Emperor games C3C: how to improve your skills - Page 12

Krill · March 26, 2004, 14:56

But it is harder than a usual game. And trust me, I know how to use the Mayans.

ducki · March 26, 2004, 16:01

Quote:

harder than a usual game

Hmmm... my l33t w@rm0ng3r 5k1llz

must be improving because I didn't find it any harder than normal. I don't think. Maybe I just have forgetten after cresting the peak, wishing to purge the early struggle from my mind...

vmxa1 · March 26, 2004, 18:19

Quote:

Originally posted by Krill
But it is harder than a usual game. And trust me, I know how to use the Mayans.

I can't address that, since I have not seen it. I suspect it is just like the non AU mod versions here. That is to say that the creator (Kon?) probably tweaked the map here and there. It could have been made easier or harder or it could even depend on your play style, how it was affected.

IOW, if the builders are short on luxs or resources, they will suffer, but warmongers will probably be less impacted.

vmxa1 · March 26, 2004, 18:21

Krill I should have asked you, but are you playing the game with your normal level or did you recently move up?

As a rule maps posted for communal play tend to be made harder. It is some sort of macho thing.

Krill · March 28, 2004, 13:54

Sorry for the late reply, I've been away and had work to do. I went up to Emperor about six weeks ago, and I can dominate a normal game on this level by the late middle ages. I like the Mayans. Best starter in the game, but no archers.

And I do play builder strat, so I got hit harder than I expected

Quote:

As a rule maps posted for communal play tend to be made harder. It is some sort of macho thing.

Too true, but I'll get there in the end...:

vmxa1 · March 28, 2004, 18:17

Quote:

Originally posted by Krill

And I do play builder strat, so I got hit harder than I expected

It does happen.

Mountain Sage · April 19, 2004, 07:06

*bumped* for Lancealot.
May you use it wisely...

Mountain Sage · May 4, 2004, 03:24

Ah, EarthSea, who does not know this wonderful world? Its thousand isles, islands, coves, innlets, straits, shoals, from the tropical jungles to the icy wastes, from the ondulatings grasslands to the mighty volcanoes. Home of a score of tribes, as diverse and peace-loving as tropical birds.
But in the deep forests and frozen glens, far in the North, a new power has arisen. An old war-cry, long thought forgotten, echoes again in the deep fjords and sends shivers of fear down the whole of EarthSea.
‘Lets go a-viking!’

Mountain Sage, The Chronicles of the Rise and Downfall of EarthSea

Settings: 1.22, huge map, extreme archipelago, edited. All the rest to be discovered, oh brave adventurers.

EarthSea: The Ultimate Archipelago
(Patent pending, MS Fancy Maps, Inc.)

Mountain Sage · May 4, 2004, 03:24

The Beginning:

Goethe80 · May 4, 2004, 08:51

aarrrggghhhh... exams in 4 weeks. need to brush up on silly topics such as 'recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments under the Brussels Regieme'.. and this pops up..

oh well.. an hour every night to de-stress can't be too bad....

*clicks download*

Goethe80 · May 5, 2004, 05:53

Ok, I've played this abit last night, and here are some brief comments.

*warning, spoilers for M.Sage's new archi map*

It's too easy! Having 3 luxury resources, bunches of wheat and 1 cow on your starting island, together with a linkable iron resource via coastal tiles on the nearest eastern island is just ridiculous.

So anyway, I've picked up the GL, Lighthouse, Hanging Gardens (decided to take a break from building archers and galleys) and the SoZ. My core cities on the original island are all fully developed (well, fully meaning temple, barracks, harbour where available, library and courthouse), have about 1500gold in the bank (without reducing research to 0% post-GL), some 25+ archers, 25+ spearmen, assorted warriors and about a dozen galleys. Am still founding new cities occasionally. I would say that 90% of the islands on the northern 25% are mine. Have about 17% pop domination and 10% area domination (vs. 7%/6% for the nearest AIs). Also leading by culture and score (800 vs 450). Oh, have found all civs (I think, unless there's some civ stuck on a 1-tile island). Timeframe = 200AD or so.

Future plans = expand army to 60 archers and 30 galleys before invention. Pre-buld L.Workshop. Complete FP (island to the west, the one with 2 cows, 3 wheat, 1 horse and 1 sugar on plains. Target to expand land area to 35+% including some desert/jungle areas. Might take out the 2 neighbouring isolated civs of England and Arabia using A.Calvary before advent of Invention and the Viking Berzerk.

Finally, this game so far doesn't really feel like the classic viking sweep from the north

Full contact, leading civ by the long way, etc etc. Not quite the isolated, barbaric, unknown civ from the far north sweeping through scores of dandified musketmen

Aqualung71 · May 5, 2004, 09:00

Man MS, you've given us a rollicking swashbuckling adventure here, even though as Goethe80 says, it' is a tad too easy. But it sure does show how badly the AI sucks at archipelago maps!

I guess because there are just so many civs to meet, it's very easy to get a tech lead. After that though, trading stops and it's all about developing your core with Libraries. Key wonders in this one are the Great Lighthouse (a no-brainer on this map!) and SoZ for the first wave of invasions. By the time I had got to Philosophy and taken Map Making as the free tech, the die was cast, and with those 2 wonders it was going to be hard not to win from there. Switched quickly into Republic (I recall you mentioning this is tailored to Feudalism, but Republic works fine). Built the GL as a denial strategy cos it sure as hell wasn't going to benefit me with techs.

It was fun meeting all the civs, but each one brought a new disappointment as they had nothing to trade and were always several techs behind. The climax on the contacts for me occurred in around 750AD when I finally met Catherine in the far south-west corner of the map. I was just finishing off Astronomy and she didn't have Writing, Ceremonial Burial or HR! I even declared war on Egypt simply because they dared to settle on an island that Ragnar felt was his by birthright.

Anyway, we swooped on the Dutch and the Germans immediately south with AC....a few turns later the first Beserks started rolling out of the Barracks with their axes flying dangerously, and it wasn't long before the Dutch were down to their capital somewhere so remote that Ragnar couldn't even find it on the map so had to make peace instead of obliterating them! All coastal cities were taken amphibiously....not because we needed to, but because it's more fun that way

Then one of their captured cities flipped back (we had about 4 times their culture, their capital was nowhere in sight, 2 pop, no resistors and garrison of 3 - now that's gotta be low odds!)...so we declared war again out of spite and retook it!

Ragnar then looked at the histograph and saw that Egypt was running second, so they were next. The Beserks descended on a major coastal city and it was no contest. The Caravel's sailed into port and there were suddenly about 14 Viking units stationed inside to repel counter attacks. The strong Egyptians then sent about 10 Archers covered by about 15 Spears inside our new territory and to their deaths.....MGL fodder. Speaking of which, our first Beserker Army was born.

From now on we will just attack whichever civ gets within 5 or 6 techs of us.

Good fun, this one. Takes away some of the painstaking planning required by normal games!

Goethe80 · May 5, 2004, 09:17

I'm actually in Monarchy for the slightly better unit support vs. Republic, as well as MP effects on isolated islands which won't get linked up for lux until quite awhile later. I was tempted with holding up for Feudalism but decided that it was too long a wait and also that I liked being able to rush buildings with gold instead of pop.

and Aqualung71, you mean there are actually civs that *only* 5 or 6 techs behind you? At 200 AD in my game, there are still some civs that don't have the alphabet!

Aqualung71 · May 5, 2004, 09:34

Well, I don't recall offhand how many techs in front we are because frankly checking 19 civs is a pain in the rear end

We're researching Economics for Smiths, and the closest is probably at Invention. Most are still in the ancient age.

Theseus · May 5, 2004, 20:53

Sounds like a cakewalk... might be a good tool for teaching warmongering!!

Mountain Sage · May 6, 2004, 07:37

Hi everybody,

I'm glad you like it. I did not want to make it difficult, just fun. After my latest exploit, I needed a break.

Unfortunately, the AI is really bad on archipelago. I had planned a 'twist' with the resources, but the AI is just too stupid. It's not even able to research Alphabet on an archipelago map.

Ah well, hope you have fun, I'm almost finished (domination, of course), but won't post anything yet.

Oh, I went directly from Despotism to Feudalism and stayed there. Somebody had to pay for those 200+ units...

Warmongering? had the Viking become converted, they would have been as meek as lambs. Unfortunately, they still worship Odin, Thor & Co.

Mountain Sage · May 28, 2004, 07:09

'No friend, don't ask me which twisted godling created this world, because some names are best left unspoken. But what I do know is that this world, as crazy as it is, is a world of plenty and of perils. Discover them at your risk, and reap the rewards.'

Mountain Sage, Foreword to 'The SerpentWorld'

Here we go for the latest, and craziest, Emperor game. No hints, spoilers or other information this time. This is a world of extremes and you will love, or more probably, hate it, every turn you spend on it. Good luck and 'see' you next week.

Map provided by MS Fancy Maps, Inc. (Patent Pending).

You can play it as Egypt...

Mountain Sage · May 28, 2004, 07:10

Or Scandinavia...

Mountain Sage · May 28, 2004, 07:10

well, maybe Russia...

Mountain Sage · May 28, 2004, 07:11

... or even the Zulus.

Aqualung71 · May 29, 2004, 23:52

I'm going to give this a whirl as the Zulus, to practice my crappy pillaging skills. Any other takers?

Goethe80 · May 30, 2004, 22:21

Ouch!
Not going to post any spoilers, but has anyone played the current MS map - 'SerpentWorld'?
I ran it for about 45minutes, just picking up literature via philo (GL about 10 turns away).
Comments - not as impossible as it initially seems. resource rich. but it's going to be tedious. but I suspect the AI will be really bad at this though.

Aqualung71 · May 31, 2004, 08:37

Yep, I've got to the Industrial age. And yes, tedious is the word! And yes, the AI sucks on this map!

And of the tribes MS gave us, my Zulu choice must be the worst of all for this map! My Scout sat around twiddling his thumbs until I disbanded him!

By the way MS, did you disable leaders in this game? I've won countless Elite battles and zip!

Mountain Sage · June 1, 2004, 05:11

Well, the game is not impossible. in fact, it should be quite easy.
And no, I did not disable leaders.
The AI sucks on ANY archipelago map.
You have a Scout idle??? The point was to build two of them and scout the whole world.... I'm doing it with Curraghs....
Since players often complain about the lack of resources/luxuries, I wanted to try something new (no spoilers here!).
I'm playing Scandinavia and going for a conquest win, but I'm still in the Ancient Times....

With your AAR's, please try not to show the map.

Aqualung71 · June 1, 2004, 06:27

It's a bit hard to scout the whole world when there are many parts of land only 1 tile wide where the AI has placed a city

Curraghs yes, I did that. But it took forever, since I'm not seafaring!

But no, I wasn't saying it was impossible nor even very difficult. Just tedious, meaning it takes a long time to build stuff for obvious reasons

Conquest? You'll be playing forever...good luck!

Anyway, interesting map - must have take you some time. Thanks again!

Goethe80 · June 1, 2004, 09:20

Well , to be fair, once you get some decent transport ships, with some co-ordination, you should be able to very rapidly transport units across the map. I'm still in the midst of my exams, so I can't really devote the time to play the game (and I guesstimate that it'll take upwards of 16hrs play time). As mentioned though, I've more or less secured the GL. (Philo-Lit, 10 turns to GL from pre-build). I figure once I have the GL, the game is more or less over. Zero research, stacks and stacks of archers / catapults...

Aqualung71 · June 1, 2004, 11:51

Well without wanting to give too much away, I would advise that relying on the GL for tech advancements in this game could be a big mistake.

In my game I let another civ take the GL, then gifted them all the way to Education to make it obsolete before they could move too far on the lower branch

Goethe80 · June 1, 2004, 12:41

I dunno, wouldn't the GL allow you maintain tech parity (assuming you have full contact) while supporting a massive army? I would go so far as just staying in despotism and constantly pump out swordsmen/archers/catapults. I know that I don't need the GL to pump out the units listed above, but I see it more as a backup measure in the off-chance that I seriously struggle to win by conquest.

As for why I would choose conquest for victory is because the map makes it rather tedious to go for a space/culture win (despite it being rather easy since I don't foresee significant AI competition), and I don't really want to play all the way until I can win via diplomacy (which is also going to be rather hard).

Aqualung71 · June 1, 2004, 12:57

Perhaps I'm wrong....try it and see. But the way I see it, relying on the GL for tech advances when it's fairly easy to get a tech lead by yourself just keeps you with the pack instead ahead of it.

But you could be right - save the cash and spend it on units for conquering - but surely not in despotism!

I'd like to see someone win by conquest on this one...I gave it up as too hard, so please prove me wrong.

mahi · June 2, 2004, 02:57

I am trying as the Russians. I entered the Medieval Age and luckily got my first leader with my first elite-MI building an army. My northern neighbour the Incas entered my territory recently, but he observed that I already have muscets and knights, so he pulled his units back. I am at war with three or four other nations, so I let him go this time. The Germans will not be on the map much longer. They defend with spears and swords against my knights and his reinforcements are used up. The same will happen to the Americans who constantly land troops, but it is not much of a threat as their troops are gone as soon as they land. I built the GL, but afterwards thought that this was not that clever as most of the AIs are backward anyhow. I should have used these shields for more troops as I just can go forward as I have superior units.