The Emperor Masters' Challenge 4 (Warlords v.208)

[carl corey]

I think it has something to do with editing your posts right here instead of clicking on the "go advanced" button. At least that's the only time it happened to me. If you do a re-edit and click "go advanced" instead it should appear normal again. I see all the screenshots except the first in each post, so it's not your computer or anything, it's a forum problem.

 

[aelf]

I'd like to see Orange ? founded before war with Peter, simply because it's such a great city site and snags you a bunch of resources you don't yet have. Looking closely at the screenshot, it looks like the barbs may have founded a city on the hill there 1S of the bananas (is the square to the W of the bananas covered in barb culture?). That means the AI will start sending troops there soon, so I'd send your elephants and hwachas down for a spot of training before moving west into Russia, razing the barb spot and settling your own on the bananas immediately. The troops (hopefully now with extra XP) could then move on to Novgorod while you're building reinforcements to link up with them outside Moscow.

That's kind of a big detour, isn't it? Several turns wasted for jungle city we can't really afford or improve yet. I'm not for it. I think the city, if it's going to be built, has to come later.

I think it has something to do with editing your posts right here instead of clicking on the "go advanced" button. At least that's the only time it happened to me. If you do a re-edit and click "go advanced" instead it should appear normal again. I see all the screenshots except the first in each post, so it's not your computer or anything, it's a forum problem.

Thanks! That did the job. What a stupid problem.

 

[shadow2k]

I'd be interested to see the results of building an ironworks/wall street city with all the settled prophets. It could be a pretty powerful city.

This was a while back (GOTM2), so I don't remember the game all that well. But this was my capital, and had Wall Street/Oxford in Bureacracy.

I guess I could have put IW there instead, but I usually want that in a city that is geared more towards production.

 

[carl corey]

You're welcome, aelf. I don't think the problem was an old one. Maybe something happened at a forum update? I'll try to find the appropriate forum to post about it.

 

[futurehermit]

Nice round Aelf.

I would like to propose forgetting about philosophy and angkor wat. Drama and medit don't do much for us besides opening up philosophy and I'd rather see our beakers go someplace else at this point. Plus I'm not a huge fan of Angkor Wat, but that's just me.

I would recommend settling the orange site and trading for calendar asap.

Re: War with Peter...What is our stance on this given the goals of the game? How many cities would we need to win a space race victory do you think?

With Peter having a neg mod and mid-game-threat Nappy on the continent there is definite tension and having a peaceful game the whole game seems doubtful...However, given the goals of the game I don't know that I'm a huge fan of launching an invasion of Peter at this point. If we're going to war, then Peter is for sure the target, especially with his capital right there, but does this take us away from what we are trying to do? I don't know...If war is the way you want to go though Aelf, I'm cool with that, especially with elephants and hwatchas

That silver city in the north is very low food and lots of tundra...I'd recommend sending some fog-busters up there and settling it once your economy can absorb the hit from some garbage cities like that I'd recommend the southern coastal spot for sure to open up at least some workable coastal tiles. The northern one, while it grabs some resources is worse imo.

How is our standing with Saladin right now? If we settle the orange spot and he is nearby I wonder if we are going to start getting tension there. I wouldn't want to see us having friction with all civs on the continent when trying for a "peaceful" game (can never trust nappy imo).

 

[NaZdReG]

Aelf,

very nice to see you take the beeline to alphabet, and see its noticeable payoffs. the academy in the capitol WILL pay for itself. despite inclination to pop techs I'd consider doing the same in any other city with good commerce potential. one of korea's strongest midgame points is having 6 cities with library, saewoon, academy. thats 110% boost to beakers with a cottage heavy strat.. its kinda gross.

good job beelining to literature, the great library will help you achieve the above goal if you should decide to.

I would settle south to get the eles before you finish construction. send 2 workers or so down there to get them hooked up asap. prepare for a major butt whooping. I would go with 80% hwachas protected by 2 eles a spear and an axe or so. looking forward to seeing this upcoming war.

as far as the godly 7 resource city.. really nice of the map generator to give you that, and expanding to take it would probably be better than most cities you can capture. doesnt mean you shouldnt kick the tar out of russia though

next update will be interesting for sure

NaZ

 

[Bolkonski]

Regarding expansion to the south, you will need iron eventually and the most accessible is in the jungle to the SE of Seoul. I think you should expand in this area first. There is a barb city to the SE of the iron, probably 1S of the dye and 1NE of the copper. I would not penetrate too deeply into the jungle as it is time consuming to chop, My inclination would be to settle 1E of the iron; you would get dye within the city radius immediately and bananas later with expansion. Peter has a settler 3E of P'yongyangs's gold and I suspect that he may try to settle 1NE of the dye so you will need to get there fast. Fortunately there is a barb archer on the square at the moment.

I have mixed feelings about expansion to the north in the immediate future. Tundra is labour intensive to develop and not that productive. I would be more inclined to block either Peter or Barbs for that matter moving into the temperate north east. The river running from north east to south west forms a natural boundary. Across the river Yekateringburg is a possible choice for conquest or razing as it controls Peter's only visible source of iron and on expansion will include stone. I note that he does not have copper.

 

[Sisiutil]

I myself favour settling the orange city 1N of the bananas. That way you'll claim sugar with the 2nd border pop.

I do like popping a GS for Philosophy, not so much for Taoism, but because it gives me a real advantage for the Liberalism race later on. Not only is Philosophy a pre-req tech for Liberalism; if you found Taoism, the AI seems averse to researching Philosophy, giving you a further advantage in that race. Plus Philosophy is a great trading tech; the AI likes it, but it's not especially dangerous.

I'm a little surprised you haven't done more exploring--there's a lot of dark area on the map. Now that you have Hunting and Writing, maybe you should use a combination of Open Borders and a Scout to find out all you can about the rest of your continent.

 

[lilnev]

Good work. I completely agree with the Alphabet (2nd best tech in the game, after BW), Lit for GL, and academy decisions.

I would settle 2N of Bananas. One food resource is fine, you can work the Iron immediately and gradually add cottages, and it doesn't waste good land tiles. It looks like you don't even have to kill the barbs first to settle there. No one else is going to move on the Silver, and it won't be a great city, so I'd leave it until you're getting forges and want the happiness.

Hwachas are amazing. I don't think it goes too much against the spirit of the game to take Peter's lands, if you then cottage them and use them to beat Saladin to the stars. In which case it's best to do it before Peter has longbows.

I'm fine with 'bulbing Philo, though I usually get there through CoL (Drama always strikes me as a marginal tech). I still don't understand the fascination with Angkor Wat, though. With a financial leader, your cottages will be so much stronger than either a priest-based or shrine-based strategy. Since this is a tech-themed game, let it demonstrate "The Power of the Cottage". Speaking of which, I'd be building cottages instead of farms around Pusan. It's already got plenty of food. Those river-grasslands can make it a commerce powerhouse in no time.

Good work, keep it up.

peace,
lilnev

 

[NaZdReG]

I agree with sisuitil, and submit the following dotmap adjustment (attached)

rest of my comments have already been made though.

NaZ

 

[thefais]

Keep the orange one where it is, for more production from the copper and the second grassland hill. And, since they're on grasslands, you can take work them...

 

[acidsatyr]

i agree also settling on bananas will give you base 3 food not 2

 

[johnny_rico]

i agree also settling on bananas will give you base 3 food not 2

Was this actually a question presented somewhere in the thread? I missed it. Anyway, also agrees, you will get 3 food settling on bananas.

 

[futurehermit]

Based on what others have said, I would suggest settling banana-iron asap (settle on bananas, there's enough food there) so Saladin doesn't take it then settle elephant-fish. I am still a bit concerned about getting neg modifiers from saladin for close borders. Hopefully his religion will spread to us so we can adopt it, although that might make things tricky with Nappy...

At that point, it seems everyone is leaning toward war, so sacking Moscow seems like the most likely next order of business.

It seems to me that the game will play out with us wiping out Russia then continuing on to take out Nappy (can you ever trust that guy?). We could probably remain peaceful with Saladin and then pursue space victory. Probably too early to tell, but I see that as the most likely blue-print for this game. Thoughts?

 

[johnny_rico]

Sally's got the protective trait which I would guess translates to a very early or very late war on the emperor difficulty setting. Once he's got feudalism, I imagine he'll be very difficult to sack and his camel archers won't be far away. Thus, I think a peaceful existence with him will be a good thing.

A -1 negative modifier from close borders is inevitable so I think some jungle settling is in order especially considering the alternative of wresting a city or two from saladin will make for poor relations continent wide. Peter is the obvious first victim. You can't trust napoleon. Stability with Sally should is a goal worth pursuing but I wouldn't concern myself with the -1 close borders penalty. You can gain plenty of positives through trades, gifts, support, religion, and civics. Perhaps a mutual military struggle against nappy if you can get on the same page with religion (i.e. friendly).

 

[Thomas G.]

Orange will have to be founded right away if you want it, its a great potition resource-wise, and I'm sure the computer will pick it up ASAP.

I believe silver city should be founded precisely 1 NW of the Wheat-tile. That way you pick up deer, silver AND cows to work, and less useless tundra. It will share 4 tiles with Wonsan, but that might not be all bad, they can share the corn for growth-spurts and help each others cottages get up and running.

This also leaves room for the Crab-iron city further north (painful location) in a distant future when you want to fill in your lands. And grab the mighty whale.

The big question is of course, settle yourself or just take Peter's land. Hwacha will shine at the time you get them, I almost feel sorry for the Russians. Mabye a 4:1 Hwacha - Elephant build rate?

What will you do with your first great generalissimo? Mabye boost a unit for exp unless you get a 17 natural one, in which case you settle him. A spiritual civ should find settling less appealing as they can always run Theo/Vass for 5 unit-pumping turns, but that second promotion off the bat makes some difference. And remember settled generls give 3 beakers under representation...

 

[patagonia]

What will you do with your first great generalissimo? Mabye boost a unit for exp unless you get a 17 natural one, in which case you settle him. A spiritual civ should find settling less appealing as they can always run Theo/Vass for 5 unit-pumping turns, but that second promotion off the bat makes some difference. And remember settled generls give 3 beakers under representation...

Korea's Protective/Financial - no spiritual here despite starting with mysticism.

Since the consensus is that war with the French is highly likely at some point, maybe a medic 3 would be a good idea again. It seemed to prove quite useful in the last EMC if I remember correctly, and all you need is to get a combat 1 promoted Hwacha to 6XP to make that a viable option, which shouldn't be too hard.

 

[johnny_rico]

Korea's Protective/Financial - no spiritual here despite starting with mysticism.

Since the consensus is that war with the French is highly likely at some point, maybe a medic 3 would be a good idea again. It seemed to prove quite useful in the last EMC if I remember correctly, and all you need is to get a combat 1 promoted Hwacha to 6XP to make that a viable option, which shouldn't be too hard.

Medic 3 units are nice. Optimal would be a chariot with medic 3 and the promotion that gives one more movement point. I don't recall if horses are readily available.

 

[NaZdReG]

so aelf immediate consensus would include building a settler and getting him ontop of those bananas asap. would be a signifigant production center with the copper and iron so would be a good hwacha production centre.

what is your current ratio of hwacha/other unit production?? this is where I'd like to really learn to improve my game.. using this particular moment in the game to its most effectiveness.

my usual idea is to secure myself more land and a total of 8-10 cities, then get the library and saewoon up in the 6 best commerce sites, build an academy in each one, drop oxeford in the best city (whopping 210% beaker production.. jeezus) and the other 5 sit at 110% beaker production. so in that stage of the game a size 6 city produces 30-40 beakers by itself.. with these multipliers in place you get 5 cities at the 60-100 mark and 1 city at close to 140-200 (quite a range but gold etc can throw that off) resulting in close to 700-800 bpt

not including the other cities mind you but it makes expensive techs research in less than 6 turns a piece.

NaZ

 

[lilnev]

Post-patch, you only need a thrice-promoted unit = 10 XP to build the HE, so attaching the first GG is not so mandatory.

I believe silver city should be founded precisely 1 NW of the Wheat-tile. That way you pick up deer, silver AND cows to work, and less useless tundra. It will share 4 tiles with Wonsan, but that might not be all bad, they can share the corn for growth-spurts and help each others cottages get up and running.

Wonsan is going to want to monopolize that Wheat, but I agree that that looks like a good spot. Peter will probably try to claim the Cow soon, but he might settle on the riverbank. The AI seems to love fresh water.

peace,
lilnev