Immortal Cookbook III: Saladin of Arabia

[Kaleb]

That said, I think I'll give people one more day to submit saves. I probably won't be able to do it since I'm busy this evening, but if others can, I'll accept their saves. Voting begins tomorrow.

Great, I'm very nearly done and will be able to get my save in for tonight. Still a bit more rushed thatn I would have liked

 

[shyuhe]

What are you getting at?

Lots of land to settle and lots of barbs.

 

[carl corey]

Well, "low" is probably the most common choice for the "sea level" option. It's like telling people to be careful because the map size is standard. It usually is.

 

[shyuhe]

Is low the standard choice? I always play normal so I'm not used to low sea level maps.

 

[Olodune]

With hemispheres and big & small I usually use normal as well -- these scripts already have a lot of land.

1ad:

Spoiler :

The Great Wall really payed off for those who took the gamble. I would generally be very nervous building it with stone from a second city since it often is BIADL very early. Of those who did get it I like shyuhe and (probably) Abegweit so far. My only worry is whether the HE is enabled in those games.

 

[carl corey]

Well, standard as in "most used on these forums". I don't know if it was the original option, or if the default option differs for each map type.

 

[obsolete]

With hemispheres and big & small I usually use normal as well -- these scripts already have a lot of land.

1ad:

Spoiler :

The Great Wall really payed off for those who took the gamble. I would generally be very nervous building it with stone from a second city since it often is BIADL very early. Of those who did get it I like shyuhe and (probably) Abegweit so far. My only worry is whether the HE is enabled in those games.

Spoiler :

I hardly think getting TGW on Immortal is a gamble.

 

[Olodune]

Spoiler :

I hardly think getting TGW on Immortal is a gamble.

Spoiler :

Using your build order I agree -- but you sacrifice growth and settlers. shyuhe finished two settlers before TGW, risky (imo) but with a big payback.

 

[obsolete]

Spoiler :

1080: Fishing -> Sailing. Finish Oracle, pick COL. The reason for this is that neither Ragnar or SB who are the only ones on our continent from what it appeared, has gotten a religion. With the madrassa and spiritual cheap temples it's also easy for us to generate a GP and found a shrine. When religion spreads in the other two camps this should provide a great source of income it will also help me get Ragnar to friendly along with HR. Confu is founded in Medina, I spread it to Mecca with the missionary.

Spoiler :

I had been thinking on this in my game as well. I was thinking on gifting techs to SB so he can go up the philo-route, and found taosim. Then HE can spread it to me, and HE can turn all my cities into Taos, and then HE can waste a GP on building the shrine.

Then, after that is all said & done, I can go and take it from him. What do you think about it?

 

[Kaleb]

Here's my save. I'll embellish with screenshots later - EDIT: added screenshots now

Spoiler :

I seem to be one of the few people that didn't manage to get the Oracle! I got beaten by 5 turns. But I did manage to get the Pyramids and then tech CoL first. I used the missionary to spread Conf to Ragner who is now one of the faithful. I also got a Great Prophet who founded the shrine in Damascus.

Barbs were a pain in the bum but I was ready for them with a few Axemen and they didn't cause too much trouble.

Empire overview:

Main Cities overview:

Tech trade situation:

I've only just got Alpha and Ragnar doesn't want to trade. SB won't speak with me as he's upset with me for cutting trade ties. That was a mistake on my part. I should have canceld the OB as soon as he got the war dec from Ragnar.

Globe view:

Demographics:

 

[Abegweit]

I still can't access the Internet from home but Sneakernet works everywhere. so I brought stuff into work from home and updated my original post.

Spoiler :

Given I certainly agree that building the Great Wall really helps on this map. I can't claim to have realized that when I did it. I was just madly grabbing wonders.

What is the difference exactly? The barbs weren't that bad in ICbII and we had plenty of open spaces in that game too. Olodune, wow!

 

[Dirk1302]

Now that the saves are delayed one day i just have time to join. Thought i wouldn't have time today but turns out i can't play tomorrow but can play today. One thing in advance, low sea levels is certainly not the norm afaik and i didn't like it much. I'll explain in the spoiler.

Spoiler :

Settled 1e because the warrior sees 2 fp's. Explored with the warrior and soon found out that the ais, Rag and SB, are enormously far away.They both seem to be in the north, didn't venture to far into the west but i think there's a lot of land there too. Went AG-POT. I could have gone AH, the cow sure is important but having some cottages up early helps enormously with BW/AH later. After POT i go Min/BW. Again AH is an option but i may need some heavy chopping soon.

My build order in capital was worker-worker-grow to 2 once corn is improved-worker-warrior. I do this almost always nowadays, it hardly costs since the second tile is unimproved, the surplus 3 food is now used for a very useful second worker instead of working a second useless tile. I do calculate that when the second tile is improved i'm at size 2.

Find bronze near capital, stall 2 warriors in the neighbourhood to fogbust. Settle there next and connect the copper. My second worker is already chopping so i can get the first axe out immed.

1500 BC Barbs on a rampage
Turns out soon that i need a lot, from 1500 BC on i'm getting hammered by barbarians as i've never been hammered before. I had expected barb problems so i had roaded in between my 2 cities a lot but this surpassed my wildest dreams, wondered what a low sea level map means on deity. Helped by chopping I have 5 axes up in short time and i never got pillaged but the constant annoyance of barbs may have meant i lost focus at some points (i researched med instead of poly for instance). It certainly meant i could not expand outward before ~1200 BC because i needed all the axes near my 2 cities to defend myself.

1080 BC Oracle
Around 1800 BC Oracle hasn't been build yet, i had researched masonry by then since the marble seems like a good tile in itself, so i give it a try. With marble it's no more expensive than a granary and i get it pretty soon with a chop,copper and marble.I didn't find choosing a Tech too difficult here, as good as Col is i need happiness badly with all the juicy tiles i have so Monarchy it is. This allows me to work good tiles and assign scientists at the same time when the capital's size is 8.If alpha is teched soon i'll gift it to Rag and get him to pleased this way.

925 BCDamascus founded
Finally i get some air and i use it to get an axe, a settler and a worker on the long journey north, 3 gems a wheat and a lot of jungle is awaiting us there.This city will also have a lot of blocking value so it's imo simple a must to build it despite the high maintenance.Damascus is founded 925 BC. Later on my other workers find some time to build a road to it,these workers also had a fogbusting role, a nice side effect.

925BC-1AD
After monarchy things get a lot easier, i assign 2 scientists, i still can grow the capital to 8 pretty soon so i can keep working 2 resources and 4 cottages. Capital is at happy cap for the moment, i could have built warriors but there's nothing improved near the capital so i queue workers instead. My second city Medina is good as long as it can work copper/marble and 4 cottages, it's unhealty however so growing it further seems a bit pointless. So i also queue settlers/workers here sometimes whipping since the city's none too happy.

Since i had mistakenly researched med first i have to research poly now. I had accumulated 350 gold waiting for the madrassa's so i can research 100% for a while.Get poly in 2 turns. Proceed with aest/lit. I go for Parthenon and GL in Medina/Mecca now.

I have built 2 other cities in the meantime, the obvious double fish city which is coming online nicely already. In the sheep/wheat city a monument has just been built, once borders pop we can do nice things there.

1 AD it's certain i can get both wonders now with a whip. But it's probably fairly safe to finish them the normal way since the wonder build rate has been low this game.

I have just finished IW and i've begun mining the gems. Since i have 6 workers and the chopping for Part/GL has been done i can assign ~3 of my workers to get this great city up and running. The other 3 workers will continue cottaging near the capital and improving near Narjan (the sheep city). Focus'll be on getting some more workers so more cottages can be worked. A barb city has gone up near the corn pig spot so i'll build some extra axes too to take this city.

Since my gold is depleted techrate's not that high right now, this'll improve drastically soon when sailing(next turn), gems and GL are online and more cottages are worked.

Overview, No techscreen since annoyingly no one has alpha.

About low sea level, imo there are 2 distinct problems with this.

First constantly fighting barbs is no fun. I was prepared but everytime i killed some 4 of them i saw several red signs on the edges of the screen next turn meaning reinforcements of the barbarian army were on the way. Barbs are part of the game but this seems excessive. I killed 21 archers, 23 warriors, read Olodune got hammered even harder, i feel for him.

Secondly now the barbs have been conquered the map seems very easy with all the expanding room. A more crowded map is more of a challenge.

I saw in a few games that GW was build, one time 1200 BC. I hope you didn't depend on getting this wonder for barb protection, seems like an enormous gamble to me if this was the case. It got built in my game 1560 BC while there are certainly no wonder hogs about. Could easily have been pre 2000 bc as the ais are rather fond of this wonder.

 

[obsolete]

Spoiler :

Using your build order I agree -- but you sacrifice growth and settlers. shyuhe finished two settlers before TGW, risky (imo) but with a big payback.

Spoiler :

Ahh, well yes I agree with you there then. I also was sort of surprised when I saw the walls around TWO other cities. That's sort of like pushing it with a prayer, but maybe he was only trying to build wealth and got the wonder by accident?

His tech isn't the best right now, but I'm sure he'll catch up great in the future. That's the problem with expansion.

What I really found interesting is he went or ToA! Haha. I totally forgot about that one.

 

[Dirk1302]

@Obsolete and Olodune (and others)

Spoiler :

I think relying on GW on this map after 2000 BC is sheer lunacy. In my case if i had started it instead of chopping/whipping out 5 solid axes i'd just have been dead if i missed it on this map that seems like an easy win to me if you just survive the initial onslaught.You can't play a game that way imo.

@Obsolete, i don't have problems with the way you played it, chances for success were high since you built it 2120 BC iirc. You sacrificed a lot for it too ignoring AG/AH.

A bit harsh maybe but i'm inclined to exclude the saves that built GW after 2000 bc, at least for the top position.Edit: i mean in my own vote, i don't want to suggest here that these saves should be taken out by Carl. There's no way i could have done that in my game and afford missing it. I feel that this may be a problem of the cookbook format altogether, you may need to gamble this way to get the best save in but i seriously don't think this is optimal play. In the end i value solid play more than what may be the best position 1 AD.

 

[Abegweit]

@Dirk

Spoiler :

I don't think that any save should be banned from voting. In any case, the only way this could happen is if Carl decided it on his own. If you want to give reasons why you think that a particular game is worthy or unworthy of consideration you are, of course, welcome to do so.

In my case, I really feel guilty about my huge luck with the metals. OTOH, luck is part of this game. For example, not everyone w/o the GW got clobbered by barbs. I wonder whether it's really right to turn off random events. I personally like them. There's something wrong with keeping the slider at 0 gold. The Goody Huts are a different story. The human never gets anything from them anyway.

 

[Dirk1302]

@Abegweit

Spoiler :

No way i'm suggesting that these saves should be taken out of the vote by Carl, that would be extremely arrogant. It's just that i'm reluctant myself to vote for saves that have been played this way. I'm very sorry if this wasn't clear, i have edited my previous post in this respect.. I even feel i would go too far myself if i excluded this saves entirely out of my own vote, in the end apart from the imo dubious build of GW these games may have been played very well. (Your save is pretty good for instance, i can't see when GW is built btw here because your save crashes if if i try to view the log). I do feel gameplay/saves should be judged over the whole time frame and not only on the vote position. But in the end everyone's free to vote the way he/she likes.

This is the second cookbook game i play and while i find them to be very enjoyable there are some aspects to the format that don't sit entirely right with me. I'd like to start a discussion about this after i have finished the DC so i have a better overall view . But one of the aspects i have already mentioned here is that i feel that in comparision to other games i've seen there's more of a gambling element. I also feel when playing myself that i have to make certain deadlines at the voting point. But i'll get back to all of this later in the discussion thread.

 

[Abegweit]

@Dirk

Spoiler :

We're on the same wavelength on what to do about voting

As for my game, you're not the first person to have problems with the log. I have some myself sometimes. I think that I am going to have to break down and re-install everything. But you can see the date when the GW was built if you look in the wonders screen: 2080BC

 

[Dirk1302]

@Abegweit

Spoiler :

Wonderscreen, missed that completely . That's a good gamble then since your success rate is rather high and you'll have time to recover if it fails. Going to have to study your game more closely, i may not be the greatest wonderbuilder of all time but i thought about GW ~3000 BC as i saw the huge amounts of unoccupied lands. Decided i'd have to sacrifice too much to pull it off also since i had begun POT already i felt i was on the wrong tech track. Anyway your save's in for my vote .

Strange about the log, i'd certainly advise a reinstall, it should work correctly, i use it a lot to fill in the details for reports. Wished it had a more cooperative layout though.

 

[obsolete]

There's no way i could have done that in my game and afford missing it. I feel that this may be a problem of the cookbook format altogether, you may need to gamble this way to get the best save in but i seriously don't think this is optimal play. In the end i value solid play more than what may be the best position 1 AD.

I agree with you 100% and have been mentioning this for years. The hall of fame games suffer from the same issue. The ones that win with the highest scores are just about always the worst played, yet everyone likes to "ohhhh ahhh" at the highscore/early finish. Totally oblivious that it was a less than 1% shot to pull through.

I'll always prefer the solid play as well, though this doesn't mean unorthodox plays don't count. I just don't like gambles. I do gamble time to time, but only when I have a backup if it fails.

 

[shyuhe]

@Dirk

Spoiler :

I'm assuming you mean my save with the 1200 BC GW. I was rather surprised myself that I was able to complete it so late. I was only building it because my capital had nothing better to build (other than axes) at that point if I recall. I had messed up my tech order (combined with city settling) and couldn't build any more workers/settlers until I hit writing. I didn't want to build too many axes because I didn't want to pay maintenance for them - hence the GW was the only thing left to build.