Emperor Cookbook I: Ghandi

[RRRaskolnikov]

my votes:

1. Monsterzuma: good tech, but you could trade for some more happiness resources... also Cathy has settled the land mass ...

2.Carl: Nice cities, Cathy blocked... and an awesome army...( I would move on Vicky as she is already annoyed with you)

3. Soirana: good exploration, nice tech rate, military still weak but maces are coming...

Honorable mentions to:

TMIT: the "butcher" save (I like that), nice expansion, but tech rate a little slow (but a switch to slavery to whip courts should solve that) + 2 scientists waiting to bulb

RJM: nice tech rate... you also grabbed the iron+cow site which is an awesome prod city in my opinion...

Frankly, saves I haven't mentionned are also really playable but just a little behind (IMO of course)... I will be happy to played from any

Cheers,

Raskolnikov


edit: @Carl: Wat is , I had nothing better when I launched it and forgot to change that lol. About cat -war, well I find suiciding cats in a longbow wall completely inefficient hammer wise (IMO)... I am more a treb guy lol..

 

[Soirana]

I never pretended to see all things in your saves

to Carl Corey:
Yes Christianity is for that stupid AP. The problem was i believed that city has no budhism (i also believed AP gets marble bonus untill i had 200 hammers into it.) - playing 7 am on coffein that is. I believed it had confu+hindu+christianity. So switching to budhism is no brainer, as i spent most of game in such mode.

GP farm- never was good at these but i guess that town is growing in that way I have problems working farm instead of village.

Raskolnikov: maces and trebs after liberalism? Just correct me what are you planning to take with liberalism - nationalism for drafted maces?

 

[carl corey]

Actually working farms isn't useful either in the NE city. They give +1 , but you've already got enough food to work specialists. Mines aren't useful either, except to get the necessary buildings up. Think of that city as one (or, later, half a) tech every few turns from the GSs generated. In those turns working the cottages will give you nowhere near the same amount of beakers. And working the mines will get you some additional buildings or units; again, it can't compete with techs from GSs. I plan on getting the GT in that city so that happiness isn't a problem anymore, so all that it will need will be research-boosting buildings (University and later Observatory) and health buildings (Aqueduct, Grocer). A forge is useless as you'll have next to 0 production in it anyway most of the time, and it will just reduce your health cap. As RRRaskolnikov said, that city will work food resources + around 10 specialists, so you'll need all the health you can get.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Raskolnikov: maces and trebs after liberalism? Just correct me what are you planning to take with liberalism - nationalism for drafted maces?

Something like: lib to 1 turn, trade for machinery, take PP. Tech to engeenering (which should be cheap then) and go go... The AIs is usually late teching to rifling or military science (prefering stuff like economics or divine right) so the window of opportunity is quite large. Just my way of playing... . But I will be please to try a mace-cats war... this thread is the occasion to learn new moves...

Cheers,

Raskolnikov

 

[Monsterzuma]

In my save and some of the ones that are similar to it, the empire is rather production light. IMO it isn't that bad an idea to draft maces considering we won't efficiently be producing them another way. Keep in mind Nationalism adds 2 happiness to every city with a barracks. Controlled drafting in a city with a barracks only lowers the stable happiness level by 1. Our cities can easily handle that kind of strain.

So far I have been most impressed by the saves of RRRaskalnikov (excellent tech situation; effectively only one tech, paper, behind on mine taking the two readily bulbable scientists in consideration) and Soirana (tons of wonders; good job securing marble; I would recommend firing up a GP farm, though). I'll have to page through the saves a bit more elaborately before I cast my votes, though.

 

[ChromiumL]

Thanks both Soirana and Carl for posting summaries/comments!

I just realized that I played my save for 100 years too long... woops! Sorry about that.

Anyways, my votes are:

1st is Carl Corey -- A little worried about Tech rate, but in a good spot to take out Victoria without getting backstabbed by izzy. Also, you have a great GP city, and did a good job on building wonders.

2nd is Soirana -- Relations aren't great, but as soon as the AP is built and we switch to Buddhism that should improve things a bit. I almost didn't pick you for second because of the risk of being backstabbed by Izzy--but I think that as long as we wait to declare war on Victoria until after the AP is built and our religion is switched, then we should be safe. Other than that, good tech rate, very good military... nice save!

3rd is Monsterzuma -- I have to pick you for third because I just really don't understand your military makeup. Why is it that you have so many unexperienced warriors sitting around costing you money? Wouldn't it be better to have a few axe/swords rather than a ton of warriors? Otherwise, very nice cities, good tech..

@ Carl --

Spoiler :

Wow, I really wasn't paying attention during the last save! Not only did I play 100 years too long but I also thought I switched to OR at the same time as HR. Dang. I clicked the wrong button on accident when Izzy asked me to stop trading with Fred. But, I didn't notice right away and I felt it would be unfair to reload since several turns had passed.

I am still trying to figure out how to balance happiness caps/slavery/starvation--its a tough balance. For a long time I just didn't use slavery because I didn't like the idea of it. Then I started reading things on this forum and realized how powerful it is...

 

[Monsterzuma]

The warriors are there because my cities were growing quickly and I needed the happiness from HR sooner rather than later. The warriors contributed to a swift recovery of the economy the result of which you can observe in a 400-AD tech rate 45 points above the next best contender.

 

[ChromiumL]

Ahh, ok. I hadn't really considered that it might be worth the extra expense to increase happiness cap--but it does make much more sense now, when I look at your save. I suppose paying 1 upkeep for a unit that will allow you to work a cottage could definitely be worthwhile.

 

[Soirana]

to chromium:
Izzy in my save is pretty bussy (defending from Freddy) not to stab anyone.

to Monterzuma:
as guy interested in hapiness you still have silk under forest while improving third sugar?
re:Nationalism - I think whipping is a way to go. Don't no how future strategies are tolerated here so

Spoiler :

I would start building axes immediately in all cities. Trade for MC tech machinery (6)turns. About -1 Machinery drop minor hammers into cats. Whip cats next turn, axemen should be obsolete so hammers in them goes toward maces. Whip maces. Check that overflows allows. Should be enough to get fire on Issabella.

 

[Soirana]

the economy the result of which you can observe in a 400-AD tech rate 45 points above the next best contender.

Yes i was impressed by your Mansa Munsa style economy in a name of economy.

I did some toying arround with my save (swapping production to existing copmmerce tiles and saccing growth for more scientists).
I can reach 230beakers without bothering to move to caste system.

Spoiler :

Keep in mind being reasonable at monarch level i never ever built spaceship So i am sort of not aiming at 2k beakers in modern era

 

[RJM]

Yes i was impressed by your Mansa Munsa style economy in a name of economy.

I did some toying arround with my save (swapping production to existing copmmerce tiles and saccing growth for more scientists).
I can reach 230beakers without bothering to move to caste system.

Spoiler :

Keep in mind being reasonable at monarch level i never ever built spaceship So i am sort of not aiming at 2k beakers in modern era

With a little effort, all of the saves (including mine) can be "improved". In some cases, whether the "improvement" is beneficial may be debatable, but in others it is difficult to see a downside. For example a number of the saves have straight forward resource trades available which appear to me at least to be benign.

Some of the possibilities are worth discussing. For example, trading a technology for cash will allow a deficit (or allow an increased deficit) and thus a short term boost in the research rate.

Some are a matter of timing. Should we accept 5 gold for our corn? Perhaps if we hang on we can get 6. Perhaps if we made the trade a few turns ago, we would only have received 4.

Anyway, the point that interests me is if all these things are available at AD 400, how much have we missed on each turn of this session? If we've missed 10 beakers per turn, we are about 1 tech short of where we could have been.

RJM

 

[Soirana]

Take things lightly

Point was i do not understand that the point of having education and not a single mine to help build universities. But that just me. I've heard of skeleton economy theory. Things are okay if they work for you.

 

[Monsterzuma]

Some are a matter of timing. Should we accept 5 gold for our corn? Perhaps if we hang on we can get 6. Perhaps if we made the trade a few turns ago, we would only have received 4.

My "doctrine" with regard to coin <-> resource trades is to simply take whatever I can get, even if it's only 2 coins/turn. Maybe you could get higher rates by waiting a bit, but 1. there is no guarantee and 2. every turn spent not trading at the lower rate needs to be made up for before the later high rate turns into a profit. Resources are useless when they are in excess, so they should traded out ASAP.

Quote ~~ as guy interested in hapiness you still have silk under forest while improving third sugar?!

I had a guy heading up there when I suddenly found out that grabbing the dyes had to be a priority and some chopping needed to be done. Aborting worker tasks in mid/process is very worker/turn inefficent (got to move out/move in workers, etc) so I didnt do that in the case of the sugars. On top of that, improving the sugar at Umgung increases the output of the GP farm, so it has an extra benefit.

Quote ~ I can reach 230beakers without bothering to move to caste system.

Not bad. Let´s not loose perspective here, though. Your tech situation is at least 4000 points behind on mine, to which another 4000 will be added once Liberalism is taken at an early stage. You don´t get any of that back by redirecting tiles. You´d need about 3 great scientists to bulb your way there and it´s going to take quite a while to get these in your current setup.

Anyway, I do appreciate the input. I was going to vote for your (soirana) save as the number 1 and won´t change that decision unless something spectacular turns up among the saves that I haven´t properly looked into yet.

 

[KingMorgan]

1. Carl Corey
2. Monsterzuma
3. Soirana

 

[Soirana]

just for sake of arguing.

Unimproved silk is woth either one+ cottage in all cities or -1 warior (deleting) in all cities, which is about 7gp/turn higher then any selling.

And keep in mind i voted for you. I really wanna go from that save in my way.

 

[carl corey]

Arguing about each save is what it's all about.

 

[ChromiumL]

Only 3 people who submitted saves haven't voted, and since there is a strong leader, I am going to go ahead and call it.

Here are the vote tallies (btw, if anyone ever thinks that I have miscounted, let me know!):

*edit* -- Added Monsterzuma's vote (though it didn't change much)

14 - Monsterzuma
11 - Soirana
11 - Carl Corey
5 - RRRaskolnikov
1 - ChromiumL

Congratulations Monsterzuma! We will be continuing from his save. The next round will be played up to 1100 AD.

I have noticed that most people submit saves within the first few days, so lets try cutting back the submission time to 5 days (so a full round with playing and voting would take a week) and see if that becomes an issue. If anyone has a problem with this, let me know and we can continue to give the full week to play.

*Edit* It has been pointed out that this timing would not allow weekend players much of a chance to play. So, we will go ahead and extend the round to 6 days and start voting on Saturday afternoon.

So, with this in mind, we will start voting on the next round in the afternoon of Saturday the 8th.

 

[Soirana]

Just a quick note which I (and some others except few brilliant minds) did not find worth to mention.

Cathy has her hands full. If i understand anything in border vs Ai declaration line we are the only ones having land border with her. Told you I like war

 

[carl corey]

ChromiumL, I'm usually playing on weekends. If the round is from Monday to Friday it will be hard to post a save. I'll try to do it for this round, but if you do want to have 5 day rounds it would be better to play them from Wednesday to Sunday.

Congratulations to Monsterzuma!

Soirana: From my round 2 report:

Cathy is Pleased (but is WHEOOHRN!)

WHEOOHRN = "we have enough on our hands right now:

 

[Monsterzuma]

Sorry about not being in time to vote;

1. Soirana
2. RRRaskolnikov
3. Carl Corey

I don't believe these mess up the rankings.

Thanks for the votes everyone. I'm looking forward to reading the reports in which you all spend half your time ranting about the mess I left behind.