Monarchists' Cookbook I

[vale]

I think you are vastly underrating the cost in hammers of moving the palace that way.

That is 270 base hammers to move the palace and build FP back in the original homeland assuming you build both in cities with forges and hinduism and organized religion on. Thank goodness we are industrious.

This is failing to even mention that Versailles is 400 base hammers even with marble assuming we build it in a city with a forge and hinduism and while running organized religion.

670 hammers in cities with forges could produce 11 catapults. Or several buildings that give economic boosts that do not expire with State Property. Just the 270 hammers for the FP and Palace move could produce 4.5 catapults which is a critical start to any army you are thinking about conquering the AIs with. Drafting is great yes but you can't draft your siege units and at some point you need to start getting them out if war is the way you are going. KK's capital isn't going to just lay down and die.

This also completely ignores the fact that in any situation where we are still running Bureaucracy (I know its time is limited or possibly over in some saves), Berlin with its larger trade routes and settled prophets (hammers) is the best option for Bureaucracy.

 

[Bleys]

I am with OTAK here. My plan for next round is settle the city 1S of Angle, and move the Palace, chop it out, in fact, and start the FP in Munich. With all the old-world island only having 2 cities on them, colonial maint will drop to tiny numbers, and we have courthouses in place in most cities there. I am not worrying about Bureaucracy in the new capitol either, since I plan to be in War civics (Vass or Nationhood) or FS for the majority of the rest of the game.

Versailles in Cologne is a great idea as well, though, since that island is far enough from the future Palace to be a problem, since it WILL have a pile of cities on it, and neither the FP in Munich or the Palace in New Angle will affect them.

Solon is right though, there are many many very wide paths to victory from here. While its true there may be some artistic purpose to finding the "best" one, I dont think any of us would fail to win from any save. Maybe this is the time to take the "Wild Card" round, play whichever save you wish, play til the end, and include a blurb in your report about which save you chose, why, and then the report on how you won.

 

[futurehermit]

re: feeding techs to the AI

They are already backwards anyways. Stimulating the (horrid) tech pace isn't necessarily a bad thing. It also helped a lot with diplo as I have got Saladin at odds with Toku and Kublai and Saladin and Joao are both friendly. I also have Louis at odds with Sule/SB. Also, if trading techs for cash fuels our own expansion so we claim all the best land it is irrelevant if the AI gets monotheism and calendar because we have rifles and they don't and 20+ cities to draft from while they have 6.

re: state property

yes, it is great, but what are you going to do prior to that? forbidden palace helps early (it is unlocked by col, which comes in the bc era whereas communism is renaissance). it helps you expand your empire to get more cities earlier. sure you can have fewer cities to avoid maintenance instead of building the FP but why do that? we have marble which cuts the cost of the FP and this allows significantly more cities, which i always consider a good thing because each can pump units and we desperately need the extra troop-producers with our ****-poor production empire-wide.

anyways, i can't defend my blunder with the barbs, but i was liking my save alot until the absolute final turn

edit: re: Saladin's tech compared to us: Frankly, who cares??? In my game he is closer to me in tech because I was feeding him tech. But, so what? He can't tech worth anything and two aggressive AIs hate his guts. He's going to be embroiled in war. Furthermore, we're friendly with him and decided to pass on attacking him when we could've crushed him. So, why the rush to go back and attack him NOW??? The better plan imo is to keep him as a buffer between us and Toku/Kublai and continue grabbing land to the East, eventually to declare war on Louis. Sure, attacking Saladin would help consolidate our empire, but I think it is more strategically beneficial to keep him around. He's no threat to win the game, he provides a good buffer, and we're friendly with him (at least in my game). Let him take the heat while we continue to expand and claim the winning land.

 

[Bleys]

I want to take him out because I want the AP. Thats probably the ticket to avoiding a long, naval-heavy, island hopping series of wars. I also want the resources on his land by Cologne.

No need to take him out, just vassal him, expand, spread Hindu to each AI, and we win. But as long as he owns the AP, he is always going to be a candidate, and will always vote for himself.

Of course, a possible alternative is taking a save that doesnt have the AP built yet, and build it ourselves. Sal would likely vote for us if he wasnt a candidate, so we would need to have another AI with more votes than Sal, but not enough to vote down the win. Thats really tricky, but a worthy strategic goal because it really would be hard to pull off.

 

[Diamondeye]

I don't know how probable an AP win is, actually, it'll be hard to spread hindu to Toku and all those guys who hate us , I am thinking in conquest fueled by SP/Nat/Theo. Don't know what save is best for that?

 

[futurehermit]

In my game I am % toward building the AP

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I guess this might be a good idea to let you guys know I'm a real nublet when it comes to the AP.

Specifically, how does the game determine how many votes we need to win? Is it based on the population of the world, the population of the full members, the population of the voting members, the population of all the cities with the AP religion present .... or maybe something else.

If we build the AP as Taoist and spread Taoism only to civs that love us, will those civs give us enough votes to win?

 

[Diamondeye]

Population of cities with AP religion. And you need at least one city of every civ to have the AP religion to be voted winner, you need the majority of the votes for you, and you cannot vote yourself in solitary (someone else must vote for you).

 

[Bleys]

To be honest, I am no AP expert either, other than what I have learned this past week from a few threads and the situations I had come up in my PYL Zealots game, where I had to defy resolutions and such.

I usually use the AP the way I play with techs, very stingy. I like to switch to my own hoarded religion just before I build it so that the other AIs cant get the hammer-bonus from buildings.

But D is right, I forgot about Toku. About the only way to get him Hindu is hope to flood Jaoa and have him pass it along, and I dont like that idea either.

Or . . . simply conquer one of his cities, pop a missionary in there, and give it back. Thats kind of cheesey though, LOL.

I am having a difficult time picking a save here, so I am going with Rolo's, tenatively, although I like the "Wild Card" thing to wrap this one up, pick any save, and play til you win. I am going to check the save this morning, and see how the various diplo/AP status is specifically. Those AP threads on the board have me interested in learning to use it more aggressively.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

To be honest ...

You know, I find that's one of the most peculiar sayings in the English language. (similar to "I'm going to be honest with you ...")

It's like saying you weren't honest before but for some compelling reason, you want to and are going to be honest now.

To be honest, it's a rather redundant statement, because I assume you're always honest.

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EDIT: Since I got off-track with subsequent posts, I'm just going to make a new post instead of trying to edit my thoughts into here.

 

[Bleys]

Heh, I use it a lot, actually, not exactly sure why. Often I use it to convey that I am about to say something that I normally wouldnt, likely something controversial.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Yes ... I'm the grammar Nazi in my home. (That's what happens when you've taken too many AP-style journalism classes.)

Often I use it to convey that I am about to say something that I normally wouldnt, likely something controversial.

I think what you mean to say then is "I'm going to be [candid, frank, straightforward] ..."

(similar connotation ... more accurate denotation)​

 

[OTAKUjbski]

re: Colossus vs Astronomy

I didn't realize just how little the Colossus was actually doing for me until a little while ago. Apparently, the Colossus is only worth 13 (and 2 GM :gpp for my economy!

I thought it was worth more than that, so I guess losing it won't be as tough as I had imagined it would be (certainly not as bad as losing the GLH will be).

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re: Round 4 Best Ball

Okay. So it has come down for me to a choice between the OTAKUjbski and r_rolo1 saves. (futurehermit's would've been a clear winner for me if not for the late-round barbs )

The biggest selling point for the r_rolo1 save is he has a commanding tech lead by comparison to us (the other saves) and the AI! Specifically, he has Astronomy and is closest to Privateers (32 Turns vs 57 in the OTAKUjbski save).

EDIT: Oh yeah ... r_rolo1 is also 7 turns from completing the Harbour Master quest, which is a big PRO worth mentioning.

The biggest fault I have with the r_rolo1 save is the opposite of the selling point for the OTAKUjbski save: it doesn't appear to be in a strong position to expand either militarily or peacefully (I can't pinpoint one city and say "this is the [dedicated] production city"). Specifically, I don't like that Cologne (our 2nd best production city) is being set up as an economy city.

The biggest selling point for the OTAKUjbski save is the strong push for expansion (with most focus on "the mainland"). Specifically, Cologne is the center of both military production (via HE) and Settler/Worker production (via whipping mostly).

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I still believe the simplest approach to victory is to peacefully settle into the remaining unclaimed land (which I think represents 50-65% of the total land on this map) followed by conquering a couple civs to push us over the top in land area.

Not settling the land will most likely lead to a very tedious Conquest Victory. (I'm not good with diplo victories, so I'm not banking on one at this point.)

Spoiler some victory math guesstimations :

If my guesstimations are correct (NOTE: every land tile is worth 0.107% on this map; Saladin controls the most AI land: 8%):

The remaining discovered, unsettled land is worth ~40% ... the AI civs collectively control another 35-40% ... the remaining undiscovered, unsettled land is worth 10-15%.

What that means is even if we conquer half the AI lands and vassalize each of them, we'd still only be at ~40% (+30%) land area (granted, that would mean Conquest victory at that point).

On the contrary, if we assume we can claim half to two-thirds the remaining unsettled land (+25% - +38%) (a safe assumption, I think), then we'd need only 13-26% more land for a Domination Victory. (I think that means conquering 2 civs or vassalizing 3-5.)

Of those two options, peaceful settling leading to an eventual swift crushing of the AI seems the easiest (less naval warfare, ftw), even though it might result in a later win date and thus a lower score.

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All that being said, I vote for the OTAKUjbski save. I know it's not kosher to vote for your own save, but I can't convince myself it's not the best footing to step off of at this point ...

 

[Bleys]

Colossus is indeed a fairly low-value Wonder in this game, but I still think it was well worth the Copper + Forge + OR + IND hammers, 13C plus 2 GM GPPs a turn is nothing to sneeze at, and IF we got our cities up to higher vertical numbers, the C would have increased as we worked more coastal tiles. Personally, I find it worth it if I do nothing but work my seafood tiles (again, assuming the huge discount production bonuses).

I like Rolo's save. I think I can make it work in either direction, militarily, diplomatically, or expansion wise. Astronomy is the clincher for me, it allows us to get Galleons (which are much better than Galleys, with the +1 circumvent to boost) and allows us to tech other areas.

 

[Winston Hughes]

If we're just going to finish the game in the next turnset, I think it will be more fun (and more educational) if each of us chooses what he sees as the worst save for his favoured approach.

But, if we're sticking to the best ball format, I'd choose rolo's save. It's a good one anyway (though not quite the best imo), but popping Astronomy from a hut is crazily overpowered on a map like this.

 

[futurehermit]

sucks that a last-turn blunder cost my save

i wanted to vote for my save, but such a vote wouldn't do anything, so if i was going to choose i would pick OTAKU's

 

[futurehermit]

astronomy doesn't really help us, besides opening up galleons and that only helps if we are going to war with someone other than louis in the near future. we are already getting overseas trade routes and are already able to trade for overseas resources

EDIT: It's still sweet to get the tech for free though

 

[OTAKUjbski]

... though not quite the best imo ...

If you don't mind me asking, which one is the best?

 

[Winston Hughes]

If you don't mind me asking, which one is the best?

Mine, of course!

 

[Diamondeye]

"Gentlemans agreement"... Hrm, hrm....

Nah, seriously, it sounds as if the general opinion is either OTAKUjbski or Rolo. I like em both, but, if I am to break an evenutal tie, I will be voting for Rolos'.

Although at the moment it looks as though it will be Rolos' anyway

I will be leaving my PC in 20 minutes or so and will not be at it until some time tomorrow, so it will be up to OTAKU to calculate the final votes and tally them up. I am of the opinion that we should stick to the best ball format.