Immortal Cookbook II: Pericles of Greece

[Kaleb]

Man, I wish I'd had more time to go through each save in the details I wanted, but I've got enough of an idea as to who I want to vote for.

My votes:

Abeg 3pts - Strong tech rate. Haven't traded a number of techs so I will be able to that how I want to Decent military so I don't need to build any for a bit. I don't want too much of a deterrent as I actually WANT Sury to invade.

BigCivFan 2pts - Aslo a good tech rate, which will be even better once Oxford comes in. A war with either Sury or Cathy will be a good way to compensate for a lack of well developed cities and a tech lead is the best way to do this. Overall relations are also very strong giving bribery options.

Raskolnikov 1 pts - Nice empire, but one big plus is that Bismark and Sury are at war with each other. Not sure I would have done tech the same way though.

p.s. Abeg you forgot to say how many votes were going to each recipient

And what the heck is "WHEORN"

 

[carl corey]

Correctly it is WHEOOHRN and it means "We Have Enough On Our Hands Right Now".

 

[carl corey]

Great, now we have 3 players with the same number of points! (4 even, if I misunderstood Abegweit's order of votes) Might as well let everyone play from the save they want.

We're missing two people's votes, but the round will start tomorrow morning whether we get them or not.

 

[Abegweit]

p.s. Abeg you forgot to say how many votes were going to each recipient

Sorry I guess I should have been more clear but it's in order.

CC: 3
RR: 2
Kaleb: 1

I really don't think there's much to choose between any of the saves that have gotten votes, including my own, so it's arbitrary. This may explain why some folks haven't voted. I really didn't want to. Actually, the main reason I put Carl on top was because I thought his save was being underestimated. Given that they are all so close, that strikes me as about the best reason for a choice that I could come up with.

And what the heck is "WHEORN"

CC gave the right abbreviation. To amplify on what it means, if you ask the AI to declare war on another civ and it responds with this then it either is already at war or building up for one. In the latter case, the victim has already been chosen and I seriously believe that you are IT.

 

[Jet]

raskolnikov 3 points
kaleb 2 points
abegwait 1 point

 

[Jet]

I'm not in favor of playing from different saves. I prefer one line of play.

 

[carl corey]

Jet, the point was first made more for this round which was deemed a bit too short to showcase our plans. (I agree with that point.) Plus the near equality of points for different saves comes from playing from two already very strong saves in round 1, not something that will happen often, as we might still struggle after the first round in games with worse land.

So your objection is noted for future rounds/games, so is ABigCivFan's. As I said before I'm somehow on the fence with this, leaning more towards keeping it classical (all play from "best" save). That's why round lengths have been remodelled for future challenges in order to let everyone both make a plan and see it through in a round, so that votes after a round are made on the result of the plan, and not only its preparation.

So, for round 2, the winner save is Raskolnikov's, with 10 points, closely followed by Abegweit with 8 and ABigCivFan and Kaleb with 7. As a result round 3 starts today, ends Thursday, November 27th (or earlier if all saves are submitted), with play from either Raskolnikov's save or your personal save. Round length is up to 1200AD. That leaves poor Raskolnikov with a single choice I'm afraid. Please say in your round 3 report from which save you started.

Round 4 will most probably feature play from only the best save(s).

 

[carl corey]

First two posts in the thread have been edited with information about the next round. For a link to RRRaskolnikov's save, see post#2. Rule#5 about "playing from best save" has also been edited to add what happens in case of a tie. Round 4 will extend from 1200AD to 1700AD, with round 5 the final round (if needed).

 

[Dirk1302]

I'll join a future challenge. Indeed you'd need longer rounds i think so you can clearly judge the results of a plan. But longer rounds have disadvantages too.

Alternatively you could implement a structure like this,

Own save - Not elected
Choice own save/elected save
Own save - Not elected again
Have to play elected save now. repeat.

This way you can play 2 rounds with your own save if you choose to do so. There should be time to fully implement a plan now. Not perfect too i realize but you can have more rounds this way while still giving everyone time to show what they had in mind.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

That leaves poor Raskolnikov with a single choice I'm afraid.

fair enough, I had the choice between two amazing saves at the previous round...
I like Dirk's format, a player can fully implement a plan and if it fails (or simply is not the best one), plays from another save after 2 rounds.
Good look to you all for round 3...

Cheers,
Raskolnikov

 

[Kaleb]

CC gave the right abbreviation. To amplify on what it means, if you ask the AI to declare war on another civ and it responds with this then it either is already at war or building up for one. In the latter case, the victim has already been chosen and I seriously believe that you are IT.

well you're absolutely right about that - DoW comes around 800AD, thankfully not earlier as by then I was ready for it.

I'll play from my own save as had mistakenly played to 840AD already and think it's gotten quite interesting

 

[Gliese 581]

I didn't read Dirk's suggestion in this thread before I posted in the deity Bismarck thread so I'll just copy my post from there since it pertains to the discussion Dirk initiated here. It's yet another possible structure for future games.

What do you say about this:
We start another immortal cookbook variant (at normal speed pleeease). Pick a really bad leader like Saladin and something that promises to be a crappy start.

Then there's a vote for each round where the 3 best/most popular saves are selected per usual. Then you play the next round from any of those three except you can't choose your own save.
This way there'd hopefully be a few more players (difficult leader and start but still immortal level) and less incentive to go for short-term gains to make your save get more votes since you're not allowed to continue on it in any case. Since players should grow less attachment to their saves knowing ahead of time that they won't continue on it (at least the next round), hopefully each player will look at it objectively and ask themselves how to make the most out of the round for everyone else (short and long term) and the debates would likewise be less polarised.

I think this way a situation would also be avoided where one or a couple of player's saves are continually dominating and having spent more time and thinking on it those players continue to have an advantage moving forward since they know the long-term plan whilst the rest of the players have to try to figure that out whilst at the same time being dissapointed that their own save has never been elected which could affect them to drop out of the game.

 

[CellKu]

Gliese, your suggestion does sound interesting. And I am very interested in joining this cookbook series, as well (unfortunately, I was too late for this one). However, I think you need to make a compromise between those who want to learn Immortal and those who already feel comfortable on Immortal and are looking for a challenge (below Deity). So, I would suggest either crappy land or a crappy leader, but not both simultaneously - at least in the beginning.
(Oh, and I would also prefer normal speed.)

 

[Gliese 581]

Gliese, your suggestion does sound interesting. And I am very interested in joining this cookbook series, as well (unfortunately, I was too late for this one). However, I think you need to make a compromise between those who want to learn Immortal and those who already feel comfortable on Immortal and are looking for a challenge (below Deity). So, I would suggest either crappy land or a crappy leader, but not both simultaneously - at least in the beginning.
(Oh, and I would also prefer normal speed.)

Well then if people are interested in this idea, let's play an average leader, like say Izzy, and make sure the start looks like crap.

 

[DMOC]

I could check the save if necessary. A crappy capital can have tons of great land to expand into.

 

[Araneya]

Or maybe instead of running a crappy start on Immortal we could go play Deity?

 

[Gliese 581]

I'm fine with deity, it depends on the general interest.

 

[carl corey]

Heh, you can certainly go play Deity. I'm just starting on Immortal, and yes, this was a good position + good leader, and even then I managed to create problems for myself in the first round. I'm yet to figure out how much I can build/expand before costs put my units on strike, how to counter Immortal level barbs, etc. If someone thinks Immortal is too easy, by all means, create a Deity cookbook and play there. But I'll still run an Immortal one, as this is what I'm interested in at the moment. And I have no problems with someone's save being picked several times over in one game; maybe the guy plays a bit better and we can all learn from him, maybe he just had a better plan for that particular map and as long as he explains it well it's interesting to follow it. I at least am not here to win rounds, but to learn to play on Immortal. Not long ago I nearly dropped at Monarch because, after playing less frequently, I felt that even Emperor was a little too much at times. Now after playing the Emperor/Immortal cookbook's I'm feeling comfortable at Emperor again. For me, these series have been a success.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Hi,

I think running both an immortal and a deity cookbook is the way to go... the levels are so different, and it seems there is interest for both difficulty (I would myself be happy to get axe rushed by deity barbs )...
Of course the next immortal cookbook is likely to have a worst start than this one, so we will face more challenges probably...

Cheers,
Raskolnikov

 

[Dirk1302]

@carl corey and RRRasklonikov

Well i posted my first reaction here, as what i saw as a possible slight improvement on a format that's already been clearly successful here. As i said i'll probably join next round whatever just to see how this format plays out.

Gliese's playing his second public deity game right now, i just posted my third open deity game challenge but there weren't many takers until now. Problem is Gliese and also i ( and maybe a few others too) seek a steeper challenge while staying in a format like this. so i think Gliese , I and some others who think they're up to the challenge should eventually create our own thread without messing to much with this one. I'm a bit sorry really to have messed with this one, not really good thinking on my part. As CellKu suggested minor frustration on my part on lack of interest in what i think should have been a very interesting game.

I like the ideas Gliese's proposed here btw but before we go ahead to create something like this on deity level it's probably good for both of us to play the current format once to get a better idea about how it plays out.