The UNREAL Walkthrough

[madscientist]

I have to say both of you games were very impressive and give me some food for thought. I do not specialize cities generally, but more of my games tend to have few cottages in the capital but more in other cities. I never settled great people except generals or very late in the game (settling a great engineer in a space part city) but may consider this. I am still a fan of bulbing as it gets me a tech fast and allows more from trades (example philosphy). I am a Prince level player on marathon speed (I prefer this for the longer games, standard speed is too fast for me) with huge random maps. Excellent games!!

 

[Izipo]

Well, that was something...
Enjoyed it a lot (both of them), opened up my mind a bit. So, thank you.

2 quick questions :
- You hardly talk about trade. Is it not that great, or an important part of your strategy ?
- How do you work around the happiness caps in the early game ? I would imagine the two are connected, but there is hardly any mention of these. Especially in the 'impossible' walkthrough, I was always wondering where you got the happy ressources and at what price.

Very interesting strategy, good to see that there is something else apart from slavery/draft/bulbs/cottage spam (although I am a cottage/bulb prince player myself).

 

[futurehermit]

Nice job.

One question:

I feel like workshops would help your production a lot later in the game instead of those lumber mills. Late game workshops are quite nice actually under state property. Late game you also have enough health as not to need the health from forests.

Why not chop out the forests on some of the late game wonders and replace them with workshops thus increasing your production overall???

 

[futurehermit]

Well, that was something...
Enjoyed it a lot (both of them), opened up my mind a bit. So, thank you.

2 quick questions :
- You hardly talk about trade. Is it not that great, or an important part of your strategy ?
- How do you work around the happiness caps in the early game ? I would imagine the two are connected, but there is hardly any mention of these. Especially in the 'impossible' walkthrough, I was always wondering where you got the happy ressources and at what price.

Very interesting strategy, good to see that there is something else apart from slavery/draft/bulbs/cottage spam (although I am a cottage/bulb prince player myself).

Early is combated from the from representation. I believe Obsolete also gets notre dame for an additional I don't know if he does it, but using a SE you could also use 20% culture slider with theatre/coliseum for an additional infusion.

 

[aelf]

Hmm... I wonder if Pyramids isn't the key here. Even with Better AI, Emperor is a piece of cake if you manage to get it built. The reason is simple: higher happiness caps in the early game and free beakers for specialists (which are really helpful with those settled specialists too). Of course, you'd probably need either stone or Industrious for this to happen, both of which you had.

I don't mean to doubt you again, but I think it's only fair and objective that I say you've proven that Pyramids + settled specialists can be just as powerful as lightbulbing and cottaging on Emperor, but not that you can necessarily win without cottages or lightbulbing in any game. Essentially, you've chosen to go for an SE with Pyramids and a superspecialist variant, and certainly both Ramesses and stone facilitate such an approach.

If acidsatyr couldn't convince some elite players that an SE is superior to a CE with his games, I highly doubt you have achieved something similar with these games, especially since both of you have the same potential stumbling block - the acquisition of AI-built cottages.

 

[madscientist]

Again, well played games and you have my respect. Not my style except I would plant specialists in the capital and mass spam wonder but I would have built other cities with lots of cottages. Still, to say you can win anytime with this strategy I would make the following suggestion, play the same type game but with non-ind/spir leader, Like Washington (exp/char late UU UB) or Wang (Fin/Prot) or Alex (Agr/Phil) AND start on a coast (you could move the settler off, just 4000BC a settler in on the coast). I find more than half my random starts are on a coast.

 

[Dirk1302]

Challenge met, well done.

So what does it prove,

-That you're a good player

- it's indeed possible to win on emperor without lightbulbing anything. As far as i can see you didn't have lots of cottages so a lot of of your research must have come from those settled beasts (and trade routes i guess?).

- Still ds61514 shadowed the game playing the conventional route, 1870 is 22 turns faster so i wouldn't say lightbulbing/cottages is playing with crutches compared to this strat.

- I wonder how it all pans out if you're not industrial/don't find Stone and marble, seems to me that you'll have to resort to slightly more convention techniques in that case.

 

[Izipo]

Early is combated from the from representation. I believe Obsolete also gets notre dame for an additional I don't know if he does it, but using a SE you could also use 20% culture slider with theatre/coliseum for an additional infusion.

Yes, of course, it makes sense. I so rarely build the mids myself that I forgot about the happiness boost, which is HUGE so early in the game.
So, like Aelf, I would say that the mids are the keystone of this strat. Hence very ressource/leader trait dependant...

Nonetheless, very interesting variant. Enjoyable read, although your sense of humor could be perceived as being arrogant.

 

[madscientist]

Another comment/observation. I would think getting the pyramids early is one of the emphasis of this approach. The emphasis is food/production. Stonehenge/GW/oracle all add great person points producing either a GE or GP who is planted in the city. Thus pyramids can be researched early and effectively. It is an agressive approach to nail them, helped with an industrious leader. Myself, I usually use industious leaders to get the oracle and free metal casting, thus early forges. I prefer a costal starts with industrious leaders because of the early colossus. But my point is the pyramids are a central piece in thsi strategy.

 

[futurehermit]

I think people are being a bit overly critical tbh (probably a reaction to obsolete's language use e.g., "for noobs" "non-experts" etc., but tbh that is probably a reaction to people who were calling HIM a noob, or inferior player, for NOT lightbulbing, building cottages, etc.!!!).

Is this a strategy that can work for every leader in every situation: NO!

Is there any strategy that can work for every leader in every situation: NO!

Can this strategy work for a non-industrious leader: probably not, unless you have stone and/or marble, preferably stone

Can this strategy work without stone: YES!

HOWEVER: Industrious leaders are a non-trivial amount of the # of leaders available. High-production capitals DO happen, although not always. Stone DOES appear, although not always.

CONCLUSION: When you ARE industrious, and DO have stone, and DO have a high-production capital...well here is a strategy you can pull out of your arsenal!!! Do you have to COMPLETELY avoid cottaging and lightbulbing? NOOOO!!! Obsolete himself admits he is NOT completely rigid in his own offline games, but played with these restrictions for our benefit to show that it is POSSIBLE. Is it the MOST EFFICIENT way to go? Probably not. But in your own games, where you are using this strat, you can tinker and add as the situation dictates. You can lightbulb phil and/or ed. You can build commerce cities outside of you super-capital (why not?!). You can play however you want, it's your game.

These particular games I take as food-for-thought and, to be honest, I'm full!

 

[Snaaty]

Great play!

Settling GP´s (especially priest) is quite a strong strat, but bulbing/whipping (FE/SE) and cottaging (CE) are also quite reliable, when it comes to that...

...and a solid combo off all those strats (hybrid economy), depending on start, might even be better...

...BUT pretty well ANY strat that involves a cav rus tends to be quite effective

Nice that you showed yet another way of competing in the space race. I would also like to see an immortal game (feel free to use Egypt again), because I tend to have serious problems to get wonders build, exp. on higher levels. I really would like to see, if it still works there...

 

[UncleJJ]

Congratulations on another fine and unique win, this time on Emperor. This is even more impressive than your last walkthrough. You might say it was a Wonderful win if you like silly puns

Again the power of settled engineers and priests is demonstrated to construct a production behemoth. I'm just going to check the savegames at the end and after the Statue of Liberty and see if I have other comments.

 

[frob2900]

These particular games I take as food-for-thought and, to be honest, I'm full!

So what was the food here? Build every single wonder you can (including Chichen Itza ) and settle the resulting prophets/engineers in the capital under representation?

More of a light snack really.

Still interesting though, but to be honest I can't imagine most players haven't done this before (in the wonder happy phase everyone goes through).

The key to actually winning with the strategy is another thing, and that's were I'm guessing where the skill lies (i.e. beelining/timing cavalry spam + all the city (and diplo?) micro management that obsolete mentioned but no one else seems to comment on).

 

[futurehermit]

The key to actually winning with the strategy is another thing, and that's were I'm guessing where the skill lies (i.e. beelining/timing cavalry spam + all the city (and diplo?) micro management that obsolete mentioned but no one else seems to comment on).

THIS, of course, is the food, and I don't see it as a light snack at all. If someone told me you could win on emperor by building nearly every wonder in the game, not lightbulbing, not building cottages, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY only building TWO cities for quite awhile, I wouldn't believe them (as I didn't believe Obsolete at first).

 

[frob2900]

THIS, of course, is the food, and I don't see it as a light snack at all. If someone told me you could win on emperor by building nearly every wonder in the game, not lightbulbing, not building cottages, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY only building TWO cities for quite awhile, I wouldn't believe them (as I didn't believe Obsolete at first).

Yeah, ok, if we're talking about that, then were on the same page and I agree with you It certainly isn't an easy task to do, and I certainly didn't believe obsolete at the start either

But, like you said in your above post, while this might be viable at times, it is heavily situational: you almost certainly do need industrious and/or stone/marble.

(and the flood plains+plains hills capital that obsolete has had in every single posted game and screenshot in these threads and the "900 hammer thread" certainly help out too )

 

[futurehermit]

Yes, I'm not disagreeing that it is situational. It is a strat DESIGNED FOR industrious leaders and a high production capital. Plain and simple. Stone and/or marble is not essential, but is a huge bonus, obviously.

 

[frob2900]

Stone and/or marble is not essential, but is a huge bonus, obviously.

Hmm.. Well if you dont have stone or marble you can scratch over half of the ancient wonders right away (unless youre playing against some unlucky or ******** AIs)

 

[futurehermit]

On emperor yes, but not on monarch. I played around with this on monarch and had no problems (I chopped some though).

 

[frob2900]

On emperor yes, but not on monarch. I played around with this on monarch and had no problems (I chopped some though).

Yeah, but also remember, obsolete doesn't advocate chopping, either

 

[Quornix]

Hmm.. Well if you dont have stone or marble you can scratch over half of the ancient wonders right away (unless youre playing against some unlucky or ******** AIs)

This is less true when you aren't as worried about expanding. And settling your first GP or GE gives at least a 25% boost to your production, if not more. Of course, the choice of leaders affects this as well. If you start with Hunting and Fishing, you don't have any early wonders to go for without additional research. Egypt starts with Mysticism and Agricultural, right? That's one essential worker tech, and one wonder tech right off the bat.