The Emperor Masters' Challenge 3 (on Warlords)
- Thread starter aelf
- Start date
is almost nothing, as his trade routes are giving him 5 
/turn at the moment. This will get higher when the cities grow, and when harbors are built, so a castle in Washington can easily give him 10 
aelf
Ashen One
Much will be revealed by scouting. But I'd try to take Saladin's capital, or at least lay siege to it and pillage like hell.
I'll play the next round tonight. Unfortunately, the update will most likely have to wait till tomorrow.
I'll play the next round tonight. Unfortunately, the update will most likely have to wait till tomorrow.
aelf
Ashen One
The next update will blow you away 
And I accidentally figured out a very cheap trick (but not an exploit/cheat). It might not be new to some people, but it amused me greatly
And I accidentally figured out a very cheap trick (but not an exploit/cheat). It might not be new to some people, but it amused me greatly
carl corey
Deity
Uh, please tell me you'll update today. It's just not fair after this last post if we have to wait! 
aelf
Ashen One
carl corey said:Uh, please tell me you'll update today. It's just not fair after this last post if we have to wait!
The problem is I'll be falling asleep on the keyboard soon
carl corey
Deity
Don't give in to sleep! One... more... post...
aelf
Ashen One
Zzz
Strong the Dark Side is...
Strong the Dark Side is...
Admiral Kutzov
Idiot Emeritus
is this what is known as a tease?
looking forward to the updatenah, main concern is that he'll spam archers in cities that we don't have enough strength to take
flamingzaroc121
Emperor
man, this game has to much talk, over at ALC,Sisitul already has grenadiers
go as slow or as fast as you want
go as slow or as fast as you want
bovinespy
Prince
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2004
- Messages
- 310
Lurker here popping in to lend support to aelf. I really enjoyed your last EMC with Ramesses - it inspired to me try (successfully) to get a Cultural Victory with him, though I only play at Prince level right now (I was comfortable at Monarch on Vanilla 1.52).
As for this game, I would be inclined to strike the Celts first, rubbing them out if possible, before Saladin. Unless you've got Praets, a cat-less war against a Protective civ that probably has walls and/or strong cultural defense = a lot of dead Axemen
.
I would go Alphabet more than IW, but more for getting to Construction (and cats) than for tech trading.
Of course, I play a couple levels below you, so what do I know? Anyway, keep up the good work. I enjoy your threads.
As for this game, I would be inclined to strike the Celts first, rubbing them out if possible, before Saladin. Unless you've got Praets, a cat-less war against a Protective civ that probably has walls and/or strong cultural defense = a lot of dead Axemen
.I would go Alphabet more than IW, but more for getting to Construction (and cats) than for tech trading.
Of course, I play a couple levels below you, so what do I know? Anyway, keep up the good work. I enjoy your threads.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Good thing you're kidding! aelf and I have contrasting writing and playing styles that I like to think complement one another. And since he's playing at a higher difficulty level than me, he'd better be agonizing over more decisions!flamingzaroc121 said:man, this game has to much talk, over at ALC,Sisitul already has grenadiers
I for one cannot wait to find out what new trick he has up his sleeve. I still remember that brilliant, counter-intuitive diplomatic move he pulled in EMC1 that turned Kublai from an enemy to a friend with one move. Brilliant.
aelf
Ashen One
Round 4: 400BC - 450AD
Well, to reward your patience () here's a long update that will satisfy you guys for the next few days.
We began our war preparations. But against who? Saladin, with his annoying nearby cities was the top candidate. But we'll see. I decided to research Alphabet next in the hopes of trading for Maths and IW.
So how did we go about amassing an army as quickly as possible? With the help of the whip. Before whipping, I would grow the city to just one turn before growing into an unhappy size, timing it such that the axe it was building normally would be complete on this turn. Then I would start on a new axe and switch the tiles worked to higher food tiles that didn't give many hammers and would allow the city to grow generously into unhappiness on the next turn. This is so that the city would put in less than 5 hammers to the axe and would have more food after whipping to facilitate earlier population recovery later on. On the next turn, the city could then whip the axe for 2 pop, put the overflow into another axe subsequently and would not need to grow back by 1 pop to hit the post-whip happiness cap.
An simplistic illustration of this:
Get what I mean?
The timing was usually good enough such that a city could finish one or two axes by building normally, with the help of the whip overflow, just before it was ready to be whipped again (i.e. the whip unhappiness had worn off and the city had grown back to the pre-whip happiness cap).
Anyway, scouting was needed to assess Saladin's defensive capabilities and determine whether a campaign against him would be too costly to undertake. So we sent New York's long-time garrison to take a look:
Two archers. Just as I predicted. We would need a minimum of 6 axes for this city, with the possibility of losing up to 4.
Meanwhile, Boston had completed its barracks by working the copper mine. I know chariots are seen as useless in helping us take cities, but I guess a few of them wouldn't harm. Boston was just the right place to build them, due to its low hammer yield when it was focused on growth:
We could apply the whip based on the principle outlined above to build an axe or two here. If the city could grow in time.
Anyway, our scouting warrior sighted Mecca's defenses:
Quite tough. 3 Protective archers, one with CG2, and 60% cultural defense. We would need more than 9 axes, with the possibility of losing 6-8. Maybe the experience a few of our axes might get from taking Damascus (= CR2) would help. So the estimate stood at a minimum of 14 axes in total to safely take these cities from Saladin, about 11 of which might be lost in the process.
Now the question was, should we spend so many hammers to take two core cities from Saladin or do we take a few marginal cities from Brennus in our first war?
Well, in any case, whipping was the order of the day back home:
Whip now, worry later.
Our scouting warrior checked Medina out next, to see what Saladin might have to reinforce the two cities with:
Not much. Notice that Medina was the Christian holy city and that Saladin had converted to Chrisitanity. So the man did found a religion after all. Must be what the prophet we saw at Mecca was for. This meant that he would soon be the common enemy of Brennus and us. And it also meant that Saladin made for a better target by far.
In any case, since Alphabet had just been discovered, I decided it was time to trade before it was too late:
Sally was quite ahead in techs, I'm betting thanks to his gem mines. We only had Alphabet to trade to him. But our poor friend Brennus wasn't doing so well. I went to see if I could trade him Agriculture and Pottery for something:
He wouldn't give me Monotheism for them, so I settled for this trade.
I was considering not trading to Saladin, but Brennus didn't have IW (Saladin had it, but didn't want to trade it away). We would want Maths to be able to research Construction. Catapults are better than iron anyway. We could trade Alphabet to Brennus for Maths, but then we would have nothing to bribe him with when we invade Saladin. Relations between the two of them were beginning to sour, so I reasoned that even if we traded Alphabet to Saladin for Maths, he wouldn't trade it to Brennus. Hence, I made the gamble:
Indeed, on the next turn, Saladin severed diplomatic relations:
I bet he did so with Brennus too. That was lucky. If we had waited another turn, we wouldn't have been able to trade with Saladin at all.
Anyway, after a bit of thinking, I had decided to research Literature next. If we capture Damascus, we would get marble, which would allow us to build the Great Library quickly. If we could capture Mecca with just axes, catapults could wait for the next war. The GL was just too tempting...
So, I guess Saladin would be the target, not Brennus. The latter had problems keeping the city nearest to us anyway:
I laughed evilly when I saw that.
Anyway, I also noticed that the barbs built a city on the site that we had decided was a good place to settle:
Perfect. We could take it from them later. Even if Brennus got there first, at least he wouldn't build a city somewhere less optimal like one tile away from the coast. We could take the city from him later on.
Our next GP was born in Washington:
I guess the free priest from the ToA got his say. I'm thinking of saving Narak (what religion did he belong to?) for a shrine in Medina when we've captured the city. Who knows how many more prophets we will get and when.
And then it was time:
We had more than enough axes to capture at least Damascus (Boston only managed to build one chariot). Time to die, Saladin.
[to be continued in the next post...]
Well, to reward your patience (
) here's a long update that will satisfy you guys for the next few days.We began our war preparations. But against who? Saladin, with his annoying nearby cities was the top candidate. But we'll see. I decided to research Alphabet next in the hopes of trading for Maths and IW.
So how did we go about amassing an army as quickly as possible? With the help of the whip. Before whipping, I would grow the city to just one turn before growing into an unhappy size, timing it such that the axe it was building normally would be complete on this turn. Then I would start on a new axe and switch the tiles worked to higher food tiles that didn't give many hammers and would allow the city to grow generously into unhappiness on the next turn. This is so that the city would put in less than 5 hammers to the axe and would have more food after whipping to facilitate earlier population recovery later on. On the next turn, the city could then whip the axe for 2 pop, put the overflow into another axe subsequently and would not need to grow back by 1 pop to hit the post-whip happiness cap.
An simplistic illustration of this:
Get what I mean?
The timing was usually good enough such that a city could finish one or two axes by building normally, with the help of the whip overflow, just before it was ready to be whipped again (i.e. the whip unhappiness had worn off and the city had grown back to the pre-whip happiness cap).
Anyway, scouting was needed to assess Saladin's defensive capabilities and determine whether a campaign against him would be too costly to undertake. So we sent New York's long-time garrison to take a look:
Two archers. Just as I predicted. We would need a minimum of 6 axes for this city, with the possibility of losing up to 4.
Meanwhile, Boston had completed its barracks by working the copper mine. I know chariots are seen as useless in helping us take cities, but I guess a few of them wouldn't harm. Boston was just the right place to build them, due to its low hammer yield when it was focused on growth:
We could apply the whip based on the principle outlined above to build an axe or two here. If the city could grow in time.
Anyway, our scouting warrior sighted Mecca's defenses:
Quite tough. 3 Protective archers, one with CG2, and 60% cultural defense. We would need more than 9 axes, with the possibility of losing 6-8. Maybe the experience a few of our axes might get from taking Damascus (= CR2) would help. So the estimate stood at a minimum of 14 axes in total to safely take these cities from Saladin, about 11 of which might be lost in the process.
Now the question was, should we spend so many hammers to take two core cities from Saladin or do we take a few marginal cities from Brennus in our first war?
Well, in any case, whipping was the order of the day back home:
Whip now, worry later.
Our scouting warrior checked Medina out next, to see what Saladin might have to reinforce the two cities with:
Not much. Notice that Medina was the Christian holy city and that Saladin had converted to Chrisitanity. So the man did found a religion after all. Must be what the prophet we saw at Mecca was for. This meant that he would soon be the common enemy of Brennus and us. And it also meant that Saladin made for a better target by far.
In any case, since Alphabet had just been discovered, I decided it was time to trade before it was too late:
Sally was quite ahead in techs, I'm betting thanks to his gem mines. We only had Alphabet to trade to him. But our poor friend Brennus wasn't doing so well. I went to see if I could trade him Agriculture and Pottery for something:
He wouldn't give me Monotheism for them, so I settled for this trade.
I was considering not trading to Saladin, but Brennus didn't have IW (Saladin had it, but didn't want to trade it away). We would want Maths to be able to research Construction. Catapults are better than iron anyway. We could trade Alphabet to Brennus for Maths, but then we would have nothing to bribe him with when we invade Saladin. Relations between the two of them were beginning to sour, so I reasoned that even if we traded Alphabet to Saladin for Maths, he wouldn't trade it to Brennus. Hence, I made the gamble:
Indeed, on the next turn, Saladin severed diplomatic relations:
I bet he did so with Brennus too. That was lucky. If we had waited another turn, we wouldn't have been able to trade with Saladin at all.
Anyway, after a bit of thinking, I had decided to research Literature next. If we capture Damascus, we would get marble, which would allow us to build the Great Library quickly. If we could capture Mecca with just axes, catapults could wait for the next war. The GL was just too tempting...
So, I guess Saladin would be the target, not Brennus. The latter had problems keeping the city nearest to us anyway:
I laughed evilly when I saw that.
Anyway, I also noticed that the barbs built a city on the site that we had decided was a good place to settle:
Perfect. We could take it from them later. Even if Brennus got there first, at least he wouldn't build a city somewhere less optimal like one tile away from the coast. We could take the city from him later on.
Our next GP was born in Washington:
I guess the free priest from the ToA got his say. I'm thinking of saving Narak (what religion did he belong to?) for a shrine in Medina when we've captured the city. Who knows how many more prophets we will get and when.
And then it was time:
We had more than enough axes to capture at least Damascus (Boston only managed to build one chariot). Time to die, Saladin.
[to be continued in the next post...]
aelf
Ashen One
[continued from previous post]
Sorry, I was interrupted in the middle of my update. Thanks for your further patience, guys.
On the turn war was declared, I tried to bribe Brennus to declare war on Saladin as well:
Well, I thought it was a bit too expensive, so I traded Alphabet for Monotheism and Archery instead. Then, I tried our luck to see if Brennus was happy enough to help us for free:
And he was. Never underestimate the generosity of the AI
Well, the people of Brennus' nearest city didn't think so, though. They wanted to join the illustrious American empire:
We have Irish immigrants. Heh. Well, since we were about to take a few Arabian cities, I decided we could do with less upkeep and razed the city. Its location sucked anyway.
Back to the war front, we got a lucky dice roll with the first attacking axeman and he won!
Amazing how much luck can affect a game in Civ4. Damascus was promptly taken at the cost of one axeman:
But there's bad news. I only noticed the fish to the east of it, just out of range, after deciding to keep the city. Arghh! We could have settled a city 1 tile east and gotten a food source
Well, life goes on. Our healthy axemen moved on to Mecca to lay siege to it but found too many defenders in there:
So they waited a few turns for some reinforcements from Damascus to arrive. One of these was an experienced axemen who had had time to heal.
One more experienced axeman needed more time to heal in Damascus, and subsequently I sent him to Mecca to help with the attack as well. But once the first group of reinforcements arrived, I decided it was time to attack before Saladin could add another archer:
We got another lucky dice roll (against the Arab axeman) and did not get any unlucky ones, so as you can see most of our army was still intact at the end of it.
Mecca fell:
Meanwhile, Washington had just whipped a library for 2 pop, so it was time to begin on our next tasty project:
It would be helped along by a chop or two, seeing how late it was.
After one or two turns of healing, most of our stack arrived at Medina:
A little tough with 60% cultural defense. Perhaps we shouldn't attack it now? We can go after Najran instead and raze it so that Mecca can work on the gem tile:
Our stack can reach it in 4 turns.
This is where the round ends. We also need to decide on what to research next. We've discovered Construction, so we can build catapults and go after Medina soon. We can let that wait for another war, though, so that we can extort some techs from Saladin in the meantime. Priesthood would be good (he's offering Meditation and 80 gold right now) so that we can start on CoL for the much-needed half-price courthouses. But if we want to raze Najran before ending the war, we have to research something else for several turns.
And after some time agonizing over the sub-optimal location of Damscus, I finally thought of a solution. This is the cheap trick I mentioned. Damascus is 0% American. We've whipped an unpromoted axe in it to help get rid of the unhappy population. Now, what we can do to correct the mistake is sign cease fire with Saladin, give the city back and then declare war immediately to seize an undefended city that we can then raze
Get a free axe and get to raze the city. So maybe you want to rethink razing a city immediately?
[to be continued in the next post...]
Sorry, I was interrupted in the middle of my update. Thanks for your further patience, guys.
On the turn war was declared, I tried to bribe Brennus to declare war on Saladin as well:
Well, I thought it was a bit too expensive, so I traded Alphabet for Monotheism and Archery instead. Then, I tried our luck to see if Brennus was happy enough to help us for free:
And he was. Never underestimate the generosity of the AI
Well, the people of Brennus' nearest city didn't think so, though. They wanted to join the illustrious American empire:
We have Irish immigrants. Heh. Well, since we were about to take a few Arabian cities, I decided we could do with less upkeep and razed the city. Its location sucked anyway.
Back to the war front, we got a lucky dice roll with the first attacking axeman and he won!
Amazing how much luck can affect a game in Civ4. Damascus was promptly taken at the cost of one axeman:
But there's bad news. I only noticed the fish to the east of it, just out of range, after deciding to keep the city. Arghh! We could have settled a city 1 tile east and gotten a food source
Well, life goes on. Our healthy axemen moved on to Mecca to lay siege to it but found too many defenders in there:
So they waited a few turns for some reinforcements from Damascus to arrive. One of these was an experienced axemen who had had time to heal.
One more experienced axeman needed more time to heal in Damascus, and subsequently I sent him to Mecca to help with the attack as well. But once the first group of reinforcements arrived, I decided it was time to attack before Saladin could add another archer:
We got another lucky dice roll (against the Arab axeman) and did not get any unlucky ones, so as you can see most of our army was still intact at the end of it.
Mecca fell:
Meanwhile, Washington had just whipped a library for 2 pop, so it was time to begin on our next tasty project:
It would be helped along by a chop or two, seeing how late it was.
After one or two turns of healing, most of our stack arrived at Medina:
A little tough with 60% cultural defense. Perhaps we shouldn't attack it now? We can go after Najran instead and raze it so that Mecca can work on the gem tile:
Our stack can reach it in 4 turns.
This is where the round ends. We also need to decide on what to research next. We've discovered Construction, so we can build catapults and go after Medina soon. We can let that wait for another war, though, so that we can extort some techs from Saladin in the meantime. Priesthood would be good (he's offering Meditation and 80 gold right now) so that we can start on CoL for the much-needed half-price courthouses. But if we want to raze Najran before ending the war, we have to research something else for several turns.
And after some time agonizing over the sub-optimal location of Damscus, I finally thought of a solution. This is the cheap trick I mentioned. Damascus is 0% American. We've whipped an unpromoted axe in it to help get rid of the unhappy population. Now, what we can do to correct the mistake is sign cease fire with Saladin, give the city back and then declare war immediately to seize an undefended city that we can then raze
Get a free axe and get to raze the city. So maybe you want to rethink razing a city immediately? [to be continued in the next post...]
aelf
Ashen One
[continued from previous post]
This is how we stood in terms of techs:
Arabia is still the most advanced civ by far. We only have Literature on him. Should we trade with Brennus for Calendar so that Boston can work the sugar tiles as soon as possible?
The map of our continent now:
From what I can see in the game, Saladin seems to have taken the barb city near the stone. That's great news. No need to take that from Brennus much later in the game.
By the way, we are a few turns from completing the GL and 7 exp away from the first Great General.
I'm very happy with how this round went
Now, your comments and advice, please.
This is how we stood in terms of techs:
Arabia is still the most advanced civ by far. We only have Literature on him. Should we trade with Brennus for Calendar so that Boston can work the sugar tiles as soon as possible?
The map of our continent now:
From what I can see in the game, Saladin seems to have taken the barb city near the stone. That's great news. No need to take that from Brennus much later in the game.
By the way, we are a few turns from completing the GL and 7 exp away from the first Great General.
I'm very happy with how this round went
Now, your comments and advice, please.Hmm yes, that is nice. Although it takes some patience. The revolt has to pass and the city has to be connected to build the right units. Anyway still a nice trick. Do you think the AI always will want his city back? There aren't any negative modifiers from breaking a cease fire right? At least I also do this if I can't get nice techs.
You are one lucky basterd I must say! That first axe and all the others. You lost barely any troops! For the same, you could have just a few axes left. Indeed it's amazing how much luck can effect the game. Now you are even able to finish him as you like.
BTW I wouldn't want to risk loosing to many troops on a city you don't realy need. Go after the other smaller ones and come back with better troops or wait till brenus makes a move. I love that in fact. Let the AI attack first and then finish off the wounded defenders.
After this war you should prob build up and tech peaceful with Brenus while beelining too optics. You will have enough city's and can bang Brenus with maces and/or trebs. Sooner is prob. not needed.
Anyway, good turnset.
You are one lucky basterd I must say! That first axe and all the others. You lost barely any troops! For the same, you could have just a few axes left. Indeed it's amazing how much luck can effect the game. Now you are even able to finish him as you like.
BTW I wouldn't want to risk loosing to many troops on a city you don't realy need. Go after the other smaller ones and come back with better troops or wait till brenus makes a move. I love that in fact. Let the AI attack first and then finish off the wounded defenders.
After this war you should prob build up and tech peaceful with Brenus while beelining too optics. You will have enough city's and can bang Brenus with maces and/or trebs. Sooner is prob. not needed.
Anyway, good turnset.
comments :
- i wouldn't have razed the celt city. You certainly have a bad relation modifier from this + it was overlapping your capital = you could have used it to work cottages while growing the capital + it was on a river = not THAT bad. + you could have gifted it back to celts probably to have better trade routes in other cities.
- I would have razed the marble arabian city. What good is it? Yes it's on the coast. But other than this it's really no good.
Some questions :
- I'm sure the lucky axeman is now level 4, isn't it? Can you hope for a level 5 axe after this war? Or do you need to use the GG you may get to open up HE?
- Do you plan on optics soon to find others to trade with? You opened the game with a high priority on trade, but you just killing a neighbour = no more trades.
- What is saladin willing to give for peace?
some advice (for what it's good) :
- medina is ripe, take it. 6 axes should be enough (it's only 3 units, including a spear, bring other troops if you can, but you could take it with what you already have there)
- i wouldn't have razed the celt city. You certainly have a bad relation modifier from this + it was overlapping your capital = you could have used it to work cottages while growing the capital + it was on a river = not THAT bad. + you could have gifted it back to celts probably to have better trade routes in other cities.
- I would have razed the marble arabian city. What good is it? Yes it's on the coast. But other than this it's really no good.
Some questions :
- I'm sure the lucky axeman is now level 4, isn't it? Can you hope for a level 5 axe after this war? Or do you need to use the GG you may get to open up HE?
- Do you plan on optics soon to find others to trade with? You opened the game with a high priority on trade, but you just killing a neighbour = no more trades.
- What is saladin willing to give for peace?
some advice (for what it's good) :
- medina is ripe, take it. 6 axes should be enough (it's only 3 units, including a spear, bring other troops if you can, but you could take it with what you already have there)
He didn't actualy razed the Celt city and I don't think he will get a dilpo penalty. In fact, he just REFUSES a city to join his empire and therefore it is razed. But I don't think this is called 'razing' in the eyes of a AI.
I doubt if I would have kept it. Would have to load the save. It isn't optimal city placing, but on the other hand it has low distant cost, is a free city next to a river. Well I trust in Aelfs decision.
I doubt if I would have kept it. Would have to load the save. It isn't optimal city placing, but on the other hand it has low distant cost, is a free city next to a river. Well I trust in Aelfs decision.
aelf
Ashen One
cabert said:
There's no diplomatic penalty for razing that city. You have point. I was thinking more upkeep before courthouses could harm our game in the long run. But I guess, since the city was size 2, we didn't lose out on that much. We can always plant a settler there in the future if need be, an option which we would not have if we had kept it and then given it back to Brennus.
cabert said:
I know. Which is why I looked for a solution to this. If we settle a city 1 tile east we can get fish in the fat cross.
cabert said:
We need 7 more exp on that axe to get to level 5. Risky. I'm thinking of using the GG to create a Medic III warlord chariot. This will help us in our future campaigns and enable Heroic Epic for sure.
cabert said:
We still have Brennus. Not as good as having both, but Saladin closed his borders anyway. We have two religious nuts with different state religions as neighbours. It's likely that we can't trade with both of them.
I'm thinking of getting Astronomy early. The AI likes Optics, so the other continent will probably find us soon enough.
cabert said:
Meditation and 80 gold, as I have said.
cabert said:
60% cultural defense and a CG2 archer. We have been lucky, but I wouldn't count on us being lucky again. It's almost Mecca all over again, and this time we don't have as many axes. Also, the bulk of our axes are experienced now (at least CR2). It would be painful to sacrifice most of them to take a city we can take more easily with catapults 15 turns from now. With Mecca gone, the Arabians have been dealt a major blow. We can live with them keeping Medina for a while more.
Anyway, I fixed the first post in this thread. Been forgetting to add links to the updates.
I'm quiet sur that taking Medina will lead to a judaism conversion for Saladin ...
He may then become brennus friend ...
Even if you plan to kill them both, this will lead to a diplo malus with Brennus next ... so maybe going to Narjan is better first ...
He may then become brennus friend ...
Even if you plan to kill them both, this will lead to a diplo malus with Brennus next ... so maybe going to Narjan is better first ...
