After having lots of fun with Montezuma, it's time to try something different.
This thread is intended for players struggling at the immortal level who want to learn, as well as for players who can easily win on immortal who want to show everyone how to do it.

Our next leader is going to be Sury of the Khmer.

Some notes:
1)When you play the game, please try to remember to save every 20~40 turns or at points you feel are important. I personally learn a lot from opening intermediate saves of games and see "how you did it".
2) When you post your game please remember to put everything inside a spoiler tag and specify the year outside the spoiler.
3) Since the purpose of the thread is learning, please try to point any points in your game that in your opinion were critical decisions - good or bad.

The vote for the map is open.
Current preferences:
Olodune, Dirk1302 - Pangaea
Rusten - Pangaea, but would play any map
Sleepless - prefers not inland sea.
Silverbullet - Inland Sea, Pangaea as 2nd choice.

Please vote your preference and I will create the 4000BC save today.

fractal would be my preference (sorry for not competing in the first, i would have loved to but was entirely unaware of its existence.) good to see threads like this.

Sorry for not finishing the other game :blush: ... but hopefully in some days I'll be with sufficient head cleaness to try a Immortal game.

About the map: Fractal or Big and Small

This sounds great. I didn't bother with the first game as I really hate the aztecs, but I'm definitely up for this one. Large Pangea maybe?

Pangaea is fine with me but not large size if possible, my computer can't quite handle that.

Pangaea is fine with me but not large size if possible, my computer can't quite handle that.
Yes, just like the last game, the map is normal size. This way the game is kept shorter and more players can play, and I feel it is more appropriate for a shared game.

Yes, just like the last game, the map is normal size. This way the game is kept shorter and more players can play, and I feel it is more appropriate for a shared game.Post the save.

Anyone up for some discussion prior to seeing the save?

Two things I'd like to note here.

One, Sury is a +health beast. This screams for early Monarchy (or, more precisely, early Hereditary Rule). Hopefully the map is food heavy and we can grow to that health cap relatively quick.

Two, expansive provides a bonus to hammers applied towards building a worker. However, this bonus does not apply towards overflow food that is converted into hammers. Correct me if I'm wrong, as this may have been changed, but production modifiers round down, so you'll only see "bonus" hammers from the expansive trait when applying multiples of 4 hammers to a worker.

Yes, the bonus hammer only get calculated by the base hammers you produce in your city, not the food surplus :)

And I'm very interessted in this thread, I think I will join this university :goodjob:
As map I prefer pangaea... or anything else :lol:

bonus points for anyone who manages to use the balista elephant's special ability! :lol:

Post game please! I've quit my job and ready to go on a civ and beer bender. :lol:

Post game please! I've quit my job and ready to go on a civ and beer bender. :lol:

Sorry for the delay. The map is Pangaea, normal size.

The start:

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/Civ4ScreenShot0000-1.jpg

Some thoughts: too bad there is no good food resource here. On the positive side, the forests and mines will allow us to utilize the +25% worker bonus.
I usually tend to settle in place and trust the map generator that this is the best spot, but this time I am not sure.

Please remember: we can have a pre-game discussion about settling and initial plan. However, if you already started playing and know more than what is shown in the above screenshot, please don't participate in the pre-game discussion and post all your comments in a spoiler and the year outside the spoiler.

Enjoy

Oof. Too bad the UB doesn't give +10 food. :lol:

No problems, starting tech is mining so worker/BW. There's probably another resource in the fog, I'd settle in place, you're by a river right? Can't quite make out that detail.
The capital will probably be moved later on for a more food rich site, this will be a good production city.

Edit: Right, I forgot we are expansive, in that case we could go scout/warrior-> worker while teching bw.

I'm gonna stand this one over as I haven't had time to play the Monty game to completion and it will be at least another few days there, but I hope this series will continue as it's fun and educational for civ addicts so I can get back on the train for the next game. :)

Where is the food? :lol:

Seriously, if this is a all forest start it means that has few food in the BFC. Not good....

Looks like an okay start to me. I'll play after I finish Monty game (no time this weekend at all - tournament and next week lots of stuff to do for school).

I would consider popping the hut with the scout in the hopes of getting a map.

This start ain't got no alibi.

4000B.C.
Maps all around. Settling in place or popping with a scout. Not that the scout's map helped....stupid scout, always staring out to sea. He must be scouting for mermaids, or something.

What are people's thoughts on settling 1W for dual river access? Is it worth the turn, given the risk that one or both rivers are short or very short? Is it worth the turn, given that it won't make a difference until Sailing (? I believe), or given that Sury is Expansive and has less need for the health bonus of fresh water (ie not as restricted to keeping future cities on the river)?

It is a bad start.I don't know if there are any food resources in the fogs,but seems not. So I want to scout and then settle down, though wasting some turns in Immoral really hurts.

I don't see why you all think the start is so horrible, it's bad but with mining we can research BW straight away and chop out expansions for some better cities asap.

For workers we get 6 hammers instead of 4 with this start + expansive.

Mmm doesn't exactly grab me as a great capital site. :lol: Probably a resource North of the scout so I will settle in place. I'll be honest this would normally be a regenerate map for me. I don't like having a plains cow as the only food resource.

The idea is to learn so a tough start is a good thing I suppose. ;)

Early pottery for a cheap granary might be the order of the day to help with growth. Might be lucky and find a better Capital site close by like last time. :lol:

Good luck all, some of us might need it. :D

I have a divided opinion on the start. Plain hill start and forrest plain hill to work means fast worker right of the bat. The problem is there is no point on getting a worker out fast considering all the forest. :lol: Still it might be possible to get 2x scout+worker out before BW is done, which would give good scouting and overview of the map.

If there is marble or stone nearby, I will probably go for wonders with a hammer heavy capital like this. If not .. I hope for some really nice city spots where I can block of the AI. If I think I can't grab enough land from this position, it will be an axe or chariot rush.

But all will become clear once I start playing. (I hope :p)

Great start, will result in very different opening games I believe :D

I'm going to have to sit down and think a couple of minutes before I decide what to do for this one.

I'm going to have to sit down and think a couple of minutes before I decide what to do for this one.

That's as far as I've gotten on this one :lol:

Started the game and played until 1080BC. The start aint all bad and ill expect alot of different openings from this one :D

4000BC - 1080BC

Didnt take alot of screenshots, it all just happend very fast :D Though with this start my first though was, CHOP AND KILL :hammer: and it didnt take long until i meet the pushing bag, aka Louis.... hmmmmm seems like this has happend just recently with the same outcome as now :D

Pup´ed Wheel from hut. Pupéd ~40 gold. Pup´ed 3 scouts and alot of maps :(

My research path was BW / AH / IW / archery / Writing (to get lib for science to recover + GS) / AC / Pottery

Build was : Worker, Barrack(until pop 2), Settler (working both elephants) until AH came online. Then another worker + rest of Barrack.

Settled 2. city fast grabbing clam, Cow, Copper and come nice land with lots of tree for chopping :D. Then i went to war with 4 Swords, 2 Axes, 1 archer and just keept chopping Swords.

http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0123.JPG
Yep a GG before 1000BC :P

Ill let the pictures tell the rest....

http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0124.JPG

http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0125.JPG

http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0126.JPG

http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0127.JPG


Comments and suggestions are well come.

To my east i got alot of free land and so does Jao II, so either i try to grab that now or he will be the dominent AI in this game...

To the Northwest i got 2 PROTECTIVE :( AI´s, which just does not go well with my intended warfare. So maybe ill just expand in peace. China and Gilla.

Up until 3320 BC:

Figured a short set at first was suitable for this map.
First thing that became apparent when opening the game was that there was no food to our east and south in the BFC (forests). With that in mind:

Turn 0:
- I sent our scout north and found nothing.
- Sent our settler 1 west as I wouldn't lose any food either way (found no food).

I decided that it would be hard to find a worse spot than where we started, so I went looking for a better one.

Turn 1:
- Sent the scout west and found no food
- Sent the settler 1 west -> 1 SW onto forest and found nothing

Still nothing in sight. At this point I'm getting really scared of losing turns for nothing. :(

Turn 2:
-move scout 2 NW and found Clams (hooray!!!)
- move settler onto forest towards clams and find flood plains (1N 1NW)

Turn 3:
- scout onto hill
- Settler 1 NW flood plains and locate plains cow. It's now obvious where to settle. Move 1 NE.

Here's what it looked like at the end of turn 3:

http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/2757/khmer10001nd7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Turn 4: settle 1 SW of clams also getting flood plains, cows and river ivory.

It looked a little bad at one point there. Especially after turn 1 seeing both south and north, but in the end I'm happy with the result. This will be a decent capital and the 4 turns are worth it imo.

3320 BC: Deja vu! Yet again we're close to Louis and yet again he has Gold in his capital. I smell a repeat of last game (early rush).

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/900/khmer20000cl2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

If you settle 1 NE it looks like you'll be on the coast as well as having fresh water. Even though this isn't as bad as most "1 off the coast" positions because you don't have any water tiles if you settle in place, I still think it's worth considering that move.

2nd round; 3320 BC -> 425 BC

It turns out my capital move was even better than expected. I wouldn't be surprised if people thought I was cheating, because at 2400 BC we discover copper (!!) in our BFC, you're just going to have to take my word for it; I had no idea. :blush: To top things off I even get the random even which supplies Cover for all meelee troops. I don't like repeating games and strats, but it would just be foolish not to rush Louis given the circumstances. At least I can show that rushing works perfectly fine in BTS as well, and it's not a Warlords phenomena. ;) The AI is getting more troops, but a well-timed rush will still beat them down usually.

http://illegalt.net/gallery/d/238-1/khmer+%2330000.JPG

I'm really amazed by this map, there are almost no food resources. A peaceful REX will be tough for those that do that apporach.

850 BC: We've declared war on Louis.

http://illegalt.net/gallery/d/241-1/khmer+%2330001.JPG

775 BC:

http://illegalt.net/gallery/d/244-1/khmer+%2340000.JPG

700 BC:

http://illegalt.net/gallery/d/250-1/khmer+%2360000.JPG

Partisan warriors. :lol: That means that we got his metal supply and it's within one of those new cities (and it's iron, because I'd see it if it was bronze).

Things get a little quiet for a couple of centuries as I want to extort techs from Louis when we sign peace. The AIs are teching very fast this game. QSH having at least 1 source of gems in his capital and Louis having gold+corn is probably the reason. Kinda funny to compare their starting locations to ours. :D

475 BC:

raze:
http://illegalt.net/gallery/d/247-1/Khmer+%2370000.JPG

keep:
http://illegalt.net/gallery/d/253-1/Khmer+%2380000.JPG

Now he's left with 1 city (I think) and we see what we can get for peace.
- I try Alphabet+IW+Mathematics -> he refuses
- I try Alphabet+Mathematics -> he accepts (yay!)
Next turn we get IW from Joao for mathematics.

Empire at 425 BC:

http://illegalt.net/gallery/d/256-1/Khmer+%2390001.JPG

Successful rush yet again. Only 5 turn left for currency and like last time we've got our hands on a holy city, but no shrine. Louis didn't make any wonders this time either (maybe he was at 95% of the Pyramids when I attacked?! :cry:)

Edit: Forgot to mention that 2 turns or so after declaring on Louis QSH declared on me. :D Obviously Louis bribed him with techs. Bad move by QSH though (unless he got a lot); I captured a city of his north of my capital (size 1 guarded by a chariot). Didn't get any diplo penalty either as it was so small.

2880 BC Early post so I can see Rusten's start. :D



Well I decided to settle in place. First build went scout then worker while teching AH. Important to get all our food resources up as quickly as possible. :lol:

With Louis this close an early war is likely. I didn't rush last game but will attempt it this game. So no horses handy on to BW. Just finished BW and there looks a nice site to the NW. (Just read Rustens start, thats where I'm aiming for) ;) So trying to get an early settler out to claim the bronze. I won't be using slavery for a while though :rolleyes:

Popped gold, 2 scouts (lost 1 to an animal), Fishing handy for the clam, and exp.

Plan is to build some axes, then some more, then visit Louis. :D

Our start. Louis founded Bud, Tok Hindu, I hope Bod founds Jud then that will keep them busy for a long while. :mischief:

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury-10000.jpg

Back to the game.

Even though immortal is well beyond me, I gave this game a shot (a good learning experience, maybe):
Goes to 900 BC but my scouting is really poor, I got whacked by a bear pretty early.
Well as most of you probably will, given the proximity of metal, I rushed Louis with 11 axes by ~1000 BC. I razed Lyons close to my border (partisan warriors, means he has no metal), then moved towards Paris in 900 BC, I had 8 axes in position and:

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/Civ4ScreenShot0001-3.jpg

:sad: I kind of lost heart after that, but I'll definitely follow this one as I did with the last. Good luck to everyone that plays.

@schwartz
Wow, that's evil for an immortal game. I also noticed very fast teching speeds but that's still crazy. Did the Oracle go late in the game? If so (and if Louis built it) then it explains the early longbowmen. Maybe you should give it another go from scratch, because that's simply bad luck.

2920 BC Scout/Worker/Scout, AH, BW, popped a Scout and HBR (!!) from huts, no resources in sight.
900 BC 2 cities, 4 Workers clearcutting, 6 HAs, invaded Louis, razed his stupid 1 tile off the coast city, got the wounded soldier peace event and took it. Adopted Slavery and whipped Settler to replace his stupid ruins with Clam/Cow/Copper/Phants. An event-spawned stack of barb Axes was nearby and I misjudged how road and river movement would work, because they walked around my stack of HAs and killed my Settler. (But I didn't get any message about it in the log... :confused:). Meanwhile Chinese and French Settlers were approaching the site. It's only one Settler, but my preference is usually to resign after big disappointments like that, and I did.
http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/athenai777/immortal-surya-barbs-vs-settler.jpg

Rusten:
The oracle went in 975 BC :eek:. I've never seen it go that late, even on Monarch.. Unbelieveable considering the two industrious civs.
I may restart and play from scratch, gotta go start a Monarch game or something and make sure Louis is right next to me first :p
EDIT: Don't know who built it, but it must've been Louis, I don't think even Deity AIs can self-tech Feudalism that fast. Unless he made a really hard beeline for it
And my initial build was Worker -> archer x2 -> settler -> barracks -> archer -> axes and tech was BW -> Archery (hut) -> AH -> Wheel -> Ag -> Fishing -> Pottery

schwartz:



That's really rough, 900 BC 11 Axemen is a fast axerush. I agree with Rusten, you got really unlucky there.

Gliese:
We're lucky enough to have close metal and two solid production sites to get some early axes out :)

Finding Suryavarman a home

Up to 1960BC

I really don't know what to do with this start, so I settle in place. Chasing the river is another option, but I decline.

AH will take 14 turns to research so:

Warrior->Worker is queued up.

BW is selected after AH, and I grow to size 2, and start chopping out settlers/workers.

By 1960bc we know BW/AH/Pottery/Fishing/Ag and have settled four cities. Copper has been claimed and it 2 turns from being connected. We've met all but one of the AI's as well.

Southern Khmer Domain:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/sur1_sotuh.jpg

The North:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/sur1_north.jpg

I think we're doing alright, Louis will have to be dealt with eventually, but I probably wont rush the fella.

@Jet

Too bad about those barbarians ... I really dislike those events (especially with such erratic behaviour :mad: ). Looked like a promising game with the HBR pop.

4000 B.C. - 2000 B.C.
I would consider popping the hut with the scout in the hopes of getting a map.Settled 1W of the start. My scout indeed popped a map from the goody hut.http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn5/nares1221/Surymapses.jpg

Set to work building a scout then worker, and researching Animal Husbandry.

Second scout pops Masonry from the hut NW of capital in 3760 B.C.http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn5/nares1221/Sury3760BCmasonry.jpg

Tech path went Animal Husbandry, Agriculture, Bronze Working.

First scout pops a partially (almost fully:sad:) researched Agriculture in 3280 B.C.http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn5/nares1221/Sury3280BCagri.jpg

After building a pasture on the Sheep, I sent my worker to build a camp on the Ivory. While researching Bronze Working, I built my first settler. Some turns were spent working the camped Ivory, rather than the pastured Sheep, to complete Bronze Working and the settler on the same turn.

In 2760 B.C. Khmer inventors provided us with a brilliant advancement in warfare technology.

http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn5/nares1221/Sury2760BCcover.jpg

That should make the upcoming conquest of Louis much easier.

I settled my second city 1NW of the cows northwest of the capital. It seemed to be the best site, grabbing cows, the flood plains, clams and copper.

I'm glad that Louis probably won't be putting pressure on the copper, and can't touch the fish. In fact, his next cultural expansions should only take grassland forest tiles, though I believe that is Paris to our west.

After completing Bronze Working, I teched Archery, Fishing, The Wheel, and have started on Pottery. My first build in the second city was a warrior. After completing him, I did not yet have Fishing, so I began on a settler. Being a dummy, I forgot to switch to a work boat as soon as fishing came in.

I chopped three additional workers, who are now busy upgrading tiles and hooking up the copper. One chop went to completing a barracks, and I'm now building my first archer in the capital.http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn5/nares1221/Sury2000BCdotmap.jpg


What are people's thoughts on settling 1W for dual river access? Is it worth the turn, given the risk that one or both rivers are short or very short?

Time to leverage that dual river access. I need to decide on where to place my third city, the final one before initiating hostilities with Louis. I'm looking at 3S of the capital. It's on the river, and shares the Sheep tile with the capital. I'm hoping to use that to grow to size two while waiting on grassland farms for further growth.

I also need to consider how to get at Louis. He researched Writing before me, and has offered my an open border agreement. I'm currently sending my remaining scout to explore his lands. I'm thinking of researching Iron Working next, and then heading directly to Construction, followed by Monarchy.

However, I'm unsure how to handle an early war with an Immortal AI. I'm going to be heavily outproduced, find it reasonably difficult to goad the AI into attacking your units, and find the idea of a pillage war without chariots unpalatable.

I still haven't swapped to Slavery because the start is so food poor, but the clams/cow/flood plains combo might bring it out soon.

@Rusten
Why not 1W of the position you settled in? AI suggested, and cuts down on the number of water tiles, while still grabbing all the good stuff.

Nares:



Your second city is interesting. Why not settle 1E on the plains? It would give you access to the ivory and use up a plains tile instead of a grassland tile and waste less land. I see your argument on less water tiles but do you think that balance against the other factors this early?

@GlieseI see your argument on less water tiles but do you think that balance against the other factors this early?Besides the 1T forest travel factor, absolutely. Fewer water tiles, and it's better placed to defend against Louis' culture. Louis can't place a city to grab the cows from me, and is very unlikely to place a city to grab that copper from me.

Losing the riverside grassland for a riverside plains is just that, a loss. But I'm unlikely to be working a cottage in this city for a reasonably significant period of time. I'll probably swap to Slavery once this city has the Clams hooked up, and begin whipping out units.

Thinking back on it, building a settler there was probably the worst decision. I should have put hammers into a barracks, instead.

As for losing the Ivory, I couldn't care less. Those plains Ivory offer some nice options for the capital. I have one camped and two farmed currently, but I'm thinking of putting a cottage on one. This "limbo" Ivory is a guaranteed source for happiness, and I can farm or cottage the other three as I see fit.

I'm leaning towards farming, with the food poor start. I'm researching Pottery currently, not so much for cottages, but for a granary in the capital.

Suryavarman the Martian, Chapter 2

1960bc-250ad

Well, we spent too much hammers on settlers for an early rush, nonetheless Louis always has to die in the Immortal University threads.

So Mathematics->Masonry->Construction is mapped out.

I had some bad luck with tech trades. Math only was able to fetch IW. When I was three turns from Construction only one AI had it -- three turns later and only Joao didn't have it. Got alphabet from him.

Louis techs Feudalism fairly early (~400bc), but cats should help us out.

At 150bc, we're ready. Our army counts as ~10% more powerful than Louis' so we should be good. In we go:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/sury_inv.jpg

Paris is weak:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/weak_paris.jpg

Orleans has much better defenders:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/strong_orleans.jpg

I take a few more French cities, leaving Louis with two (a wimpy hill city) and a captured barb city to the east. Currency + Mono come with the peace deal :D

The war went well.

I lost:
8 axes
8 cats
2 swords

Louis lost:
11 lbows
5 axes
4 swords
2 HA
2 chars
2 cats

The numbers would look better it I didn't loose a small stack of five units in a failed attack.

War Bounty
Great Wall
Great Lighthouse :goodjob:
Unshrined Confucian holy city
Academy
Settled GG
11 workers

Our Empire:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/emp_250.jpg

Tech position:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/tech_Screen_250.jpg

I plan on killing Louis when our treaty is up, hopefully he's still independent by then.

I did trade Aesthetics around, but may still try for the SoZ and the S. Paya.

Diplomatically I'm a little troubled that Joao, Boudica, and Toku are all Buddhist. Gilgamesh built a Jewish AP, I have two Jewish cities.

I think I'm in good shape so far.

@Rusten


I wouldn't be surprised if people thought I was cheating, because at 2400 BC we discover copper (!!) in our BFC, you're just going to have to take my word for it; I had no idea.

Its too bad we all know how you dominate Immortal games -- we know you have no reason to cheat ;)

Very nice peace treaty loot :goodjob:

[......]nonetheless Louis always has to die in the Immortal University threads.



:lol: He must be having a mental breakdown at this point - never making it into the ADs with all of his cities intact. This time around he's beelining Feudalism, but still getting owned :D

I've started this one as well. Played up to 1 AD.


I settled in place, gambling on the map generator. I was sorely disappointed :( But on the upside, I got some ridiculous hut luck. I popped archery, then agriculture, then IW :lol: I also got the cover event for melee units to boot. Poor Louis didn't stand a chance, especialy since he iddn't have access to copper/iron/horses...

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/misc/Civ4ScreenShot0130.jpg

I took Paris, razed one city, and also grabbed Orleans by the shore (which I kept because it had access to gold).

I had leftover swords so I sent my troops north to go harass Qin. His capital was lightly defended and the axes that I built after the swords caught up with my stack. I managed to take a coastal city and his capital before I ran out of steam and had to take peace. I figured I had crippled Qin at this point so mission accomplished there too.

Qin then proceeded to settle eastwards, blocking off the land from Gilgamesh. So now that the northern border has been secured, my goal is to settle to the south and east towards Joao. Unfortunately Joao has grown very large... I think there's going to be a big showdown later on in the game unless I can bribe him into some bad wars. We'll see how it goes...

Here's my 1 AD tech screen:
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/misc/Civ4ScreenShot0131.jpg

and VC:
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/misc/Civ4ScreenShot0132.jpg

Up to 625BC



The aim in this section was war with Lou. I let him off early on last time, he wasn't going to be so lucky this time. Paris was to be the first target but being a holy city and creative I was expecting the cultural defence to be at 60% and with axes this was going to hurt. :sad: So the plan was to have 15 axes before I declared. Might have been overkill but when my army reached Paris the first axes were at 8% to win. Forgot to take a screenshot but overall I lost 5 or 6 axes and Paris was mine. :D

Next target Orleans the pig/gold city.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Civ4ScreenShot0004.jpg

My first 2 axes won at 20% odds, nice RNG and Orleans was mine. :)

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/SuryOrleans0000.jpg

Kept this city. Next Rheims which was going to be razed.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Partisans0000.jpg

Mmm warrior partisans. I don't usually raze cities so does it mean the partisan event will happen on every city we raze? I was going to take peace after this but had to kill the warriors for cheap xp first :lol:.

A very awkward diplo moment.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Suryconvert0000.jpg

Decided to convert as Tok/Boud are a fare distance away and it will help keep Qin and Gil happy with me. Especially when I attack there friend again ;). Good or bad move?

I'm wondering whether peace with Lou was a good idea. I was suffering a little bit from WW but as he didn't have alpha I couldn't get any pointy stick research techs. I know he has calender as he's built some plantations. Plus side he might build the MoM for me. :) Any thoughts on that especially as everyone else has alpha?

Final scores:

Lost 9 Axes

Killed 4 Axes
4 Swords
8 Archers
3 Warriors
1 Chariot (why I'm building some spears)

Tech situation:

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Techsituation6250000.jpg

Should have Aesthetics very soon so I'll put a turn in Alpha and should be able to pick up a few techs there fingers crossed. :)

Demographics looking ok.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury1Demographics0000.jpg

Plan now is a bit of a peaceful rex. Take Lou's last 2 cities. I'll let him clear all the jungle first though. There are some barb cities to the East which I will take/raze to stop the AI getting them plus more xp for my cr axes.

Last thoughts on the capital. Just wondering what everbody else (except Rusten) will do with it. Pre CS its at + 4 food (UB will be needed here I think :lol: ) so a prod monster but needs bio to be seen at its best. I'm tempted to move to Paris (I've done that before recently as well ;)) anyone else planning the same?

When I back from college I will try some turns too. I usually play in Noble/Prince/Monarch, that will be a big jump to immortal :D

When I back from college I will try some turns too. I usually play in Noble/Prince/Monarch, that will be a big jump to immortal :D

The worst jump for me is from Marathon to Normal. Everything just seems to blaze by at an utterly stupid rate :crazyeye:

Looks like the capital will be moved again this game :lol:. I'd say this is a bad start but it is redeemed somewhat by the 25% hammer bonus on workers so we'll be able to put the forests to good use. I really hope for another bonus in the fog though. I always settle in place and i'll do so now.

I'll start tonight.

I am not going to play this as Immortal is killing me, and the start seems tough; anyway, here are some thoughts:
1: Settling 1W is bad - the only clear tile (resource, probably!), is lost.
2: Settling 1NE might be good for coastal access, but loses lots of :hammers: potential.
3: Suryavarman is so ugly without his Bluemarble makeover.

625BC -325AD



Well a quiet little session with the aim of consolidating my land and stabilising my economy. First off I've just read Olodune's spoiler regarding the tech situation. In mine Gil researched civil service in 585BC :eek:. Don't know if that is early or not but it seems it is to me. Managed to get Alpha/Math/IW and Masonry from Aesthetics. Current tech situation.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury3-Techs0000.jpg

Not looking too bad. Joao just came and asked me for Lit, Boud has had it for some time so I will sell it to Qin and Gil, the cash will help me to CS quicker. The capital could certainly do with some irrigation. :). Hopefully one of those 2 will build the GLib for me. ;) I was going to try but decided HE should go in the capital. Nearly time to put Lou out of his misery. He has even built the Mids as well. I did build the Shewdagon (spelling) and used it to go in FR so no religious negatives with anyone. Current Relations.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury3-Relations0000.jpg

Good all except Lou and he doesn't matter. :lol:

Qin founded Tao and Christianity, also built the AP with Tao as the religion. Reminds me must spread it around my cities.

Not a totally peaceful round I took 2 barb cities, kept 1, the other I decided it wasn't worth the maintenance so razed it. Wouldn't say Joao is programmed to settle quickly but he was there straight away with a settler. :lol:


A view of our lands.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sur-3EastLands0000.jpg

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sur-3WestLands0000.jpg

Plan for next session is to settle the fish/deer and crab sites and most importantly put Lou out of his misery. :D

I think I'm looking good at the moment ;), both Gil and Qin are squashed in to the North. Qin 5 cities, Gil 4 so hopefully if and when I decide to attack them they will fall quickly.

One last thought does selling techs count towards WFYBTA? On to next session. :)

Played abit more today on my game :) and decided to go down a different path than the one I had planed for yesterdag. A good night sleep can set your mind straigh :D

1080BC-100BC


So my economy was in a pretty bad shape where i left off last time. About 15:science: and minus 15:gold:. Time to make use of all those cheap library´s from creative trait and put some scientists to work. This is way i "beelined" writing so fast to secure a way out of my dead eco after my envasion of louis :deadhorse:

I decided not to for go with the warmonger plans and decided to REX to the east in order for Joao not to grab too much land. My scouting tells my, that even though i REX toward him, he will properbly be nr. 1 in landmass unless the Celts/Japan somehow surprise me. Those to always seems to be the worst AI´s in the game.

Well my tech path this round was :

Pottery (only a few turns missing) Spammed some cottages to recover even more
Alphabet even though i was allready know by a few. Another VERY important tech for me to recover my eco. With Alphabet in I put almost every city to "work" science to research Currency.
At this point my science had gone from 15 :science: with negative gold per round to ~85:science: and breaking even in gold per turn. :)

Traded alphabet for Math + some cheat techs.

Ill let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Tech situation after i traded currency around for as many techs as possible.
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0129.JPG
Discovered CoL and did a trade
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0130.JPG

http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0133.JPG

I traded with the evil female warmonger machine because she is not on my maps --> far away from me + she never seems to be a problem late game. So if i can delay the other guys by not trading with them, thats fine :goodjob:

Seeing as no one has gone for the Great library route yet i decide to go for it as i just got acces to marble :). Think ill try to build it in my newly found city at the borders to Joao. That city might be the only one with enough food potential to become my GP farm. (overview of the empire will follow)

http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0131.JPG

I like the tech situation so far. I have tried to tech-trade the least with Qin(China) in order to have a backwards neighbour.

An interesting game development is :
Qin and Gilgames have different religions and close borders... Really hope they go to war with eachother soon. Then ill come at a later stage in the game and clean up the mess. :D


State of the empire in the following pictures :
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0134.JPG

http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0143.JPG
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0144.JPG
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0145.JPG
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0146.JPG

A post with empire overview will follow.

1080BC-100BC continued. Empire overview + future gameplan


Overview of the Immortal student empire :P
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0141.JPG
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0142.JPG
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0140.JPG
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0135.JPG


Game plan:
Well i like my land and have plenty of new cities to backfill south/east of my capital. That should be done in the next turnset. Getting the great library and setting up my gp farm has top priority. With CoL and Currency in the bag the eco will only grow stronger ;)

I plan to aim for the Lib race once i get Literature with a slingshot towards Riffling/Riflemen :mischief:... to grab the lands of China and Gilgames. :lol:

A very important development is the Religius... With Boudica, Tokugawa and Joao all buddist ill have to either hope Joao founds a religion soon and converts or spamm missionaries in order to create some tension in that region. If not ill have to rely on buddisme spreading to me so I can join the club :D


Overview of my borders :
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0136.JPG
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0137.JPG
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0138.JPG
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0139.JPG

@ Johan^^



Looking good :goodjob:. Nice settling of Angkor Wat (I think) on the Gold/Flood Plains site, by the time I realised it was FP and not desert Joao had settled there :sad:.

You said you traded for a lot of cheap techs are you concerned about the WFYBTA limit? Not that it matters too much when you are the tech leader :lol:.

@Johan^^

You look to be in great shape -- nice job getting the Angkor Thom city :goodjob:

You have a similar "Buddhist block" as me, it will be interesting to see how that plays out -- I have a Buddhist city (IIRC), so I may swap soon. :dunno:

I played ahead quite a bit :D I definitely got into "one more turn" mode as I was having fun warring. I definitely have new found respect for creative as a warring trait.
I'm up to 1500 AD.

I picked up from my last game by consolidating my gains and sending out some settlers to the east. Unfortunately Joao had REX'ed pretty far west so I was only able to squeeze in another 2-3 cities before I ran up against his borders. I then hunkered down and decided to commit to a medieval war. Qin was tiny and Gilgamesh didn't have much production either. I figured if I struck swiftly, I'd be able to take them out before they would become too problematic. Also, the eastern region of Joao/Toku/Boudica were Buddhist buddies so there wasn't much point in trying to stir up action over there.

So I teched CS, then went towards machinery followed by engineering -- guilds. I then went gunpowder in case I needed it before I went back to paper -- education. Joao by this time had been caught up in an unfortunate war so he was teching military techs.

On the war front during this time, I thought no wars would happen to the east but Boudica declared on Joao, then bribed Toku to join in. That war went on for a while. After that, Toku declared on Boudica. Joao also dogpiled against Boudica, ultimately vassalizing her towards the end of this set.

To the west (my area), I declared on Qin once I had enough trebs to tear down castles in 3-4 turns.
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/misc/Civ4ScreenShot0133.jpg

He only had two cities left so it didn't take too long to take him out, but he did build one on a hill with CG2 LB which wasn't very fun to dislodge. However I did pick up Chichen Itza and the GLighthouse for my troubles:
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/misc/Civ4ScreenShot0134.jpg

I then healed my troops and headed north, invading yet another protective civ. Gilgamesh had quite a lot of troops as he's a warmonger by nature but he didn't have anywhere to burn his excess troops on. As a result, I had to take out lots of units to take his cities. He also had the SoZ in Uruk, which caused some serious problems. After I had taken 2 cities, WW had shot up to around 600, and it was well over 1000 when I finally took Uruk. This is when creative helped - I built theaters and colosseums in all of my unhappy cities and pushed the slider to 20%. This generated 5:), which helped to offset the 12 :mad: that some of my cities were seeing. I also resigned myself to losing some pop - I just needed to hurry along and capture Uruk to quell the WW.

By the time I took Gilgamesh's capital, Toku was at peace with Boudica. As a result, he decided to take Gilgamesh as his vassal, even though he doesn't have astronomy and doesn't have OB with Joao :lol: (This is also the reason that boudica stayed independent for so long - Joao couldn't send his troops to attack her core). Anyways, Gilgamesh didn't put up much of a fight after I captured Uruk as his remaining cities were very production poor.
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/misc/Civ4ScreenShot0135.jpg

I played on a few more turns after that so that I could tech up to rifling before I decide what to do next. Boudica built the AP in one of her cities but Toku managed to capture that city. As a result, the most recent AP voting was between Toku (who's hated by everyone for being Hindu at this point) and me. Since Joao and Boudica were both pleased/friendly with me, I handily won the voting. So I could definitely take an AP victory at this point. Or I could continue massing my army and just declare on Joao and drive eastward. Toku can't reach me so I'm not too worried that I'm still at war with him.

Here's my tech screen:
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/misc/Civ4ScreenShot0136.jpg

And the VC:
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/misc/Civ4ScreenShot0137.jpg


This map reminds me of why I love pangaea wars :mischief:

Add which year you're up to outside the spoiler shyuhe ;)
That goes for your previous round as well.

Creative is great indeed, not only for the border pops, but also half-price war buildings (theatre and colosseum).

@ Johan^^



Looking good :goodjob:. Nice settling of Ankor Wat on the Gold/Flood Plains site, by the time I realised it was FP and not desert Joao had settled there :sad:.

You said you traded for a lot of cheap techs are you concerned about the WFYBTA limit? Not that it matters too much when you are the tech leader :lol:.


Well i needed techs like Masonry, Poly ... in order to go for the Lit route asap. But the WFYBTA could certainly become a problem. None of the leaders are super techtrade buddies. Will have to work on one or more of them and possible get them to friendly ;) Dammit i really need buddisme :rolleyes:

@Sleepless
One last thought does selling techs count towards WFYBTA? On to next session.
No, only recieved techs count. That's why it's great to sell techs for gold whenever possible.

@Rusten
Why not 1W of the position you settled in? AI suggested, and cuts down on the number of water tiles, while still grabbing all the good stuff.

Didn't notice this one earlier, sorry (maybe because it was edited in?). Spoiler is regarding settling, feel free to read as long as you've played 5 turns or more.

I wanted the riverside Ivory, it's a very good tile early on. I didn't have much faith in what the AI suggested after that starting location :lol: - clams+cows+flood plains+river ivory enables high commerce and speedy settlers/workers. Further it would mean another wasted turn before being able to settle (I'd have to move on top of the forest). Another thing would be that when moving capitals the number 1 problem is too few hills/hammers. By settling where I did I got the plains hill and ivory, it has much more production.

Suryavarman the Martian, Chapter 3

250-1050ad

While I'm waiting for the enforced peace to expire, the AP (Jewish, Gilgamesh) starts getting nasty:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/ap_silly.jpg

I see no option but to defy (I actually have the cap space but a second defy will be painful -- Gilgamesh has been sending missionaries to my core). To pacify the warmongers in the east I switch to Buddhism.

Finally we are ready to finish off Louis:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/Louis_jinale.jpg

Annoyingly, he brings Gilgamesh into the war. Louis is dispatched, I have a short skirmish with Gilgamesh, and then the AP comes and gives peace to all. Fine by me. :goodjob: I manage to get the Music GA first.

Techs are being traded very quickly among the Buddhist block. Toku is willing to go to war with Boudica, but I don't have the techs to bribe him :sad: I can force their trade relations to stop:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/Toku_break.jpg

Joao beats me to the last city site by a few turns:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/city_lost.jpg

Despite the fact that all the AI's (besides Toku) get education within about a 3 turn lag of myself (:sad:) switching briefly to building wealth in all my cities enables Surya to get liberalism first:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/lib_win.jpg

A big weakness in my game is a lack of a GP farm, the two cities with sufficient food are much needed commerce cities, so I have no NE and am only running a few scientists in a couple cities for GPPs -- this needs to change as I'm now in the prime time for GPs. The only tech I was able to bulb was Philosophy.

Switching to Buddhism and a wedding event mean that I'm at Friendly with Joao. Boudica and Toku are pleased -- should be ok :mischief:. The eastern front:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/joao_front.jpg

To the north Qin and Gilgamesh are both weak, but advanced. Gilgamesh has spread the AP religion to all players -- a Diplomatic win vote came up, which he lost badly *phew*. Northern border:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/chinese_front.jpg

The tight tech screen:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/tech_screen.jpg

And demographics:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/demo_graph.jpg

The game is going reasonably well -- slow GP production has hurt a bit.

From here, I'll rebuild the economy a bit more (going for the Taj atm), then take down Qin->Gilgamesh, assuming the AP isn't too much of a pain. Maybe with rifles, maybe before.

475 BC -> 1100 AD
It becomes apparent that QSH has an even greater capital than Louis (gems and several dyes). I expect him to tech fast. I take out Louis last 2 cities after 10 turns. Poor guy, wiped out in the ADs again.

I finish currency and then go for the cheap religious techs. They’ll give a discount for CoL but additionally I’ll need to run a priest somewhere in order to get a religious shrine. This slowed down my GP rate a lot as I had to wait getting scientists until I got my prophet (I even had to pause my NE 1 turn before completion). I stopped after 1 scientist which bulbed philosophy for pacifism. Still, I wasn’t scared of losing liberalism so I accepted my fate.

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/1521/khmer170000er9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I create the Temple of Salomon:

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/5262/khmer180000zu2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

15 gpt already - not too shabby. As you can see we've got the AP now for extra hammers (thanks Gilgamesh).

800 AD: Gold!!!! While the game has seen a fair bit of turns it’s still an awesome event. It's been such a long time since this happened to me, many many many games, very appreciated. I was actually starting to think someone tinkered with my Civ version and removed the event.

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/2031/khmer180001hl8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Regret not moving my capital now, it would've payed off. As we aren't spiritual I expect to stay in Nationhood most of the time, but 2 gold and all that silk would've been a huge boost right away before changing. :(

Gilgamesh has been massing wonders with his tiny empire. So far he’s gotten at least SM, UoS and the AP, but those are just off the top of my head (having stone in your capital helps I guess :D). I’m looking forward to the day that they’ll all be mine, and it’s not too long before that will happen (hopefully). I’ve befriended Joao so the east is safe thus the plan is to invade QSH and Gilgamesh soon with our UU (anti-knight), cuirassiers and possibly muskets/cannons. That UU is really good when you’re the aggressor, I’ll obliterate his stack of knights even if they’re guarded by pikemen.

I’ve been having bad luck with my great people. Spawned a GM instead of a GS at a bad time with really low odds and just recently the same happened except this time I got an artist………. Oh well, a future golden age I guess.

I could’ve culture bombed QSH in order to get these horses:

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/8837/khmer200000tx3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

But I didn’t know I was going to get a GA so I already settled a city to the east claiming them unfortunately. This map is low on food, but I've got lots of production, so I'll be getting a ton of B. Elephants and cuirassiers. My force won't have as many muskets this time for this reason but also the fact that QSH seems to be getting a lot of knights.

Decided to stop there as I need some sleep. The next set will be dedicated to war, stay tuned.

100BC - 425AC

This round things went from very good to bad to worse and ended up beeing ....


So basically this happend as i pressed enter the first time ....
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0154.JPG
The ugly lady decided i had to go down. Pup´ed GS and bulbed Phil.
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0152.JPG

I did my first civic change:
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0150.JPG

The freshly whip´ed archer could not do much, neither could the fortified swordman. Fortunately i had my stack of CRII and CRIII within range. Basically waited for Boudica to capture the city and then attacked her, so i could use the CR bonus. :deadhorse:

http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0163.JPG

Settled a new city:
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0165.JPG

Then it got even worse: Joao II decided he would like the perfect city of Angkor Wat and declared war.... even calling me his worst enemy DAMMIT !!.
If only i had one buddish city :cry:
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0167.JPG

Time to help the diplomacy a bit. Research is set on Monachy to get HR for dip bonus with Joao and Gilgamesh. Next target will be Bur for bonus with Qin. (didnt make it this round though. My research went down with the loss of traderoutes and the military effort)
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0169.JPG

Gilgamesh shows up with an interesting trade ! which i took
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0175.JPG

Killed off some units of Joao´s and got peace for Poly:
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0178.JPG

Boudica did sent a few units from time to time, but nothing big. So i build a few wonders, Mausoleum, Great Lib, Statues of Zeus and are working on both Parthanon and Paya. I think ill build until last turn and then cancel in order to get the gold....

Had to forget about my plan to make Angkor Wat my prime GP farm with both Great Lib and NE for now due to the war... not sure where to put the NE now...
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0202.JPG


Well i was not all bad this round. Just look at this development :D
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0188.JPG

HE in capital with GG settled:
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0192.JPG

Finally i did some tech trades and trade for gold to get back in the Lib race.
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0205.JPG
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/Civ4ScreenShot0206.JPG

--
I have not decied on my further strategy as this round . .. .. .. .ed the hole game plan up.
Though if it was easy it would not be fun, nor would it be immortal difficultly level :P

@ Johan^^



Perhaps I was to quick to say :goodjob: on settling Ankor Wat. ;)
Still looking strong though with your land.

Up to 1320BC
Feedback is welcome. What are my stupid mistakes?

Settle in place
The first hut provides a map, but the 2nd one provided animal husbandry (turn 3)!!!
Research: Animal husbandry(hut)->Bronze working->agriculture->fishing->wheel->pottery->writing->aesthetics (partial).

Build: worker->warrior->warrior->settler->warrior->worker.
Founded Hari.
Lots of chopping and building a road to the copper, and starting to build axemen.
I decided to build libraries and granaries in both cities since they are cheap. I cannot afford to hire scientists in the capital, so I would do it in Hari, but I still want a library in the capital to get 25% bonus on the palace research.


The status of our empire at 1320BC
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/ourempire1320bc.jpg

Yaso, the slow growing capital:
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/Yaso1320bc.jpg

Hari, the fast growing scientist city
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/Hari1320bc.jpg

With the scientists, we are soon to discover Aesthetics. No other AI has alphabet yet, so I hope to have a lot of trading oppurtunities by trading alpha with the first AI who gets it. Everyone is still cautious to everyone else.


Paris, our holy city
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/Paris1320bc.jpg
Oops, I see some foreign army occupying our city. Who is this Louis guy that appears in every game and puts troops in our cities?
Well I guess he is doing us a favour, guarding the territory for us from other civs. Thank you Louis. Please keep your focus on founding religions, building wonders and spreading missionaries. Oh.. and don't build a lot of troops, it's a waste of time :p.

The current wonder status:
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/wonders1320bc.jpg
Strange, both industrious leaders have missed the early wonder race.

The axes I am building start to make my economy sink. I might need a few cottages to keep it. I plan to settle the GS in Yaso, since it will be a while before my science rate is back up.

Up to 175BC


1280BC - Louis builds the oracle and founds Christianity.
1120BC - I decide to switch to budhism since the Chinese are Budhist too. The Sumerians are jewish, so it's a bit risky, but China acts as a buffer between us. Boudica and Joao are still atheists.

1040 BC - aesthetics finished, starting alphabet (31 turns!!!).
Boudica is the only one with Alphabet.
My research has really slowed down with all this army. I hire 2 scientists in the capital, since my army is big enough and I need to get Alphabet quickly.

925 BC - generous Boudica gives us the secrets of Alphabet.
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/Civ4ScreenShot0001.jpg

The tech situation:
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/tech925bc.jpg

I trade Aesthetics to Louis for iron working. It may have been a mistake.
Nothing useful to trade at the moment, and in Pangaea WFYABTA will come quickly, so I don't trade anymore until I can trade something useful.
I continue with backfilling for mysticism->meditation->priesthood so I could trade Monarchy or CoL.

875BC I declare war on Louis. He illegally occupies the Aztec city of Paris.... oops, that was in another reality... I mean, the Khmer city of Paris.

The next turn china declares war on us.
I think what happened is that they were bribed by the French, with the Aesthetics I gave them (Louis must have finished Alphabet himself that turn). What a mistake.... should have traded iron working with Joao for Aesthetics instead.
BTW, does anyone know how you can find out if an enemy has bribed someone to war with you? The AI always seem to know when you negotiate a deal against them, ("you traded an embargo on us", etc.). Is the same information available to human players, or are we just expected to do smart guesses?

750 BC - war status with France:
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/750BC_frrenchwar.jpg
Gold from capturing the cities funds some deficit research that is badly needed.

War status with China - they only sent a lone archer for now, but I keep reinforcements in Hari instead of sending them to Paris, so it delays my conquest a bit.

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/750BC_chinawar.jpg

700 BC
Louis discovers Monarchy, which I want to get for peace.

625BC - we make peace deal with China without a single combat. All they did was to pillage my copper, but I had iron already so I didn't care.

550BC - I need some time to rearrange troops and heal, so I try to get Monarchy for peace from Louis, and he refuses. So I sign cease fire.
2 turns later, he agrees to give me Monarchy as tribute!!!
I build libraries in all captured cities as well as barracks. I build some more swordmen.
I noticed too late that Boudica has become Hindu for quite some time and has too much on her hands and approaching with a small stack to my border.
I also find a marble patch, but it's a bit far... still the only one who has literature is Louis.

Boudica declares war on me, but I am not afraid of her SOD yet.
As soon as peace treaty is over, I quickly finish Louis (declare 1 turn after Boudica declared on us).

We manage to tech currency, and tech 2 turns into calendar to trade it with Gilgamesh.


Status of our empire:

The battle of Paris
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/celtwar175bc.jpg
My axemen and swordmen are all 5XP troops thanks to a settle military instructor in Yaso. I promote them to show. With +60% culture on a hill, I have no immediate concern. I am not sure what to with the war though. The entire eastern continent are hindu, and I don't want to be their worst enemy.

Yaso the Capital:
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/status175bc1.jpg
Hari:
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/status175bc2.jpg
I don't think I will build shwegadon. I am doing it to get gold. I could build it for free religion, but I don't think it will help me diplomatically right now.

Lyons:
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/status175bc3.jpg
Please ignore the current build. I am not sure what to build now, and looking for advice.

Paris:
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/status175bc4.jpg

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/status175bc5.jpg
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/status175bc6.jpg
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/status175bc7.jpg

Tech status:
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/status175bc8.jpg
Since no one has literature yet, I am thinking of a GL in either paris or Hari.

I will need a quick settler to the marble patch here :
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/status175bc9.jpg
Doing so while managing a defensive war with Boudica, so I don't know how realistic it is. Still, 4 GS while staying in slavery + NE could guarantee liberalism.

Wonder status:
Gilgamesh is strangely grabbing all of them:
Pyramids, Temple of Artemis, GLH, and stonehenge. China hasn't built a single wonder yet.
Maybe I should hurry up with statue of Zeus with my ivory (and cancel my ivory deal to china?) This might save me from evil Boudica and deny an annoying wonder from the AI. Now that I think of it I should have aimed for that instead of shwegadon.


I am a bit confused about the best way to continue. I will wait for some advice before I continue to play.

My thoughts:

Both china and Celtia don't have Monarchy, so I could tech catapults and take them before they get to longbows. Someone else might get Feudalism and they might become Vassals to them though.

Gilgamesh will probably be a great techer. If I can, maybe I should convert to his religion and get him friendly. Hereditary rule is his favourite civic, so getting him friendly should be quick. After that there would be no WFYABTA.

If I can deal with Boudica, I would like to get Gilgamesh's religion, and bribe him to war with china.
Together we will crush the chinese and he will become friendly quicker because of the shared military struggle.

If the chinese manage to get the statue of zeus, this plan will be difficult, so I better cancel this ivory for dye deal I have with them now and hope I can beat them to the statue.
I will also need to send more missionaries to china to make sure they DON't switch to confuciucism.

I am also not sure how to deal with Boudica in the long term. I think she builds huge armies usually, and at this point she has no other enemies. The entire eastern block has the same religion.
Is it realistic to send Galleys with missionaries to Joao to convert him? Or maybe I could bribe him later to war with Boudica?
Maybe I should let Boudica commit some suicide attacks on me and then make peace, send missionaries and switch her to Buddhism? That means I would have to stay budhist and go to war with Gilgamesh eventually.

Pangaea is very confusing. Who do I choose to be my enemy and who do I choose to be my tech trade partner? WFYABTA will come early (Mansa is not in this game :)) so I need someone to be friendly.

325 - 1030AD



Well the plan was to take out Lou in this session. Unfortunately I was forced to act before I was ready. ;)

He built another city just North of Paris then culture bombed it. :eek:
So all of a sudden Paris lost most of its tiles so it was time for him to go. I was right about him building the MoM so after a quick war Lou is no more.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/SurLyons0000.jpg

So MoM and Mids not a bad haul. Picture of my new lands to the North.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury4-NewLands0000.jpg

Now this is where I had a bad thought. Chinese culture was affecting these cities. Qin had the AP and I didn't want to have any votes to return them to the Chinese. Looking at them now (I played this session last night) they are 100% Khmer so vote wouldn't have happened anyway. Definitely a bad move by me. :sad:

So I decided with no planning to attack China :mischief: So a protective Civ I had hardly any siege, my troops were outdated mostly CR swords and axes but I did have one spy running around China so sent him to Beijing hoping for a revolt. :D Of course on the turn my troops reached Beijing he was discovered. :lol: Managed to take Beijing but lost all my siege so I'm in a stalemate at the moment. I can't go anywhere (trying to get some more troops) to attack with but he can't take Beijing back either. I guess the AP will vote to give him the city back could be a defy vote there ;)

Powergraph

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury4-Power0000.jpg

He is the only civ I have esp points against. From the beginning I set my ep against him hoping to steal some techs (did get Hbr) so I can afford 1 city revolt, He has the SoZ in Guangzhou so I must take that next (when I get some troops there that is) :lol:

On the plus side I was going to try and build the GLib in my Capital as it only took 6 turns but Qin beat me to it, so I get the cash for missing it and the benefits of having it. :goodjob:

Beijing:

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury4Beijing0000.jpg

Tech situation:

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury4-Techs0000.jpg

Not great but nothing to worry about yet.

Demographics:

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury4-Demo0000.jpg

Still looking good.

More good news is that Joao and Tok are at war and Boud is friendly with Tok so I could see her joining in as well. So my Eastern front is ok for a while.

Now I have made a big mistake (again) regarding GPs. I've only had 1 GS who bulbed philo. I will try and learn to get more and earlier GPs though if I keep it Beijing should provide me with some. :lol:

Future plans are to try and take out Qin (won't vassalise him). Then onto Gil but that won't be for a long time yet.

@ silverbullet



Just read your posts and apart from the war with Boud you seem in a good position. I had the same religious dilemma when Gil asked me to convert to his religion. Obv our eastern neighbours weren't to happy about it. ;) Also being on the front line its not the best of positions. :lol:

In my game I built the S Paya and adopted FR problem solved. :D
I would do the same in your game as well, let the others have the religious differences.

I was going to try to build the SoZ but Qin demanded Ivory as tribute and a couple of turns later he built it. :cry: So I would cancel the deal if you can.

@silverbullet

Your game looks good to me, I don't see any silly mistakes. Going worker first only makes sense with the AH pop, but you did get it :lol:

Your tech position looks very good to me, nicely done.

The war with Boudica is a little troubling -- she is very aggressive and is likely to redeclare repeatedly. Perhaps converting Joao to Buddhism is possible? Maybe you should consider joining the earstern block Hindus?

@Sleepless

I've had a very similar problem with timely GP production. In hindsight I should have set up Hari as a GP farm and really pushed for the GLib there (I missed it by 6 turns). Still we both seem to be in reasonable positions despite the slow GP flow.

Interesting decision capturing Beijing when you did :p It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

Edit: Maybe you should have razed Beijing? No AP sounds very attractive ...

1100 AD -> 1440 AD

Get off to a bad start:

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/8060/ku10000fv0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

- Joao is currently friendly with QSH and Gilgamesh.
- QSH is currently friendly with Joao and Gilgamesh
- Gilgamesh is currently friendly with Joao and QSH

Yikes, guess I’ll be warring alone. They all love me as well, but I’m planning to adopt representation at the end of the GA so it’ll be pleased from there on.

Joao and Boudica is owning Toku, I interfere and bribe them both to peace. Even outside the GA we’re far ahead of rivals in production. I guess the starting location is OK once you get it going. It would be silly to go for rifles with no food, so after cuirassiers I’ll beeline steel (cannons) and military science (grenadiers).

1240 AD (the same turn I’m planning to declare on QSH):

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/5591/ku40000wj7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

:hmm: That’s not going to happen dude.
We’re doing fine tech-wise despite minimal lightbulbing. I’ve got 2 idle scientists waiting to bulb something of importance.

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/940/ku50000ur3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Something I forgot to mention earlier – QSH made the SoZ. That wonder sure likes to settle down wherever I’m planning to attack. :( The Taj Mahal GA helped to counter this though; I adopted organized religion and constructed jails everywhere. They’ll also help me gain espionage points.

1250 AD (our current army consists of cuirassiers, muskets and trebs).

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/8459/ku70000yj1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I said I was going to get our UU, but I forgot about one little detail—you can’t make them anymore after you’ve enabled cuirassiers. *doh*
Power graph is great given our production—this time I won’t even have to kill a SoD for military advantage.

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/680/ku90000yt1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

1310 AP interferes with our war—obviously I defy. Forgot to take a screen of the results but we have a blocking majority so nothing bad happened.

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/2939/ku100000eb1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

1330 A sweet event. Too bad it’s my drafting station, but an academy is good anyway (got the GL there).

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/679/ku130000ii2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

1330 Capture QSHs 2nd biggest city. It was a huge bloodbath over 2 turns, but our cuirassiers slaughtered his pikes and knights. My tech has been considerably good during the war this time around, averaging about 300 beakers per turn. Last time my research stopped completely, but then again Hannibal had a large empire and more units.

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/3753/ku150000wv3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Power after the bloodbath:

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/2633/ku160000ft3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

1390 Capture Beijing after healing our cuirassiers a little. It holds a lot of good stuff (he also popped gold from a hill :D).

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/7308/ku200000bm5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

1420 AD:

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/2958/ku200001uw8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

1440 AD QSH is no more. I thought about taking his capitulation as everyone likes him, but his cities are just too good to leave be, I want them all.

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/3414/ku210000el6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Stopped there; next up is the war vs Gilgamesh. I’m 2 turns away from Military science, so expect cuirassiers, cannons, muskets and grenadiers. My veteran cuirassiers should have the upper hand vs his and I’ve gotten a fair bit of cannons going. I just need some turns for grenadiers and I’ll declare.

@silverbullet
Louis bribed QSH in my game too. You can pretty much tell if he declares on you by bribe when no SoD or unit crosses your borders. When they decide to attack you themselves without bribes they will send troops and make it official when they're at your borders.

Get a market in Paris next (after a courthouse if you have CoL), it will have a lot of commerce with calendar. Follow up by monasteries. Basically make it an infrastructure city, avoid military there.

Till 1 AD
4000 BC settled in place and am faced with a tough decision right away. Obviously i'll need AH asap problem is i need BW just as much, if i go AH the worker 'll comeout 4 turns earlier, there are 13 turns of improvement to do (3 x 4 + 1 movement) for the resources. So when he's done improving we'll be 9 turns after discovering AH and BW will be some 5 turns away still (the city will be working one commerce ivory tile max at this point).

On the other hand going BW means giving up on improving the capital for some time. But if i combine growing capital to 2 and working the ivory with chopping i can have my first settter out very soon which is important on Pangae maps. Also chopping means we can move our workers and settlers around faster and the grasslands come online earlier. All this seems attractive to me so i go BW first.

3720 Oh no not again!

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s256/dirk1302/Louis-not-again-khmer-1.jpg

Does he want do die each time? Well we'll see. We seem to be cramped for space on the west side but i don't know that much of the eastern lands as yet.

3360 BC Copper revealed in the already great Cow/clam spot. I'll make building a settler a priority. It looks the eastern lands are a piece of junk soon ending in sea only good for one or 2 mediocre cities. But....

2680 BC Look what i found! what a spot.

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s256/dirk1302/Lookatthis-khmer-2680bc.jpg

Turns out there's lots of unclaimed land in the east and still no AI to be seen. If i can settle this spot first i claim at least 8 cities. Happy discovery for me, also for Louis who'll live to see another day now.

After finishing AG i have a tough decision between wheel and archery. an early archer is safe and i can settle the eastern gold spot a bit sooner. I'm not at risk of either barb harassment or or losing the gold spot so wheel and hooking copper it is.

Research path till now BW - AH - Fishing - AG - Wheel - Pottery - Writing - Sailing (for traderoutes).With the way my empire is build COL has to be next of course.

1800 BC Settler in place he'll have to wait till the axe in Yasodharapura arrives. <<save>>

1200 BC Settled the gold, building Axes right now. Already a barb settlement sprang up between my main base and the gold spot. there'll probably more to come. These settlements present a risk, AI will not settle in these places voluntarily anytime soon but they love taking out barb cities keeping them, so i have to be first to all the barbarian settlements to prevent losing the land i have blocked.

800 BC. More Axes. I lose money on all these units but i need them for the settlements.And also for power. I was happy with the opponents till i met Toky and Boudica. While you can't trust them 100%, GilGamesh, Qin and Louis are usually easy to befriend. Not so with Toky and Boudica. Toky's just a pain, it's also hard to see what he's doing because borders are closed. Celtia maybe far away but i've got a feeling from other games with her in it that distance doesn't keep her from declaring on anyone.

Adding to this Toku and Boudica are Hinduist while the other AI's and i are buddhist (had to switch for happiness, also borders with Louis and Qin are very close so i really can't afford war with them).For the moment Japan and Celtia are cautious but i check the diplo screen for "Enough on our hands" every turn with these 2.<<save>>

1AD, Both Celtia and Japan have declared on Joao. Japan is annoyed with me right now so when peace breaks out i'll have to get defences up. Still the only city he can get at is Angor Wat so it'll be easy to arrange defences there.

Overview 1 AD:

No reason to complain, 5 cities founded, 3 of them contributing significantly right now,without crashing economy. Research is ok right now i expect i can keep the slider high for some time selling of cheap techs, after CS it doesn't matter that much because we'll bulb and trade for most of what we need from there. Diplomatically i'm completely save atm. Pleased buddhist friends in the west, the 2 idiots in the east having a go at Joao.

On the down side, building axes i hadn't enough time to build workers. 5 workers for 5 cities isn't good enough and it shows mainly near the capital, well i get a sixth right away (see save) and i'm building some more to get the ratio to at least 1.5. The celt city you see north of Harilayara was a barb settlemet at first captured by Joao, who lost it to Boudica. I was some 5 turns late taking it. Really should have given this prime (blocking) settlement priority. The settler for the mediocre Angor Wat could have been employed elsewhere in that case stupid mistake really.

Plan from here is clear, Yasodharapura will get the NE,since i have marble i'll try for the GL as well, could use it , could also use the gold in case i didn't get it. Angor Thom gets the Globe theater for heavy drafting. I used to go CS after COL asap, i tend to do the Aesthetics route first now (even without marble) because lit and drama allow me to get these very important buildings finished in time. Also on a Pangae you can sell these 3 techs for lots and lots of gold enabling you to reach CS much sooner. And guess what, i'll be moving the capital this game to Harihalayara.

I missed my chance to rush Louis, ill try to make up for it later.

<<save>>

1030-1130AD



Well short round but first someone mentioned about seeing the UU special ability in use so :)

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury5-Ballistaatwork0000.jpg

Nice to see the HAs picked out.

Haven't got Lib yet but the race should be won even without bulbing :D

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury5TechScreenafteredu0000.jpg

Managed to take Guangzhou so now possess the SoZ as well as 2 shrines :D

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Guangzhou0000.jpg

Now Qin will capitulate.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury5-QinCapit0000.jpg

His relations with everybody else are pleased except Joao who is at friendly. Anyone know what the likelihood of him capitulating to another AI are? I will take him as a vassal after a lot of thinking about it just in case. Also not sure where I stand about giving cities back to vassals by the AP vote. High priority is to spread Tao around.

Gil will be the next target and with his wonder spammed capital I don't think he will be surviving :D. Depends what troops he has when to attack him though. One final thought Boud is in WHEOOH mode so not sure who she will attack, either me or Joao but will have to wait and see about that one.

I've had a very similar problem with timely GP production. In hindsight I should have set up Hari as a GP farm and really pushed for the GLib there (I missed it by 6 turns). Still we both seem to be in reasonable positions despite the slow GP flow.

Interesting decision capturing Beijing when you did :p It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

Edit: Maybe you should have razed Beijing? No AP sounds very attractive ...


@Olodune


GP production is something I definitely need to improve on. ;)

Quite pleased with the way the Chinese war went I've got 2 good cities Beijing as a GP farm with the GLib and Guangzhou with 2 shrines for Wall Street. I'll just have to garrison them with lots of troops so they don't keep revolting. Fortunately I have a lot of obsolete troops for the task. :D Although I was pleasantly surprised how well my CR3 axes and swords performed against maces so I might upgrade some of them.

Regarding the AP might be able to force a war against the Tok/Boud alliance or stop one against me so definitely want to keep it. :mischief:

@Olodune
@silverbullet

Going worker first only makes sense with the AH pop, but you did get it :lol:


I tried worker first researching BW violating the rule that you should always research the appropiate worker techs first (AH here).Worked fairly well. Indeed if you go AH first you'll end up with a worker which has nothing to do for approximately 5 turns but you'll have your chief resource up. I found decision between initial BW and AH hard but i was always sure i'd start with a worker more so because it takes till forever to grow the capital to 2 with this start also because apart from food the riverside ivory is impressive with output of 6 (1F3H2C)

@Olodune


I tried worker first researching BW violating the rule that you should always research the appropiate worker techs first (AH here).Worked fairly well. Indeed if you go AH first you'll end up with a worker which has nothing to do for approximately 5 turns but you'll have your chief resource up. I found decision between initial BW and AH hard but i was always sure i'd start with a worker more so because it takes till forever to grow the capital to 2 with this start also because apart from food the riverside ivory is impressive with output of 6 (1F3H2C)
Another interesting gambit is to go worker -> settler.
Assuming your scout is still alive after the worker you can fogbust a passage to a city. This depends on the amount of barbarian activity, but it's worth looking into. The ivory and the extra hammer in the capital capital will produce it quickly while you're researching the key techs for growth (BW/AH/Agri). If you suddenly notice a lot of barbarians you can add in a warrior, it won't delay that much.

1440 AD -> 1600 AD

1480 AD: Gilgamesh completes the SoL :drool:

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/1884/sury10000sz5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

We've got the MoM now so I decide to pop the GArtist for a GA. A lot of chinese cities are still revolting but the sooner I get to biology/communism the better. I love cities like this during a GA, pure ownage.

http://img395.imageshack.us/img395/6907/sury20000vf7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

1510 AD We declare on Gilgamesh.

http://img395.imageshack.us/img395/2347/sury60000ez0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

There's just no way he can stop us.

http://img395.imageshack.us/img395/9366/sury70000ka8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

1560 AD Boudica and her vassal Toku declares on Joao. I guess that will speed up my win a little, taking out Joao for domination will be easy either way though. We take Uruk and it's got sweet stuff:

http://img395.imageshack.us/img395/656/sury110000as0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I couldn't help myself, I had to vassal Gilgamesh for comical reasons. When Uruk pops its borders he'll be stuck with 1 land tile only :lol:
It also enabled some tech trades (Democracy&Astronomy). The benefit of attacking people that like you is that they're good allies when you vassal them. On a bigger map I probably would've left him with some cities, but they're all good here. At least I'm letting him enjoy his holy city, it even has a shrine (2 gold per turn I think) :)

Joao still hasn't teched Steel, I will declare very soon, probably within 5 turns. No need to think about war tactics at this point, I'll just walk over him with numbers alone.

Another interesting gambit is to go worker -> settler.
Assuming your scout is still alive after the worker you can fogbust a passage to a city. This depends on the amount of barbarian activity, but it's worth looking into. The ivory and the extra hammer in the capital capital will produce it quickly while you're researching the key techs for growth (BW/AH/Agri). If you suddenly notice a lot of barbarians you can add in a warrior, it won't delay that much.

More or less what i did, built one warrior growing to 2 that went fogbusting the clam.cow.copper site together with a scout that was stationed a few tiles further, i was very concerned of losing this site to Louis who hadn't expanded much at that time. I began chopping for the settler right after connecting the ivory. If Louis had managed to take this site the game would have been a lot different for most but not for you because you settled your first city there iirc :goodjob:.

@Dirk

I did build a total of three more settlers and three more workers at size 2. I was fairly happy with the result - 4 total cities and workers in 1960 bc.

1600 AD -> 1725 AD
Started off by gathering some gold to upgrade my cuirassiers to cavalry. Most of those units have more than 20 experience points by now so they're worth keeping. It speeds up the inevitable victory as well.

Declare on Joao in 1615, a little sooner than expected, but he beelined rifling (eta 3 turns at that point) so I rushed in. I didn't have to go further than this before he capitulated:

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/4194/aa40000sp0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Gilgamesh is back at friendly, despite -3 for attacking on him and -3 for declaring on his friends.

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/1912/aa60000fy1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I got impatient so after vassaling Joao I just moved into Toku's and Boudica's lands without even checking the power graph. That was a bit of a mistake, never underestimate the warmongerers, their graphs are huge despite old units. I killed an unbelievable amount of cuirassiers.

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/8742/aa90000yn3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I suffered a quick drop for my impatience, but the cavaly was replaced soon-ish. Not much to report really, it was a mop-up with cavalry vs cuirassiers. I reached the domination limit at 1725 and made Suryavarman happy.

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/9302/ab20000vy5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Suryavarman the Martian, Chapter 4

1050-1555ad

Last update I had just reached liberalism. There is crazy tech trading going on this game -- 3 turns after I chose Nationalism all the other AIs had it (except Toku). Still I was first to the Taj, using its Golden Age and a GSci + GA (from Music) to power Surya through Feudalism->Guilds->Banking and Constitution->Democracy.

Along the way I finally see a bribe I've been looking for the past few centuries:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/Toku_bribe.jpg

This is good, and is even better when 10 turns later the hostilities are going strong:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/boudica_mayhem.jpg

They would eventually get peace, but Toku looses two cities and Boudica looses one :goodjob:

In 1420 we make it to rifling, and send a DoW to Emperor Qin. Qin responds by bribing Gilgamesh to attack us. :rolleyes: This means that our armies face a mixed garrison at the first Chinese city:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/Qin_attack2.jpg

Our armies move onto Beijing, and we accept a Capitulation by Qin:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/Qin_cap.jpg

WW is hurting and Gilgamesh is being annoying (hitting our rifles with airships ...), so capitulating Qin will hasten the downfall of our local Sumerian.

As we move onto Sumerian lands I get a Japanese surpise:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/Toku_war.jpg

Hmm, well we'll see what he can do to our weakish eastern front, eh?

Meanwhile, Gilgamesh falls:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/gilg_cap.jpg

This is where I saved.

A funny thing happened this turnset:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/Islam_found.jpg

If you look at the top you can see Islam was founded in 1525 (:eek:) I don't think I've ever seen it founded that late in an immortal game.

Demographics show that the Khmer Republic is quickly turning into a powerful state:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/demo_graph-1.jpg

Next I may march through Joao's land to capitulate Tokugawa before focusing on the Portuguese leader. Boudica will likely be last (if I need her :dunno: ).

Some comments on my thoughts after previous report:

At my previous report I was under the false impression that I had some kind of a tech lead on the chinese and the celts, because both lacked Monarcy (and therefore feudalism and longbows). I considered attacking China at some point with swords and catapults and was concerned about them getting the statue of Zeus. So I cancelled my ivory deal with them and whipped 3 monuments to start building it myself. I lost it - to Sumeria!!! They are not industrious, but build almost all wonders in this game.
Soon after that, Boudica shows up with some catapults. China shows Cho-no-kus at my border.
I didn't have masonry or metal casting, so I couldn't see how far ahead of me they were on those lines.

Even worse, Gilgamesh now has enough on his hands. He is pleased with everyone and cautious to me.
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/GilgaHands.jpg

I wish I could switch to either Confucianisms or Hinduism, but I only have religions that Louis founded. Gilgamesth keeps sending missionaries through my borders, but it seems like he is sending them to Boudica. He is also teching really well

In short, Pangaea map diplomacy overwhelms me :crazyeye:.


This is what I managed to get out of the situation so far.

175BC to 640AD.


At the beginning of this round no one has literature so I research it using my cash reserve and hired scientists where I can and I complete it in 4 rounds.

Boudica kills her a small SOD by attacking Yaso, but I know more will come, I start moving my army back from the french cities to the capital. If Gilgamesh attacks me now it is probably going to be the end of the game.


In the mean time, the chinese bring some cho-no-kus to capture the barbarian city of Vandal. I was too slow with my plans to raze it and build a city 1W of the lake.

225 AD
At the same turn I bribe china into war with Boudica, hoping they would bring some real army now that they almost share a border. The price of the war was currency and monarchy to china.
I notice that Toku is in war with china and captures Vandal. Now I have a border with him :mad:, and he is annoyed with me.

I focus all my workers on chopping the great library and building 3 plantations in paris for commerce boost (thanks Rusten for the suggestion on Paris, great help!!). The last few turns of GL are done with the help of my marble city Ankgor Thom.
250AD - the great library is complete in Hari, next is NE.
Also, I receive some cash when the chinese finish shwegadon paya, allowing me to complete civil service faster.

350 AD - I want to make peace with boudica to have time to build some marble wonders.
I want to get mausoleum and taj-mahal.

400AD - civil service learned. Revolution begins. Next is Masonry (1 turn) and then paper.
Note: In this game I think I might not move my capital. I will enjoy the hammer bonus of bureaucracy instead of the commerce bonus. I can build crucial wonders first and military for conquest. The other option is to move it to Paris or to Hari. Anyway, in the short term the hammer bonus is better so I keep it there. Any thoughts/suggestions?

520 AD - Toku and Qin sign peace. I fear that I am Toku's next victim.
Mausoleum of Maussollos is complete in the capital. Next is heroic epic

560 AD - GS is born in Hari and discovers philosophy.
Now usually I don't trade philosophy until after I have discovered liberalism, but on this map I need a better army soon. I don't have open borders with Boudica, so she cannot attack china. I don't know what I can do to drag her into a real war at this point.
Boudica is still at war with China, but I don't want to take risks and want some techs for better defensive army quickly. I try to trade civil service to Qin for Feudalism and fail. I guess he half reserached it already, so I trade both Philosophy and Civil Service to him.
I trade Philosophy for horseback riding and construction to Gilgamesh.
Now I can build the unique unit. Might come useful in a defensive war if the SOD has a lot of knights.

Some good news - Gilgamesh is pleased and doesn't have enough on his hands anymore. What was that all about? Did he change his mind? Maybe we were not the target after all? I suspect he was planning a war with China, but china started to build too much military because of it's war with Celtia, bringing its power graph up.

At some point I use my settler to block some area so I can potentially backfill more cities (not great ones, but will do a good drafting/whipping job).

The tech situation:
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/tech640AD.jpg

The eastern side of the Khmer Empier:
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/east640.jpg
The western side:
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/west640.jpg
There is room for 2~4 more cities, but I am not sure if it would help. I have to decide how I am going to continue from here. If I do a drafting war it would definitely be helpful to have more cities.

Our major cities:
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/yaso640.jpg
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/hari640.jpg
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/paris640.jpg


Summary
Research: Literature->Code of Laws->Civil Service -> Masonry->Philisophy (bulbed, founded Taoism)->Paper (1 Turn Away).

Trades:
Monarchy and Currency to Qin for war on Boudica.
Code of laws to Boudica for peace.
Philosophy and civil service to Qin for Feudalism (civil service alone was not enough, I guess he was half way through it).
Philosophy to Gilgamesh for construction and horseback riding.
Literature to Toku for some gold.



Some questions about what I should do next:


Should I move the capital to Paris or Hari, or should I keep it in Yaso?
Right now I mainly enjoy the production bonus of 50%, but I also have HE, so perhaps I don't need that much. On the other hand, Taj Mahal would be ready super fast with bureaucracy. Also, I don't have an academy anywhere, so commerce bonus from beurocracy is not going to be multiplied again by 50%.

Should I build an academy in Hari? Or should I just bulb until liberalism?

The next war - probably with Boudica, since she is a threat. I am thinking to go with Cuirassier since I have good production and won't need to worry about the entire guilds-banking-printing press tech line.
Another option would be muskets and trebs. Celtia doesn't even have metal casting, and I don't have great commerce to go all the way to rifling.

1AD - 1595AD

1AD-250 AD

I keep selling cheap techs reaching CS 250 AD. Do self research on Paper and half of education as i don't have the GL NE combo setup properly yet. bulbing Paper is somewhat suspect anyway afaic because the tech is dead cheap once you get there. Furthermore i'll have to bulb pp and chemistry and i need a golden age somewhere between 1000 AD and 1200 AD to gear up for war.

In the meantime GL is close, almost everyone has literature and i wasn't the first there anyway. But i win this race 225 AD, losing it would not have been disastrous because that would have been quite alot of money and i have enough foodin Yasodharapura to employ alot of scientists anyway.

250 AD - 660 AD

Bulb Philosophy 350 AD and trade for MC, Horseback riding (?! now why did i do that?). Paper comes in 475 AD, Education 600 Ad (second half bulbed). First save is from 660 AD, i'm working scientists at a huge food decifit now, normally i wouldn't be in such a hurry but Toku has made peace with Joao and has enough on his hands right now. So i need Machinery for macemen bad but i can't get it as long as lib hasn't been bulbed. So 660 Ad i do the last bulb for lib:

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s256/dirk1302/liberalism-1-turn.jpg

I had these scientists put to work at the time:
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s256/dirk1302/scientists-deficit-660ad.jpg

Since the rest isn't close anyway i take lib off queue. Trade for Machinery, this turn HE comes on line in the old capital (Fighting the barb settlements unlocked this). I'm able to build a mace in 1-2 turns average in the old capital so i have a stack of 6 ready in no time in Angor Wat.No way that Toku will get past them with his classical units since i also have 9 axes left from barb settlement taking. As it is Toku was after Joao again so no need to worry.

The other project, building the globe is about to begin.Somewhat late again i feel as Angor Thom doesn't have great production. Basically to get some speed on this project i have to wait for guilds and later chemistry. Together with a GA and workshops the job'll get done somewhere around 1100 AD.

660-1000 AD. no saves from this period (this time i took a look at Rolo's isolation start unfortunately doing this starts a new game :cry:). Got the most important techs in this order.

680 Machinery -traded
800 AD Printing press -researched and bulbed
820 Engineering -traded for pp and a stack of gold.
900 Gunpowder -researched
980 Guilds -researched start on chemistry

It's really hard to get guilds from the AI and i often self research it. It's not important for my cannon beeline but i'm starting to build workshops at this time and for them to be productive guilds is important. I also have a half eye on the economics race here.

1010 AD i'm ready to bulb the rest of chemistry but i get a great artist instead. This is annoying as Gilgamesh has just got education so i might lose lib if i go on with chemistry. Should have put more scientists at a food decifit again to diminish this chance, alternatively i could have manually researched chemistry directly dismissing guilds for the moment. As it is i took chemistry off queue switching to banking for the economics race. There is nothing i can profitably take from liberalism atm so i take my chances using the great Artist for a GA. 4 chemistry turns and one lib turn to go. My luck's in and i'm first to lib 1050 AD taking steel.

1130 AD Globe is ready, only need Baray there now for one extra food but drafting can start.In the meantime I've won the race to economics, having nothing much to upgrade i start a second GA together with the last scientist i got from my NE city. Switch to Theocracy and Nationhood staying in caste system because i have quite a few workshops, a plains workshop is 5 hammers under Caste system, just what you need in wartime. I'll switch back to slavery later when unhappiness sets in. My HE city has been building trebs/cannons for some time, i've enough of them to start a war right now since i also have maces and axes as backbone. Blocking the eastern lands makes me first in score already at this point.
<<save>>

1160 the AP forces me into a war with Toku. Not really what i wanted, i was planning to begin with Joao and work my way north but i'm not going to defy now and be starved by unhappiness. I'm ready for business anyway.

1190

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s256/dirk1302/stack-1190.jpg

Well this stack just rolls over the map taking everything in sight growing with reinforcements each turn. The game became very brutal from here and i didn't do anything for my own or the conquered cites except keeping them building units or the first thing i could pick on the buildlist. From here on i'll give only power ratings vassalazation dates and power ratings as they tell the story so much better. Somewhere in the process Louis vassalized peacefully.

1160 Declare on Toku

1190:

Army:
18 cannons
7 muskets
7 maces
4 pikes
10 axes.

Don't underestimate axes in this sort of war where you attack with cannons because they take cities just as easyily after the cannons have done their job as rifles.

Known Power:

Joao 0.9
Qin 1.0
Louis 1.4
Boudica 1.0

1390 Toku Vassalized:

Army:
37 cannons
12 Rifles
12 muskets
5 maces
5 pikes
9 axes

Known Power:

Joao 1.6
Qin 1.7
Louis 1.7
Boudica 1.3
Toku 3.6

1430 Declare on Joao

1520 Joao Vassalized:

Army:
34 cannons
41 Rifles
9 muskets
3 maces
6 pikes
9 axes

Known Power:

Joao 3.8
Qin 2.1
Louis 1.8
Boudica 1.4
Toku 4.9

1560 Declare on Boudica the only one who has renaissance units, only she doesn't have enough of them and she lacks cannons. She's able to field cavs but i don't remember seeing one. 10 rifles/city though. I split stack next turn to take her formost cities asap.

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s256/dirk1302/stack-1560.jpg

1590 Boudica Vassalized:

Army:
27 cannons
62 Rifles
5 muskets
3 maces
6 pikes
9 axes

Known Power:

Joao 4.0
Louis 2.0
Boudica 3.3
Toku 6.4

1595 Domination.

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s256/dirk1302/domination-1595.jpg

Conclusion:

This game obviously went well.

Mistakes:

-Not taking barbarian settlement Gepid pre 1 AD. In hindsight there might have been a positive side to this. It would have made attacking me instead of Joao a much more attractive propostion for Toku because our borders would touch.

-getting a Ga at the wrong moment, risking lib. What happened here should have been avoided or at least i should have lessened the chance of this happening by assigining more scientists. It didn't put the game in danger because i could have researched steel myself in about 10 -15 turns building trebs in the meantime. It would have delayed the attack by some 5-10 turns though.

On the positive side:

I moved the capital :goodjob:.

I feel i really timed well this game being ready for war with cannons 1160 ad.
There's really no way the AIs can have a counter to cannons 1160 ad.
Usually i'm ready +/- 100 years later 1260 ad as in the previous game with Han because i wait for completion of globe and drafting some 10 muskets.

I do think now that i was too conservative in previous games, building maces /pikes in HE city works fine as a backbone for the cannons. Also building lots of workshops around Rajavihara gave me huge production there. Next time i won't wait for completion of globe, prebuilding more units in workshopped cities. Globe theater can then be used for later reinforcements.

@silverbullet

Some good news - Gilgamesh is pleased and doesn't have enough on his hands anymore. What was that all about? Did he change his mind? Maybe we were not the target after all? I suspect he was planning a war with China, but china started to build too much military because of it's war with Celtia, bringing its power graph up.



Most of the time really when a leader doesn't have enough on his hands anymore without anything happening he was planning to attack a barb settlement and he or someone else has taken it. this was probably the case here.There are cases that even this cannot be the case, just as you Snaaty points out that a sudden rise in power might make the leader change his mind.He's not sure though and neither am i. Challenge: i believe no one on these forums is 100% sure what is happening in the game mechanics in this case.

[B]


Should I move the capital to Paris or Hari, or should I keep it in Yaso?
Right now I mainly enjoy the production bonus of 50%, but I also have HE, so perhaps I don't need that much. On the other hand, Taj Mahal would be ready super fast with bureaucracy. Also, I don't have an academy anywhere, so commerce bonus from beurocracy is not going to be multiplied again by 50%.

Should I build an academy in Hari? Or should I just bulb until liberalism?

The next war - probably with Boudica, since she is a threat. I am thinking to go with Cuirassier since I have good production and won't need to worry about the entire guilds-banking-printing press tech line.
Another option would be muskets and trebs. Celtia doesn't even have metal casting, and I don't have great commerce to go all the way to rifling.




Since you're already close to lib (you can research at a higher science rate in the near future selling off some techs i presume netting 200 beakers/turn) i would manually research paper bulb half of edu (or all of it i you got the bulbing power) , self research lib. As you'll be first anyway i'd leave the capital where it is. Try to get Nationalism in trade before lib (unlikely i know). After lib research mil trad and kill the ugly lady agree with 100% with this being best.Moreover she deserves to die.

Celts are strong in your game making it harder. They got boxed in in mine.

1130-1585AD



After Qin I thought it was time to stabilise and try for Lib. I thought I had plenty of time but Boud ran me very close. Anyway took Nat and then teched PP (part bulb). Boud built the Taj so I missed the GA from that :(.

Popped a GS and ran GA from him to help me get some infrastructure up.

Eventually I thought it was time to take some of Gil's cities. Mistake again with not enough spies or siege. Every time bar one when my army reached one of his cities my spy was discovered. Told you I didn't have enough :lol:

Power graph was looking good though. ;)

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury7-Power0000.jpg

Well that was after the war but I think you get the gist. :lol:

I took 2 of his cities and left the other 2. Mainly because it would take to many of my troops to take his city. I had just gifted my cats to Qin so no siege left so capitulated Gil. The best tech he would give me was Mono so no expensive techs for me like Rusten got. I can't even trade with him as I'm his worse enemy and Qin is in WFYBTA mode. The only other tech I'm up I'm not giving to anybody. ;)

Uruk looks nice with wonders the GLh is there as well. :D

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury7-Uruk0000.jpg

I'll have to send some troops there to stop it from revolting all the time.

Boud came with a demand and as I don't want to fight her yet gave in.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury7-BoudUS0000.jpg

There won't be much respite from war. Next stop is Joao who has Toku as his vassal. I went looking for his stack and found it. ;)

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Civ4ScreenShot0004-1.jpg

I have one turn to go on Steel and just about to go into my second GA. So the plan is Cannons/Rifles/Cav and attack :D

I have done a lot of drafting. My Globe city is right next to Joao's borders so I'll have a nice stack ready drafted to go for his Southern cities. I've changed esp points to Joao but won't have many on him so I will have to rely on cannon to take down his defences.

Tech situation

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury7Techs0001.jpg

I need to take on Joao before he gets rifles.

Demographics.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury7-demo0000.jpg

Looking good. I can't get Boud to attack Joao as she is afraid of his military might. Don't think she will be attacking me to soon either then. ;)

Off to plan my next war so for those still playing good luck :D.

:crazyeye: moment just realised I have the Mids so with my GA a move to police state might be in order :mischief:.

Since you're already close to lib (you can research at a higher science rate in the near future selling off some techs i presume netting 200 beakers/turn) i would manually research paper bulb half of edu (or all of it i you got the bulbing power) , self research lib. As you'll be first anyway i'd leave the capital where it is. Try to get Nationalism in trade before lib (unlikely i know). After lib research mil trad and kill the ugly lady agree with 100% with this being best.Moreover she deserves to die.

Celts are strong in your game making it harder. They got boxed in in mine.



You mean I should get military tradition as my liberalism bonus tech?
The only case a civ would trade nationalism is when taj mahal has already been build (I think). Since I have a masoleum, I would like to run at least 2 golden ages to gear up for war. Especially since I am relying mostly on hammers and not on drafting (though I think I will draft some muskets in the small cities).

Finished my game (1715 AD?)


I made a silly mistake and triggered a GA to start my set to change to representation/nationhood. Unfortunately this dropped Joao out of AP voting range so I didn't win my diplo vote. Oh well, I guess it just means I'll have to do it the hard way :evil:

Joao was teching the peaceful techs - he had physics but still didn't have replaceable parts. Meanwhile I was churning out cavalry and drafting rifles in most of my cities. Unfortunately my empire was large so it was taking a while for some of the troops to reach the borders.

So once I realized that I missed the AP vote, I immediately declared war on Joao and took a city. I saw his sod approaching so I ditched the city and let him take it. I had a massive army of CR2 rifles that I had upgraded before I started the war and I wanted to maximize their use. Joao took the city and I bombarded its defenses down to 0. Even with 10-15 CR2 rifles, it took almost 3 turns to whittle down his sod :lol:

Once his sod was gone though, the rest was just blitzing through his territory with cavalry in one stack and rifles/cannons in the other. I used spies with the cavalry stack and managed to drive all the way up to Lisbon in a span of about 20 turns. Boudica unvassalized just as I was about to capture Lisbon and the AP diplo victory vote came up. I didn't think I had enough votes to win so I just voted for myself and then captured Lisbon. I then capitulated Joao as I had all I wanted (the Buddhist holy city of Lisbon had a base shrine of 41 gold).

Unfortunately, the votes from Lisbon were enough to push me over the top and gave me an AP victory the very next turn. I probably would have triggered domination in another 10 turns or so once my new cities came out of revolt too though.

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/misc/Civ4ScreenShot0139.jpg

Here's the power graph showing how fast Joao fell:
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/misc/Civ4ScreenShot0140.jpg

I probably could have done the same thing to Toku as his sod was near Boudica and would have taken 5-6 turns to reach the war front had I declared war on him (which was the plan).

All in all, a very fun warmonger's game.

You mean I should get military tradition as my liberalism bonus tech?
The only case a civ would trade nationalism is when taj mahal has already been build (I think). Since I have a masoleum, I would like to run at least 2 golden ages to gear up for war. Especially since I am relying mostly on hammers and not on drafting (though I think I will draft some muskets in the small cities).



Yes, it only makes sense if you can trade for nationalism though indeed after some Ai has built the Taj, Mil trad is not much more expensive than Nationalism. If you plan to build Taj yourself then this plan is out. I beeline cannons usually and tend to get nationalsim from trade.

Yes, it only makes sense if you can trade for nationalism though indeed after some Ai has built the Taj, Mil trad is not much more expensive than Nationalism. If you plan to build Taj yourself then this plan is out. I beeline cannons usually and tend to get nationalsim from trade.



Strangely, it worked. China became friendly, and discovered Nationalism just a few turns before I bulbed Liberalism (my commerce was awful, I had to bulb).
They were immediately willing to trade it and I managed to get the Taj!!! It's the first time I have seen an AI do it, especially an industrious one. My guess it that they didn't have enough cities and were busy building other wonders.

Suryavarman the Martian, Chapter the Last

1555-1725

At the end of the last update Gilg/Qin have capped, and Toku declared war. Moving all my troops from one front to the other is a time consuming process. So I have time to research SciMeth->Physics->Artillery. This would be the last tech Surya would research :mischief: Rushbuy is a great way to produce an army on a food poor map, especially in this Era.

Our armies are briefly reminded why Toku has such nasty rifles, but even they are no match for artillery. A few cities fall and:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/Toku_cap.jpg

That same turn we send a DoW to Joao, he plays nice and exposes his SoD in a vulnerable and convenient spot:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/Joao_Stack.jpg

We capture 4-5 Portuguese cities, and he bends the knee. This puts us at 62% of the world area, but I was hoping to take down the Celtic Queen as well. So we engage in a battle of SoDs:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/boud_sod.jpg

We capture all four or her southern cities, but before she's willing to surrender the Dom threshold is reached. Oh well :lol:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/victory_1725.jpg

Universal Suffrage allowed our power to take off in the last 60 years:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/olodune/IC_Sury/Surya_power.jpg

By the end we had over 50 rifles, 50 artillery, and 26 anti-tank infantry. That was more than enough.

Final score was ~163k.

This was a very enjoyable game once again. An interesting start led to some fun problem solving early in the game. Surya is just an awesome leader ... fantastic early hammer efficiency. He plays especially well on a Pangaea map because of Creative and easy access to plenty of happy resources. Without too much happy cap pressure Expansive and his UB really shine.

I am impressed by the quality of the games being reported, here I am thinking I've played a solid game, and Dirk wins a game in the late 1500s. Great stuff. :goodjob:

I really need to get better at organizing my saves, I'll attach the autosave from 1710, it seems to be the closest I have to the end :rolleyes:

I get a tough break early on:
I decided to found in place. While I'm dubious about a capital with so little food, the empty grass tile is certainly a resource and at pangea there is most likely someone in rushing range with all that forest.

The problem comes when Louis takes the great spot to the NW with his second city. Even worse he founds it in the wrong spot. There is a lot of land to the E but I don't think it's enough to go peaceful with such a weak long term capital--so its rush time. I have a settler partially built in 3000 when I lose the good site and I decide to settle E to work the cows/horse and prepare a chariot rush. While I'm certain there's iron in the BFC, I don't think I can get to IW and wheel--if I start cranking out units I'll kill my research until I get some loot.

It's a tough go with the chariots--I do take out the copper but not before he gets a couple of spears out. Then it becomes clear that he has founded on iron as he continues to build metal units:(. I take his two good cities in the first go--then I get the copper for a while (3rd ring) and build some axes for another go. As he's about to be eliminated he founds on a hill with no resources just to screw me up. Eventually he is gone but I lose 20 chariots and 3 axes in the process.

After some rebuilding I get an interesting decision--any input welcome:
I'm ready to bulb tao--but do I want to? The entire east is buddhist, and if Toku or Boudaca bulbs it that could be my best chance to break up the buddhist bloc.
Louis founded hindu and judiasm but I'm in no religion to keep the peace.
If I'm going to trade phil to get my missing techs, not a disaster to let someone else bulb it. Another reason to let it go is that I'm still in the running for the glib with the marble--and letting QSH start on the useless Ankor is a good thing. Although if I'm going to trade it around I could really use currency, calender and $ now.

@Ungy

That's really bad luck with Louis taking that spot. I was worried losing that spot and just like you i prioritized the settler but i still had 3 turns to go 3000 bc.

There would have been enough land in the east to go peaceful for a while but there is no way knowing that at that stage. I had made my mind up that i'd rush Louis if he'd take the clam copper spot.

About Taoism, chances of Toku or Boudica bulbing Taoism are slim imo. Currency is very important so i'd bulb philo now and trade it.

1585 - 1725 END


The plan after taking Gil as a vassal was to go straight to war against Joao who had Tok as his vassal. A quick look at the power graph shows how easy it was. :) The hard bit was the amount of time. :sad:

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury8Power0000.jpg

During this time Tok broke away and I was waiting for Joao to capitulate but everytime I looked at the screen he was refusing to capitulate. This is a :blush: moment I eventually put the mouse pointer over the capitulate:

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Civ4ScreenShot0008.jpg

So I called a cease fire with Tok then the offer to capitulate came: :D

Immediately went back to war with Tok took two of his cities and

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/TokCapits0000.jpg

Leading to

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Sury8-DomWin0000.jpg

And my best score so far :D

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/ImmSury/Civ4ScreenShot0011.jpg

If I had called a ceasefire with Tok as soon as he broke free I think Joao would have capitulated and I would have won earlier. I'll have to remember that one. :)

Plus points I have taken from this game is I definitely need to improve my GP production and Dirk has given us a good example of how to do it. :goodjob:

Build more spies and siege. Although I did lose some cannon when Joao attacked my Northern SoD and flank killed a lot. :cry: They were revenged the following turn though. :lol:

All in all another interesting game. Especially with the original capital site and the lack of food, it played a lot better than I expected.

So a final thanks to silverbullet for hosting this one. :goodjob:

@ungy

Delaying currency and calendar for the off chance that Boudica or Toku bulb + spreads + adopts Tao either will look like :smoke: or strategic brilliance.

IME Toku nearly always prioritizes the Optics line, so bulbing Tao is unlikely. I'd bulb and trade now.

Too bad your Louis learned from his mistakes in all our games :p

@Sleepless

Nice win, 1725 seems to be the standard Domination year (Rusten won then as well, IIRC) :lol:

I'm interested if you did anything specific to slow down the AI tech pace. In my game all the AIs (even Toku) had rifling by ~1580. Did you poison trading relations with bribes?

Nice catch with "We're afraid of your enemies!". That one has fooled me before ...

I get a tough break early on:
After some rebuilding I get an interesting decision--any input welcome:
I'm ready to bulb tao--but do I want to? The entire east is buddhist, and if Toku or Boudaca bulbs it that could be my best chance to break up the buddhist bloc.
Louis founded hindu and judiasm but I'm in no religion to keep the peace.
If I'm going to trade phil to get my missing techs, not a disaster to let someone else bulb it. Another reason to let it go is that I'm still in the running for the glib with the marble--and letting QSH start on the useless Ankor is a good thing. Although if I'm going to trade it around I could really use currency, calender and $ now.



Wow, that's a tough start indeed. When I saw this awful start, I said to myself - if Louis steals that copper spot I will quit the game :). It's nice to see how you can recover from a very bad start.

As for bulbing - I don't think it's a good bet to wait for the east to bulb it. I don't think their personalities will prioritize it much. Qin or Gilga are more likely to bulb it, but I could be wrong.
My personal opinion is bulb now for the short term advantage. You need to rebuild quickly.

@Sleepless

Nice win, 1725 seems to be the standard Domination year (Rusten won then as well, IIRC) :lol:

I'm interested if you did anything specific to slow down the AI tech pace. In my game all the AIs (even Toku) had rifling by ~1580. Did you poison trading relations with bribes?

Nice catch with "We're afraid of your enemies!". That one has fooled me before ...



@Olodune


Yep it seems all the good games finish in 1725 ;).

Regarding the tech trading. I didn't have to stop the AI I think they did it themselves. :lol: I didn't trade at all with the AI even my vassals and they all avoided the Rifle line till it was to late. It helped Joao and Tok were at war for a lot of the time so that kept them down. Both Boud and Gil were very small so that stopped them a bit. As for Qin I didn't leave him much to tech with. :)

I couldn't understand why he wouldn't capitulate. :( I thought one more city and he must give up. No. I'll remember to look for that in future. :)

I am impressed by the quality of the games being reported, here I am thinking I've played a solid game, and Dirk wins a game in the late 1500s. Great stuff. :goodjob:

I really need to get better at organizing my saves, I'll attach the autosave from 1710, it seems to be the closest I have to the end :rolleyes:



Thx for the compliment, i agree on the general quality of the games posted here, actually i don't see any students here ,only masters :goodjob:.

I think i was slightly lucky in my game that i never got declared on. Wouldn't have endangered the win but you're always slowed down if that happens. Also Louis vassalizing peacefully did help but i see that as a reward for letting him live. Actually he's quite a nice guy when you get to know him better.

Finally though i did finish early my score of 171k though very high (much more than my average space wins) is roughly the same as most of us made here. I don't know much of maximizing scores but i guess your own land is valued higher than vassalized land and i vassalized everyone asap. Iirc Rusten even had 190k.

I agree on the saves, this time i took a look at a starting save, destroying the autosaves. I had some saves but writing about the game it's very nice if you can lookup precisely what happened by opening an autosave, now i had to use the gamelog for some precise data each.

@silverbullet



Just a quick question regarding the Philo/CS for Feud. Usually I find I can trade one (usually philo) with a little bit of gold to pick up Feud or Machinery.

I can understand if he is researching one but two seems a bit strange unless he has one turn to go probably on CS. Do you use the what will make this deal work question rather than what do you want for this. i.e

Qin Sury

Feudalism What will make this deal work Philosophy


Qin comes back with something like:

Feud Philo
20 gold

@silverbullet



Just a quick question regarding the Philo/CS for Feud. Usually I find I can trade one (usually philo) with a little bit of gold to pick up Feud or Machinery.

I can understand if he is researching one but two seems a bit strange unless he has one turn to go probably on CS. Do you use the what will make this deal work question rather than what do you want for this. i.e

Qin Sury

Feudalism What will make this deal work Philosophy


Qin comes back with something like:

Feud Philo
20 gold


I think he was 1 or 2 turns away from civil service.
I tried both "what would make this deal work" and "what do you want for this".
I didn't have much gold so I couldn't get a better trade.

@silverbullet


I thought it was very unlikely but just thought I'd check ;).

I did come across one of the options in my game I'd never noticed before mentioned in my spoiler which quite surprised me. :)

As for war Boud looks like the best target. If you are going to attack her early I'd use maces rather than wait for muskets. The CR comes in handy later. :D

640AD to the end.


One thing I forgot to do on my last save - trade metal casting for philosophy to Joao.
We discover Paper, bulb education once and discover it a few turns later (780AD).
At this point we are out of cash reserves and cannot perform any more deficit research.
Our tech rate is pretty poor for this stage of the game:

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/lib_long_time.jpg

You can notice on the screenshot that Qin is 2 turns away from Nationalism. He doesn't have marble, but he can still beat us to Taj.I am planning to bulb liberalism and pick Nationalism for free.
In 5 turns we get another GS (I hope we won't get the 7% chance of great artist)
2 Turns later, it appears that Qin is willing to trade Nationalism. Apparently he is not planning to build Taj Mahal for now.
At this stage I cannot trade anything useful to him. He doesn't have paper so I cannot give him education, which is the only tech that is worth as much as nationalism.
Also, I need compass before I can bulb so I trade it to Gilgamesh for paper and world map.
At this point I see (because I was lazy to explore before) that Gilgamesh only has 5 cities, so I feel safer trading education to him - he won't be able to build oxford for now.

I stop researching liberalism because I want the scientist to bulb it but not finish it. I start researching nationalism partially so that Qin will be willing to trade it.
880AD - the GS comes and bulbs liberalism (2 turns left after bulbing). In the meantime Qin has researched paper.

Tech status:
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/tech880ad.jpg

I make the following trades:
Education+compass to Qin for Nationalism
Education to Gilgamesh for machinery and music and 40 gold. He was willing to give some cheaper techs as well in addition, but I say no thanks, I don't need an early WFYABTA.

The capital immediately starts working on the Taj. I starve it a little to get it fast and chop 2 forests.
2 turns later we bulb liberalism and take military tradition as a tech.
Next I reasearch gunpowder, helped by a golden age.

At some point Qin requestes me to stop trading with Boudica (I have give her some excess resources for gold). I agree and change her attidute from Annoyed to Furious. And now she refuses to talk.
2 turns later Qin sign a peace treaty with her!!! Now I am guaranteed to be attacked. I better be ready with some army soon.

I make a defensive pact with China to help me in the future war with Boudica. The good side is that I don't need to attack her. She will attack me and Qin will send some troops to help. I should be careful not to let him catpure any cities.

1010AD - golden age begins, taj mahal is complete. Thanks to the mausoleum I have 12 turns. I switch to caste system/philosophy for 5 turns and try to get a great merchant. I starve Hari for maximum GM, and get a great mechant in 3 turns (lucky 37%).
I only get 1300 from the GM. No one of my friends has a really big city.

I trade liberalism for theology with Gilgamesh, hoping he would switch to free religion and become friendly, but it doesn't work. Still he is not at WFYABTA yet.

Some more tech trades:
Gunpowder to Sumeria for guilds.
Gunpowder+guilds to china for printing press.

After 5 turns of caste system I switch to serfdom/theocracy/bearocracy for 5 turns. I also notice that I was too stupid to build only 5 elephants so far.
I upgrade them all to cuirassiers. 2 turns later boudica declares on me with a massive SOD (Qin declares immediately on her due to our pact).

I want to revolt into nationalism, but I have to wait 3 more turns.
I am also not in slavery, so cannot whip.

I manage to build 2 more curassiers and send them to my marble city ankgor thom, but my army is too weak for boudica's SOD. Her stack is mainly horse archers, some knights, some melee units (no pikes or spears luckily), crossbows and catapults.
With such numbers I must have siege. I only have 1 catapult now, so I start building them in a few cities.

I reach the inevitable conclusion that I must retreat from Ankgor Thom and let Boudica capture it. I leave 1 axemen there and she spends 2 turns breaking down the defences.
I trade military tradition to Qin for consitution, and finally switch to slavery/nationalism/consitution and start whipping cats and drafting mustkets. Qin arrives with his SOD. Together we clean up boudica's SOD with hardly any losses (3 catapults, 1 curassier 1 pike).

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/Civ4ScreenShot0003-1.jpg

This is great, most of her offensive army has been lost on our cultural borders - no war weariness.
In addition Toky declares on Qin, which means both of them will be busy and I can take Boudica.

I capture Angkor thom next.
I get a great scientist and start another golden age, my plan is to gear up for the offense quickly and take boudica with curassiers and spies.
I will build/whip some jails so I don't think ammassing EP will be a problem.
The war with Boudica is easy. She has just researched gunpowder, but muskets are not a good counter to cuirassiers. She doesn't have a lot of pikemen either. Most of her army is horse archers that she promotes to knights.




There is one big mistake I made in this game - I was too lazy (again) to send a workboat to map the continent. I didn't realize boudica was so far and just had 2 cities near my borders, and Toku was behind her.
I sign peace, and then make another stupid mistake. I declare war on Toku instead of Joao. Why do I need to take on protective longbows and a huge army in general when I can attack Joao who has great big cities that would bump my economy?
Anyway, I soon realize that Joao beelines rifling, I manage to capitulate Toku and then I immediately declare war on Joao. I capture 1 city and I am forced to sign peace.
Later, the apostolic palace (Gilgamesh) gives him the city back. I don't dare to defy since my economy is in a poor state anyway.
My maintenance is very high, my cities strech too far. I need some infrastructure before the next war.
I switch to organized religion and spreed the AP religion to all my cities. I trigger another 12 turn golden age with 2 great people and switch to free marker, so that I have trade routes with China (I ran merchanalism previously).
I stay at Nationalism for espionage bonus. I whip courthouses and jails in all cities and run espionage slider.
Spies in china brings me a lot of important missing techs: scientific method, biology, communism (whip intelligence agencies everywhere), and finally rifling. The cost is really low, china is close, has our state religion (-25% for our holy city), trade routes (-20%), and we have the highest espionage spending for an additional 20%. The total is that a spy who stays 5 turns in a chinese city gets a mission at less than 1/3 original cost.
During the golden age I build wall street in Paris and Oxford in Hari.
I attack Joao with an enourmous amount of cannots, rifles and cavalry and a lot of losses. The war is very quick and I capture all his cities.
Before the war I switch to AP religion and make sure Toku switches too. In the middle of the war I am elected leader of the AP.
After eliminating Joao I just wait for border pops to win, and china attacks me. They were friendly all the game, and I was too tired to notice that with all the espionage and declaring war on their friends they became annoyed. They have infantry and artillery...
Luckily, the AP resolution comes next, stop the war. The chinese capture one city and then the war stops. I am planning to get it back in the next vote, but I don't get a chance... I win domination before that on 1806. I think it's the latest one amongst the players here :( but still, a win is a win :)

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk162/silverbullet_sz/sury/Civ4ScreenShot0010.jpg




Thanks to everyone who helped me win this game. Your feedback helped me a lot.

@Silverbullet



:goodjob: on your win. :)

One big difference in your game from mine and others is that Boud wasn't blocked in, in your game. That made a huge difference. I don't think she went to war at all in mine, where you were unlucky enough to have borders with her and Tok :eek:. I could take my time and backstab when I wanted to. :mischief:

So to sum up another fun game with the right results. :D

Thankyou

150-1635
The breaks go my way:
after a tough break early on losing the prime city site to Louis and a bloody war I'm regrouping at 150AD.
I debated briefly whether to bulb tao, and I do make the normal play and bulb it and trade it as I desperately need $ and currency. I use the $ to race to lit and chop out the Glib (I also pick up the path!). I just get luckier from here--the buddhist bloc to the E starts fighting amongst themselves while QSH builds the AP (hindu--my holy city). I run some priests and get a shrine.
Rest is pretty routine--QSH goes down with a rifle/cannon war --only amusing piece is he was first to democracy so I detour around the copper city to help him build me the SOL and he obliges.
Don't think I'll play it out as it's a walkover from here.
thanks for the feedback dirk+Olodune--I agree with you both

@silverbullet

Congrats on your win, you used spionage alot, really have to get into these spy features. Are you going to host a third game?


@Ungy
Also Congrats, nice recovery and good thinking regarding SOL and the copper city.

Post game discussion (read if you finished your game):

Do you think rushing Louis was a mistake? I think Dirk is the only one who didn't do it and ended up with a much stronger game with domination at 1595.
We have a creative and expansive leader here, with a lot of good land to claim - that calls for early REX doesn't it?

Post game discussion (read if you finished your game):

Do you think rushing Louis was a mistake? I think Dirk is the only one who didn't do it and ended up with a much stronger game with domination at 1595.
We have a creative and expansive leader here, with a lot of good land to claim - that calls for early REX doesn't it?






Imho I think the right decision was to rush Louis (especially as I didn't last time) :lol:. Our capitals were very close and ours wasn't the best I've ever seen ;). The land to the East was OK but you had a fair way to travel to the decent spots and wasn't Dirk (after looking again it was Johan^^) attacked early on in the East? Have to go back and read his spoilers :). Possibly the upkeep would have been crippling without a good commerce capital to help support an early Rex as well.

@silverbullet and Sleepless


Imho I think the right decision was to rush Louis (especially as I didn't last time) :lol:. Our capitals were very close and ours wasn't the best I've ever seen ;). The land to the East was OK but you had a fair way to travel to the decent spots and wasn't Dirk (after looking again it was Johan^^) attacked early on in the East? Have to go back and read his spoilers :). Possibly the upkeep would have been crippling without a good commerce capital to help support an early Rex as well.




I think it depends on what you're trying to achieve. When i saw the land in the east i saw a possibility of copying what U Sun did in his Justinian game blocking very far from home and letting the gold and in my case the cottaged floodplains pay for it. Furthermore it gave me the possibility to try out Snaaty's strat to good effect and demonstrate that it can be done with a beeline to cannons as well as rifling (ok this is well known amongst the participants here anyway).

Rushing Louis gives very good land (i had lots of mediocre space only 3 really good cities) but even against Louis you lose 400 years or about 15 turns of research towards these beeline, making the second rush in the middle ages a bit (or a lot if they make it to Rifling or Steel) tougher. Then again rushing Louis is more save , if successful you're in a won position i think given the opponents we had.

So i was very fast because of not rushing, but not neccessarily stronger, as i said earlier my score was not higher than others, lower than Rusten's. Also the Ai's didn't put any obstacle in my way,they didn't declare on me (a bit lucky i think), traded with me when i needed them and supplied me with gold.

I was not great in danger of being attacked when i settled the spot because there was no AI near at that moment. In the early AD's i had enough axemen to defend there as long as i checked the diplomacy screen regularly.

@Dirk:

I use espionage when I have captured a holy city, have that religion and have a neighbour with trade routes (open border+no merchantalism). I just make sure to send a missionary to a nearby city to get the 25% discount.
In my 2 last games on the university threads, I was way behind in techs after liberalism, but I had more land and population than anyone else. At this point espionage has the benefit that even with no commerce the buildings generate EP. Whipping courthouses and jails in not that hard at this stage, and it grants you +9 EP per city without any slider adjustments. Intelligence agency brings it up to +24 EP. Also, when you are in representation, spies are very efficient, giving 4 beakers and 4 EP before modifiers.

When you are the leader of the espionage graph, you get a bonus compared to other civs to every espionage mission (even if you used the EP against someone else - this bonus depends on the total EP spent by you from the begining of the game).
With a proper setup espionage is very very cheap compared to normal teching. Somewhere between 50% to 75% cheaper. Moreover, it is far easier to get 100% multipliers in every city.

I don't think espionage would have been needed in your games, because I don't think you have fallen behind as much as I did. But it is definitely a great way to catch up quickly.


Yes I want to host a third game.
Who is interested to join?

Maybe we should play Louis this time, just to guarantee that he doesn't get killed? :lol:
We could also try Alexander, but in any case, I am fine with almost any leader.

Great, i'm also fine with any leader.Louis would make the game interesting for me since i don't build much wonders usually. I tend to go only for GL and Parthenon (and then only with marble), sometimes Taj and the audio/video wonders. Industrious i'm forced to change some of my playing style or play effectively with only one trait.

I'd definitely join in with another game. :)

A philosophical leader would help me improve my lack lustre war and GP skills :lol:

So Alex fits the bill quite nicely but happy with any leader.

Post game discussion (read if you finished your game):

Do you think rushing Louis was a mistake? I think Dirk is the only one who didn't do it and ended up with a much stronger game with domination at 1595.
We have a creative and expansive leader here, with a lot of good land to claim - that calls for early REX doesn't it?





While I do think that Dirk's was the strongest game -- earlier victories are not necessarily the "most robust" games. To really push for early victory you have to push the envelope (taking larger risks) while tech trading heavily. When I play I'm more interested in minimizing the chances of loosing -- this is hard to measure unfortunately.

That said, it does look like ReX was the stronger position. Actually, it was Dirk's early scouting that really paid off -- at that time in the game I saw only desert to the east :mischief:

I would be interested in another as well.

Amazingly we've missed the big two economic traits (Fin/Philo). That said -- lets avoid them some more. :lol:

What we have played is {Expansive, Creative, Aggressive, Spiritual}.

Ignoring Fin/Phi that leaves {Imperialistic, Organized, Protective, Industrious, Charismatic}

The leaders that jump out to me as being the most interesting are:

Charlemagne {Pro/Imp, Rauthaus, Lansknecht}
Churchill {Pro/Cha, Stock Ex, Redcoat}
Napoleon {Cha/Org, Salon, Musketeer} <- First Choice

However, I'd happily play any leader :)

I would be interested in another as well.

Amazingly we've missed the big two economic traits (Fin/Philo). That said -- lets avoid them some more. :lol:

What we have played is {Expansive, Creative, Aggressive, Spiritual}.

Ignoring Fin/Phi that leaves {Imperialistic, Organized, Protective, Industrious, Charismatic}

The leaders that jump out to me as being the most interesting are:

Charlemagne {Pro/Imp, Rauthaus, Lansknecht}
Churchill {Pro/Cha, Stock Ex, Redcoat}
Napoleon {Cha/Org, Salon, Musketeer} <- First Choice

However, I'd happily play any leader :)
Napoleon is interesting, and it also guarantees that we won't rush Louis again :lol:

Napoleon is a strong leader, 2 very strong traits. I'd rate these tied second together with philosophical just after financial. For a somewhat more peaceful game industrious might be better though.

Just some thoughts, i'm fine with any leader, maybe just accept the random choice, might even pop Liz :D.

How about the map?

More post-game: Sorry, finally catching up.

I got on this one late and didn't have much time to play this week so I was always too far behind everybody to really participate in the discussion. I will just throw out a few highlights/questions. (Sorry, I didn't take any screen shots. I won't be offended if you stop reading here.);)

First, the end. I won a domination victory in 1864 for my third official immortal victory with about 85,000 points (also my highest score!) I was excited. Then I read how everybody else finished in 1750 (and Dirk in 1550!?) Though a bit crestfallen, I gotta give it up to the masters.

-I started by building 2 scouts as suggested by Rusten I think. I covered tons of the map and got some good huts but Boudica was blocked by Toku and I -didn't meet her until 1100 AD when he finally warmed up enough to open borders.
-I axe rushed Louis as most did. It drug on a bit as he got iron working with that stupid city built directly over the iron where I couldn't see it. I finished his last two cities in a separate war. I never even thought about peacefully rexing even though I could see all that land. The good stuff just seemed so far away and Louis so close. Plus that city site to the NE was so good and had copper.
-To get it I think I chopped a settler at size 1. My opening builds were so radical. I think scout->scout->Worker->worker->settler, IIRC. That capital site was just so low in food! I definitely would have restarted if not playing on the forum.
-The west went Jewish which I followed for awhile. When Joao asked me to join him and Toku as a Buddhist I acceded to his demands.
-After killing Louis my tech situation was pretty bad but I managed to beeline a few things and bulbed like crazy using the NE city and the southern fish/whale/deer city as GS farms. I switched my capital to Paris and ran bureaucracy, though I'm not convinced this was totally smart as it grew really slowly (I hate cottages).
-I got liberalism about 1100 AD and took nationalism even though Qin already had it. The gamble paid off as I built Taj in about 7 turns in my old capital. PS: once that thing got going it was a hammer producing beast.
-I teched to rifles, built globe in my old GP farm in the NE spot and crushed Qin and Gilgamesh's longbows. Gilgy almost got to rifling before I finished him. Close but no cigar buddy!
I should really work on this cannon beeline. Sounds like it worked well but what are you using to protect from knights and other stuff? I guess jumbos would do but I never even built the UU. I had a bunch of CR3 axes and CR2 swordsman which I upgraded at great cost. Horses seemed dumb as well because of all the veteran melee guys.
-Rifles got me the west but Joao was a different story. I felt like I played the diplo pretty well just by keeping him from attacking my eastern flank (which was guarded by about 4 archers::eek:). I got Japan to fight him a few times but it was not enough to keep him from being a tech beast.
-Japan also kept Boudica in check and had a real high score despite having horrible tech. We never shared a border until the end.
-I teched to infantry and cannons and attacked Joao with two huge stacks of veteran troops. The old capital, now with iron works, heroic epic and levees was spitting out an infantry every turn. After capturing about 4 cities Joao discovered assembly line. An embarrassing counterattack caught me unawares and he retook a city for a couple turns. Annoying sidetrack. I basically turned off tech and poured it into culture. Many of my cities had 40+ war weariness under police state and nationalism. In 1864 I won domination when Joao's last 2 cities vassaled to me.

Perhaps people can help me understand why I finished later.
A few possibilities:
-Should have built more cities to the east. It quickly became barb country and by the time I was ready to attack it (after taking out Louis) most had been captured by Joao.
-I hardly built any wonders despite a hammer heavy capital. I think just Taj and Pentagon. Gilgy hogged em like crazy (helped a bit when I captured his cities.) and I was usually pretty backward in tech.
-Some annoying apostolic palace decisions. Despite switching to Buddhism and then FR i still had judaism in almost every city. I had to defy a couple decisions causing some happiness issues.
-Maybe my ax rush went in a little late or something because Louis got iron online real quick and I bogged down pretty fast. I thought I was moving quickly but apparently not quick enough.
-I have trouble with such low food territory. I prefer SE anyway and this threw me a bit. After capturing the guys in the west I had huge happy caps with all those luxuries but minimal growth.
-I got two Great spies (both a bit flukey) and infiltrated Gilgy and Joao. I think this was smart as it allowed a ton of city revolts to speed up my conquest but I had also intended on catching up a bit by stealing techs but the only ones I could get were crap and not worth the EPs. (Divine right can shove it!) Would you guys have done something different with them?
-I suffered from a lot of WFYABTA. Dumb trading perhaps? Also, what is with Joao saying he wont DoW anybody because they are all his close friends when he is annoyed with half of them!?

Thanks for any comments. Sorry for the long, boring, Screenshot-less summary. It was a fun game and I look forward to the next immortal university.

Napoleon or Louis.

I didn't play the first game, but between this and the first Saladin ALC, I don't want to see a froggy for awhile.

@JBossch

Sounds like you played a solid game, congratulations on the win :goodjob:

I had similar problems with early growth -- its been a while since I had so many cities far under their caps. :lol: Building two workers and a settler while still at size one seems a little odd to me, I'm fairly certain its better to grow to at least size two. (Then you could work both ivories or ivory + cows).

Tips for speeding up the endgame:
-At some point you are aware a military victory is imminent, usually this is the time to forgot about teching and hit the troop production hard. IIRC, I shut down research around 120 years before domination -- using all the excess cash to fuel rushbuying. Specialists should be assigned to hammer tiles and idle workers can start workshopping. In this game I'd skip factories too.

Our capital does turn into a nice hammer city, but I prefer commerce heavy starts. Food is nice too :mischief:


I had so much fun playing a Pangaea map this time around that another might be fun. Big and Small, Hemispheres, Fractal, and Arborea would work too.

@Olodune

Thanks for the tips. Yeah building settler at size 1 seemed crazy to me as well. Ive almost never done that before but I think that I teched bronze working and was terrified I wouldn't get the NE city spot with bronze. I think that happened to somebody else and they pulled something out of it anyway but I would have seen it as a disaster.
In the end I wasn't rushbuying like I should have and, you're right, I should have turned off tech and quit building improvements earlier than I did (I eventually did this but it is just so hard to overcome my instinct to squeeze every bit of tech out of every situation), I played similarly with workers, realizing too late that they should not be building cottages anymore. Thanks again.

@JBossch



I second what Olodune said about a solid game. :goodjob:

I rushed Lou the same as you but for once I made sure I had enough units to carry on the fight. I think that if you get too bogged down a war at this level the AI can run away from you. Although in this game only Joao had any real chance after we knocked out Lou.

After the first war with Lou I left him 2 cities in the North to take later I then went after the barb cities. I kept 1 with the cow/wheat (became my GT city)in the South and razed everything else. Small tip I think from Snaaty with this one. When my 6 axes got to this city there was 4 archers one with CG2 so I let Joao knock the defenders down a bit and took the city with no losses. :) Obviously not very good if he takes the city though. :lol:

Assume from the high culture slider you abused the draft. :goodjob: My GT city had over 300 :mad: from drafting, being on Joao's borders also saved a lot of movement time. Most of my far cities were building cav with the ones near to Joao building cannon.

As for WFYBTA always a problem. Helps if you know what level they stop trading at. Apart from Mansa being the highest I haven't a clue on the rest. ;)
I just try to be very careful and not trade for all the little techs. The only one in this game who wouldn't trade with me was Qin so I guess he is pretty low.

Main thing was you enjoyed the game. :D

@sleepless
You are totally right to focus on my rush of Louis. I wish I could remember exactly when it went in and compare with others. I totally bogged down after taking Paris. Louis's iron came online then and he rushed a surprising amount of axes of his own. A couple flukey combats during the assault on Paris and my offensive fell apart. Plus I was waiting to discover IW to figure out where his iron was!
I left him the two western cities as well. I think the initial attack was the problem however. By the time the dust had settled, most of the barb country had been gobbled up by Joao. The marble city was my westernmost settlement. I didn't get to the cow/plains spot until infantry!:blush:

Gratz to all people winning and bashing Louis :goodjob:. (again :lol:)

I was playing this game but I abandoned it around 1000something AD. :( Had the whole western part of the continent for myself by liberalism. But my economy was in ruins and so was the economy of the remaining AI's.

Joao didn't expand so there was a huge land gap between me and the next AI's, I really didn't feel like running all my units over there. Outteching the AI wouldn't be hard due a superior landmass and them being backwards. I was teching democracy when they didn't even have phil, go figure. :rolleyes:

I was teching democracy when they didn't even have phil, go figure. :rolleyes:

This is what I don't get. You also say your economy was in ruins but so was that of the AIs. I can see how capturing the west earlier than me pays off once you recover the econ but why was Joao (in my game) a tech beast and (apparently in your game) ruining his economy? I can see how not taking any of the east land from the barbs would leave him weak but why didn't he expand? A fluke? Or did you manage to REX to the east and still rush Louis?

This is what I don't get. You also say your economy was in ruins but so was that of the AIs. I can see how capturing the west earlier than me pays off once you recover the econ but why was Joao (in my game) a tech beast and (apparently in your game) ruining his economy? I can see how not taking any of the east land from the barbs would leave him weak but why didn't he expand? A fluke? Or did you manage to REX to the east and still rush Louis?

Well my econ was in ruins, I had to delete units because I was running negative at 0% science at one point.

I bribed Joao into war with Toku very early, with the idea of crippling his expansion. A bit later Boudica dow'ed joao too and they were all in a stalemate war the whole game.

I bribed Joao into war with Toku very early
That was probably crucial. In my game Toku founded Buddhism and quickly converted Joao. I couldn't get them to fight at all until after liberalism when Joao switched to FR and Toku finally warmed up to me a bit. In fact, I never could bribe Joao as he claimed to be unwilling to betray his "friends." He was annoyed with half of them yet still wouldn't betray a single AI, all due to WCBOCF. :mad:Anybody know why the AI sometimes does this? Is Joao just a super-friend or what?

You see, when immortal university came out, I wanted to play it. I got flattened. Again and again. Of course, I was at monarch in april, and somewhat shaky there. After immortal U one I stopped playing many of them.

As I get more comfortable with the difficulty, my reports will get more detailed.

After playing then reading stuff from guys like burn, I can see I still have a long way to go. However, I can at least compete at immortal now.

To 1917 AD. Victory condition? More UN abuse.

I settled in place. This start was painful. I kind of remember when the thread was fresh everyone saying how food poor it is.

We get a plains cow, minimal green anything, and forests. Yikes.

Opening techs were AH, masonry (seriously). I put up great wall while teching BW. Also noticed that 1) creative louis was in my face (nightmares from IU I all over again!) and 2) I had copper :devil:.

The axe rush sent me spiraling backwards in tech, and with only the great wall it took me a long time to recover any semblance of tech relevance. However, I captured or blocked land for over 12 cities. If you don't die, that's a winning position.

Joao to the east doesn't declare at pleased. Due to having gold/aesthetics and the major religious differences on this map, I put up Paya and went FR/HR/bureaucracy when I could get there. That gave the immediate 3 neighbors favorite civics and in FR they won't request religion changes (only time they'll bump you from FR is if they like OR/theo). I kept spamming axes for a bit on my western border because you can't trust those two. Of course, they might attack each other at pleased too. Still, no pants down scenarios for me!

It took a long time before I could trade ANYTHING. I stole currency and sailing using my settled spy. Eventually I was like the 3rd person to philosophy while still spamming cities and backfilled.

In the late 100's AD I realized that nobody had education yet, and I was nearing CS and just popped a scientist. Obviously I blasted through paper, bulbed education, finished it, and was going to start on oxford but noticed china got edu a few turns later. I set all cities to wealth and raced him:

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IMM%20Sury/1230narrowlibwinnationhood0000.jpg

Narrow victory. The prize is the Taj with marble and a ton of trade bait (edu to many, lib to all, nationalism to many).

I turned the slider off to accumulate gold while building oxford (i moved capitol to paris). Once I had it I went 100% for state property and biology. Somehow I got beat to the kremlin ----> pretty sure someone engineer rushed it. That ruined my idea of $$$ buy hell on the AI so I just traded for a few pre-reqs like rifling, stole corp off gilgamesh, and pounded out assembly line/arty.

I really like infantry/arty because it's one of the strongest points when you attack with a lead, but also because it's very sound even at parity, and parity lasts a long, long time.

China/Sumeria signed a DP so I figured I could win UN by getting Joao to vote for me after taking down the two western backstabbers. I only get -1 for dowing with joao because technically sumeria declared on me.

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IMM%20Sury/1814dowgilgaandqin0000.jpg

Stack incomming!

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IMM%20Sury/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg

Obviously the AI didn't want to do that. It got arty'd to hell and shredded with minimal losses for me. Fighting these two sucked because they're PRO, but with collateral the job gets done:

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IMM%20Sury/1852Chinabeatennowforsumeria0000.jpg

Then the other:

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IMM%20Sury/1884Gilgameshoffthemap0000.jpg

Build wealth and beeline Mass Media HARD. Joao left HR but he chose to dow boudica so I just declared on her too for the diplo. Joao's vassal, toku, was gifted mass media. I had more raw pop than joao, and enough diplo with him to win his vote:

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IMM%20Sury/1910GiftedJapanMMhaha0000.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IMM%20Sury/1917UNwin0000.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IMM%20Sury/stats0000.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IMM%20Sury/score0000.jpg

Maybe not as impressive as some of the forum legends, but at least I'm not getting flattened at immortal. Deity is going to be reeeeeeeeeeeal fun to learn :(. But I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Wasn't this the start where i won domination 1595 AD? :D.

I was the only one who didn't axe rush Louis iirc expanding as quickly as possible to the east.

I think I sword rushed Louis in this game because of some crazy hut luck.

Well...

In hindsight I'd have deemed not axe rushing louis optimal. I didn't realize how far away Joao was aka plenty of room to settle first, kill later.

In my game contact with Joao from the east was pretty quick, lending me to believe I had serious box-in risk.

Expanding east would definitely cut down on Joao's size, and would probably have prevented things like him vassaling toku and boudica as ultimately happened in my game.

That's why I frequently DON'T early rush. It gives remaining AIs more land and that can be really annoying. I'd usually only attack if I believe it's my only path to sufficient land.