Charlemagne Emperor Cookbook!(EC)!! Let the games begin!!!

[dualmaster]

Brief 1100AD report:

Spoiler :

Finished Lib right away and took Nationalism. GE builds Taj for golden age. Use the GA to swap civics to bur, slavery, OR.

Whipped in lots of basic infra (forges, rax, stables). Picked up GLib. Beelined gunpowder+MT and am currently pumping curis from all cities. Currently have about 20 curis ready to go. Just starting on replaceable parts>rifling to get cav. No one anywhere near rifles so should be good to roll for a while.

 

[dualmaster]

1500AD:

Spoiler :

Not the best play. Just wanted to be fast. Workers automated, automated production for auto whipping. Cities have just been building curi/cav.

Went to war with Roosevelt first. Made mistake of splitting my forces into several groups to take several cities on first turn. Ended up getting picked apart by random pikes and losing a city or two. Took a while to cap him because I never had a big enough stack.

After that quickly capped Ragnar, followed by Hannibal.

Can probably continue to caval-romp Justinian and his vassal Zara as they don't have RP yet and thus won't have rifles for a little while. SB is just finishing RP and will soon have rifles, so will probably need infantry/arty to take him down effectively.

Despite downright poor play, this save would still be a pretty easy win. I'm sure others will be much better though.

 

[lymond]

1500AD:

Note: Anyone know how to turn off those little city pointers that Gumbolt put in earlier?

Spoiler :

I feel pretty good about what I did this round - at least for me. I maintained some good research and gold generation, keeping a good lead in tech with the exception of tech whore Zaqob, who has been a good trading partner. I ran 2 or 3 golden ages with the Taj and GPs. Each time I switch in to US to buy up some infra for developing cities. Settled the copper/clam to the north, island to the west and an island way west near Rag and Hanny. Not a bad little island - had planned to settle the iron/fish island to the east of that area but Hannibal beat me to it. No big loss. Also, I was abled to beg about 1000 gold from various Civs during this session (twice from SB) which is a ploy I just learned about. Thanks to others for advice last time out. I'm trading more techs for gold now at optimal times. If you see what they are researching and they are a couple of turns from completing, why not suck a little gold from them.

Oxford is in Aachen and Wall Street in process in Vienna, which is going slow. I did get an Great Engineer that I could have used to either zap Wall Street or Statue of Liberty. I went with Statue of Liberty since it seemed good for running Pacifism/Merc/Caste/Rep and I probably would have failed otherwise. I dont' know - what do you think? Was it work getting Wall Street up early and losing Statue of Liberty. I do have 2 free specialists now in each city. Conf is the AP religion which I had in one city. I'm working to spread it to as much as I can to take advantage of those buildings. Augsberg is turning into a nice city. Not sure where to put Ironworks - Prague or Augsberg.

Lay of the Land: I think I'm fairly well settled at this point other than conquest. However, I think I should send a settler up north their to grab clam/oil before SB. Crap city but at least clam and deer will feed it a little. Not sure about additional cities on the west coast

Tech: I think this looks decent. I have steel now. Zaqob is a tech madman. At first I didn't think I would catch him on Physics and was teching Steam Power instead. However, I checked my rate on Physics, trade Steel for Scientific Method, ran some wealth and research in a few cities and now it looks like I'll win that race. The free scientist will be nice.

Demo: Not bad here but not sure why my approval rating is so low. Probably due to trading with everyone, but all the other AIs have been in recent wars with each other except me. A little bizarre.

Lastly, I have 3 GSs hoarded up in Aachen and it appears I will get a fourth from Physics. Normally, I would either bulb or settle these. However, I decided to wait and see what the group thinks. This is the number of GP I need for another Golden Age, which might be optimal for a strategic Civics play and push for the advantage in tech or war. The Globe city might not be ideal, but I favored it over other cities. I will turn the workshops to farms in that city to make more optimal for Globe action. Still have not entered war. Just and Zaqob went to war with SB and I thought for sure they would ask me to join, which I kinda wanted to do. Their war just ended a few turns before the end of the session, so I think something can be arranged shortly into the next session to finally put some hurt on SB with help from the Just/Zaqob coalition.

 

[dualmaster]

1500AD:

Note: Anyone know how to turn off those little city pointers that Gumbolt put in earlier?

Actually, those are my fault from the first round. ALT+s and click on it.

 

[cabert]

to lymond :
approval rate is all about your happies vs your unhappies.
The best approval rate is 50% (just enough happiness to cover your unhappiness)

 

[Gumbolt]

I have not had a chance to play this out. Been rather distracted. Not sure i could reach 1500ad by 6pm today.

Does anyone else need more time? I am aware Christmas is fast drawing near.

 

[MaximumPain]

Im almost done up to 1500 hundred but I was away from home for a few days and haven't had a chance to finish and post the last part of the round. Im not sure my save is up to par with all the slayers in here but I will post it tonight when I get home from work. Im all set for a cuirassier, cannon, and musket war using the draft but I think I could have been getting ready for the same war with rifles and cav. Ill post it tonight anyway.

 

[MaximumPain]

Ok here is my offering.

Spoiler :

Had to go to war with sitting bull earlier then I wanted to (before rifles) but he attacked Zara and was killing him so I figured now is the time. I burned one city and caped the next. My first general I made into a corp command and gave the full healing suite. Problem is that hes one of the best units so if we play my save youll need to be careful until we get rifles and our units upgraded.

Almost at rifles and Im running state property Police state, nationalism, and theo. Have not drafted yet as I was waiting for rifles.

I ran some good espionage against Zara stealing a couple of good techs and using my great spy. Much better payout then a simple bulb. My spy from communism infiltrated sitting bull and I robbed him of biology.

Im sure I screwed up the diplo situation as I passed on some requests for aid that I should have probably filled. Also stabbing SB probably did not make me too popular with han of course Ragnar is his vassal. SB is to big for his britches and needs to be chipped down a bit.

Fun round!!

 

[CornPlanter]

Does anyone else need more time? I am aware Christmas is fast drawing near.

 

[Gumbolt]

Lets close it tomorrow at 6pm.

I am away over crimbo so voting can take place then till the 28th?

 

[MaximumPain]

This game has made me realize the power of Espionage. For the price of 2 great spys I have stolen about 4 techs one of them Biology. In my first run I wasn't patient enough to wait for the full discount for having a spy in the city for the 5 turns and spent to many points on the three techs I stole from Zara. For biology I had to wait the full time to get enough of a discount to afford the snatch. I want to try building the various spy buildings now (in some game maybe not this one) and try for some hard robbery of AI techs. I would say that I got way more then a bulb or even golden age out of my two great spys.

 

[silentounce]

Lets close it tomorrow at 6pm.

I am away over crimbo so voting can take place then till the 28th?

KoLvilization?

 

[lymond]

Would it be possible to start the voting on this round by tomorrow, so I can get mine in before my trip? Also, I'd like to suggest we have the next round go well into next week since folks may be away from their computers for a bit.

 

[Gumbolt]

Not had a chance to conclude my round today so we'll vote without it.

We will go ahead and vote for 2-3 days. Hopefully finish by Tuesday/Wednesday or when all that have played have voted. Its not always about voting for the best save but the save that will be most interesting or challenging to play. Anyone that submitted a save is free to vote.

Please rank your top 3 in order.

First place 3 points.
Second place 2 points
Third place. 1 point.

PLEASE NOTE!! To keep voting fair you cant vote for your own save. You are expected to vote for 3 saves and give reasons for your voting. Remember this is a learning game. I would encourage everyone to act within the spirit that the cookbook is intended.

Anyway here are the saves:

Maximumpain

Lymond

Dualmaster

MJG5591


If any save is posted in next hour please feel free to vote on that if it fits within the cookbook rules.

Voting will end on Thursday 6pm GMT or at the point where everyone from this round has voted or there is a clear winner. Hopefully be quick vote. Again sorry for not completing my save.

 

[lymond]

I'll post votes now. I'll be away until at least Tuesday of next week. Too bad there are not more submissions.

3) Dual - The tech/gold rates don't seem as high as some others, but with the vassals and conquest, this is certainly a strong save. Looks like first to tech Communism so Kremlin should be a given (one of my new favorite wonders.

1) Max - Wow! Kremlin already in place. Did you use an engineer? Low tech/gold but this may be by design since in full on war right now. Whole world is at war. This could be an interesting play from the war standpoint. I expect SB will still put up a good fight and Rag is not far from Military Tradition. No ships have been sent explorin'.

2) MJG - Good Tech. Physics. West Point and Kremlin on the way. 2 vassals.

I think all three of these a very strong and technically Dual is probably the strongest as usually. I'm going with MaxPain just for the SB war even though naval scouting is poor. Looks like I'm the only one not go on the warpath yet.

 

[MaximumPain]

1) Max - Wow! Kremlin already in place. Did you use an engineer? Low tech/gold but this may be by design since in full on war right now. Whole world is at war. This could be an interesting play from the war standpoint. I expect SB will still put up a good fight and Rag is not far from Military Tradition. No ships have been sent explorin'.

Yes I saved the one Dualmaster left for me. I should have explored but felt the victory on the continent was my main focus and never got around to exploring. The economy is low due to state property and police state.

Every one did well in my prince level opinion.

3 point Lymond gets my first place for the massive wonder whore and tech lead plus the extra cities from the exploration. Should be a quick run to tanks infantry and bombers.

2 points to Duelmaster as the quick win save. Tech lead is not so great but a whipping of Justinian should win or get us close to the win.

1 point for MJG for good tech and 2 vassals and a slight tech lead.

All saves are good (even mine) this should be over soon. We should try and play it out to the finish IMO

 

[Gumbolt]

2 votes left to complete vote.

 

[kossin]

Any ideas on the next leader? I could start working on a map if you'd like me to...

 

[silentounce]

I'll probably be participating next time around. I just started playing again about a month ago and I think I'm about up to Emperor level, but barely.

How about Sitting Bull? He doesn't seem to get much love on here as far as people playing him.

 

[cabert]

if you play him, at least you don't face him