The Emperor Masters' Challenge

[kniteowl]

How would giving Khan writing make him anymore fearsome an opponent? It's not close to any military tech. Trade as much as you can with him, then kill him when he doesn't have anything to give anymore.

I never under-estimate AIs on Emp or higher sometimes for how fast they research is insane... Delaying them from any tech advantage would be a great help... but maybe im being to causious and pestimistic lol

Writing = Library which leads to Maths which leads to construction... Is khan hiding any elephants on that map??? lol Nvm

BTW aelf you should position one of your explorers near Beshbalik to pillage those horses at the start of the war, cutting him off to his UU aint we Evil! LOL

 

[Strobe]

Look forward to the dot map.

I would not settle a city you need to put too much work into, i.e. clearing jungle etc.. just to get the spot before the AI. All your early cities must be quickly doing something you need them to do.

If the AI settles it, they won't gain too much either at this stage and you can make it a priority for capture/raze when it is time for war.

 

[aelf]

I am not sure Kublai Khan only has one source of horses. Enough spears and we don't have to worry much about Keshiks anyway.

Anyway, I will trade Writing with Kublai Khan when he will trade either Masonry or Meditation. I like to trade techs whenever practical and possible, as long I am not trading away techs that are directly dangerous.

Well, here's the dotmap that I promised:

Brown lines mark the fat crosses of the existing two cities. There's not much to say about the fish city (Site A) except the question of whether it should be settled next.

Site B is the ideal copper city site and can be considered quite important for our military because of its considerable early productive capabilities. It can help to pump out axes quite well when it's time to fight. Should we settle it soon?

Site C claims the horses in the west. There are two possible locations (C1 and C2), but I am leaning towards C2. Well, decision depends on whether a two coastal tile overlap with Djenne is better than having 3 ocean tiles in that city's fat cross.

Site D is nothing great, but it fills up the gap between NE city and capital, one that the AI might send a settler in a galley to fill. Overlap with capital is very unpleasant to me, though, as it contributes to a total of 7-tile overlap in Timbuktu if the dotmap is to be followed exactly. D1 seems way better because D2 would include another peak and a desert and moves away from the river. Either way, this city would have no food source except the sheep.

Site E seems to me the most plausible place to claim the silk and spice to the south. It has river in its fat cross but doesn't have access to fresh water and has hills around it to frustrate early farming efforts (until CS probably). If we want this site (i.e. before the war) we may have to settle it pretty soon before Kublai does, and that is probably some time before we get Calendar.

Finally, Site F is probably the best spot for claiming both the stone and the corn. It won't have access to either of this while Turfan still stands, though (hence the dotted lines to indicate its current impracticality), and its location would leave the lake (marked 'X') unworked, which is a bit sad for a Financial civ.

Any opinions? And what do you think should be the order of settling these sites? I am not sure we can get them all, but it helps to formulate a plan. I am tempted to stop at Sites A,B,C,D and then build up for war, especially if Kublai puts more cities near us.

 

[Mutineer]

I would claim F if you can. It is near capital, stone and corn and consolidate your therethory.

After F I would consider C, as hourses is one of strategic resources.
Next A, as A is probably the best city you can build in near by feature.
Problem with A that is ti to isolated and far away from capital.

 

[voek]

I agree with Mutineer. Expand towards your opponents. They both have good resources. Problem with the 'productive' copper city is it's lack of food, so it can't work many mines. Corn+stone = good production though.

Site A has good food sources (maybe GPfarm?), but to far away for fast troops and you can always claim it later.

When you leave site E alone, the AI will settle it pretty soon when they get out of free space. Take it or conquer/raze it.

You don't have much (cottage) grassland (yet). Time to conquer some....

 

[futurehermit]

I always think about cities in terms of surplus food sources (pre-irrigation) and settle them accordingly. Here are the number of surplus food sources for your potential cities:

A: 3, good, settle it.

D1-2: 0, unless it steals the sheep away from your capital, sux, forget it

B: 0, wait for irrigation

E: 1 (farmed river grasslands), wait at least for ironworking, preferably for irrigation

F: 2 (farmed lake grasslands), consider it since it has stone also.

C1-2: 0, wait til irrigation.

Final analysis: I would settle F then axerush kublai keeping close cities, razing in between ones, and then pillaging what's left, then sue for peace.

Why is surplus food important? Pop-rushing. If you don't have surplus food poprushing will be much slower which means much lower production and military capacity early on (hammers don't really begin to add up til later). If you don't have surplus food your city takes forever to grow and then you don't really want to poprush a lot cuz then it takes forever to grow again.

 

[aelf]

futurehermit, your advice sounds good. However, this will put us back into war mentality, the going back and forth you talked about. If we want war maybe settle B first and then F? Mainly because of the military production B can give even at size 2.

While Djenne can be whipping axes out, Timbuktu and copper city can be building axes with hammers. I've done some detailed calculations (gasp!) and concluded that copper city will most likely be stuck at size 2 for a long time, but at that size can give up to 9-10 hammers. Axes in 6 turns can certainly help the massing of an army.

Maybe we should even raze Turfan first before settling F (which is going to be useless until it can control the stone and corn). Again, going back and forth

 

[futurehermit]

However, this will put us back into war mentality, the going back and forth you talked about.

yeah, sorry, i don't want to contribute to that, but i'm just giving you my best advice based on the lay of the land.

I've done some detailed calculations (gasp!) and concluded that copper city will most likely be stuck at size 2 for a long time, but at that size can give up to 9-10 hammers. Axes in 6 turns can certainly help the massing of an army.

i feel that this city will just be a drain on your economy. imo much better to be pop-rushing military while building military instead of just building military. regardless of whether you go military however, i would still suggest avoiding low-food cities. but if you take this advice (avoid low food cities) then i believe this will take you toward kublai anyways...

Maybe we should even raze Turfan first before settling F (which is going to be useless until it can control the stone and corn). Again, going back and forth

turfan doesn't overlap enough to justify razing it imo. just 1-pop pop rush an obelisk and then you'll have the corn, farmable grassland tile, and the stone...

EDIT: hmm...after looking at the pic again, i see that i've misjudged the overlap. turfan gets the corn and the stone.

so, i would change my advice...settle A, capture turfan, re-evaluate.

 

[acidsatyr]

F - corn = pop rush units. Closest to battlefield.

 

[futurehermit]

F - corn = pop rush units. Closest to battlefield.

remember that kublai's creative though and it's likely that he'll start with the corn in his cultural borders and you'll have to try pushing his borders off in order to get it.

plus once you build F you're probably gonna have to raze kublai's city cuz there's a high degree of overlap.

i'd rather settle the 3 sea-resource city and take kublai's city

 

[acidsatyr]

i didnt see it, turfan, right.
still, if its 3 rings outside i'd settle it and grab corn
every other spot is useless atm, except northern city which is so far away

 

[futurehermit]

i didnt see it, turfan, right.
still, if its 3 rings outside i'd settle it and grab corn
every other spot is useless atm, except northern city which is so far away

i don't know, i was just reviewing the map of the known world again.

turfan is in a great spot that not only grabs the corn and stone, but is *also on a river*. this map is incredibly low food and turfan is in a great spot. i see maybe 2 good spots se of turfan as well. kublai's capital also looks good. the area in between kublai and "us" looks *brutal* for settling though really low food, lots of jungle, etc.

at first i was in favour of lots of settling, but as i look at the map again i think that the best strategy is taking turfan and the capital and then settling or capturing two cities to the east. then turning attention on napoleon.

btwn, are we sure there isn't anyone else on the continent with us?

Edit:

except northern city which is so far away

it's true that it's distant, but the fact that it has 3 surplus food sources makes it an insane whipping center and roads should lessen the distance factor somewhat.

 

[Zombie69]

Never disconnect an AI's horses in the early game, unless it's Egypt (war chariots). If an AI wants to build chariots, immortals, or worse expensive and useless horse archers or keshiks, let him. It will only hurt him to spend hammers on those rather than archers.

 

[Sisiutil]

Never disconnect an AI's horses in the early game, unless it's Egypt (war chariots). If an AI wants to build chariots, immortals, or worse expensive and useless horse archers or keshiks, let him. It will only hurt him to spend hammers on those rather than archers.

Very good advice. Just make sure you have plenty of Spearmen. But I think you knew that.

Too bad Kublai beat you to the stone/corn city. In my shadow game (abandoned due to real life demands and the ALC, sorry), barbarians settled there first. Darn convenient, that. Your other city sites, as has been pointed out, are all problematic.

Still, you need more cities, and I really think war with Kublai is unavoidable, so there's no point waffling. Rather than waiting on A as I suggested earlier, since it's the site with the best food supply and therefore the best source for the ever-hungry whip, settle there next. You need to push Kublai back and take that high food area around F--either for your own new city, or for a captured Turfan.

 

[Alraun]

Emperor/epic is definitely a lot easier than Emperor/normal. Whether it's easier or harder than Monarch/normal is impossible to objectively evaluate, imho.

I've not found Emperor/epic to be easier at all, although I can see how the increased mobility would help vs. the AI in the long run. I've definitely found all forms of Monarch to be much easier than all forms of Emperor though.

 

[Alraun]

I never under-estimate AIs on Emp or higher sometimes for how fast they research is insane... Delaying them from any tech advantage would be a great help... but maybe im being to causious and pestimistic lol

Trading often, even disadvantageous trades, gives YOU the tech advantage instead of them. Researching techs the AI doesn't go for as soon and trading them for as much as you can get is the key to keeping up to the AI on high level tech race. This also accelerates the tech rate of the game in general and makes your continent tech up faster than the other continent. Of course, this only works if you have contact with a reasonable number of civs.

 

[Alraun]

If I did trade for Masonry with Napoleon, I don't think I will be able to get both Myticism and Fishing from Kublai. Masonry is not necessary for now. Mysticism opens up more possibilities, and I was looking to see if Mysticism allowed me to trade for Meditation with Kublai. I should have explained this earlier.

You should have traded for Mysticism and Fishing from Kublai, then gotten Masonry from Napoleon on the same turn. If anything else interesting comes up, you can potentially trade Alphabet for it. If not, you can just trade Alphabet for Iron Working.

I value your experience and advice, but it looks like you are making a threat with the word 'unsubsribe' now. If in any way you took offense, I would explain that I was merely pointing out the fact that you, like anyone, have the freedom to pull out (which is my interpretation of unsubscribe). However, threats (veiled or not) don't help with anything.

There was no threat, veiled or not. You misunderstood him.

 

[aelf]

Yes, on hindsight I should have traded with Kublai for Mysticism and Fishing and with Napoleon for Masonry on the same turn. But hindsight is perfect. Meditation was much more useful for opening up Priesthood than Masonry at that point and there's usually no reason for an AI not to trade it away if it has it, which could only be determined by having Mysticism first.

F would really be useless if you look closely. It would be right on the edge of Turfan's border and there's no way to out culture that city anytime soon. What makes it worse is both the corn and the stone are within Turfan's 2nd ring, not 3rd. About its location, I believe if you look closely it's not right beside a river, but one tile away from it. Might as well raze it, settle F and pick a better spot south along the river or something.

Going by the comments so far, I think the best bet would be settling A. Yes, it's a bit far, but as was pointed out, it could whip very well and has much better potential to grow than copper city. Settle it, whip a granary, whip an obelisk, chop a fishing boat, maybe whip another one, whip a barracks and start whipping axes.

In Timbuktu, what I would do is complete the barracks, whip the settler, build 2 Skirmishers and start pumping out axes normally. At size 5 the city has impressive productivity working sheep, cows, one flood plain farm and two gold mines. And we want to keep working the two gold mines for high commerce. First new Skirmisher goes to Djenne and the warrior goes out to explore more of exotic Mongolia.

I'd recommend researching IW for now, as it would tell us where the iron is and I won't trade away Alphabet for anything less than Mathematics first. Who knows, Timbuktu or Djenne could have iron nearby. When Kublai has Meditation or is willing to trade Masonry, I'd trade Writing.

 

[malekithe]

Things are starting to go astray here. But, I think there's still time to right the ship. Alphabet was a lamentable research choice. There aren't enough nearby opponents to profit greatly through tech trading. Also, there just isn't enough quality land out there to try to compete with the AI peacefully. They're going to start outpacing you shortly. It is time to sharpen those axes!

First order of business, start researching math and then construction. Maybe trade math once its been acquired for iron working and whatever else you can get. Iron's not too terribly important, so that's fairly optional. You're not going to be chopping any jungle anytime soon, but swords could definitely have their uses in the coming war. Swords fare better than axes when caught out in the open against Kahn's keshiks. But, of course, a handful or more of spearmen is also a must.

In Timbuktu, I would stop working on the settler right now and focus, instead on growing the population back up to 4 while working on a barracks. When the previous whip's unhappiness wears off, whip the settler for 2 pop. That's a much better use of the available food than it would be to build the settler the normal way. Once you have the barracks in place, start working on your army; making sure to mix in a fair number of spearmen (no skirmishers though). Whip every 15 turns and start chopping forests when mathematics comes in. While at 4 population, you should probably be working the sheep, cow, and gold mines. Immediately after the whip, work a farm or two to quickly get back up to 4, then switch back to the norm. Of course, when construction is done, build 3-5 catapults and get the war under way.

Djenne needs several things. The library is going to be complete next turn, so that's good. Next, start on a fishing boat, then a granary. I wouldn't chop too much more (the workers will be needed elsewhere), but feel free to whip. After that, there are two options. Either start running 2 scientists, or start on a barracks and then start rushing the army here as well. I'm not sure which is the better option, but I think the scientists would have more longterm impact. Djenne's just not going to contribute much to the war effort. Maybe, once the scientists are done, you can start chopping and whipping additional catapults here. You can never have too many catapults.

The upcoming settler should probably head to the north to the coastal city with three food resources. That'll be a good commerce and whipping city. It will aid the war effort by providing a slow but steady stream of additional catapults. First priority is to expand the borders through an obelisk. Then, work boat and granary. Getting both work boats out early may not be neccessary as your happy cap prevents you from benefitting from that large a food surplus.

Once the war starts, as long as you have enough spearmen, Kahn's never going to pose a real threat. With your catapults, you should be able to slowly march right down his throat. Don't be afraid to keep cities that have already built up a decent population (or are surrounded by forests) the ability to chop/pop-rush more units in the field should never be underestimated. I'm not a big fan of razing cities that are only slightly mis-positioned, especially when they can be put to such an immediate use through rushing.

I haven't thought much about what to do after the war on Kahn. Likely, you'll have to do a bit of consolidation before continuing the war against Napoleon. If you manage to get an academy in your capital and add a couple of cottages for Djenne to work (eventually), you should be able to avoid falling too far behind Napoleon while warring.

Of course, that's all just my suggestions. Do with it as you will. One thing to keep in mind, though, when choosing which path to take... What are you doing right now that is going to give you an advantage over your opponents? Unless you can answer that question, you're playing an unfocused game and the chances of victory dwindle.

 

[aelf]

malekithe, actually a number of things you mentioned have been addressed. And I disagree about Alphabet. It would be beneficial to trade techs with Kublai as much as possible before declaring war on him because once it begins we will never be able to trade with him again. And we shouldn't need to fear about the trade benefitting him too much. When it's time to fight, he must be reeling so much from our blow that he will not be able to recover and advance enough before we declare on him again.

I was looking to trade for Maths from the AI, since it seems to love going for that tech. That would be a good trade for Alphabet. Trading Alphabet with the second AI would probably gain us most, if not all, of the rest of the AIs' techs.

I, too, feel that war is coming. The love of Aggressive in me is baying for blood. I think we should settle Site A and start preparing to prepare for war.

I am going to play the next round now.