Monarchists' Cookbook I

[vale]

I will admit its a bit of work just to shave a turn. But I've lost wonders by a turn before so it isn't that crazy. And losing the GLH on this map would be a huge problem.

 

[Solon70]

Oh, right. See, I knew it should have been obvious to me.

On top of everything else, I'm not used to playing Epic and so I'm always getting the numbers mixed up. I'm used to whips being 30 hammers, settlers costing 100, etc.

 

[Winston Hughes]

we are not immortal/emperor players, and too much nitpicking at saves for making those small mistakes that are not allowed on emperor+ has, imo, a bad influence on the atmosphere of the thread.

Personally I really like reading the comments, negative or positive, that players make on each others' games, including those which focus on small details. And I would be pleased to get some constructive criticism on any of the choices I make in future rounds.

Moreover, it's not a question of whether certain mistakes are 'allowed' on Emperor; it's a question of deciding which is the best save for this game. There's a big difference between a game where you choose the best save, and one where you choose the most fun save (for me, that would usually be the most unorthodox one).

Obviously, having some kind of civ genius come and post a series of incredible saves that no-one else can match would defeat the object of this format. But, thus far, I see no evidence that anyone here is way ahead of the rest of us, nor that anyone is out of their depth at this level.

I strongly agree that all criticism should be constructive and respectful, though.

 

[vale]

I don't know which save I prefer yet. I'll look through them in a bit if it isn't too late.

However I think I am for peace with Saladin. I think if we wanted war with him, it would have made it much easier to prepare for it last round by getting a city with some cultural presence on his land mass (I'm thinking settled right on the incense tile east of the plains hill. It would have served two purposes:

1. Lessen the burden of a true navy for war since we could have massed troops in the city without dealing with support costs until we were ready to declare. A base of operations on the same land mass would have simplified the logistics of a war against him greatly.

2. If it got enough culture possibly get a tile or two closer to his cities before we have to declare.

But it had to be done early to keep from getting completely dominated by Saladin's culture right away. Focus on monument and then library there to the exclusion of anything else. I'm thinking city settle order would have been:
1. Marble so wonders could still be made
2. Copper to pump military.
3. Incense city
4. Whale-fish city
5. Iron city (north plains hill on southern island)
6. Floodplains city (wherever it is placed)

I think it is too late to get our foothold city on his island peacefully now. So the logistics of war are more complicated. We actually need a real navy to do this, not the single galley many of us are still dealing with. And we still have a horrendously small amount of production.

So my vote is for peace. Not sure which save that would be yet.

 

[futurehermit]

Looks like peace and OTAKU's save is probably the way to go then from what I have read so far.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

@ Diamondeye:

Please don't make me choose the Best Ball this round ...

 

[Winston Hughes]

Since it looks like we're going to take the peaceful path, and because I wanted to familiarise myself with the map a bit better, I decided to play a warlike shadow game from the original 4000bc save.

It took me an extra 7 turns beyond the end of round 2 to finish the job, but I'm quite pleased with how it went, so I thought I'd post the save and a brief report.

I played much faster than I usually do, and did very little micromanagement. But, obviously, I had foreknowledge of the area, and that saved a lot of messing around. I also had to reload on three or four occasions to correct speed-induced mistakes; for example, selecting my most valuable tech and pressing 'Please accept this gift', instead of 'What will you give me for this?' :suicide:

Spoiler :

Tech path
Fishing, BW, Sailing, Masonry, Wheel, Archery (hut), Writing. Maths, Agriculture, Mysticism, Meditation, Priesthood (partial, completed by hut), Monarchy (partial, completed by hut), Construction, Alphabet (partial, completed by trade), AH (trade), IW (trade).

Summary of Key Events
I founded Hamburg to snare the copper, built three galleys and about 9 or 10 axes. (Edit: I should've mentioned that I chopped all the forests on the home island to get that lot built). Mecca fell in 1175bc.

I had no intention of taking Medina at this time - I just wanted to get Mecca for myself and to cripple Sal. Besides, a protective holy city on a hill is a bit much without cats, even for a bloodthirsty warmonger like me.

Next I switched to peaceful concerns, building the Great Lighthouse in Berlin (completed in 600bc), researching Monarchy (a helpful hut finished it a few turns early), settling Marble Island and South Island, and exploring the big islands to the east.

While wandering in the north of the first big island, one of my axes found a Japanese city defended by a single archer. Thanks to popping three barb warriors from a hut, I was able to gain some crucial experience, and then capture Osaka (and its worker) for myself in 305bc.

Has anyone else ever been glad to get hostile villagers from a hut?

Once Construction was in, I whipped out a few cats and went after Sal once more. Thanks to my earlier attack leaving him stuck with crappy Medina, he hadn't managed to settle any more cities and his defences were easily overcome. I razed the city in 55ad, thus ending my shadow game.

Screenshots
The central part of my empire, including what I think was the best spot for the copper city.

The southern islands; notice that I ignored the marble altogether, and instead chose the spots with the most food.

My lucky acquisition from the Japanese; thanks to killing so many barbs, that axe has reached 10xp, which would allow me to build the Heroic Epic once I got Literature.

Techs; making some trades helped a lot here, although earlier or better trading options are often a reward for good exploration (as are 'lucky' huts; popping more huts = more chances of getting lucky).

Demographics; population growth would be the next priority if I was to continue from this save.

 

[Bleys]

I also had to reload on three or four occasions to correct speed-induced mistakes; for example, selecting my most valuable tech and pressing 'Please accept this gift', instead of 'What will you give me for this?' :suicide:

ARGH I hate doing that with a passion! I have a wireless mouse, and every now and then, it wont "click" properly, and I end up doing that a TON. Thankfully I keep my autosave set to every turn, mostly for HoF but it comes in handy with glitches like that.

Also, the more I consider it, the more I like a peaceful approach to the next round. Berlin can pump out settlers and workers like mad, and still continue getting some nice Wonders (HGs, maybe, GLib, etc, in OTAKs game). REXing out that island that OTAK already has a window into isnt a bad plan at all. I would still pump out galleys and axes for a bit, plus archers of course, and send em round trip with a Settler-Garrison loaded and landing all along that island's coast. If we can get 5 or 6 cities there, and eventually even move the Capitol there and run Berlin as a GP farm (with FP, or even Versailles), I think theres a lot of potential to just slaughter Sal later with advanced units, since the more land WE get the less he will be able to claim. If he gets stuck on 4 or 5 cities mostly cramped together on that pitiful little island of his, he will be prime backstab material.

So if it comes down to it OTAK, and you have to make the call, I fully support you choosing your own save and a peaceful plan for the next round. No worries, no complaints from this "warmongerer", heh. I definitely prefer a more "Wonder Heavy" approach, though, as I think its one of the things that makes Monarch the most fun. Not suggesting we build "unnecessary" ones, Notre Dame comes to mind, etc, most of the "this continent" ones, actually, but there are some pretty strong Wonders coming up that, while not imperetive to our success, certainly add some flavor and excitement to the game, at least in my book.

 

[vale]

So is the save decided?

I have some free time this afternoon.

 

[Diamondeye]

The best ball has been decided. Since I have to act as a tiebreaker between war and peace (I dont count Winstons "soft vote" in the last tally, and it looked as though Bleys was thinking of switching to peace as well), I have decided that we are playing from the save uploaded by OTAKUjbski, to be found on this post. I am looking foward to seeing different approaches on this one

The round is to last to about 700 AD, and should be posted by tuesday, preferably monday.

Let round 3 begin!

EDIT: Remember to name the save properly. The suggested savename is MC1 (Playername) Round 3 (year of end date).

My save would, as example, be named MC1 Diamondeye Round 3 0700 AD​

 

[futurehermit]

Congrats OTAKUjbski! An excellent save for us to work from imho. Your scouting was outrageous. I'm particularly glad we have met so many AIs and keep tabs on all the different trades.

Video card problem resolved

Hey everybody, my fiancee and I performed major surgery on my computer this afternoon. I got the new HIS HD 3870 X2 video card. However, I messed up and didn't realize I would need a new power supply--d'oh!!! So, we went out and got a new power supply this afternoon.

So, we had to do a power supply transplant--fun, fun times (not).

However, the upside is that after an entire day of stress, everything is now in excellent working order (except Oblivion doesn't seem to be working for some reason, I'm looking into it on their tech forums). Civ4 works like a dream and looks beautiful, I'm very happy with it.

So, I shouldn't miss any of the regularly scheduled time for our series, yay

 

[OTAKUjbski]

@ futurehermit:

I experienced a similar story a couple years ago, lol ...

"I need a new video card ... But the new video card needs a different motherboard ... And the motherboard needs a different processor ... But the processor has a different FSB and needs different RAM ... And all of that requires a bigger power supply ... And I can't fit all that comfortably in my old case ... etcetera ..."

$2000 later ...

 

[futurehermit]

hahaha, yeah! When we finally had it all together I had all my fingers and toes triple crossed (ouch!) and was like "work, damn you, work!"

the new video card *barely* fit in my case. it is H-U-G-E!!!

 

[Diamondeye]

Oookay, I am the first to post this round

First of all, my Autolog messed up so it has not captured anything. Just great. But apart from that, I think I had a fine third round, which I ended a bit before due to some major decisions that are all going to take place this turn.

So, here we go:

Spoiler :

Okay, I start out by locating my galleys, using the farthest away to scout while the others, I bring home to berlin to carry workers, missionaires, whatever. I save the prophet for later, I am thinking of using him for a golden age.

We tech CoL, and I start Civil Service, since I bet Sal has both Alpha and IW, which I need. I practically aim at a tech I can use and which I am sure none of the AIs have.

Then, I wait till Sal has Alpha before trading:
I buy IW, Alpha, Monotheism and Archery for MC and another tech. Very nice deal for us both. A look at Cologne when the GA has been running for a turn:

Since I plan to settle the new world, I send one of the galleys scouting, and it soon finds something unpleasant:

I actually think the Saladin AI is one of the faster to settle new cities, and I hate him for it...

Then, I build the Colossus:

And, at the last turn of my GA, I spot yet another Saladin settling party, east of Damascus:

After CS I head for Music. I pop another GreatProphet in Berlin, which I settle to better the economy and output.

Soon after, Louis XIV thinks it is a good idea to split his empire by forming a colony, led by Roosevelt:

Jeeesh, Saladin is a fast settler; he manages to settle a city close to Cologne only a couple of turns ahead of me:

... I land the settler on the plains hill and move him to the northern FP to settle there instead.

Now, Pliny decides to find out which civ is the largest. I am glad to be nr 3, only beaten by Sal (obiously), and Suleiman. Also, notice the difference between Louis and his vassal, Roosevelt:

By the way, besides the Iron we new was at the marble site, Cologne had iron as well, atleast some of the time:

The turn before we have music, something eventlike happens, since three cities (one of them mine! (Cologne)) is converted to Hinduism. The other two cities are Arabian or Ottoman, I believe.

We get the GA off music, and begin to tech Construction while settling the artist to prevent too much Arabian influence on Germinica Maior, in Munich.

Many interesting things happen in 610 AD:

Joao offends Sal, which is good, Sal adopts Theocracy, which means that he has Theology, which means he is likely going to build the AP.

Now, the turn where I stop the game; 655 AD:
Lots of decisions to make:
1) What will we be teching? (We just hit Constr, I pressed Feudalism next but there are no turns in it yet)
2) Settling from Cologne:

No hammers in settler yet, archers path is only to show the recommended site, he actually stays in Cologne. The suggested spot has two food fesources, acts as a canal as well as not grabbing any tundra.
3) We have a Settler in Berlin, I am thinking of sending him to the sourthernmost island in our homeland;

And a brief state of all cities:

Spoiler Munich :

Having worked on GL for some time, only ten turns left now, with Marble and Ind bonus, it can be whipped about five turns from now:

Spoiler Berlin :

Our beloved and very powerful capital needs more happiness, hence, I have started a Coluseum:

Spoiler Frankfurt :

Frankfurt has no real production yet, so I whipped the forge for two pop, then started a courthouse:

A worker is currently mining the riverside grassland hill.

Spoiler Hamburg :

Hamburg is currently building a Courthouse, but it will soon be done:

As you can see from the pic, I have OR. I changed civics (HR + OR) in the first turns of the golden age.

Spoiler Cologne :

Cologne has grown rather large, and now I feel it's time it pumps out its' first settler. It is still 2 pop from happycap:

Spoiler Essen :

The new city, north of Cologne. I brought a missionary and a garrison unit along, so it has culture from Hinduism:

That's it for now, I hope you liked it

 

[vale]

Spoiler :

I played pretty quick and took minimal notes.

There wasn't a whole bunch of micromanaging here.

Macro decisions:
I avoided the question of where the flood plains city gets settled this round just to avoid controversy. I'm sure everyone is aware of where I wanted to settle it, so rather than do that and ruin my save for posterity, I just avoided making the decision and Settled other spots this round. Berlin was busy doing non-Settler related duties for the most of the round anyway.

I also decided to go for the Colossus, Hanging Gardens and Great Library this round in that order. Despite the fact that overall the Great Library will be better for us, I built the other two first knowing that
1. The Colossus' time frame was rapidly expiring.
2. The Hanging Gardens' time frame would soon follow and we didn't have the resource.
3. I was fairly certain I could beat the others to the Great Library after the first two were done (or scrapped for gold). In this case, I beat Louis by around 225 hammers. Not positive but he appeared with 300 gold the turn I finished the Great Library.
4. I got two great prophets during this round (and another great person is on the way in a few turns). Both were settled in Berlin.

One of my galleys spent literally the entire round trying to meet that brown shadow that Otaku spotted. I also wanted to get the circumnavigation bonus. I'm not there yet.

I ended the round early for a couple of reasons:
1. Great Library has just completed and there a couple of reasonable options for Berlin to pursue next (including moving away from wonderspam)
2. I have pacifism available but didn't adopt it because of the Great Library race. Now that that has been won, it may be time to consider changing.
3. It just seemed like going further would be much more commital than letting it go from this turn.

Right away I pulled the worker off of chopping the precious forest, got the Settler headed down to settle fish+whales and changed the worked tiles in a copper city and marble city to work production rich tiles while building forges first. I whipped a granary and barracks before the axemen built out in the large island city.

My round was focused on upping power while getting some garrisons out there for HR (while expanding slowly).

5BC Code of Laws finished researching, start Civil Service

25AD Louis has Alphabet. I make trades that turn to three different AIs for:
Alphabet - for obvious reasons
Iron Working - to reveal iron (I would have done this regardless of the preknowledge of iron in marble cities fat cross from other reports). There is iron in the new world cities fat cross.
Archery - Wanted the cheap garrisons
Monotheism - Wanted Organized Religion

I did give Suleiman Monarchy here I think. Sue me.
40AD Revolt to Hereditary Rule, Organized Religion. I waited a turn because I had just whipped a settler in Berlin and wanted the settler to be heading to its new home (which ended up being the north plains hill). In retrospect, I should have settled the north one tile island first and gotten it started on it's infrastructure.

160AD Colossus finished in Berlin

355AD Civil Service done, start Philosophy

370AD Revolt to Bureaucracy - pretty sure I did this the second Civil Service was in, but I'm relying on the Ctrl-TAB for my info.

475AD Hanging Gardens done in Berlin

580 AD Philosophy done, start on Paper (but you can see I have been 0% the whole way there so it is not too late to change)

670AD Great Library done in Berlin(and this is the end of the round). Incidentally why does the ctrl-tab say 670AD when it is very clearly 685 AD and I just finished it. Good question.

Suleiman is pleased - I have begged him recently

Saladin is pleased - I have begged him recently

Louis is pleased with 300 gold - I have NOT begged him recently

Joao is cautious - and will sign open borders again I see opening things up, oops

Toku is annoyed - cause thats just the way he rolls.

NOBODY has their hands full which is something I was kind of worried about with our low power.

We have 9 cities, no more than 2 on a landmass at the moment:

Berlin and copper city

Moai Statue city north of them

Iron city and Marble city south of them

Whale-Fish city south of it (incidentally this city got an event that got a settled great artist there for a nominal fee, I took it rather than a minor free culture boost)

Cow-Iron-Fish city and Sheep-Crab city on the big island.

And last but not least:
Rice-Ivory-Horse city on the island east of that.

Yeah I'm spread out somewhat.

I have some screenshots of 685 AD

Tech status

Economic status first at 100% research then at 100% gold

Berlin: Still "wonder"ful

Spoiler :

Cologne: This is going to be an awesome Settler pump for the new settlements. Almost set up for optimal 3 pop Settler whips as is. Just needs to finish that lighthouse.

Spoiler :

Frankfurt: Our source of fine art

Spoiler :

Dortmund: Future home of the Moai statues. Should switch to a granary at the start of next round and finish that out and possibly a forge as well.

Spoiler :

Dusseldorf: Will be ok for production and is grabbing ivory and rice

Spoiler :

Essen: The taoism holy city. Meh.

Spoiler :

Hamburg: Cranked quite a few archers out this round (basically every archer near our home territory was made by hamburg). Starting to go back to infrastructure.

Spoiler :

Stuttgart: Well it is a canal. It picks up the last seafood we were missing. And it grabs sheep. It also shares the iron with Cologne but since Cologne will be our Settler pump, I don't see it getting much access. I think it needs to pump a few workers soon as we actually have land to develop now.

Spoiler :

Munich: Well, it is struggling with tiles getting jacked from it both by friendly cities (Dortmund) and enemy cities. I think I liked Diamondeye's idea of teching Music to settle an artist there to solidify our hold on "our" land.

Spoiler :

I think next round priorities would be pump out settlers in the "new" world. There are at least two very nice sites on the ivory-horse-rice cities island: a gold canal and another horse corn and some other resource that is slipping my mind at a second.

The southern island needs to be filled in pretty soon. I left it unfilled to allow flexibility for the coming round but it can't be ignored much longer.

Incidentally, Toku is not the founder of Confucianism. He didn't have Code of Laws when I first got Alphabet. So we are missing someone and he seems to be ahead of the curve in terms of tech rate.

 

[Solon70]

The best ball has been decided. Since I have to act as a tiebreaker between war and peace (I dont count Winstons "soft vote" in the last tally, and it looked as though Bleys was thinking of switching to peace as well), I have decided that we are playing from the save uploaded by OTAKUjbski, to be found on this post. I am looking foward to seeing different approaches on this one

The round is to last to about 700 AD, and should be posted by tuesday, preferably monday.

Let round 3 begin!

EDIT: Remember to name the save properly. The suggested savename is MC1 (Playername) Round 3 (year of end date).

My save would, as example, be named MC1 Diamondeye Round 3 0700 AD​

Wait, that link doesn't take me to OTAK's save, it takes me to r_rolo's save

 

[Nares]

Vale, I think the only one you can be sure of who didn't found Confucianism is Louis, because he would have converted instantly. That said, you're still missing one AI.

Also, does anyone else find the maintenance cost of these distant cities crippling? Vale's paying close to 30gpt in maintenance costs for three cities. For no happiness resources, is it really worth it?

I'm not offering a save this round. I played my own out to the end of the round. Suffice it to say I see no advantage so far in OTAKU's "peaceful" approach, though it occurs to me that the save might have been decent at taking out Saladin. Vale's results merely confirm my suspicion that any war would be delayed, first by an emphasis on expansion, and second by crippling maintenance costs which impact research.

It looks like any war would be conducted with rifles (and maybe cannons), when Saladin could have easily been taken with maces and trebs.

 

[vale]

No, because I got Alphabet 3 turns into the round and nobody we knew had Code of Laws. So the founder is still out there.

The maintenance is high in the distant cities. Infrastructure is still being built and libraries/courthouses will go a long way to easing the burden in the new land while reaping the rewards. I guess you looked at the maintenance costs and ignored the fact that these cities are still paying for themselves almost with trade routes alone. Even the fledgling size 1 city that is in fact grabbing a happiness resource. Not to mention if the AIs ever got their economies in shape I could start selling some excess resources.

There will be at least one more city placed on the same continent as ivory to grab cows-gold-fish and possibly a third to grab fish-horses-corn and guess what? Those cities might be a short term minor drain, but even short-medium term they will easily pay for themselves in addition to providing a needed health resource (corn) and a needed happiness resource (gold) that is boosted by our trait cheapened item.

I would love to see an attempt at war with the start save from this round. The infrastructure/techs just weren't there.

 

[vale]

I almost forgot, a forbidden palace in Cologne is a realistic goal for next round I believe. And that would eliminate most of your concerns about city maintenance there.

Not that I even think it is worth it at the moment. Courthouses and libraries will suffice right now and I would rather have Cologne building a monastery/missionaries to spread the faith around than the forbidden palace which puts a production burden on some of the old world cities that don't need them. The maintenance is hardly "crippling" as our break even point is slightly above 50% and puts out a reasonable research rate.

Also, you continue to reference your own save that is played out from the very beginning and bashing saves that have been played within the format of the rules which is getting kind of ridiculous. Why are you unable to play the save provided? Suffice it to say I will go on the record as saying it would have been 100% impossible to even get the techs for maces and trebs this round from this save. Not one AI has teched Machinery. Or Civil Service. Or even Construction. So this had to be 100% self research and the beakers per turn were not there to do it in a 47 turn round. I would say the rate of teching for the AI in this game has been pretty slow. You can see it on the trade list. There is nothing to trade for except calendar.

 

[Nares]

Why are you unable to play the save provided?

I took the time to play out OTAKU's save as well.

Suffice it to say I will go on the record as saying it would have been 100% impossible to even get the techs for maces and trebs this round from this save.

And that's the problem. Settling way out in left field was a move.

Suffice it to say, I'm not going to involve myself in this series any more. "OMG IND wonderspam" and "well it works on monarch" are not the type of discussion I'm looking for.