Cookbook University games discussion thread

[CellKu]

EDIT: One thing we didn't discuss is choice of leader. I'm fine with whatever basically, though perhaps not one of the weaker leaders. I know someone voiced a wish for a strong leader in this thread.

I totally agree. As this deity cookbook series will hopefully see many installments/leaders I suggest we start with a not too difficult leader now and then reduce it during the next installments bit by bit, so that we will eventually also play weak leaders (but not in this first game).

 

[Dirk1302]

@Gliese and CellKu

Ok, ill try to post a start between tomorrow and sunday. What constitutes a good leader on deity btw? Traits on this level are imo more balanced , protective can be very strong in the right situations for instance. I'd lean to a random leader for this reason but have no strong feelings about it.

Maybe you can post some strong leaders you'd like to play.

 

[Gliese 581]

Some good leaders that haven't been used online recently:

HC, Liz, Willem, Gilgamesh, Any Roman, Ramesses, Mansa, Lincoln.

Edit: Btw my second diety game ended in concession as well in 1680. The war with Joao was very tough and HC was 1 tech away from launch at that point. Short update to conclude to follow.

Actually I might continue the game offline just to see what HC's win date is. early 1700s probably.

 

[Dirk1302]

Early 1700's , guess he really was teching all these modern techs in ~ 2 turns, unbelievable. He had good land for sure. Somehow you never know with HC he can be very strong tech wise but i've also seen him with a large chunk of land, not (yet) going cultural and not achieving much.

From the leaders you list Willem really is a beast on deity if you get to steam power. Great synergy with catching up late game here.From your list i'd choose Gilgamesh as an interesting leader, see hat we can make of those Ziggurath's. Never played him before.

I take it quecha rushes are not possible on deity, otherwise i'd rather not play HC. Same
goes for the romans and praets, have never played them for that reason.

 

[Gliese 581]

You can quechua rush on deity but on normal speed their second city better be bumping you cultural borders. It's still not a sealed deal as they can get copper or horses hooked up before you're done. Best thing about them though is of course that you don't need archery for defense and scouting so it's like getting archery from the start, with cheaper archers.

Gilgamesh is one of the best rexers with creative, ziggurats and vulture rushes (although those are sure to be harder on deity).
I read that the protective trait can actually be useful for something else than drill 1 drafting on deity in the Mao game thread. Sounds like a good choice for leader then.

 

[CellKu]

Haven't played Gilga for a while and haven't seen him around in many recent online games here. So, why not take him. Willem would also be a good choice - if we don't take him now, I would be happy if we took him for the next game. Same goes for Liz.
With regard to Ramses: Although I really love that guy, I would be glad if we didn't take him for the first game. With him I always feel the urgent need to build wonders.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Hi all,

I am in love with organized leaders for some reasons...
What do you think of Nappy, Fred, and Zara? (would be happy to go with Gilga, but I like having two traits )

Cheers

 

[Dirk1302]

Don't underestimate protective on deity.It depends on the circumstances but you'll love it when you scrutinize the leader board and see your sweet neighbour Cathy has enough on her hands 1000 BC.

Also the Ziggurat is a very good UB so overall i'd say Gilg's indeed strong.

I share your love for organized leaders, from the leaders you mentioned i especially like Zara, he's in the spotlight often though. Fred's good too but he's got some difficulty starting up in the early game. Nap'd be interesting since i don't recall i've ever played him.

 

[Gliese 581]

Zara is obv a great leader but he's the one I played in my last deity game so I'd prefer someone else.
Nappy is pretty good. Generally I rate charismatic as trait #1 on emperor-immortal. On deity I rank creative as #1. Organized is always good of course.

 

[Dirk1302]

So Gilg or Nap it'll be, i'll post a start tonight, so last chance to give preference between one of those. I'll go with Gilg if everything stays as it is now as i'm very interested how that ziggurat plays. Since it's more or less a tie one vote for Nap'll be enough to sway me though.

Something else, back in the warlords days Giaur hosted some very good open immortal games, i'm sure Snaaty remembers them. We had fixed reporting times, he'd assemble all the games that were posted and write a summary on them. One of the things he'd do was list a beaker count at no loss which is easy to do but he also managed to measure the hammer output of each empire. I wonder how he did this, you can count the hammers in each city from the F1 screen of course but you have to reckon with HE bonuses, wonder bonuses with a resource etc, apart from all the work adding the hammers from each city. Does anyone have an idea how he may have done this?

Here's an example of how he reported + a link to a sample thread where he did this, i was very impressed by the way he did this.


======================================================================

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=214643&page=2

Oyzar:
----------------------------------
Basic Info:
Total population: 63
Total cities: 8
Average pop per city: 7.9
Beakers: 132
Production: 84

Army&Diplo:
Oyzar favours Cats and Axeman. Due to wars Oyzar lost 13 units and killed 37 units. Oyzar has quite strong military. He is warring now with G.Khan. Open Borders is signed with Asoka.

Economy&Trade:
Best known techs:
Civil Service
Paper

Education is in progress ...
22 cottages are being worked, 1 specialist is assigned.
1 Great Person was born by far.
Oyzar has access to Copper and Stone.
7 workers are improving tiles

Laws
Oyzar runs Heralditary Rule, Bureurocracy and Slavery.

Buildings:
Oyzar spent total 2750 hammers on buildings and on average 343 hammers per city. Oyzar favours libraries and markets.

Wonders:
Heroic Epic


Mrchadt:
----------------------------------
Basic Info:
Total population: 39
Total cities: 5
Average pop per city: 7.8
Beakers: 62, but some additional gold
Production: 42

Army&Diplo:
Mrchadt favours War Elephants. Rest army is balanced. Due to wars Mrchadt lost 5 units and killed 33 units. Mrchadt has very strong military. He is warring now with G.Khan. Open Borders is signed with Asoka.

Economy&Trade:
Best known techs:
Civil Service
Paper

Machinery is in progress ...
No cottages, 4 specialists are assigned.
2 Great Persons were born by far.
Mrchadt has access to Copper, Iron and Stone.
4 workers are improving tiles

Laws
Mrchadt runs Bureurocracy,Slavery and Theocracy.

Buildings:
Mrchadt spent total 2140 hammers on buildings and on average 535 hammers per city. Mrchadt favours monasteries, temples and walls(duns).

Wonders:
Heroic Epic

Shyuhe:
----------------------------------
Basic Info:
Total population: 67
Total cities: 11
Average pop per city: 5.8
Beakers: 46, and no gold
Production: 80

Army&Diplo:
Shyuhe favours War Elephants and Gallic Warriors. Due to wars Shyuhe lost 28 units and killed 80 units. Shyuhe has quite strong military. Peace with Khan. Open Borders is signed with Asoka, but without trading routes yet. There are some trading options with Asoka available.

Economy&Trade:
Best known techs:
Civil Service
Philosophy

Sailing is in progress ...
10 cottages, 6 specialists are assigned.
3 Great Persons were born by far.
Shyuhe has access to Copper and Iron.
13 workers are improving tiles

Laws
Shyuhe runs Heralditary Rule, Bureurocracy and Slavery.

Buildings:
Shyuhe spent total 2580 hammers on buildings and on average 258 hammers per city. Shyuhe favours courthouses.

Wonders:
No wonders.


Giaur:
----------------------------------
Basic Info:
Total population: 52
Total cities: 9
Average pop per city: 5.8
Beakers: 153 and some gold
Production: 65

Army&Diplo:
Giaur favours Gallic Warriors and Archers. Due to wars Giaur lost 29 units and killed 75 units. Giaur has weak military. Peace with Khan. Open Borders is signed with Asoka.

Economy&Trade:
Best known techs:
Civil Service
Philosophy

Education is in progress ...
2 cottages, 10 empowered specialists are assigned.
3 Great Persons were born by far.
Giaur has access to Copper, Iron and Stone(x2).
8 workers are improving tiles

Laws
Giaur runs Representation, Bureurocracy, Caste System and Pacifism.

Buildings:
Giaur spent total 1110 hammers on buildings and on average 138 hammers per city. Giaur slightly favours forges.

Wonders:
The Collosus

======================================================================

Well looking at it again i think he just really looked well at all of the saves and assembled all this info. We might report our own save in the same way.

 

[silverbullet]

I'd like to join the game. I vote for Gilgamesh but any leader is fine with me

Regarding standardized reports: I don't think these averages mean a lot. Personally I would prefer a free-form report stating the perceived advantaged and disadvantages of each game.

 

[CellKu]

Dirk1302, I do like your suggestion of having some standardized info about each save (although it shouldn't be the only information in a report, a (n additional) free-form report as silverbullet suggested is very important for getting an idea about diplomacy and trading!).

What I miss in these summaries is, for example, an overview of ALL the techs you researched (or traded) during that turnset. IMO that gives a better idea about the save and its achievements than only the "best techs".
Actually, what is meant with "best techs"? The most expensive ones? The ones that are furthest to the "right" in the tech tree? (These two are not necessarily the same)

Is it necessary to report how many hammers you spent during the turnset? I do understand the need to know which level of production (=how many hammers at the end of the turnset) you have achieved so far, but the spent hammers?

 

[Dirk1302]

Sure i agree that the reporting format should be free, i was impressed by the way he did it at the time and it gave a quick quantized overview. I for one once had output of 200 hammers/turn, someone else had 600, this really made me realize that i was focusing too much on beakers and not enough on hammer output.This helped me a lot in future games. So i was suggesting that it might be something you could do in a report, i'd certainly wouldn't like to impose it, sorry if that was the impression i gave.

We've covered a lot of ground in this thread but there are some aspects that haven't come across yet. Just looked at the immortal cookbook rules:

- It seems there's a week playing time, then 3 days voting time which seems fine.
- It has a roster, i don't know if this was a pre agreed roster or edited in later when it
was clear which players participated, probably the latter. An initial roster isn't
necessary imo.
- I also think that players who didn't participate in round one should be allowed to join
in later, there's no reason not to allow this as far as i'm concerned.
- Since some players'll be on tight schedules i don't think the intermediate reporting
dates that were mentioned should be mandatory, they're highly appreciated of course
and also serve to make your playing plan overall more clear.
- While progressing there'll be more points coming up, we can discuss them all here.

Gilgamesh it is then, time to prepare a start.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

What I miss in these summaries is, for example, an overview of ALL the techs you researched (or traded) during that turnset. IMO that gives a better idea about the save and its achievements than only the "best techs".

Strongly agree with this... I think it is also more important than bpt... Summaries could have all these info: bpt, trades, monopoly techs, and global number of beakers scored since the start of the game (sum of all the tech costs you have)

Cheers

 

[CellKu]

Sure i agree that the reporting format should be free, i was impressed by the way he did it at the time and it gave a quick quantized overview. I for one once had output of 200 hammers/turn, someone else had 600, this really made me realize that i was focusing too much on beakers and not enough on hammer output.This helped me a lot in future games. So i was suggesting that it might be something you could do in a report, i'd certainly wouldn't like to impose it, sorry if that was the impression i gave.

Just to clarify, in case there was a misunderstanding and you were (also) responding to me: I do think that a summary is a good thing and helps when comparing the various saves (and as you said, Dirk1302, to realize certain shortages in one's own game). However, it shouldn't be the only thing that makes up the whole report.

We've covered a lot of ground in this thread but there are some aspects that haven't come across yet. Just looked at the immortal cookbook rules:

- It seems there's a week playing time, then 3 days voting time which seems fine.
- It has a roster, i don't know if this was a pre agreed roster or edited in later when it
was clear which players participated, probably the latter. An initial roster isn't
necessary imo.
- I also think that players who didn't participate in round one should be allowed to join
in later, there's no reason not to allow this as far as i'm concerned.
- Since some players'll be on tight schedules i don't think the intermediate reporting
dates that were mentioned should be mandatory, they're highly appreciated of course
and also serve to make your playing plan overall more clear.
- While progressing there'll be more points coming up, we can discuss them all here.

Gilgamesh it is then, time to prepare a start.

I totally agree with everything.

Except maybe (a little bit) with regard to your "light" approach to the "report ony"-dates. For comparing and learning reasons especially the first reporting dates are quite important IMO. When I proposed them as "report-only"-dates I just wanted to circumvent the problem that players who are trying to implement a certain strategy are forced out of their game.
However, I do agree that players who have a tight schedule should get some leeway.

Just to emphasize: I am also for a flexible approach with regard to entry to the game. Everybody should be free to join in later stages. Thus, when you miss a start in the first week (because for example you are travelling) you are not excluded from the game.
What we could think about is that depending on whether it was a "report only" turn or already the first "report and vote" turn you should (in the latter case) only play from the best save if you join later.

Btw, good idea to make this thread some kind of "administration"-thread.

 

[CellKu]

Dirk1302, I just saw in the newly created game thread that you didn't mention anything about naming the save. To facilitate downloading and comparison it would be great if each player added his/her nick to the name of the save before uploading. What do you think?

 

[Dirk1302]

The idea of making the reporting only dates not mandatory comes forth from the wish to make the game as open to everyone as possible. Writing a detailed report costs a lot of time, some people just don't have time to that at every checkpoint. I'd rather they only report at the voting points than that they drop out all together. I much prefer reporting at all the proposed reporting dates however, i'll certainly adhere to that schedule myself.

What we could think about is that depending on whether it was a "report only" turn or already the first "report and vote" turn you should (in the latter case) only play from the best save if you join later.

Sorry this isn't totally clear to me:
Does this mean that someone who hasn't reported at a reporting date doesn't have the freedom to continue his own save once or does it mean that players who haven't played the first round don't have that freedom? I think the first but not totally sure.

I'm interested in what others think about mandatory/not mandatory reporting dates.

 

[Dirk1302]

Dirk1302, I just saw in the newly created game thread that you didn't mention anything about naming the save. To facilitate downloading and comparison it would be great if each player added his/her nick to the name of the save before uploading. What do you think?

Seems like a very good idea to me, i'll edit the game thread.

 

[CellKu]

The idea of making the reporting only dates not mandatory comes forth from the wish to make the game as open to everyone as possible. Writing a detailed report costs a lot of time, some people just don't have time to that at every checkpoint. I'd rather they only report at the voting points than that they drop out all together. I much prefer reporting at all the proposed reporting dates however, i'll certainly adhere to that schedule myself.

Oh, I see. Well, you definitely have a point here.

Sorry this isn't totally clear to me:
Does this mean that someone who hasn't reported at a reporting date doesn't have the freedom to continue his own save once or does it mean that players who haven't played the first round don't have that freedom? I think the first but not totally sure.

Actually, I meant the second. Sorry, that I wasn't clear enough. However, agreeing with your argument above about having a game that is as open as possible, I would like to withdraw that suggestion.

 

[Dirk1302]

As far as i know we agreed to have the 1 AD saves for the Gilgamesh challenge in friday 5 december so we could vote over the weekend. I actually copied from the Imc as it felt reasonable to me. This may be too soon though. Feel free to post if this is the case then we can agree on a new date.