Emperor Cookbook Shaka

[whats a navy]

Played Emperor. Warning: no screens

Spoiler :

Played my round out and I'm not posting save yet though. I settled on wine and set up second city at the sheep-wheat spot for early GP farm. Corn-cow-river will become my capital in the future as its very cottageable and old cap will be production center. Decided not to go GLH because I don't have any cities with any production on the cost. Wished i could though.

 

[pawelo]

My round

Spoiler :

Not the greatest shot but a small base to what I was up to.
Being boxed by Creative/Protective Gilgamesh we have few ways other than fight to in this one - sooner or later

My aim was double:
- as we have no idea whether Gilgamesh is boxed or not, first of all build decent power not to get vulturised
- prepare a pillaging war prior to a serious invasion - deny him metals and fight only (well, only?) against his archers

Therefore an early bronze was necessary as we lacked horses. Cottages are up and working to speed up the research and Writing is due in 5 for OB and library in Ulundi

Three workers (one too few) and several impis, no serious fogbusting (got carried away from it ), three cities and another settler soon on his way.
All worked tiles are improved.
We still have room for 4-5 decent cities.
I'd go the Construction way for Cats and DoW G as soon as possible with cover axes/impis + cats.

A screenie:

 

[pawelo]

@dualmaster

Spoiler :

No offense intended, sorry.
I was trying to point out what I consider a game-breaker - I pretty agree that most people are learning to play Emp but such a huge advantage will just make this game a level of difficulty lower
Anyway, good job on getting it - seems to me pretty much in the bag given the early date

 

[lymond]

I can't load this game with BUFFY or BUG 4.0. What mod is used with the save and I'm surprised no one asks?

 

[Soirana]

naturally none. Should go as long as BuG is in custom assets folder

 

[dualmaster]

@dualmaster

Spoiler :

No offense intended, sorry.

Spoiler :

None taken . You may be right that it will make things too easy.

Regarding the save:
- I like that you have a military. Might be better to be building axes instead of impis now?
- Some potential for a BCs war perhaps?
- Good teching and already have some cottages down.

Also a good question as to whether Gilga is boxed in or not. He is definitely in contact with another civ at least (his EP ratio with us is low).

 

[Solon70]

Wow, so many people playing! I do okay at Monarch, this is my first try at Emperor that I can recall. Since I'm new to this level any comments are much appreciated. I believe the save is in BUFFY, so apologies if that's inconvenient for anyone, my mistake.

Spoiler :

Turn 1: Scout 2SE, looks like better-looking land to the east. Settle in place to at least get the rice and sheep, and hey guess what, a bonus cow. This is definitly going to be a specialist capital, so much brown. Start to build worker, but then realize it will only cost 2 turns to let the city grow first because I'll have expansive bonus at size 2. Research AH.

Turn 11: Ulundi grows to 2, start worker. Looking like city #2 may be just to the SE on the river.

Turn 16: Find coast to the W. Hmm, surely I'm not isolated.

Turn 17: Research Mining.

Turn 21: Buddhism FIADL.

Turn 26: Worker finishes. I have a warrior half-finished but decide to start a 2nd worker.

Turn 27: Research BW. Find coast to the east, some land visible across the water though...

Turn 28: Move down the isthmus and I see some purple. Now I'm thinking in terms of a blocking city for spot #2. Argh, it's Gilgamesh, which means a creative AND protective neighbor. I'm thinking a production city 1N of the corn, and a commerce city on the coast NE of the sheep.

Turn 35: Hinduism FIADL.

Turn 42: My scout gets picked off by a lion, going to have to be careful escorting that settler. Hope Gil doesn't beat me to the spot.

Turn 47: City grows to 3 and my 2nd warrior finishes, time to chop out a settler. Gil adopts slavery so we're getting BW at the same time.

Turn 48: BW in, research Wheel.

Turn 51: Gil is the #1 most powerful civilization, how nice. I'm #5.

Turn 59: Blocking city founded 1N of corn.

Turn 60: Research Mysticism.

Turn 61: City grows to size 4, start another Settler.

Turn 65: Judaism FIADL.

Turn 68: Stonehenge built somewhere. Revolt to Slavery and 2pop whip the Settler, overflow goes into a Worker.

Turn 71: Sheep city founded.

Turn 73: Research Pottery.

Turn 84: Forest grows near blocking city, how nice!

Turn 85: Great Wall built somewhere.

Turn 87: Research Writing.

Turn 88: Mahabodhi built somewhere.

Turn 100: Writing due next turn. Settler built in 3 turns to found corn city to the west, another settler due from blocking city to hook up copper. Next build is library in capital to run scientists. Seems like I have to beeline Monarchy for happiness next.

Didn't do as much chopping as usual this round... hopefully all those trees will serve me well later!

 

[Solon70]

naturally none. Should go as long as BuG is in custom assets folder

I have BUFFY in my Mods folder with it set as default in the .ini file. Do I need to put another copy somewhere, or is it in the wrong place to begin with?

 

[huerfanista]

So many saves to go through,

@huerfanista

Spoiler :

Try and connect roads to gigles for trade routes. The worker near uMgungunlovu didn't finsh the road from capital either. This will help with your economy.

@mjg5591

Spoiler :

I haven't tried to open borders with him yet - I don't have writing, not sure if he does either. I didn't road the last bit to uMgungundlovu because I wanted to get that mine up ASAP to speed up the workboat production for Nobamba's crabs.

 

[pholtz]

Hello, first time for any of these cookbooks. Right now I'm struggling with monarch so Emperor is one too high for random play for me (might have a chance if I regenerate until I get a dream start).

I didn't have much time to play this, and played a bit fast, made some mistakes. But I think it managed to be competitive.

Final screenshot:

Spoiler :

4 cities, 3 workers, but soon to be 5. Pottery recently discovered, so ready to make cottages. Cities #2 and 3 have monuments. Capital and city #2 have Ikhandas. City #3 is positioned for the copper and both seafoods, it will pop its borders in 11 turns?.. then the copper can be mined. No excuse why the corn near city #2 isn't farmed yet. One boat is off the west end sailing to work the crabs. Copper city is building an Ikhanda, could be changed to another work boat. I built the monument by assigning a General specialist for the extra hammer. Quicker than trying to grow at +1 food. Economy is even at 50%, should increase as we build some cottages.

I did have an attack by a barbarian archer, but a Warrior with cover fought it off, it's still glowing blue for its second promotion. I think 2 cover warriors can fight off any barbarian archer that might show up until we get the copper working and Impi's/axes. Or a warrior could fog bust.

Details:

Spoiler :

- I moved the scout, saw the cows to the west of the starting position, so settled in place.
- worker first created at 3500 BC, researched AH - > mining
- after making a circle around the town, went the only open direction and met Gil in 3300
- built Ikhanda while expanding to size 3, then warrior then settler
- 2600, settler produced, switched to slavery. Going to settle the river to the east first, chop a worker, then chop/whip a settler for the copper
- wheel - > fishing but changed my mind with one turn in fishing, to research mysticism
- 2175 got myst, building monuments in two cities... now researching fishing.
- 2000 make trade with gil, sheep for pig, no direct benefit or hurt to me, hopefully plus diplo
- 1700 a cover promoted warrior fights off an archer
- 1600 Nobamba the copper city finishes monument
- 1525 4th city founded 4 cities , soon 5 workers, 11 turns until copper.. even at 50 %. ready to build whip/granaries.

 

[lymond]

naturally none. Should go as long as BuG is in custom assets folder

Yep. That's a problem for me as custom assets conflict with mod I usually play with like BUFFY. I avoid putting mods in custom assets like the plaque. Too bad these games can't be played under a consistent mod or WB save. This isn't the only one I've had issue with, but surprised that no one brings it up. I don't play games without a mod.

 

[Ambro]

First time poster. Prince player (Um, I've played Prince twice and started another game on Monday...) making step up both to emperor and epic (bit of a shock the difference between the normal and epic speeds). Don't think saying that I've dropped my economy into the toilet needs to be kept in a spoiler.

Spoiler :

Didn't play the year 1500 round as I wanted people to have options. The worker in capital should be whipped (one pop point and gives good overflow) but you could pick either a settler (economy is already screwed but I finished off the round after getting back from the pub ), worker or something else for the resulting overflow. Ignore the dot mapping I've done because it's a bit of an experiment.

Start: Took a gamble and set the scout off to see if I could uncover something nice to the East and justify starting on the Wine (grab the happy resource even at the cost of a winery spot). Settled in place and then went back and forth over my start for the rest of the round. In the end I was glad because while it limits additional cities somewhat there is the little island (or it appears to be an island at least, should be the North pole above that I think) and it saved me from any major spawn busting.

Scouted South, then West, Round the North and then East. When I saw the thin piece of land I was already thinking to block rather than rush, when I saw the island that became the secondary objective and reinforced blocking and when I saw a protective leader with a badass axeman replacement any idea of early war went straight out of my head.

Settler took the closest point I felt was good for blocking (needed a border pop but

Build order: worker-part of a warrior-part of an ikhanda-settler at 3 pop
Tech: AH-Mining-BW-Mysticism? (stopped taking notes, got wheel and went fishing before pottery to save some costs on the that tech as my goal was reasonably early sailing for the island anyway)

Took first settler off to block Gilg, chose the spot which needed a border pop because I liked the site, limited barb spawn locations, would have lower maintenance and getting any good land for the fish site would need a border pop and 2 techs anyway (want sailing for lighthouse to really work that site). Dropping Warriors with a promotion available in fish town in case gilg comes looking (not great defense but I'm hoping to get friendly with Gilg, was mainly hoping he'd get a religion spread to him and/or writing for open borders but he hasn't been doing my work for me).

Lack of happy resources killed my thinking a bit but got lucky with my scout lasting for ages. Ikhandas are to go up everywhere for maintenance reduction and quick building of troops incase Gilg gets trigger happy but I think I've spread my objectives too thin.

Please feed back, I see a lot of waste in my little empire, economy is a bit trashed and my build priorities seem a bit questionable to me (all of which I have decided to blame on going out half way through the round). Also sorry if the write up is rambling as it's my first, I stopped taking notes and I really shouldn't be doing this at work.

Edit: Clarification of my diffculty level.

 

[kossin]

@Ambro
Prince>Emperor is indeed a huge jump! You should still do fine in the cookbook so I encourage you to continue. Whatever you learn here can be used at lower levels.
Normal>Epic is indeed a funny feeling. Having just moved back from Epic (to Normal) it kinda feels awkward now, especially the workers. It does make the game easier though.
About economy... as long as you have Pottery and/or Writing you'll be fine on Emperor. Moreover, being Shaka the Ikhandi are wonderful for reducing early maintenance.

 

[Soirana]

Yep. That's a problem for me as custom assets conflict with mod I usually play with like BUFFY. I avoid putting mods in custom assets like the plaque. Too bad these games can't be played under a consistent mod or WB save. This isn't the only one I've had issue with, but surprised that no one brings it up. I don't play games without a mod.

Well, you cannot merge saves with mod and without it easily. Most people either play without mods or with BUG in custom assets so intial and subsequent saves are tailored for them.
It is not hard to put initial save as WB, but you can not crossload saves and not seeing others is loss of whole point of playing cookbook. Requiring players to make WB saves at end of each round is total nonsense.

Well, i would like to play cookbook under fall from heaven mod personally

 

[Soirana]

I have BUFFY in my Mods folder with it set as default in the .ini file. Do I need to put another copy somewhere, or is it in the wrong place to begin with?

I will try contacting some BUG experts. I do know how this instalment works but since BUFFY [especially HOF part] cames with some changes in files i am not 100% sure interchanging saves won't create nonsense.

One thing i am sure you should not need another copy without fixing ini.

 

[lymond]

Well, you cannot merge saves with mod and without it easily. Most people either play without mods or with BUG in custom assets so intial and subsequent saves are tailored for them.
It is not hard to put initial save as WB, but you can not crossload saves and not seeing others is loss of whole point of playing cookbook. Requiring players to make WB saves at end of each round is total nonsense.

Well, i would like to play cookbook under fall from heaven mod personally

Yeah, I see what you mean about WB saves not working with this type of game. I've seen this type of issue causing confusion before and a lot of folks mentioned that they do use the BUFFY mod. I guess what I'm looking for is some consistent solution that allows us to use a mod without custom assets, as that's prohibitive for many. I'm fine using BUG and do have it installed, but there's no mention of mods in the initial post. I've reached a point where I just don't play without some kind of mod.

Ha - FFH would be great too. Funny - I played FFH for a very long time without actually learning to play CIV correctly.

 

[Soirana]

I'm fine using BUG and do have it installed, but there's no mention of mods in the initial post. I've reached a point where I just don't play without some kind of mod.

Cause BUG in custom assets crossload with no mods. Do not think with BUG set in mod folder you can load save. One of solutions is dual install [sucks honestly.]

 

[/solar/]

Seems to be lots of people playing this one, I'll jump in aswell.

Recently got back into the game after a long break, and have almost got the hang of winning on monarch. Time to dip a proverbial toe into emperor.

 

[/solar/]

My round.

Spoiler :

After not a lot of consideration I settled in place. Teched AH>mining>bw>wheel>pottery. Built worker, grew to size 2, built settler etc.

Not entirely happy with my city placement. South and west were ok, but the eastern city could be better imo. Not sure exactly where to go from here. Its gonna be a tough game if theres no iron around.

Finished up with 4 cities, 5 workers, 4 warriors and the scout

 

[oranje willem]

My round.

Spoiler :

After not a lot of consideration I settled in place. Teched AH>mining>bw>wheel>pottery. Built worker, grew to size 2, built settler etc.

Not entirely happy with my city placement. South and west were ok, but the eastern city could be better imo. Not sure exactly where to go from here. Its gonna be a tough game if theres no iron around.

Finished up with 4 cities, 5 workers, 4 warriors and the scout

Spoiler :

I think coastal would have been a lot better for your western city, as there is no juicy land on the east side of it. Also you didn't manage to block Gilgamesh as well as others in here. So I wouldn't vote for your save, but other than that it's pretty ok