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

wow nice to get a bit of support for my strategic thoughts. if you're worried about barbs walking around you have to use them like you do in multiplayer and do a
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and as they move shift them left and right so they cant get past eventually the AI will force an attack so if you have good defensible terrain you set up this wall and if your archer happens to lose the axe will take damage for sure because of first strike and be good prey for the other 2

NaZ

Round 2: 2480BC - 1440BC

First, we had to decide on which techs to pursue next. I decided on The Wheel, Pottery and Writing. This means the Oracle and MC for Colossus are pretty much out of the question now. If we wanted them, we needed to grab Priesthood asap to start on the Oracle, and without early MC, I really doubt our chances of getting the Colossus.

I see that a few of you are in favour of the latter path, so you may be wondering why I didn't take your suggestion. Here's why: We have good land to secure and couldn't afford to be building the Oracle instead of settlers and escort troops. And since we were going to settle a few cities asap, The Wheel was important for strategic reasons. Pottery, the staple tech for a Financial leader would naturally follow. Writing, now made cheap by both AH and Pottery, would be a good choice next so that we can build a library and run a scientist or two. As acidsatyr has shown in his game, GS lightbulbing is very powerful, especially in the early game. And IMO, it trumps the extra 1C from coastal tiles that the Colossus would give us.

Two turns into the round, our settler was completed and I decided to build a warrior in the capital next to appease the people's demand for military protection:



It would also allow the city to grow in the meantime before we began on another settler.

Our westward warrior made an interesting discovery. While he found no food resource near the gold, he saw the boundary of Russian lands 3W from it. Peter is indeed very close to us I decided we had better secure the gold fast, otherwise we might be forced to break with our pledge and axe rush the Russians. We will have to fight wars, there's no denying that, but not yet. So I headed the settler to the best spot under the circumstances:



This spot would grab the gold and give the city plenty of food to work it. I'm also inclined to cottage the rest of the tiles, especially those beside the river, which would make this our premier commerce city (called Pyongyang, ironically ) beside the capital.

I put the hammers we got from a chop to the next settler (who would grab the copper and wheat site) in Seoul, but before completing the rest we would continue with the warrior to allow for growth first:



Meanwhile, Pyongyang was built. Since it had no good tile to work at first, I decided to build a monument there quickly and expand its borders asap:



Our next settler was soon completed and we built our 3rd city:



It would grab the wheat when its border pops. That food resource, together with the fact that the copper is on grassland, should make Wonsan food-sufficient as a production city. We can also irrigate the tiles next to the river to help.

By this time, our exploring warrior to the south had been killed by a barb warrior while moving around in the jungle. And we built two chariots to fight barb archers, one of which escorted the settler of Wonsan. The one guarding the area around Pyongyang died attacking a barb archer at more than 68% odds. The barb archer was taken care of by a warrior immediately after that, but now we needed to build another chariot quickly to guard our lands. And Seoul was building a worker at that time. I decided it was time to start cracking the whip:



I allowed Seoul to grow into unhappiness and then whipped the worker out for 2 pop:



Thanks to the overflow, the chariot took only 1 turn to complete after that.

Pyongyang's borders expanded and we began farming the rice with our first worker, who will go on to connect Wonsan to our empire and mine the copper. The second worker is heading towards the gold to mine and road it.

With our infrastructure started on, our lands secured from pillaging barbs and Writing discovered, the round came to its end. What do you think we should research next? If we want to lightbulb Philosophy soon (maybe necessary with the better AI) or build the Great Library, we would research Alphabet. Currently, it says 36 turns to complete, but when the gold comes online that number should be cut down significantly. Or should we go for Maths, which would put us one step closer to Construction and increase the effectiveness of chopping?

Here are some maps. The northern part of the known world:



One of our chariots spotted stone west of Wonsan (another reason to build the Angkor Wat? ). It would be easy to grab/capture in the future.

The southern part:



Nothing really new there, since our exploring warrior was unfortunate enough to die despite the apparent odds (it seems we've been having bad luck with the barbs).

A few more potential city sites that I could spot on the map:



Site A would grab the crabs and cows and get fresh water bonus from the river as well as being coastal. The green question mark is a possible site for a city to grab the silver if there's no deer in the tundra to the west/NW, in which case it would be good to share the cows/wheat.



Site B on the dye, as recommended by many, would be coastal and would grab the fish and elephants, but have some overlap with the capital. The orange question mark is an awesome site that is next to a river and grabs 6 resources, including copper, but I'm wondering whether we should divide the resources between two cities.

Any thoughts?

Why is the first screenshot of the post displayed as a link???!! I can't fix it!

EDIT: Nevermind. Fixed. And I didn't even change anything. Weird momentary problem.

A and B seem like great sites, but the question mark spot seems like it's too far out to really begin considering. If you decide to stay peaceful (and this seems like a pretty good map to stay peaceful) then iron working should be fairly soon to begin cottaging the jungle when you colonize it. First finish writing, and perhaps something else before IW, too.

Phrederick said:

A and B seem like great sites, but the question mark spot seems like it's too far out to really begin considering. If you decide to stay peaceful (and this seems like a pretty good map to stay peaceful) then iron working should be fairly soon to begin cottaging the jungle when you colonize it. First finish writing, and perhaps something else before IW, too.

Click to expand...

Agreed. Don't forget to chop the forest on A before settling there.

You'll also want about 3 more workers before settling the ? city on the bananas (depending on what lies to the south, you could move it one tile north and have another city below it to grab the copper silks and gold) as clearcutting all that jungle will take a long time and you'll have a lot of cottages to build.

In terms of tech, it's probably worth going for alphabet as soon as writing's in and then using it to backfill. The AI researches it much earlier now, so they're likely to have it by 500-600BC at a rough estimate. Hopefully one of them will give you IW for it, saving the need to research that manually. You should then be able to lightbulb philosophy for the next round of backfilling, keeping you right up there in the early tech race while your cottages mature.

Yes, A and B both looks really good. Don't worry about the overlap, it's only two tiles and wont really matter. The question mark looks jungle heavy and should wait until you've got IW. If an AI settles there in the meantime no worries, they'll just get a big maintenance sink. And we're planning for a war later anyway.

I was hoping to see Saldin closest, his holy city would have been a neat addon. Peter is usually friendly and a big pushover, so he would have made a great trade partner. Now he might be our first victim.

Don't settle on the Bananas Your wasting Precious Food Resources, That City Site with the Banana/Rice/sugar Would make a Great GP Farm Post Calander, but in this case it would make a great Angkor Wat Priest Production City in the Medium Term. If you can Research Drama, and Lightbulb Philosophy after settling a in that location there should be a good chance you'll Found the Holy City of Toaism for the shrine to assign extra Priest which means more Hammers MUAHAHAHA and if you get a Level Unit you can Build An Heroic Epic in that city and start pumuping out Units every 2nd turn. The 2nd national wonder you can build there could be National Epic for more GPs to Settle as Super Specialist or Wall Street because of the Shrine Income. Difficult to choose between the Two I usually go with National Epic and try to gfet as many Great Prophet as possible for MAX Hammer output.

Try to Hook up those Elephants in your Capital's Cultural Broaders to increase the Happy Cap.

Try to knock out Peter ASAP, It appears he has 3 cities (Checked the Diplomacy broad) He must be Expanding West and/or South of the Capital.

I think getting Iron Working and putting cities in the jungle is an important part of the tech-base strategy. Not many people have discussed it, but the two most important things right now are securing grassland for cottages and happiness resources for working the cottages. You could also just go for monarchy. Right now, you should head for IW and jungle expansion.

I would recommend pursuing alphabet aggressively. You then have the option of trading for IW and/or Math. If the AI doesn't have one or the other then you know which tech comes nex

I must say, since I was arguing in favour of the chosen city placement, that I'm very pleased with the city locations. I think they'll make 2 very nice cities.

I'd recommend city A next while going for alphabet and hopefully trading for IW.

I'd also really like some more exploration up by that silver. That silver is and also $$$, so it would be nice if we could get it online at some point.

Do we know what the diplomatic relations look like at this point?

Overall good round with nice city's, although I still firmly disagree with the sequence of city placement and even the placement itself. I hope I will find time to shadow the game a little to see results of different placement. Just for interest. Especially the need for monuments hampers initial growth and production.

You are very lucky with this draw Aelf. A lot of resources and nice sites. Especially the south looks promising. Peacefull or not I would make sure I would have those sweetspots settled, before/while tech whoring.

I would pursue Alphabet first, regarding the GL. You can trade for maths.

Would settle B next, low maintenace and good resources to work. The southern city is to much surrounded by jungle this early. A isn't much better then B and can be backfilled later/next.

I would scout out Peter to see our chances. I doubt I could resist this situation.... bronze, horses, Peter...close... (I can hear the wardrums closing in)

voek said:

Overall good round with nice city's, although I still firmly disagree with the sequence of city placement and even the placement itself.

Click to expand...

Peter was too near and I had to make do in order not to risk losing the gold resource. And, I think the chosen sites are as good as any.

voek said:

Would settle B next, low maintenace and good resources to work. The southern city is to much surrounded by jungle this early. A isn't much better then B and can be backfilled later/next.

Click to expand...

Site A has cows and seafood. Those are good resources to work. And it's beside the river so we can start cottaging it earlier. The sooner we cottage up the better, I think. B has elephants and seafood (cows have to be shared with Seoul). I'll take A's cows first.

voek said:

I would scout out Peter to see our chances. I doubt I could resist this situation.... bronze, horses, Peter...close... (I can hear the wardrums closing in)

Click to expand...

Time for a new reality show called Temptation Continent We must win it.

Anyway, Alphabet seems to be the wiser decision once again. With the increased AI preference for that tech, though, I'm not as sure as in the past.

futurehermit said:

Do we know what the diplomatic relations look like at this point?

Click to expand...

What does it matter now?

I agree with voek, and think you have 2 excellent cities in Pyongyang and Wonsan, but you have stunted their and hence your overall growth It has probably cost you something like 20 turns of slow growth... but I acknowledge it will pay off in the end.

Currently, you are desperately in need of happiness. Hooking up gold and ivory has to be top priority as the capital is limited to size 4 and so much food is going to waste. You need more workers, at least another two and quickly. Workers will let you get your cities developed and particularly get a few cottages underway... we have only 10 beakers going to research right now and costs of 7 gold, obviously working the gold will help that in a few turns.

Alphabet is useful tech but when will you get Monarchy? That is the only way to solve your most severe limitation at present which is population size. Your capital is a great city and is only firing on 2 cylinders right now and hooking up gold and ivory will only take that to 3 cylinders. The other two cities you've founded are also capable of significant growth and will benefit immediately from HR. HR also will allow you to whip out troops and avoid the happiness consequences in the sense that you have another troop.

I appreciate that you want to expand fast horizontally to grab territory but you need to expand vertically as well to make those cities pay for themselves.

I agree with the initial overall strategy of Rexing, without initial war.

The key will be when Russia plants a city in "your" territory...
Then it will be time to send the units

"Site A has cows and seafood. Those are good resources to work. And it's beside the river so we can start cottaging it earlier. The sooner we cottage up the better, I think. B has elephants and seafood (cows have to be shared with Seoul). I'll take A's cows first. "

I was more thinking about the early hapiness bonus from elephants. You can prob trade for hunting or/and need it anyway for warelephants. Of course you will also have the gold online, but anyway.

But I agree, there isn't much difference to debate about.

I don't see the problem if Peter would have grabbed te gold before you settled it as third city. You could have taken it easily with a few axes. It all seems nitpicking, but I believe those few early moves and sites make a big difference in growth. Even though the situation would be roughly the same after X turns, 1 axe extra in on situation can make a huge difference. In other words, small advantages in the early game can have a big impact in the latter game.

Things worked out fine using this sequence, but what if bronze site was picked off before your nose? No disaster, but it could have serieus effect on game development. But I guess this debate is still about Gold or Bronze first. I say bronze, but to prove it, we can only roughly estimate the effect by playing both.

Considering the Angkor Wat; I like the wonder, but it implies a priest based GP strategy. One I use quit often. But I thought you were considering a GS based strategy. It seems hard to combine them and since you haven't taken a religous path or GP wonders (stonehenge or Oracle) the GP strategy seems difficult. I would pursue a GS strategy combined with the GL (esp. considering the awesome university's.)

Edit: I have to post quicker.

I think Angkor Wat only makes sense if we have founded a religion and need a prophet to make a Holy shrine. That can be difficult to do with only temples once you have made 5 GS as your first GPs. Angkor Wat plus a temple allows you to run 4 priests and compete with libraries and scientists.

Are we going for a religion or will we capture a holy city without a shrine? If not, why Angkor Wat?

Voek and uncleJJ, i don't understand why you assume ankor wat requires a religious path.
After all, philosophy gives you taoism and is available from a great scientist.
+ you can have other religions come to you via trade routes.
There is no need to focus on early religions at all!
What you need is writing and libraries.

edit : OK, you worry about the use of the great prophets if you really use that many priests.
That's a good question.

Yes using Angkor means you will assign many priest, otherwise it's useless. If you assign priest, you will have lots of GP points. You could compete or overkill with a GS based city and generate more GS, but then you lose on of the benefits of hiring priest, the GP points...

Religious path and wonders help generate GP, therefore synergies with Angkor Wat strategy. Like I said, I use it quit often and it IS a good and viable strategy, but imho not very good in combination with GS.

Philosophy is mainly for trade value and Pacifism (double GP), not Angkor, if you refer to a GS based strategy.

voek said:

I was more thinking about the early hapiness bonus from elephants.

Click to expand...

Our capital already has an elephant in its cultural borders.

voek said:

I don't see the problem if Peter would have grabbed te gold before you settled it as third city. You could have taken it easily with a few axes.

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That would go against our stated aims. Also, the consequences of early war need to be given more consideration on these forums. There's the example of worker stealing. In the past, people advocated doing it, but now there's greater realisation that doing so might bring more harm than good, since you forego a potential (early) trading partner before you can get a clearer picture of what is your first objective in the game for a worker you may not be able to bring back home. Likewise, why should we fight a war over a city if we don't have to? The time might not be ripe to attack Peter.

voek said:

Things worked out fine using this sequence, but what if bronze site was picked off before your nose? No disaster, but it could have serieus effect on game development. But I guess this debate is still about Gold or Bronze first. I say bronze, but to prove it, we can only roughly estimate the effect by playing both.

Click to expand...

Gold helps research, which is in step with our early game objectives. Also, bronze site is further from our nearest neighbour and therefore less likely to be stolen

voek said:

Considering the Angkor Wat; I like the wonder, but it implies a priest based GP strategy. One I use quit often. But I thought you were considering a GS based strategy. It seems hard to combine them and since you haven't taken a religous path or GP wonders (stonehenge or Oracle) the GP strategy seems difficult. I would pursue a GS strategy combined with the GL (esp. considering the awesome university's.)

Click to expand...

Why? Just because Angkor Wat is a priest-based wonder doesn't make Angkor Wat only suitable for a GP-focused strategy. In fact, as cabert has pointed out, it's easy to get Philosophy early with a GS. We could change gears after getting the wonder.

UncleJJ said:

Are we going for a religion or will we capture a holy city without a shrine? If not, why Angkor Wat?

Click to expand...

For the Taoist shrine, of course! As the value of lightbulbing diminishes, the value of a shrine increases. Subsequently, we could settle the prophets we get. By then our GPs would be few and far between to make much difference anyway.

aelf said:

What does it matter now?

Click to expand...

So we can think about consequences of a war with Peter and also to consider early trading partners, etc.