Emperor Cookbook Shaka

[mjg5591]

My votes.

1. Ambro - Can capitulate Charlie right now. Gold to deficit research. Trade for Astro and head off to kill other continent.

2. Cabert or Solon - Both games are nice. Both in good winning spot. Chgarlie should capitulate in either save with next 1 or 2 cities taken. Nice trades here also.

All in all any of these three saves are dominant positions I think. Just depends how fast you want to kill other continent.

Great games guys.

 

[Gumbolt]

I like both of your suggestions, with a slight preference for Charlemagne as Gilgamesh isn't the best leader to learn a new difficulty, people shouldn't play the leader but the map - he's just too good.

Lets do a HRE game!! Are you thinking of trying your hand at map creation Kossin??? On a game point lets try to create a more balanced normal game for those moving up the ladder from monarch. Too much map tinkering makes the game less realistic. Whilst I would like to play a protective leader with 6 shakas maybe not today.

I would be interested in doing a SG as sittingbull and 6 AI shakas as a team game. It would be mayhem but fun!

 

[mjg5591]

Lets do a HRE game!! Are you thinking of trying your hand at map creation Kossin??? On a game point lets try to create a more balanced normal game for those moving up the ladder from monarch. Too much map tinkering makes the game less realistic. Whilst I would like to play a protective leader with 6 shakas maybe not today.

I would be interested in doing a SG as sittingbull and 6 AI shakas as a team game. It would be mayhem but fun!

Playing Charlie could be fun. Also any protective leader might be nice. It seems to be the least used trait.

 

[Gumbolt]

I honestly cant see Cabert or Solon not voting Ambro as the best save. Lets give it 24 hours and close this voting round 6pm GMT tomorrow. (Monday)

 

[kossin]

Lets do a HRE game!! Are you thinking of trying your hand at map creation Kossin??? On a game point lets try to create a more balanced normal game for those moving up the ladder from monarch. Too much map tinkering makes the game less realistic. Whilst I would like to play a protective leader with 6 shakas maybe not today.

I would be interested in doing a SG as sittingbull and 6 AI shakas as a team game. It would be mayhem but fun!

Might as well make an AW game

Sure, I can make a map. Once the leader is decided (and map type but it's not as important I suppose), I'll get on it.
I can make certain that the GLH isn't in the cards if you want Or any other special request?

I don't plan on many alterations - so it feels normal - I'll just check it to see if it's playable mainly (not isolated as there's the LHC for that).

 

[Ambro]

Kossin, once again running those extra 6-7 turns ahead even on a "sloppy" round Nice work.

Thanks for the feedback.

@ambro

Spoiler :

you left good trades out with KK, I don't understand why
get yourself astronomy,
sell him bananas for 9 gpt

you can also trade with ramses and the khmer and the romans for a bit of gold and some resources

I also noted that you were building wealth in cities without forges.
too bad.

those little things put aside you're in a better situation than I am.

Spoiler :

I've held out on trading with KK because of the "you traded with our worst enemy" diplo hit from Caesar. Wanted to finish rolling up Charlie before I invited more trouble, I'd taken a gamble going straight after both him and KK right from the start and didn't feel like pushing my luck any further. Probably should have however as it would take him quite a while to get a war effort moving anyway.

I don't actually build forges everywhere. I know they are good but sometimes I think the city doesn't really justify it. All part of my efforts to not build things I don't need, probably overdoing it in this case but I used to try building everything everywhere and it was pretty bad for my game. I've also massively trimmed wonders from my game, probably too much as well.

Will have another think about these points. Learnt some good things this round, Alt-M for leaving reminders, whipping and drafting countdown together and whiiping multiple buildings in newly conquered cities on the turn after they are pacified to avoid starvation, unhappiness and the corresponding maintenance costs.

Edit: HRE game sounds fun. My only request would be to make sure an early rush isn't the obvious tactic of choice. I'd like to try and get a good REX start going as an early rush tends to make the game quite a bit easier.

 

[kossin]

^^I think you don't need to spoiler since voting has begun.

Forges work on whipping, so unless you don't have 4+ hammers and don't plan on whipping, every city should get one.

I'll start working on a HRE start. No early rush no GLH should be needed.

 

[Solon70]

Ambro's save looks great to me, I have no problem playing the last round from there.

The key difference among games, in my opinion, was Charlie getting protective rifles. This was my #1 criterion in choosing MJG's game to play for the last round and I think it was vindicated. I don't know whether there's some kind of RNG issue or what might have made him research rifles in some games but not in others, but the sledding definitely gets a lot harder once he has them.

I'm not sure if I can figure out from looking at the saves why some people made more progress against Charlie than me, I thought I had a pretty nice round as far as that goes. I have this nagging sense that I could get more efficient in moving from one city to the next, in terms of healing up units and all that, but I'm not sure.

 

[Gumbolt]

I think we will close this round without Caberts/Ambros vote. (No offence meant but I dont see another save winning this round).

Please play on from Ambro save to the end.

I will make the usual post in a bit.

@ Solon I dont know why some saves had rifles and others not. The Rifles stopped my assault 100%. That being said i should of got out cannons much earlier. I think being more defensive vs KK would of worked better.

@ Kossin. lets do a HRE map on a pangea. Try to make sure its not too obvious for each player to do one strategy. Lets try and get away from GLH games. Be wary of making a religious victory too easy.

 

[cabert]

I'd vote ambro anyway.
I'm not playing though, since I finished the game from my own save.

 

[cabert]

Ambro's save looks great to me, I have no problem playing the last round from there.

The key difference among games, in my opinion, was Charlie getting protective rifles. This was my #1 criterion in choosing MJG's game to play for the last round and I think it was vindicated. I don't know whether there's some kind of RNG issue or what might have made him research rifles in some games but not in others, but the sledding definitely gets a lot harder once he has them.

I'm not sure if I can figure out from looking at the saves why some people made more progress against Charlie than me, I thought I had a pretty nice round as far as that goes. I have this nagging sense that I could get more efficient in moving from one city to the next, in terms of healing up units and all that, but I'm not sure.

If you have enough units you can move before healing, and bombard while healing.
If you're a bit short, you'll be vulnerable, so you can't.
With the huge number of rifles we had to begin with, you could actually afford to lose some draftees for each city while building more siege aka bomb to 0 but don't sacrifice siege.

 

[Gumbolt]

Fair enough Cabert if you have already won this game. I suspect Ambro or Kossin will soon post a conquest/domination save.

 

[Gumbolt]

Congratulations to Ambro the winner of this round!!!

This round will now be played to a victory. Hopefully before 1840ad.

Here is the winning save to be used for the next round:

Ambro

Please ensure when you post save you rename with your name.

Round 0: The starting save -
Round 1: 4000 BC - 1500 BC- Completed
Round 2: 1500 BC - 400 AD- Completed
Round 3: 400 AD - 1100 AD- Completed
Round 4: 1100 AD - 1500 AD - Completed
Round 5: 1500 AD - 1700 AD - Completed
Round 6: 1700 AD - ????? AD - Playing

 

[Gumbolt]

I suppose the big debate is HRE on next round. Wipe him off face of planet or capitulate and concentrate on war abroad with galleons.

Downside to capitulation is people yearning to join motherland. 4 unhappy people per city!!

This is a somewhat annoying map as you can easily have 50+ cities before you even win!

Hmmm it will be interesting to see if how early everyone completes this map.

 

[kossin]

Shadow -> To End

Spoiler :

I took HRE capitulation, built boats and went overseas







1796 AD, before 1800AD as Gumbolt dared me to

 

[Ambro]

Hadn't had a chance to look at saves hence my lack of voting. Think I'll just look at how quickly Kossin cleaned up at the end as I don't think there is a lot to be learnt at this stage of this game.

As far as HRE and rifles, not sure what causes it. I went to war in 1500 (the stack was ready to use, just having a kip so I moved them in). Didn't bother to wait to heal much (and grabbed a couple of extra 10% healing guys to speed things up), didn't bombard all the way down to 0% or sacrifice many siege (didn't actually build any new siege that I can remember) as it was only about getting past the grenadiers, everything else was fairly easy for rifles to take out and with drafting they were readily available to sacrifice. Didn't even bother to leave rifles in conquered cities mainly, no way that HRE was going to get his troops past my stack without just meeting reinforcements anyway. Gunpowder promotions were handy against grenadiers, +25% versus mounted sorted out HRE's Knights and the longbows went down pretty easy. I actually sped up a little coming out of Aachen as my troops from the KK war started to turn up and he was practically out of Grenadiers in his cities (he sent a few out to fight me in the open, what a muppet).

 

[Gumbolt]

Hadn't had a chance to look at saves hence my lack of voting. Think I'll just look at how quickly Kossin cleaned up at the end as I don't think there is a lot to be learnt at this stage of this game.

As far as HRE and rifles, not sure what causes it. I went to war in 1500 (the stack was ready to use, just having a kip so I moved them in). Didn't bother to wait to heal much (and grabbed a couple of extra 10% healing guys to speed things up), didn't bombard all the way down to 0% or sacrifice many siege (didn't actually build any new siege that I can remember) as it was only about getting past the grenadiers, everything else was fairly easy for rifles to take out and with drafting they were readily available to sacrifice. Didn't even bother to leave rifles in conquered cities mainly, no way that HRE was going to get his troops past my stack without just meeting reinforcements anyway. Gunpowder promotions were handy against grenadiers, +25% versus mounted sorted out HRE's Knights and the longbows went down pretty easy. I actually sped up a little coming out of Aachen as my troops from the KK war started to turn up and he was practically out of Grenadiers in his cities (he sent a few out to fight me in the open, what a muppet).

Sounds like you were lucky. All HRE longbows quickly converted to rifles on my game. 30 vs 20 on attack. Huge disadvantage at worst odds!!

 

[Gumbolt]

Played it out to a 1800ad victory.

Spoiler :

I wiped out HRE to the last city. All in all I was wasteful.

You didnt need the Romans land to win. If you settle the new island and settle settlers on the unclaimed land on outr island it takes you past the winning mark if you capitulate the Egyptians and Sury!

I should of purchased 6-7 settlers 40 years earlier really. Should of finished this 10-15 turns earlier at least.

 

[Gumbolt]

@ Kossin

Spoiler :

You only beat me by 4 turns and I was pretty slack in my approach!!

 

[kossin]

@Gumbolt

Spoiler :

Very nice alternative to the conquest win I did. Can we look forward to the HRE cookbook now?
Can't wait to see how things go, but I won't shadow it since I know the map.