WangKon (EC)

[lymond]

Hey Gumbolt -

Just a thought here, but for purposes of making this series even more worthwhile to dolts like myself (even though I'm awesome in my own mind ), is possibly a brief discussion of possible approaches or strategies moving forward. I think this becomes even more valuable as the game progresses. I know one of the weaker aspects of my game is the later stages. Maybe folks like Kossin could chime in as well. Some of the prior games have kind of petered out at this point in the game with some more advanced players achieving victory conditions. However, I think there are several here like myself that are still learning and trying to move to the next level or even win consistently at emperor.

I think a game like this is good for this as I don't think victory is necessarily achievable in this round and/or possibly VCs like space are in order. We could even go so far as to agree on one or two possible VCs and then see how everyone moves toward that strategy in the next round.

No problem either way. Just my two cents. One thought is that it's something we start doing before Round 4 and thereafter.

 

[kossin]

I'd recommend discussion outside spoilers prior to rounds. Just don't reveal anything from actual playing in the round.

By looking at Glansmannen's save, there are several things that are going well, and some others that need to be looked out for.

Some recommendations (spoilered in case anyone doesn't want to see them):

Spoiler :

-improve relations with Alex: Sell Monarchy for his gold and next turn another cheap tech to get the +4 fair trade. An alternative is building a galleon+settler and gift him a tundra city.
-you'll want to keep a tech edge on Alex to bribe him out of war with Izzy which he'll probably do at some point.
-resource trades: first, hook up improved resources. You can get 32gpt per turn right away as well as deal away with the unhappy issues while also improving the health one. A winery is needed by Paris too.
-cities: a lot of micro can be done here. At this point, some cities need to whip infrastructure and others need to grow. Irrigation needs to be spread to some grain based resources and the new cities need food over cottages right away. For example, Inch'on and P'yongsong: one needs a border pop and both need a workboat right away. Granary>Lighthouse here. Ulsan also needs a workboat. The first priority in most cities should be to get its food resource improved and worked.
A few courthouses (~10gpt maintenace) could be worth it. Gold multipliers aren't that hot right now since the slider is pretty high but science ones could be nice.
-city specialization: all I see right now are cottages. If you want to try for a Democracy beeline and rushbuy approach, this is fine. Otherwise, get some production cities and a GP farm.
-Oxford University, where will it go?
-trade maps for gold when you can

A lot more can be said about the save; if I were playing I'd farm over a lot of the non-mature cottages and whip a lot of the infra. It's pretty backwards on infra for this date I feel, but that won't matter if rushbuying is the anticipated goal.

VC? If you can get Alexander to Friendly: Space or Culture will be easy (you're going to get a lot of religion spread soon). More interesting would be an intercontinental invasion but it's a lot more work.

 

[bestsss]

I noticed the AIs are quite slow here but obviously kossin went quite far while improving their lands in the 1st proposed version

 

[kossin]

Let me summarize my current feelings...

At first I was surprised it was too easy.


...so while no one was looking...


...I went ahead and gave bigger sticks to a few people...


...fully expecting a reversal of this.


Then the stage was set so I went I grabbed some...


...and some more.


Then bestsss pointed out it was cruel...


...and it got people...


...leading me to question the revisions to the map...


...and putting back up the first one.


And now I'll do this.


~~~
Ok enough offtopic

Let's just say that the revised version (the first posted) had considerably better land for the AI, weaker on the island and different AIs on Alex's continent (Elizabeth rather than Victoria... she fell even faster; Saladin rather than Isabella).

Now that there are several more paths available ahead, this round should be much more varied and will probably show more how one path was better/worse than another.

 

[bestsss]

In retrospect the island on the north was a nice touch (my gp farm went there). However Liz had exactly one city when I met her, Alex was retardedly big, someone was heading steadily to win culture... + liberalism went before 900AD.

Yet, would have been funny to see a loss in a cookbook session.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Ditto what Lymond said. I, too, struggle at this part of the game. I find I have no direction in my teching or how to win the game so a general discussion of where to head I think would help immensely. For instance, in this game if some religions spread to me I would probably turtle up and try for a culture victory.

 

[lymond]

I'd recommend discussion outside spoilers prior to rounds. Just don't reveal anything from actual playing in the round.

I'd even go so far as say we should have a buffer period of at least a day between rounds for discussion. That is, after the voting and the winning save is decided, we have a day or two of discussion before Gumbolt posts up the save to start the next round. I don't want to delay us getting to the next round too much, but I think the discussion is worthwhile.

I believe with this type of approach this group will be playing an IC fairly soon.

 

[Glansmannen]

I'd even go so far as say we should have a buffer period of at least a day between rounds for discussion. That is, after the voting and the winning save is decided, we have a day or two of discussion before Gumbolt posts up the save to start the next round. I don't want to delay us getting to the next round too much, but I think the discussion is worthwhile.

I believe with this type of approach this group will be playing an IC fairly soon.

Works fine for me. I have to agree that discussion is a very good way too improve. However, my only fear would be that everyone kind of ended up with the "same" stragedy going into a new round. For me, I'll probably gonna be lookin for bloodshed, but end up going there halfway since there are sooo many other things to do and tech. And then find myself drifting around with mediocre military, tech, culture and being halfway to every VC there is but with no chance at all at achieving any of them. However, so far, I've recievied very good advice and I try to apply them in my games with mixed results.

 

[pnp_dredd]

I always like to have a clear-cut goal when I'm playing my Civ. At the beginning of last round I decided to head for a military victory, and I'll stick with that (hence prioritisation of Astro and Construction in my save).

One recent key change to my game was to decide on a victory condition as early as possible, and focus on that. There are too many options in any particular Civ game, and it's important to have an end-point in mind when evaluating what to do next. These EC games make this somewhat difficult, because it's often the best overall save that wins, rather than a 'specialised' save.

My thoughts on possible victory conditions going forwards, spoilered in case anyone doesn't wanna look. Note that I don't play isolated games very well, so I'm likely wrong about some of my suggestions below.

Spoiler :

Military (domination): We're low on production, but we should be able to have a handy tech lead. It's unlikely that cats/maces/knights could work, as it will take too long to get them produced. Probably better to wait for Cavalry or Rifles? Note that late-game war isn't my strong suit. Conquest looks more difficult than domination - will need to look at the land percentages and work out what's needed for domination. Perhaps start building military now, and upgrade to cannons/rifles once the tech comes in?
Culture: I don't play culture unless the decision was made well before 1 AD (this is actually my preferred victory condition, and I'm not strong with the tech-tree after Liberalism). It seems late to be heading there now.
Space: Apart from one sgotm I've never won a space victory. It feels like we are low on production?

Overall: I'm gonna head for military stuff now. This is probably not optimal! However it is vital to have a clear goal at this stage, whatever that goal is.

 

[Gumbolt]

We could factor in 24 hours worth of discussion. Again we dont want everyone to adopt similar strategies otherwise what do we learn? Whole point of this series is to learn. Part of the voting should be to discuss games. Part of the pre voting discussion should be about why people took certain strategies.

There's a lot of micromanagement to be done and tweaking but this is part of winning on higher levels. This is something Kossin is great at! I would hope when people write up their rounds if they did something to get a Ai to friendly then they would mention these things. if you want to discuss a game in detail join the Series Game of the Month team we are creating from Cookbook players. This series was never about getting the best saves but learning from those that do well to see what they do.

E.g> setting science at 0% before an academy comes in or libraries are built, knowing you will get 25-50% bonus once built. Gifting cities to get Ai to pleased or other lil tricks immortal or Emperor players use.

As far as this game goes going forward in terms of winning.

Spoiler :

In terms of this game. Culture is pretty much out as we have no religion.

AP is out too really.

UN would require some work as nobody really like us at friendly at this stage and Alex would be a threat.

Domination/ conquest. Low on production but probably an option.

Worst comes to worst go for space.

I am up for suggestions on this series. I do think we are in a strong position in this game.

 

[lymond]

We could factor in 24 hours worth of discussion. Again we dont want everyone to adopt similar strategies otherwise what do we learn? Whole point of this series is to learn. Part of the voting should be to discuss games. Part of the pre voting discussion should be about why people took certain strategies.

There's a lot of micromanagement to be done and tweaking but this is part of winning on higher levels. This is something Kossin is great at! I would hope when people write up their rounds if they did something to get a Ai to friendly then they would mention these things. if you want to discuss a game in detail join the Series Game of the Month team we are creating from Cookbook players. This series was never about getting the best saves but learning from those that do well to see what they do.

E.g> setting science at 0% before an academy comes in or libraries are built, knowing you will get 25-50% bonus once built. Gifting cities to get Ai to pleased or other lil tricks immortal or Emperor players use.

As far as this game goes going forward in terms of winning.

Spoiler :

In terms of this game. Culture is pretty much out as we have no religion.

AP is out too really.

UN would require some work as nobody really like us at friendly at this stage and Alex would be a threat.

Domination/ conquest. Low on production but probably an option.

Worst comes to worst go for space.

I am up for suggestions on this series. I do think we are in a strong position in this game.

hmmm...haven't heard of the Series of the Month

Going back to my original point, I actually think playing out the same strategy would be better at a certain round - say 4th round or depending on if a VC looks likely the next round. I think that would be better than that particular game going nowhere and/or dropped like the last couple. It might be even more collaborative that way and challenging as we all see how we fare heading to the finish line. Again, I'm fine either way but offering this up as a suggestion for discussion.

I'm learning a lot from this series and really appreciate it. However, there's a big part of my game that hasn't been touched yet.

 

[pnp_dredd]

I think Gumbolt means the succession gotms. These are a "game of the (3) months", played by teams with each player doing ~10 turn rounds, with heaps of inter-round discussion. If you want some seriously detailed insight into how people think then read through a team thread (20-50 pages...). Even better than reading through a thread is joining in!

They're pretty weird game setups (most wonders, renaissance starts), which is good because the early-game optimization is taken out of it and players will encounter something different, even diety-level players.

Having a frank and open discussion each 10 turns really exposes your strengths and weaknesses!

 

[Glansmannen]

Had some good vibes this morning so I decided to play on.

Spoiler :

That vibe lasted for a couple of turns. Well, some nice twists to the game makes it kind of interesting.

Finnished Edu -> Philosophy -> Lib (first. PP as freebie) -> Rifling (through Guilds, Banking, Gunpowder, Replacable Parts) -> Nationalism -> Constitution -> 1 turn away from Democracy.

First off I followed Kossins advice and assigned some specialists here and there and managed to get up to approx 400bpt. Settled the GP aswell as the GG in Seoul. Didn't really know what else to use them for.

Circumnavigated the globe, since I was first to Optics I didn't really feel the rush to do it, therefor I only built one caravel, kind of the same about exploring the rival territory. No rush. Traded some maps anyway so saved some time there. However Alex and Issy has been kind of tough to trade with even if I've hade them at Pleased for a long time this round, that would change however.

I also held on to Astronomy so I would be the only one with the benefits of Intercontinental trade for as long as possible.

Then I was able to land Liberalism in 1265 as the first civ. Pacal already had Nationalsm and had finished Taj Mahal so I took PP as a freebie. At this point I hade everyone at Pleased and the world was a peaceful place. Traded a lot of techs and resources.

Adopted Free Religion since a little bit of every religion spread into our lands.

Decided to make Pyongyang my GP farm, had most foodresources, still, it's a damn fine commerce city, but we have some of those so, National Epic went here. Oxford in Seoul cause it generated the biggest amount of beakers at the time, far most.

1450 Isabella caught me with my pants down, I have no military what so ever, and she goes straight to Pusan which has a single warrior in defense. Bye bye.

I have however just finished Rifling so I masswhip Rifles and take Pusan back in 1475. She only had a couple of knights, chariots, cats and trebs.

Happiness is good, I switch into Nationhood and Representation. Draft a couple of more rifles and that's when the round was over.

In just a few turns, people where getting worst enemies, Bella DoW me. Alex is now at Cautious aswell as Joao. Pacal is still Pleased. Went pretty fast from hummingsbirds and flowers to pretty bad tensions. Joao and Alex are worst enemies and I've traded with them both. The Alex and Issy-contintent is pretty backwards though. So, draft draft draft and go over there and smash some heads pretty soon would be nice.

The land

Relations

Techs

Techtree

That's my report and, yeah. I would guess there are some more micro to be done at this point. Probably whipped away a lot of specialists etc. Had to be done though. For the future I would probably look over the cities and try to squeeze out as much production I possibly can and go after Issy and Alex.

 

[dualmaster]

Continued my shadow to 1500 AD:

Spoiler :

Continued to get democracy from Lib:

Immediately went astronomy after that to fix some happy and health issues before switching to all bottom line civics (losing Monarchy hurt the happy cap a bit). I had gotten a religion previously, so switching to FR helped diplo a lot.

Did a lot of back trading to catch up on other techs. Then went SciMeth>Comm>Physics. I now have a GSpy (comm) and GSci (physics) ready to kick off a golden age. Along the way I got a lucky pop of an Engineer, and decided to rush this (woulda taken 30+ turns to slow build):

At 1500 AD, I'm pausing for a big round of rush buying banks, markets, grocers, and other necessary infrastructure. I'm a few techs ahead of others, though not a commanding lead.

Diplo was a bit ugly (this is a weak part of my game), although it wasn't entirely my fault - AIs were switching their worst enemy all the time and so I eventually picked up some "traded with worst enemies". But overall it isn't too bad. Alex is a concern though.

AI tech rate is still pretty strong as the world has been fairly peaceful thus far. I suspect some wars are coming (which I hope to avoid). Hopefully that will slow the tech rate too. At this point space is probably easiest, though conquest/dom is certainly possible with some $$$ buy.

 

[Gumbolt]

I think Gumbolt means the succession gotms. These are a "game of the (3) months", played by teams with each player doing ~10 turn rounds, with heaps of inter-round discussion. If you want some seriously detailed insight into how people think then read through a team thread (20-50 pages...). Even better than reading through a thread is joining in!

They're pretty weird game setups (most wonders, renaissance starts), which is good because the early-game optimization is taken out of it and players will encounter something different, even diety-level players.

Having a frank and open discussion each 10 turns really exposes your strengths and weaknesses!

Thats the one. Which team to join is another matter. hehe.

As for the last game. You would of struggled not to win by an Ap victory after we spread the religion so well. Thing is you will always have a plan on winning a game at a certain point. Some maps dictate a certain strategy.

Perhaps we could turn off the religious victory in future games. Although i dont want to restrict peoples learning curves who are moving up to a new level.

What do people think about deciding on a victory type come say 400ad/1100ad?

 

[lymond]

Thats the one. Which team to join is another matter. hehe.

As for the last game. You would of struggled not to win by an Ap victory after we spread the religion so well. Thing is you will always have a plan on winning a game at a certain point. Some maps dictate a certain strategy.

Perhaps we could turn off the religious victory in future games. Although i dont want to restrict peoples learning curves who are moving up to a new level.

What do people think about deciding on a victory type come say 400ad/1100ad?

You got my vote I think 3rd or 4th round is cool depending on how things look.

I'm up for the succession games. Is the new one starting soon? How do you enlist - are teams random?

As for this game - and I'm about halfway through the round - my thoughts:

Spoiler :

First, I play a lot of different series but this one seems more special than the others as far as learning and what's missing is just the closing. In this game, space or even UN appears to be very likely. I'm not halfway yet and have most unis in and oxford on the way, about 1000 bpt or more, Lib won (I took PP but wanted Dem, however, I suddenly had to rush it once I realized Pacal was in the race). Diplo could be manageable due to the AIs less Alex, who may be workable simply via a strong tech lead. However, is this the "interesting" approach. What if we decide dom/conquest would be more challenging and discuss ways to make it happen. Paris could be a good GP farm or science/wall city, but also turned into probably the best production site on the island. Likewise, we could farm/workshop many other sites to boost production vs. cottage spam space. I don't know if folks will pursue any type of military activity this round but for me it's unlikely. However, I could see setting this up for the next round.

 

[lymond]

my round to 1500 AD

Spoiler :

No screenshots this time since it's pretty much the same island view with a couple more cities, although I may post some shots later if I get around to it.

My first goal was to hit Lib first while making some strategic trades to set things up nicely. Clearly at the start of this save, there was a lot of AI interaction that was needed. I backfilled some techs by trading with most everyone while teching along the Lib path - in some cases getting some gold along the way. I was able to net a lot of gold in trades this round although minimal "begging" results. Astro was definitely on the do not trade list and I don't think I ever did.

I kind of made a decision at the start that I would focus on research while trying to keep the peace, especially Alex. For the most part, I succeeded in that regard and at least kept Alex at please. Joao and Pacal are at Friendly. Alex finally DOWd on Izzy, I waited a few turns to bribe him out of it as it seems cheaper that way. However, I was forced to severe ties with Izzy and incur however long an incommunicado with her - not a huge deal except for trading and trade routes.

Well, I won Lib none too soon. I check the tech board after winning the race and sure enough Pacal and I tied. I guess the tie goes to the player. I took Printing Press as it seemed the most useful for Wang and the current plan. I really wanted to be able to take something like Demo with it, but could not get the prereqs before I realized the race was indeed on with Pacal. For a long time he sat there needing Paper and then Edu while I tried teching around Lib for a while. Then bam, I had to build wealth quickly and up the slider to get there fast. Pretty intense - I almost thought I'd lose it.

Anyway, following Lib I went the Physics route to net a good tech and free GS while expecting to trade up for the Demo line, which I did. I also went Communicsm to get the Spy and start building The Kremlin - which is a couple of turns from finishing. I think Kremlin should be a given despite Pacal having Communism, as I had it Com a bit longer and also traded for stone with Alex to boost Kremlin and Oxford production.

Oxford in PyongYang which seemed a given, although VERY slow even with stone. I had to whip it out so PY is growing back some, but I think it was worth it.

I used a couple of GPs including the Great Prophet already sitting in Seoul for a GA which I used to change civics to Free Religion and temporarily to Merc before finally Free Market at the end since Pacal finally switch to it. Pacifism wasn't considered since I never expected to adopt a religion. I also debated Caste primarily for workshops, but wasn't really GP heavy, so I figured Slavery was still nice to have in a hammer poor land.

With the Free GPs I have and another soon to come, I should be able to run another GA to switch to US for some buy buy buy.

Banks are built in a few cities with more in process that we may simply rush buy soon. I haven't totally decided on which city to place WS, since there are a few options.

So right now the world is at peace. Certainly Alex can be an issue so much massaging there is needed. I'm starting to focus more on unit building in a few cities including my new Globe city in Cheju and the Maoi City. I think Pusan might be ripe for an overhaul into more of a prod city with farms/worshops. Anyway, space or UN is looking good right now especially with good diplo although Alex is quite large for diplo. Conversely, with Kremlin and the ability to generate mucho dinero we can rush buy an army with ease to take on the world. Lastly, I think 2 more cities could fit on the island including one on the jungle east of Paris to work more cottages and allow Paris to go more production, and one to the NW of Seoul to use the oasis and hills in that area. However, I don't think that is a priority.

I think I'm around 1100 bpts which I think is skewed low since I had to whip off some commerce which should recover soon. Radio seems logical to me at the moment for a variety of reasons, plus I love Cristo.

 

[pnp_dredd]

Spoiler :

OK, let's get ready for war.

Aim is to increase production, and to get to Cavalry/Rifles ASAP.

Whipped a pile of courthouses.
Used the settler to found a city on the island to the south (need horse!)
Tweaked some improvements to increase production capacity (workshops, watermills). Irrigated some rice.
Built 3 much-needed workboats
Hooked up Incense for trades. Traded 2 resources to Izzy, mainly for diplo points.
Put all espionage points on Pacal.

Built stables everywhere with decent production.

I didn't see much point in getting Liberalism, as it was only going to give me an equivalently expensive tech, so went Educ-PP-Guilds-RepParts-MilTrad(1390)-Rifling(1435)-Steel(1 turn left, for Cannons)

Pacal got Liberalism in 1280

1305 converted to buddhism at Alex's demand, mainly for diplo points.

Somewhere around here I got friendly with both Pacal and Izzy. Alex is +9, so gotta be close! No need for defensive pacts I reckon.

GS born in 1400, gonna start a golden age in a little bit.

Messed up a bit here. The island city wasn't expanding it's borders, because I'd taken a religion that it didn't have. Whipped a temple, but this cost me a few turns of Cavalry production.

1490 Alex declared on Joao. Alex is my friend *cuddles alex*.

Relevant stats and screenies:
1 turn left in Golden Age, so free to take whatever civics.
12 Rifles (>5xp each), 5 Hwacha, 8 Galleons

Good production (of course this is still in the Golden Age)

I have rifling, mil trad, economics and 1 turn from steel:

Diplo is looking pretty nice:

 

[pnp_dredd]

One of these days, I'll remember to attach my save to my writeup!

 

[CBPE]

A very strange but funny round!

Spoiler :

Well, I'll start from the finish: exactly at last turn of the round Alex Dow on me!

He went in WHEOOHRN just few turn after the round started in this diplo situation:

and he rested on it till now.
So, I accepted all his request including this:

hoping that he'd DoW on Joao. Due to this, Joao refused to talk with me for almost the whole round, but so it's decided: friend of the Buddhists and enemy of the Hinduists.

The other BAD news:
I've lost the liberalism race, and also the economics race to have the GM (for 1 turn ).

Now some GOOD news:

with a bit of luck a couple of my privateers destroyed the initial alex' "stack" (1 galleon escorted by 1 frigate):

Now I'm producing frigates in coastal city and muskets in inland ones....
I don't see other alex' ships coming up soon and, over and above this:

it seems me it cannot be so dangerous....

Besides Alex:

having lost the lib race, I've decided to neglect military techs and go as ahead possible in a different direction to get something that other civs haven't.

So I've beelined this:

I've used the free GS paired with the GP that was waiting in Seoul to start a GA.
During it, popped a GE

The plan is after Liberalism (1 turn) go for Communism (5-6 turn) and then use him to build Kremlin: seeing that we have a TON of GPT, with US we could solve our production capacity problem.

The real GOOD news is that I already run EMANCIPATION (and I don't how Alex, which is quite far from democracy, will deal with unhappiness with 2 wars in progress).

Other news:
- settled other 2 cities
- ALL land is now improved (all workers are now building automated network)
- Oxford built in Seoul
- NE built in the fish+rice+sugar coastal city (added some farms)

P.S.: how is possible to link those damned horses?!?