Emperor Cookbook Shaka

[kossin]

Wow, that's 2 fast games! I might have enough time to shadow today, we'll see. Mostly looking forward to seeing the reports


btw Gumbolt, you're up in the SG.

 

[kossin]

Shadow ->1700AD

Spoiler :

DoW'd Charley first turn. KK got bribed... he didn't last long.

Took Aachen - no shrine

A few more cities and BK is gone too.

Triggered a GA with the GM -> Caste and currently working on a GS in Karakorum. Also traded for SM and Communism, which I revolted to anarchy-free (+ FR) to appease the other continent. Currently researching RR with Combustion/Flight/Marines in mind.

Overall, a very sloppy round as I was in a hurry.

 

[cabert]

a sloppy round?
once again kossin's save will be a very tough thing to "beat"

 

[Solon70]

To 1700AD:

Spoiler :

Drafting is a relatively new concept in my games so I was impressed by MJG's flagrant abuse of it. By the start of the round there were only a couple cities eligible to draft anyone at all. I'm attracted to this concept of "total war" instead of trying to have just a few cities pumping the units while the rest of the empire proceeds cheerily along in builder mode.

At the start of the round it seemed like we were just about ready to DoW. One trade first:

Spreading around Economics is usually a no-brainer once I'm in Free Market myself. I declared on Charlie the same turn, and as I half-expected from my experience playing the last round, KK declared on me the same turn.

KK wasn't a threat to me militarily, obviously, but the WW was pretty awful. I basically had to turn off science for the duration of the war and run culture at 40%. After my cities finished producing their current round of rifles, I started cranking out Trebs to help with some of Charlie's tougher cities. Ulm fell in 1520, Augsburg in 1535, Strassburg in 1550, and Vienna in 1570.

Some of the rifles that were produced closer to Mongolia were sent to help deal with KK. Figured I didn't really need siege to deal with his outdated units. I took Ning-Hsia in 1575 and gathered more rifles for a push against Sarmatian, where he had a pretty big stack of units.

Money got pretty tight towards the end of the war with Charlie. Had to build wealth in a few cities, run some merchants, and even this trade for some desperation cash:

It all worked out as Aachen fell in 1615 with the help of my new trebs. If only he'd been nice enough to build that shrine for me!

The next turn I finally took Sarmatian from KK. He made one last suicide run against my stack and then capitulated. Finally, an end to the WW!

KK even had one tech that I was interested in:

Having taken peace I was finally able to start teching again. I continued building trebs, but I also put some quick harbors in my coastal cities to take full advantage of the new trade routes I picked up from Astro. Finally the key tech arrived:

Running the slider at 0% for a couple turns allowed me to accumulate a bunch of upgrade cash. About a dozen of my CR2 and Accuracy trebs suddenly morphed into cannons. I noticed Charlie's stack was in Mainz, so that became my next target when I declared against in 1670. I took it quickly and at the end of the round, my troops are poised to take Pisa. Hopefully just a couple more cities before he gives up the ghost.

Karakorum produced a GE in 1675 at about 10% odds. I put him to sleep because there wasn't any obvious project for him right away. I whipped a hindu temple and have a cathedral building currently, all in hopes of generating a late-game GP for that Hindu shrine that would mean big $$$$$.

 

[mjg5591]

@solon

Spoiler :

Nice save. Charlie should capitulate when you take the next 1 or 2 cities.

You also have nice tech advantage on charlie. He doesn't have rifles like he did in my game. Like some of the resource trades aswell.

Reason to put your settled GG in Nodwenga and Eridu instead of Uruk for CR3 cannons out of the gate? Just wanted more cities popping out CR2 cannons?

Still real nice save. Compares to Caberts nicely. We won't talk about Immortal Kossin's.

Any VC from here is in the bag. Nice going.

EDIT: As for GE, maybe save for mining inc? rush a wonder? Still this is nice problem to have.

 

[Gumbolt]

I wont have a chance to complete this round till Sunday. I dont think it will be as good as other rounds submitted. got about 17 turns to play out still but AFC at home.

I think we will close this round on Sunday! Lets get this game cleared.

 

[cabert]

I don't know what you guys think, but I had spare time today and was not especially desperate to get a better save than mine, so I just followed through my "own" (no round before this one was mine, so it's hard to be really possessive).

Spoiler :

no bragging, just a confirmation that the game is mostly won.
domination in 1855, could certainly have been a lot faster if I had actually taken cities instead of just capitulating them

 

[Gumbolt]

I don't know what you guys think, but I had spare time today and was not especially desperate to get a better save than mine, so I just followed through my "own" (no round before this one was mine, so it's hard to be really possessive).

Spoiler :

no bragging, just a confirmation that the game is mostly won.
domination in 1855, could certainly have been a lot faster if I had actually taken cities instead of just capitulating them

I think we will finish off the game next round! Seems silly to have a final round that is 30 or so turns. I think in most games the game should be somewhat already won. We could all just complete the games from where we are?

 

[cabert]

I think we will finish off the game next round! Seems silly to have a final round that is 30 or so turns. I think in most games the game should be somewhat already won. We could all just complete the games from where we are?

It's indeed my opinion.

 

[Ambro]

To 1695 (stopped early because it seemed a more appropriate save point)

Spoiler :

KK cap'd in about 1605, decided to leave him a reasonable empire so he could help me on the tech and power front. Was fighting on 2 fronts for pretty much the entire round and was also at war with the Khmer for most of the round. When KK cap'd I got his maps and ended up getting a cheap world is round bonus to my little boats. Can't get the Romans to make friends with KK which means I haven't made any trades yet, not particularly worried about a war but it's easier to just keep things nice and quiet.

War was pretty easy with Charlie, his Grenadiers caused me a couple of early losses but on the whole he seems determined to defend with knights which isn't really working out too well for him. He's ready to cap (which is why I've stopped at 1695, if mine gets picked you have the choice to either take the city my mini stack is outside of or just cap him and move on) and he has some techs to "share".

Game is over frankly, other than the culture that Egypt has there aren't any other empires looking at VC's. I think the AP is in an empire without a religion so I'm presuming that means there are no votes and we are clear at the top of the power scale.

Edit: About to get biology to rebuild after the wars. After reading Caberts report I felt I should mention this since he says about the ironworks. I was actually intending to try and get Sids Sushi running ASAP as we should have plenty of seafood.

 

[kossin]

Maybe it's time to start thinking about the next cookbook? Leader/map type - I'm assuming no huts/events/epic again.

 

[cabert]

@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.

 

[mjg5591]

Are we going to vote on a save? Or we just continuing or saves?

 

[mjg5591]

@ ambro

Spoiler :

Wow nicely done. I would just capitulate Charlie. Trade some techs to get Astro and head off to kill backwards Sury. This position = game won. Like how you have the gold saved for deficit research. Also 4 GG in Uruk is nice. I would head to AL now though. Also having 2 vassals could help with the future wars.

 

[Gumbolt]

I need to finish my 17 turns. I doubt it will be competitive with other saves. i have been a bit wasteful.

I suggest vote and play to finish. We can then consider next cookbook!

Any thoughts on leaders?? would be nice to try HRE or Sumerians maybe Spanish.

Someone we have not done before or is not in a current SG game many are taking part in.

 

[kossin]

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.

 

[Gumbolt]

Messed up this round a bit. Very sloppy in finishing off either AI. Failed to notice we have 3k espionage points on HRE!

Spoiler :

I was a bit shocked when KK DOW on me after I DOW HRE. Lost a lot of units taking down cities with 100% culture. Probably should of draft more but most cities were near happiness cap.

The war with KK went badly as after i took a city a large stack showed up. ooops!!! He took back his city. Eventually took peace for cash. I have restarted the war but he needs to lose 2 or so more cities.

Meanwhile I took about 7-8 cities of HRE. I stopped the war when he suddenly got rifles. Without cannons i was taking heavy losses and WW was killing my cities. I took peace for techs and cash. HRE is struggling now tech wise. 50 turns for a tech?

Half of my stack is on HRE borders 20 or so rifles. He now has grenadier and a large stack of 16+ units. I could draft quite a few rifles and build cannons in all cities. Pretty wasteful building rifles really when they can be draft.

I suspect other saves will get the vote this time around. Its been a bit of a rushed weekend.

With all of that let voting commence.

 

[Gumbolt]

We will go ahead and vote for the next 1-2 days. Hopefully finish by Tuesday or when all that have played have voted. Its not always about voting for the best save but the save that will be most interesting or challenging to play. Anyone that submitted a save is free to vote.

Please rank your top 3 in order.

First place 3 points.
Second place 2 points
Third place. 1 point.

PLEASE NOTE!! To keep voting fair you cant vote for your own save. You are expected to vote for 3 saves and give reasons for your voting. Remember this is a learning game. I would encourage everyone to act within the spirit that the cookbook is intended.

Anyway here are the saves:


Gumbolt

Ambro

Solon70

MJG5591

Cabert

Please note we are playing next round to a finish as conquest/ domination must be near come the end of next round. Kossin can vote but I have removed her vote from voting.

 

[Gumbolt]

In terms of clearing this game Ambro is the only save that has KK and HRE effectively at the point of capitulation.

The question is do you continue the war to improve land percentage or just go conquer the world by sea. I dont see any other save mopping up this game quicker.

As ever kossin has done a stella job and has both KK and HRE rolled over.

 

[mjg5591]

@gumbolt

Spoiler :

Yeah taking The Colossus off Charlie really hurts his tech it seems. Same as in my game.