The Emperor Masters' Challenge 2 (on Warlords)
- Thread starter aelf
- Start date
aelf
Ashen One
yavoon said:
Continuing from a situation where people have remarked that the game was toast, catching up and orchestrating a diplomatic win from an era behind was not new or daring enough?
Choosing to walk the religious path on Emperor is not daring enough? And Warlords was released recently so the concept of Sankore-Spiral Minaret synergy is still new.
Do suggest what you'd like to see in a game.
aelf said:
I admit I haven't seen them all, but most of what I've seen is epic/marathon, contintents/fractal, domination/space race.
I dont know what "walk the religious path" means exactly but it sounds like it takes a leap of faith!
and I dont know, there's a thousand settings for games. how about immortal/marathon/archapelago/standard, or large/terra/emperor/normal/raging barbs or standard/no tech trading/emperor/continents/aggressive AI or small/normal/pangea/deity/only cultural victory enabled(pulled this out my ass). I mean some are more out there than others, but there are oodles of options for games.
some of these are hard(maybe someone would lose) and some of these are just unique. but whatever. or how about picking ur opponents and trying to stick in who u think are the hardest ppl to deal w/. this reminds me, which AI's actually build towns in quantity? I know gandhi does, and I think washington does.
or how about even going after a particular start, maybe go up to immortal if ur an emperor player but use a start w/ a gold mine in it. or stay at emperor but use a start w/ a ton of plains, or some other bad mojo.
aelf
Ashen One
yavoon said:
Continents, for example, are considered the 'standard' type of map. If you're focusing on one aspect of the game (eg. ALC on specific leaders, Emperor Challenge on skill at Emperor difficulty), I think it's good to keep the settings as standard as possible to keep the focus there. As it is, I am already stretching the rule by playing at Epic speed (not without being criticized). This partly because of my own habit (hard to calculate based on Normal when you've been doing it on Epic for months) and also because Epic is a good compromise between Normal and Marathon, allowing quite extensive warmongering while not dragging the game out.
I would indeed say that the religious path takes a leap of faith. It has been said many times that on Emperor and above, the path of the pure warmonger is the easiest to take. People are against trying to found religions and building wonders, and are all for seizing them. The argument is that trying to do these sissy things is not being the most efficient and you can get the benefits anyway by manfully conquering enemies that have done them for you. However, capturing wonders and holy cities are subject to what's available nearby, and you can't really plan on leveraging the advantages they give you unless your neighbour has them in the early game. In this game, I am presenting us with the challenge of planning for this since the beginning, without relying on which AI has what. It's not the easiest path to take and will require some skill to pull off. I'm sure it will be interesting.
About victory conditions, I'm a believer of aiming for whatever is most practical. I wouldn't wait for a space victory if I could get a diplomatic one. I wouldn't bother with conquest if domination can come earlier. The only exception is to choose to focus on cultural (which I've never done before) when space victory is also possible in the future because that requires you to deviate from the other path, and the victory date will probably be about the same anyway. The first Emperor challenge was won by diplomacy. Surely that is not very common among the online game threads here.
Jet said:
That happened to me once when I was playing a hotseat game. I blithely forgot that I hadn't finished the CS slingshot by grabbing CoL with the Oracle and went to trade for Masonry among several techs
The consolation was I could use the prophet to grab Theology and found Christianity too.aelf said:
I think thats the completely opposite attitude of what should be taken. thats my main complaint, everything is standard. even emperor to me, atleast is standard. I think it can be agreed that a large amount of good players play mostly emperor and maybe some monarch. and the real dropoff happens going to immortal. so really all these games end up looking far too similar. I mean i confess I play mostly normalish games, but it doesn't mean i want to follow normal games! I want to follow archapelago games, or no tech trading, or some other inventive combo.
as for normal/epic/marathon. I just think of them as a finer control on difficulty. normal/monarch and marathon/emperor to me are almost identical in difficulty(as long as u've played enough emperor to understand it). and while I dislike marathon, epic is fine.
anyway, perhaps in the future games will be more adventurous, and hell I might see someone lose!
PeteJ
Warlord
yavoon said:
I'd say the Aelf's games are the most "new and daring" games out of anybody's. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how this one plays out.
PeteJ
Warlord
yavoon said:well that is a plus!
Nothing personal. I'm just saying that if any thread is deserving of that post it is mine... http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=181603. My game ended up having the same settings as JesusOnEez's game. This one will certainly be a new experience(assuming he sticks to his plan).
Edit: And sorry for advertising my thread on your thread Aelf... It was a cheap move on my part.
stuge
Emperor
For aelf: Just settle in place and forgo about an early religion. Research AH first. If you're lucky there are horses near the capital. If not, grab them with your second city, which will hopefully be useful for something else too.
Then pump out 4-6 WC's and use them either for protecting your expansion or hosing an nearby opponent. With a good mix of promotions you can even capture a 40% capital.
The new obelisk is a real blessing for CS slingshot and the six-food tile goes well with that. I think that you have a reasonable chance of pulling that one off. Just don't delay it. The AI usually gets it somewhere between 1500 BC and 1000 BC so think of 2000 BC as a deadline.
In general: Bless this thread for reminding me nto to research masonry with CSSS. (Can I trademark this?) I had marble near my capital in a recent monarch game and thought: "Superb. Time for some CSSS goodness, baby! Oh yeah! Or something. And then were very perplexed when it wouldn't happen.
Then pump out 4-6 WC's and use them either for protecting your expansion or hosing an nearby opponent. With a good mix of promotions you can even capture a 40% capital.
The new obelisk is a real blessing for CS slingshot and the six-food tile goes well with that. I think that you have a reasonable chance of pulling that one off. Just don't delay it. The AI usually gets it somewhere between 1500 BC and 1000 BC so think of 2000 BC as a deadline.
In general: Bless this thread for reminding me nto to research masonry with CSSS. (Can I trademark this?) I had marble near my capital in a recent monarch game and thought: "Superb. Time for some CSSS goodness, baby! Oh yeah! Or something. And then were very perplexed when it wouldn't happen.
Gnarfflinger
Wiseguy in Training
First off: Sankore and Spiral Minaret are awesome together. put those two to work with a specialist ecomomy and your Science will roll along and your treasury grow large with reserve funds...
aelf
Ashen One
I think there's a general opinion that we should go for AH first instead of attempting in vain to found Hinduism. I'm convinced. Hinduism is not necessary anyway, and getting it might be counter-productive in a few ways. Depriving the AIs of an early religion to found might encourage monolithic religious blocs on this continent or, worse, the other. I don't want a repeat of the situation in the first Emperor Challenge 
Also, pursuing the religious techs so early may not be beneficial for us economically.
So it's going to be AH first. We could go Mining and BW after that since our first worker would have the corn to farm anyway. Maybe we could get a settler out by half chopping and half normal production before starting on the Oracle. I tried this out in a game as Qin before this and found that it's technically possible.
Why a specialist economy? The two wonders work with buildings, not with specialists. We can have a cottage economy and still gain their full benefits. In fact, I'm more inclined towards this as we're not Philosophical and not aiming for Pyramids, the two elements that have been established as the true backbone of the specialist economy.
Speaking about economics, I read Sisiutil's comments about Egypt not having an economic trait again. You're not entirely correct, dude. We are Spiritual, and that means we can adjust our economy to fit our needs. Need to fight? Switch to a war economy with the war civics. Want to benefit fully from towns? Switch to a liberal economy with US, Emancipation (to grow more towns) and Free Speech. Need more hammers for infrastructure? Switch to OR. I would consider Spiritual at least half an economic trait
Anyway, I shall play the first round now. It will be short. I will stop after researching AH. We will settle in place and start on a warrior to let the city grow to size 2, after which we'll focus on finishing the warrior in as few turns as possible and then start on a worker.
Also, pursuing the religious techs so early may not be beneficial for us economically.So it's going to be AH first. We could go Mining and BW after that since our first worker would have the corn to farm anyway. Maybe we could get a settler out by half chopping and half normal production before starting on the Oracle. I tried this out in a game as Qin before this and found that it's technically possible.
Gnarfflinger said:
Why a specialist economy? The two wonders work with buildings, not with specialists. We can have a cottage economy and still gain their full benefits. In fact, I'm more inclined towards this as we're not Philosophical and not aiming for Pyramids, the two elements that have been established as the true backbone of the specialist economy.
Speaking about economics, I read Sisiutil's comments about Egypt not having an economic trait again. You're not entirely correct, dude. We are Spiritual, and that means we can adjust our economy to fit our needs. Need to fight? Switch to a war economy with the war civics. Want to benefit fully from towns? Switch to a liberal economy with US, Emancipation (to grow more towns) and Free Speech. Need more hammers for infrastructure? Switch to OR. I would consider Spiritual at least half an economic trait
Anyway, I shall play the first round now. It will be short. I will stop after researching AH. We will settle in place and start on a warrior to let the city grow to size 2, after which we'll focus on finishing the warrior in as few turns as possible and then start on a worker.
Gnarfflinger
Wiseguy in Training
The reasoning behind the Specialist economy is that with Egypt, you're likely to have some early wars, and will likely not make too many friends. Enemies won't get as much for pillaging farms as they will from pillaging towns. You can manage the increased expenses of war without seeing your science go down the drain...
aelf
Ashen One
Round 1: 4000BC - 3430BC
In the beginning, when man had begun to walk upon the earth, there arose a tribe people on the shores of Lake Thebes who called themselves the Egyptians. Armed with the knowledge of agriculture and the wheel, they settled on a hill overlooking the lake and began the journey to build a civilization to stand the test of time.
We settled on the spot and worked the unimproved corn tile for quick growth.
We will work the tile until the city grows to size 2, at which point we'll maximise production to complete the warrior as quickly as possible and then start on a worker.
Our initial warrior began exploring towards the SE, then skirted the sea and went north as the south is clearly thick with jungle. We want to look for a potential second-city site.
Our first neighbour appeared shortly:
That's quite fast. He should be somewhere near. And his scout was heading in the 'right' direction. He's going to beat us to a hut that we saw first
Bad precedent there. We might end up not getting any huts. It's times like this I wish I had a scout to begin with.
Anyway, our explorer went on to explore the north further as our second warrior was about to be completed (see screenshot below) and there won't be any huts to the west where Huayna came from anyway.
As the screen shows, we hit size 2 and I switched the tiles the city was working on. We want the second warrior out fast so we can get started on the worker (a few turns make a big difference early in the game). The governor preferred to grow, assigning the new population to work a 2F1H forest and keeping the original on the corn. At first I thought of changing that to a 2F1H forest and a 3H plains hill forest, but I noticed that working the plains forest silk tile gives 1G in addition to 1F2H. Working that and the plains marble tile gave us the same 2F (to maintain pop) and 4H but with a 1G bonus, which cut the time to research AH by 1 turn. Looked good to me.
After the warrior was built, I sent him to explore west, and let the governor calculate the fastest way to build the worker:
No problem at all there. I let it stand.
Our new warrior encountered animals almost immediately. He got attacked by a lion when he was in a jungle, and then by a panther as he stood on a forest hill on the next turn (the panther had to attack across the river as well, putting itself against the worst possible terrain defensive bonuses).
The stalwart clubman earned himself a Woodsman promotion and went on exploring. The terrain is rough and forested/jungled enough to keep him safe without having to heal for now.
This is about the point at which I stopped. We have researched AH, and look what it revealed:
Glad we didn't move away. What's next? I'm thinking Mining and BW before we head straight for Priesthood so that we can chop a settler and the Oracle.
A map of the known world:
There's a good potential city site in the northern peninsula. It reminds me of Kumbi Saleh from the previous game. I've marked it out:
There's a site with 3 sugars, 1 silk and 1 pigs to the west, but that area is jungled and hasn't been fully revealed yet.
Any thoughts or advice?
In the beginning, when man had begun to walk upon the earth, there arose a tribe people on the shores of Lake Thebes who called themselves the Egyptians. Armed with the knowledge of agriculture and the wheel, they settled on a hill overlooking the lake and began the journey to build a civilization to stand the test of time.
We settled on the spot and worked the unimproved corn tile for quick growth.
We will work the tile until the city grows to size 2, at which point we'll maximise production to complete the warrior as quickly as possible and then start on a worker.
Our initial warrior began exploring towards the SE, then skirted the sea and went north as the south is clearly thick with jungle. We want to look for a potential second-city site.
Our first neighbour appeared shortly:
That's quite fast. He should be somewhere near. And his scout was heading in the 'right' direction. He's going to beat us to a hut that we saw first
Bad precedent there. We might end up not getting any huts. It's times like this I wish I had a scout to begin with.
Anyway, our explorer went on to explore the north further as our second warrior was about to be completed (see screenshot below) and there won't be any huts to the west where Huayna came from anyway.
As the screen shows, we hit size 2 and I switched the tiles the city was working on. We want the second warrior out fast so we can get started on the worker (a few turns make a big difference early in the game). The governor preferred to grow, assigning the new population to work a 2F1H forest and keeping the original on the corn. At first I thought of changing that to a 2F1H forest and a 3H plains hill forest, but I noticed that working the plains forest silk tile gives 1G in addition to 1F2H. Working that and the plains marble tile gave us the same 2F (to maintain pop) and 4H but with a 1G bonus, which cut the time to research AH by 1 turn. Looked good to me.
After the warrior was built, I sent him to explore west, and let the governor calculate the fastest way to build the worker:
No problem at all there. I let it stand.
Our new warrior encountered animals almost immediately. He got attacked by a lion when he was in a jungle, and then by a panther as he stood on a forest hill on the next turn (the panther had to attack across the river as well, putting itself against the worst possible terrain defensive bonuses
).The stalwart clubman earned himself a Woodsman promotion and went on exploring. The terrain is rough and forested/jungled enough to keep him safe without having to heal for now.
This is about the point at which I stopped. We have researched AH, and look what it revealed:
Glad we didn't move away. What's next? I'm thinking Mining and BW before we head straight for Priesthood so that we can chop a settler and the Oracle.A map of the known world:
There's a good potential city site in the northern peninsula. It reminds me of Kumbi Saleh from the previous game. I've marked it out:
There's a site with 3 sugars, 1 silk and 1 pigs to the west, but that area is jungled and hasn't been fully revealed yet.
Any thoughts or advice?
aelf
Ashen One
Gnarfflinger said:
That wouldn't be much of a problem if we can protect our land well. Anyway, we have War Chariots, so that wouldn't be much of a problem in the early game. By the time the enemy has a considerable pillaging force that we can't beat effectively with WCs, our core cities should either be well protected or away from the frontline.
pigswill
fly (one day)
Few thoughts:-
Expand west to stop yourself getting hemmed in and also you can chop/whip the oracle with pigs and forests. Make sheep/seafood third city.
Chariots are a better bet than archers if HC gets frisky.
Bronze-working before religious techs.
Go for cottage-based economy; Oracle/CoL;Prophet/CS gives you early bureaucracy giving you cottage based capital.
Expand west to stop yourself getting hemmed in and also you can chop/whip the oracle with pigs and forests. Make sheep/seafood third city.
Chariots are a better bet than archers if HC gets frisky.
Bronze-working before religious techs.
Go for cottage-based economy; Oracle/CoL;Prophet/CS gives you early bureaucracy giving you cottage based capital.
Zherak_Khan
Warlord
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2006
- Messages
- 166
The peninsula-spot is actually great. It can be anything from:
Decent early-mid-game GPF, running at 2+4+3+2 surplus food, allowing 4 specialists at size 7.
Decent all-round city, with the food and some plains/grassland cottages.
Decent early-mid-game production centre, with mines at the hills, the forest and an engineer.
Also, I think Hyuana might just be the best Warlords leader. There's something about all the unique stuff being useful, and something about using financial trait to upgrade free-combat Quecha's, something about half a creative trait (Terraces), to mention a good shot at early-religion and/or wonders that makes him easy to play and good at winning.
Decent early-mid-game GPF, running at 2+4+3+2 surplus food, allowing 4 specialists at size 7.
Decent all-round city, with the food and some plains/grassland cottages.
Decent early-mid-game production centre, with mines at the hills, the forest and an engineer.
Also, I think Hyuana might just be the best Warlords leader. There's something about all the unique stuff being useful, and something about using financial trait to upgrade free-combat Quecha's, something about half a creative trait (Terraces), to mention a good shot at early-religion and/or wonders that makes him easy to play and good at winning.
I agree. Hyuana gets me nervous and annoyed and now he's (again) the first civ we see...Zherak_Khan said:
I'm a regular Monarch player (and more of a "builder" type), so I can't say what my advice or thoughts are worth here, but my first impression that we have immediately met one of the potentially strongest civs, the Inca, starting with Mysticism and being Financial and Industrious. . Here's what I think:
0) Explore a bit further up north and north west. Also try to see what strategic resources the Incas may have (Marble, Bronze)
1) Huayna Capac has a decent chance, thanks to the Finanical trait of either founding Buddhism or Hinduism;
2) Huayna Capac may be our biggest competitor in getting the Oracle (starts with Mysticism, has usually good research and is Industrial);
3) While researching Mining and Bronze Working, the next thing we do, we probably know whether or not the Incas have found the early religion. If so, and since we have horses nearby, and a decent all round capital city an option may be to go for the Chariot rush to take Huayna out and its holy city, which would give you the early religion you would be after.
4) I was not sure if we had to rush for the Oracle without getting Masonry before Priesthood, in view of the Marble... And Priesthood still is a very good tech, if we get beaten to the Oracle but would be able to take out Huayna.
Problems I see however: early research! We don't have Gold, Silver, nor any rivers that can help us getting income we can spend to science. From that perspective a river city on the west looks preferable, especially with the forests there. For a Chariot rush this may be very helpful (and it's closer to the Inca). I prefer this as a second city now, if we go for a very early war. Site A would be athird city (possibly building a Marble wonder at some moment in time).
At any rate, it's a bit early. Point 0) may reveal more.
Jaca
