The Emperor Masters' Challenge 2 (on Warlords)

[aelf]

[continued from previous post]

That screenshot was taken one turn before...

Yes, my friends, we beat Gandhi to the launch with more than a few turns to spare

In 1925, Egyptian Tech-acolytes launched the HHS Ramesses, thereby ending the space race. By the blessing of the divine powers, the pious Egyptians had won.

Poor Gandhi. He was beaten at his own game twice!

Now for the ending statistics:

The two sharp spikes in our GNP are probably due to the Golden Ages. Evidently, their effect on late game performance is nothing short of dramatic. To Gandhi's credit, however, he remained generally stronger in both power and GNP.

Our cities have climbed up the ladder in the 45 turns. Now Thebes is the runner up and Madrid made it to the list.

Our score, though, isn't flattering:

Victory date does make a lot of difference.

But, ultimately, the most important thing is our strategy worked! Whether it's better than a more conventional approach is open to debate, but I believe it helped us at least as much as the Financial trait did in the Mansa game, which is saying a lot. I will make my points in an overall analysis on Friday (not free tomorrow). In the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts and opinions on this.

Good game, folks! Once again, my thanks to you readers. I had a lot of fun

 

[dutchfire]

I think the size of your cities, and the huge amounts of culture generated by specialists + Sistine Chapel.

 

[aelf]

Aelf, do you mind giving us some dates, like when did you finish apollo program, when did you start the different parts, when did you discover the different techs, when did you start the elevator?

I really don't know when I started on each of them. Can't check that from the event log and all my autosaves have been replaced by a game I just started on my own. I did make a few saves in the process of playing the last 2 rounds, when I needed to quit or wanted to switch to my own games, but I've deleted them. I can check when I completed the key elements and recall roughly how many turns it took to complete each. Some of the numbers of turns listed are affected by the Golden Ages.

Apollo Program (1882, close to 30 turns in Thebes), Space Elevator (1898, about 17 turns in Huamanga), SS Docking Bay (1908, 20 turns or so in Thebes), SS Engine (1911, 14 turns or so in Huamanga), SS Stasis Chamber (1925, 12 turns or so in Thebes).

Hope this helps.

+ do you have labs already?

At which point of time?

 

[aelf]

I think the size of your cities, and the huge amounts of culture generated by specialists + Sistine Chapel.

What are you referring to?

EDIT: Nevermind. I get it. It's about the top 5 cities of the world.

 

[NaZdReG]

Ok now in reterospect it would be good to hear your overall evaluation of the benefits of chasing down the religious wonders in question. the benefit of running priests early versus scientists (your early prophets could have been scientists but we deliberately decided to go down the prophet path) and the overall effect having the multiple shrines etc had on the empire.

this evaluation would help us compare it to your NEXT game.. firaxis hinted at religions stronger power.. I think you might have cracked it open for everyone. though this strat would probably be easier for a civ that starts with mysticism and manages to found one of the 2 first religions.. making more friendly neighbors etc. but you fought a jihad across the continent and proved successful. definately looking forward to any input you have on this

see you next game!

NaZ

 

[pigswill]

Clear demonstration of mastery. Congratulations!!

 

[flamingzaroc121]

so aelf, who is it going to be next? i say some physco path(monty)

 

[voek]

Good job Aelf, I think the Golden Ages from the many GP you generated at the end really did it for your large empire. It such a huge bonus to GNP and production.

About the Religious Path. Like I have stated before, I think it's a good strategy, but doesn't need a religous path. You don't need to pursue a religion (isn't viable on higher levels) yourself, but rather capture one. Sankore can be build with almost all leaders since it isn't a AI priority to research paper. So the point is to get to paper first. This can be with a financial civ or a GP civ, many options available. The Spiral Magnet is the same story basically. You just might need some more focus for it, generating some GP's for it and watching the techtree. I think this strategy is even more powerful with economical stronger civs. But the strategy might be a lifesaver when you are (almost) alone on a continent.

Aelf, although I would like you to move on to Immortal (since I just did), but consedering your arguments I woudl pursue a conquest vic. (No domination or diplo allowed). With normal speed this will be a great challenge. I used to play normal, but I didn't liked the progress, but warmongering is much more difficult. I would pick either a financial or organized civ. Monty might be good either with his super courthouse.

As a alternative I would suggest a GP based game (philosophical civ) prob. with a SE or hybrid E.

 

[dutchfire]

An OCC?

Seriously, I'd like to see a game with Colossus+GLighthouse+loads of coastal cities. With mercantilism, these small cities should pay for themselves and give you a huge economy.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

Seriously, I'd like to see a game with Colossus+GLighthouse+loads of coastal cities.

me to. On archipelago, snaky continents

 

[DrJambo]

aelf,

Nice thread! Enjoyed the read and learned quite a bit about micromanagement of cities in the early stages.

One point though - don't you ever consider playing with the Aggressive AI option on? Reason being the AI will almost never instigate wars with each other on standard settings, and rarely therefore will they ever capitulate to each other....

I tend to find that on the normal settings it's just a matter of whether the AI fights you or you fight the AI. Aggressive AI opens things up a little and randomises AI play.

I'd love to see an Aggressive AI option for your next test!

 

[aelf]

Alright, before we move on, here's my analysis of this game. I would also appreciate yours, if you care to give one.

Utlimately, did the religious strategy work? First, we should perhaps recall what exactly this 'religious strategy' refers to, in case we've forgotten its tenets. Here's a quote from the opening post of this thread:

Ramesses is Spiritual and Industrious and has a UB that allows two priests and is available with Mysticism. Certainly, he is geared towards wonder-building, temple-building and prophet generation. With him, we can build the Oracle and pull off a CS slingshot quite safely, using his UB to help generate a prophet, aiming to get Paper and Divine Right as early as possible. These two techs will allow us to build the Sankore University and Spiral Minaret, which, combined with monasteries, cheap temples and shrine income, should give us a good advantage at mid to late game research. In addition, Ramesses also has War Chariots, which have awesome potential in the early game and are a good opening for our side quest of securing enough land for our strategy.

Perhaps 'religious strategy' is quite a misnomer. What we set out to follow was not a strategy based on grabbing as many religions as possible, which is quite pointless. It was a strategy revolving around two key religious wonders to help generate massive amounts of income and science. As suggested in the first post, and as it turned out, it is essentially two-pronged: 1) Adopting and spreading a state religion and building the wonders and necessary buildings 2) Grabbing enough cities to make the bonuses we get significant. Ramesses' traits, UU and UB helped to ensure the success of this strategy.

Let's take a look at some statistics. At the end of the game, we had:

25 Confucian temples
12 Confucian monasteries
8 Confucian academies

The monasteries were obsolete since Scientific Method, so discounting that, the bonuses we were getting were:

25 x 2C + 8 x 2C = 66C from the Spiral Minaret
25 x 2B + 8 x 2B = 66B from the University of Sankore

At 100% science rate, that translates to 132 extra beakers per turn. And this is without taking into account the various multipliers in our cities. We could easily be getting 200 extra beakers per turn. That is the beaker output of our size 24 capital city, with its towns, scientific improvements and Representation specialists, at the end of the game. We didn't have that many temples and academies earlier in the game, but before Scientific Method we could factor in the bonuses we got for having monasteries.

But was it worth all the trouble? That is, of course, impossible to evaluate properly in the absence of a comparison game where the conditions have to be almost the same. However, I would venture to say that it was not much trouble. All we had to do in the game (besides the more common things) were build many missionaries (which is good for shrine income and the religious civics anyway), lightbulb (we got many prophets thanks to our UB) + research Divine Right and build the two wonders.

Other observations of mine, on hindsight:

- I think running Mercantilism throughout was a good choice for us since we had a large empire, which meant that we got many free specialists and that an open market would benefit our smaller rivals more.

- Representation is really big when running Mercantilism and there are a lot of highly populated cities employing regular specialists. In late game, Representation specialists shaved at least a turn off research times, which is big at this stage.

- We nearly fell into the trap of over-expansion early in the game as we were tempted to put our War Chariots to good use and grab some prime real estate. Our economy crashed somewhat and research slowed to a crawl.

- We declared war on both our neighbours early to impede their growth (especially Huayna, who could possibly beat us to our key wonders) and capture their cities. This had the effect of depriving us of trading partners. No tech trading and near over-expansion ensured that we became backward compared to the other continent.

- However, like in the previous game, dominating our continent and cottaging up eventually allowed us to catch up. But this time, instead of the Financial trait, we had the results of our religious strategy to help us. And fortunately catching up wasn't as difficult this time because the other continent wasn't very harmonious.

In conclusion, while we did not win purely because of the 'religious strategy' (in fact, it was only a part of everything), it was useful and is definitely worth considering given the right conditions. It would have been even better if we had stone to help us build the two key wonders.

 

[aelf]

Anyway, with regards to another Emperor Challenge, I have started a thread to discuss what it's going to be like.

I'm open to suggestions and personally agree that we should turn off diplomatic victory this time

PS: I think the AI is inept at less standard maps like archipelago or snaky continents so IMO we should leave them out.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

In conclusion, while we did not win purely because of the 'religious strategy' (in fact, it was only a part of everything), it was useful and is definitely worth considering given the right conditions. It would have been even better if we had stone to help us build the two key wonders.

but if you had had stone, you wouldn't have hit the CS slinger...

 

[aelf]

but if you had had stone, you wouldn't have hit the CS slinger...

Pyramids? Well, in that case we... must... resist...!

 

[Gnarfflinger]

One thing: The Spiral Minaret grants Gold, not commerce. That Gold paid upkeep costs, allowing you to run a higher science rate.

I have used the SM+UoS trick before, and love it. Like you said, it was best to get one religion (I reccommend Confucianism because CoL is so useful), spread it then build up the holy buildings. I also delay Scientific method as long as I can to get the most out of the wonders involved and the Monasteries. It's a trick that needs to be refined, but will eventually be written up as an article...

 

[malekithe]

I know you wanted to try out the University of Sankore in this game and, of course, the Spiral Minaret is a no-brainer given that desire. Have you considered, though, that if you want to go for a wonder pair that benefits a religious style game, maybe go with the pyramids and angkor wat? In some circumstances you could even delay grabbing calendar and get a period of time where you've got a potential 2 priests per city who are each providing 2 hammers, 1 gold, and 3 beakers. Add in mercantilism and it gets even better. It's not quite as unrealistic to delay calendar as it would seem, as you could probably build temples to make up for the lack of calendar resources for a while and, once those temples were in place, you wouldn't be as bothered by the loss of the obelisk priests. That may not have been the best path for this game, but if you'd had stone, it may have been a viable alternative.

 

[aelf]

I know you wanted to try out the University of Sankore in this game and, of course, the Spiral Minaret is a no-brainer given that desire. Have you considered, though, that if you want to go for a wonder pair that benefits a religious style game, maybe go with the pyramids and angkor wat? In some circumstances you could even delay grabbing calendar and get a period of time where you've got a potential 2 priests per city who are each providing 2 hammers, 1 gold, and 3 beakers. Add in mercantilism and it gets even better. It's not quite as unrealistic to delay calendar as it would seem, as you could probably build temples to make up for the lack of calendar resources for a while and, once those temples were in place, you wouldn't be as bothered by the loss of the obelisk priests. That may not have been the best path for this game, but if you'd had stone, it may have been a viable alternative.

I agree. Somebody did raise the possibility early in the thread, and I've considered a similiar strategy even before this when I thought of trying a Philosophy slingshot with Alexander (for the Angkor Wat).

This system, however, is more delicate than the Spiral Minaret/Sankore system, since buildings stay there but priests can come and go depending on the situation. The dificulty of implementing it put me off it months ago when I tried. Perhaps it can work with an Industrious leader and can be done more easily now that there's a lot more knowledge on how to set up an SE. I'm certainly interested to try it out in a future challenge.

 

[aelf]

One thing: The Spiral Minaret grants Gold, not commerce. That Gold paid upkeep costs, allowing you to run a higher science rate.

Is that so? That means my calculations are off, but giving an extra 66 gpt before multipliers is still quite big. Sorry about the mistake

 

[UncleJJ]

I like what malekithe has said about Angkor Wat and I was going to make a similiar point myself. Angkor Wat priests go really well in a SE and add a good reason to spread religions as they are probably the best all round specialist. Whipping temples for them also gives some culture and happiness that newly conquered cities often need. That supports an aggressive play style.

There is then a strong synergy with University of Sankore and the Spiral Minaret since they also need a religion and temples and monastries which are low cost buildings that give good returns. That enables a rapid expansion by conquest to be self financing by simply installing a temple and monastry (early and middle game). These get the basic bonuses from the buildings plus culture and the bonuses from the 2 wonders and you could run an Angkor Wat preist. Does it get any better?

One comment on your game. I notice that there is quite a lot of jungle around Barcelona (both East and West) that could support 2 small cities on irrigated grassland for perhaps the last 100 turns of the game. Normally these would be marginal at best merely contributing hammers from slavery, but with the religious approach they could rapidly be developed and help with research and gold. This approach lowers the size threshold for useful cities and the bonus income from wonders plus the 2 holy shines means more smaller cities are viable. I think you could have settled there and cleared the jungle to get a good advantage working many useful grassland tiles. That would have needed more workers and leads to another criticism I have; you probably had too few workers for most of the game. Quite a few tile improvements were waiting a very long time, but that is a mistake I often make myself so don't feel bad.

That's more than enough criticism Great game and 2 good wins that I enjoyed following. I look forward to your next venture.