The Emperor Masters' Challenge 2 (on Warlords)

I'd put off war a Little bit longer

For Thebes, I'd make Confucianism the Official Religion, grow it and run it as
Corn+Horse+Grass Hill+2 Priests..10 Hammers (in ~12 turns you should have the GP convert to the next a few turns earlier to have it coincide with Polytheism)...plus the Priest Gold will offset the loss of the Lake

After the GP
Corn+Horse+3 Hills...providing 24 hammers with Bureaucracy

Of course that means Isabella is probably the target


Techwise, Pottery->Polytheism is a good idea (more for the Granary if you are planning on whipping Memphis than for the cottages)
Then Masonry for another 'Hill', and an Ability to Buld the Poly Wonders+GL
 
If you want to trade with Izzy, obviously making Confuscianism your state religion is not feasible. You will have to go after her if you take a different religion than her.
 
I think the pivotal decision will be whether to trade or not; whether researching Alphabet and trading with Izzy is more advantageous than warring with her. Could you research Alphabet before the GP pops? Would you gamble that Lizzy isn't building the Parthenon and would be willing to trade Polytheism? I don't see any real way where trading technology would give you a large advantage, so I'd lean towards not making Alphabet an immediate priority. Also, if you aren't going to trade, switching to Confucianism becomes a possibility.

Switching to Confucianism gives you +1pop in each city, which I think is a pretty strong advantage at this stage in the game. I think switching to that and warring with Izzy would be the best option. Leave the barb city for a while, because it would cost you maintenance and your empire isn't yet strong enough, especially if you're going to capture 1-3 cities from Spain.

Research path: Potter/Polytheism/CS, then Alphabet, Mathematics, and Monarchy are all appealing. Pop Theology with GP2, the Confucian shrine with GP3, and DR with GP4?
 
Phrederick said:
I think the pivotal decision will be whether to trade or not; whether researching Alphabet and trading with Izzy is more advantageous than warring with her.
The other consideration to this is doing both. Without Alphabet, you can't extort techs for peace. Izzy is often reluctant to trade with a heathen, but she is usually quite willing to share technology in exchange for survival. Also, techs-for-peace is the only way I know of to get around the limitation of the AI refusing to tech trade unless it has contact with at least two civs. In other words, if Aelf kills Huayna and is left on the continent with Izzy, it's the only way he'll be able to squeeze any techs out of her.
 
Good job getting the Oracle ( in 970BC on Emperor?????). I wish I was so lucky. As far as who to attack, if you are planning on destroying HC, then you might as well attack Izzy first... no point in keeping a trade partner that won't trade. You succesfully stifled HC to the point where he won't be too much of a problem until a little bit later and if you waste too much time on HC, Isabella might become strong and harder to deal with. Of course if you waste too much time on Izzy, then HC might recover. Its a tough choice.
I'd say attack Izzy first.
 
ahh aelf, your decision to show me your micro is VERY useful. THANK YOU!!! it will improve all of my future games against the AI. now for a little insight:

NOW we are at the pivital point where running the priests is the decision.

do you emphasize production to mass chariots??

OR

do you run priests in the oracle city until you pop that great prophet??

remember, our goal was to follow the path of the holy gods, and let their priests show us the way by giving us wealth and information directly from their holy power.

if they dictate that war is nessessary to further their own goals then so be it... the paganistic incans already beg for our mercy while we raze their fields in a demonstration of power.

but right now we need to hear the words of their priests, who will nurture a soul to lead us further down their path. he will either direct the construction of the holy shrine, or give us insight into how to better govern our citizens. his successor in our sister city will take the other path, and our entire empire will benifit from their holy words.

*in other words, run the priests in the capitol until the GP is born, then switch to 2 priests in the other city :p*

the prophets will show us the way, and GREATLY increase the power of our empire. let our holy warriors defend our territory and destroy the heathens that threaten our borders without reason. our god fearing citizens look to the land around them for more room to settle and give birth to even more holy followers who will either take up arms or the cloth to expand our influence across the globe.

well that was fun :D

NaZ
 
Well, I think once the holy ones to show us the glorious Orderliness of the Way, we should focus first on extending it to the strange philosophies of the Spaniards and only later turn back to consult them again when these new philosophies have been totally assimilated.
 
I see no problem with sending a WC or two up to deal with HC while you're at war if Peace is not in your agenda.

I also maintain that the Pyramids would help you immensely. Your focus will be more on aggression (if you have your own religion and are actively spreading it, how long can you afford to stay with Izzy's religion anyway?), and representation or Police State will be important...
 
Although I think Cuzco looks very nice (3 hills, 4 forest left if I remember correctly) you now have your own religion and you are at the hap. cap. Adopting religion certainly would help your growth and expansion. This would mean war with Izzy as stated by others. I am wondering if you won't destroy her before you are able to extort some techs.

But if you are going to attack Izzy and adopting your own religion I suggest sending a missionary to the Inca so they will adopt your religion and become happy again. I think the early war won't kill the relationship that much after some positive modifiers. So now we have a trading partner :) Now go get Izzy... Start when you see free workers.

(P.S. I know sending a missionary involves a little more like building a monastry, but he, you need it anyway)
 
voek said:
Although I think Cuzco looks very nice (3 hills, 4 forest left if I remember correctly) you now have your own religion and you are at the hap. cap. Adopting religion certainly would help your growth and expansion. This would mean war with Izzy as stated by others. I am wondering if you won't destroy her before you are able to extort some techs.

But if you are going to attack Izzy and adopting your own religion I suggest sending a missionary to the Inca so they will adopt your religion and become happy again. I think the early war won't kill the relationship that much after some positive modifiers. So now we have a trading partner :) Now go get Izzy... Start when you see free workers.

(P.S. I know sending a missionary involves a little more like building a monastry, but he, you need it anyway)

He probably won't agree to open borders...
 
Good point. However I don't think Huayna is that hateful and I wouldn't be suprised if he DOES agree to open borders. Maybe gift him a low tech if needed. I often notice the very early war (worker stealing) don't pisses all the AI that much, sometimes just a -1 modifier. But you could start building the missionary IF you can agree open border and abandon plan otherwise.
 
I never had the -1 modifier, at least I don't remember having one, are you sure about it? I always get a -3 for "you declared war on us", whether I only stole a worker or killed 10 units.

If it is -1, then sure, it is possible to convert the guy and tech trade with him.
 
I DO remember trading with lots of AI's which I declared war on for worker stealing. Most of the times being Inca and declare war on 5/6 civs :)

I think it also depends on how much the AI needs open borders with you (for crossing your land or spreading religion, etc), not only the relation modifiers.
 
voek said:
I think it also depends on how much the AI needs open borders with you (for crossing your land or spreading religion, etc), not only the relation modifiers.

Perhaps this is true but if it is, then HC is not interested in opening borders - he hasn't found a religion and aelf has. So the profit from opening borders will go to the egyptians and not the incas. And it is too early for HC to need to pass through aelf territory - he can simply surround it...

Anyway, we will probably see that in the next round. :) I too believe it's better to attack the Spaniards and get the holy city of budhism just in case.
 
Have you considered foregoing tech-trading and just aiming to get the continent to yourself? It's axiomatic that if a civ is powerful and advanced enough to have worthwhile tech-trades they're also powerful enough and advanced enough to be a threat.
 
I think not aiming for trading with only two AI's is certainly a option. But I don't think they need to be powerful and oppose a threat, while still having worthwhile techs. In the beginning you beeline much so I find it often usefull to backfill maybe less important techs from my neighbours. But maybe there isn't even an option to trade/extort. (However is Alphabet not needed for Literature?)

@hey joni: indeed we will see what's possible and what will happen.
 
Subscribed. ;)

Just wanted to say thanks for putting these threads together. They are extremely informative and interesting. I spent the best part of yesterday evening reading the Mansa game from start to finish (all 23 pages) and learnt a lot from it, from both aelf and those constructively contributing to the thread.

I also appreciate the detail that you've gone into the micromanagement of your capital in the early game here - it's given great insight to a new-ish player. Yet another thing I've got to improve a lot on. :) Do you micromanage your cities to this extent later on in the game, or do you relax a little?

I haven't opened the save, but it seems that there are just the three of us on this continent. What are your early thoughts on dealing with the other continent? I'm not sure it's been mentioned yet, but disrupting Isabella now would presumably harm her chances of founding more religions and might help bring some more religious tension elsewhere? Or are we expecting to pick up Judaism & Christianity on our way through to Paper?
 
PeteJ said:
Good job getting the Oracle ( in 970BC on Emperor?????). I wish I was so lucky.

IIRC, I got it only about 1 or 2 turns later than the year you were beaten to it, which is close but not very surprising.

I like Krikkitone's suggestion of converting to Confucianism and running two priests in Thebes (although I'd appreciate it if you could explain what you're talking about in the post after that :p ). We need more GPs if we are going to use them to get both Theology and DR after CS and maybe one for a shrine in between.

Anyway, I think we should go after Isabella before she is strong enough to resist our mighty WCs. At least we've bothered Huayna quite a bit and screwed his economy up. Trading is certainly good, but trading with only 1 AI is not that rewarding anyway. And if we can balance our economy well, we should still be able (following our plan) to get Paper and DR before anyone on the other continent and will probably be in a position to trade with them when they find us.

Which leads us, however, to the question Pogel raised. How will we deal with the other continent? They certainly won't like us immediately, since they will have different state religions. Will they want to trade with us? And what about the possibility of aggression from a strong overseas power who is unhappy enough about our religion to attack?

Those are some things we have to think about soon. For now, I think converting to Confucianism is the best thing to do. But should we capture the barb city to the north before attacking Isabella? If we do that, we'd already be paying quite a bit of upkeep when we take her on and might not be able to keep more than 1 or 2 of her cities without majorly sacrificing research. We need to be careful lest we fall behind and can't achieve what we set out to do in this game.
 
Gnarfflinger said:
I also maintain that the Pyramids would help you immensely. Your focus will be more on aggression (if you have your own religion and are actively spreading it, how long can you afford to stay with Izzy's religion anyway?), and representation or Police State will be important...

The Pyramids will be built sometime soon. I don't think we'd get it even if we try. I've been burned once, when I tried my first OCC as Bismark (who is Industrious) and aimed for the Pyramids early, chopping as many forests as possible, and was still beaten to it. That game was on Emperor.

In any case, I'm not inclined to run a specialist economy in this game. Ramesses is not Philosophical and we are already taking on quite a challenge by focusing on the religious path and putting two specific wonders that depend on religion at the centre of our strategy.

Besides, Representation is important if you are going for an SE, which we are not. And we don't really need Police State to be able to war effectively.
 
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