Mehmed Immortal Cookbook

[Nez477]

Yikes

Spoiler :

Ok, I won't be posting a save because barbarians just went nuts. I tried settling three nice cities and chop the GL but things didn't work out at all. Will try to pick up the next save

I tried something different and just bypassed AH

I went Mining>BW>Fish>Sail>Masonry

Not sure if it was right to ignore the extra 3 food but it seemed to be working as I had 3 cities and 3 workers chopping the GL until barbs went nuts and I wasn't prepared

In retrospect just one axeman would've done the trick to save me

 

[vranasm]

@dhoom

Spoiler :

yep the second try was all about settling stone in 1st ring of 2nd city.

In my ordinary save I didnt lost mids yet and I think it's safe to say I will get them since it's 6 turns +- from completion, but the problem there is twofold... at least 3 forests chopped without stone bonus and of course I had to tech myst, build monument and wait for stone too long, it could have been much quicker and since I kind of beelined writing after BW skipping pottery I certainly would run rep scientists sooner making the tech situation stronger.

There is a lot of saves that I really like...actually too many, where are wonders near completion or completed and it's really tough to judge what is best for next round. Some people will get TGLH + Mids. And this will be such strong combination on this map that certainly that kind of save should win.

 

[Slizský slimák]

@Dhoomstriker

Spoiler :

Nice work. As a suggestion, I would say that you could build a Granary in your capital and then grow the City, using Representation for Happiness purposes.

Since you don't NEED the Lighthouse in the capital immediately, as you are building The Great Lighthouse in a different City, the capital's Lighthouse can wait until after you build a Granary there.

Building Granary instead of Lighthouse is still possible since my capital has finished Settler right now (turn 70) and has just switched to Lighthouse which can be changed.

Depending upon where you settle your 3rd City, you might or might not even need immediate access to building a Monument.

The Settler is prepared to settle next to the Rice, so no Monument is probably needed right after that.

Hey, I do not have any excessive thinking about the strength of my save, but I am very happy that I did not stay too far behind some very experienced players! Kossin, thanks for moderating such a good thread!

 

[DampRain]

@dhoom
very nice report

 

[Damoklesz]

Here is my first immortal try ever.

Spoiler :

I saw the GP farm site early, and the capital is also food heavy, so when I discovered the stone, I decided to prioritize pyramids over the Great Lighthouse. Settled the stone city in the location, which in my opinion looks way better than any other location some others played. Settled a third city, which was probably a mistake, and slowed my research down a bit, so I'm still researching sailing with 3 turns to go. I finished the Pyramids, and I'm on my way building the next settler (for the 4th city). I have no idea how much chance we got for actually finishing the Great Lighthouse at around turn 82-85, but if it's not impossible, I'm liking my save. If it is, then I don't really know. Probably my research is too far behind for that.

Tech: AH - Mining - BW - Pottery - Masonry - Mysticism - Fishing - Sailing (3 turns to go)

 

[Sleepless]

@Dhoomstriker

Spoiler :

Well I must admit I certainly didn't put BW to good use though I have more workers than cities in my save which is a good thing. Tbh any save which has the Glh and Mids in is going to be very strong which will lead to an easy win. Probably So I decided to play on with my game especially as I wanted to see how I would do without those wonders. Well I played on a bit. Got the GLh and HG and at 50BC nearly finishing the GLib. Or I still have plenty of forests to chop into it so should get it.

 

[kossin]

Planning on closing the round in a few hours... if voting goes well, round 2 should be opened during the weekend.

 

[kossin]

To anyone still willing to submit a save:

You are welcome to do so, I will add them to the voting list, just be aware that some players might have already voted and will not revise their evaluation!

*************************************************

Here are the several saves that were submitted this time around.

CivConVict

obsolete

hzf

babybluepants

Benginal

DampRain

nishant1911

Sleepless

learner gamer

vranasm

enKage

Mitchum

WaffleCakes

StoneColdNuts

Bei1052

dirtyparrot

Grashopa

cripp7

drlake

Slizský slimák

Dhoomstriker

Damoklesz

ABigCivFan

*********************************************

Shadows/2nd attempts/save missing

vranasm

learner gamer

**************************************************

All in all there are 25 submissions! Wow, that's fantastic!!

Since there are so many submissions voting will be slightly different this time around.

1st place - 3pts
2nd place - 2pts
3rd place - 1pt

Extra vote - 0.5pt

The extra vote can be applied to any save. That is, you can give someone 3+0.5 pts, or give 3pts and 2.5 pts to someone else... or you may decide not to cast it at all.

Voting will last about 2 days or when a clear winner has emerged.

If I forgot any submissions, please let me know so I can correct it ASAP.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

@Damoklesz, Slizský slimák, Nez477, Sleepless, and vranasm

Spoiler :

I finished the Pyramids, and I'm on my way building the next settler (for the 4th city)

Sounds good to me, nice work!

I saw the GP farm site early

Could you please clarify where you think will be the GP Farm? Oh wait, I see it in your second screenshot--at the very NE of your explored area.

As for your two "later" City placements in the same screenshot, I would suggest moving them slightly. The one just south of the Great Person Farm, assuming that the Great Person Farm uses the Sugar and Rice in the area, will only have a 3 Food Lake for Food. Therefore, I'd suggest moving that City 1S, so that you can grab an extra Grassland River square for an additional Farm, since Food will be at a major premium in that City and all that you'd really be giving up are squares that the Great Person Farm will use.

As for your "later" location to the NE of the capital, it would probably be better moved 1S, so that you can pick up another Grassland Hills square to the SE + SE of the "later" label. The Grassland Hills square to the NW + N of the "later" label (the "later" label that is to the NE of the capital) will be lost, but the more northern "later" label (the one to the south of the Great Person Farm) will be able to use that Hills square.


Also, as for your "c" planned-City location in the far west, I would suggest moving it. With Gilgamesh's Clam in the big fat cross but not in the inner 9 squares, you will not likely ever culturally steal it from him. If stealing that square from him is your goal, you will want to settle immediately adjacent to that Clam square, which can only happen by settling 1W of the "c" aka 1NE of the Clam, since no other land squares are adjacent to the Clam. If you don't want to settle there, then I'd consider giving up on that location, since it's probably more important to have a Fish City south of there, while the Fish City can grab the Rice that is near to your "c" planned-City location. I guess it depends upon where you settle on the Coast to the west of your Great Person Farm as to whether or not your "c" location would still have access to a Food Resource (a Sugar) or not. Unfortunately, I can't see that area of the Coast to the west of the Great Person Farm planned-City location in any of your screenshots.

Settled the stone city in the location, which in my opinion looks way better than any other location some others played.

You are entitled to your opinion, but it is hard to judge a second or third City location based on overall placement alone. Many people decided to settle where they did based on the info that they had available to them at the time, based on the placement of a Barb unit (either they get a City in a different spot than you chose or else they would not have gotten a City in the area at all--which choice is better in your eyes?), or they had a different priority in mind for their settling ("I don't need the Stone now, so I don't need to settle immediately adjacent to it," etc).

Really, most of the Cities in the area near the Stone are not really much better or worse than the others. It's not like people missed out on a Resource square or anything--I would say that the "ideal" location for a Creative Civ (we are not such a Civ) would have been to have settled NOT on a Grassland Hills square, since:
a) We'll probably have 2 Cities in that area that can work most of the land squares anyway, so exactly where Cities in terms of which squares they gain doesn't matter much
AND
b) One main part that would matter the most (and it barely matters at all) would be that settling on a Grassland Hills square "wastes" that square--but really, it's not like we had a Grassland Horse being settled on, which would have been much more of a waste, so it's really not that big of a deal in my mind
AND
c) The only other part that I really see mattering is if we settled on the Coast or not in a game where someone was trying to build The Great Lighthouse (and settling off-Coast is an irrelevant point if they didn't try for said Wonder)

Settled a third city, which was probably a mistake, and slowed my research down a bit

Certainly the location that you chose will get settled eventually in any game where The Great Lighthouse gets built, so it is not a total waste.

Unfortunately, the nearby Pig square--the only Food source--has a Jungle on it. That means that we'll have to wait for Iron Working for that City to become useful.

This situation of Jungle existing on top of Food-based Resources was the biggest "trap" with this map, making most of the City locations to the north and west of our capital unattractive pre-Iron-Working.

Building Granary instead of Lighthouse is still possible since my capital has finished Settler right now (turn 70) and has just switched to Lighthouse which can be changed.

The Settler is prepared to settle next to the Rice, so no Monument is probably needed right after that.

You have guessed correctly: my suggestions for you were meant as suggestions for what to do starting from Turn 70 and going forwards.

To me, it makes sense that anyone with The Pyramids prioritize:
a) Building a Granary in the capital
b) improving squares around the capital so that it will have improved squares to start working (for example, either Grassland River Farms or Cottages, your choice)
c) Grow the capital so that it can start using these extra improved squares

You had a relatively unique situation where you planned to build The Great Lighthouse in a City outside of the capital, therefore you have the option to build a Granary there immediately, while others may have to wait a bit before doing so.

I went Mining>BW>Fish>Sail>Masonry

Not sure if it was right to ignore the extra 3 food

The option of skipping Animal Husbandry depends upon what you wanted to do with the capital. If you weren't going to whip there, and if you were going to Farm the Flood Plains squares, then sure, you didn't necessarily need the Pig for Food.

Many people even stopped working the Pig once they got to City Size 5 in the capital.

Skipping Animal Husbandry therefore could have worked out if:
a) There were no other Resources that you wanted to possibly pasture, including a Horse Resource
AND
b) You used the extra Flasks from not researching Animal Husbandry on researching a valuable tech
AND
c) The loss of the Pig wouldn't have mattered too much if you'd focused on building a Work Boat and a Lighthouse, giving you initially a 4-Food and later a 5-Food square, plus 2 Commerce per turn, to replace the Pig's 6 Food

However, it should be noted that had a Horse Resource appeared on one of our Plains squares instead of a Copper Resource on our Plains Hills square, you would have kicked yourself later for not having researched Animal Husbandry, unless by skipping that tech, you'd found a way to build a key building or Wonder a bit faster and found such a trade-off to be worthwhile. There's nothing stopping you from researching Animal Husbandry a bit later if delaying it means getting up a Granary faster, a Lighthouse faster, earlier chopped trees, or whatever other factor you wanted to get out of the trade-off.

In retrospect just one axeman would've done the trick to save me

Is it too late to revolt into Slavery and whip one out?

Another option is, if you don't have Hunting, to revolt into Slavery and then immediately whip a Warrior on the turn that you could out of the revolt--you don't get the full amount of Hammers for whipping this way, but you DO get a Warrior 1 turn faster, which could be a worthwhile move if it means the difference between losing or keeping your City to an invading Barb unit.

Well I must admit I certainly didn't put BW to good use though I have more workers than cities in my save which is a good thing.

Agreed, having plenty of Workers is a pretty important goal, and having even a greater ratio is useful if you are doing a lot of Forest-Chopping like we had the possibility of doing on this map.

Or I still have plenty of forests to chop into it so should get it.

If you are saving a lot of your Forests, it helps to Chop some of them, leaving the remaining Forests in a diagonal pattern. This way, you end up "culling" or "pruning" some of the Forests, allowing the existing Forests to cause regrowth in the areas that you chopped. Forests can regrow horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally. What's often not noted but is just as important is that a Forest can't grow overtop of a Forest--it sounds silly but it leads to a "culling" strategy, whereby a Forest that does not have a non-Resource, non-Forest, non-Coast, or non-improvement square to its immediate north, east, south, or west, but DOES have at least one forest to its north, east, south, or west, is a great Forest to "cull" now, with the hopes that it will regrow later, netting you more Hammers overall than had you just left the Forest sitting there until later in the game.

but the problem there is twofold... at least 3 forests chopped without stone bonus and of course I had to tech myst, build monument and wait for stone too long

Well, if you planned to get the Stone anyway, using a Monument, I think that it would have been worthwhile to have pre-Chopped your Forests but not complete the Chops fully until after the Stone was connected.

The BUFFY Mod has an option that allows you to pre-Chop your Forests within 1 turn of chopping them, then your Worker will be automatically woken so that you will get a choice as to whether or not to finish the last turn of the Forest Chop or to save it for later. Unfortunately, we can't use the BUFFY Mod for these games.

I'm not sure if the BUG Mod has this "easy pre-Chopping" feature and if it does have it, whether or not the feature is broken (it used to be broken for the BUFFY Mod, and the BUFFY Mod was designed using some of the BUG Mod's code).

Anyway, even if this option doesn't work, it's not TOO tedius to Chop and Stop a Worker when a Forest Chop means double the amount of Hammers--would you rather Chop and Stop a few Workers or be forced to Chop twice as many Forests? Probably not much more work overall in terms of mouse-clicking, is it?

And, what do you really lose? Well, if you plan out your Worker movements, you'll have the exact same number of Forest Chopping turns, but will have to spend 2 turns instead of 1 turn "moving" onto a Forest square. I'd say that 1 extra Worker turn spent is a fair trade-off for getting double the number of Hammers out of a Forest Chop, wouldn't you?

@kossin, vranasm

There is a lot of saves that I really like...actually too many, where are wonders near completion or completed and it's really tough to judge what is best for next round.

Well, everyone likes the feeling of having their game being voted for, so maybe vote a bit differently than picking your favourites, if you have too many favourites and can't decide between them.

Instead, maybe vote for games that you think will be challenging to play forwards from.

Another option is to vote for a saved game where the player did something that you would NOT have done--that way, you'll have an "interesting" situation to play forwards from and may learn something more than playing forwards from a game where it was played closest to your own game (or to closest your own second attempt).

Yet another option, since we have so many saved games to vote from, would be to just pick 6 saved games that you'd enjoy playing forwards from and give them each 1 point. 3 + 2 + 1 = 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 in terms of the raw number of points. Then, assign 0.5 for the "most challenging" saved game or to the game that is "the most different from your own." I don't think that kossin will mind too much if the choice is between you:
a) not voting
OR
b) voting for your 6 favourites and being allowed to give them 1 point each (plus the 0.5 vote for a save of a different type, such as the most challenging save or the one that is the most different from your own game, etc)

Certainly, voting this way may take some of the stress off of people who find it hard to evaluate one game a little bit higher or lower than another game.

 

[drlake]

OK, my votes:

1st: Obsolete (GW + GLH + Mids in 13 or less = awesome base to build on)

2nd: CivConVict (Mids, GLH in 3, so solid position).

3rd: dirtyparrot (TGW and Mids done is good, but GLH won't be for maybe 8-9 turns with chops, and that is risky).

Bonus half point to Obsolete.

 

[kossin]

Yea, any way you wish to vote is fine.

You have 6.5 points allowable for votes, distribute them however you want.

Max allowable is 3.5, min is 0.5 is all I ask to reduce my task

 

[Slizský slimák]

3 pts: nishant1911 for GL and almost completed Pyr, 4 Cities and 5 Workers,
2 pts: Grashopa for strong commerce, GL and Pyr in progress,
1 pt: Dhoomstriker for good commerce and 5 Workers.

I do not give the 0.5 pt to anyone since it would mean to view all the saves again to decide which one deserves it. Sorry guys

 

[vranasm]

@dhoom
you're right I shouldnt have chopped if I expected to get the stone anyway...sometimes after the round I just look at it and do wonder what I was thinking about when I did what I did... well that's life

@kossin

I have to apologize i will skip probably voting, in no way I can give fair judgement to 24 saves... but I really like that it was that many submissions.
I will trust participants to choose something really interesting and strong.

 

[nishant1911]

my votes-

3 pts - dhoomstriker .
+oracle! soon, pyramids and glh almost done, 5 workers, workboat for exploration.
- no food resources improved aside from pig.

2.5 pts - grashopa .
+GLh done ,pyramids soon with chops, great tech rate, exploration
- little defense for barb pillaging. only 3 workers

1 pts - stone cold nuts
+lots of development, 4cities 5 workers
-glh first would have been better, no need of fogbusting with copper.

 

[Sleepless]

Well lots of good saves and part of the problem is that they are to good so I decided to carry on with my own save which wasn't so good

 

[obsolete]

Since I've already played my save to domination, I don't think it would be ethical for me to vote since we are all privy to bias on hindsight.

 

[Damoklesz]

@Dhoomstriker

Spoiler :

It's my mistake for not uploading all the pictures. The current Great Person site also has a fish, so in the end (with lighthouse and by speading irrigation to the rice with 1 farm) it will have +12 food by working 4 tiles. I don't think there is a better location.

About the rest of the cities, I realize that they are not on perfect places. I didn't really think about them, at least not as much as you obviously did, becuase it was clear, that I won't settle either of them by turn 70. But everything you wrote will most likely play part in the next turnset, so thx for that.

When I wrote this:

which in my opinion looks way better than any other location some others played.

I ment that for the long term benefits I believe that this site is the best. I certaily didn't want to criticize anyone, I can totally understand if someone decided to take an other route and I really don't feel to be a good enough player to judge that yet.

Here is what I think (and I can be totally wrong): In my opinion our island is on the light side in production (hills). We have a decent capital, but if we don't count the stone site, we only have 2 marginal sites W and NE, both with only 2 hills. If we want to make any military in the future We will need to make almost all of them in these 4 cities (the moai site won't be great in production either), and the majority will come from the capital and the stone city. If we put the stone city off the coast, that probably wouldn't be a tragedy, but in a map, where we will need plenty of naval unit production, and where we want (or already have) the GLH, this might not be the best idea either.

The only 3 coastal spots that puts the stone in the small circle, are here, 2NE on the other grassland hill and E of the stone. My main problem with 2NE is that it relies on the rice which probably won't ever be irrigated, and without the rice, the 2 hills NE of the capital (outside of its BFC) won't ever be worked. With the site to the east, you'd have the same early food problem, and you divide up the production between cities. Plus, you screw yourself out of either a wheat or a fish. This left me with only 1 location.

a) We'll probably have 2 Cities in that area that can work most of the land squares anyway, so exactly where Cities in terms of which squares they gain doesn't matter much

This is only true as longs as you ignore the natinonal wonders. For Heroic Epic and/or Ironworks we need at least a decent production site. Since these are hard to come by, it's either a good city in the stone area, or the capital. I'm not saying that the capital is not an option, but putting 1 here and 1 there is probably better.

My votes:
Please forgive me, if I'm a little biased towards those, who mainly did the same things as me, except better.

3.5 pts: cripp7: pyramids + 5 forests left to chop for GLH, which is already about 1/4th ready + 2nd citys boder already expanded and the resources are improved + 3rd city in a better position than mine
2 pts: dirtyparrot: pyramids + similarly good position on GLH + 2nd city is a few worker turns behind of cripp7s, but still ahead of mine
1 pts: Slizský slimák: pyramids + GLH in 18 turns, but stalls the 2nd city + settler for the 3rd city

Half pont went to cripp7, because out of those, who followed the pyramids-GLH strategy, his seems to be so much better. Some might actually finish the wonders a bit earlier, but on the expense of their expansion, and I don't think that cripp7s GLH is in any danger to justify this difference.

 

[enKage]

Tough choice

Some of saves have city placement that i really don't like

Ok here is my voting, standard: 3, 2, 1, bonus half to "runner-up"

1) Bei1052 - 4 cities and I want to try his vision of high and early populated island, wonders still can be chopped and it can be challnaging
even though i wouldn't setlle Edrine there
3 points

2) Benginal - GLH is done, and it's more important than number of cities. With this base I would eagerly start city spamming
BTW Why it is axeman defending Edrine now

2 points + 0,5 (because noone voted for this yet )

3) StoneColdNuts - 4 cities and mids possible, but unfortunatey nearly everything around chopped, will have to chop a little further from capital

1 points

 

[DampRain]

So many possibilities, is hard to choose .
In interest of making voting easier next time, maybe everyone should have a set standard of summary screenshots?
I looked at screenshot submissions only, apologies to those who didn't.



Grashopa 3
I'm very impressed with the workboat scout. This save so far appears to be the only one where empires other than gilga have been discovered! I feel this has a lot of potential to be most different from the other games, which are currently in semi-isolation. The workboat already is something definitely worth noting.
Stone cold 2
4 cities, while I don't favour the current early placement of his pig jungle city, still interesting and something to learn here I feel. Balancing expansion with needing IW. I feel this might be more a recovery play here though.
Obsolete 1
Very strong wonder play as usual, good chance to do a no cottage strat. I'd consider this to be more "fun" than the other 2, a good exercise as a challenge for no cottages.
Dhoomstriker 0.5
Very close to obsoletes, but +1 city in exchange for 5 turn mids.

 

[babybluepants]

In a rush, so I'll skip comments, sorry.
Grashopa - 3 pts.
nishant1911 - 2.5 pts.
obsolete - 1 pt.