aelf
Ashen One
Everybody is either cautious or pleased with each other and there are no religious allies yet. It's too early to say.
The Emperor Masters' Challenge 4 (Warlords v.208)
- Thread starter aelf
- Start date
Everybody is either cautious or pleased with each other and there are no religious allies yet. It's too early to say.
I actually don't think it's out of the question, we will have a need to put forges in our cities both for happiness AND production in the relatively near future anyways, and the AI doesn't seem to give much priority to MC.
As for the wonder itself, oftentimes it's not built until really late - I'd say its still up for grabs. We'll still need to check what techs that are available once we hit alphabet - if MC is, that won't prevent us from grabbing it if no one has it by the time our forge is done. It's not like its risky to attempt cheap wonders like that, especially with prerequisite's we'll need soon anyway.
You will permanantly state against early war even if the map would dictate one? So you would have been fine if he had settled your copper city?
Gold helps research, but the primary need is for hammers and food. Next to that, you didn't knew Peter was more South then North, so the gold city being more close would still be a gamble. The point of the bronze with a different location first, would be the lack for a monument and therefore work the resources faster and expand faster.
Anyway, settlement is done and the arguments in favour and against are made. Time to move on.
I think techworing with a cottage economy is better suited with a GS strategy (one GS superscience city). Maybe you could elaborate where the Angkor Wat fits in your overall strategy?
ChicagoCubs
Prince
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2006
- Messages
- 361
On the exploration front, where are our current explorers, or did we pull those warriors/chariots back as barbarian defense?
I am curious as to which direction Peter is exapnding? I am sort of hoping that he is blocking the other civs on the continent. It would provide for a buffer zone and we could choose our sides carefully.
I am never a fan of settling in the jungle just because it takes so bloody long to burn and slash the jungle. The only reason I'd recommend settling on the Orange ? is to bloc Peter, but I don't think our economy can take the hit just to block. With that said, if Peter (or someone else) settles there, then I'd grab site B as qucikly as possible.
I am curious as to which direction Peter is exapnding? I am sort of hoping that he is blocking the other civs on the continent. It would provide for a buffer zone and we could choose our sides carefully.
I am never a fan of settling in the jungle just because it takes so bloody long to burn and slash the jungle. The only reason I'd recommend settling on the Orange ? is to bloc Peter, but I don't think our economy can take the hit just to block. With that said, if Peter (or someone else) settles there, then I'd grab site B as qucikly as possible.
aelf
Ashen One
I didn't think it was likely at that time. Even if that happened, we'd still have Hwachas and elephants.
voek said:
The look of the land seemed to indicate that Peter would more likely be more south than north. Maybe it was instinct. It could, after all, be a knee-jerk reaction. But, at any rate, I think teching to Construction quickly would benefit us more in the long run. I didn't let him have much time to get a settler to the bronze site anyway.
voek said:
Angkor Wat is a bonus option. Not an important one. It fits because lightbulbing Philosophy with the GS, an option that opens up lucrative tech trading opportunities and a good chance at winning the Liberalism race, would mean founding Taoism. We might then want a shrine, so we might want to run priests to get a prophet. Why not run improved priests? Moreover, Angkor Wat enables 3 priests, ensuring that we can get our shrine sooner. Admittedly, we might want to continue getting GS's for some time, but eventually the value of lightbulbing would be diminished and a shrine would be nice for extra gpt to power up our cottage-based research.
Do you see what I mean now?
I let the settlement discussion for what it is.
Regarding Angkor Wat; GS bulbing Philosophy is a good idea. No comment here.
Seeing the Wonder as a bonus is ok. Using the Shrine still depends on the current situation, but ok, we will see about that. If I see it correctly you are going to use it to get a GP for the Shrine and then move back to GS? So it's a short term effect (not strategy) which cost 250 hammers. In case it was 500 hammers I wouldn't even discuss it, but now I still doubt the hammers are worth it for such a small goal. But maybe we can review the situation after the discovery of Phi., since no matter what, that still is a viable goal.
My point is normally when you use the Angkor Wat in a strategy it is in a GP based strategy. Why should be obvious.
If you like a wonder bonus, consider hanging gardens. You are pursuing construction anyway and the extra population and health in peaceful (small) empire in nice. The prospect to generate 1 GE more easily should also be nice.
Regarding Angkor Wat; GS bulbing Philosophy is a good idea. No comment here.
Seeing the Wonder as a bonus is ok. Using the Shrine still depends on the current situation, but ok, we will see about that. If I see it correctly you are going to use it to get a GP for the Shrine and then move back to GS? So it's a short term effect (not strategy) which cost 250 hammers. In case it was 500 hammers I wouldn't even discuss it, but now I still doubt the hammers are worth it for such a small goal. But maybe we can review the situation after the discovery of Phi., since no matter what, that still is a viable goal.
My point is normally when you use the Angkor Wat in a strategy it is in a GP based strategy. Why should be obvious.
If you like a wonder bonus, consider hanging gardens. You are pursuing construction anyway and the extra population and health in peaceful (small) empire in nice. The prospect to generate 1 GE more easily should also be nice.
I'm only a price level player, but I think Either site A or the jungle city would be good. While the jungle city will take some investment, I think after clearing the jungle and building cottages, it will be an awsome commerce city, and cut off a section of coast for you.
Off topic, I tried a ToA plus TgLighthouse strat with Hannibal, and it was amazing.
Off topic, I tried a ToA plus TgLighthouse strat with Hannibal, and it was amazing.
thefais
Chieftain
As a (very fresh) prince player, take my suggestions with the grainiest of salts... But A, B, pink question mark seems a good order to go.
As far as techs, if you're planning to War soon (or a war becomes a good idea), beeline construction for the elephants and UU. But I have a feeling you won't need to war for a while (Petey's a pretty cool customer), so shoot for alphabet firstsies.
As far as techs, if you're planning to War soon (or a war becomes a good idea), beeline construction for the elephants and UU. But I have a feeling you won't need to war for a while (Petey's a pretty cool customer), so shoot for alphabet firstsies.
Phrederick
Warlord
A minor note: often, when running mercantilism and having a free specialist in every city, that specialist ends up being an engineer. With Angkor Wat, any city that has a temple (which will probably be most) will instead go with a priest. That'll give an extra gold per city, and allow a high-food city to temporarily become high-production if it has a couple temples. Also, I think that prophets are one of the best GPs to settle, although that might only be because all the other GPs have a better use...
Good point on the mercantilism and swopping engi's for priest. But although the governor loves to hire a engineer for the free specialist, most of the time I switch it to a scientist. Especially in a tech based game.
Priest are very good to settle, however most of the time there is better use for them. But in a Angkor Wat based strategy I will settle Priest after they lost most of their tech value. In a tech based game I would only want GS.
While running mercantilism the Angkor Wat can have extended use, but like I stated in my previous post, it depends on the situation on the moment if you have 250 hammers to spend. Besides, we kinda agreed it isn't a important part of overal strategy.
Priest are very good to settle, however most of the time there is better use for them. But in a Angkor Wat based strategy I will settle Priest after they lost most of their tech value. In a tech based game I would only want GS.
While running mercantilism the Angkor Wat can have extended use, but like I stated in my previous post, it depends on the situation on the moment if you have 250 hammers to spend. Besides, we kinda agreed it isn't a important part of overal strategy.
aelf
Ashen One
Yes, Angkor Wat will certainly depend on the situation. But I still disagree about having to pursue a GP-based strategy. Sometimes you needn't lock yourself into a one-track strategy. I like the power of being able to switch from GS's to prophets.
Anyway, I think you misunderstood me, voek. We will farm GS's up to Education, after which we'll switch completely to prophets, the first of which will build the shrine. And, as Phrederick says, settling the rest of the prophets is not a bad thing. The extra wealth and hammers will be decent with all those multipliers in place.
I'll be playing the next round tonight.
Anyway, I think you misunderstood me, voek. We will farm GS's up to Education, after which we'll switch completely to prophets, the first of which will build the shrine. And, as Phrederick says, settling the rest of the prophets is not a bad thing. The extra wealth and hammers will be decent with all those multipliers in place.
I'll be playing the next round tonight.
Syndrome Zed
Wanna see my quad laser?
you're already counting the bounty...
build the damn thing first
Awww...don't forget the old proverb, "Ya gotta dream, baby!"
aelf
Ashen One
I've played the next round. I'll try to post the update tonight. If I don't have the time, I'll do it tomorrow.
Not realy misunderstand, but only have a different opinion on tech strategy. But I can see the point of tech/bulbing to education/liberalism and then use phopets for production, gearing up for space race. You do know btw super Priest do not receive the hammer bonus from Angkor?
But after a long Saint Nicolas party (guess most of you are not familiar with this tradition) I am ready for the next round!
Phrederick
Warlord
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.
aelf
Ashen One
Round 3: 1440BC - 50BC
For all the fuss about Angkor Wat, we may actually not get it. I'll tell you why.
We went for Alphabet first, since that opened up the possibility of trading for Maths and IW. At least in past versions. Let's hope that in this version the doesn't like Alphabet that much either.
Following someone's advice (pardon me, I can't recall who
) I decided to get another worker out asap, so I changed Seoul's build:
We needed this guy to help hook up some of the nice resources we have around, including the elephants when we get Hunting. By the time Seoul built him, whip weariness would've disappeared and we could then continue growing the city.
We got the gold mine online soon:
From 26 turns to discover Alphabet to 16 turns
Witness the power of gold!
Anyway, Seoul was ready for another round of whipping shortly after:
For a library to run a scientist or two. We should try to get as many GS's as possible in this game, especially if we're going to switch to prophets later (which will bring its own benefits). The library also helped increase our beaker output. Neat.
With the gold mine just connected to the capital after that, we could grow Seoul back to size 4 instead of having to halt growth. Once that was done, we stagnated the city by running a scientist:
This scientist would more often than not be there so that we could get that first GS out asap.
And then we discovered Alphabet. Let's see what the tech situation was like:
We only had Alphabet on everyone, but there were some trades that could be made, so I decided to check things out with our neighbours.
First, I went to Peter, who was willing to trade Maths. Would he give it to me for Alphabet, though?
Yes, he was. Excellent! Now we have Maths, which brought us closer to Construction and our wonderful UU and elephants
Then I went to Saladin, who had IW and was willing to part with it:
At a stroke, we solved the problem of jungle cities as well. And with Hunting, we could now connect the elephants for extra happiness. All this by just beelining to Alphabet
We could only get Masonry from Napoleon this turn. It would be good to trade Alphabet to him asap so that the others couldn't do so, but since there's nothing Napoleon could offer the others for now, I decided it was safe to wait a turn and at least get Archery as well.
The little gamble paid off:
Now, some of you might say, "Why not wait for a better tech, then?" IMO, that wouldn't be wise. It's not safe to withold the trade for too long. Might as well get something more out of Alphabet than risk not getting anything.
Anyway, after Alphabet, I looked at the options we had. We could research Construction immediately, but that would take about 30 turns at this point. I guess it's not the time. We could research Drama now so that our first GS would be able to lightbulb Philosophy immediately, but that too would take too long at this point. Or we could research Polytheism and then Literature next and try to build the Great Library. We stood a good chance of getting the wonder if we chopped the trees around Seoul, so I took that option.
Then Peter decided that he's the boss now and demanded a tech from us:
I sent him packing. Let's see if you can still hold that smile when you see our mighty rockets bombarding your cities, buddy. Peter would be our first target anyway (there's no one else so near), so getting a penalty from him doesn't matter.
A few turns later, Pusan was built on the Site A highlighted in the previous round:
Its first build was a workboat to work those crabs. With a high food tile, we could get the city up to size 2 quickly and whip a monument there without blinking.
[to be continued in the next post...]
For all the fuss about Angkor Wat, we may actually not get it. I'll tell you why.
We went for Alphabet first, since that opened up the possibility of trading for Maths and IW. At least in past versions. Let's hope that in this version the doesn't like Alphabet that much either.
Following someone's advice (pardon me, I can't recall who
) I decided to get another worker out asap, so I changed Seoul's build:
We needed this guy to help hook up some of the nice resources we have around, including the elephants when we get Hunting. By the time Seoul built him, whip weariness would've disappeared and we could then continue growing the city.
We got the gold mine online soon:
From 26 turns to discover Alphabet to 16 turns
Witness the power of gold!Anyway, Seoul was ready for another round of whipping shortly after:
For a library to run a scientist or two. We should try to get as many GS's as possible in this game, especially if we're going to switch to prophets later (which will bring its own benefits). The library also helped increase our beaker output. Neat.
With the gold mine just connected to the capital after that, we could grow Seoul back to size 4 instead of having to halt growth. Once that was done, we stagnated the city by running a scientist:
This scientist would more often than not be there so that we could get that first GS out asap.
And then we discovered Alphabet. Let's see what the tech situation was like:
We only had Alphabet on everyone, but there were some trades that could be made, so I decided to check things out with our neighbours.
First, I went to Peter, who was willing to trade Maths. Would he give it to me for Alphabet, though?
Yes, he was. Excellent! Now we have Maths, which brought us closer to Construction and our wonderful UU and elephants
Then I went to Saladin, who had IW and was willing to part with it:
At a stroke, we solved the problem of jungle cities as well. And with Hunting, we could now connect the elephants for extra happiness. All this by just beelining to Alphabet
We could only get Masonry from Napoleon this turn. It would be good to trade Alphabet to him asap so that the others couldn't do so, but since there's nothing Napoleon could offer the others for now, I decided it was safe to wait a turn and at least get Archery as well.
The little gamble paid off:
Now, some of you might say, "Why not wait for a better tech, then?" IMO, that wouldn't be wise. It's not safe to withold the trade for too long. Might as well get something more out of Alphabet than risk not getting anything.
Anyway, after Alphabet, I looked at the options we had. We could research Construction immediately, but that would take about 30 turns at this point. I guess it's not the time. We could research Drama now so that our first GS would be able to lightbulb Philosophy immediately, but that too would take too long at this point. Or we could research Polytheism and then Literature next and try to build the Great Library. We stood a good chance of getting the wonder if we chopped the trees around Seoul, so I took that option.
Then Peter decided that he's the boss now and demanded a tech from us:
I sent him packing. Let's see if you can still hold that smile when you see our mighty rockets bombarding your cities, buddy. Peter would be our first target anyway (there's no one else so near), so getting a penalty from him doesn't matter.
A few turns later, Pusan was built on the Site A highlighted in the previous round:
Its first build was a workboat to work those crabs. With a high food tile, we could get the city up to size 2 quickly and whip a monument there without blinking.
[to be continued in the next post...]
aelf
Ashen One
[continued from previous post]
Napoleon was getting a little bossy too:
But in this case, I gave in. First, with our focus on Peter, we wouldn't want Nappy to give us trouble. Then, we needed to keep him as friendly as possible until we could take him on. Lastly, Polytheism wasn't exactly a very valuable tech anyway. It's cheap and only enables Napoleon to build wonders that I doubt he would be able to get. The Frenchman was Pleased by our generosity.
After we discovered Literature, Seoul started on the Great Library, with a little pre-chopping already done by our third worker. And we had to make a difficult decision. What should we research next? If we wanted to ensure that we get Philosophy, it would be Drama and maybe Meditation (if we can't trade for it) next. If we wanted to start building our UU and hope to use them before Peter gets Feudalism, we would go for Construction next. Both Drama and Const. would take 16 turns at 60% research. It was a tough one, but I decided to go for Construction in the end. Angkor Wat and Taoism would be nice, but our UU is much more important to us. Better get as much use out of them as we can.
After this, it was pretty much micromanaging the tiles worked in our cities to try and speed up the Great Library, for which we also chopped a few forests, while maintaining our research rate. This lasted for quite a few turns.
Then we got our first GS:
Now we're in another dilemma. We're still in the middle of researching Construction. If we wanted to use him to lightbulb Philosophy, we would have to wait till we got Drama and Meditation, meaning he would be sitting around for a lot of turns. What a waste. But if we don't save him for Philosophy, we might not be able to get our next GP in time to snag Taoism, without which lightbulbing Philosophy would be much less appealing. After more thinking, I decided to use him to build an Academy in Seoul. Yes, we run risk of losing the race to Philosophy, but that's not a foregone conclusion since the Academy would help us finish Construction and get Drama sooner and the Great Library would help us get that 2nd GS out as quickly as possible. It immediately shaved a turn off Construction. I imagine it would shave a few turns off Drama.
And why put the Academy in Seoul and not the gold city? Seoul has the capacity to produce much commerce itself, with the coastal tiles and lake around, and the Great Library would be there. As it was, it had the highest beaker output despite prioritising the hammer-producing tiles. I think there is no doubt that it's the best place for an Academy.
I ended the round after we discovered Construction. A look at the current tech situation:
They are all pretty advanced. I can already see the increased economic power of the AI in the patch. We have Construction and Literature on everyone except Napoleon, who had the former tech before us.
The power graph:
As I would expect. We had a few axes and chariots around, though, so our defenses were not pathetic.
The northern portion of the map:
I used a chariot to do a little scouting of Peter's lands. After all, we might be invading soon. It's good to know our objectives. I think Moscow should definitely go first.
The southern portion of the map:
We whipped a trireme in Seoul when it grew unhappy (also for the overflow to contribute to the Great Library's construction). It explored the coast to the south and found Saladin's lands. We're on a long continent, guys.
And here are some dotmaps for possible cities in the future:
The green question marks denote possible sites for a silver city that would also grab deer. It's just a question of whether we should make the city coastal and grab the iron as well or share the wheat with Wonsan. There's also the question of when we should build the city, given that we might capture some of Peter's soon. The blue question mark is a possible site to grab the iron, crabs and whale.
Now that iron has been revealed in the area, the orange question mark site would grab a whooping 7 resources! They are nicely laid out too. An opportunity too good to miss, if only for the kick?
Once again, we need to decide on what to research next. I think we should try winning the Philosophy race and hence research Drama and Meditation next. However, Confucianism has been founded so Taoism might be very soon. I don't know what our chances are at this.
On the subject of war, I think we should start pumping out Hwachas and elephants in all our cities soon and invade Russia. It would be good to catch Peter before he has longbows.
Napoleon was getting a little bossy too:
But in this case, I gave in. First, with our focus on Peter, we wouldn't want Nappy to give us trouble. Then, we needed to keep him as friendly as possible until we could take him on. Lastly, Polytheism wasn't exactly a very valuable tech anyway. It's cheap and only enables Napoleon to build wonders that I doubt he would be able to get. The Frenchman was Pleased by our generosity.
After we discovered Literature, Seoul started on the Great Library, with a little pre-chopping already done by our third worker. And we had to make a difficult decision. What should we research next? If we wanted to ensure that we get Philosophy, it would be Drama and maybe Meditation (if we can't trade for it) next. If we wanted to start building our UU and hope to use them before Peter gets Feudalism, we would go for Construction next. Both Drama and Const. would take 16 turns at 60% research. It was a tough one, but I decided to go for Construction in the end. Angkor Wat and Taoism would be nice, but our UU is much more important to us. Better get as much use out of them as we can.
After this, it was pretty much micromanaging the tiles worked in our cities to try and speed up the Great Library, for which we also chopped a few forests, while maintaining our research rate. This lasted for quite a few turns.
Then we got our first GS:
Now we're in another dilemma. We're still in the middle of researching Construction. If we wanted to use him to lightbulb Philosophy, we would have to wait till we got Drama and Meditation, meaning he would be sitting around for a lot of turns. What a waste. But if we don't save him for Philosophy, we might not be able to get our next GP in time to snag Taoism, without which lightbulbing Philosophy would be much less appealing. After more thinking, I decided to use him to build an Academy in Seoul. Yes, we run risk of losing the race to Philosophy, but that's not a foregone conclusion since the Academy would help us finish Construction and get Drama sooner and the Great Library would help us get that 2nd GS out as quickly as possible. It immediately shaved a turn off Construction. I imagine it would shave a few turns off Drama.
And why put the Academy in Seoul and not the gold city? Seoul has the capacity to produce much commerce itself, with the coastal tiles and lake around, and the Great Library would be there. As it was, it had the highest beaker output despite prioritising the hammer-producing tiles. I think there is no doubt that it's the best place for an Academy.
I ended the round after we discovered Construction. A look at the current tech situation:
They are all pretty advanced. I can already see the increased economic power of the AI in the patch. We have Construction and Literature on everyone except Napoleon, who had the former tech before us.
The power graph:
As I would expect. We had a few axes and chariots around, though, so our defenses were not pathetic.
The northern portion of the map:
I used a chariot to do a little scouting of Peter's lands. After all, we might be invading soon. It's good to know our objectives. I think Moscow should definitely go first.
The southern portion of the map:
We whipped a trireme in Seoul when it grew unhappy (also for the overflow to contribute to the Great Library's construction). It explored the coast to the south and found Saladin's lands. We're on a long continent, guys.
And here are some dotmaps for possible cities in the future:
The green question marks denote possible sites for a silver city that would also grab deer. It's just a question of whether we should make the city coastal and grab the iron as well or share the wheat with Wonsan. There's also the question of when we should build the city, given that we might capture some of Peter's soon. The blue question mark is a possible site to grab the iron, crabs and whale.
Now that iron has been revealed in the area, the orange question mark site would grab a whooping 7 resources!
They are nicely laid out too. An opportunity too good to miss, if only for the kick? Once again, we need to decide on what to research next. I think we should try winning the Philosophy race and hence research Drama and Meditation next. However, Confucianism has been founded so Taoism might be very soon. I don't know what our chances are at this.
On the subject of war, I think we should start pumping out Hwachas and elephants in all our cities soon and invade Russia. It would be good to catch Peter before he has longbows.
aelf
Ashen One
What's with the irritating problem of having the first screenshot of each post displayed as links? Never happened before the forum upgrade.
Can you see the screenshots?
Can you see the screenshots?
patagonia
Emperor
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2006
- Messages
- 1,025
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.
If you can afford the hit to production that hiring a scientist in Seoul would cause, it'll bring in 11 GPP a turn, making your next great scientist very close. Philosophy and Drama will probably make decent trade bait to keep up with Napoleon and Saladin while you're warring in Russia so I think the slingshot still makes sense.
Edit: re screenshots, I see the first in each post as a link, but the rest are displaying fine.
If you can afford the hit to production that hiring a scientist in Seoul would cause, it'll bring in 11 GPP a turn, making your next great scientist very close. Philosophy and Drama will probably make decent trade bait to keep up with Napoleon and Saladin while you're warring in Russia so I think the slingshot still makes sense.
Edit: re screenshots, I see the first in each post as a link, but the rest are displaying fine.
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