Let's get a game going. Emperor Training

[StoneColdNuts]

Somehow there are few actual games going on in S&T. Let's get one going.

I chose Emperor since it seems to be about where the average player, including myself, is on.

Standard size Continents map, Emperor Difficulty. Everything is standard, Ancient Ruins are OFF, for comparison's sake. I left Quick Combat off. It's nice in the early game but I found when big wars are going on it's nice to see whats actually happening instead of looking at 13 lines of text.

We pulled one of our new leaders, Isabella, for this game. We get a gold bonus and double yields from natural wonders. We have two unique units, the Conquistador and the Tercio. The Conquistador replaces the Knight, and gets a bonus fighting on different continents than our capital. He can also found cities on different continents. The Tercio is a replacement for the otherwise-sucky Musketman. He has 18 power to the Musketman's 16, and has the normal +100% bonus against mounted units. Very useful for killing Knights, and can tangle with Swordsmen.

Here is our start.

Spoiler :

Here's how this will work. We will have one week to play the first 75 turns. Submit your game (spoilered, please). We will then vote on the best save for two days, and then have five days to play the next set of turns. This will repeat every week until we're done!

I hope you play with us.

 

[Maestro_Innit]

Seaside start with no sea resources? Crikey, you like to make things difficult! Still - I'll have a play

 

[Monthar]

Looking at that screenshot, I'd lose a turn to move the settler to the plains across the river. This would give more hammers and allow me to build every hammer boosting building possible. I'll take mining first then most likely shoot for libraries, then AH and masonry.

Edit: Since this is on Emperor the AI won't have workers to liberate right away, so I'll likely go scout - worker - scout

And I can't play it, because you have at least one DLC I don't. I only have the Spanish/Inca and Mongol DLCs. When setting up a game like this, please list all the DLCs and Mods you have installed.

 

[StoneColdNuts]

And I can't play it, because you have at least one DLC I don't. I only have the Spanish/Inca and Mongol DLCs. When setting up a game like this, please list all the DLCs and Mods you have installed.

My apologies. I have all of the extra civs.

 

[wurstburst]

I hope you play with us.

If you want to maximize participation, you might want to do a game that doesn't require the paid DLC. I was going to fire this up, but now I can't

 

[StoneColdNuts]

Here is my best effort:

Spoiler :

Here is our empire. I only expanded out to five cities. It seemed like I had plenty of production, and I wanted to get the National College and Ironworks out quickly. I used the first 500 gold to buy a settler, and used the 1k gold from GBR to buy out a Maritime CS once I hit three cities. My gameplan was to get to the Medieval Era via Civil Service (also allowing me Pikes to defend myself), go down the Patronage line, and ally with a bunch of CSs. I'm doing well on gold from all of the gold resources, and will get even better once I get markets and maybe even build Machu Pichu.

I want to build the National College in the Capital, and then probably the Heroic Epic. The gameplan is to use Tercios to kill Augustus and maybe Oda Nobunaga if possible.

Spoiler :

The bad news:

Spoiler :

Oda and Askia randomly hate me for no real reason. I settled a city "near" Augusts (about 8 tiles out). I told him that I wouldn't do it again. When I settle a city about 12 tiles away, he called me a liar. Whatever, dude.

The good news:

Spoiler :

We have one of each type of CS helping us now. We might land the Oracle in a couple turns and we have a Medieval-era Cultural CS helping us down the Patronage tree. Hopefully we can get ahead on tech, take out 1 or 2 civs with Tercios, and just snowball all of the CSs. They'll help research, and we'll start scoring GPs before long.

Spoiler :

 

[Treso]

Im on Prince yet. I want to be confident before jumping to higher levels.


I have three 4 extra civs.
Mongols, Spain, Inca and Babylon.

There are other extra civs?

 

[Nares]

Looking at that screenshot, I'd lose a turn to move the settler to the plains across the river.

I like that call. Windmill at economics and something like four fewer water tiles. Pottery, Writing, Mining. Worker first can improve wheat and even farm the riverside plains hill while waiting on mining. Possibly even slip calendar in there for Stonehenge.

Culture tile acquisition will favor that marble tremendously. Once you have the sheep, I believe it should tile the marble next.

 

[elthrasher]

Maybe it's not fair because I usually play above emperor, but this is the only game in town, so here's my effort. I'm an awful brute.

Spoiler :

I soon found Rome to the south and learned my other neighbors were pretty far away. I got 500 gold for finding Old Faithful, so I bought a worker. This was the fastest I could have gotten a worker because there are none to be stolen that early on and it would have taken me 14 turns to hammer one out.

My tech path was Animal Husbandry first (in case I could get extra hammers from horses) and then I beelined Iron Working. I hooked up my gold pretty fast and sold it (though you can't get a really good price that early on emperor it seems), then hooked up the other one. I had to buy tiles. I ended up making four cities early, one to make Caesar nervous, one to claim iron and one more because I just didn't have anything to build in Madrid at the time. I guess I could have done more workers but I (wrongly) expected to claim some in my coming war with Caesar.

My scout rescued a CS worker from some barbarians and I kept that one, so I had two workers at least. I finally finished Iron Working and saw that I had a 2 iron vein near Madrid (had to buy the tile again) and that was basically it, except for a bunch of iron near Caesar. Okay, let's make him real nervous now. Unfortunately as I escorted my settler to build a city in his back yard he asked if I was coming to war. Well, yes, I mean no. I wasn't ready to fight yet.

Whatever, the people on the other continent won't know what an awful lying jerk I am once I kill all the witnesses over here, right? I hooked up the iron, broke my word and here's the result:

Spoiler :

Oh, I also built the Great Library while all this was going on and got Metal Casting. I've got some libraries going up and will build the National College before settling any more. I just have one or two more basic techs and then on to Steel. Not sure if I'll attack Nobunaga before or after I upgrade to Longswords. After might be better because it won't really take all that long.

Here's another shot of some of my cities. I have six total. Two are puppets.

Spoiler :

And demographics:

Spoiler :

The good:

happiness will be under control soon
I'm #1 where it counts
Will get a GS in 94 turns if not sooner thanks to the GL
got money in the bank
most of my libraries are already built (I know they aren't great for such small cities, but I wanted to claim turf and get the NC up)
Nobunaga will still trade with me even though he hates me.
With my paltry 2 culture per turn my 2nd policy may be a renaissance one.
I got a great general

The bad:

Everybody hates me (this isn't that bad since I plan to kill them)
Haven't allied any city-states yet. I might pick up the maritime, but wanted to wait for positive happiness.

Should I post the save as well?

 

[juckie]

I would take a move SW. You'd lose the marble in the short term though (city expands to sheep AND gold first) and you get 5 (now unseen) tiles which could get priority.

What to build first, well;
A worker can get a farm up and ready, and then mine gold when you get mining.
A monument, nothing special.
A scout, seeing you're Spain you should use that.

So scout, worker, scout. And Pottery, writing, mining. Maybe some AH for the sheep?

@ elthrasher

Spoiler :

My tech path was Animal Husbandry first (in case I could get extra hammers from horses)

What horses? There is one plains tile where horses could spawn (-directly in your city radius). And I would settle that spot, losing any extra potential hammers that would net.

 

[elthrasher]

@ elthrasher

Spoiler :

What horses? There is one plains tile where horses could spawn (-directly in your city radius). And I would settle that spot, losing any extra potential hammers that would net.

Spoiler :

Yeah, but I expanded pretty fast. I dunno, it might have helped and it's nice to know where the horses are (or aren't in this case). This is something I've been doing lately, although probably not the best call for this map, you're right.

Yeah, and I could have moved but I'll grow faster with a farm on that plain and given my start I don't think it's that crucial to have the extra hill. Any game in which I score the GL is a good production game for me. At the same time, I don't need the hill defense and it would probably be nice to have a windmill eventually, so yeah there is merit to what you say.

 

[Lemming]

here i am with my report:

Spoiler :

moved settler across the river and settled madrid on the plains tile. build order in madrid was scout/worker/library/NC/settler. discovered old faithful first, the 500 gold were spent on allying helsinki. after NC i found barcelona on the mountain/river tile in the west. managed to build GL and oracle in madrid, the GL brought me civil service and medieval era.
for SP i took 1 in liberty for fast settlers and the following 2 in patronage/philantrophy. in the meantime i lost all scouting units (scout/warrior) to barbs (after meeting askia and cape town to the west) and then oda blocked my way by settling a north-south barrier
and then turn 75 came and it was not only the last turn for this session but also a turn to remember for spain i settled seville to the south (ivory), bringing me to 3 core cities and 2 unhappy (i traded away all my gold), BUT the next moment my new scout not only found genoa in the far north but also both great barrier reefs before any other AI, result:
1000 gold -> 3 maritime allies and with them 1 new luxury, bringing me back into happiness and exploding my growth - the remaining cash was spent on a RA with Oda (i have another one going with askia). so far so good, i'm performing above my expectations but i really got lucky with the 1000 gold in the end and i consider this UA a little bit OP, because things would surely look different without it. looking forward to the next session

 

[vexing]

Spoiler :

i went scout, worker, monument, library, national college, bought 1st settler few turns before it finished, great library
for techs i did writing, then went to masonry for the marble bonus for wonders. i did philosophy and the stuff to open up civil service, and got civil service as my freebie from great library. i'm filling out the rest of the top and will be able to get navigation for renaissance era when i get the great scientist from porcelain tower.
for policies i have tradition, wonder bonus, patronage, 20 min influence. i got that before i rescued a worker, which ended up being from hanoi even though helsinki was right by the camp =/ and every single city state quest has been "they want you to destroy" or "they request a road" which is really annoying.
i took my initial warrior south east, did a short loop and came back. my scout i took west and hit ol' faithful. when he eventually reached genoa i spent 500 to ally up with them.

 

[aball]

Hey guys, first time playing on Emperor, I've been playing on King winning about half the time so we'll see how this goes

Spoiler :

Started out moving across the river to the plains, I didn't want my capital to have 3 water tiles in the starting hexes with no seafood, basically wasting tiles. Used Old Faithful's money to buy a worker for the wheat and eventually gold.

My research went Mining --> Pottery --> Writing before buying a library and starting the NC. I found the AIs didn't have as much money as I'd expected so I wasn't able to sell off more than one gold at a time. I did find the GBR up to the northwest pretty early so I used that to buy a settler. I was having a hard time dealing with the barbs, two camps ended up spawning near the marble so I bought some military to help out there.

Hooked up the marble and built GL to bulb civil service. By the time I founded my third city, Caesar decided he didn't like me very much. Funny because he still hasn't founded a second city that I can see...I think I'll try to wipe him out eventually. On another diplomatic note, I haven't signed any RAs yet. The AIs for whatever reason aren't generating a lot of gold or are spending it right away. Like I said above, I was able to sell gold to Askia once and Toku later, but now no one has enough to get a RA now.

For SPs I took Tradition first, then Piety. I figure with the low amount of food Madrid has, I'll be better off trying to go for the -25% from population in that tree rather than the one in Tradition.

Anyway, here's the current situation.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

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Also, what is this? I've never run across it before...

 

[aball]

Spoiler :

i consider this UA a little bit OP, because things would surely look different without it. looking forward to the next session

@ Lemming

Spoiler :

I think I agree with you, at least on this map. 1500 gold is a lot of money in the early game and without that money I'd definitely be much worse off than I am now. But you could also get shafted on some maps so it probably balances out in the long run.

 

[skallben]

Very interesting to see the different playstyles here. We got city-mongerer, war-mongerer, CS-mongerer and wonder-mongerer.
Oh and equally interesting to see how gold is being used differently.

You guys planning a round 2 going past t75 ?

 

[elthrasher]

war-mongerer

It is my fervent belief that "civilization" is being used ironically in all of these games.

 

[vexing]

are we ready for turn 150 screenshots?

 

[skallben]

It is my fervent belief that "civilization" is being used ironically in all of these games.

War is very civilized phenomenon, as long as it's organized. Just ask the brits, dying in a line is certainly a noble thing. And very civilized.

 

[Nares]

are we ready for turn 150 screenshots?

I'm guessing the OP forgot about this.

I'd say go for it, if that's what you have.