Emperor Cookbook Shaka

[mjg5591]

My votes.

1. Gumbolt. Choking giggles really makes him easy to take out. Plus keeping his metals away for no vultures.

2. Dualmaster. GLH for this tough starting map is key to economy. As for people thinking its an exploit, So is choking. I can see people not voting for it cuz last EC had it, but alot of new people playing this EC.

3. Toss up. Kossin if we are rushing. Axes online already is nice. As for it's city location, only way to get copper hooked up that fast.

3. Toss up. WFU if peacefully. Gold is hard to ignore for the economy and the happiness. We only have wine for happiness. Gold would help us grow alot.

 

[MaximumPain]

@maxpain

Spoiler :

Appreciate the summary.
Just want to point out that i have 160 gold in my save and a library in capital partially built. This will allow me deficit research on any techs I lack at a very good rate.

On roads don't forget rivers. Once the blocker pops borders next turn only 2 roads are needed to connect to giggles and two more to have all three cities on trade network.
[edit: 3 roads to connect all cities]
Alternately a deficit run on sailing would do the same.

Also I have scouted a lot more than most saves.

I feel the main problem with my save is lack of workers

An observation about cookbooks as this will be my first.
I think scouting efforts are greatly discounted by observers as everyone will have benefit of the scouting for whatever save we start with next.

Agreed on all points. You look to have the second best scouting as Gumbolt has his scout loose on the far side of Giggles. I think your save is hurt by the 6 pop in combo with the shortage of workers. As far as roads I tend to think of them also in a military context as in helping my units get to the front as soon as possible as well as shaving off the turns it takes for workers to get their work done so rivers don't much apply, also everyone gets the rivers but not every one has good roads. Connecting to the AI is a big deal as I am learning but I think sailing will get that done. The road to Giggles will be nice when the troops start marching (make that vital).

This is my first cookbook and my first real attempt at an analysis of a bunch of saves at once so I know I missed some things like the state of people economy's, bank accounts, and great people progress. I think I will try to a better job next time around and would like to establish a regular format for what would be covered under just such an analysis.

For third place I chose Pawelo for being good enough in tech and population and having the bronze hooked up and ready.

For second I chose Solon For having good tech and 12 pop as well as a lot of grainerys and Ikhanda in place already. This save also has the monuments in place to keep up the culture block.

First place clearly goes to Gumbolt for being the aggressive bastard that he is and smacking around Giggles early. He has superior scouting due to slipping past Giggles with his scout and I believe peace will be possible with him as well. In addition to all that Gumbolt has the most pop at 13 6 workers in play and his bronze hooked up.

Thats all for now, I need to go clean house or my domestic supervisor will cut my balls off.

 

[huerfanista]

I can't believe how many people are seriously talking about a rush! There's no way we're ever gonna do it. There's not enough production, hilled protective archers with walls will be impossible to take down before catapults, it'll cost 3-4 axes each and Gil will spam a bunch of them. I'm all for a pin, but IMO a rush has no chance to succeed. Even if we can keep him to his 3 current cities, a pin will be very expensive in unit maintenance and will slow our research considerably.

 

[Teelman]

1st: Dualmaster: I know we used GLH last game but I just dont see any way around NOT using it this game. As huerfanista said, I just dont see a rush against Gilgi working even with denying the metals. I could be wrong but I just dont see us being able to outproduce Gil at the moment to take im down.

2nd: KFU: Popping gold is huge. Another happiness plus added moolah.

3rd: Huerfanista: I like the SH with a GP on the way.

 

[kossin]

1. Gumbolt - Awesome early DoW on Gilgamesh! Probably can get the most cities out of the lot.
2. Dualmaster - GLH. Need I say more?
3. Huernfanista - Stonehenge avoids the pain of building Monuments.

@Gumbolt
I thought you should have closed the voting round around the 25 votes mark too

Regarding my save: I'm actually surprised it has gotten votes. I found it rather badly played myself. Although the rush can probably be successful, especially with an aggressive leader, and Shaka

 

[Gumbolt]

I can't believe how many people are seriously talking about a rush! There's no way we're ever gonna do it. There's not enough production, hilled protective archers with walls will be impossible to take down before catapults, it'll cost 3-4 axes each and Gil will spam a bunch of them. I'm all for a pin, but IMO a rush has no chance to succeed. Even if we can keep him to his 3 current cities, a pin will be very expensive in unit maintenance and will slow our research considerably.

I wasnt actually planning a rush. I was merely slowing him down while I out rexxed him. I would be interested to see someone do a rush on Gilga though.

There is still the option of whipping out units on top of production. With a few granaries the cities will recover quickly. We dont want to be boxed in by an AI all game. This is epic not normal speed so rushing is always possible. There is land by sea to explore North of Gilga.

Perhaps if we truly want to learn the game from a tough start we should deny ourselves the GLH and the worker steal save. We will still have the advantage of picking the best saves in later rounds. Theres nothing in the Cookbook rules that says we should be trying to win the game. You probably learn more by losing.

Then again if we start restricting the cookbook no one would play. Last cookbook someone worker stealed and went for GLH so its nothing unusual. Perhaps these are just strategies that are part of the game. It's an interesting debate on how we should go forward though.

 

[cabert]

Regarding my save: I'm actually surprised it has gotten votes. I found it rather badly played myself. Although the rush can probably be successful, especially with an aggressive leader, and Shaka

Aren't you just curious?
I think it's an almost sure thing it will work, because you went for axes instead of impies

edit: I tried and it doesn't work well.

 

[Gumbolt]

Aren't you just curious?
I think it's an almost sure thing it will work, because you went for axes instead of impies

If Kossin save does not win i would be happy for Cabert or Kossin to shadow it for a round to try the rush.

 

[pholtz]

Not quite ready to vote, but listing the , imho, "best" saves that I'm considering at the moment.

Duelmaster
WFU03
pawelo
Gumbolt
Huerfanista
Cabert

Sorry about my earlier rankings, it wasn't intended but looking back it came across a bit negative. In looking at the saves I think access to copper was vitally important, then amount of research already done. Then the weird stuff, like wonders, and starting a war with warriors , blocking etc.

I've spent a little time looking at all the saves, going to go back and look at these with a fresh eye later before I vote.

I do have a question for you all. Why did so many, including some of the saves in the above list put the "southern" city 2 east of the wheat or 1 sw of the sheep. I put my city 1w of the sheep. Putting the city there has more overlap, but the other site just adds more ocean. I would rather have overlap, which is not a bad thing at the start than ocean. (overlap does limit eventual expansion of the city once you get up to the middle ages, but it allows important tiles to be worked when they wouldn't be. For example if the capital needs to concentrate on all food after a whip, the other city can take over a mine, or if the capital needs to not work a cottage, the other city can keep it working.) I really don't see what the ocean does for you.

And imo, I don't think Kossin's save is as good as the above. It falls behind in techs. I think the visual appearance of the axes affects the feeling

 

[cabert]

And imo, I don't think Kossin's save is as good as the above. It falls behind in techs. I think the visual appearance of the axes affects the feeling

agreed.
I tried the rush from his save, and suddenly noticed it didn't have fishing yet, and that it was 10+ turns away.
Is it acceptable that I change my vote, now that I tried playing from there?

 

[dualmaster]

I do have a question for you all. Why did so many, including some of the saves in the above list put the "southern" city 2 east of the wheat or 1 sw of the sheep. I put my city 1w of the sheep. Putting the city there has more overlap, but the other site just adds more ocean. I would rather have overlap, which is not a bad thing at the start than ocean. (overlap does limit eventual expansion of the city once you get up to the middle ages, but it allows important tiles to be worked when they wouldn't be. For example if the capital needs to concentrate on all food after a whip, the other city can take over a mine, or if the capital needs to not work a cottage, the other city can keep it working.) I really don't see what the ocean does for you.

My plan is to make it the Moai city. Thus ocean tiles will produce some and it leaves more space for the capital.

Last cookbook someone worker stealed and went for GLH so its nothing unusual. Perhaps these are just strategies that are part of the game. It's an interesting debate on how we should go forward though.

I actually don't build the GLH in too many of my games, but this map just screams for it - almost all our cities in the near future will be coastal. I'm actually surprised more people didn't go that way as it is the optimal strategy IMO given the map. But I'm curious to see how this plays out without it....hopefully some people attempt the rush while others attempt to play peaceful for a while.

 

[Gumbolt]

agreed.
I tried the rush from his save, and suddenly noticed it didn't have fishing yet, and that it was 10+ turns away.
Is it acceptable that I change my vote, now that I tried playing from there?

I would edit your earlier post and make a note on that post to say why you did it.

I have not viewed the saves yet but I will do at some point before i vote. I need to set aside a few hours for this.

 

[Nares]

Edited

 

[huerfanista]

Spoiler :

We're going to need to use impis to keep Gilgamesh choked. Cover impis basically destroy archers with no defensive bonuses. From there, it's easy to promote up to march. A swarm of march impis will keep him suppressed indefinitely. I'm looking for eight impis to suppress his three cities.

I replayed the round from the 4000BC save, with the knowledge of where the Copper was. I moved my capital to the strong eastern production site from my entry for this round. Basically I built a warrior, declared on Gilgamesh, settled 1S of the Copper, pillaged Gilgamesh's Copper, lost the warrior but had impis online shortly after, and choked him.

I've got a half-dozen impis choking his two cities, while I've just settled the Wine at the starting position. I'm trying to leave him room to move the settler he has camped in his capital because I really want him to settle a third city (to keep Kublai and Charlemagne out), but he won't bite.

While I'm still sitting on a strong economic position (I was at 80% until settling a third city), I can't field a major axe army as quickly as we can with Gumbolt's save. My intent would be to further settle our lands while getting together a stack to at least take out one of Gilgamesh's cities. Meanwhile, I would tech Alphabet->Currency (with whatever fillers I need, such as Fishing/Sailing).

We'll see how that translates to Gumbolt's game, where we don't have impis out yet and our tech rate is far inferior, but our production capacity is much greater.

IIRC, Gumbolt already has at least 1 impi on the way to Gil.

And if we're all going to play "what if..." by replaying the start and playing from others' saves, I could have easily founded hinduism by going myst> poly in my game and spreading to to everyone on our continent. It went very late. That might have been fun to play from.

 

[huerfanista]

I wasnt actually planning a rush. I was merely slowing him down while I out rexxed him. I would be interested to see someone do a rush on Gilga though.

There is still the option of whipping out units on top of production. With a few granaries the cities will recover quickly. We dont want to be boxed in by an AI all game. This is epic not normal speed so rushing is always possible. There is land by sea to explore North of Gilga.

Perhaps if we truly want to learn the game from a tough start we should deny ourselves the GLH and the worker steal save. We will still have the advantage of picking the best saves in later rounds. Theres nothing in the Cookbook rules that says we should be trying to win the game. You probably learn more by losing.

Then again if we start restricting the cookbook no one would play. Last cookbook someone worker stealed and went for GLH so its nothing unusual. Perhaps these are just strategies that are part of the game. It's an interesting debate on how we should go forward though.

Hey, I'd love to be proven wrong (but I doubt I will be ). I've rushed protective civs before (as Egypt with WCs and horses in the BFC), but other than that it's very painful. Besides, it's already 1500BC and we're nowhere near ready to seriously attack in force. That hardly qualifies as a "rush".

 

[Nares]

Edited

 

[pawelo]

@Nares

If you shadow far ahead please post in spoilers precising it's a shadow and the game year.

 

[Nares]

Edited

 

[pawelo]

It's the same 1500BC date. My mistake. I edited it out.

Me too

No offense taken. Well done btw, to achieve it by 1500BC

 

[pholtz]

My votes:

Techs was my number one decision criteria. Should have had all the first column techs, plus BW, and pottery.

1. Huerfanista - among the tops in techs. I like the double crab city, but the only way to do it effectively is with Stonehenge, which he has. Good blocking city. Drawbacks, only one worker, and still need to connect copper. Also, I would like to see the game from this point.

2. Gumbolt - behind one tech, no fishing. But the warrior choke looks like fun. I would like to see alternate ways to continue with the choke/make peace or whatever. Copper is connected but no double crab copper.

3. WFU03 - tough choice for third. Most of the top saves were behind Huerfanista in tech. WFU03 has no pottery. It has the double crab copper city, but no monument yet. (Should have been building monument with a Citizen instead of fishing a coastal square.). I chose this, because it will be tougher to recover from, and would like to see what the better players do with this.

If anyone is interested I started a Monarch game with Shaka before this started. It is the subject of the thread "Just another Monarch game". Seeing two different Shaka games might be fun for some of you. Besides I'll probably need help. And thanks Huerfanista for your help there.