The Emperor Masters' Challenge

[aelf]

[continued from the previous page]

The answer:

I'll leave you to deduce it. I wasted no time:

And, ladies and gentlemen, the victor of the First Emperor's Challenge is...

After 14 rounds, more than a month, a few unsubscriptions, over 20 pages and more than 200 screenshots, we won

The sight of this really looks good after all that we've been through. Was it a fluke? That is up to you to decide. But I think it wasn't

Let's look at the statistics:

Like the ads say, if she tells you that size isn't everything, she's lying.

After Kublai was dead, our military strength didn't even matter. Not in a world of happy peaceful people.

We're mostly no.1, folks.

Look at how many cities we ended up building. So much for the initial intention of REXing peacefully. And check out how many missionaries we evangelicals built.

And, naturally, we are no.1 in the charts:

This game is higher scoring than all the diplomatic games I've played on this computer and on the other one too. It's also higher than any of the space victories. Probably it's because this is the earliest victory date I've ever got.

Now, anyone care to give an overall analysis?

 

[Murky]

Nicely done! congrats.

 

[Abegweit]

Fantastic!

Great story telling.

You deserved the win

 

[pigswill]

Simple analysis: don't give up half way through. It was indeed getting a continent to yourself and cottaging merrily that transformed the game. Oh, you played well too. Congrats.

 

[Petrucci]

Amazing Aelf!! That was a brilliant showing congrats to your well deserved win! Whew, talk about a nail biter!

 

[carl corey]

In the immortal words of Eric Cartman: Sweet! Really glad you went all the way.

 

[aelf]

Simple analysis: don't give up half way through. It was indeed getting a continent to yourself and cottaging merrily that transformed the game.

It was possibly one of the worst situations I ever got into without losing militarily so you must excuse my pessimism. I am not much of a cottager usually, preferring a mix of specialist and cottage economies, so I really had no idea how much cottage spamming could help us.

Oh, you played well too. Congrats.

Tell me that isn't an afterthought

Thanks for your support, everyone. The anxiety was great but it's well worth it.

 

[NaZdReG]

damn Aelf.. one hell of a game.. showing off the fact that cottaging up the empire can be SIGNIFIGANTLY powerful in the late game. I've never won by diplomacy but you just showed me how.. What a game man is all I can say. played as the underdog the ENTIRE game and still managed to pull it out. nice work dude.

looking forward to seeing your next game!!

NaZ

 

[Sisiutil]

Well done!



Not just winning the game, but the whole thread. It was very instructive. Your diplomatic play and use of AI relations was, indeed, masterful and lived up to the thread's title.

I hope you post a similar thread soon, but I'll understand if you want a little time off.

 

[Poodlebrain]

Well done aelf! Your perserverence and ability to pull off a diplomatic victory was truly inspiring. I learned so much about diplomacy watching your game that I'm embarrassed at my ignorance in this critical area of the game.

 

[aelf]

I hope you post a similar thread soon, but I'll understand if you want a little time off.

I've gotten myself Warlords, so that might not take too long But I think I should change the rules a bit for the next round to make things more interesting.

 

[NaZdReG]

Aelf,

I also have been playing warlords since release day.

(though most of my games are multiplayer online 2v2 team battlegrounds matches)

even still I would really appreciate you playing out the new civs, or whichever one you are most comfterble with. looking forward to seeing your strategic decisions including
choice of specialist econ or cottage econ (or hybrid econ???)
use of great generals (academies, specialists, or warlord generation)
strategic choices designed to maximize use of the 3 new traits
and the unique buildings.

also if you would like to play online, plz feel free to ping me with a buddies request!!

looking forward to your next thread

NaZ

 

[aelf]

also if you would like to play online, plz feel free to ping me with a buddies request!!

Play-by-email or pitboss sounds manageable and interesting. But my playing days are erratic and may have quite a bit of interval between each other, as you can see from this thread. Well, in any case, I need to learn how to play Warlords first.

 

[Shigga]

Well done! Gratz to you, glad your efforts weren't spoiled by a loss

 

[cabert]

first congrats!

second, analysis :
- you're one hell of a diplomat! (first the kublai thing, then the diplo win = )
- you, as an underdog, did really well on the tech+money thing
- I am happy you didn't give up (even if i thought you were toast)
- cottaging late is still useful

 

[voek]

Congratz Aelf! Fantastic win. Much more rewarding winning this close! I played a shadow game so I know how tough it was and believe me all, it was.

Don't have warlords yet, but looking forward to the new thread anyway.

P.s. For vanilla players, I would like to point out the GOTM. Nice emperor game playing the Inca's. Great to start with when starting to play Emperor.

 

[aelf]

I played a shadow game so I know how tough it was and believe me all, it was.

You were the one who won your shadow game, right? Tell me about it, now that the Challenge has been won.

Thanks, all. Without your advice and your encouragement, I wouldn't have been able to carry the game this far.

My own take on the game:

- Some mistakes and lack of focus early on almost cost us the game. I should've pretty much ignored Skirmishers and gone to war asap with whipped axes. Then again, I didn't know I only had two non-peaceful neighbours. But there must've been some way I could tell that early war was vital.

- I feel that we took out Kublai and Napoleon completely at about the right time. But it might not have cost us so much in the early game and we might not have faced as much resistance later on had we taken the initiative with an axe rush.

- As some of you guys mentioned, the cottage spamming worked really well. So we learn that late mid-game cottages with Emancipation can be powerful too. This demonstrates the possiblity of having a whipping or specialist economy early on and then transitioning into a cottage one in mid-game.

- Diplomacy was really important. I have to thank my experience in this area since Civ III. In some games it may be quite negligible. Those are usually the warmongering domination-oriented ones. In some others, however, astute diplomacy becomes vital. This was an example of the latter.

Anyway, thanks again. Do participate in the discussion on what the next Emperor's Challenge should be like. I can't wait to begin soon, but I need your feedback and opinion. Meanwhile, I shall continue familiarising myself with Warlords.

 

[voek]

You were the one who won your shadow game, right? Tell me about it, now that the Challenge has been won.

Since I was against the Skirmisher approach in the first place with your game and I would have researched bronze quickly too, I have skipped archery in my game. Almost forgot, I went on worker stealing with France. Not planning to but I had a forrest promoted warrior (movement) and saw a good oportunity. After a long walk, i had a worker and a angry Nappy

Other things I did differently was building the Stonehenge, giving me easy culture without religion. I must say this resulted in a very difficult battle with the barbs before I got some axes online. I have done a lot of emergency whipping which slowed down my economy, but gave me a small axes force with XP...

After the early early barb war, I didn't waited like you did with the assault on Khan. The good thing was I didn't faced many hill city's and Khan didn't had his UU for a long time . Next to that, I kept a few city's which was good for the amount of city's I didn't had to build, but the great distance cost me dearly. The early war prevented Khan from expanding very far, so his city's where quit far away (in the south).

Nappy was angry with me for the worker stealing and next to that he and Khan had the same religion (Hinduisme) and where making out, not enjoying me as partycrasher...

After a relative short war with Khan he was cut down enough. I healed and attacked France. I had not enough axes to capture much (just one city), but stole some workers and pillaged a little, but mainly defended and build up swords... He had axes fairly quick so it stalled my attack also.

All this warring was needed to fund my great upkeep (tnx to the great distance). I quickly went for CoL and used prophet for CS. Problem was I couldn't trade much (they hated my guts) and had to research everything

But extorsion is sweet...

After a long time of warring/sue for peace/rince repeat, I captured much of the continent and build up some nice city's. When the others came knocking I wasn't much behind in tech after some trading. Intelligent trading helped big time here!

The other continent looked similar compared with the original game. Big plus was Cathy having a different religion from the rest, but she was powerfull. Same where the Americans at that time. I bribed the Yanks in a war with Cathy (which prob. cost me a diplo win). That certainly put Cathy down before she could use cossacks

I continued conquering my continent with minimum troops. I was warring and building the same time. (Needed for the economy). After a good time cottage spamming I was the leader...

But the peacefull continent overseas (the war didnt last long and was soon forgiven) traded like maniacs. I first tried to go for a diplo vic since I would never be able to build up a force big enough to invade. They were much to powerfull although my (shrinking) techlead.

I figured out I had a lot more production AND did get Hooverdam (uh the powerwonder). At the end I won a space victory only with the help of my faithfull spy's.

I had to focus on production and sabotage. Maybe I could won more easily when I didnt try a dilpo vic but going straight for Space.

To prevent being invaded I build tons of cannons/arty/tanks to whipe them out if they landed (still far behind in power). I pushed them out culturaly (where they settled).

My biggest luck was the religion difference between Cathy and FDR. My biggest contribute was the early axe war, but I kept to many city's I think. So early war again, but much more difficult because of the large distance between our empire and Khan's/Nappy's. I founded the close capitals very odd in the game.

I think when I was invaded at one point, I wouldn't survived the game...

I won't count it as an actual win, since I had some knowledge when I started, although I didn't start much later.

I had some luck in the beginning with barbs and later the other continent. Overall I had greatly respect for your quick economy recover and setting up good relations with the other continent. I failed my dilpo win with the bribed war with Carhy, although I think it gave me the edge for the techrace (space).

 

[aelf]

Wow. The revelation of how your game went makes me realise just how bad the game was naturally, and that in my version it was made even worse by the fact that the entire other continent shared a religion.

I did imagine when you said you won your shadow game that you had the entire continent under control quickly (but perhaps not easily) and were able to eke out a tech lead and, eventually, domination victory. At that time I was one the brink of despairing at my warmongering skills

 

[HectorSpector]

My sincere apologies that I've wasted your time in this thread. I hope you've enjoyed it, anyhow. Yes, I'm aware I've disgraced myself I think this is the first and last Emperor's Challenge from me.

You thought you were done for, but had the balls to hang on and win. Bravo.