Monarchist Cookbook Game IV, Mao Zedong of China!

[RichardMNixon]

I am honored to provide your most mediocre save.

A warrior can be finished in Beijing in one turn for escort. The settler is available to settle an iron city, but as I don't have IW, are we supposed to proceed as if we didn't know where the iron is?

 

[tycoonist]

@bleys:

i don't particularly want to play on from an inferior save just for the sake of challenge. i would rather just leave this thread to players who play at a monarch level, and then choose the best one. its a personal thing to be honest, but those are my feelings.

on the subject of the immortal cookbook, i would still like some more feedback.

 

[r_rolo1]

Like I said, you can count with me.... but I warn you that the best save system will always lead to cakewalks, no matter what level you play in. It's just the way it is

@ Nixon

Your save is not the worst, by any chance... it was simply one of the least voted . hey , I only have 1 pt ahead of you

 

[r_rolo1]

It was not to delete the spoiler Nixon... it was to remover the spoiler tags, to let us see your report without having to open a spoiler

 

[Bleys]

@bleys:

i don't particularly want to play on from an inferior save just for the sake of challenge. i would rather just leave this thread to players who play at a monarch level, and then choose the best one. its a personal thing to be honest, but those are my feelings.

on the subject of the immortal cookbook, i would still like some more feedback.

No worries mate. I think this is a great concept, but it lacks some in the actual execution. All of the "roster" members of the Cookbook are at least "above Monarch", if not fully Emperor capable (I havent been playing any online games recently, working solely on Emperor, and even some Immortal offline games).

I do think this new "not the best save" method will help this particular series quite a bit, in fact, I am hoping that some of the Emp+ players will stick with it, to demonstrate the best ways to proceed from mediocre positions. No offense to MrNixon, but this position is quite a bit behind most of the other starts, which is exactly what we want.

If you want to put together an Emp or Immortal version of this (basically just an open Concurrent Succession Game), please do so, I will certainly participate, I think the concept is a very strong learning tool indeed.

 

[Bleys]

The settler is available to settle an iron city, but as I don't have IW, are we supposed to proceed as if we didn't know where the iron is?

I didnt. My defense is that I already had that spot with a sign on it, and even a Warrior standing there as a fogbuster, before I finished IW in my save, so I sent that settler there. Its a solid site without the Iron, blocks off a bunch of land to back-fill later, is on a river, has floodplains and Wheat, so I am not feeling like I took advantage of the pre-knowledge.

 

[Negator_UK]

Sorry I'm late, just posting for fun...

Spoiler :

Decided not to settle in place as settling on a hill with so much food around seemed sub-optimal, so moved 1E to grassland.

Started with a warrior but switched to fishing boats asap. Then finished warrior, built another and carried on scouting. Never saw a goody hut and turned down the opportunity to workersteal from alexander because he was already on 2 cities, and would have been difficult to choke (comments on that anyone ??).

Other than that not much to tell. a few whipped workers, archers and settlers have 3 cities, still researching ironworking to cut out those pigs !

Hey check it out, I remembered the spoilers

 

[RichardMNixon]

It was not to delete the spoiler Nixon... it was to remover the spoiler tags, to let us see your report without having to open a spoiler

Whoops, I wasn't sure so I had cut and pasted it into word pad. It's back up without the spoiler tags.

 

[Negator_UK]

Remembered the spoiler forgot to post the file DOH !

Oh and you can count this as an entry if you want to if its not too late ...

EDIT - OK, it is too late, just noticed the voting.

 

[Negator_UK]

BTW well done RM Nixon for getting your save selected on your first try - did they give you a prize ???

And did you all figure out how long the next round would be ? I note there was some discussion started about this...

Cheers.

 

[r_rolo1]

As no one gave any feedback to the proposal of spiting the 2nd round in 2 , I'll keep it as it is to avoid losing more time.

 

[Bleys]

Well, I played my round, and I hate to say it, but we wont be using mine, or else its another blowout, LOL. Will post my full report tomorrow, but heres a quickie preview:

Spoiler :

Sigh, I think the problem with this map is its too big, too much room for us to expand into Lots of cities make it easier for the human to overcome the AIs advantages. Took 3 cities off Alex, Athens, Sparta, and the one south of our Iron (which he settled the turn after I settled the Iron City), and that basically blew it wide open for us.

Built the GLibrary in Bejing. Up to 10 cities, with TONS of land for as many more as I could want. Heres a couple pre-report screenies, and attaching the save, I played 1 extra turn because the Great Library finished in 415 AD. I will likely edit my report into this post:

Spoiler :

Heres the area I took from Alex, wasnt hard, I cranked out Swords, Axes and Spears, JUST as he was about to hook up his Iron:

City list. NOTE, The Mids is just a placeholder, GL just finished, but the Stone is about to be hooked up, so I was thinking, why not, LOL.

Tech situation

 

[gskyes]

I played the next round, and while I don't think it went as well as it could have, I felt much better about it later in the round.

Spoiler :

I followed oyzar's advice and settled the settler at the fish spot. With writing already available, it wasn't long until I had a library up and 2 scientists there. A great scientist was born in the round, and I settled him at the fish city.

I sent another settler to get the iron. Alex had a city nearby, on the hill near the wheat, but the spot on the hill was still there. However, 2 turns after it was built, a barb axeman came in from the fog and trashed it , cause I still only had warriors. It was later founded again, with an archer defending this time.

I also settled another city to claim the gems. It has lots of overlap with Shanghai, but I figured we needed the gems now more than we need a great size 20 city later.

Barbs settled at the banana/silk spot, so I build a few swordsmen to take it out, and kept it in that location.

I was planning one more city to claim the stone, and it would share a banana with Shanghai. That location is marked on the map.

Hinduism spread to my lands, but I didn't adopt it right away. Alex later came and asked me to switch, so I did. Victoria is hindu, too.

our territory:

Tech path was:
Iron working - Hunting - Archery (after the axeman disaster) - Alphabet - Metal casting - Machinery - Calendar (10 turns left). I traded Alphabet to Alex for Mathematics.

Finally, a screenshot of the power graph:

 

[RichardMNixon]

I really dropped the ball in the beginning/middle bits, I think I'm starting to pull through at the end but its certainly not a strong contender.

Spoiler :

Screen Shots

Within a few turns of starting, a barb city with three archers popped up between Beijing and the iron, and even my protective archers with the cover promotion had only a 1.1% chance. I built the fish city and whipped another settler to send the long way around through Shanghai to found Nanjing in the standard iron spot. After I managed to hook up the iron, I started putting out swordsmen to take the barb city, which I burned. Also put a settler down by the gems, which I got, but Alex has the pig.

At one point Shanghai was pretty unhappy and I whipped a settler just to have something to whip and founded the city over in the west, which I don't think was such a good idea.

Recently also settled in between Beijing and Nanjing, near where the barb city had been. Its no longer on a river or coastal, but also grabs the marble in addition to all the silk.

I started building CKNs to take out Alex when he declared on me and blew up his ~6 unit stack on my protective archers. Taking the wheat and the pigs for the iron city and the gem city ought to help them out.

Also just recently popped a great scientist in Beijing. I sent him to Shanghai where I figured I'd want an academy, but as there was only one turn left in the round I left him there for more options.

Tech Path: finish IW -> Hunting -> Archery -> metal casting -> machinery. I considered building the oracle for machinery but figured it was too late by then because I still needed meditation and priesthood, but it didn't go until 40 AD or so, so I may have been able to, oh well. Most wonders seem to be going pretty late, although the tech pace is also quite slow.

About the time I got machinery, Vicky got alphabet, so I traded her metal casting for that and sailing, then traded alphabet with Wang Kon and Alex to backfill some more, including mathematics, and started on construction for catapults.

Edit: Also one thing I noticed different in my save than the previous two is that Vicky founded Judaism. Both her and Alex asked me to convert, I considered her, especially because she's sending hordes of missionaries, but I'm currently still undeclared, and overjoyed at the religious tension between the three of them.

I noticed you both use photobucket, but your pictures are bigger than mine, do you do something specific to make them bigger?

 

[Belisar]

on the subject of the immortal cookbook, i would still like some more feedback.

rolo is right, for a "best save" system to remain a challenge, the level of play would have to be one higher than the individual player is normally using.

Additionally, one could use more challenging starting locations (tested by someone who doesn't participate) as the actual difficult level of a given setup depends a lot on terrain and opponents.

 

[fugazi]

I just got back from vacation and figured I'd give this a shot. Here's my first round :

.. *edit* and it's so nice to see that I haven't chopped that monument yet. *feels like a micro-management noob*

 

[fugazi]

And my 2nd round, after which I quit for the time being. I'm going have to demolish Alex now with Chuko's and catapults and explore the map a bit more. Right now seems the time to build a nice force and take out some Civs ..

Anyways, my 2nd round:

 

[RichardMNixon]

Fugazi, you need to put your second round in spoiler tags, some/most people are still playing. Also, if you want your round to be considered, you need to play your second round starting from the save chosen from the first round here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7192124&postcount=92

Shame though as your second round looks really nice, what with 96 beakers. Your tech advisor says construction in 7 and your bar says construction in 3, what's up with that?

 

[Diamondeye]

Just read votes. I gave Winston 3 pts, so I think you've made an error, Rolo?

EDIT: That doesn't matter, but still....


EDIT2: On the subject of the IMM-Cookbook, I would also like to try although my play is far below imm. I could link from the MC bullpen if needed/wanted?

 

[r_rolo1]

Where were your votes, diamond? I haven't found them