The Emperor Masters' Challenge 2 (on Warlords)

Jaca said:
Also, at the current rate, Thebe should have its prophet out in 8 turns. I then assigned no more prophet and tried building "Research", since our research is at turtle speed. If you place the citizens on the Horse Pasture, the Marble and the Mine, you gain, thanks to the Bureaucracy, 18 beakers, which is a significant amount compared with the total of the rest of our cities. Monarchy, which I would prefer now before continuing Literature for the hapiness, allowing our cities to grow at least one pop up, is then only 8 turns instead of 14. Could this be an option to temporarily speed up science by using the "bureaucracied" hammers in Thebe?

Jaca

Yeah.... build Research!!!!
It really does help. I am playing a Monarch game right now and used this strategy to maintain a tech lead while expanding to 10 cities before 500AD. Right now you need beakers, and your not gonna get them by going to war with HC. The computer is very stingy with techs... you'll need to capture/destroy at least 3 cities before you'll get anything from him. I think you should use 1 city to pump out troops, use 3 cities to build research, and cottage spam the other 3. Then once your cottages start to mature, you can switch from building research to troops and go to war. You probably need another worker also for jungle clearing.
 
Definitely keep the priests in Thebes for one more GP, then switch to tiles. Turning them off now, THAT would be a waste.

Also, you're going to need Hunting for Spearmen.

Here's an option: because you built the the Kong Miao you can run 7 priests in Memphis, and therefore arguably you can live without the NE. If you skip Literature you'll also not be able to get the HE. But I wonder if you can make the best of that by also skipping Mathematics/Metal Casting/Machinery, staying defensive, expanding peacefully, and running as quickly as possible through
1. Theology (lightbulbed)
2. Monarchy (researched)
3. Paper (researched)
4. DR (lightbulbed part 1)
5. DR (lightbulbed part 2, or researched if you're done with Paper)
Maybe also building the Mahabodhi before DR. In that case, maybe you could have Madrid and Memphis run 7 priests each! In fact if you get Madrid going on a couple priests soon, while building a couple farms, you could get DR GP #2 not long after DR GP #1. That'd be hot. (Edit: hot, but all you'd be doing is making up for the time lost by using a GP on the Mahabodhi rather than a tech.)
 
Jet said:
Maybe also building the Mahabodhi before DR. In that case, maybe you could have Madrid and Memphis run 7 priests each! In fact if you get Madrid going on a couple priests soon, while building a couple farms, you could get DR GP #2 not long after DR GP #1. That'd be hot. (Edit: hot, but all you'd be doing is making up for the time lost by using a GP on the Mahabodhi rather than a tech.)

Yeah, but you will also get the money for cities with Buddism. I like your idea, Egypt is so backwards to the other civs that only an emphasis on great people can get them to their goal.
 
hi, not going very far into this comment thing, since i did not open any save, but i think you're lazily managing your cities (not saying you play bad, but you could put some efforts into tile management before posting screenies :( like the one with a city working a lake for 2 pop / 2 c rather than a cottage for the same output :crazyeye:).

About war, remember one thing : AIs don't trade techs if they know less than 2 other civs. Meaning that if you kill isabella, there is no way HC would share any tech to you. I don't know if this limitation works for exortion too, or only for trade, but i would not want to try, being in a rather backwards (again) situation.
Obivously you need workers (clear jungle, cottage spam), happiness (size 5 is not a lot) and great prophets (at least one for the buddhist shrine) soon.
So my advice is
- to get the prophet from thebes asap, then switch to building HE (meaning you need to finish litterature) with all hammers available.
- tech towards trebuchets (construction is indeed on the way and cats would be good enough for a while)
- send your troops asap (beware of HC, he WILL attack if you send away too much of your defense, but i'm sure he will attack anyway) against the barb city for some free xps, then stack all you can near HC's borders.
- as soon as you can, build cats/trebs (+ cover = anti-melee, anti-mounted) in every city and kill HC.
- after that, you need to tech towards optics, but this can wait until you followed your variant rules
 
When having more of a money problem than a production problem it may be wise to switch to a caste system and have a lot of merchant specialists.
 
cabert said:
he wants prophets! not scientists or merchants!
After the second shrine/ DR maybe. By the way it is possible to lightbulb paper with a great scientist... I don't know the real order of lightbulbing techs, however. But that is also a bit of a problem of current game that it so much fixated on getting the spiral minaret and sankore's university. It limits your options and therefore you have a more difficult game.
 
Andraeianus I said:
a more difficult game.
Which is already Emperor! :king:
 
cabert said:
(beware of HC, he WILL attack if you send away too much of your defense, but i'm sure he will attack anyway)
I have the same feeling. He seems to be focusing on production and has some decent amount of different units (including City Raider Swordsman) on the borders. You may want to keep an eye on him (and on the barb cities with possible Axemen?).

Jaca
 
cabert said:
hi, not going very far into this comment thing, since i did not open any save, but i think you're lazily managing your cities (not saying you play bad, but you could put some efforts into tile management before posting screenies :( like the one with a city working a lake for 2 pop / 2 c rather than a cottage for the same output :crazyeye:).

Don't worry about that. I'm managing my cities carefully. That screenshot was taken right after pressing the whip button (a testament to how bad the governor is at tile management - Firaxis, please!). I spotted the mistake after going through all my cities one more time before ending the turn, but forgot to change the screenshot. That's the only mistake, right?

After reading through your comments, I was still torn between researching Monarchy next and going straight for Construction. My usual instincts lean me towards Construction and war asap, but I haven't forgotten the central variant of this game. And that would call for Monarchy first, which will allow us to lightbulb our way to DR. Then it will be Maths -> Construction -> Currency/Paper/DR.

However, I feel a pressing need to get Hunting (as pointed out by Jaca). We need to be able to build some spearmen quickly in the event that HC does attack. He has some HAs and they might prove troublesome pillaging the countryside unchecked. So we will research Hunting before Monarchy.

As advised, I will not remove the priests in Thebes until the next GP is born. Then I will focus it on production and commerce and, if need be, build research. I know this is a very unorthodox and questionable move, but, as a few of you pointed out, given the situation it might be a good option.

So, the Long Peace it shall be. We will fight again when we have catapults. I'll be playing the next round and posting the update later.
 
aelf said:
Don't worry about that. I'm managing my cities carefully. That screenshot was taken right after pressing the whip button (a testament to how bad the governor is at tile management - Firaxis, please!). I spotted the mistake after going through all my cities one more time before ending the turn, but forgot to change the screenshot. That's the only mistake, right?

No, but it's of the same level. Not really worth arguing. I'm pretty sure you did check and change what needed to be changed in time. It's just about the screenies showing things that would make me :cry: about how the governor affects my tiles!


After reading through your comments, I was still torn between researching Monarchy next and going straight for Construction. My usual instincts lean me towards Construction and war asap, but I haven't forgotten the central variant of this game. And that would call for Monarchy first, which will allow us to lightbulb our way to DR. Then it will be Maths -> Construction -> Currency/Paper/DR.

well, you're the boss:lol:
Emperor is a bit hard for me. I did only a few tries, with vanilla incas. Not really what you're trying to do here!

However, I feel a pressing need to get Hunting (as pointed out by Jaca). We need to be able to build some spearmen quickly in the event that HC does attack. He has some HAs and they might prove troublesome pillaging the countryside unchecked. So we will research Hunting before Monarchy.

hunting is cheap :goodjob:
 
Round 7: 500AD - 800AD

An even shorter round this time. I'm going slow because this part of the game is rather tricky. The rough plan for this round was to continue developing, get Monarchy and then head towards Construction (for cats) in preparation for another war with HC.

To start, we researched Hunting first. It would only take 1 turn :goodjob:

I adjusted Memphis' tiles to let it grow (one of you mentioned the pigs and I realised I could grow the city quickly with it and the corn in one turn):



Growing the city was useful as it allowed us to run even more priests without ceasing work on that delicious flood plain cottage:



Yes, Memphis was starving a little, but it could last for a long time like that and the extra GPP would go a long way.

Anyway, I hadn't planted the GG in Huamanga yet, thinking that I might yet decide to put the GMI in another city. But with Huamanga one turn away from finishing its axeman and having no other visible alternative, the GG went to that city after all.



Our next GP was soon born in Thebes:



He was used to lightbulb Theology. We could make use of Theocracy soon, and it's good to have the option of lightbulbing DR immediately just in case.

After that GP was born, Thebes stopped running priests and focused on commerce and production. And as some of you advised, I set its build to research after it completed the spearman on the following turn:



With the Bureaucracy bonus to help, it cut our research down by one turn. Not a bad deal considering there wasn't anything very useful to build at the capital.

When Monarchy had been researched, I made a civics switch:



In time for the spearman being built in Huamanga to receive the xp bonus on the next turn. Besides this (as well as the obvious happiness bonus from HR), the civics change also had the benefit of cutting our civic upkeep a little. In our situation, a few gold pieces a turn made some difference.

A few turns later, after Madrid built its granary, I put two priests up to prepare the city for the generation of the following GP after Memphis:



I think one of you recommended putting three priests there, but with the HR-induced happiness, Madrid could afford to grow. So I let it grow slowly by working all the cottaged tiles it had. The only restraining factor was upkeep, and that will be dealt with over the time it takes to grow.

Shortly after, word was received that Huayna had built the Colossus:



That was both a bad thing and a potential boon. Bad because that would help his Financial trait, potential boon because it might become ours soon enough. Another incentive or pressure to go to war?

That pretty much summed up the round, which ended as Mathematics was completed. What's next? Construction (12 turns) for war? Currency (13 turns) for economy? Paper takes only 18 turns to research now, so we could get it soon. I'm thinking of Construction -> Paper (start on Sankore in Thebes immediately) -> Currency -> DR (partly lightbulbed, the rest should take fewer than 20 turns to research by then). Should Thebes continue helping by building research? I'm thinking of doing so until it could build catapults.

A look at our current GP generator:



Still a long way. I think we need to save this one for DR. After the GP, I'm thinking of whipping some troops in Memphis as Madrid takes over the main task of being the GP farm.

The graphs:



HC's sharp rise in GNP is probably due to his completing the Colossus. It was rather drastic, and then fell a little shortly afterwards - change of tiles being worked? Nevertheless, he has shown himself to have a lot economic power. I think we should launch the war soon to prevent him from capitalizing on this.



We are slowly closing up the gap in power, though it's likely that we'll still be far below when we fight him. IMO it's quite normal to be below the AI in power on Emperor. With cats we should be able to crush HC. Preferably before he gets longbows :cringe:

And as for the actual preparation for the war, I think Huamanga should building CRII swords and axes while a few other cities are building cats.

The overhead map:



IMO we should invade the city NW of Madrid with our main force, while a smaller force based at Huamanga will either defend against a counterattack or cut off Inca attempts at reinforcements. If we are successful, we can advance as far up as the Colossus city. Any other ideas?


PS: I didn't switch back to OR even though we weren't building units in the last few turns because I wanted lower upkeep to research Maths quickly. Before saving the game (but after taking the screenshots), however, I switched back to OR to help with building improvements before we start amassing units for the war.
 

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Oh, I forgot to post a screenshot of the tech trading screen.



So HC has Construction. A worrying development, but no sign of his catapults yet. I suspect he's going for Feudalism next. Are we too late to see archers facing us?

By the way, my thanks once again for your all support (as can be seen from the ratings). I hope you enjoy this thread as much as I do.
 
Good move by speeding up the GP in Memphis, aelf!

I can't really advice on the war plan, and look forward what others will say. Usually I wait longer, which is probably one of the reasons why I'm still only a Monarch player...:rolleyes:

I have a question and a suggestion though for the city management.

Is the timing of the prophet in Madrid critical? When you would work the Iron tile and, say, the spices, it would only take four turns to grow and a -2 in economy instead of -1, before gaining one pop again. You could then assign the two prophets again, while keeping the Iron tile worked, increasing production in the process. Comments?

I also tried half a turn in your save to increase production in Toledo. Whipping an unpromoted unit immediately in Toledo -- perhaps, in principle, better after you apply Theocracy again to get at least one promotion -- (I whipped an Axeman) relieves you from the hapiness balancing you have now. It costs an angry face but adds one too thanks to Heriditary Rule, so you immediately gain a "free unit". After 15 turns the hapiness penalty dissapears and the city can grow again, using another fresh cottage or mine. The extra unit seems useful too for any possible barb from the south.

Research in Thebes looks OK to me, though the city is lightly defended (barbs from North?). Thebe can grow in 2 turns and working a mine would cut Construction research further by one turn.

Jaca
 
"I think one of you recommended putting three priests there, but with the HR-induced happiness, Madrid could afford to grow. So I let it grow slowly by working all the cottaged tiles it had. The only restraining factor was upkeep, and that will be dealt with over the time it takes to grow."

"Is the timing of the prophet in Madrid critical? When you would work the Iron tile and, say, the spices, it would only take four turns to grow and a -2 in economy instead of -1, before gaining one pop again. You could then assign the two prophets again, while keeping the Iron tile worked, increasing production in the process. Comments?"

Can you guys enlighten me? What -2 economy? What upkeep? I'm lost here.
 
aelf,

our hands lift high towards the ones who speak the holy words. with the power of holy war shown to us by St. Thomas our holy warriors bless their swords with the power of our gods, ready to take the war to the dreaded incans. our eyes see that large statue of bronze on their coast, and look forward to showing the incan citizens the error of their ways.

our civil engineers would like time to research machines that would help us with this war, while our holy warriors gather in number.

the priests have stopped directing those building our holy works, but the work MUST continue until every city is blessed with a temple and monastary for the masses.

when we combine their efforts and construct the university of sankore, everyone in those holy buildings will be able to help our scientists uncover new truths that help us along the path to further enlightenment.

the kong mao will help us spread the words, and the pilgrims from around the world will bring us tribute to thank our gods for their holy words and power.

always a fun thread!

NaZ
 
To the most Holy Pharaoh, Dynasty of Aelf, Mandated of Heaven as the Incarnate Buddha, may your line continue to reign forever,

Though the Incans profess wisdom of the path to enlightenment, their proud scholars show that they imagine to resist our enlightened path of heavenly order. Therefore we shall come to assemble weapons of their own kind against them. Our warriors favored by true enlightenment shall succeed in bringing the heavenly mandate to them.

Our holy men in that are spread abroad, even in cities so revered as the one to where the first Buddha arrived, however may find their work going in vain as the peasants of that land are still weak and cannot support the truly holy. We feel that all of our studies into true enlightenment should be moved to the place of our discovery of your most heavenly mandate.

Let the peasants in the rest of our cities marvel at the enlightened mandate our holy men produce from one great city, rather than letting them scatter across the face of the earth.

Soon the search for enlightenment may help to reveal the ruler of heaven himself, establishing firmly your divine right to rule. In the mean time more earthly scholars will help to find ways to translate that
heavenly vision into ways that they and the peasants understand.

It might also be wise to attempt to instruct those who are merely outside the palace gates as to the path to enlightenment of the heavenly mandate. While your Majesty and your ministers are in good wisdom of these things, as are the peasants in much of the empire, the peasants that serve your ministers in the palace are not. This would bring joy to your people as you show them the glory of your enlightened mandate.

There are also some who understand the path to enlightenment but like the barbarian Incans and Spanish to not yet grasp the mandate of heaven. They must be instructed in this that they may better pay tribute for the knowledge of the mandate. It might also be useful to have some to instruct Incan cities in the nature of the mandate once they have realized its power.

....Translation..........


OK, I'd say the Construction->Paper->Currency ->DR path sounds good. Get an army and smash the Incans. before they get to advanced

Fact number 1 however is that Madrid will NEVER be your Strongest Priest pump. It only has one Bonus food, so it can at most support 3 Priests, even assuming a Shrine that is still 75 turns to the next Prophet (750/10). Instead, you can run 4 Priests in Memphis indefinitely or 5 if you give up the cottage commerce,
(4 Priests +Shrine gives you 2 Prophets in 600+750-354=~1000 GPP needed, 13 per turn=77 turns [or 60 turns with 5 Priests]).

So overall, Keeping Memphis as a GP city is probably best, let all the others including Madrid begin whipping, and producing like normal.

Use that next GP for DR, you will probably have finished DR by the time the one after that appears (60 turns if you go all 5 Priests in Memphis). But stick to the research plan otherwise, getting U Sankore will be very useful, and a Market in Memphis would also be nice.

Also getting a Buddhist Missionary to Thebes would be worthwhile (2 more Happiness in your Super City, and Civic benefits) Barcelona too.

Some Confucian Missionaries might also be worthwhile. (they could also be used among newly conquered Incan cities)


So Summary: Tech+Unit Production plan sounds good, but let Memphis specialize as a GP farm. Keep Madrid as a simple support producer. Use the First GP on DR, the second for that Buddhist Shrine. (and you can use a Third on an Islamic Shrine, to ensure you never need to run below 100% again)
 
side note.. if you can get ankor wat built in memphis that city would be producing 10 hammers off of those priests.. also would let you run another 3 if you chose to. would counteract the 2 lost from the obelisk after calendar is researched.

would allow a usually production dead gp city to assist in producing cats and stuff.

just my .02

NaZ
 
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