SE 6 Frederick

[vranasm]

I decided to revive the series with another game, because having too many games is certainly much better then not having enough.

"Snack Economy" (or as someone rightly called "silly economy") is a series of games in which we try to learn how to best make use of food, with emphasis on the specialists which food allows us to employ.

Special rule of this series states:
We are not allowed to BUILD cottages. (do what you want with cottages you eventually capture with military conquest)

Our leader this round is

Frederick of Germany - the philosophical chief



He isn't much played on the forums, but doesn't have directly bad traits. I think it's mostly tied to his uniques which come late and that is big disadvantage always.

His traits are:

Philosophical - 100% bonus for generating GPP points, which means that in early game you gain big advantage in trade game and getting to your first GP whatever it will be
Organized - another useful trait, this trait is better the higher with difficulty you go, offers cheap courthouses and of course cheaper civics which is direct economic benefit which is not easily seen as for example for financial leaders.

His uniques are:

Panzer - somewhat better Tank. Tank on itself is very good unit so that doesn't directly mean it's bad, but due to it being so late in the game is considered one of weak uniques in the game.

Assembly Plant - improved factory at which I had to stare for a minute to realize what it's better on it then factory. Then I finally found out - it offers 2 more engineer slots. As with panzer the problem is that factories are late so if you go domination the game is basically decided.
For space ship race it should prove useful though, in such races I usually have abundance of food, but not enough spots for engineers sometimes.

The start:



How the game was generated:

Spoiler:

It actually isn't first start I generated, this one was the first

Spoiler:

But since some people sooner flamed me for making it too cheap for this kind of games I tried to find something more generic.

Acording to how SE 5 went, this game shouldn't be tough.
You are not isolated, other then checking starting positions of AI the game is not changed in any way.


Map creation blahblah

The archive contains saves for noble (prince), monarch, emperor and immortal difficulties, with monarch AIs having archery, emperor AIs having archery and hunting and immortal AIs having archery, hunting and agriculture, as bonus techs along with whatever they were already starting with. The WB saves are without huts. Events were off when creating save, but this can be changed via "custom scenario"

If you want to play real monarch, you should add archery to the barbarians, using the WB.
If you want to play real emperor, you should add archery and hunting to the barbarians, using the WB.
If you want to play real immortal, you should add archery, hunting and agriculture to the barbarians, using the WB.

I wish all good luck, fun etc. and let me hear your stories!!

[shyuhe]

Assembly plant is built 50% faster with coal. So for Fred, you get +150% to build it if you have coal.

[vranasm]

Originally Posted by shyuhe

Assembly plant is built 50% faster with coal. So for Fred, you get +150% to build it if you have coal.

thanks... the civilopedia was very unclear for me... like I said...stared there for like 1 minute and got it wrong afterall :-)

[yatta77]

IMO the leader choice is favorable: needless to say that philosophic goes well along specialists, and also organized has a pretty good synergy with this kind of game IMO.

The visible start is really so-so for food: SIP has a lot of plains (which to be honest are good for few farms/many workshops later after biology and communism, but not so nice in the beginning), for now is just 2 flood plains (4 if irrigated), and another riverside tile, a grassland, which allow 3+ food. That's 13 (with city tile) , working 3 tiles, which means max 3 (4 with mercantilism) specialists and the overflow of 1 food (which allows to work an ivory at +1 population to be stagnant), after civil service you can have few more (but not so many) farmed grasslands. However, I guess some more food has to be hided somewhere in the south-eastern shadows: move the scout in that direction first, maybe? My silly bet is pig (I didn't download the map yet, so this is just a guess) .

Back on lurking mode for now...

[Habitus]

Signing on, going to attempt it on Immortal as Emperor seems to be getting abit easy lately

I plan on moving te scout 2SE to see what we get, very much doubt i'll move off the plains hill thou.

[lymond]

V - you could at least give us something to snack on Looks like jumbo stew for dinner.

[vranasm]

Originally Posted by lymond

V - you could at least give us something to snack on Looks like jumbo stew for dinner.

could I be so cruel and eat all food? I dunno... kind of trying to forget everything about the map so I can eventually play it too :-)

[Ghpstage]

The start is a nice site, I see wonders in its future.
I played it to 1AD on Emperor

Spoiler:

Awesome amounts of uncontested land, I have 10 cities and theres still tonnes left to settle .
Managed to get ToA and the GWall too. Though if I were to redo it I would have prioritised Oracle (Whip Courthouses) and GLH much more.

[vranasm]

Originally Posted by Ghpstage

The start is a nice site, I see wonders in its future.
I played it to 1AD on Emperor

Spoiler:

Awesome amounts of uncontested land, I have 10 cities and theres still tonnes left to settle .
Managed to get ToA and the GWall too. Though if I were to redo it I would have prioritised Oracle (Whip Courthouses) and GLH much more.

very good :-)

Spoiler:

once you get currency you're golden :-)

now that I see it again, it really is a lot generic :-D

at least it's there marble and a lot of food... I think Aesth->Lit is clear choice (or should be)
what's your desired win condition? I would bet going space would be most favorite setting here.

[Ghpstage]

Spoiler:

The Lit path is strong here, but I haven't got Aesthetics yet. I was too busy making a mess of my tech path trying to fit my expansion rate (never got so big so fast without cottages, resources or GLH). The AIs didn't tech helpfully either, I got Alpha quite late by self research and haven't been able to trade much....
It is my top priority after Currency is finished though.

Theres so much good land you can easily go for any victory type here.
Personally I prefer war so thats what I intend to do

[Zx Zero Zx]

I think I'm gunna try for 1600 Tanks and nukes, looks possible on this map.

[Kreda]

I gave this one a shot this evening, resulted in late 1944 space win. Settings were Monarch/Normal speed.

Spoiler:

As always, I forgot to take screenshots during the game, so here's a quick writeup:
SIP, tech path was agriculture -> bronze working -> animal husbandry -> fishing -> masonry.
I made Berlin my wonder-spamming city and settled the cow/horse/fish spot to the west as my 2nd - it had great production too.
The 2nd city build the great wall - it was a huge help because of the amount of land available, the barbs would be really annoying otherwise.
Berlin build the pyramids. I failed horribly there because I forgot to switch to representation until around 500AD The winning date would be a lot better if that wouldn't happen.
After getting to currency I proceeded to settle the whole island, which resulted in ~13 decent cities. My big plan was to get to Mining inc. and Sid's sushi asap and to go space from there.

I went the Aesthetics -> Literature path next.

Won Lib around 1000 AD. Quite a late date but no AI had Paper by then. I took nationalism as the free tech and build the Taj Mahal.

Once the corporations kicked in I jumped really far ahead of the AI's. The only real concern was Zara who had >25 cities and was teching quite fast. He got involved in a war with HC later on which slowed him down a bit tho.

I got DOW'd by De Gaulle and HC at some point but the war lasted 1 turn - I was lucky enough to AP out of it. I lose one crappy city because of it, but the AP gave it back to me a few years later

Anyway, here are some pics of my cities after victory. There's a lot of unhappy faces but at the end it didn't really matter and no one would trade me any happiness resources

Spaceship launch

Spoiler:

Victory

Spoiler:

Main cities

Spoiler:

Overall a pretty fun game, and a really great way to improve your SE skills

[XRW175P6MQ4]

1480 AD

Spoiler:

Went AG, bw, wheel, ah, writing iirc the usual stuff.
Settled hamburg to grab that copper in a reasonable time frame.
Writing is a priority for early scientists.
No ai's met. Weird I thought we weren't isolated.



GP farm. Went aesthetics, met capac, went alpha and lit forget the order. Got lit first built the GL. Then national epic. Trade with Capac for back techs.

Hamburg and one other city cranked out a GS before I got Frankurt set up.



Look at the little box just above the map. Really monarch Ai has 3 cities to my 12. Something happened to capac. Not quite sure at this stage.

Went music didn't get the free artist. Trade to capac for more stuff. Popped a GS for golden age. Flipped into caste, pacifism, and hereditary rule.

Barbs are a HUGE nuisance. Usually the land grab is over and barbs are a threat of the past by now.

I also flip into hinduism witch is what capac is running. I bulbed pacifism and founded taoism. Then researched civil service and bulbed paper. Then double bulbed education.



To my knowledge no one is close to lib so I detour a bit. Bulb printing press, trade for stuff with capac. Then get guilds and bulb banking with a merchant. Then I get lib and take replaceable parts. While waiting for the merchant I researched gunpowder. After Lib I finish gunpowder and bulb part of chemistry.

As you can see I'm 6 turns from another GP. Thats in a different city than the GP farm. GP farm has the Globe theater and trying to grow before focusing heavy on the GP's.

Also I flipped into mercantilism.

My sort of goal is to get communism for state property and if at all possible build the statue of liberty. Of course flipping into rep when possible.

The stupid buddhist AKA ghandi built the AP. I don't want to open borders with him since I don't want him to AP cheese. He doesn't have anything interesting tech wise.

[XRW175P6MQ4]

Spoiler:

Long story short. I vassal ghandi. declare on cathy. She peace vassals to zara. Every single AI vassals to zara. No way to keep up in tech after bulbs become unreliable.

[vranasm]

Originally Posted by XRW175P6MQ4

Spoiler:

Long story short. I vassal ghandi. declare on cathy. She peace vassals to zara. Every single AI vassals to zara. No way to keep up in tech after bulbs become unreliable.

would be much better if you put name of AI's into spoilers.

Spoiler:

Zara is very strong AI and it isn't surprise that other AI's vassal to him

[obsolete]

I played this one very sloppy, actually terrible to be honest. However, even your Immortal save has the AI's playing 10x worse on this map than any other that I've seen.

In the end, despite my playing-around, I got too much land to myself, SoL, and other wonders, including sushi & mining inc, etc. A large tech lead and I think it's time to call it quits at this point.

Please don't use this kind of scenario (or fractal) again, someone always gets crippled too much.

Spoiler:

[LeftAdjoint]

To 680 AD:

Spoiler:

Settled in place:


Quick husbandry, with horse to the west.



Thinking about expanding some more.



Quick writing:



Philosophical with marble? I think I'll go for the Great Library of course. As soon as these barbarians stop messing with me:



Make an academy:



Not going to lie, I had a lot of barbarian trouble on this map:



Hills everywhere but nothing I want to make. I have literature, Huayna doesn't have alphabet yet, so....



More development, currency, code of laws...



...civil service, and then the bulbing begins:



And, thanks to 6 great scientists total:



I know, it's not the most impressive liberalism time. But I think it's a personal record, so I'll pat myself on the back just a little.

I still have a bunch more land to claim, as well. Next time!

[TheMeInTeam]

Played a little of the map...

Spoiler:

This is one of those BS land screw maps, except in the favor of the player. Cottages or not, any expansion that handles the barbs decently (either through great wall or through use of the chariots + archer combo) is going to carry so much land uncontested that it's hard to lose, especially since that land is paid for by AIs getting screwed elsewhere.

There are almost no balanced scripts in this game, but CC seems particularly cheesy. You see way too much "I spawn in middle you spawn on edge" or (I have 2x the land another player could possibly get peacefully), and it isn't always against the player .

That said, this isn't a bad game for people to learn non-cottage tradeoffs, because funding massed expansion w/o cottages isn't rookie play though it certainly can be done and with experience it isn't too hard.

[Noogai]

Damn this is frustrating..

Spoiler:

Degaulle DoWs me 10 turns after I paid him what he wanted, and I don't have any military, so that's about it, I quit (just when I was going to get Sushi and other cool stuff).

Spoiler:

Anyway I got Oracle 1480BC:

Spoiler:

And liberalism 1020AD:

Spoiler:

Bad dates I know, but I still got 'em first.