Emperor Cookbook I: Ghandi

[colony]

My votes for the top 3:

1 - Mr. Morph - Shaka's out, and with Stonehenge and writing almost finished the economy should recover nicely
2 - Monsterzuma - No more Shaka, strong military and enough gold to allow the economy to recover, but not quite as strong a position as Mr. Morph
3 - carl corey - Same as Monsterzuma

As for my save, I was planning on whipping away the unhappy citizen once the current axeman in Delhi was finished, but didn't have time to do it. As I said, this wasn't my best effort, I play a lot of Huge maps, so I don't go for early rushes as often as some people.

 

[carl corey]

As for my save, I was planning on whipping away the unhappy citizen once the current axeman in Delhi was finished, but didn't have time to do it. As I said, this wasn't my best effort, I play a lot of Huge maps, so I don't go for early rushes as often as some people.

Got it. I usually try to switch tiles so as not to grow into unhappiness, even if for the time I'm working a "suboptimal" tile.

Also, I don't play a lot of rushes on Emperor either, but fortune was with me this time with settling near the copper. I said I'd give it a try, and we were all lucky that Shaka didn't get copper early on, or we'd have to deal with Shock axes. Plus, fast workers are a real boost for chopping as they can move and start chopping on the same turn; and we had plenty of forests to chop on this occasion. There's rarely a better situation for an early rush.

 

[MkLh]

I'm still not sure about the early rush, even when Shaka's evil character and all resources there is a strong point. The downside is that Shaka's cities are so far from Delhi and a shape of an empire becomes suboptimal (empire's shape will be like a strip and Delhi will be the most northern city, when in more optimal placement cities would surround Delhi). Anyway, votes:

1) Soirana. The rush is almost done and economic situation is the best. Only 2 cities far away.
2) Carl Corey. The rush is done, but all other 3 cities are far away.
3) Vicawoo. A nice peaceful approach. Just bit too much expanding.

 

[Arsonist]

Like most of the other people, I liked the look of chopping out the axes, taking out Shaka before he took out us.

3 points to Mr Morph - Stonehenge in Ulundi, Shaka dead and the nice Great General makes this the best save for me
2 points to Soria - Shaka is nearly dead and the finances are good as well
1 point to Carl Corey - Shaka is dead again and 3 good Zulu cities in the bag

I know that the cities are a bit far away from the capital, as MkLH points out above, but I think taking Shaka out now and gaining a lot of good land for ourselves will make it worth it.

 

[Bleys]

You know, I didnt look at Mr Morphs when I voted, I think its a pretty strong save too, now that I actually looked at it.

I change my vote to a tie, Carl and Morph. Either would provide a solid game for the future.

When are we going to have the tally here? I am itching to play a "real" round.

 

[ChromiumL]

*EDIT* I take back the one more day for voting--it seems that most people have voted, so I think we should go ahead and continue.

I went ahead and counted Bleys vote since it wasn't his fault he couldn't participate this round (and he did actually play it).

*Edit x2--added RJM's votes--didn't change the end result though*

Here is the tally:

Mr. Morph = 17
Carl = 13
Soirana = 11
Monsterzuma = 9
King Morgan = 4
Mklh = 2
RJM = 2
Vicawoo = 1

So congrats Mr. Morph!! We will be playing from his save.

Everyone will have a full week to play this round. This round we will play util 400AD. We will start voting on the spookiest day of the year (the 31st).

Btw, thanks for the great summary of all the submitted saves Carl!! I think next round, after all of the saves are submitted, I will create a post with links to all of the saves to save the time of having to scroll through and find them all.


@ Monsterzuma:

Spoiler :

A bit of a strange remark IMO. King Morgan has a tech rate of 7 beaker/turn. If each of us "rushers" puts each of our workers (we have 5 on average) to 6 turns of cottaging and redirects a tile from every city to a grassland river cottage, we have a tech rate higher than Morgan's in six turns.

I guess I just haven't ever had that work for me... but who am I to talk since I can't make a rush strategy work . Cottages and cottage economy are great, but 6 turns of cottaging isn't going to get your tech rate up that much.

 

[RJM]

1. Monsterzuma
2. Mr Morph
3. Soirana

 

[carl corey]

Congratulations to Mr.Morph. Let's see where this round takes us.

Btw, thanks for the great summary of all the submitted saves Carl!!

You're welcome. I got the idea from Berkobob in the "Immortal Cookbook" thread. It's pretty useful for the first round, but its usefulness will decrease within the next rounds as situations will diverge much more from each other and the "remarks" will have more weight than the numbers.

 

[RJM]

How do I remove Mr Morph's waypoint?

RJM

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Hi all,

Congrats to Mr.Morph. and thanks Carl for the summary...

Cheers,

Raskolnikov

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

My effort absolutely sucks.......slurp slurp slurp

Spoiler :

I won't even bother with 2 much of a write up, suffice to say, I suck..HA....

Too much whipping, I suck with cottages, built 3 more cities, ( no settler chopping I SUCK ) with settler cooling heels in Shaka's old capital (move capital there), Nominated a wall street city, converted to Hinduism, Vicky founds Confucianism. Still working on iron working, with 5 libraries AND 6 Granneries set up. Oh yeah built a few workers as well...

Initial idea was iron working for Gem mines, Found 3 dye 2 south of gems so settled a city there as wall street, and grabbed horses as well. Settled a city towards Izzy with river facing to izzy , cheap wall and on a plains hill.

Have all of back area to settle into. Couple turns left on iron working...

7 cities, 7 workers, Pissed off Izzy by going Buddhist but 2nd in land...

Probably have another try later, less whipping...Hmm maybe..

View attachment 192365 Ahhh Crap...only now realise its to 400 AD.....i'll go on, but it'll still suck

 

[carl corey]

The second round's up to 400AD, IPEX.

RJM, I'll open the save tonight to see what waypoint you are talking about.

 

[carl corey]

How do I remove Mr Morph's waypoint?

RJM

Hold down Shift and then right-click on the city tile of the city whose waypoint you want changed.

 

[RJM]

Hold down Shift and then right-click on the city tile of the city whose waypoint you want changed.

Thanks for the information.

RJM

 

[Monsterzuma]

Report of round 2 - no peeking

Spoiler :

As planned, I spent a good deal of this round cottaging all over the place. I prioritized Monarchy for research. I teched it with the help of a golden age from the prophet from Stonehenge. Early game golden ages are relatively inefficient, but with three thirds of my cities bursting at the seems Monarchy was too important to delay. I planned the golden age to still be active when Monarchy was teched, hoping to bypass anarchy. I remembered only afterwards that we are spiritual so this benefit would not apply... In any case once Monarchy was up, Warriors started rolling off the conveyor belts and the anger problem was dealt with for good.



I promised a "harassment rush", and I really did excecute one. I took one of Isabella's border cities with the axemen that I had left. I also stomped on a roaming settling party of hers. These two acts pretty much bombed her back to the stone age as she was begging me for Writing around 500 BC (quite a bit after making peace; which she agreed to quite soon after the rush). As a result of the rush I own another cottagable city and I have a nice walkway into Spanish territory that leads right into the heart of the empire that I'll no doubt make use of some time later into the game.



A GP farm was fired up in uMguguluviu as soon as Code of Laws was teched. The two 6-Food yielding resources were good for 5 scientists. The first GS from uMgung was used to bulb Philosophy with. This caused Taoism to be founded it uMgunguloviu itself (coincidence). The second GS was also from Umgung, but the third was from Ulundi which I have ran about 5 scientists in from a slightly later point. These latter two scientists were used together to bulb Education with.

I'm hoping to be able to settle the spot with the Dyes seen in this screenshot before Isabella does. Am expecting to end up settling next to 1 dye tile and having to snatch the other from her in a culture race...:



Techs researched in between:
- Code of Laws ; prioritized after Monarchy, as I had 2 GP farmable cities
- Maths ; requisite for Currency, Calendar and Civil Service
- Currency ; big empires give big trade revenues
= Alphabet ; obtained by trade
= Philosophy ; bulbed
- Calendar ; my cities really aching for happiness; plus plantaging the bananas gets more GP out of Ulundi
- Civil Service ; always good; I made sure Delhi was working cottages so the benefits would be at their max; I didn't see merit in moving the palace as Delhi was as good a cottage center as any other city
- Paper ; requisite for Education...
= Education ; bulbed
~ Liberalism ; in progress - can also be delayed for a slingshot

 

[MkLh]

Round 2:

Spoiler :

7 cities, no wars, slavery/HR, paganism, no state religion, no wonders built (tried The Great Library but missed), NE is built in Ulundi. After CS is done I was planning to switch Bureaucracy to boost up research, tech paper, bulb half of Edu from GS i've spared and whip universities (7 cities is enough to unlock Oxford), which may give a nice tech edge (now I'm about in same level as AI's I think). There is probably still space for 1-2 new production cities. I haven't adopted religion yet, because Buddhism is the only save choice, and it isn't presented in NE city yet.

View attachment 192462

View attachment 192461

 

[Berkobob]

Nice job on those saves gang.

Carl, excellent job summing up the saves. Immortal Cookbook taught me how time consuming that can be.

I definitely sympathise with how much time that many saves must have taken!

And yes, a similar summary will be almost useless for round two and definitely useless by round three

Looking back, my first save was trash, so thanks to everyone posting stronger saves and rubbing my nose in it. This is a GOOD THING because I retried the save a fair few times to work out what was slowing my rush. Learned a bit from doing it.

After slogging through the Immortal University threads and switching to Normal speed in offline games, I really hate playing Epic speed now, seems to me I cannot get anything done in the first 100 turns.

Also, A LOT of saves were posted, which is awesome - didn't know we had so many people playing at emperor level!

So combining these two factors means I won't be playing any more rounds, the game is not in any danger of dying off.

Will be lurking in earnest though. Still plenty of pointers to be learned from all you wonderful folks.

Best of luck.

 

[RJM]

Spoiler :

After a couple of turns, the size of our economic problems begins to sink in. Two questions cross my mind - should I have voted for a different save? More seriously, would it hav been better to raze the last city we captured, or even allow a crippled Shaka to survive as a buffer state? Anyway, we are where we are.

Researching writing to get some scientists seems to be top priority. And each turn I need to scrabble for every available unit of commerce.

With the discovery of writing in 1250 BC, I decide to go for currency (via mathematics) while building as many libraries as I can. After completing the first library and allocating a scientist, I have 18 beakers per turn with a research rate of 30%. This seems pretty bad to me, but at least it's better than the 7 beakers per turn a short while ago.

725 BC and we get a great scientist (only 8% chance), but would I have preffered a great priest?. I decide to settle him in Delhi.

600 BC and we discover mathematics which we can trade with Hamurabli. I pick up polytheism, fishing and hunting. Research rate is back down to 20%, but we have 33 beakers per turn.

550 BC and we discover the barbarian city of Chehalis. I decide to try to capture it to prevent it going to Isabella.

485 BC and we capture Chehalis at the expense of our best axeman. At least we get 84 gold which allows me to push the research rate to 100% for a couple of turns. This gives us 78 beakers per turn.

455 BC and I convert to Budhism.

410 BC and the dust has settled following the capture of Chehalis. We have a research rate of 20% producing 35 beakers per turn.

335 BC and I found Vijayanagara - mistake? I also settle a scientist in Delhi.

305 BC and we discover currency which gives our economy a boost! I decide to research Aesthetics on the way to Literature. Hamurabi gives us alphabet and 70 gold in exchange. Some tech whoring gives us priesthood ironworking and archery at the cost of 20 gold.

290 BC and the cultural expansion of Chehalis gives us access to iron. We trade currency for monarchy and revolt to hereditary rule.

155 BC and although it doesn't mean very much, we are top of the score board.

110 BC and we discover literature which unleashes a building campain.

5 BC and we discover code of laws, allowing us to revolt to cast system. With a bit of jugglling the specialists, I can reach 96 beakers per turn at 40% research and a balanced budget, although I decide on a further turn with a deficit.

AD 55 and we finally build an academy in Delhi. I also deside to burn my great general in order to make the Heroic epic available.

AD 175 and we complete the Great Library in Delhi and the Heroic Epic in Bombay.

AD 310 and I decide to burn a great scientist for philosophy; I wouldn't normally, but Taoism is still available and representation will give me some extra GP points.

AD 140 and I hit the save button.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Round II

Spoiler :

Bit of a eco crash in the last checkpoint, but nothing a suped up warmonger like me isn't used to. Teched out writing then iron working. Izzy spread buddhism so I adopted that and used the gems + temple + religion for while I needed it most.

Cathy founded an annoying city taking MY floodplains to the east. Not wanting to tolerate this, I closed borders so she couldn't siphon defenders there, and used sword/axe to rape her chariot defending it, being sure to let it grow to size 2 before I DoW'd. Nobody liked her so I didn't care diplomatically. Before taking peace I took her livestock city on the NE, kicking her off the continent entirely. Forced her to give me masonry.

I'd also teched out alphabet and traded around a bit. It took FOREVER to get CoL. Unfortunately you can't see it when I had to stop off, but I can hit around 150 BPT or more if ulundi maxes out scientists - which is the idea after the marble-chopped NE gets in. Once I have CS bulb paper + edu gogogogo...there's a few GS's banked in Ulundi already with more on the way once NE is up.

Other cities ran scientists at first to get some key techs but now most of the rest of the empire is cottages. Hybrid indeed. Currency will be traded for once the AIs pull their out out of guess where.

Some pics:

View attachment 192630

 

[Bleys]

I am afraid I wont be sending in a submission this round either:

Spoiler :

I blew it baddly. I took our army up toward Izzy, hoping to nail a Holy City in the process, but I didnt pay attention to my economy. Needless to say, 8 axes cant live very long without funds. Strike, lost 4, sighed, and reloaded.

Second try (for my peace of mind, not for submission) went a tad better, I chewed up a Barb City on the way for a little cash, and worked as many commerce tiles as possible with my cities, and managed to take a couple cities off Izzy, but honestly, it was STILL a very poor effort.

I am not a strong early game warmonger, no question about it. I prefer to REX and be mostly left alone. Its no surprise I tend toward non-Pangaea type maps, I am a pure GLH guy, I guess.

Going to keep submitting this game, because its obvious this is a part of my game that needs a lot of work. I would like to think of myself as a "complete" player, I think that true "skill" in this game is "Any map, Any leader". I am not there on Emperor yet, not by a long shot.

So lets make the next one a Big and Small with snakey continents and islands mixed in, a 3-seafood coastal start with no ocean tiles in the BFC next round, heh.