Next Emperor Masters' Challenge?

[aelf]

If you want trade routes, the spanish UB gives them, right?

Nope. It's the same as any other castle (+1).

I've tried generating maps of different types to look at the possibilities. It seems that Ice Age maps tend to place at least a few players on isolated landmasses. Snaky continents with low sea level (any higher and you'll get small islands) is too random, giving you a range of maps from large islands to snaky pangeas. The AI is incompetent on island maps and pangea maps tend to be easier.

It seems that for the purposes of our challenge (assuming we go along with the Day After Tomorrow theme), continents with a cold climate is the better choice. We can have high sea levels if we want to have a trade route economy. Not every city can be coastal, but the game would at least be as challenging as usual, if not more.

I have a day off on Monday, so I might start the game if I'm bored enough Hurry. Give me your suggestions before I take whatever I get and decide.

 

[flamingzaroc121]

your right AI cant do much on archipelago so i say your suggestion is great and i really like shaka so go with him

 

[illram]

First off, I thoroughly enjoyed your previous challenge. I admit to not reading a lot of the 23+ pages of the thread and instead enjoying the pretty pictures...mmmm... pictures....(it was useful to see when you guys would discover/build stuff compared to my games). Anyways, my thoughts on Ice age:

Never played it before, but it would seem very important to be aggressive as the amount of useful land is going to be slim. Myself, I always tend to prefer warmongering and domination/conquest wins, so I am a little biased, but apparently the first master challenge was a domination win so maybe you want to try something different.

The fun of these things seems to be doing different/untested strats, and I think if you pick a unique map (like Ice Age) and some interesting parameters or random leaders, the unique/interesting strategy will happen by itself. I only hope I have the time to make some meaningful contributions, even if most will consist of "I think you should build a bajillion catapults and kill so and so."

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

aelf, go with normal speed. I hadn't played anything slower until the last two weeks and I find epic and marathon make things easier by actually allowing you time to use your technically advanced forces. Normal speed makes you focus.

With regard to the landmass, fractal low water seems to be returning one or two continents with interesting resource groups.

start the game soon.

 

[NaZdReG]

Aelf,

heres my thought. last game was religious leaders showing the way to power. this time lets go towards a total science hoarding deal. libraries early, run scientists get academies and just be a tech whore. either by specialists or cottages max out your science and try to actually get ahead of the ai in tech... a feat yet to be seen in the challenge games as you are ALWAYS behind in tech by the midgame.

whatever civ you want to accomplish the task. do you wish to warmonger through your superior forces??? force capitulation then make them research stupid techs that would never ever let them catch up to your tech superiority.

korea might be a good call for this... protective rocks and its sadly underrated. also starting with mysticism would perhaps let you grab an early religion anyway to assist in diplomatic matters. the hwacha is a BRUTAL unit and would fit perfectly with "tech whore then beat down with superior units" combined with the UB bonus of 35% research.. on the way to oxford.

what I'd like to see is your solid core cities (hell could try the rcp I suggested if you really have the room and feel like trying to pull it off)
but anyway solid core cities with library university cottages and scientists cramming beakers out the door like there's no tomorrow. one city with oxeford.. also a relative gp farm running as many scientists as the buildings will support!!! race and race on tech .. use the early religious diplo bonuses to maximize trading off techs.
get your hwachas and beat someone down until they compitulate.. they are forever doomed to research pointless techs you already have. repeat until you own the world!!!

victory goals would either be domination, conquest, or space. but #1 priority is to maximize research at all times. could you perhaps get 5+ cities over the 100 beaker per turn mark by midgame??? korea again for financial.. they might just be one of the best science whoring civs..

since you always fall behind in tech.. this in itself would be a challenge. care to give it a shot??

NaZ

 

[aelf]

heres my thought. last game was religious leaders showing the way to power. this time lets go towards a total science hoarding deal. libraries early, run scientists get academies and just be a tech whore. either by specialists or cottages max out your science and try to actually get ahead of the ai in tech... a feat yet to be seen in the challenge games as you are ALWAYS behind in tech by the midgame.

Getting ahead in science is a good thing, but surely it can't be the main objective of our challenge But I agree with you that we should try not to fall behind this time. Early libraries and getting academies is a good idea.

Wow, I'm getting quite few suggestions here, so I may need to toss a coin or roll a dice to decide

Well, I've been looking a little into trade routes and realised that this is a part of the game that I've always paid no mind to. I'm sure quite a few of you know what I mean I know it's good to get Currency and Corporation for the extra trade routes, to build harbours to help coastal cities pay for themselves and to switch to Free Market when it's available and I have lots of open borders. However, I've never actually calculated how much money I'm getting from trade routes and have never taken steps to prioritise them such as researching Astronomy early or building airports quickly. I think it would be good to prioritise them in this game and see how much extra cash we can get from them by building the ToA and the Great Lighthouse.

To this end, I think Roosevelt is my choice of leader (Organised/Industrious for cheaper wonders and lighthouses). My aim is to win by domination (although I seldom do on my own, so I'm going to have to keep space victory an option to fall back on). Navy seals can help with intercontinental invasion if we need to do so in the late game. The map will most likely be continents with a cold climate and high sea level, although I'll try generating some fractal maps to see how suitable they are before deciding. Game speed will be normal.

How do you like that? Anyone against it? If everyone seems generally ok I'll begin tomorrow. Can't wait for the new patch and going back to vanilla just feels a bit too late by now

 

[aelf]

First off, I thoroughly enjoyed your previous challenge. I admit to not reading a lot of the 23+ pages of the thread and instead enjoying the pretty pictures...mmmm... pictures....(it was useful to see when you guys would discover/build stuff compared to my games). Anyways, my thoughts on Ice age:

Never played it before, but it would seem very important to be aggressive as the amount of useful land is going to be slim. Myself, I always tend to prefer warmongering and domination/conquest wins, so I am a little biased, but apparently the first master challenge was a domination win so maybe you want to try something different.

The fun of these things seems to be doing different/untested strats, and I think if you pick a unique map (like Ice Age) and some interesting parameters or random leaders, the unique/interesting strategy will happen by itself. I only hope I have the time to make some meaningful contributions, even if most will consist of "I think you should build a bajillion catapults and kill so and so."

Thanks for your support I look forward to reading your suggestions during the game.

The first challenge was won through diplomacy, though, so domination is my aim this time.

Anyway, it turns out Ice Age doesn't appeal to me because it does not always set up a two-continent situation, which is acknowledged as the standard set up for a more challenging game (the AI is just too incompetent on island maps and pangea-like maps give the advantage to a human player as they allow early tech whoring). So I'm most probably going back to continents, but with a cold climate to simulate a world in ice age.

 

[NaZdReG]

hmm if you want to go that way through roosevelt then by all means. but I would seriously like to see you play as korea in this or the next challenge. I have seriously whooped some ass in multiplayer because protective just rocks when it comes to defending your empire. but if you want to go with a coastal empire then by all means.

I have played a few games where I played through getting the merchant based wonders and they can be quite a signifigant help to the overall empire. to that end hannibal might be good for the extra trade route

but again I refer to my previous post and would like to see how you play through as korea. with a slight lean towards religion.. combined with financial and protective AND the unique building results in a peaceful *until hwacha* empire that combines early religion for peace and major science whooring to just leave the AI behind in tech.

if you can get your capitol up to 200+ beakers and get 4 other cities above the 100 bpt mark you should be able to leave them behind. combined with protecting your empire with longbows you should be able to wage war with the hwachas until the entire continent is under your control.

the goal of this post is that I'd like to see how you micro your empire to focus on speeding up research. with the financial trait you might actually beat the AI to buddhism... resulting in auto spread from your capitol. the scientists would produce an early academy and you could end up with the great library and truly whip some scientific ass that way.

thoughts aelf??

NaZ

 

[aelf]

hmm if you want to go that way through roosevelt then by all means. but I would seriously like to see you play as korea in this or the next challenge. I have seriously whooped some ass in multiplayer because protective just rocks when it comes to defending your empire. but if you want to go with a coastal empire then by all means.

I have played a few games where I played through getting the merchant based wonders and they can be quite a signifigant help to the overall empire. to that end hannibal might be good for the extra trade route

but again I refer to my previous post and would like to see how you play through as korea. with a slight lean towards religion.. combined with financial and protective AND the unique building results in a peaceful *until hwacha* empire that combines early religion for peace and major science whooring to just leave the AI behind in tech.

if you can get your capitol up to 200+ beakers and get 4 other cities above the 100 bpt mark you should be able to leave them behind. combined with protecting your empire with longbows you should be able to wage war with the hwachas until the entire continent is under your control.

the goal of this post is that I'd like to see how you micro your empire to focus on speeding up research. with the financial trait you might actually beat the AI to buddhism... resulting in auto spread from your capitol. the scientists would produce an early academy and you could end up with the great library and truly whip some scientific ass that way.

thoughts aelf??

Good ideas for the next game. I guess I'm not leaning towards this at the moment because focusing on science is not new to me, despite what you saw in the previous Emperor Challenges. And I'm sure the builders and peacemongers in this forum are already familiar with it. What I feel I need to do right now is to shed more light on the trade routes system for myself and for other casual players.

But don't feel down. You've whet my appetite for playing Korea. Indeed, it would be a suitable civ to play for the first Immortal Challenge. Protective would be more valuable in the face of stronger AI and Financial would be good for helping a new monarch player along (me ). We could certainly use advanced science and early religion to help us in a more challenging game.

All in all, good insight on your part. And thanks for telling me what the following challenge will probably be about even before the next one begins

 

[aelf]

I tried generating some fractal maps and found that, like Ice Age maps, they tend to isolate at least a few players. Not good for gameplay.

Then I ran a test to see the effectiveness of a ToA and Great Lighthouse combo in the capital, since from what I read on the forums the ToA is usually belittled. I did some reading about trade routes and how the effects of harbours and the ToA are calculated before doing the test. The results:

With nothing:

With Great Lighthouse but without ToA:

With the ToA but not Great Lighthouse:

With both wonders:

This is a tiny continents map with 3 players (all on the same continent). I used worldbuilder to create size 10 capitals for everyone and 2 other cities each (varying from size 4 to 6). All have necessary infrastructure and improvements (up to Classical era stuff).

As you can see, with the both wonders, trade route income improves by 10C compared to only having the Great Lighthouse

With both wonders, trade route income improves by 12C compared to only having the ToA.

With only the Great Lighthouse, trade route income improves by 6C compared to having nothing.

With only the ToA, trade route income improves by 4C compared to having nothing.

With both the Great Lighthouse and ToA, trade route income improves by 16C compared to having nothing.

All numbers are pre-Bureaucracy. The combo is quite powerful, but it must be that - a combo. The Great Lighthouse alone is good enough as it affects every coastal city, not just the capital. However, the ToA needs the Great Lighthouse to be really effective.

Attached is the test game, if you want to look at the conditions set up.

 

[DrJambo]

Aggressive AI doesn't really screw diplomacy as much as people expect. The AI civs definitely start off more disapproving of other civs, but it is entirely possible to create good diplomatic (pleased and friendly) relations. What it does do is make the Aggressive civs more likely to initiate a war even if it's against another AI civ. You see, most of the time with standard settings the various AI civs' power ratings don't vary greatly enough to provoke a war between the AI.

As an example can you tell me the last time when you saw an AI capitulate to another AI using normal settings?

With Aggressive AI it happens! In one game the AI Roosevelt had 2 capitulated AI civs under his rule, and I can tell you that really shakes up the world's politics! Try it and you'll see what I mean.

 

[malekithe]

If you do decide to lean heavily upon trade routes in the next game, it may be useful to know that they added a couple of changes to the foreign trade routes in warlords. There are two basic effects.

1) It's now very possible for cities with low population to have surprisingly profitable trade routes. For instance, in your ToA example above, even if your capital had only 1 population, it'd still be making 6 commerce per route.

2) The value of trade with a given civ's cities is reduced if you've recently been at war with that civ. The value will slowly increase if peace persists. After 50 turns, it returns to it's maximum value.

 

[aelf]

As an example can you tell me the last time when you saw an AI capitulate to another AI using normal settings?

It happened in the last Emperor Challenge. Mao capitulated to Mehmed in the end, remember?

I do agree with you that on normal settings, the AI might not go to war with each other as often as we like. However, I think aggressive AI would tip the balance in favour of already aggressive leaders. Some AI leaders (eg. Gandhi) are just unable to stand up to an onslaught from them early in the game, creating gigantic empires that will eventually be very difficult to defeat, especially if they are on the other continent. Don't you think that the likelihood of this happening would be increased by having aggressive AI on? On normal settings, I've seen Napoleon and Alexander do this in vanilla and Shaka in Warlords.

It's not about challenge. It's about the pure incompetence of some AI leaders at defending themselves until the late mid-game At least against human players they have their inherent bonuses to help them. Against other AIs who are aggressive, they are defenseless.

Your thoughts on this issue?

If you do decide to lean heavily upon trade routes in the next game, it may be useful to know that they added a couple of changes to the foreign trade routes in warlords. There are two basic effects.

1) It's now very possible for cities with low population to have surprisingly profitable trade routes. For instance, in your ToA example above, even if your capital had only 1 population, it'd still be making 6 commerce per route.

2) The value of trade with a given civ's cities is reduced if you've recently been at war with that civ. The value will slowly increase if peace persists. After 50 turns, it returns to it's maximum value.

Thanks for the info!

 

[flamingzaroc121]

only thing about roosevelt is the whole UU situation you would have to play on atleast normal speed in order to reach it intime

 

[pigswill]

Could you combine focus on research/ tech lead with developing trade routes and domination highlighting seals? Or is that idea too complex?

 

[Phrederick]

IIt's not about challenge. It's about the pure incompetence of some AI leaders at defending themselves until the late mid-game At least against human players they have their inherent bonuses to help them. Against other AIs who are aggressive, they are defenseless.

I often play with with agressive AI on, and it doesn't seem to be a problem that often. If you're really bothered, choose some civs who are agressive or who defend well early.

Also, don't pick continents, please. I want to see some other, different maps! Ice age is a lot of fun, and if you pick "large islands" it's not that often that anyone gets really isolated.

 

[NaZdReG]

I see other people leaning towards my POV. protective while underrated by many is a BRUTAL trait when used correctly. and do not forget that it also benefits gunpowder era units drill 1 and cg 1 drafted units in defense are BRUTAL.

meanwhile financial gets you an advantage right out of the gate. your water tiles are good for extra commerce... god forbid if you end up getting the colossus as well.. 4c 2f after lighthouse.. almost as good as a town!!!!

so say if you were playing KoReA and settle the capitol on the coast. potential science brutality without having to wait too long for cottages. but you'd make them anyway because of the financial trait.

I honestly took a break from using korea against the ai because its a bit unfair in MP the protective trait is absolutely nessessary. once you get lbows... a couple of those and a wall will stop most assaults outright.

so what you have is an inherently defensive posture, early religion grabbing to make sure your nearest targets are peaceful until you pick a fight.. economic bonus like crazy. whachas just in time to mow down defensive spearman axemen etc.. hell they're even good against maces. a couple of the collateral bonuses and they just shred defensive stacks.

also elsewhere in the forum I brought up using merchants INSTEAD of prophets to pop civil service you'd have to find it. but that would take completely skipping early religion etc.

if you happen to start with any sort of 2c plot it would of cource end up being 3c right out the gate.. almost assuring getting buddhism before the ai.

yeah the tech path to take advantage of the coastal tiles is a bit out of the way but if you tech through pottery and writing to get the libraries your only a couple steps from alpha anyway. your peaceful neighbors will have to rely on you for techs for a brief window.. so you can just pick up whatever you skipped.

temple of artemis in the capitol would result in a prophet there eventually so you could basically get the buddhist shrine for free while working towards coastal economics.

might be a good time to try a little bit of my rcp strat suggestion. other than securing resources you'd want a few coastal cities anyway so you'd end up with roughly a 1/2 ring.. puts your capitol well away from the front.

this is a peaceful strat.. unleast until the time is right hehe so defensive building would be in order anyway. I'd love to see you take a crack at the suggested rcp strat.. maybe outside the ring but whatever. the goal would be to settle 5 additional cities (with coastal capitol) and found buddhism. get a library in all of them, TOA and great lighthouse and colossus in capitol

ramble ramble I guess. this would play out exactly like my last game. i'm going to see if i kept the saves (I delete often) to share with you aelf. but you get the gist of it.

NaZ

 

[DrJambo]

It happened in the last Emperor Challenge. Mao capitulated to Mehmed in the end, remember?

Oops. Was it war started by themselves or one instigated by you? I guess the point I'm trying to make is it's usually the human player playing God and starting the AI to AI wars. Once they're in a war, however, one capitulating to another is very possible.

I do agree with you that on normal settings, the AI might not go to war with each other as often as we like.

Unfortunately, I find this is the case all the time. Have you tried Aggressive AI by the way? If so, how did it feel to you?

However, I think aggressive AI would tip the balance in favour of already aggressive leaders. Some AI leaders (eg. Gandhi) are just unable to stand up to an onslaught from them early in the game, creating gigantic empires that will eventually be very difficult to defeat, especially if they are on the other continent. Don't you think that the likelihood of this happening would be increased by having aggressive AI on? On normal settings, I've seen Napoleon and Alexander do this in vanilla and Shaka in Warlords.

Not necessarily. Aggressive AI doesn't mean it's all-out war. Far from it. From what I've seen it just means certain AI will be more likely to enter a war. The tech monsters (Gandhi and Mansa) still do extremely well against the more unit-friendly civs and it's still very possible for the AI and the human to conduct themselves peacefully for an entire game, although the Power graph becomes even more critical...

I tend to find Mansa, Huayna and Gandhi are some of the better AI civs and the excessive unit-building Aggressive civs like Alexander tend to get stuck with lots of out-dated units all too often...

I think somewhere down the line it would be really interesting for you to demonstrate an Aggressive AI Emperor game in all its glory!

Cheers!

 

[Lucky Charms]

Korea is certainly a civilisation I would love to see. I have yet to get Warlords, but they seem to be very attractive to play with, especially with Doctor's comments!

Any, aelf, it's up to you, I have lurked for quite a bit, and I enjoy your Emperor's Challenge games. I will give my ideas in the next one. Keep up the good work!

 

[acidsatyr]

why not pangaea, normal, emperor, with Japan. 101% military game with lots of wars. See how you do when you dont have time to build religion and science but only whip units in your cities to keep alex and monty off your gates.
Agressive + Protective = lots of fun.