Monarchist Cookbook Game 3, Hammurabi of Babylon!

Erm, the mighty War Elephant wasn't enough to persuade you to tech HBR, but the less powerful HAs would've been?

From my (admittedly warmongerish) perspective, I think you've suffered from a slight case of early-game builderholism. Either that, or you've not really adapted your strat to the map conditions.

Let me put it this way: with a Stable, you can build Shock Elephants. Unless your enemy somehow manages to get Formation Spears (which I have never seen this early), there is no effective counter. Of course, a fortified C2 Spear on a hill will give you some trouble, but that's about it as far as blocks on your progress are concerned. Even CG3 Drill1 Archers on a hill are at a disadvantage against Jumbos.

With the lacklustre land available for peaceful settlement, I'd have thought everyone would be looking to war in the not-too-distant future. So, to my mind, it's rather odd to go off pursuing things like Aesthetics and Literature before getting so overpowered a unit onto the production line.

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I believe it's time to start looking at the best ball decision.

Maybe I'm just biased (and arrogant), but my save looks pretty strong from where I'm sitting - everything I tried came off beautifully, and I micromanaged much harder than I usually would at this level.

Does anyone disagree?

If not, then we have to ask whether it's sensible to play from my save. Earlier in the thread, ranion suggested discounting any clear winners, and I think this is an excellent idea. Let's call it Vale's Law, shall we?

So, unless anyone wants to make a case for a different save, we could chalk mine up as a Vale, and have a closer look at the other options.

 

You misunderstand Winston. HAs ONLY require HBR, Elephants also need Construction. I wanted Construction first, so I could be building Cats while "getting" HBR is all. As I said in my other posts, I want planning the war with Toku right away, as I had only recently traded for most of my techs.

As for the Best Ball, I agree that yours is the best for sure.

 

I will confess to being a buildaholic, hehe.

Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that Winston's save is the BB. The question is: is it "too awesome" ala Dave's first round save? Probably not, this map has enough challenges even with Toku's lands safely in our hands.

 

I personally like Rolo's as the save to choose. It will supply us with more variety with the next round. With so many different options to take, I think it would be interesting to see what happens. Maybe someone will be creative (warrior rush!)?

But... If we are following this pattern of throwing out the best... WH has the best save. So... like I said, Rolo!

 

Well, thats not exactly the pattern. The pattern is to toss out saves played by folks that are obviously well above Monarch-level, and use them as "benchmarks". I dont think Winstons save is anything crazy strong (like the 2 rounds played by Vale in MC2), I mean, rolo and I played strong rounds as well, but we both chose to hold off the war a bit, to build significantly bigger armies, perhaps (that was my plan, anyway), while Winston went for Tokus coastal cities right away (easiest to keep with the GLH powering the TR in those cities). It was a good strong play, but not really "head and shoulders" above the rest, like some of the saves from the past.

 

Well, my plan, as Bleys hinted , was to tech HBR while building some UB and catapults, get some phants and go over Toku or HC ( balancing immediate vs future ). Winston made the move sooner, but he clearly needs some rebuilding to finish the job, so probably in 90/100 turns both me, Bleys and wisnton will be roughly in the same spot (if we all attack on toku ).

Either way, the primary threats to our win are HC and Darius. Sooner or latter we'll need to move over them.

 

I finally decided to take the plunge and upgrade to 3.17, so I thought I'd gatecrash the party.

I started reading the thread, but the forum locks me out if I spend too long reading/writing on it (?) so I downloaded and played the map, starting with bleys save.

Spoiler :

I settled Dur-Kurigalzu (it seemed to be at where it was supposed to be and started building a worker and bowman escort for it (there were barbs and a rather suspicious looking Toku chariot knocking around so I decided to avoid putting unescorted workers in danger.)

Meanwhile I rather inefficiently developed the plains ivory camp and chopped out the GW and GLH, I don't think I would have gone for both of these myself, but I'm a relative noob here - being a relative noob, ESPECIALLY at warmongering I have a favourite wonder of my own, and it uses ivory...



At least now if someone attacks us Zeus will make them pay, so I'm a wimp, but a wimp with self knowledge...

Meanwhile I researched ironworking and my worker for Dur-Kurigalzu arrived just in time to start jungle clearance - his bowman esort followed when the rice farm was complete so he could do the gem mines without getting stolen by Toku.

However the iron turned up in a very brown region so I stared building /whipping settlers and bowmen to settle both it and the horse at Nippur - I didn't notice the other iron about, more of that, um, embarrasement in a moment. Eventually the NW frontier looked like this.



Nippur has monument, library and barracks to both assert culture and build units, but the bad news is this took hammers and has just only started building for units for "the big push" - to wherever.

Meanwhile on the south eastern frontier ...



Ooops, I've nobbed around up north for so long Huayna has taken Burgundian. I managed to settle Sippur (the last city I settled), but its still only a baby.

The only other thing worth mentioning is that after popping a GSpy (which I settled) Babylon popped a GM on turn 200. I look forward to endless analysis about what one can do with James Cook at 400AD.

One thing I didn't do was develop calender, so all the calender resources are undeveloped and the cities are slightly smaller than they otherwise might be...

Units :-

Worker 4
GM 1
Bowman 9
Warrior 1
Axeman 2

Not so many, some war buildup.

Diplo Note :

I tend to not accept open borders while expanding, and so far have no agreements. The world is divided into a Bhuddist block and a Confucian block, and I have yet to choose who to follow. However the fave civics of the Bhuds are HR (Huanya) and Bureauracy (Khan) Which will be easier to reach than for the Confu boys.

So long term we go Buddist, switch to HR/B and smack the evil Confucians. Hopefully the Bhuds will leave us alone for a while...

Sorry if this post is too late/ irrelevant, but like i said I haven't read the whole thread yet - back to that now....

Edit, my those screenshots are biiiig, sorry...

Edit2 - sorry about all the typos, its man vs system posting to this site at the moment...

 

I have to agree with Bleys and Rolo that all the saves are actually valid candidates for moving forward. I still think WH had the best round (although perhaps not as overpowered as some previous rounds in the past) and for myself only, the agressive push is more what I need to learn. However, I am not playing, only lurking, and not everyone here, wishes to follow that style of game (yet again). I see no problem whatsoever on the other two saves as they too provide an interesting perspective on the different routes one can take in a game.

As important as it is to push the advantage and really go for the jugular, it's great to also see games where you really do have to work your tail off to beat the AI's to any victory condition. Most importantly for me, is the building of both infrastructure while maintaining an army large enough to dissuade any neighbor from eyeballing us.

Since the Jumbo is soooo overpowered due to HBR and construction it's nice for me to see it in action and how I can utilize it in my future games. However, unless you wish to give lessons on how to recover the economy (did this not already happen in one of the previous cookbook games), I would suggest using any save other than Winston's. We will still need some recovery anyways. I assume Rolo and Bleys will bring Jumbo's with them along with cats and other troops.

TMIT, no worries about your comments, they weren't that harsh, I was probably being sensitive, but thanks for the apology anyways.

After all that, I guess I would vote for Bley's only because IIRC he is a bit behind everyone at the moment (no offense meant in your ability) which means I can relate to his position better

 

Negator, pls put your report between spoiler tags..... Most of us probably already played, but there may be people that still wants to play and giving them spoiler info is no good.....

 

EDIT: I was going to "lobby" for my own save, but I will save everyone some time and let folks vote em as they see em.

 

I'm all for running with Winston's save. It is quite clearly better than the rest, but not so far out as one would expect with good micromanagement. If we want to start dropping the absolute best save from consideration in cases like this where there is a 'clear winner' we should discuss it in the bullpen thread and implement it next round as a hard and fast rule rather than right now.

I'm not sure Rolo is right about the saves being in the same place in 90/100 turns, Winston has a head start now on both the war and the recovery from it. he takes 10 turns now (with some of tokus gold and gpt in hand) to consolidate his forces, replace the offensive units garrisoning the formerly Japanese cities with bowmen, get some new cats and jumbos built, and maybe even a cheap courthouse or two built or whipped and by the time he declares war again he'll be moving from a position of strength relative to either rolo or bleys when they're ready to launch the first attack in 9 turns (remember, Winston stopped a turn early) in 100 turns they may both be in the same place, but its hard to say, alot can happen in 100 turns and those 10 turns now could turn into a rather large advantage later.

 

Well, there are a bunch of things I like better about my save (Toku is Confu, we have a future Shrine city, city placement a tad more spread out, Lit in already, a city closer to Darius with our own source of gold), but Winstons strengths cannot be denied. 3 of Tokus coastal cities and CS are huge, and he is not in bad shape at all with either production, science, or cashflow.

I think his save is right in line with the idea of this series too. He showed that we COULD afford an earlier war, while rolo and I chose to delay it a bit to get more units and infrastructure up to support it. Its not "crazy great", he has some negatives, like we all do, but they are easily dealt with over the next set, and he has us in a strong position to grab enough land to coast into Lib and a post-Gunpowder war of some kind (once we polish off Toku, that is).

 

Thanks for the spoiler tip, if you think this needs it too just shout....

Some feedback (in chunks) in the order they were posted :-

ranion :
Too bad you missed the GLH, but there are lots of trees around your capital that could have rushed it.
I don't think attacking Huanya was a good idea (although you did it well, bribing Khan against his own religious friend was brilliant).
However Toku (behind) is cautious towards you and he is unlikely to become bhuddist when you are at war with Huanya. So when he does find a (different) religion he will be come Toku (behind - who thinks you're a heathen dog). Watch your back (BTW he has ivory too !).
Gold at Babylon - lucky lucky lucky...
If you can strike all the way to the pyramids/GLH at Tiwanaku then all the above was worth it ....

Bleys.
I take it you mean to trade Horseback Riding with Huanya, otherwise no ellys for you.
.. but nice Monarchy/HR so Huanya is friendly, just as well because..
.. Toku is **ssed.
Nice work with calender, Babylon will be huuuge soon.
Nice expansion along the coast, leveraging GLH.
You founded Confucianism - awesome.
Building GL without marble will be difficult, but do you need to ?

rddc05
Nice work with the war against Toku
.. but Huanya's also hacked off with you - 2 bad neighbours = quick violent death ?...
.. and Huanya's friendly with his other neighbour, oh dear.
In fact you are the only Confucian in a sea of Bhuddism > very quick very violent death methinks.
You don't have HBR either, but at least Khan will trade it - and at you have all the ivory !

Schwartz:
I hope ellies + cats are enough for a war, cos thats all you've got.
Colossus in capital - nice.
Forge in capital - awesome - time to build.... ellies & cats ?
Oops, you don't have construction, well it was nice while it lasted...
I can't believe you expect to finish the GL.
You can build Zeus, yay !

Winston Hughes :
Ouch you started the war already owww.
Nice touch trading surplus clams to neighbours - their cities won't be big enough for it to do them any good, best attention to detail so far.
Your conquest followed the coast to max GLH - awesome.
The best save IMHO.

Overall WH is by far the best and ranion is the wierdest, there is a potential for a brilliant swing if it can be pulled off. The rest (including mine) are more or less equal although mine has Zeus and bleys has courthouses built.

 

Yeah, its actually doable this instant, for Aesthetics straight up, wish I had done it before the save.

As for the GL, I ALWAYS think its worth it, even without Marble. Just my personal style I guess.

Oh, and one more plus for me, I have Compass and 3 Harbors going up Another personal style, with a TRE empire, I head for Compass before CS every time. I love CS, but those Harbors are so good.

 

I have no quibble with its usefulness, its a top wonder. But we've already built 2 so far, and we're going for a 3rd, all without the base resource. Won't it be too much if we are also planning a bit orf gratuitous violence ??

Actually it might be doable, I'd forgotten this map is an epic map, my mind was on normal speed.....

I take it you'd do it in Babylon ??

One plus point for me is that I won't miss the war on your map , but I still think WH did a cracking job and ranions is just sooo alternative.... he might actually re-take the GLH he lost, classic take-it-don't-build-it even if it was accidental

 

Well, I have 3500+ EP's against HC, so I was planning to steal HBR and Monotheism shortly. Also handy for taking down city defenses. And as long as we're lobbying: 2 turns from MC for forges and Colossus, Barracks in almost every city, dye and sugar up and running.

But yeah, there are some drawbacks that make it a tough position.

 

I wasn't lobbying - I was giving feedback (not very well I admit, its hard to analyse half a dozen Civ games in one evening)

Still looking forward to some feedback on mine .....(waiting...)

I have no doubt you can whack either one of you're opponents, with or without EPs, but can you fight both of them ? or maybe change your state religion to bhuddism if you can't.

Its just that for me 2 annoyed neighbours = death. I'd love to see you fight yor way out of it.

 

I bet you would have more feedback on your save if you had posted it ,Negator

About lobbying... we were not supposed to do that But sometimes temptation is too strong

On topic: I think that seeing the current saves, winston position is superior.... but I'm still debating with the timing of the war and the target ( Not sure if it would not be better to let Toku sink techwise and scrap it ( probably after he DOW Darius ) and to storm HC..... ). I would prefer something less "decided", if you know what I mean.....

 

Yeah that would help I suppose

here it is....

 

I dont mind some plugging of your own saves, in fact, I think its healthy to a degree, after all, there is lots of little stuff that others may miss. I would like to keep it limited to the positives (and negatives) of our own saves, though, rather than the negatives of others.

I do kind of agree with rolo about the war on Toku, but not much. My plan was to hit Toku for sure, and wait for HC to build us the AP and spam a couple more Wonders then hit him later. I wanted Toku to have some time to improve his lands though, he has jungle up there, and it sucks taking over all-Jungle cities. Of course, he probably has a pile of workers, so its only a minor thing.

As for the GL, there is Marble near us, in the same BFC as Tokus horses, in fact. I imagine Winstons plan was to take Tokus coastal cities, regroup while teching to Lit (hes in Aesthetics now), then take the Marble/Horse city in time to build the GL with it. Thats a great plan, as long as the GL isnt gone. As I looked back over my save, I remembered why I didnt want to trade Aesth to HC just yet, I felt I had time while building Cats, and could get started the GL first, THEN make that trade when I am close to finishing the GL, so that HC doesnt sneak in and build it on me.