WangKon (EC)

[Gumbolt]

It would be up to you guys. I've only tried immortal a few times and have not won at that level yet (though that may change shortly!). So I'd say I'm an emperor player. I do agree that my save is strong and it would be up to the players to decide whether to use it or not.

For now we will keep your save in if others are happy to do so. It was quite a strong save compared to the rest. I do think you should try your skills at immortal. You dont know if you can beat a level till you try it. Kossin Bullpen is an excellent immortal guide to walkthroughs. He doesnt always get it right but some impressive play none the less. Barb events or silly DOW from huge French stacks cant be helped.


For me the issue i have is the starts. if i set up 6-7 good cities i can normally walk emperor. Its how to judge what the strongest start for a leader is. This is especially true when playing the Celts. hunting really annoys me as a starting tech!

 

[lymond]

For now we will keep your save in if others are happy to do so. It was quite a strong save compared to the rest. I do think you should try your skills at immortal. You dont know if you can beat a level till you try it. Kossin Bullpen is an excellent immortal guide to walkthroughs. He doesnt always get it right but some impressive play none the less. Barb events or silly DOW from huge French stacks cant be helped.


For me the issue i have is the starts. if i set up 6-7 good cities i can normally walk emperor. Its how to judge what the strongest start for a leader is. This is especially true when playing the Celts. hunting really annoys me as a starting tech!

I'm cool with Duals too. I would like to mention though - not to toot my own horn - that despite not getting that many votes, I think my save is one of the best and on par with Duals - although his is indeed the best.

 

[dualmaster]

This is a tip on which I've never thought.
Did you apply cause French was the only civ you met?

Yeah, fairly early I could see that we were probably alone with the French (I could see some of the land and no other civs had found me yet). I decided the end goal would be to kill Louis, thus pillaging early would slow down his tech and stifle expansion allowing for an easy finish in the future.

For me the issue i have is the starts. if i set up 6-7 good cities i can normally walk emperor.

This is my experience too. With a solid early game on emperor I usually end up romping. But then other games my start isn't so good and I struggle.

In the few immortal games I've played I tend to lose focus around the Renaissance era. A couple games I have been ahead at Liberalism (I even took Democracy off lib in the last game I tried), but I seem to lose the advantage pretty quickly after that. The AI just techs so fast at that point....and I lose focus.....and lose the game. I think I need to get used to fighting at tech parity with rifles/cannons or infantry/arty.

 

[Grashopa]

Heres my go at it if anyone wants to take a look:

Spoiler :

Settled 1N this meant more hammers. Ag-AH first..

Explored the FP area first since its always nice to have a good cottage city up early. The oasis gives fresh water on the west side... Then saw the french scouts and went over to find him very close along with all the dyes/gems that we are going to want. I wandered the jungle hoping to get woodsman 2 on my warrior so I could capture a french worker, then declared:

You can see I settled west of the FPs. I built 2 more warriors to pillage the french who had a settler bottled in the city by my W2 warrior to the SW. After AH I went roads, pottery then oracle techs. I would have went roads first even if I settled a blocking city instead of the FP site because of the trade routes with the first city.

Final screen is my 1500 BC position. Picked up BW, writing and then monarchy off of the oracle. After IW I plan to grab CoL for the religion. Probably should have oracle'd it?? After the settler the capital will build a library while growing some.. Not sure I want a GP or a GS.. If I get a religion a shrine would be useful.. I don't think it was possible to block off the French well or I would have instead of attacking.

 

[Glansmannen]

Playing from duals save works fine for me. Although, out of learning perspective it might be better to play off a "weaker" save? But in the end it doesn't really matter much to me.

I really look forward to the rounds to come, feels like that's when I really start screwing things up.
(Have managed to "win" one Emperor game now though. A really really boring diplomatic victory. )

 

[Elnsoxo]

1st: CBPE
2nd: lymond
3rd: dualmaster

 

[Gumbolt]

I'm cool with Duals too. I would like to mention though - not to toot my own horn - that despite not getting that many votes, I think my save is one of the best and on par with Duals - although his is indeed the best.

Its a reasonable save yours. For me the difference is Dual went for IW much earlier and limited the French to one city. Creative civs need capping if close. You are 7 turns off IW where dual has had it for some time as he is working 2 gems. The option for a war with French arrives in seven turns. Eventually the French will hook up that copper.

Pusan will be a dead loss till that French city is taken down. Then again no one ever said this was going to be easy.

Overall one vote left and it wont change Dual as round winner. Lets move this game on now. Voting is officially closed.

 

[Gumbolt]

The next round will be played over the next 3-4 days with voting over Sunday-Sunday-Monday. (This may change on time needs)

The round will finish Sunday1800hr GMT.

The next round will be played from 1500bc-400ad. Lets get playing people.

Congratulations to Dualmaster who has won this round.

Here is the winning save to be used for the next round:

Dualmaster save

Please ensure when you post save you rename save with your name.

Round 0: The starting save -
Round 1: 4000 BC - 1500 BC- Completed
Round 2: 1500 BC - 400 AD- Playing
Round 3: 400 AD - 1100 AD- upcoming
Round 4: 1100 AD - 1500 AD - upcoming
Round 5: 1500 AD - 1700 AD - upcoming
Round 6: 1700 AD - 1820 AD - upcoming
Round 7: 1820 AD - 2050 AD - upcoming

 

[Glansmannen]

Ok, so basically I really consider this the weakest part of my game. Gave it a try though.

Spoiler :

So, Hard NOT to kick some French but after duals set up.
Basically just guarded the north and managed to steal a settler (worker). Started cottageing up Pyongyang

Went Pottery -> Writing -> Fishing -> Poly (this is where I probably made the wrong choice since the map screams Calendar rather than Monarchy) -> Priesthood -> Monarchy -> Started on CoL. Although Calendar probably was preferable Monarchy worked well since there was quite a lot units around. But still, I know, play the map.

Popped a GP which I just settled in Seoul since I was running red.

The Axeman in Paris territory pillaged a bit and then withdrawed to lure them out. Which worked nicely. Killed four archers outside there cities and on the same turn went in with I think 8 swords towards Paris. Close close call. Last sword took Paris in 470BC then a couple of turns later Orleans which I razed and resettled 1W.

Then started operation Cottagemania.

The Land. Settled a few more cities.

The land once again.

Techs, 11 turns til CoL which can be hurried through a couple more scientists. Focusing on vertical growth at the moment though. Then probably aim for Optics ASAP.

Demographics

 

[TheBoboni]

Can I submit my save if I haven't played the first round?

Spoiler :

As of now I kicked some French derriere by 395BC and that would be it, but I plan to get to the 400AD mark later today.

 

[Gumbolt]

Can I submit my save if I haven't played the first round?

Each round is open to anyone who wishes to play it. The only thing we ask is comfortable emperor, immortal or deity level players only shadow.

You should use spoilers on round information if you do wish to play. Especially anything date specifix.

 

[TheBoboni]

Oops, faux pas. Fixed it.
I feel confident at monarch, achieved most of the victory types with various leaders and on different maps. Emperor is still a challenge, that's why I want to join.
Anyway, good to know. Expect an update soon.

 

[Gumbolt]

Oops, faux pas. Fixed it.
I feel confident at monarch, achieved most of the victory types with various leaders and on different maps. Emperor is still a challenge, that's why I want to join.
Anyway, good to know. Expect an update soon.

Good to have a new player join the cookbook. Always looking for new players to take over from those that move on to higher levels like Kossin and Soirana did.

 

[dualmaster]

This next round should be interesting. There are a few obvious techs to get next (Pottery, Fishing, Writing) but after that there are a number of possible tech routes. I wonder if we'll see a wider variety in the saves.

I've actually played my round and will post when I can. I'm interested to see how it compares to other saves, and to see if anyone else went the route I did. I may just post it as a shadow, but we'll see.

@Glans

Spoiler :

Not sure why you razed Orleans and resettled - little to no benefit from it and it cost a settler.

You're probably right that Calendar is a better target than Monarchy. I debated between the two in my game too. We have 4 Calendar and 1 Calendar . Also, you have to build swords/axes for military happy cap which is costly (to build them and pay maintenance on them).

Also, in an isolated situation like this, teching either Alphabet or Currency fairly early is important - building wealth/research will greatly accelerate your tech rate, getting you to those other economic techs faster. Teching Code of Laws is probably of lesser importance right now since none of your cities have overly high maintenance.

Not sure why you're building barracks in some cities.

 

[Glansmannen]

@dualmaster

Spoiler :

Not sure why you razed Orleans and resettled - little to no benefit from it and it cost a settler.

I'm absolutely with you on this. Just have this thing on city placement, In my opinion it simply shared to many squares with Paris, it's like an obsession. Have to work on that. You got any rule of thumb on how many squares to generelly share? Or more accurately, not share? There's an excellent example of it with the two crab/clam(?) to the west. It's simply against my "normal" squaresharetic to get both of them.

Also, in an isolated situation like this, teching either Alphabet or Currency fairly early is important - building wealth/research will greatly accelerate your tech rate, getting you to those other economic techs faster. Teching Code of Laws is probably of lesser importance right now since none of your cities have overly high maintenance.

Good point! Had a game quite recently with an isolated start, I mean, it's tough, but when I met the others, well, backwards is the least you could say.

Not sure why you're building barracks in some cities.

Simply because I didn't research Alphabet/Currency and therefore can't build wealth/research. I'm out of buildings to build, far from happy cap so more units seems kind of pointless.

As I said, this is the part of the game where I usually screw things up. So, thanks for your points of view which will hopefully help me improve my game.

 

[kossin]

@Glansmannen

Spoiler :

To add on what was already said: resettling Orleans also cost you 1 flood plain. Razing a city on top of a flood plain turns that tile into desert.

Overlap doesn't matter that much. even 6 tiles of overlap isn't a huge issue as both cities won't be size 14+ anytime soon.

I'm not sure how you managed to keep Seoul at size 3 and then start building a settler there... this is a big no-no in my book. Imo -> cancel settler for now, work pigs and 2 scientists to get the GP out ASAP then let it grow back up. The delay on the settler is worth a lot more than a marginal city being up earlier.

 

[dualmaster]

@glans

Spoiler :

RE: City overlap

Even a fair amount of overlap is not necessarily a bad thing. The cities still have plenty of other tiles to work. For example, even with both cities at pop 10, they can be working useful tiles.

In the case of Orleans, what does moving it 1 west gain? Some crappy ocean tiles and desert hills and a mediocre desert incense. Not enough to justify razing and resettling. On the other hand, if Orleans did not exist and you were just settling a new city there, I may have picked your location.

 

[lymond]

my go

Spoiler :

Dual did have us setup pretty nicely. The save was even better than I thought as I did not see that settler on the east coast near the copper - that was huge. My initial plan here was not to rush into war too quickly but rather try to get out a worker or two more and maybe a settler for the rice/clams to the west to get another coastal city running. At the same time continuing to get out some swords in other cities to prepare for battle. I could see Louie was pretty much only going to have archers. I achieved this plan initially until Louie sent a worker to work that rice just north of Wonson. I had the axe sitting there protecting the gems and decided...well...wouldn't hurt to grab another worker and just what is Mr. Frenchie gonna do about it...huh. Also, I had a small stack of sword/axe heading in the direction of Orleans, so a figured at minimum this little war would be pillage time.

I proceeded to pillage the French nicely and picked off a few of his archers that he tried to send my way. I focused on swords from this point and sent them in the direction of Orleans and Paris. I'm not sure but this is where I may or may not have done what I should of. I continued to choke the French for a while until I felt a sufficient amount of swords were there to take the cities. In the meantime , Louie surprisingly sent a Galley all the way around to the island in the south. Of course, you can't see what's in the ships now in BTS, so I thought he was trying to get at my seafood. He actually plopped a settler/archer on that island. Oh well, he just settled it for me. Anyway, my point here is whether I should have settled for peace again and then hit him hard a few turns later. The difference being the amount of archers he's able to spam in a short time. I still took his cities with surprisingly few casualties, but ultimately I'm not sure if the elongated battle hampered my research.

The state of affairs at 400AD:

1) French are gone
2) I have quite a lot of cities now - 11 or 12
3) Calendar will be done in 2 turns for some increase happy cap
4) I'll whip a settler out of Nampo to rid those unhappies and with 1 or 2 more settlers the island should be just about settled for a while. I'll get another settler out in the cap after it grows another pop
5) With these cities, I can build research for while in most of them to catch up some. I'm thinking the Optics path after Calendar to get caravels out asap. I think the earlier we get trade options the better.
6) Nampo has some nice cottages going and Orleans is rocking some cottages too. I wonder if Paris would make a better cap for bureau, but Seoul is more central

My big question is where to put Maoi. I'm thinking the city to the north west.

edit: Wow...i forgot to upload the save....surprised no one noticed after several days

 

[Glansmannen]

@kossin

Spoiler :

Oh, so thars what happened to the floodplain. Realized something was wrong, now I know what.

Regarding the overlap and settler in Seoul. I agree and kind of have to priorotize better. I mean, it's kind of obvious but still I tend to make these desicions. Focus!

@dualmaster

Spoiler :

Correct. I also have to work on that, just accepting, a city still can contribute to the empire eventhough it can't grow past say size 10.

On the other hand, if Orleans did not exist and you were just settling a new city there, I may have picked your location.

That's kind of my thought. Where would I have put it. If I'd knew the razed city would turn the floodplain into desert, then I definitely would have thought twice. I've learned a lot just from these two first round of cookbook, which is the meaning of the whole thing, so thanks for the input.

 

[dualmaster]

I'm submitting this as a shadow - to 400 AD:

Spoiler :

My goals for the round were:
1.) Clear the French
2.) Start the cottage spam
3.) Increase happy cap to take advantage of cottage spam

I kept an axe or two pillaging the French while slowly building up a force of swords. Didn't take too long to capture both cities. Managed to pop an archer+settler that were trying to get a new city going. Another free worker.

Teched Pottery>Writing>Fishing for obvious reasons.

After that, with a GP coming soon, I wanted to get a religion for the happy bonus and to run OR. So I teched through the religious techs and bulbed Theology to found Christianity. Currently have religion in all cities. Set the capital to build the AP and we'll have it next turn. Some temples up, more to follow along with monasteries to take advantage of those AP hammers. Also switched to OR.

After that I teched Alphabet so I could build research since some cities were running out of useful things to build. Then went Math>Calendar due to having 4 and 1 calendar resources. Happy cap is now pretty high and cities are growing vertically. Almost finished Currency to boost the economy.

Science is almost steady at 50%.

9 cities with a settler ready to make another. 9 workers.

Not good things:
- Could use a few more workers, mine can't keep up with improvements
- Not GP production....I kinda forgot about it. Thus no scientists to bulb toward lib.