshots. It's the best way to get advice from other players.

It's the best way to get advice from other players.Just copy someone else's approach/strategy, and claim it as your own. Seems to work for some people here. :goodjob:

Well, I'm counting on you emperor warmongers to show me how to win this.I noticed.

Don't worry, no one will notice that you copied.

First time for me in one of these threads so go easy on me please.

Grabbed the preferred saved and had a look around.

Did some micro management to get as much gold as possible, finished writing and whipped libraries everywhere. Chose not to settle the lone settler in the East as I thought we couldn't afford it.

After libraries, every city cranked out axeman with the occasional impi. 80% of axe got CR1 (+CR2 after GG settled in capital), rest got cover.

the warrior and the impi wandering around in Giglamresh's land kept pillaging and picking off exposed archers.

Workers built roads to ease the marching and then built cottages everywhere, even on the grapes.

After writing, went fishing / sailing / alphabet. Now working on Monarchy for HR and winery. Tech was able to stay 20 to 30% most of the time thanks to the pillaging and razing. Ran out of cash as the final assault began.

Assembled 8 axes on my border and marched them off to war. Moved most of the fog busting warriors back to our borders to save cash. Got close to Uruk and found Giggles SoD of 4 archers on the green pastures just NW of the cows. They died without loss but we had to retreat to neutral territory to heal. All promotions gained were CR except one medic. Onward once more!

Uruk was guarded by 8 to 10 Archers which my 8 axe wouldn't survive. But the plan was always to go after the copper city first. Putting the wandering pillaging warrior on the forested hill west of the grapes gave a view of the garrison which was never more than 3 and usually only one. Baiting with a captured worker could easily draw out an undefended archer that the Impi could easily deal with.

8 axes took this city with 5 surviving. Holding this city have been expensive so it was razed. Second stack of 8 axes entered enemy territory. Uruk still heavily defended - I was assuming 3 axes per archer on this hill so my 13 weren't enough.

2nd Army marched on Kish and waited for the 1st army to heal and join them. Wasted many turns here with Giggles sending small stacks of archers to see what I was up to. I was trying to get them out of the forest so I could kill them but wasn't very successful. Finally took Kish losing the first wave and taking on the second. Kept the city as a refuge.

Left the wounded to heal and then went after the small city on the hill to the south. Captured a few workers along the way, baited a couple of archers out into the open with them and took the city fairly easily. Decided it was useless and razed.

Back to Kish to heal. 3rd army of axes arrives outside Uruk. Still not enough. Look around for the remaining city that is hidden in fog - find it on coast. Giggles tries to reinforce it from Uruk. 3rd Army would be able to take the city with only 2 defenders but not with the additional three on their way. Retreat to think. Reinforcement archers return to Uruk. Have to make them stay there - so move 1st and 2nd combined army towards the Capital. Giggles feels threatened and declines to send reinforcements as third army approaches small city. It falls with minimal fuss and is razed.

4th army arrives. Still 10+ arches in capital and outcome not at all certain. Withdraw and use worker bait to kill 5 archers in the open and ran out of workers. Giggles had been sending out a heavily guarded settler for the copper but would return home on seeing the first and second army camped in the forest. Moved most of that group around the north side of Uruk so as not to interfere with the worker bait on the wheat field and left 2 axes a little further back to allow the settler through.

Finally Uruk has only 6 archers left at home and I attack as the money runs out and the strikes begin. First two waves fall to the defenders - one lucky hit with CO of about 12% and one defender holds off 2 without a scratch. Finally, it ours. I love war.

According to the stats screen, we built 35 axes (plus 1 after the war), lost 20 whilst we killed 40 archers - not bad against a protective civ on a hill.

Set about trying to fix the economy. I want to get IW next and go get KK. His power rating is only double ours - nothing that a couple of dozen swords won't fix.

Somewhere in all this met HRE; didn't trade much (anything? don't remember)

Great game so far - I need to learn how to use the specialists better. After whipping all those libraries, I hardly used any scientists as I need the cottages to be worked to fund the army.

Not many saves yet, so I took at quick glance at those available.
I find it quite strange that many (that means more than 1 ;)) didn't farm south of our copper city.
It's so low on food, there is no way to it grow without a farm...

this being excepted, I think we have an illustration of the strength of currency in this round...

Not many saves yet, so I took at quick glance at those available.
I find it quite strange that many (that means more than 1 ;)) didn't farm south of our copper city.
It's so low on food, there is no way to it grow without a farm...


Yes, working the farm to size 2 and then the 2 grass hill mines would be better than stagnating at 1 pop on the copper. With a LH and moai it can become a decent city. I'd have given anything for uMgungundlovu to be 1N, though. :lol:

Just copy someone else's approach/strategy, and claim it as your own. Seems to work for some people here. :goodjob:

I noticed.

Don't worry, no one will notice that you copied.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. I didn't claim anything as my own; in fact, just the opposite:
After studying some of the other saves, I decided to replay this round to see whether i actually learned anything.

I can't believe how far down the tech path and the number of cities some of you guys managed to get going in round two. So much to learn........:cry:

I can't believe how far down the tech path and the number of cities some of you guys managed to get going in round two. So much to learn........:cry:

I wouldnt feel hard done by. The 1500bc save was hardly designed for an early rush. Normally you would only build a 2nd or 3rd city before attemtping a rush. Although this game I think has been designed to challenge us a bit more than the last cookbook.

I think this round will challenge new players to Emp level on how to manage a crashed economy. I would actually find it better to continue a save that perhaps wasnt overly walking away with the game. That being said I dont know what challenges on the other continent we face.


@ Cabert
Its an interesting strategy to leave Gilga in the game. Plus side is he may block HRG or KK. Downside is he is creative and may vassel to KK or HRG.

That being said I dont know what challenges on the other continent we face.



Challanges there will be - just take a look on things FIDL or BIDL - I saw Christ around 1000 BC and think having already seen Tao near 1AD.
My bet would be : Mansa, Hannibal, Zara & Gandhi (or Asoka)

Challanges there will be - just take a look on things FIDL or BIDL - I saw Christ around 1000 BC and think having already seen Tao near 1AD.
My bet would be : Mansa, Hannibal, Zara & Gandhi (or Asoka)



I was able to bulb Taoism around 400ad. So i dont think they are that far ahead. I dont think they will be walking away with it. I wonder if Soirana has created a larger Ai mass for an Ai to build 10+ cities. We will see.

I was able to bulb Taoism around 400ad. So i dont think they are that far ahead. I dont think they will be walking away with it. I wonder if Soirana has created a larger Ai mass for an Ai to build 10+ cities. We will see.

Looking at my save, the GNP is way ahead of the second in line. Granted it can't be sustained and cities are building wealth in a lot of places but then again the new Capital comes in next turn and it is most likely possible to take a lot more cities, including the GLH for an even better GNP. I'm really not too worried about the other continent at this moment. 400AD and Taoism isn't founded yet for my save.

Looking at my save, the GNP is way ahead of the second in line. Granted it can't be sustained and cities are building wealth in a lot of places but then again the new Capital comes in next turn and it is most likely possible to take a lot more cities, including the GLH for an even better GNP. I'm really not too worried about the other continent at this moment. 400AD and Taoism isn't founded yet for my save.

Well with court houses built you probably didnt have much more than units to build. The challenge on this save was to stop the imp AI taking over the land. The AI seems to rex untill it dies at times.

I am out tomorrow after work so closing the round would be an issue till Saturday. What the opinion on this round. Does anyone need more time? We could close up and vote in 6 hours time? Dont be afraid to post a save even if you dont think it will win the round. You learn nothing by not posting rounds.

My bet would be : Mansa, Hannibal, Zara & Gandhi (or Asoka)

might be:lol:. migh be not:lol:

I am out tomorrow after work so closing the round would be an issue till Saturday. What the opinion on this round. Does anyone need more time? We could close up and vote in 6 hours time? Dont be afraid to post a save even if you dont think it will win the round. You learn nothing by not posting rounds.

I'm ready to vote. :)

I would be happy to vote. I suspect one save will walk away with this round anyway.

Lets give it till midnight and if no one posts an interest I will close up the round. Its a shame more people have not played the round really given number that played the first round.

I suspect one save will walk away with this round anyway.


AFAIK, I'm rather face-the-challange-yourself type of guy and though I recognize the superiority of one's game, I'll vote for more challenging situations :D

AFAIK, I'm rather face-the-challange-yourself type of guy and though I recognize the superiority of one's game, I'll vote for more challenging situations :D

Well we'll see how voting goes in a few hours. It would be more interesting to play from a more challenging save. That being said we dont want to spend the next 3 rounds taking out a certain neighbour again and again. :lol:

I kinda suspect people don't want to play a second round with a crashed economy though ;)

From the first post:

If there is any player who is strong at Emperor+ level, it would be great to have you post your saves to show us how it's done. However, I request that any of you who realize your round was far superior remove your save from the voting. This rule is intended to ensure that the game doesn't get into a overly strong winning position after only a few rounds (because what fun is that? ).
As I'm starting to feel a bit more confident on Immortal, I could remove my save from the voting round if people feel there will not be much to learn going from it.

@kossin

No problem - your save is strong enough for a Prince player to win from here while still learning. I wouldn't remove it from voting, let the people decide and if someone wants to learn more, he may still shadow from another save and share with others.

As I'm starting to feel a bit more confident on Immortal, I could remove my save from the voting round if people feel there will not be much to learn going from it.

Please don't. :lol: If the consensus is that a more challenging save should be played, it'll show up in the voting. Or not.:p

I plan on playing my round tonight. In about 2 hours or so. Been quite busy watching my phillies lose the World Series.:cry: And other online games. I just got done my emp walkthrough for my washington game. After I write it up I'll play this round.

I always love to see what Kossin does with the saves. I am happy for it to be in the voting. As for the crashed economies. I think you have to learn to deal with these.



When most saves get court houses and currency the economies will recover.

I will hold round for mjg! The more saves the better really. Perhaps close the round Saturday morning GMT time.

TO 400AD

Wow that was stressful. Had units go on strike. Attacked with 4% odds to fend of strike. Winning 2 of these battles.:lol:

Started off by deleting 2 warriors. Also didn't settle west city, worried about maintenance. Used the settler to fogbust.

I got the 2 workers back to shaka lands safe. Also killed a settler and got that worker back safe.

Tech path finished writing, Aest (this move would come back to hurt me), Math bulbed, currency, PH ( to open trade for monarchy with Kubai, he wouldn't trade right away but I got later), CoL, Poly, Lit, I have it set on CS but no beakers in it 0% slider.


925BC I got peace from gigles to reorganize units and heal.

800BC OB Kubai

575BC Redeclare on Gigles. Had 10-12 units going for Uruk.

In 470BC I rased Kish. Went to Uruk had 7 archers on hill 50% culture. So went after other cities.

425BC GS pops and I bulbed math. Not optimal but needed to get some techs for trasding soon.

365BC Raze Lagash City south of copper city. 5 workers in it.
http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/EC2capture5workers0000.jpg

350BC GG pops and I make Super medic Impi.

320BC I delete ther 5 workers. Units close to going on strike.

230BC Raze Eridu. Copper city. Looking back I should have kept. Kubai already settled new city. And he is getting huge 15 cities already.

170BC Meet Charlie and OB.

95BC Units on strike. So I go all out after Uruk. Lose about 6-8 units but also take city. Giggles last. I actually won 1-2 battles at 4-6% odds.

35BC Anopther GS pops and this is where my techg path killed me. I bulb alpha with him. As no one has it yet.

20BC Currency in and I go to wealth in alot of cities. Also trade alpha to charlie for IW fishing, and 50gold.

5BC Math to Kubai for med, arc, and 80gold. Really made this for the gold.

115AD Finally settle west city.

160AD Convert to hindu as it spread.

220AD Kubaio finally willing to trade monarchy. I give him aest. Also aest to charlie for sailing masonry and 70 gold.

340AD Forogt to adopt HR.:mad: So I do now.

370AD Chopped SoZ in Uruk.

Thinking Uruk as HE.

Alsop have settler coming towards Uruk to maybe settle iron/pig city.

Here some screenshots.

http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/EC400ADlands0000.jpg
http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/ECKubailands400AD0000.jpg
http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/EC400addemo0000.jpg
http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/EC400adtech0000.jpg
http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/ECStats400ad0000.jpg

Kubai is getting big. Both charlie and kubai are pleased with us.

My goal was to kill Giggles at all costs the right the economy. I cottaged everywhere as my workers ran out of things to do. Economy is Still in tank I think. Just whipped courthouse in uruk.



Here is the save. Any comments ore help in my play good and bad welcome. Trying to learn emperor still.

@kossin

Wow nice save. Also niced idea to move capital. And I made the mistake of bulbing math and aplha. Academy and settled would have been better.

@gumbolt

Wow philo in 400ad. Nice going. Also war already with KK is insane. Wish I would have kept eridu like most of the other players did.

@huer
Good thinking about settling the corn/gem city. I left the settler to the west to fogbust. Settled when economy weas better. Looking back this was a real nice move. I learned something from that.

@cabet
Nice idea about going for colussus. Since we have many coastal cities, this could help economy tremdously.

@pawelo
Your save isn't that bad. If need to see bad save check mine out. I only have 6 cities. I also razed the copper city and kubai already settled it. I also wasted 2 GS on alpha and math. I thought this was good idea at the time as I am ahead of KK and charlie in tech. But as kossin pointed out in another post, long term this will hurt. My next GS has ways to go and Philo will be gone i fear by then.

@mjg


Your play isn't bad at all and your tech is good pacing. With some reconfiguration you should be hitting CS soon.

A pity you didn't block KK and let him settle south of Uruk. Bulbing Alpha and Math ain't always a bad idea - if you were going for early Construction it would've been OK - you don't need a fancy academy while killing people around ;)

Some good saves especially Kossin.
I wish I had time to play and get a vote but I have a number of PBEMs and SG's that have picked up. Hopefully, I will get back in next round.