The Emperor Masters' Challenge 4 (Warlords v.208)

aelf said:

I finished playing the next round. Some interesting decisions and developments. I'll do my best to post the update tomorrow.

One thing I can say is we are not abandoning our commitment to peace. Heh, doesn't that sound like a foreign policy speech?

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Scarily, disturbingly, yes. If CounterStrike, Quake, America's Army, etc. are training us in the arts of military tactics, what exactly is Civ training us for? Maybe for the CIA - we're being trained to take over as dictators of whichever republic happens to need a little "coaxing" to see the light.

Civ4 - The Ender's Game of Regime Change.

aelf said:

After Slavic separatism is defeated and the remaining major Russian cities brought under the control of the Goryeo-Romanov dynasty, we will fight no more wars except in defense of our homeland (exact area to be defined in the terms of the final treaty with Russia). What is a country if it does not follow the cultural traditions and customs laid down by its forefathers? Confucius - err, I mean Lao Tzu - would certainly have disapproved of such an audacity.

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Heh. Sounds like a good plan. And I agree with Sisiutil - keep burning the infidels at the stake until you're powered up enough to keep the Napster from trying to download your turf. Looking forward to the update!

Aelf, while the rest of your update might improve the advice; my take so far:

Situation

Military: The war is simply no good, it's past 1000 AD, Peter may opt to peacefully become Saladin's vassal at any moment now, dragging us into a war we are not prepared for; Russian cities may flip, Russian cities will have unhappiness penalty, etc. Our power rating will spell trouble with demands and possibly sneak attacks by HC, Nappy, even Ramsy. Finally, it seems to me, we cannot produce units fast if we need to (no Heroic Epic industry city).

Foreign: At home Nappy can't be trusted, while count on tenacious Sala to survive and thrive. Abroad, they've got peaceful past, 5 holy cities, open borders and Liberalism. It's only a matter of time before they go FR and improve attitudes/start trading techs. Besides, Ramsy is not to be underestimated, jungles bogged his start down, but his territory is superior to his neighbors' ones, at least in terms of AI late development (the patch indeed makes it better).

Economy: Nappy will run mercantilism, Sala probably too. The others already do. We have new cities, so maintenance and civics go up, while, I guess, we don't have many courthouses, and no FP either.

Win: unofficially shooting for a space race, are we? This will take outteching and outproducing 5 similar sized Emperor level 2.08 AIs. Teching we do fine, but where are our industrial centers?


Course of action

I take it we have iron and Heroic Epic hasn't been built. If so:

End the war the instant cultural pressure from remaining Russian cities is not a danger. Develop culture in the conquered cities - shouldn't be too much of a problem with free speech.

Choose the best inland city (lots of food) for a major production center, build Heroic Epic there (Use GG for requirement if by chance you haven't got lvl 4 yet). Send enough workers to run the city production at optimum (switch to irrigations for bursts of growth, etc). Dozer towns, if any - you want maximum production there. Moreover, one of the biggest changes in 2.08 is the power of converted production. An Iron Works/powered factory city yields 3 beakers per city window hammer. Not as good as financial towns, but decent, and far far more flexible/useful for units, wonders and spaceship.

Chemistry - Scientific Method - Communism - Steel

Drafting Riflemen is tempting, however if war breaks out drafted rifles won't stop Nappy and Co from pillaging. I suggest we go for a more flexible military. Research Chemistry for Grenadiers and +3 hammer workshops for the HE city, then Scientific Method and Communism. Switch to State Property. SM will kill our precious GL, but the state property maintenance/civics reduction alone will be worth the GL beakers+free market routes.

Trade for Replaceable Parts. Anyone on the other continent not running Organized Religion should get SM at a reasonable price - kill their monasteries to slow Free Religion adoption/effects. Have we got stone? With stone, Kremlin is an easy pick and will pay off in the long run.

Research Steel for Iron Works in the HE city (if you luck out a GE pop Iron Works, not a wonder). Post IWs, producing enough cannons to complement our Grenadiers shouldn't be a problem.

What next? Depends on the situation. Demo/coal/RR perhaps, but ultimately we will have the road paved for Artillery, if it turns out we need some serious warring, and an early Rocketry.

Round 7: 1280AD - 1525AD

We began this round by switching to Free Market and OR:



Since Buddhism had spread to quite a few of our cities, the effects of OR would be significant enough. Free Speech, on the other hand, would not have such a great impact as there were only a few towns around. I did consider the potential benefits of +100% culture, but I decided that it could wait. Getting more buildings up was more important at the moment.

I decided to research Replacable Parts next. I couldn't convince myself that Chemistry was needed now. The former, at least, gave the tangible benefit of being able to start laying some lumbermills down. And I think riflemen (since we would presumably research Rifling next) could do the grenadiers' job better.

Anyway, as predicted, we captured Yaroslavl on the following turn:



Fortunately we had trebuchets in reserve, so our battered and diminished army had adequate reinforcements to count on when marching on the next Russian city.

Our GG was used to build a military academy, as recommended:



This was the first time I've ever used a GG this way. Now that a military academy has half the effect of the Heroic Epic, it's much more worthwhile to build. And we might need to pump troops out quickly in the future. Wonsan was chosen as the site because it had relatively high production and low commerce, making it the ideal military city.

Then our next GS was born:



He could lightbulb Scientific Method. Well, not now, though. We want to benefit from the Great Library as much as possible, don't we?

Suddenly, Gandhi had Replacable Parts and was willing to trade it. This took me by surprise, since I expected him to prioritise Constitution -> Democracy. Well, since he had the tech we wanted and since I wanted to encourage him to switch out of Mercantilism, I decided to make this trade:



Not a very good trade, but it's practical. At the very least, we got some money to help us research the next tech as quickly as possible.

On that note, I also made a trade with Nappy:



More money to burned on scientific research, which happened to be on Chemistry next. Why the change of mind? Since Gandhi researched Replacable Parts instead of Constitution, I figured he was going for Rifling next and we should be able to trade for it soon. On hindsight, the decision to research Replacable Parts might be wrong. But I didn't know that the friendliest civ in this game would favour a military tech over an economic one.

On the next turn or so, Saladin came to us with a demand:



I refused, of course. We couldn't risk displeasing Nappy. Saladin, meanwhile, dropped to from' pleased' to 'cautious'. But I think the shared religion bonus was still accumulating, so relations should improve again soon.

Then we founded our silver city, which could share the wheat farm and the cow pasture:



Silver has a high commerce yield and would give our cities a much needed happiness boost, so I thought it was worth our while to settle this city.

HC was the next one to make a demand:



I refused. Give an expensive tech away to an unfriendly civ? No way.

And the next Russian city fell:



Novgorod was not as well-defended as Yaroslavl, but we still lost a few siege units while attacking the city. And we lost another unit on the next turn, after Peter counter attacked immediately with a catapult and a trebuchet, which killed our elephant. He recaptured the city and put a longbow there to defend it, but our one of our elephants killed it immediately. Another elephant died at good odds while attacking a trebuchet What's with the frequent loss at good odds in this game? Still, we managed to retake the city, and this time there was no enemy force waiting to ambush us.

Here ends the first part of the update. The second part will be posted later, if I have the time. Otherwise, it will be posted tomorrow.

[to be continued in the next post...]

aelf said:

Round 7: 1280AD - 1525AD


Novgorod was not as well-defended as Yaroslavl, but we still lost a few siege units while attacking the city. And we lost another unit on the next turn, after Peter counter attacked immediately with a catapult and a trebuchet, which killed our elephant. He recaptured the city and put a longbow there to defend it, but our one of our elephants killed it immediately. Another elephant died at good odds while attacking a trebuchet What's with the frequent loss at good odds in this game? Still, we managed to retake the city, and this time there was no enemy force waiting to ambush us.

Here ends the first part of the update. The second part will be posted later, if I have the time. Otherwise, it will be posted tomorrow.

[to be continued in the next post...]

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Heh. Was there anything left in Novgorod after all that fighting? IIRC the "building survival" check is made after each capture, so that's 3 dice rolls in a row to have to survive. Yeesh.

Time is not on my side today I shall post the update after midnight tonight.

[continued from previous post]

After discovering Chemistry, our scientists began researching Constitution, putting different laws into separate test tubes for the purpose of experiment. No, wait - that can't be happening because we haven't discovered Scientific Method Anyway, this decision was motivated by the desire to research Democracy and adopt the CE-friendly civic of Emancipation soon. Also, adopting Representation would keep Nappy friendly with us, even if we decide to switch to Free Religion in the near future (which would mean a break with Saladin).

Soon, our rather backward friend had Rifling too. I can already see how much better the new AI is at teching up. I decided to get it from him:



That also counts as part of our drive to get as many people to adopt Free Market as possible.

Gandhi, as you might expect, had raced ahead in the meantime. We only had Chemistry on him. I checked whether we could get anything from him for it:



Not a great deal, but I thought it was better than nothing. This way, we would also help Gandhi in case our enemy HC decides he could be master of the other continent. The gold we get would be useful for teching up as well.

With the advent of Constitution, it was time to make another round of civics change:



Since we had few garrison units (and didn't really need more), we would actually benefit more from Representation's happiness boost in our bigger cities. The extra research from specialists is just icing on the cake. And, yes, we switched to Nationhood, not Free Speech. Why? We still didn't have many towns so Free Speech wouldn't have that great an impact. And Nationhood would allow us to draft riflemen in our bigger cities to give our military strength a boost. Although these cities were near or at their happiness limits, with the +2 happiness from barracks, they could actually draft right away without immediately becoming unhappy.

After a round of drafting, we put our New Model Army to use against the Slavic separatists:



Our lousy luck still held, with the loss of one rifleman at good odds But the attack was generally an overwhelming success:



Besides capturing the city, this attack also served as baptism of fire for our draftees in an effort to create a more professional standing army.

A few turns later, with the discovery of Democracy, I stopped playing. We can adopt Emancipation and Free Speech now. However, I'd wait till we raze the last Russian city on the continent and sign a peace treaty, since mounting WW would drive our cities into unhappiness if we switch out of Nationhood now (adopting Emancipation would only decrease unhappiness by one, not enough to compensate for the loss of +2 happiness from barracks in some cities). Or should we not bother with that worthless Russian city? Does a city on another landmass exert a "motherland" influence on the former Russian cities? If so, there's really no point going after Yayoi. Its razing would give us no tangible benefit anyway.

The tech situation:



We have the same techs on HC and Napoleon, only Democracy on Ramesses and nothing on Gandhi.

We could trade with Napoleon for Scientific Method:



I think it's quite a sweet deal. It would also keep Napoleon happy in two ways: shared civics and good trading relations. The downside is losing the Great Library immediately.

The power graph:



Even with a round of drafting in our bigger cities, our power rating has not improved by much. I wonder what the AIs have that make them so 'powerful'.

The map of our continent:



Yayoi is the last Russian city on our landmass and Vladivostok is the annoying offshore Russian city that we have no capability to reach right now.

The map of the other continent:



Saladin has the largest empire, followed by us. However, I suspect HC would remain strong in terms of research thanks for his Financial trait.

Anyway, now that we're done researching Democracy. What should we research next? Steam power (which most of the AI don't have and don't usually prioritise)? Communism (after trading for Scientific Method) for the Kremlin? Let's discuss our options.

And we need to decide on where to build the Forbidden Palace. Moscow seems to be a good site, but it lacks hammer output.

Your thoughts?

Syndrome Zed said:

Heh. Was there anything left in Novgorod after all that fighting? IIRC the "building survival" check is made after each capture, so that's 3 dice rolls in a row to have to survive. Yeesh.

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IIRC, it didn't lose any more buildings. I read somewhere that the amount of gold plundered is related to the number of surviving buildings (the more gold you get, the fewer buildings survive). Since we only got 3 gold of plunder when we retook the city, I think no more buildings were destroyed.

First off, nice job getting Napoleon to "Friendly" status. You will need to further delay Free Religion to keep him there, methinks.

Despite the war with Napoleon (I assume they're both still at war?), Saladin hasn't really slowed down as you wanted, has he? In fact, with Steel over you, he's potentially dangerous. I myself would be desperately teching towards Steel right now, pumping out Cannons, and then joining Napoleon in beating down Saladin. But that's me, member in good standing at Warmongers Anonymous.

On the other hand, you have a good-sized empire now. You could settle back, focus on infrastructure, and anticipate outpacing the AI tech-wise in the modern era as humans often do. The AI civs will likely soon begin that perplexing shift from cottages to farms, and you're in a good position to take advantage of that weird habit of theirs.

Adopting Emancipation soon sounds attractive for the boost to cottage growth, which it sounds like you really need, as well as for the penalty to the AI. I myself would NOT trade Democracy to anybody to keep that advantage as long as possible. You might also want to consider building the big copper torch-wielder to help compensate for the upcoming obsolescence of the GL, and to further leverage Representation's benefits. Be warned that the AI seems to prioritize Democracy if someone else switches to Emancipation on them, and then they start building the SoL--so if you go this route, get a head-start on the SoL before the civics change.

Frankly, I'm a little surprised that you went after Democracy rather than Scientific Method--since you're playing a tech game, I would have thought you wanted the free GS from Physics. Any chance of getting SM from Ramesses or Gandhi without giving them Democracy? Then you might still stand a chance of getting to Physics first.

In any case, I think you're reaching crunch time. I feel as though the game will either be won or lost within the next round or two.

No pressure.

I don't remember ever seeing the AI make use of cannons very well, unless you invade them. Does the patch change that?

The free GS from Physics was a lost cause. HC or somebody would have beaten us to it. Indeed, I've seldom ever won the Physics race on Emperor, even before the patch. This seems to be the period where the AI races ahead and you either catch up or stay behind in the Industrial and Modern eras.

I think SoL is a lost cause as well. We are not Industrious and Gandhi got to Democracy several turns before us (he's not Industrious, but neither is Saladin, and look at what that guy did). We also do not have such a great production centre (although, in response to Unconquered Sun - welcome to Civfanatics! - I must say that a few of our cities have the potential to develop into those) in which to build such an expensive wonder. Kremlin, though, is a possibility. AFAIK not many civs prioritise Communism, and the few that do may not have stone. We do

Anyway, the lull in forum activity seems to signal the coming of the holidays. Just as well, since RL would demand much of my time this coming week. Whenever I have the time, I'll be focusing on the UU guide. I think this EMC will hibernate till after New Year's day. Happy holidays!

Happy holidays Aelf.

In the new year, I'd go for communism and Kremlin.

i'd go for steel for IW.
This baby takes a while to build.

cabert said:

i'd go for steel for IW.
This baby takes a while to build.

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What's the rush? IW can be built any time.

Merry Christmas, folks!

aelf said:

What's the rush? IW can be built any time.

Merry Christmas, folks!

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the sooner the better!
this thing is great to build those late game wonders!

Hi,
Why don't you get Napolean to adopt free market instead of representation, this will give you a few more trade routes as you mentioned earlier that almost all civs we're in mercantilism.

50_dollar_bag said:

Hi,
Why don't you get Napolean to adopt free market instead of representation, this will give you a few more trade routes as you mentioned earlier that almost all civs we're in mercantilism.

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That sounds like a good idea.

I read Unconquered Sun's analysis again. The situation isn't so bad. The war's going well enough. Saladin doesn't like Peter because the latter isn't Buddhist, so there's little chance of vassalization. Nappy is Friendly now so he can be trusted. Anyway, we'd be looking for another opportunity to bribe him into attacking Saladin. Should keep both of them occupied again for a while. The Arab is certainly doing well despite the earlier war, but that's probably because he still has the largest empire in the world. And we do have courthouses in most of our cities. But you reminded me about FP. I guess we should try and build it as soon as possible. With the whip, if necessary.

Well, the amount of activity here has been next to nothing, but because it's the holiday season after all, you guys are forgiven

Let me get the ball rolling again. I've begun playing the next round but have not gotten past a few turns. Any comments/suggestions you guys want to make?

I might have missed something, but have you decided what sort of victory condition you're trying for in this game? I remember it was supposed to be a peaceful victory in the beginning but are you still going to shoot for that? I'm assuming domination is pretty much out with the massive Egyptian empire on the other continent...

aelf said:

Well, the amount of activity here has been next to nothing, but because it's the holiday season after all, you guys are forgiven

Let me get the ball rolling again. I've begun playing the next round but have not gotten past a few turns. Any comments/suggestions you guys want to make?

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Uh, where were we again? And who the heck are you, anyway?

j/k. You should know better than to ask anybody to remember anything on New Year's Day.

I have seen the AI mass cannons, and it's not a pretty sight. Of course, it's usually Monty doing that, and that guy just plain masses EVERYTHING. Saladin? Tough to say. I haven't come up against him since acquiring Warlords and its patch. In your game, he certainly seems more formidable than he was in vanilla, but usually he's been the type to rattle a sabre now and then without ever putting it to use.

With him as one neighbour and Napoleon friendly, you may be set to go after a peaceful victory condition. I'd be going for space race, but I wouldn't put it past you to pull of a diplomatic victory. You seem to excel at those.

Downloaded the save. I'd advise you to

-stop trading resources for money to Saladin - especially good health resources as rice.

-move a worker to Wonsan and optimize production improvements. Also, give Wonsan access to the best squares in its fat cross. This city now has +150% for military production, so use it to the maximum.

Did you keep Yagoi? Or did you raze it?

use politics to keep the peace for yourself and war for everyone else. beeline for spacerace victory. cottage spam with relevant civics. you are protective so get protective units in your invadeable cities. don't neglect your navy controlling the seas can provide a decisive advantage (paraphrase)