Emperor Cookbook III -- Kublai Kahn

[Gumbolt]

Well I would say Soirana has almost won the game. lol

There is something to be said for teching towards steel and muskets and attacking. this strat with Yaqob and his UU would be crazy!!!

 

[pnaxighn]

Well I would say Soirana has almost won the game. lol

There is something to be said for teching towards steel and muskets and attacking. this strat with Yaqob and his UU would be crazy!!!

I would agree. I doubt that game has 50 turns left. Pretty impressive.

 

[KingMorgan]

Well played Soirana. i doubt i'll make a submission this round.

Got other fish to fry

 

[Gumbolt]

That being said just because he has a strong game it may not be best game for learning the game. Assume nothing in the voting when it starts.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

i doubt i'll make a submission this round.

Same here Why do we need to sleep

 

[Gumbolt]

I would be happy to wait a day for more entries!!! Shame to lose anyone who had post on the way.

 

[ChromiumL]

I don't mind waiting a few days for more entries if that is what people need. Those of you who haven't yet submitted--let me know if you won't be submitting even with extended time. If you do still want to submit, let me know about how long you will need to finish up the round.

Also, just because Soirana is a killing monster doesn't mean the game is totally over (unless we want to move on).

In general, is the time allotted for play too short, or are people just having a busy week?

Heres my round:

Spoiler :

I decided since most opponents were getting LBs that it would probably be best to wait for steel before war. Of course, I got steel late enough in the round that I wasn't really able to use it. So, I have been building a few cannons and am working on rifling (9 turns). Just started Oxford University in Karakorum (7 turns). Also I am getting about 350 beakers per turn.

My long term plan for this save would be to finish rifling and nationalism then switch over to nationalism and draft a bunch of riflemen. In the meantime I would need to build up an army of cannons.

Not really much else to say about it...

Out of curiosity, what on earth do people do with all those workers? I never see the need for as many as we have. Are they all intended just for the purpose of fixing up and connecting opponents land after we take it?

 

[pnaxighn]

I don't mind waiting a few days for more entries if that is what people need. Those of you who haven't yet submitted--let me know if you won't be submitting even with extended time. If you do still want to submit, let me know about how long you will need to finish up the round.

Also, just because Soirana is a killing monster doesn't mean the game is totally over (unless we want to move on).

In general, is the time allotted for play too short, or are people just having a busy week?

Heres my round:

Spoiler :

I decided since most opponents were getting LBs that it would probably be best to wait for steel before war. Of course, I got steel late enough in the round that I wasn't really able to use it. So, I have been building a few cannons and am working on rifling (9 turns). Just started Oxford University in Karakorum (7 turns). Also I am getting about 350 beakers per turn.

My long term plan for this save would be to finish rifling and nationalism then switch over to nationalism and draft a bunch of riflemen. In the meantime I would need to build up an army of cannons.

Not really much else to say about it...

Out of curiosity, what on earth do people do with all those workers? I never see the need for as many as we have. Are they all intended just for the purpose of fixing up and connecting opponents land after we take it?

I also tend to build fewer workers than most players. From what I've read by much stronger players, the idea is apparently to get new cities up and running ASAP; to avoid wasting even a single turn working an unimproved tile, basically. That said, I'm not fully sure how the math works out, given the use of time in good cities to build workers, and feel like I'm also missing something.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Hi I got time today to play...

Spoiler :

I went for a crazy production economy, spamming workshops everywhere except the capital which runs scientists in caste system.
Techs were: feudalism -> guild -> lib to one turn (one bulb), -> gunpowder ->chemistry-> steel (from lib) -> PP ->scientific method.
Thus i built a very light infra in most cities (granary, forge, court)... with the judaism buildings because we have the Angkor Wat, Sixtine Chapel and UoS. In the end, I didn't bother with universities for Oxford as the game is won and no cities produce decent commerce...

I vassalized Alex with the help of Zara and we are currently beating Darius... which is about to be vassalized...

Spoiler :

Consumed by the suspense, I played five more "spoiler" turns and Darius can be effectively vassalized in 1450 AD

We are teching to communism to improve our workshops (then it would be biology and AL to finally set up the economy, but the game can't last that long)

We can lightbulb part of SM in two turns (if the RNG is king enough to give us a scientist):

Spoiler :

Techs:

Spoiler :

Diplo:

Spoiler :

Power:

Spoiler :

demo numbers:

Spoiler :

Only Zara is more powerfull, but that won't last long as we are currently producing cannons and have by far more production than him...

Cheers,
Raskolnikov

 

[Soirana]

Spoiler :

I decided to write up a bit.
First i was surprised i am not behind the peacefull builders techwise. On other hand i've went through two golden gaes 12 turns each so...

Well, I did not liked the situation. Maybe beacause it was my save. I really needed to figure what to do with captured cities and make our gold city to grow. I also plowed few towns in our HE to farms. What can i say? It is one of best non capital HE cities i ever had.
Dur-Kuriga - had nearly now resources in his cross. Just hills and grassland. Still it made good city in da end.

I started by settling Gartist in Akkad. I knew if city will flip i will hate myself. Akkad did went into one revolt but i put enough guys to stop second.

I half bulbed/half researched education and traded bunch outdated tech to Sal for Feudalism. main point was trying to get supper workshops. Unluckily i had to go through guilds on my own lot of later.

Next tech was gunpowder [starting deep beeline on steel], luckily i was able to trade for engineering (backup plan was to steel it from Zara. I am surprised lots of you did not used espionage points at all, primary Chromium. Why you need over 2k on poor ethiopians?). So i used spies for philosophy.
USed GScientist [i didd not felt any need for PPress at that moment.] for GA which got me over Chemistry. When since i still had monopoly on education [paper was broken just recently] I safely researched Lib and took Steel.

Now regarding some of you planinng top attack after Steel. So did I but general consensus is [especially on normal speed] you start building stack before getting steel. Two reasons -
a) treb to cannon upgrade is incredible cheap if you think about power and effect increases
b) with canons you might use not so tough other units. Basically i built somexbows/elephants (temporrarli defense). Later moving to elephants/muskets. Elephants+muskets has really no much to fear.

It was new to me neither to use drafting, neither had absolutely zero maces.

On political front i used a moment when i Alex was in war with Darius. Zara declared on Alex and i had peace treaties with both Alex and Zara.
Steel [and i thought my tech could end there] was not yet done. I meant i was two turns from having Lib or something like it.
Furthermore Darius stack was wasting itself on Tarsus [and took it to my surprise]. Soo i charged in mainly with trebs and phants with few xbows to cover pikes and few muskets.

As soon as i took ectabana he capitulated. I would give half of my stack to get Pasargade and it's money bags, but since i believed steel was enough tech edge to win this game...
Well, i regrouped healed a bit, upgraded siege [not even all despite dropping slider and running merchants] and declared on Alex.
As soon as i took Sparta he was willing to kiss mongolian ring.
Next i removed Gondar and Aksum [believe it was Gondar first since that meant i could take guys from Akkad into stack].
That was enouygh for Zara. at that time i switched to spaming knights since they could catch main stack as it was going westward.

I also stole Nationalism from Zara and i hace four spies being ready to use our espionage on Saladin at last.

I will finish the game, but honestly it is mostly mop up left.

Regarding workers: After roundone we definetely had to few. I built two [i believe] remaining ones came from Hammi. I also converted his few settlers into workers. IMO, some of them could be deleted if needed.

Techs: not only I used two GA i made few sell downs [selling same tech to all AI on same turn] and played on resource market [i believe i am getting 20gp now and that used to be even higher 20gpt is as good as shrine before buildings]. Than i started Taj i needed to figure where the heel our marble is.

I also liked mercantilism a lot and built New Sarai just to check if that could have been good Maoi town. Well, i could have built it earlier. I probably should have castled cap earlier to get espionage bonus.

At one moment i panicked due to AP [i think i mmiscalculated somehow and believed Fred can get AP win] so i used education to bribe into war with Alex.

Feel free not to play from my save, but i won't really go into world war one more time.

Overall i believe it was quite easy map for pangea. Reasonable land, blockable peninsula. Just imagine we play as Hammurabi on that map in his starting position. That would have been interesting.

 

[Soirana]

Raskolinikov:

you missed few points. Like need of chemistry for steel
Overall -

Spoiler :

Why all you are so pissed about *economics*.
As one wise guy on these forums said - there are no economics just way to reach key techs. IMO, steel is key tech. By time AI gets something reasonably to counter [i think cavalry as curaiseers do not shine against elephants] you can beat them three times in a row. With enough canons you can fight even at technology disadvantage.

P.S. I finished going from my save. Got conquest at 1515. Probably could have domination earlier, but i like that movie

 

[ChromiumL]

@Soirana

Spoiler :

As far as using espionage points, I think I got lazy with this round. I didn't have much time to play, and figured we would probably start a new game up after this round anyways. I'm also having a hard time figuring out how to manage a civ that its constantly at war. When do you get a chance to build important buildings (universities, forges, etc), if you are constantly having to build units? And it seems that if you don't constantly build units then the invasion sorta sputters out as units die/need time to heal. Thats why I decided to just build up this round rather than war.

I am really surprised to see people building workshops. I rarely use them because I generally get obsessed over commerce.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

@Soirana: tx, I indeed missed chemistry... typo corrected
Did you posted your saves? i can't see them...

 

[KingMorgan]

I'm not going to play this round even with an extenstion of time.

Up for he next game though!

 

[Gumbolt]

Spoiler :

I decided to write up a bit.
First i was surprised i am not behind the peacefull builders techwise. On other hand i've went through two golden gaes 12 turns each so...

Well, I did not liked the situation. Maybe beacause it was my save. I really needed to figure what to do with captured cities and make our gold city to grow. I also plowed few towns in our HE to farms. What can i say? It is one of best non capital HE cities i ever had.
Dur-Kuriga - had nearly now resources in his cross. Just hills and grassland. Still it made good city in da end.

I started by settling Gartist in Akkad. I knew if city will flip i will hate myself. Akkad did went into one revolt but i put enough guys to stop second.

I half bulbed/half researched education and traded bunch outdated tech to Sal for Feudalism. main point was trying to get supper workshops. Unluckily i had to go through guilds on my own lot of later.

Next tech was gunpowder [starting deep beeline on steel], luckily i was able to trade for engineering (backup plan was to steel it from Zara. I am surprised lots of you did not used espionage points at all, primary Chromium. Why you need over 2k on poor ethiopians?). So i used spies for philosophy.
USed GScientist [i didd not felt any need for PPress at that moment.] for GA which got me over Chemistry. When since i still had monopoly on education [paper was broken just recently] I safely researched Lib and took Steel.

Now regarding some of you planinng top attack after Steel. So did I but general consensus is [especially on normal speed] you start building stack before getting steel. Two reasons -
a) treb to cannon upgrade is incredible cheap if you think about power and effect increases
b) with canons you might use not so tough other units. Basically i built somexbows/elephants (temporrarli defense). Later moving to elephants/muskets. Elephants+muskets has really no much to fear.

It was new to me neither to use drafting, neither had absolutely zero maces.

On political front i used a moment when i Alex was in war with Darius. Zara declared on Alex and i had peace treaties with both Alex and Zara.
Steel [and i thought my tech could end there] was not yet done. I meant i was two turns from having Lib or something like it.
Furthermore Darius stack was wasting itself on Tarsus [and took it to my surprise]. Soo i charged in mainly with trebs and phants with few xbows to cover pikes and few muskets.

As soon as i took ectabana he capitulated. I would give half of my stack to get Pasargade and it's money bags, but since i believed steel was enough tech edge to win this game...
Well, i regrouped healed a bit, upgraded siege [not even all despite dropping slider and running merchants] and declared on Alex.
As soon as i took Sparta he was willing to kiss mongolian ring.
Next i removed Gondar and Aksum [believe it was Gondar first since that meant i could take guys from Akkad into stack].
That was enouygh for Zara. at that time i switched to spaming knights since they could catch main stack as it was going westward.

I also stole Nationalism from Zara and i hace four spies being ready to use our espionage on Saladin at last.

I will finish the game, but honestly it is mostly mop up left.

Regarding workers: After roundone we definetely had to few. I built two [i believe] remaining ones came from Hammi. I also converted his few settlers into workers. IMO, some of them could be deleted if needed.

Techs: not only I used two GA i made few sell downs [selling same tech to all AI on same turn] and played on resource market [i believe i am getting 20gp now and that used to be even higher 20gpt is as good as shrine before buildings]. Than i started Taj i needed to figure where the heel our marble is.

I also liked mercantilism a lot and built New Sarai just to check if that could have been good Maoi town. Well, i could have built it earlier. I probably should have castled cap earlier to get espionage bonus.

At one moment i panicked due to AP [i think i mmiscalculated somehow and believed Fred can get AP win] so i used education to bribe into war with Alex.

Feel free not to play from my save, but i won't really go into world war one more time.

Overall i believe it was quite easy map for pangea. Reasonable land, blockable peninsula. Just imagine we play as Hammurabi on that map in his starting position. That would have been interesting.

Spoiler :

It was an impressive save.I think the mongols had a really good base for production cities. I wish I had gone for the liberalism route more seriously. Darius teched too fast for me. Plus i didnt use the spy points enough.

I get the feeling the next round will be a short one if we go Soirana.

It would be interesting to replay the map as Hammy!!! Although i would wait 2-3 games and slip it in quietly and see if anyone notices.

 

[Soirana]

Did you posted your saves? i can't see them...

Posted AD1400 save. can dig one or two which would show situation at shower breaks. If there is a need, of course.

And, yes, Darius was teching good. What is why i attacked him first. After vassalizing i could keep him away from certain techs

to chromium:
good question. I usually build very few universities [bellow oxford]. Reason is simple, IMO, they pay off if you attack with infantry.

Forges are different thing. They are a reason i do not like sword and cat war at all. At that time i usually build forges and curthouses.

More generic answer would be keep you heroic epic city doing work on resuplies (may be one or more prod centres too). Other cities build something for a commerce/research.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

@Soirana:

Spoiler :

hehe, I also started two GAs I have found them incredubly powerfull after the lib race recently... moreover with Mausoleum and normal speed (the thing doesn't scale properly in marathon)

@ChroniumL:

Spoiler :

The workshop spam in my game was for pure fun... but this kind of eco can bring you very far, it's just that it doesn't work like a CE in terms of tech priorities and builds in cities. It something I have been trying to implement in recent off line games, after Unconquered Sun used it in a deity game of the month...
But even with a conventionnal economy (mix of cottage and specialists), you should spam workshops in production cities after CS (enough food to feed the city) and guild (decent workshop). And generally you should spam production cities

 

[ChromiumL]

Well, I think we have received all of the saves we are going to get.

At this point, we have a few options. We could pick a sub-optimal save (not Soirana's) and keep playing, or we could start up a new game.

Here are the submitted saves:

I know Soirana submitted one, but I can't find it now...

Gumbolt

Pnaxigan

RJM

Chromium


RRRaskolnikov

In my opinion, the game is pretty much over once you get steel. But, something can always be learned from following through with wars (even if you know you will win). That said, I am sorta ready for a new round in non-normal speed and non-Pangaea map.

Let me know what you're thinking...

 

[Soirana]

I looked and it seems origianl post is somehow gone.

Well, i will add save for future reference.

Edit. No idea. Original refused to go, so i renamed it.

 

[Gumbolt]

Ermmm

1. Pnaxigan - That stack looks like a lot of fun. Once those cats are upgraded time for walkies.

2. RRRaskolnikov - Seems to of done a lot of the hard part war wise and is building cannons.

3. RJM has a huge tech rate. Although military power is below some of the other games.

I want a quick round and that has affected my voting.


I think Chrom game lacked enough military edge. Not sure why you would build a bank in a military pump city.

As for next game I am thinking Hammy or Ethiopians could be different to play.