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

[Gumbolt]

The Emperor Cookbook is a concurrent succession game series to help readers learn how to play and win at Emperor level in Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword, v3.19

Some of you may be familiar with the previous Monarchist Cookbook games. We decided to raise the level of difficulty to Emperor. Because we are always playing from the best save, this difficulty should be approximately equal to Monarch/Emperor level difficulty.

Our Emperor Cookbook game features Charlemagne. We will be playing at Emperor difficulty, Epic, with a standard sized map. Huts and events are disabled for this game, as they tend to make things more random.

Here is the info on our leader, his unique unit and building as well as our starting position and settings:

Spoiler:

Spoiler :

Our Fearless Leader:

UU:

UB:

Starting position:

Settings :

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Round one lasts from 4000 BC - 1500 BC.

Please play this Round and submit your Report into this thread by next Sunday if possible. (This time frame may change once game is up and running!)


IMPORTANT : Please use spoilers if you want to discuss opening strategies prior to starting the round.

At the end of your Round, please remember to name your save with your name, game and Round # & game date (i.e. "EC2 Round 1 MyName BC-1500.CivBeyondSwordSave"). (And please don't forget to attach it to your Round report, either! ) Please also state your usual difficulty of play.

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Roster:

YOU! - contributor, voter - our most important fixture, the readers who follow the threads and play along.

Now that we have upped the difficulty level, we will return to the 'best ball' system of selecting and playing saves. What this essentially means is that after we have completed each round, everyone will have a chance to vote on which save is in the best position. The winning save will be used for the next round.

If there is any player who is strong at Emperor+ level, it would be great to have you post your saves to show us how it's done. However, I request that any of you who realize your round was far superior remove your save from the voting. This rule is intended to ensure that the game doesn't get into a overly strong winning position after only a few rounds (because what fun is that? ).

Voting Rules:

1. You may NOT vote on your own save (but you are encouraged to state the strengths and weaknesses of your save).
2. For your vote to count as winning save you are expected to have voted for 3 other saves where possible. There is an element of fair play expected from those that vote and tactical voting is to be discouraged.
3. Only those who have posted a round may vote (those who are shadowing are always encouraged to express their opinion!)
4. Don't vote on a save that has voluntarily been removed from the running by the person who submitted it.
5. At the end of each round you can vote on 3 saves for first, second and third place. I believe that these votes should be made publicly in order to allow for as much discussion as possible. I strongly encourage you to explain why you are voting for a particular save. This is one of the best ways to learn, and that's what this game is all about! If you feel uncomfortable voting publicly, PM me with your vote.

After a couple days for voting and discussion a winner will be declared and we will move on to the next round using the winners save.

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A special shout out goes to Kossin who provided us with the map!

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And with that, let the Game begin...

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Intrathread links (ToC): (note, the turn sets are subject to change, this is a tentative schedule to get this first round underway, we are still trying to find the best length for each round)

Round 0: The starting save (this post)
Round 1: 4000 BC - 1500 BC- Playing
Round 2: 1500 BC - 400 AD- upcoming
Round 3: 400 AD - 1100 AD- upcoming
Round 4: 1100 AD - 1500 AD - upcoming
Round 5: 1500 AD - 1700 AD - upcoming
Round 6: 1700 AD - 1820 AD - upcoming
Round 7: 1820 AD - 2050 AD - upcoming

 

[Gumbolt]

Thought I would make Kossin wait a day for this. hehe.

It would be useful if when you post a save you make it clear the highest level you have won at. Anyone who is playing at immortal and winning should limit their play to shadowing. Its no fun for others if strong higher level players dominate each round. No one learns if the save becomes too easy too early on.

We will try to close this round Sunday at 6pm (GMT).

 

[mjg5591]

All right new cookbook with BK. Will play sometime tonight. Hopefully Kossin was nice to us. But knowing him we are next to monty and shaka.

 

[kossin]

^^ hehe, it's supposed to be a learning experience, not a deathwish!

Map type is Fractal in case anyone is wondering.

I won't be shadowing as I know too much about the map.

And just a pointer: Play the map

 

[dualmaster]

Got side tracked with school work for the last Cookbook, so hopefully I'll be able to do more this time.

I'm generally solid at Emperor. Here's round 1:

Spoiler :

Moved scout SW, found the extra food and settled on the plains hill. Turned out to be a good move.

Builds: Worker>War (grow to size 2)>Settler>War>Worker>...

Tech: Ag>AH>Mining>Masonry>BW>Wheel>Pot>Writing

Settled 2nd city just north of capital so I could work the silver early - this pushed me through tech pretty quick. At the end of the round:

Our glorious cities:

The Good things:
- 4 good cities with some infrastructure and all have good cottage land
- 5 workers - maybe a little short, but all cities currently working improved tiles
- Trade routes in all cities
- Great Wall, Stonehenge
- 142 available for deficit research after libraries are up in cap and Prague (can be whipped in shortly)
- Some cottages already running, lots of riverside land for more

The not so good:
- Military = 4 warriors
- Could use scouting to SW - don't know what's beyond that jungle
- Could have more cities up


Basically Great Wall is a given with this much room to expand. Stonehenge is debatable...I didn't want to expand too fast too early before getting through Pottery and Writing so I went for it....it will help get our cities up faster at least. I'm interested to see where others land in tech - getting that silver mine going early really boosted my research. We now have enough tech for a serious REX. My plan is to block off the SW asap and then backfill while teching to CoL for our super courthouses. I chose the current city sites to be cottage heavy to support the REX. If we can block off the visible land to the SW we can peacefully expand to 10+ cities. I'm really not sure if there is anyone to the SW (don't remember where Ragnar came from) but all the barb units are running around my territory to head for SB....pretty funny to watch actually.

 

[bobbyboy29]

Uni's done, holidays are in, time to start posting some games! I'm a very comfortable emperor level player but have never won immortal, so i'd say that i'm the right standard for this cookbook.

Also this is my first time using photobucket so i'm not sure if my pics will work, let me know what i'm doing wrong.

Anyway here's my round up to 1500BC

Spoiler :

Moved scout south and liked what I saw so i settled 1S since no strategic resource would be appearing any time soon in the forests to the north. I swapped 1 deer resource for a riverside cow and wheat, i'll take that! It's probably too much food but it was worth it early on for settler spam and i'll get another city to overlap and feed itself on either the cow or wheat.

Ok so first things first:
Techpath: AH-Mining-Masonry-BW-Ag-TW-Archery-Most of writing

Capital's build order: worker-warrior-worker-Great wall-Stonehenge-settler-whipped warrior-settler-barracks-archer

On to the report:
Anyway, my scout did as scouts do and it scouted. I LOL'd very loudly when I saw that stone resource cut off by 4 mountains and 1 lake! So close but yet so far !

What I did realise was that all my neighbours were to the East and that the west was mine... all mine! so i figured the GW would be worth a shot as i planned on claiming as much land to the east as possible and without it my landlocked cap would be overrun by barbs coming from all sides. This proved to be a fortuitous decision as i failed to find any metals and horses were out of my way (also there's a barb city plonked right on them atm).

So I made a rather silly decision of going masonry before BW and paid for it with a large number of wasted worker turns as my two early workers sat around twiddling thumbs for a couple of centuries waiting for BW to come in so they could chop the GW.

After finally building the Great Wall (and just in time, barb archers started appearing pretty soon after) I saw that SH was still available I decided to give it a go because:
1. I was still in no rush to expand and was Imp so settlers would come cheap
2. i had a couple of workers with nothing better to do than chop a couple of forests
3. I planned to rex a lot of cities so the free monument would be extremely useful.
4. An early settled GP is better than a Gspy IMO.
5. I wanted to make full use of Charlemagne's god-awful starting techs.

So I made a little prayer to charlie's angels and lo and behold 10 turns later:
<a href="http://s922.photobucket.com/albums/ad63/bobbyboy29/?action=view&current=Civ4ScreenShot0017.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad63/bobbyboy29/Civ4ScreenShot0017.jpg" border="0" alt="Charlie's wonders"></a>

So now it was time to churn out some quick settlers. Prague was settled nearby working already improved deer straight away and later on the silver mine (hooray for early happy and some commerce). I really like my Prague location i think it will become a great hammer city in the near future.

Next my workers, a settler and 2 warriors (not needed for garrison thanks to GW) made the long journey to found Vienna, blocking off SB almost completely (unless he founds a couple of useless ice cities) and securing everyone's favourite resource, marble! (found out later that i had almost no hope of getting the stone).

And so that's where I stand, 3 cities and a couple of wonders.
<a href="http://s922.photobucket.com/albums/ad63/bobbyboy29/?action=view&current=Civ4ScreenShot0018.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad63/bobbyboy29/Civ4ScreenShot0018.jpg" border="0" alt="1500BC"></a>

So here's what i think of my save:
Pros:
Great wall AND stonehenge, i can focus on building settlers and workers whilst neglecting military and monuments early on yay!

Sitting Duck has been very well blocked off and will hopefully build some wonders for us with that stone.

I have 3 cities and a size 6 cap to churn out plenty more settlers before Rathauses save the economy.

I have the marble resource secured and so aesthetics line is looking juicy atm.

Prot archers alleviate need for metals...

I love my cap and prague's locations, also I have silver hooked up and running.

Cons:
Vienna, aside from blocking and grabbing marble leaves a lot to be desired as a city.

No metals in sight and a barb city popped up on the horsies! Also no military whatsoever.

Haven't scouted properly so I don't know what's out there to the far east, west or north!

Wasted a bunch of worker turns waiting for BW to come in (naughty naughty i know)

I've got 2 GPro points and 2 Gspy points coming out of what will probably be my main GP source for the rest of the game... not ideal.

Please people, let me know what you think of my save and critique me on my micro, macro and even writing up skills, all advice is welcome. Looking forward to having a look at everyone elses saves!

 

[CornPlanter]

Up to 1500 B. C.

Spoiler :

Tech path: AH -> Mining -> BW -> Archery -> Wheel -> Writing -> Agriculture (currently researching) -> Pottery

First turn moved scout 1NE from settler and settled 1E for Silver.

Build order (capital): Worker -> Warrior -> Settler -> Warrior -> Warrior -> Settler -> Archer -> Worker -> Worker
Build order (2nd city): Monument -> Warrior -> Archer, Archer, Arch...


To see your healthy, protective archers killed by wounded barbarian archer, twice, is really something. Other than that, everything went more or less normally. Oracle is already built somewhere.






Bad: a bit lacking in research, even with silver in Capitals BFC. Second city needs to be cottaged badly and I still have no Pottery.
Good: 4 cities, most of them in decent locations. Horses

 

[Azuolas]

Hello,
I'm beginner on monarch but I try this game.

Spoiler :

Map:



Cities:


Techs:

 

[Ambro]

Looking forward to this one. Start will probably be a bit frustrating, mysticism and hunting aren't the best starting techs, prefer a warrior to a scout generally and lots of brown. The challenge just makes it better in my eyes though.

 

[mjg5591]

Hello,
I'm beginner on monarch but I try this game.

Spoiler :

Map:



Cities:


Techs:

Welcome to Civfanatics. Welcome to the cookbook also. Glad to see you posted a save. I'll check it out when I play my game. Alot of good players in here will help with your play. This cookbook helped me move up to emperor.

 

[kossin]

@Azuolas

Spoiler :

Too many roads, not enough workers. Use rivers inside your culture to connect cities instead of precious worker turns to build roads. Good expansion and nice fogbusting. That settler most likely could have been whipped to avoid unhappiness.

@CornPlanter

Spoiler :

Nice scout move, I wasn't sure anyone would try it! Your save is actually from 1550BC Could use some more scouting and skipping Agriculture is a bit puzzling. OTOH you have writing already and libraries coming in soon. Try swapping the silver archer for the one in Aachen or you may lose it. Use rivers to your advantage, no need to road all the way to Nuremberg (connect it to the river with 1 road). A few more workers never hurt

@bobbyboy29

Spoiler :

Tough luck with barbs. Can't say I love your expansion cities with all that good land west, Vienna especially is so far and doesn't contribute much this early. It's also hard to connect to your empire and you wasted a lot of worker turns doing just that. Nice wonder combo though.

@dualmaster

Spoiler :

Great round, you played the map very well. Also a good idea to separate SH and TGW. General scouting isn't the best but you have a good idea of the layout.

 

[lymond]

Stupid question: How many turns to 1500BC? I need to set up a reminder. thanks

 

[kossin]

100 (10chars)

 

[Steve250]

To 1500bc

Spoiler :

Settled on the plains hill for the extra hammer, started out with the basic worker techs. Worked on stonehenge while I waited to see if we had bronze, and ended up completing it fairly late in the round. I managed to scout a fair bit of the continent and it seems as though almost everyone is here for the party.

1 turn away from writing, 4 workers, 7 archers. Sitting bull demanded some resource which I gave him for the +modifier.

 

[CornPlanter]

@ kossin

Spoiler :

Nice scout move, I wasn't sure anyone would try it! Your save is actually from 1550BC Could use some more scouting and skipping Agriculture is a bit puzzling. OTOH you have writing already and libraries coming in soon. Try swapping the silver archer for the one in Aachen or you may lose it. Use rivers to your advantage, no need to road all the way to Nuremberg (connect it to the river with 1 road). A few more workers never hurt

Thanks for your feedback
Scouting: I had terrible luck here. Already mentioned two dead archers. On top of that, my starting scout died while standing on a forest w/ woodsmen I promo.

Roads all over the place just because workers had nothing to do. Yes, I myself dont really understand how it happened with Agriculture Will try to do better next round.

Among my other silly mistakes made here, the save is really from 1550 B.C. as kossin pointed out. Shall I play it more and update attachment or leave it as is? Sorry about that

 

[MaximumPain]

Im going to try this again at least for the free lesson for making the attempt. Normally ok at Prince but I still get beat by the AI at times.

Spoiler :

Barbarians were on me hard I went and looked at the settings to see if it was at raging . It was from the north and South West several archers lucky I went for the chariot city early they came out just in time to save the city's. Still got a few improvements burned and lost a couple warriors my workers are just getting to fixing the damage. I should have tried to fog bust more but there were archers lurking my borders for a while. Great wall would be a good wonders . Had to mount an expedition to set up Nuremberg and Im not that happy with the spot now that its in. I like the other two cities. I saw all the AIs come from the NW and it looks like a wall to the west with the only way past to the north. I can see sitting bulls protective arse on the other side of it. Saw no AIs from the SW but the barbarian wars prevented me from looking yet how big it is or if it has some damn copper. Picked up archery for pottery from Han which was nice.

 

[Ambro]

^^ hehe, it's supposed to be a learning experience, not a deathwish!

Map type is Fractal in case anyone is wondering.

I won't be shadowing as I know too much about the map.

And just a pointer: Play the map

Having some trouble playing the map, think I'm going to need to sit down and think this one through. Tried dotmapping the place and just got confused.

 

[CBPE]

I've won several times on Monarch, tried some games on Emperor but I've never won on this level

Spoiler :

I moved the scout south and decided to settle on the plain hill.
Initial techs:
Agriculture - AH - Mining - BW - Wheel

I decided to skip archery and place my second city to claim horses.

The chariot arrived a bit too late so I had to whip them crazy to save my cities from barbs.

Now this is the situation:

I'm a bit undersized cause the whips I've done and the improvements pillaged by barbs.
I need some turns to regrowth, but now chariots are there, and barbs are not a problem yet.

Of course, not a powerful start: no wonders and not great economy

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

I'll only shadow this because I'm comfortable on Immortal. I accidentally played two extra turns.

Spoiler :

As I'm not putting my save up for competition, I decided to play it in a way that's interesting for me. I built the Great Wall in Aachen and tried to build the Stonehenge in Prague, but someone beat me to it. Not a problem, the failure cash allowed me to research Writing and to unlock the UB with the Oracle. I have two cities and two settlers. I'll try to settle the stone site near Sitting Bull and the marble to its north. If he's already settled the stone, I'll settle the marble and go to my southwest with the other settler. I've already met everyone, unless Kossin added some extra AIs.

Edit: Now I see there's a stone site to the south, I won't bother with Sitting Bull's. That's something with the cookbooks: the exploration is usually very different.

 

[kossin]

@steve250

Spoiler :

Nice scouting, can't say I like the way you placed Prague, it has too many Tundra tiles. A few too many roads (do you really need to road sheep this early when you already have one?), those worker turns could have hooked up good tiles (grassland farms for example). As others SH is a nice addition.

@MaximumPain

Spoiler :

Good job getting Chariots out, should be easier to deal with barbs. Wayyyyy too many roads! Vienna is a terrible location for the city, and why is Nuremberg soooooo far when there are better spots nearby? (pigs on a lot of green river land!) Your round is a bit behind others as you didn't hook up the silver yet which is a source of great commerce this early in the game. Not sure why Aachen isn't working the grass cows, you can always 2-whip it on a worker/settler on 3-whip a library in a few turns to get rid on the unhappiness.

@CBPE

Spoiler :

Very very good exploration - the best so far that I've seen. Despite that, the silver still isn't hooked up! OTOH, you've got stone now, but it kinda seems late for any of the early wonders. You do know that the wall-whip trick does not work as in 3.17, correct? Paired workers often waste turns so watch out for that. Can't figure out what the road-to-nowhere is for by Vienna.

@Ignorant Teacher

Spoiler :

Nice gambit, looks like you'd be ready for major ReXXing, combined with the silver you did NOT hook up I think I'd let Aachen grow and whip the unhappiness away rather than stagnate it. Nice exploration of the mainland. I think Settlers+Workers would be better than Chitchen Itza now but that's just me.

@Ambro

Spoiler :

Can't say more without a save/pictures but the usual applies: scout, settle food resources and generate as much commerce as you can. Remember Charley is Imperialistic so the whip works especially well on settlers. Use the land to your advantage, not as an obstacle.

@CornPlanter

Spoiler :

I suppose playing 1 turn and updating your save won't change that many things but would probably be preferable to figure out the outcome of the archer near Aachen.