The Emperor Masters' Challenge 2 (on Warlords)

[aelf]

Since you gave me assurances that it's not a spoiler, I couldn't resist clicking on the 'show spoiler' button Well, they might be constantly at war or something, I guess, judging from the way Mehmed hates Saladin. But then again, why is Mehmed so advanced in that case? Don't tell me anything else. I'm just wondering aloud

More importantly, do you think we got the wonder through sheer luck?

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Well, they might be constantly at war or something, I guess, judging from the way Mehmed hates Saladin. But then again, why is Mehmed so advanced in that case? Don't tell me anything else. I'm just wondering aloud

I didn't look at anything else, so I don't even know. Good questions though. The war theory makes sense. I've noticed in other games that when it's at war, the AI goes really nuts about building units and military infrastructure at all costs. It almost feels like an exploit sometimes, since you can really change the AI's strategy by declaring a war.

More importantly, do you think we got the wonder through sheer luck?

I don't think it's easy to say with just one game to judge by. On the one hand, you were obviously lucky in this game that the AI chose not to build it. As I showed in an earlier post, by the time you completed it, they had somewhere on in the vicinity of a 45 turn head start. If they had wanted it, they could have built it for sure, especially if someone had stone.

On the other hand, in a more general sense, maybe that's a worst case scenario. For example, what if you just happened to be up against AI's that prioritize religious technologies and with loads of high commerce tiles to propel their research? Maybe if you played this strategy 50 times, you'd find that 1 time out of 50 the AI gets a 45 turn lead on you and the rest of the time either you are the first to discover Divine Right or you get it within 5 to 10 turns of the leader.

Tough to say at this point.

Anyway, one way or another you got it. Now let's watch it work its magic. <-- about to pull a rabbit out of his hat

 

[Phrederick]

Two things: Don't attack Vitcos from across the water, and I think it's about time to consider bringing Gaul into the empire.

More generally, I'd hesitate to attack macemen with non-macemen. That +50% effectively negates City Raider 1 and 3 combined for melee units. You've got a good number of Cats that can be used for the brunt of attacks, but what can defend against counterattacks? I only see one War Chariot in that picture. If you have Civil Service already, I'd wait to finish Machinery, then upgrade the melee units to Macemen, especially since that cultural border shouldn't turn against you, if Vitcos has gone from 81% to 80% during the round, as I see in screenshots. I'd recommend going for Gaul now, and Inca after Machinery and another three maces, and a crossbow. Let Gaul build granary/temple/courthouse/monastery, with a lot of whipping and after sending a missionary. Didn't you say you built your cats without Theology experience? Gaul can give a few of them some more experience.

 

[cabert]

about next war, i wouldn't wait long but i would go for gaul first, buying you time for not only macemen but also crossbows=antimacemen!

Maybe it's still time for some forge/barracks building or start on axemen that will finish only after you discover the tech = prebuilding macemen, then a switch to theocracy on the final turn?

 

[voek]

Gratz on the SM! Good job. The luck you have had, was not having a industrious civ around. I don't think the AI prioritze SM very high, only if it's 'cheap' to build. If you chop some more I bet you can get Versailles to, which will be important to turn up that research bar. (The tech gap is big again... How do you do that? ) I gues liberalisme is a lost cause. (they have education)

I finaly looked into your save. Few things I noticed. You have not many workers and there is still a lot of work to be down (jungle/improvements). Next to that you seem to let those workers do single jobs. I think it's better to group them and get the job faster done, so you can benefit from the improvement/action faster. E.g. the chopping for Versailles, just 1 worker while the other is building a road.

For the war. I don't think you are ready. It will take heavy losses. You have to catch up with the others, that won't work if you are only building suicide units. You only have 2 swords in that stack!! Taking that border city alone will take 2 cats to have at least decent odds. Not to mention for taking his capital. I think you should have taken Gaul earlier. You can move some troops towards it, but it will also take a lot of time bringing them back to the front... The Inca are building up...

And if you are going to attack, why do you have your main stack at that border city. It has only 2 units in it and should only need 3 cats/2 swords/1 spear. Your main stack should aim for the capital. Well, main stack... I don't think you are ready for the war since you haven't got many units while facing a more advanced army.

Good thing Izzy is building you some city's down south. Be prepared though that she might attack esp. when you go after Huayna. She is building up some (inferieur) units and she has a different religion. Oh yeah and she realy likes you for taking her city's... Huayna might give her some iron soon..

Go for maces and don't forget to switch to theocracy!!

Going for space? Diplo seems a little difficult concerning your religion-strategy.

P.S. without more roads, it will take your stack 11 turns to move to Gaul. Not to mention, conquer it and move back...
P.S2 Saladin and Mehemet have a different kind of religion. Saladin founded christianity. Mehemet didn't found Hinduisme. So the unknow AI will have. Trade with Mehemet, screw Saladin.

 

[Jaca]

I second Voek's analysis. I was surprised you would take on Huayna again so quickly with the actual units, with Isabel being furious and having lots of units too (although some weaker ones) and your back door poorly defended. You seem to be comfortable that the Spanish would not attack, perhaps you know the AI better, or understand the meaning of Power better. Can you explain then?

Gaul looks like a very good city to take first: it will give you two health resources, while health indeed is a big problem in your empire (Memphis, Barcelona,...); Gaul is already at pop 5, can grow rapidly further after the Crab has been hooked up and is a good all round city (coastal city, with good food resources, production from hills, some spots for a cottage or two and income from 3C coastal squares thanks to the Colossus) that can pay itself.

I would feel like improving the cities further before warring (about ten turns at least), possibly building workers and some new units too in the process -- and delete old ones if upgrading is out of the question and unit maintenance is tough. The units can be good for hapiness too with HR, while you are building Forges (+1 hapiness from Gems, but with the health penalty) and the Temples (Confucian or Budhist). Most conquered cities have very good food resources, possibly growing rapidly. Then I would not forget too build some Markets, especially in the Shrine and SM cities, that gives an extra hapiness with the Silk, and possibly an aqueduct here and there. You have possibly very productive cities.

Versailles feels like it can be key to a rapid chasing back of the others indeed. It will leave you the flexibility of placing the FP at will. I hope you make it. When looking on the Info Screen you see that one unknown capital that has built the Pyramids, The Great Wall and The Hagia Sophia, with The Partenon as extra. That's 9 GE points free. A bit frightening...

Jaca

 

[dutchfire]

My &#8364;0,02:

Fill in the empty areas first while you gather a lot of research and money from your religion. Only when there's nomore room to expand, attack. Because you can then have outresearched them to military techs.

 

[Innawerkz]

First off, big ups for the effort going into this thread. Well written and fun to watch it develop! For what it's worth, I feel:

Since you are building Forges (-1 ) throughout, it is even more important to get Health Resources as you are on the brink of stink empire-wide . A quick solution would be to trade Mehmed for his Cows, but that will only help him out more and he is doing just fine, thank you very much.

Going to war with Huayna seems like it would set you even further back than you already are when compared to the other AI. I agree with Cabert that patience will prove wiser when Machinery brings the Crossbowmen to make short work of the Incan Macemen.

While we wait for Machinery, we can develop a larger offensive to aim at the Heart of the Incan while simultaneously solving our Health problems with the acquisition of Gaul and not helping Mehmed or further upsetting Saladin. Once available, add Crossbowmen and begin the offensive on the Incan.

 

[carl corey]

Hmm, a full scale Crossbowmen vs Macemen war? Sounds fun!

Oh, and congrats from me too for reaching your religious objectives! Godspeed!

 

[aelf]

Since you guys have unanimously voted for building up (at least some macemen) before attacking, I will do just that. A few of you suggested going for Gaul, but it has been pointed out that it is somewhat too far away. Maybe we could send all our remaining WCs at it. I think the main and less mobile part of the army should, like voek said, wait for macemen and then aim for the new Inca capital. We can't wait too long as HC might build a huge defense that would pose a big problem for us.

Yes, I think we need one or two more workers. I am not keen on building more than that, though. I think they will quickly run out of things to do, and they do cost maintenance, right?

I think we should hold off trading with Mehmed until we have enough macemen. We don't want Saladin to come knocking on the door when we're unprepared.

 

[aelf]

I second Voek's analysis. I was surprised you would take on Huayna again so quickly with the actual units, with Isabel being furious and having lots of units too (although some weaker ones) and your back door poorly defended. You seem to be comfortable that the Spanish would not attack, perhaps you know the AI better, or understand the meaning of Power better. Can you explain then?

But what is she going to attack us with? Archers and chariots? Besides, her power is much lower than ours. I think the AI knows that.

Anyway, I've played another round. Update coming up.

 

[aelf]

Round 11: 1352AD - 1454AD

Not a very eventful round, but it's interesting enough

As everyone agreed, we delayed the war against Huayna so that we could build some macemen to fight his. Meanwhile, I sent a couple of WCs to check Gaul out and hopefully capture it:



What the?! Longbows? I thought I just saw an archer wander out a few turns ago. Looks like we can't take the city right now (there are walls in it too). The good news is, due to its defenses, no one is likely to attack it anytime soon. We can take it after the war with HC.



Machinery was researched and the final preparations for the next war were soon begun in Huamanga and Thebes. I didn't switch to Theocracy, though, as most our cities were building improvements for the economy. And we were still building the Versailles, which was eventually nearly complete:



Could it be? Nobody on the other continent bothered to build that as well? They must be fighting quite a lot over there.

And, indeed...





DR has proven to be worth every beaker of it

Unfortunately, the party was soon over. The hard-working Egyptians had to wake up to the reality of the mortal world:



The heathens are more advanced and more powerful than us. Humiliating as it was for the pious people of Egypt, we had to agree so as not to risk war against someone who had more temporal power. Things will have to change in the future.

Mehmed soon came, offering to trade his cows again:



It seems that the Ottomans have been able to acquire/import corn. I agreed to the deal since we needed to increase our cities' health limits (some were already unhealthy). Besides, I agree with voek that we should just trade with Mehmed and build better rapport with him. We could train macemen now so we could probably deal with an Arabian landing party if Saladin gets angry enough for that.

Before Engineering and after Machinery, I decided to sidetrack to get Literature so that Memphis could start on the National Epic. It took 2 turns to research. Memphis is building the Epic when the next prophet is born in it:



I plan to use him for the Mahabodhi for more income so that we can raise the research slider. Should we try to generate a GS next?

This is where this round ends. On the same turn, we finished researching Engineering. I'm thinking of researching Printing Press next to increase our income. Remember how helpful cottages were in helping us catch up in the previous Emperor Challenge?

And, once again, our forces are poised at the border with Huayna:



Two of those macemen were built and one was upgraded from our best swordsman. I think we have enough. I'm planning to march the entire stack to the Inca capital to take it and then send several units down to capture and raze Vitcos, after which we march the stack east to raze the small city. Any other suggestions for a war plan?

The GNP graph:



While ours has shown improvement, we're still below Saladin and far below Mehmed. I wonder why their GNPs are so highly rated.

The power graph:



We're about equal with HC, so we will probably be able to defeat him quite easily in the upcoming war.

And the tech-trading screen:



Since both the DR wonders have been built, I don't think there's any harm selling DR to HC for his gold before we invade. The money will help us get Printing Press sooner (if that is indeed the next tech we are researching).

We're very far behind Mehmed, which is similar to our situation in the previous Emperor Challenge (why does it keep happening?) I hope we can eventually catch up due to our size, the Spiral Minaret and shrine income and Sankore's beakers. Space race may be our only option this time.

Finally, the map of the continent again:



I think Huayna's northern tundra cities can wait. Isabella has kindly settled some cities for us in the south. We can attack her next after this war, or we could conquer Gaul.

I'm quite worried about the tech gap (and no one is willing to trade with us). Otherwise, I think we're doing fine so far. Any thoughts?

 

[Hey Joni]

Firstly, be it a little late, congratulations on completing the main objective! You're had no stone to help you and it is a great accomplishment. I was a little surprised by the "spoiler" for the AI progress on the minaret but anyway...

I believe the most viable option you have now, is to use all the incoming gold to expand as much as possible. By all means, build the religious thing in the holy city for the gold and try to spread both religions to an extreme. This would become good investment - once you become the sole master of your continent you might be able to outtech the other civs, who knows...

I'm not into mathematics and not extremly familiar with game mechanics, perhaps someone can consider the following:

If you have a +100% commerce in holy cities and Versailles and the Forb Pal on the right places, you can build settlers, spam coastal (or non-coastal) cities and spread both religions for a +4 gold initially. Cities should be as dense as possible to get the most of the idea. I can't calculate whether or not this would cover the initial costs.

If it does, rush confucian temples and monasteries in your cities and soon they will start working wonders (well, not actual World Wonders) Another good thing is that this would give you more cathedral buildings, leading to even more bakers+cash After they grow in size and get courthouses, they could give you the tech lead! One developped "rushed" city will give you 4 gold for the shrines + 6 from buildings + 6 bakers from buildings + half maintenance form courthouse. That's without the tiles being worked! I forgot whether or not you got the Colossus from another civ. If so, coastal cities will be very cool too!

Then, avoid Scientific Method as much as possible cause the effects would be devastating... If this works we can call it a new economy - "religious"!

Note: I wouldn't think about pushing you to try that - the game works fine by now. Never tried it, just looks interesting. It might require too much time, perhaps marathon is more appropriate...

 

[voek]

Well the tech gab is obvious. You could just as well check the option "no techtrading" No, that isn't your fault entirely, being stuck on the 'small continent' again and one need some space huh.. But you are recovering. 60% with a profit and still lots of space to expand.

Good thing you build some maces. Build yourself a crossbowmen to, because I think your precious macemen will get attacked by his crossbowmen and might not always win. Maybe whip one? Ah never mind I took a closer look at your map and see you are building a crossbowman already.

Gaul can be used (later) to gain some more city raider macemen. Altough you might have some trebuchets in time, I have come to the conclusion it is still a good thing to have city raider grenadiers or riflemen.

I don't think you have to be afraid of Izzy, but she prob. is gonna atack when your forces are heading towards the Inca capital. A few spears and 1 or 2 maces down south should be enough.

Agree with bon joni. Get all monasteries, but I think you were doing this anyway.

 

[aelf]

Hmm... Not much feedback from the last round. But I guess there is probably nothing much to discuss. Maybe everyone is just impatient to move on, the game going at this glacial pace.

I agree Scientific Method should be delayed as much as possible. At least until we can get some cathedrals up to help balance the obsoleting (is there such a word?) of the monasteries. I hope we can get ahead enough in terms of economy to eventually catch up (might take us all the way into the modern era, though).

I think I'll play the next round tonight to speed up the game and maintain everyone's interest in it (you know, TV generation and all ). One idea I have is to tech up to Banking instead and switch to Mercantilism to run a free merchant in every city. We don't have open borders with anyone anyway and the commercial benefits of free merchants might outweigh that of Printing Press for a while. I'll do the calculations/estimation when I play.

 

[cabert]

i would give feedback, but i'm somewhat lost here.

What are the next goals?
What's the general strategy? Are you aiming to a specific victory condition?
1) I don't think you can manage space race, being to far backwards,
2) and i fear you won't get the diplo thing again (could you??? that would show real mastery of diplomacy!)
3) cultural seems too late, but i may be wrong
4) time, hummmmmm, let's go to 5)
5) conquest seems too late too + cross ocean conquest is hard!
That leaves domination. Are you going for domination? where are your boats?

I'd go to banking too, for mercantilism while you don't have astronomy.
What good are foreign trade routes when you're at war with your only neighbours?

 

[UncleJJ]

The next goals are fairly obvious, it is the ones after that are not easy to foretell. Huayna's and Isabella lands need to be conquered and incorporated into the empire. That will give several good cities and control of badly needed resources (sheep, wheat, clams, crab and fur at least). It will also allow some existing cities to work more tiles effectively. Then we should have about 40% of the land area under control.

Once the whole continent is under control is when the difficult choices on what victory condition is best suited to that situation is finally made. I guess only diplomatic, space race and domination are available. But whichever is finally selected it will need to be backed up considerable miliray force. I suspect the space race could only be won if the efforts of the other civs is disrupted by war (either started by us or fighting among themselves). So I recommend that we gear up for war even if we choose not to go for Domination.

Don't dispair about the technological situation... at least not yet. Once the lands of Huayna and Isabella are working for rather than against us, and once Education is researched the pace of research will pick up. Also researching and installing grocers and banks (and running some merchants perhaps) will make raising money easier and hence allow the research slider to be raised.

Great game and well done getting both those wonders

 

[voek]

I think there are not loads of decisions to make right at this moment. I think the best chance is a space victory, unlike cabert's claim. You will have the largest landmass and most city's and therefore should have the highest production in the end. Next to that the AI seems to not be very smart winning the spacerace (again). It is quit capable at starting the Space race, but seems to have diffculties beelining to the right techs. It lacks focus. Focussing on only defence and having a higher productivity might pull off a space vic.

Conquest or better domination seems a little tough, seeing the tech gap. But one important thing which is different from the previous challenge is the other AI don't like each other, so it seems. They don;t share religion. Although I think Mehemed and the unknown civ does, like I explained before.

A joint war might be a possibility. So it might be a option to prepare a invading force (at least galleons, if possible) when you are close in wrapping up the conquest of the continent.

You should get their map ASAP, to estimate your chances and possible strats. Maybe see if you can trade it somehow?

Diplo vic should be very difficult considering your religious strat. At this moment they don't like you for having another religion AND trading with the enemy.

Banking seems like a possible option, altough the AI also seems to priortize banking. Economics (free GM) prob. not an option. Trading will be hard since AI seems to hold banking untill they have discovered economics.

You could use a GS for printing press (meanwhile). I think it's a good idea to generate a GS anyway...

 

[cabert]

about space race, I consider Voek's opinion to be of much more value than mine (i did only 1 space race victory in all my games ).
If it's doable, that would be cool. The faithfull priests lauching their startship

 

[carl corey]

I'm not sure about Emperor, but on Prince it's quite easy to beat the AIs to the Space Race even if you start behind. I'm probably stating the obvious but the key is to forget about Rocketry and go for Computers and Robotics as fast as you can. This will give you 50% spaceship production from Laboratories and you'll probably also be able to get the Space Elevator. With 100% bonus from these two you're certainly back in the game. You might want to generate a GE and keep him for the Space Elevator, since at 2000 hammers it will take forever to build. Not sure how to do this though, or if it's even possible in your case... Maybe use the Ironworks city with maximum number of Engineers while the other cities work their tiles instead of specialists?

I'm getting too far ahead, I know.

Edit: About right now: I'm really sick of seeing that (now) useless Divine Right not being traded around for some juicy techs. How annoyed are the civs on the other continent with you? Do you think a quick switch to no religion could make them want to trade? I know your economy and research rely on religion, but the point is you won't stay without a religion for long anyway, since it should be apparent right away if they're willing to trade. I know it's a gamble, but maybe if you could get them to cautious it would be enough for them to start trading.