Monarchist Cookbook Game 3, Hammurabi of Babylon!

[Bleys]

OK folks, I think we have a pretty strong set of votes for futurehermit's save, so lets make it official and play the next round.

Grats Hermit! Good variety of winners this game, which is nice. I like hermits saves mostly for the wonders he has captured and still has potential to capture, heh. I was going to let HC build the AP for me before bothering with him, but heck, herm has him WAY on the ropes, and even without a ton of siege in play, it shouldnt be hard to mop him up.

Here is a link to his save and report. I really want to keep this game alive, so that we can get into August with it, and hopefully start the next round at a time when more folks are able to contribute. We have a solid set of shadowers this game though, all the saves this round were very playable indeed. Good work.

This round will be played until 1500 AD.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I already played the thing through from the start a long time ago (shortly after attacko magic actually ), but if you want someone to contribute I'll play his save . I think given my knowledge of the map though I'd need to be DQ'd from best ball consideration.

 

[futurehermit]

Thks folks Looking forward to the next round.

 

[ranion]

@tmit

if you think your knowledge of where resources are going to pop up, and that last civ out there will taint your play of a round then don't play, but if you can live with it then by all means jump in with both feet.

@everyone

I may or may not be able to play this round depending on how quickly i can get my hands on a copy of BTS disk 2. I forgot it when i was packing up the stuff i would need for the next couple months. if all goes well i should have a replacement downloaded within the next couple days, but who knows how long that could take. expect my round later this week if at all.

 

[Winston Hughes]

It now seems pretty certain that I'll be out of the rest of the game, but I'll be lurking. Good luck everyone.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

As I said just watching, tried an attempt, got Peed off at effort and gave up..

Tried to do too much.

Spoiler :

What I did find was the 7th Civ, who's none other than

Spoiler :

Mansu Mana our favourate tech whore. Who actually founded Islam during my initial turn set.

I also traded Music for Theology, and popped a GREAT ENGINEER at 15% odds, that's when I lost it. I couldn't get peace with Hyuna, got declared by Ghengis in 1st turn.

I had the Brilliant idea of building the Apoc Palace with the GE, but Under Toaism. But as I couldn't get troops back, and over extended myself, I lost one initial conquest, and many troops as well. Hyuna's got Pikes/crossbows/maces.. I just didn't look just rushed to take cities.

Oh another thing, Shaka had too much on his hands or WHEOOHRN..... But Darius is a docile friendly.

I think I got as far as 1150..not many turns...But I was peeved and couldn't play it fairly, I won on one Quick save attack allready.., so I know I can't go on...so wouldn't be fair.

to be honest, I'd make peace with Hyuna, build Apoc palace under taoism, and go for Apoc win...That was my idea, but, as I said, losing the troops Olly what ever to a counter attack, and rushing off without any seige weapons...no good.

sorry I couldn't do it 'fairly/honestly', I'd have loved to provide a save with the Apoc palace as Toaist, to that end I was whipping Tao monestries all over, and going to spam Missionaries to boot.

 

[Negator_UK]

Hi all.

Played until 1400 AD, looks like I'm in for another "good but not good enough to get selected" round

FH: I'm slightly confused by the city design for izumo-osaka-kyoto-tokyo area.

The production city was easy to spot, no library and already churning out military units. However I assume some of these cites were destined to be commerce related, but there were few cottages - do you grow cities with farms and then plant cottages ? or were you going to use specialists - or was this a long line of prod cities ??

I would like to know what you were thinking when you developed the land.

As a side note I would like to ask if players would include more "design intent" information in their reports as it helps learners like me to understand why folks did what they did....

 

[Bleys]

Finished my set, not horrible, but I also think I am in the "middle of the pack" range like Negator.

I also want to get some discussion going about the city building and improvement layouts. I cottaged over some farms where I had plenty of food, and built a couple watermills on our very sparse river tiles, but thats it.

Spoilering some of these comments, this isnt my report, though:

Spoiler :

I am wondering if hermit did so much farming in anticipation of capturing the Pyramids? I FINALLY got them (had to give HC peace, built up my siege and then took the Mids city) and I will admit that when I switched to Rep I got a nice science burst. However, if that was the case, why no Libraries in many of these cities?

All in all, we are winning this game, but its not quite in the "got it made" category yet. Darius has become a monster, almost beat me to Lib, I went for Steel, and I think Darius was about 2 turns from it, since when I looked at the tech trade window a few turns after getting Lib, he didnt need it, or Education anymore.

Some comments for IPEX, plus some other general info on my set:

Spoiler :

Heh, I did that same exact thing. I (and likely all of us) got DoWed by Kublai Khan 1 turn in, HC voluntarily vassaled to him. I also traded for Theocracy first turn with Darius, and decided to build a switcheroo AP. I also popped a GE on 15%, but I used him to build the UofSankore, and built the AP straight. I swapped to Tao with 3 turns to go on the AP, built it under Taoism, then switched back to Buddhism so I could get the UoS beakers from my Buddhist buildings, and the Hammer bonus from my Tao buildings. I am spreading Tao like mad right now.

You had a good plan mate, I think you have have gotten impatient and panicked when KK declared, and we suddenly got a TON of unhappiness from War Weariness + "Our brothers of faith" fighting. All you needed to do was hold the 2 cities, bust out a few cats, and then take Cuzco and give them both peace. Cuzco doesnt have the Mids, so a 2nd war was necessary (at least for me), so I built up a few Trebs and Knights, then took the Mids city later. When I did that, right away, HC broke off from KK, and I was able to take peace with both. Shaka was not a threat at all for most of the set, because he didnt have Open Borders with Darius, so he couldnt get any troops to us. When he finally did, it was too late, my stack had headed back toward my Capitol, as well as my new builds, and I crushed his measly stack into the ground and gave him peace for gold.

Patience IPEX. I have seen a lot of your games in the LHC, and you do the same thing. I used to rush things as well, but now, I try to be patient. All you needed to take out one more HC city and force the peace was a few siege units. I switched production in the closer cities, and whipped a couple out (even though that made my unhappiness even worse), and it was enough to hurt that stack of XBows/Pikes/Maces of HCs and take his capitol. We had a LOT of highly promoted troops to work with, many of the Maces in our stack had Cover, which was killer for the war, all we needed was some siege. I got Cuzco down to 20%, then suicided 4 cats to soften the defenders, and took it with only 1 or 2 losses.

 

[futurehermit]

@Negator, I would have to look at the save again, but I don't remember seeing too many decent sites for commerce cities up in Toku's lands. With this map, I don't see too many commerce cities period. I feel like as long as we are at tech parity with our rival that we can just be pumping units and continue to war. The medieval era is quite good for this actually because at monarch there is a very large window between where the AI is at longbows and where they upgrade to gunpowder units.

 

[Negator_UK]

My entry :-

Spoiler :

Accepted Huanya's capitulation as army was in no condition to attack further IMHO.

Next turn got Dow by Khan !! Moved a couple of elephants to protect my new vassal, but Kahan didn't

attack and neither did Shaka - got peace with both after a while.

I was uncomfortable attacking any more bhud targets so continue developing empire peacefully. Then

discovered MM, nice , isolated and relatively backward - thats more like it ! built army and fleet of

galleons to start MM conquest. I only have 6 galleons atm, so I'll be needing to shuttle troops to

Mali (maybe use the islands on the way as a staging area). but wanted to attack ASAP while I have tech

advantage.

However the timer ran out before war started - oww.

 

[r_rolo1]

Spoiler :

Ok, time for a full report...

First of all, gripes on hermit. he let all of us with a spiky decision in hands: vassalize HC or not... I decided not ( the wonders ) and payed the price of having to deal with HC vassalizing to KK and to have to tacke with swarms of Keshiks with a army that was not designed for such a massive assault. But I digress.....

First thing I did was to sour stuff between Shaka and Darius:

Spoiler :

This might get useful later when We clash with the Persian ( I believe that it is inevitable )

Either way, I was busy in other parts of the world when i got some bad news:

Spoiler :

Our stack in site was clearly adequate to deal with HC, but not with a untouched KK and his swarms of highly promoted Keshiks. Thankfully the stage area is hilly, a thing that negates most of the mongolian UU special features effectiveness.

I found our long lost last civ:

Spoiler :

Well, this one I got right .Mansa is not betting on military and it is a nice target...he even founded 3 religions. I'm thinking on giving him a visit later

Made peace with shaka...

Spoiler :

and, in spite of dealing with KK nicely sized Keshiks stacks, we managed to get to the Inca capital ( revolted with a spy ). The city was well worth the prize:

Spoiler :

Having this in hand and feeling that I needed some more juice to this war, I asked for peace

Spoiler :

Don't worry, I'll be back .....

I then had some turns of rebuiding and fattening of the pop. Then something called my attention:

Spoiler :

with the AP still open , this could only lead to:

Spoiler :

well, I was planning to renew war sooner or later with HC. BTW the hammers are nice

Like I said I was planning to get war with HC and KK, as soon as I putted my hands on cannons ( libed, OFC ). KK felt otherwise:

Spoiler :

Then he decided to cerimonially drop the defenses of Cuzco.... a bad call since I libed...

Spoiler :

... and upgrade all my trebs to cannons. And Keshiks vs cannons is a unfair fight, even in the open..... I dropped his power 20% in 1 turn just killing his stack

This leaded quickly to:

Spoiler :

And this is the situation in 1500. I'm researching Astro to make a visit to Mansa in a near future. HC freed himself of KK , but it is not willing to vassal to me. KK is willing to talk peace, but I don't trust the rat ( it is the second time he dows us, and i'm sure that it will not be the last one if we let him to ). Darius is becoming a menace, but it is managable......

 

[Bleys]

I should post my save, with a few comments:

Spoiler :

Pros: HC all but dead, have all his cities on the mainland, including his Wonders which is strong
Reasonable tech and power lead
Strong economy
AP in Taoism, only Darius can spread and get hammers, but we could sneak a vote, since he isnt likely to ever convert. Classic TMIT situation.
Steel from Lib

Cons: Darius growing in strength
KK diplo poor, so hard to be ready on 2 fronts
Shaka still ready to DoW on us
Mansa up and coming tech-wise, and Darius is close.

 

[r_rolo1]

Updated my report

@ Bleys

Spoiler :

Your game does not seem too diferent of mine, but the AP diference is huge. A budhist AP is more useful than a tao one IMHO.....
unless you want to pick a backdoor win . I'm happy with the hammers from Budha for now

 

[Bleys]

My main concern with the AP wasnt my own hammers, it was the hammers I was giving my opponents, especially since they have a pile more Temples and Monasteries than I do (or did at the time). I didnt have all that many temples built anyway, so I figured I would try the switcheroo. In hindsight, it is pretty wasteful, since I was planning to be a Buddhist, and I built the UofS, making my Buddhist buildings worth 2 beakers, and my Tao buildings worth 2 hammers. Double the work, and each only half as good.

However, the backdoor victory is in play, I almost think I could pull it off next set, an AP win pre-1800. With a Buddhist AP, it will take a ton of diplomacy to get a win, and there is even a risk of losing control of the thing, if KK and Shaka vote for Darius. I dont think he could get the votes to win the game, but it would hurt not to be resident.

 

[r_rolo1]

As I'm planning seriously to take KK down , that is not a issue

 

[Negator_UK]

rolo - your save this round has a peculiar name for round 4 ....

 

[r_rolo1]

I know.... I forgot to change what I got from hermit

 

[Negator_UK]

I've done a quick compare of bleys and my game and his has nearly 100 bpt advantage over me (all those wonders).

So bleys is the front runner at the moment IMHO, unless we;re really itching to get into mansa (my fleets on the way ).

 

[ranion]

I got my game back, but i doubt i'll get around to finishing the round, i haven't read any of the save yet though so i might.

i got about a quarter of the way through it and i was really feeling like i was tanking it due to trying to rush a bit and such. normally in this position i would start over, but that wouldn't really be fair. I may or may not pickup where i left off and finish the round to post at least to get it in, but at this point we're pretty late in and i'm not sure i feel it right now.

 

[ChromiumL]

Hi All,

I just found out about the MC games a few days ago and am working on trying to catch up to you (by playing through the best ball games--so that I can get a feel for what is going on). I just started trying to work on winning monarch level games but I keep getting totally whipped, so hopefully playing here will help.

Anyways, I have been noticing that some of you put markers on the map where you plan on placing cities. How do you add/remove those markers? Is this something from the BUG mod, or is it just some feature of Civ that I have somehow missed?

Thanks!