Emperor Cookbook II: Mehmed II

Winston Hughes said:

Is this right? Or am I thinking of Carl Corey

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Yeah, my save had both GL and NE. The thing is, I'm really not used to this type of maps. Usually, I see Marble I go for GL & NE, it's that simple. But you're right that on this map GLH and Colossus + expansion is also a very powerful strategy. I was still in "Pangaea"/"continents" mode: build some cities, build some wonders if you have the resource, stop expanding and prepare for war.

And yeah, a lot of other saves were interesting and could have got in the top three with maybe a little improvement, or maybe if I looked at them from a different point of view. Tough choice to vote for only three.

I appreciate the tips Winston--I really hadn't thought about it that much.

I haven't ever played maps watery enough to make the GLH a good wonder choice. You are totally right, on this map, the GLH and Colossus together allow you to REX like crazy without worrying about the economy. There really is no need for the GL (Though it wouldn't necessarily hurt!).

My one fear is potential economy crash when these wonders go obsolete. I guess it will be interesting to see how the next few rounds go .

Here's my save as of 1100 ad, civ crashed just as I got there... something in that.

View attachment 196387

Round 3 report:

To 1100AD

Hi ,

I won't be able to submit a save this round... I failed to play this week end and won't be able to play at the beginning of the week... sorry guys for that
I will try to find more time for the next round

Cheers

Finally got my save done--I'm thinking that maybe we should wait another day to give people a little more time to finish their rounds.

Here is my save. I'm afraid there's not much in the way of a log.

I'll play tonight, if I have time.

RJM said:

Spoiler :

I'm only slightly joking when I suggest that perhaps we shouldn't pick the best save if its too good.

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RJM has a point (Warning--ranting about game format ahead)--



I am going to go ahead and wait another 12 hours from now-ish to see if we can give Winston (and others who may not have submitted yet) a chance to play.

Pigswill:

ChromiumL said:

RJM has a point (Warning--ranting about game format ahead)--

Spoiler :

I think we may need to take some time, as we vote, to consider which save is best, and also which save we want to actually continue to play from. Sometimes the less perfect save is better since it provides more of a challenge. I think many of us are comfortable with Emperor level difficulty, but the best ball system does sometimes make the game too easy. Not really sure how we should deal with this though... I definitely don't want to go back to voting for the worst save, but is the 'best' save always best for the game?

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Lot of common features in these saves. It will be hard to choose a winner as i think most saves will have good leverage to suceed in the next round.

Y'all are right about these types of maps being over once the GLH is built. I had absolutely no idea how powerful it was--and its been kinda fun seeing that. But, I think we all agree that all we have left in this game is the details of the win... With that being the case, do people want to call it after this round?

You should try more games with this style of strategy, Chrome (and anyone else who found this Cookbook game interesting). The GLH based TRE is strong enough to use on Immortal, maybe even Deity. I am still kind of refining the techniques for Immortal, so I cant say, maybe one of our Deity Guru's can try one for us. I do remember the Louis Immortal University game, though, I tried it before I had ever even beaten Emperor, and if not for a slight mistake in Diplomacy, I would have likely pulled it out (I failed to realize Brennus was in WHEOOH and he landed on Paris, LOL). Heck, just go back to that game, and try it with the intention, right from the start, of playing as pure a TR game as you can.

My style is simple, it uses the GLH to finance the REX, and the GL to get me into a commanding tech position, from which a military advantage is inevitable. I have had some of the easiest Emperor games ever with it, especially with Willy or Hannibal. Both of them are insanely strong on this kind of maps in the hands of a TR player.

Once you get the hang of them, its a very fun style to play too. You make a much higher priority on techs like Compass, and make Harbors a "must build ASAP" for every coastal city. In fact, its not really CoL or Currency that turns this kind of game around, its Compass. Thats a big reason why EXP and ORG leaders do so well with it, the bonus buildings are all killer. Every city must have a Granary, Harbor, Lighthouse, and Courthouse. Mehmed, a leader with BOTH of those traits, just demolishes this kind of map. I think a big part of the decline in interest is that the game is pretty much over.

The best settings to get this kind of game are:

B&S, low sea level, Snakey Continents, regular Islands, and Island region mixed in. At Emperor level, I challenge you to try and crash your economy with REXing. You just cant, without totally ignoring other aspects of the game, like infra, workers, boats and such.

FIN leaders do especially well, because of the extra Commerce point from Coastal tiles. With maps like this, a vast majority of your food is going to come from the sea. I will take a Coastal Fish tile over irragated Corn every time. Even 1-tile island cities are productive and profitable if there are at least 2 seafood to supply citizens for the whip. Get those Libraries up ASAP, too, because all that juicy sea commerce is going to be converted to beakers for you, and you dont have to worry about a thing. TRs are handled by the game, not the player. Its a blast to make tons of settlers and bounce em all over the world, and not have to worry about the economy because new cities can break even on Maintenance at ~ 50% slider most games with a single pop. No tiles to worry about, just let the free TR's pay the maintenance, whip the Big Four buildings (Granary, Courthouse, Lighthouse, Harbor) and roll up the techs.

BTW, I played my round the day the save went up, but didnt post a report because I had already played the game out from my own save the last round, and didnt feel it was appropriate. Here's my save if anyone wants to see it, nothing special, I managed to get the GL in Erdine anyway, and it was clearly over right then. I was in a pretty powerful position, taking Steel from Lib and teching MT, so that Cannons, Cruis's and Jans could just take over the world.

It's a dynamite strategy for isolated starts too. I have a crushing tech lead over the AI in the current LHC. I have Democracy and Scientific Method while none of them is even close to Liberalism (IIRC, I still have a monopoly on Education). Busy putting up Custom Houses right now.

Playing Emperor Normal.

Thanks for waiting, but I'm still only 2/3 of the way through the round, and won't be able to finish it until tomorrow evening.

Round 3 to 1100 AD