Hammurabi - Immortal Cookbook

[kossin]

Aye
The land fit pretty well to this too, which is the reason I stuck with this map.

 

[GKey]

So after last map you decided go easy on us?

 

[kossin]

Only green lands for cottages games get boring. Hammer games are harder to start off but are so much more powerful from t100-t200...

 

[GKey]

Honestly I hardly can imagine better land then that we got in this game. Food poor/hammer rich, you say? May be for the next map?

 

[kossin]

You got it!

 

[GKey]

Just please don't forget

harder to start off but are so much more powerful from t100-t200...

 

[kossin]

Except you cut off the important part:

[...]Hammer games are harder to start off but are so much more powerful from t100-t200...

^^ No mention of food poor.

Honestly I hardly can imagine better land then that we got in this game. Food poor/hammer rich, you say? May be for the next map?

^^ Mention of food poor.

You get what you ask for

 

[Fierabras]

@GKey

Could you upload your 800 AD save instead of your 800 BC save?

 

[GKey]

wow sorry

 

[drlake]

I screwed up my set, and built the Heroic Epic in Athens rather than the National Epic like I intended. I don't have the inclination to redo the turn set at the moment, so probably will not submit a save.

 

[drlake]

I screwed up my set, and built the Heroic Epic in Athens rather than the National Epic like I intended. I don't have the inclination to redo the turn set at the moment, so probably will not submit a save.

Correction. I'm going to go back to the last autosave, change the production at Athens, and just enjoy the failgold for the HE there when I get around to building it elsewhere. I may not post my round before Tuesday, but I'll get one in.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Round 3 Part A

Spoiler :

I tried to play in one whole turnset this time, to avoid the temptation to reload. It almost worked.

Near the end of the turnset, I was trying too hard to get Liberliasm to within a Flask or two of being completed. Normally, I'd probably leave 2 turns to completion before moving onto another tech until I was ready to trigger Liberalism's free tech, but I was trying to be "cute." I must have done something--had a Worker complete a Cottage or hire a Specialist or switch squares to one that provided Commerce instead of Hammers--and triggered Liberalism.

Since I had intentionally delayed getting Engineering and Compass, in order to lengthen the time before Liberalism would have to be triggered, I felt that this exceptional instance was worth a reload. Please forgive my moment of weakness.


Onto the game...

We started to build it, so we might as well try to finish it, right?

Most other Cities pumped out Workers, a Settler, or a Buddhist Missionary.

Literature comes in and we shortly set to work on building The Great Library in Athens.

Darius is taking his time to declare, but our forces are ready and Peter's border Cities are lightly defended. I take the initiative and declare war.

Where there's a Wonder, there's a way.

Our economy gets a nice boost.

Wonders never cease.

Yet another Settler, continuous Buddhist Missionaries, and more Workers are built.

Here's the pace of spreading Buddhism. Remember, we started this turnset with the Religion in only one City.

The Great Library is in and we're on our way to building the National Epic.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Round 3 Part B

Spoiler :

Zara starts to become a nuisance.

Our second Great Person is due in Bablyon. Luck was with us today.

Nice doing business with you, Saladin.

Ah, Saladin, you are so gullible! Music is a lock... but not for you!

Our new Best Friend, Justinian.

Darius gets off of his lazy butt and jumps into the fray.

Uhhhh... yeah... not one of my better moments. I often confuse the National Wonder Epics and start to build the wrong one, and I will mix up Merchant Specialists with Artist Specialists, but confusing World Wonders? Ah well, all is well that ends well.

Yeeehaaaww! I probably should have rebuilt the City closer to our capital, given how much Cultural pressure it has, but I didn't have a Settler prepared and I didn't want an opportunistic Justinian to take over the area. The fact that we kept instead of razed this City will mean that:
a) Zara won't totally hate us later (he is the one who declared war on us, so we only got a -2 Diplo hit in this war for bribing Justinian against Zara)
AND
b) We'll just have to keep capturing more of Zara's Cities until the Cultural pressure goes away!

We don't have the Mausoleum yet and 1 turn of Anarchy is worth a switch into Bureaucracy. Come on, don't you remember Vanilla and Warlords where you don't get to be partially-Spiritual in a Golden Age? Bureaucracy is totally worth 1 turn of Anarchy! Stop your whining!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Round 3 Part C

Spoiler :

This trade sounds pretty fair to me.

See? The switch into Bureaucracy helped--we can build the Mausoleum 1 turn faster, or essentially in the same amount of turns that it would have taken without Bureaucracy.

Darius hands us the keys to St. Petersburg.

Justinian is either a newb or has a devious, secret plan up his sleeves!

I remember from a different saved game in an earlier round (in an alternate timeline, so to speak) that building Moai in the Sheep + Fish site seemed to be the choice that was made, but I want Moai to be useful during our Golden Age, which means building it now, not later, and also in a City that will be large enough to work several Coastal squares during a Golden Age.

If you aren't going to work Cottages (at least not very frequently), you might as well go for broke and keep building Wonders!

Another Great Scientist comes along and finishes off Education for us--we'd been hoarding Gold in hopes of his arrival (greater than a 90% chance but less than a 100% chance, thanks to the National Epic).

We finish off this turnset by voting for ourselves. Justinian will likely also vote us in as the Resident.

Hmmm, if we can get Buddhism to Zara (we'll probably have to make him capitulate or else give him Peace and gift him techs, in order to get Open Borders with him), then a Religious Victory vote should be possible.

We likely won't win that vote, but I suppose that it's possible, especially if we can get a Vassal to vote for us.

Anyway, consider it as a possibility to explore during the next turnset (or for fun on your own if the votes point towards playing someone else's saved game).

WHERE THE SAVE LEAVES OFF

Spoiler :

MILITARY
We have The Heroic Epic and 2 settled Great Generals in the Iron + Corn City NW + NW + N of Athens. I used Athens' Pig to help grow that City quickly and now it is churning out 7 experience-point units, such as Macemen.

We have 4 Barracks + Stables combos in other Cities and several Cities are also pumping military units.

We lost most of our Chariots and Axemen, but the few surviving Chariots are mostly Medics, while the surviving Axemen were either used in suicide charges or were upgraded to Macemen if they had a lot of experience points.

We have an army at the gates of Zara's capital and another army at the gates of Peter's capital. Both armies are currently awaiting reinforcements before attacking (or for Darius to lend a bit more support on the Russian front). A switch-up attack on Gondor instead of on Zara's capital is also feasible, and even if Zara reinforces Gondar, we could double-back to his capital and his units that moved would have foresaken their Fortification bonus.


GOLDEN AGE & CIVICS
We still have 5 turns' worth of Golden Age remaining, which means that you will get your choice of Civics to switch into.

We are currently running:
Representation (woot, thank you, The Pyramids), Bureaucracy, Caste System, the default Economic Civic, and Pacifism.

Possible paths could be:
- Police State for War or sticking it out in Representation for a bit of extra Science and the extra Happiness in our larger Cities

- Vassalage (if you really, really, really want to just pump Military Units everywhere, otherwise giving up Bureaucracy is probably too costly of a move)

- Slavery is the most likely choice, since we have yet to lay down a single Workshop
- Caste System is also possible, but probably is a total waste if we aren't going to stick it out in Pacifism and if we aren't willing to pave over Cottages with Farms in both Babylon and Athens. If you really, really want to, you could focus our Worker actions on building Workshops, but it's probably just best to go back into Slavery to help whip buildings (like our beautiful Gardens) in Cities that approach their Happiness or Healthiness caps.

- Theocracy for the Favourite Civic bonus plus extra Experience Points for our units
- Organized Religion for building more Buildings
- Staying in Pacifism, even though we only have Babylon (the capital) and Athens pumping out Great People and we're about to get our 700 GPP Great Person in Athens in 1 turn, so we're already looking at diminishing returns. At least this Civic has a very low Maintenance Cost associated with it


WONDERS
We kind of over-killed it on Wonders in Babylon, but that also means that we might get some useful Great People for future Golden Ages, to combine with the Mausoleum of Mossollosus.

Athens is trying to build the University of Sankore, to further boost its Great Scientist GPP production.


WORKERS
We built a lot of them early on, so we have a lot of improvements laid down and probably don't need to build too many more Workers--we can likely coast with the Workers that we already have.


ADDITIONAL CITIES
I was tempted to settle a City for the Crab + Deer to the north, but I also didn't want to go settling-crazy with the fact that we'll likely continue to capture Cities from one or both of Zara and Peter. So, we don't have any Settlers prepared and it probably is a questionable move to settle a City up there.


FORBIDDEN PALACE
We'll get it in 2 turns in a City that used to belong to Peter. That location seemed to be reasonably central, especially considering our hopeful continued expansion into Peter's lands.


GLOBE THEATRE
I haven't found a spot for it yet--we might not even need it--but we have sufficient Theatres to be able to build it in any City that builds or already contains a Theatre.


ACADEMIES AND REMAINING GREAT PEOPLE
We built an Academy in Babylon, an Academy in that once-Greek City with all of the Flood Plains Cottages (Sparta?), Lightbulbed Philosophy, and Lightbulbed part of Education, but not in that order (I forget the order).

We currently only have 1 Great Artist standing around, but as I said, we will get another Great Person from out of Athens as soon as we advance the turn.


DIPLOMACY
Justinian and Darius are Friendly with us.

Saladin is Annoyed, so he won't trade Techs with us, but even at Cautious, he was saying that We were Too Advanced for him anyway, so there's not much point in pleasing him--it's either get him to Friendly (which means annoying the others by adopting his Religion and subsequently kissing his butt) or just ignore him. He's been pretty apathetic towards the idea of war, so I doubt that he'll cause us any issues.

We're at war with Peter and Zara and we might as well stay that way until we're ready to be done with them (capitulate them, take peace with them after their Cities are ours, or take a temporary Cease Fire if you really can't make any headway against them in a war).


RESOURCES
We have pretty much all of our Resources connected, with the exception of Deer. I was delaying connecting it in the hopes that a Forest would grow over top of it, but that situation has yet to happen. There is a nearby Worker that can start to improve the Deer immediately, if you so choose. If we play forwards from this game, I'll likely wait another 20 turns or so and then give up on any chance of Forest growth and just Camp that sucker.

If anyone knows whether a Forest can grow overtop of a Camp, that fact would be appreciated to know, so that I could them stop delaying putting down the Camp. My current suspicions is that that once the Camp is laid on the Deer, a Forest will not grow there.

 

[drlake]

Sigh. Finished my set, and then looked at yours. No war in mine (I'll post screenies and details later) and I'm doing OK, but I really am not making the right decisions apparently.

 

[GKey]

@drlake Somehow we got convinced not to fight. Although I knew that Zara got his cities lightly defended. Ofc him declaring on me helped.

 

[kossin]

War is the great equalizer!

Besides drlake posting his report tomorrow, does anyone else want more time before voting?

 

[Nothingontv]

Sorry but i won’t be participating anymore. The evaluations and write-ups of the games take a lot more time then I expected.
I enjoy reading the discussions and learn from them but I will just shadow the game from now on.

 

[Wafflecakes]

Cor Dhoomstriker. That's spankin'.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

The evaluations and write-ups of the games take a lot more time then I expected.

Then don't do them.


Play the turnset through. Enjoy it. That is one of the best recipes for learning, anyway: do something that you enjoy in a way that is fun for you.


Skip the write-up if you don't have the time or inclination to make one. Forget the screenshots or even a summary. Play it out and have fun!


If you want to influence which saved game we will play the next round from, then upload your Turn 150 saved game. That's it. Nothing more to it.

If you don't even want comments on your game, spend the time to write one sentence stating that fact along with your uploaded file. Then bam, you're done!


Meanwhile, you will hopefully have played in a way that is fun and enjoyable for you. Also, you will get a feel for what things are possible to do if the game had been played differently--which is all part of the learning.

We're playing the cookbook to learn and to teach, to share experiences and to learn from each other. I can learn a lot looking at a game that appears to be less than successful when compared directly against another game, sometimes learning more than I can from a game that appears to be more successful. So, every submission helps every one of us, and as I said, if you don't feel comfortable in receiving feedback about your game, then state that fact.


Generally, though, I think that a lot of feedback has been constructive and positive, allowing people to learn in a non-threatening environment. How much better can you find in life than that?


As for voting--you don't have to explain your choices, either. A simple one-liner saying something like "these games are the ones that I'd like to play through the most" or something to that effect is as good of a justification as any that anyone else has made for their voting selections, while it has the benefit of not making you feel that you need to write pages and pages of text in order to justify your selections.