Monarchist Cookbook Game II

[TheMeInTeam]

Don't we have some good saves? I honestly think we already have multiple winnable-to-easy-win game saves. If people can't play a round they can just the best ball for the next, no?

 

[Diamondeye]

Don't we have some good saves? I honestly think we already have multiple winnable-to-easy-win game saves. If people can't play a round they can just the best ball for the next, no?

I take Winstons word that the game is not yet in the box as good advice. We should not be this self-assured. But frankly, I quite agree with you TMIT. We should be able to do with those saves this round. Again, OTAKU's call.

 

[futurehermit]

I would say roll on to the next round, no need to lose momentum. I'll be back in a week's time and will be able to play again until about mid-July when I'll need a week's break because we are moving and I'll be without internet for a few days while we get things hooked up in the new place.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I take Winstons word that the game is not yet in the box as good advice. We should not be this self-assured. But frankly, I quite agree with you TMIT. We should be able to do with those saves this round. Again, OTAKU's call.

The game isn't in the box, but when you're running a best ball series with a bunch of players who can win at least on the current level and in many cases 1-2 levels higher, usually you'll be getting a best ball in a winnable position .

If nothing else, it's in the bag for us as a collective, even if one of us manages to screw up !

 

[r_rolo1]

I would not oppose to extend the round... between soccer Euro Championship, study for those in college, and summer coming by , most of the ppl are not getting much time ( I still have to file my report.... ) to play this ( still have to start my LHC as well ).

About the second part... are we really discussing quality of saves? As OTAKU said, all the round 1 saves were quite good and for what I see the already posted round 2 ones are good as well ( some already shaved Monty, mine has monty pretty gazed out as well ) and if we picked one of them we would not be badly served.

 

[6-Star General]

You're welcome. In fact, it'd be nice if you want to join along as a shadower, especially this round since we need saves .

Thanks... maybe next round. I've already read the reports for the posts in round 2.

 

[Diamondeye]

Thanks... maybe next round. I've already read the reports for the posts in round 2.

That's alright . Looking foward to see if we can help you and the other way around.

By the way, I got an idea which I will go post in the bullpen. Please look over there, you especially, R_Rolo1

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Well, it's official ... I won't be submitting a Report for Round 2.

There's just too much going on, and I couldn't find the time amidst my busy schedule ...

RE: round extension:

I'm not going to extend this Round (at least not personally).

I don't really have a vested interest in this Round, since I didn't get to play it, so I don't feel like I'm prepared to make that call. (I feel like I'd be extending it selfishly just so I can play and Report.)

However, Bleys scan did play and Report this Round, so if he thinks it's a good idea, then I'll support him in that endeavour.

----

With that being said, I don't think we should extend the Round -- neither in IRL time nor in Game time. Like futurehermit said, there's no need to slow the momentum.

 

[Bleys]

I dont mind an extension, I would rather everyone gets to play, its a fairly fun round. I understand this time of year can be very very busy for people.

I have so many half-games to finish off that a little more time here is fine. Now I just need to get motivated enough to actually finish some of them, LOL.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

@ Bleys:

Can you post the Round 2 ending / Round 3 beginning then? (I'll probably be working too much to do it anyway. )

 

[Bleys]

OK mate, I can pick from the available saves. I would like to see a bit of discussion, and at least some "leanings", I think many of us were waiting to discuss the position after seeing a few more of the rounds.

So it looks like we have a decent set to choose from. Vale has taken Monty down, rolo and I are about half-way with to stomping him. I didnt really look at any of the reports that closely, thinking I would grab the "top few" and examine them directly, so I will grab the ones we have now, and offer my thoughts ASAP.

I would like to give a bit of time to discuss, so instead of Friday Evening, I will choose the Best-Ball Saturday morning (Eastern US time), unless we have a clear-cut winning entry, and even then, I will likely delay the official announcement until 10 pm ish Friday evening.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If you want a different approach I went tech-crazy and left Monty alone. I'm pretty close to liberalism (8 turns from it) by the save point despite not bulbing anything thanks to some hybrid of cottages, specialists, and settled specialists. Vale's round 1 was really strong. I have the AP in my series too (and a few other wonders).

Still, wouldn't mind picking up a save where we wiped the floor with Monty already.

 

[Bleys]

Hmm, I thought we had more saves, but I only find 4? Rolo, Vale, TMIT, and myself?

I guess its between Vale and TMIT, and I cant help but think that Vale has really excelled again. TMITs AP is interesting, though, and me and rolo are pretty much about the same, he has less cities and more army, I have a couple extra cities and have given Monty peace once for techs (rolo could do that now as well, or after taking another city, he has the troops).

What do you think guys? Just go with Vales again and hope we can get a few more submissions next round? I could use some input here. Who can play this week if we pick?

 

[r_rolo1]

By me vale it is ( BTW sorry for not making the report: deleted the screenies ).

 

[Bleys]

OK, I guess we will try to move this game forward by chosing Vales Round 2 save as the Best Ball. You can find the link and report here. I have also attached the save itself to this post.

I am hoping we dont lose interest in this game due to the seemingly dominating position we have. There is still a LOT of play left in it. Vales first round was so strong, though, that any of the 2nd round games would have been solid choices, but in the end, Vale, continuing his domination, played another killer round, taking out Monty and reaching Optics.

I am openly inviting all you Shadow players to please post and report on this next round. We (the "roster players") knew we were going to have some time constraints in mid-June due to our schedules, so I am hopeful we can get a few Shadow players to submit rounds since I dont think all the regulars will be able too play again. Remember, ALL submissions will be considered. This game at its current point gives us the opportunity to showcase the SE style while trying to keep our economies afloat, and having a pile of land to settle. It may seem "won", but I think Winstons point about the power of the other continent is coming into view, and those are some PITA AIs.

This round is played until 1300 AD, and reports should be done by Tuesday if possible, but Wednesday is OK since this post is a day late. Remember to use spoilers for your report, and avoid visiting this thread until you have played your round if you intend your save to be considered for the Best Ball (so those who have played can openly discuss the round itself, much easier to read without spoilers. Reports and screenshots should still be inside spoilers though). When attaching your save, please remember to put your name and round in the filename where it says "round 2 best ball".

 

[Quotey]

Didn't read or play due to other stuff, but vale took out MONTY? WHAT? I have to read this. Might play soon, depending on.

 

[Bleys]

Didn't read or play due to other stuff, but vale took out MONTY? WHAT? I have to read this. Might play soon, depending on.

Yeah, Vale really played an AMAZING game here, both rounds. Rolo and I were both well on our way to taking out Monty ourselves, and TMIT decided to go "Pure Tech Mode" as well as grab his patented AP for future power, and was VERY close to finishing Lib (quite a feat, since none of us even had Paper yet, including Vale. Vale is 11 turns from ASTRONOMY though in the save)

Would really love to have you play this round Quotey, just grab the save attached above, it isnt overly complicated now. We have sole possession of our continent, and have met all the other AIs, but are on the brink of financial disaster (nothing new for this style of game though, easily brought back to life, I have played a couple turns).

The game will likely have a bunch of options open this round. Intercontinental warfare is VERY possible with Astro, as well as some more expansion to islands. Naturally, there is also the option to just turtle up and tech to Space, without a care in the world, I highly doubt ANY of the AIs could stop us. We could be building space ship parts before they even GET to Astro, LOL.

So I am VERY seriously encouraging ALL the shadows we can get, and feel free to try out some wild strats as well. Have fun with it, go crazy, whatever is fine, it will ALL have solid educational value. I honestly think this is a point in the game where many Monarch level players start to slip up, and make poor choices that lets the AIs back in the game. I know I had trouble "finishing off" some games like this post-Lib because I let the AI back in with poor trades or poor military builds, poor wars, etc etc. Its pretty easy to blow up your economy from this point with either bad REXing, bad Warring, or bad Teching.

 

[6-Star General]

I'll take a swing.. maybe tomorrow. You're right when you say that its easy to slip up at this phase in the game. I don't think I leverage it enough.. we'll see.

 

[vale]

Spoiler :

Very lazy round for me. I played mostly on autopilot and not much of interest happened this round. I did not found a new city. I did not capture any of the barbarian cities. My computer was going very slow towards the end so I sped through my turns.

I started off the round with a trade of Machinery for Monarchy and Horseback Riding from Qin. I also fixed alot of the micromanagement problems I had at the start of the round and in general worked ALOT more specialists than I had going from the save. I completed the Horse Whisperer quest a few turns later after whipping stables in many cities. I took the food bonus. I also got circumnavigation fairly early and set my Caravels to auto-explore so they wouldn't keep pulling my focus off my continent. I continued the research of Astronomy which was about the hugest economic tech ever out of this situation. Once it was in, all my health and happiness problems were solved with a few trades, I sold a few excess resources for gold. Oh and the trade routes? Were better. Not only that but I started working towards a few more + attitude modifiers.

I continued with researching Paper and then Education. Athens is an awesome Oxford site and I wanted to get there as quickly as possible. When I needed to I whipped out a few Universities to enable the build in Athens (Athens slow builds everything no whipping by the way).

Philosophy and Nationalism were next. I wasn't quite ready to switch to Nationhood or anything but I wanted to start building the Taj for civics switches later on. I traded for Aesthetics and then researched Feudalism Guilds and Banking. After a trade for Theology and Literature to allow construction of the NE in tundra city, I hit WFYABTA here for a few of the AIs but I think it has decayed a little by the end of the round. I teched to Economics and immediately popped the Merchant for a golden age to switch my religion to Buddhism (from NSR) and my civics to Rep-Bur-Caste-FM-Pacifism. I also ran maximum specialists in all non capital cities to take full advantage of the +300% GP point boost.

Meanwhile I kept teching. Liberalism to take Constitution, then Corporation was a 1 turn tech after that with full deficit research...mmm trade routes. Then I went for Printing Press and finally Scientific Method. I believe it will be possible to finish Communism before this GA is over and end it with a switch to SP. My plan is to end the Taj GA with a switch to Rep-Nationhood-Caste-SP-FR and stay there for the remainder of the ride. SP will really help avoid crashing our economy while taking out Louis who is so ridiculously backwards at this point it is sick.

Louis had a war against Pacal where he took a city. He hates me. I have given in to no demands from anyone and I guess its a pain because he just canceled his rice to me at the end of the round.

In terms of builds, this was a peaceful round. I didn't build a single military unit and the only military infrastructure I made this round was Stables. I built lots of workers. Also I built lots of specialist enabling buildings as I didn't want to switch to Caste System just yet but still wanted to run lots of specialists. I also built a couple of useless wonders in Athens while waiting for something better to do. The AIs are actually catching up in power thanks to this but that won't last long after a switch to Nationhood.

Here is Athens:

Tenochtitlan, nothing too special here just an example of yummy GP points:

Argos. We've all seen Moai statues, but that doesn't make this city screen look less pretty:

Finances (obviously boosted by the GA):

Pro: Athens is producing 308.75 beakers a turn at 0% Research.

Huge Con: Corinth picked up Judaism. Louis could get an outside shot at Diplomatic victory if we don't take him out fast enough. Plus Corinth isn't going us to like defying stop the war resolutions at minimum. I did NOT build a monastery there before Scientific Method, so spreading it to give us more voting power will be a real pain.

Another Con: That sheep city north of Athens that I founded based on a lazy blue circle? No oil. What was the blue circle can someone please explain this to me. I guess I haven't revealed aluminum or coal yet but I was so sure I would get oil there. Oh well. We have plenty of oil regardless. Still. Thanks accurate blue circle.

 

[futurehermit]

Hi everyone, I'm back Nice work Vale, rockin' as usual. I'll be playing this next round as soon as I get a chance.