The Emperor Masters' Challenge 2 (on Warlords)

aelf said:
Is it really worth having Memphis churn out the next two prophets alone, the second one out of a restarted GPP bar?
I don't get it, as opposed to what?
 
aelf said:
I had similar thoughts, although I wasn't certain of the exact numbers. Is it really worth having Memphis churn out the next two prophets alone, the second one out of a restarted GPP bar? Especially considering the next GP isn't going to be born in Memphis very soon and we aren't going to get the NE yet. I need more confirmation here to proceed.

Basially Yes, Memphis Easily can run more Priests than Madrid, and this allows Madrid to grow and Produce/whip normally

Essentially the question is if you want Madrid or Memphis Working, and I think Madrid is the better worker. It has a Production Bonus tile and a Food Bonus tile, the Two Food bonus tiles of Memphis make whipping an overly unhappy means of controlling growth or getting production (as compared to Priests). Not to mention Memphis gets to start working earlier.
 
aelf said:
With a capital that was high in production and had nothing very useful to build, I thought it might be worth the while to open up the possibility of building the FP earlier. Besides, we might be moving the capital to Barcelona.

still seems iffy to me. if I were going stuff like that I'd assume that the game is mostly won efficiency wise.

=D
 
Yeah, the courthouse in capital is a little weird in my eyes also. I never move the capital since I think it's better to have two (Forbidden Palace) centres at both ends of my empire then having 1 in the centre and one at the end of the empire. If I have very stretching empire I will try to get Versaille, which is also an option for you considering the objectives. Given that, I would keep the capital NE, Forbidden Palace S and Versaille in the Inca Empire. I never have the feeling I have nothing to build, I ALWAYS need more units.
 
voek said:
I never have the feeling I have nothing to build, I ALWAYS need more units.

In this game so far, unit upkeep hurts.

The idea of moving the capital to Barcelona was floated around earlier, and I see the possible merits of the idea. Anyway, with the courthouse in Thebes, if we conquer Cuzco (or some other good Inca city) quickly, we could begin on the FP there almost immediately instead of waiting for one newly conquered city to build a courthouse.

Hristo said:
I demand an update!!!

I hear you. Now that I've made up my mind about Madrid, I'm going to play the next round and post the update.
 
Well the reason of building a courthouse in the capital to get the prequist of the 6 courthouses faster is interesting. That are the things I look to learn, because I wouldn't have thought of it myself. Although I am still convinced it is not worth the hammers and time this early.

Anxious to see the next round!
 
I've finished playing the next round, but I'm so tired now that I'm falling asleep sitting here. I guess I'll post the update when I get up tomorrow.
 
Round 8: 800AD - 1130AD

More nail biting action this round.

I think some of you talked about HR-spurred growth across the empire, and I agreed that it's time to grow, so I immediately changed the tiles being worked in our cities:



Thebes would grow while building the granary that it will eventually need. Once it completed the granary, it would resume building research to help us get Construction quickly.



Memphis stopped running priests for the moment so that it could grow. Being 1 or 2 sizes larger would allow it to run even more priests, with good returns in the long run to more than make up for the few turns of GPP sacrificed.



Going by the advice of the majority, we stopped running priests in Madrid and let it work its tiles, especially the cottages. Madrid is destined to be our commerce centre (if not Barcelona) and I agree trying to generate a GP there might be difficult owing to the lack of high food sources for more priests.

Thebes went back to building research after the granary, cutting down research by 2 or 3 turns:



On the following turn, having let it grown 2 sizes, I fiddled around with the tiles in Memphis and found out that it could maintain this configuration without starving:



I thought that this setup suited us fine. We were running one more priest than before and could work on the mature flood plain cottage without losing food. We didn't really need 6 or 7 priests anyway, since we weren't ready to research DR. I thought we needed all the commerce we could get to speed up our research to get there.

A few turns later, HC came to us offering fish for our gems. Fat hope, man. What a lousy deal! But it highlighted to me his willingness to trade, so I checked it out:



Not a bad deal at all. We would not be researching these techs on our own and the gold could help boost our research for several turns. I accepted it. The only reservation I had was his researching CS after getting CoL, which, if he had Machinery, would allow him to build maces. But with war getting more imminent (in which we would break his power), I thought it's worth the risk.

Speaking of war, here's a glimpse of how the preparations (which began in earnest after Construction) went:



No sign of HC's pile of units growing meanwhile. Of course, he could be hiding it behind the fog.

Two turns later, bad news came. Islam was founded on the other continent. Were they that advanced? We haven't begun researching DR yet. I fear we might lose the Spiral Minaret :(

Well, I guess we really have to depend on the prophet and maybe war booty to get there quickly. Then maybe we could chop for the wonder like crazy. It would be a great disappointment to be unable to achieve the game's main objectives.

Anyway, for some reason, Huayna felt brave enough to demand the gems that he didn't get from us:



Fight for it if you will, friend. He's obviously unaware of the doom hanging above his head.

On the next turn, our GP was born:



I decided to gamble on getting the Spiral Minaret (which is after all central to our strategy) and used him to lightbulb DR, which would otherwise take us about 66 turns to research! But we still needed 25 turns or so to research it after that. Looks rather grim to me.

Well, on the positive side of things, our army is ready to launch the campaign against the apparently hapless HC. Only a longbow and a spear at a major border city?



And Thebes can begin on Sankore University, which we should be able to get:



It will be completed at about the same time as DR is researched, allowing us to begin on the Spiral Minaret immediately.

This is where the round ends. The campaign against the Inca will begin in the next round. The summary graphs:



Our GNP isn't looking much better. Huayna's has soared above ours, but I suppose it will crash after the war.



Our power ratings paint a better picture. We have caught up a little and are growing at a faster rate than the Inca. We should be #1 in our continent after the war.

Lastly, the tech trading screen:



Huayna is more advanced than us, and I suspect he's going for CS next. However, there's no sign of xbows so he might not have Machinery yet. At least we probably won't have to deal with maces that soon.

Any advice for the next round? The invasion will probably go as planned and we should be able to defeat HC easily. Should we research Currency after DR?
 

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Building research should be a last resort. You should be working the vacant lake tile instead of the plains hill mine. You will end up with two commerce (whether or not this becomes two beakers or not is irrelevant) equal to the two beakers it would produce. Plus you will get two food, helping you grow at the same time.
 
What are your plans for next prophet? How soon will they appear? Would it be an option to use prophet to finish DR and research something else or would this be totally naff?
 
much2much said:
Building research should be a last resort. You should be working the vacant lake tile instead of the plains hill mine. You will end up with two commerce (whether or not this becomes two beakers or not is irrelevant) equal to the two beakers it would produce. Plus you will get two food, helping you grow at the same time.

I think our situation qualified for the last resort. We needed war and we needed to tech up. Quickly.

pigswill said:
What are your plans for next prophet? How soon will they appear? Would it be an option to use prophet to finish DR and research something else or would this be totally naff?

I don't think the next prophet will appear soon enough. I'm planning to build the Mahabodhi with him. After that, I think we don't really have to get prophets.
 
I made an error that I can't stop regretting since I realised it today. There was a period of about 10 turns when we could've switched to Theocracy to get +2 xps for our catapults and a few other units and save a little on upkeep (which could mean cutting research time by 1 or 2 turns). Since most of cities were building troops, OR was clearly not the ideal religious civic to be running. Unfortunately, I didn't think of making the switch. That's what you get for playing when you're sleepy... :ack:

Now the window of opportunity has closed as Thebes needs the help of OR to finish Sankore quickly and move on to the Spiral Minaret (Buddhist missionary coming up. One had failed earlier). Well, I've broken the first commandment* of a Spiritual leader. I guess we should figure the trait more in our plans and discussion to help me not make the same rookie mistake again. Sorry about that :blush:

*'Thou shalt switch civics whenever necessary and beneficial.'
 
This thread is fantastic!

Great to see the thought processes behind the strategic decisions you're making. I find myself ambling through games far too much, not being direct and getting the upper hand as soon as possible. This has really helped a lot, and is such an entertaining read to boot. Plaudits.
 
much2much said:
Building research should be a last resort. You should be working the vacant lake tile instead of the plains hill mine. You will end up with two commerce (whether or not this becomes two beakers or not is irrelevant) equal to the two beakers it would produce. Plus you will get two food, helping you grow at the same time.
The conversion rate hammers-to-beakers is 100%, and with the bureaucracy it's 150%. Thats 6 beakers for the mined hill, or with his research rate at that moment of 40%, about 5 beakers more then the lake, the equivalent of a whole secondary city as the situation is now. It does safe 2 to 3 turns of research at least compared to not building research in Thebe. The big reason I believe is that with the GP strategy, few tiles have been worked, which makes reasearch very slow in this non-scientist specialist economy.

I believe building resarch in Thebe was certainly worth it.

Jaca
 
Forgive me if I'm repeating advice you've already been given, but if you've decided on Madrid to be an all-:commerce: city then I'd start working on Barcelona as your eventual IronWorks city.

I also think 25 turns is way too long to be researching a tech right now... it might be better to work on getting Machinery so you can start on the Watermills for Barcelona, or at least start for Guilds to make the Workshops more productive. Unless all this stuff is also going to be 25 turns :cry:. In which case, you should be researching cheap techs that can give you some benefit while you work on getting that beaker output up. It's nice to be trying to plan on Spiral Minaret but not so handy if you have to use all its benefit just cleaning up the fix you're in trying to get it.

With running extra priests in your GPP city, you will find it worthwhle to run (n + 1) at starvation as long as you can provided that you can run (n) priests with a food surplus. Since you're stagnant with the current arrangement this may not be possible, but you would still get your next GP out faster if you use up your stored food on another priest for as long as you can.
 
Eqqman said:
I also think 25 turns is way too long to be researching a tech right now... it might be better to work on getting Machinery so you can start on the Watermills for Barcelona, or at least start for Guilds to make the Workshops more productive. Unless all this stuff is also going to be 25 turns :cry:. In which case, you should be researching cheap techs that can give you some benefit while you work on getting that beaker output up. It's nice to be trying to plan on Spiral Minaret but not so handy if you have to use all its benefit just cleaning up the fix you're in trying to get it.

25 or so turns is about the time we need to complete Sankore. So it's one wonder after the other, the combination of which should (in the theory embraced by this game) give us enough of an edge to win. If we have to catch up the way we did in the Mansa game (and I don't think it's that extreme this time), we would be in a better position to do so and we would have at least gotten into a position to demonstrate the merits (or lack thereof) of our main strategy. That, I think it's the most important issue in this game. It's not that I'm not keen on winning. I'm not keen on abandoning the purpose of the game.

If we stop going for DR now, we have to depend on the appearance of the next prophet to get DR, which will take longer than 25 turns even with all 7 priests, a prophet that can be better used (without any wastage) on the Buddhist shrine. Delaying research on DR would probably mean abandoning the Spiral Minaret altogether. Again, I have to say that I'd rather fail than defeat the purpose of the game. And if we succeed, not only would we have the help of the two wonders, we would also have the Mahabodhi (since we didn't sacrifice the prophet for DR) to give us a further boost, all of which should compensate for the time spent researching DR in the long run. Not to mention the possibility of building the Versailles as well.

Controversial? We won't learn as much if we only aim to win all the time.

EDIT: Just for comparison, the cheapest techs to research now are Literature (9 turns), Drama (13 turns), Calendar (14 turns), Currency (17 turns) and Compass (17 turns). Besides Currency, which takes almost the same number of turns to research as the rest of DR (23 turns), and Calendar none of these techs are immediately game-changing. You can argue for Calendar, that's true, but 14 turns of delay will most certainly cost us the Spiral Minaret.
 
HectorSpector said:
This thread is fantastic!

Great to see the thought processes behind the strategic decisions you're making. I find myself ambling through games far too much, not being direct and getting the upper hand as soon as possible. This has really helped a lot, and is such an entertaining read to boot. Plaudits.

Thanks! I'm not immune to ambling through games either, but the Emperor Challenge threads are meant to help improve our gameplay, as well as explore possible strategies. It's great to see that people have learnt much and enjoyed the games.
 
aelf said:
It's not that I'm not keen on winning. I'm not keen on abandoning the purpose of the game.
...
Again, I have to say that I'd rather fail than defeat the purpose of the game.
...
Controversial? We won't learn as much if we only aim to win all the time.
Good spirit, aelf! :goodjob:

Jaca
 
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