Hello all and welcome to the Immortal University! This series was started a long time ago to move a group of the forum's players to the next level. Are you ready for the U?

This is the 31st in the storied series.

We will uphold the university's traditions...smacking down the hapless AI!

Our leader this time around:
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/leader.jpg

Brennus, what can be said about him? He's got bad starting techs and a niche UB. His UU is not a major improvement over the regular swordsman, but at least is not worse than it. The best thing about Brennus is, as MadScientist put it, his dynamite traits.

Here's the start:
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/start.jpg

Upholding the tradition started by TMIT, this is the first Fractal map I generated. I don't know how I feel about this start. Plains cows are not that hot, but I think it has potential. Let's see.

Huts and Events are off.

Copy and Paste of the doctrine:

To play, just extract the WB save file into your worldbuilder saves directory, then play it. Use custom scenario if you want some extra settings to tickle your fancy. This series was designed for people learning immortal, so most people here will be at that level or trying to attain it, although deity players are welcome also. Hell, if you want to play this on NOBLE, go ahead, but I'm not peeling off the AI bonuses. The intention of this and any other game thread I post is to get better. Play whatever level you need in order to improve. Just remember, there are immortal bonuses and that's not going to change unless you WB edit it.

If you are aspiring IMM+, try to remember to add archery back to the barbs in WB. Every time you don't, a deity AI will kill a kitten, although there are a lot of kittens so it's not the end of the world if you prefer easymode barbs .

I do request people to list their difficulty and speed. In terms of updates, well nobody follows that anyway. Post in the manner you feel comfortable. Typical comparison dates are 1 AD, liberalism, and victory/defeat, as well as any major events. If in doubt, go with that.

It just occured to me that I've never played as Brennus. Hopefully I can get the internet fixed on my laptop so I can load screenshots. I'm determined to shoehorn a super-cavalry-chain-cap here regardless of how the map looks.

Dun dun dun dun!

Looks like I'm going to do this on Emperor/Epic after I'm through planning to camel rush Mao in another game. :D

That's not good food. I'm going to scout to see if 2E or some plains hill variant is viable. If not, I'll settle in place...at least the city will have production, maybe that will be handy.

I'm going to move my settler 1NW and my scout NE onto the river-side plains hill, to reveal anything else that might be up there. There looks to be a lot of grassland to the south, or moving down there is also a viable option.

Deity/Normal 250 AD

Settled in place and decided to go for hinduism, mining and then oracle -> code of laws. Hoping Hinduism would spread and confuscianism would give me a missionary I could use to get someone in an off religion and cause some wars. Buddhism appeared to have been founded on a different continent so I grabbed Judaism next which would allow me to grab Theology with the oracle which is better trade wise. I also made a really weak attempt at code of laws:

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm149/grashopa2/Civ4ScreenShot0345.jpg

After the Oracle I chopped out a couple settlers and managed to block off the jungle from Elizabeth and Peter to the northeast. However the jungle cities gave me no help beaker-wise and Elizabeth got confuscianism which unfortunately spread very quickly.

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm149/grashopa2/Civ4ScreenShot0349.jpg

I had everyone in Hinduism at this point and Peter in Christianity which was perfect since Russia and England were annoyed at each other and Peter was pleased/cautious with me from trades. But things didn't work out for long when Elizabeth and Hannibal went to confuscianism. I'm surprised Peter hasn't declared on England or me!

Germany was working 4 gold at like 3000 BC this game and has a big tech lead - I traded alphabet off him and no one else was even researching writing at the time. Though Hannibal pulled even with him somehow recently, Peter and Elizabeth are even with me right now. Peter for some reason has been spreading Judaism to all his cities which means when I get my 2nd great prophet shortly I'll be making more than 32/turn from my 2 shrines. I have a city on a hill bordering with Peter in case he attacks me, but I failed to get a defensible city on the west and will get absolutely creamed if Hannibal attacks anytime soon. I'll have 10 or 11 cities so hopefully after cottaging up I'll be able to catch up.

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm149/grashopa2/Civ4ScreenShot0354.jpg

EDIT 12 turns from founding confuscianism and it had spread almost as much as my 3500 BC hinduism :( I had routes with everyone very early, but perhaps distance matters. This lost me the biggest benefit of my opening..

Immortal / Normal

To 1AD:

I start by teching AH->Mining->BW and growing to size2 before worker so it wouldn't end up idling.

Woop! Massive jungles all around and a vast emptiness before any AIs come in sight.

Dotmappage:
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/5181/civ4screenshot0282.jpg

I end up making SH after first settler since we're CHA and start with Mysticism after all. I avoid Archery, while having no military resources in the first 3 cities (should have settled the Horsie with the 3rd, dunno what I was thinking). Barbs gave some headaches, though now that I'm writing this I realize that I forgot to give the buggers Archery in WB. Whoops! Well anyway would have been perfectly manageable even with a higher ratio of Archers flowing in.

The Big Early Game Tech Crossroads (TBEGTC for short) between HBR, Monarchy-line and Aes, I actually opted for HAs since I wasn't going to have metal for some time more and planned on HAing some of those barb cities that were popping up. Almost costs me big time since Bisse, Pete and Hannu each completed it before me. Luckily I get most of Alpha from Liz with it anyway. I try to somewhat claim the NE jungle, and beat Pete by 1 turn to this area, though he ended up taking a city spot from me anyway:

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/369/civ4screenshot0286.jpg

Damn Bisse beat me to the barb cities (not that I tried very hard though), and I end up with having 7 cities at 1AD, with room for 3 more. Tech is stabilized after Bisse's early game sprint.

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/1050/civ4screenshot0288o.jpg



To Liberalism:


My diplo is a mess, 3 competing religions with the score leader having one, score second having another, and the 2 last guys the last religion. After playing Mr. Nice Guy for a while, I adopt Buddhism to buddy it up with Lizzy and Pete, only to have Lizzy swap to Shwedagon Paya-powered FR a while later. Le sigh - just had completed UoS as well.

I get tangled up with Lizzy's war with Hannu, which doesn't matter much. Here's a shot of Hannu's mighty SoD that he sent my way:

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/4821/civ4screenshot0292.jpg

My GS Edu bulb synchronization sucked, so I banked up money a bit under halfway towards Edu until I got the bulb off, after which I headed towards Lib with mass deficit research. Turns out I wasted maybe ½ turn of bulbage, oh well.

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/4989/civ4screenshot0293.jpg

No one has Nat, so I take it with Lib and start on Taj. I have pretty much no long-term plans, I guess I could try a Cav or Rifle/Cannon drop on someone, or just hunker down and tech up towards space. No clue which would be easier to pull off at this stage. Meeting the last 2 guys could be a useful priority, though they've been quite silent after making some noise early game (with wonders and religions).

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/6048/civ4screenshot0295.jpg
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/6857/civ4screenshot0296.jpg

Somewhat lazy game from me, I actually forgot both my SPI and CHA traits in the early game when thinking about happy caps and civic changes :crazyeye:

Immortal / Normal - 640AD. Is this still salvageable?
Man, this map's hard! (To me, it is...) I settled in place and attempted to block some land. Elizabeth went through my cities and settled one in my territory and that made rush to settle the rest of them, especially when I saw a German Axemen right where I wanted another city. I have 9 cities. Everybody's pleased, but most of them declare at pleased. Peter's preparing for war, I'm in a tech hole. Bismarck wouldn't declare on Peter for Civil Service and Liz is Liz. It's possible that Peter's war target is Liz because he's only cautious toward her and they have border tensions, but I don't know.

Actually, this map's been blocking my intelect. I just don't seem to be able to think clearly when I look at it. That's weird. I can't even describe my situation correctly. Here are some pics and the save is attached. Can someone please help me see the light here?

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB01.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB05.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB06.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB03.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB04.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB07.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB02.jpg

IT:


That's not a tech hole, more like a tech...dent? I don't see anything wrong in ur situation. ;) Only thing I notice is that I would have traded for gpt instead of resources since your caps are through the roof already and gpt would have given a ~30% sci boost. Actually I'd trade singleton resources away as well for gold (when/if they have it for trade) and only cancel trades when the green and red faces start to show up. Getting Bisse to Friendly would help some if you happen to run into craptechs that he doesn't have.

How do I add archery to the barbs?

IT:
Took a quick look at your save. That Hindu shrine in Berlin is really going to get Bismarck rich :D

But you have good land. The starting location is pretty weak on this map imho. And with a need to clear jungle it's easy to tech slower than usual, but you'll gain pace from here. And as Silu said, your not in a tech hole.

Also, change build in Isca to 2xWorkboats, lighthouse, granary, library and market to run specialists. You have only had 1GP so they'll come quickly once you start farming them.

I also did a few changes (without ending turn):
Asked Hannibal for mono, didn't work, but the Queen was kind :) Bismarck gave me 50 gold

Ecori - I opened world builder after starting the game, covered my eyes :) And selected the barbarian nation from the drop down box then went to techs on the left and clicked on archery. My barb cities had archers so i assume it worked.

@IT

I added my save. You tell me if my game is salvageable? :)

I'm 22 turns behind your save, and appear to be way behind in tile improvements. And the diplomatic situation isn't as nice looking as yours despite the possibility of war at pleased. :( Hannibal just missed a barb city next to me - he could turn around the next turn and roll over me :)

Ignorant Teacher



Judging by your screenshots, it looks like you are not behind at all, but rather decided to invest more heavily in land acquisition than in tech.

In fact #2 in land is a very good demographic to leverage.

The question of having fewer techs than the AIs at the moment, or more, is largely related to how fast you expand. It appears that your fast expansion rate put you slightly behind the wave of tech advancement of other AI civs. Whether this was a good tradeoff or not can only be seen by playing out the game.

Finally, receiving a tech gift from AIs should be considered an advantage, not a disadvantage. Consider it the peaceful alternative to gaining a tech from a peace treaty after a war.

Immortal/Normal, To the end:


Well there's not much to say. I still felt really lazy so I just teched towards SciMethod - was going to pick up the Communism spy and make Kremlin so if I need I can rushbuy my way into warfare happiness. Lizzy and Pete stayed Friendly, and Bisse hated Hannibal too much to be bothered about me. He could read my mind, too, three times I thought "hmm I'll bribe Bisse into attacking Hannu again this turn" and each time he either declared or went weehorn on him on that very turn... kind of scary :eek:

I built Barracks in Bibracte at 1675AD. That must be some kind of personal record.

So after Levees I take the Electricity&Radio wonders and head towards Internet, which I get. I end up using all bottom line civics. I'm starting to warm towards Enviromentalism actually, I used to think it's totally useless, but it's pretty much the only way to enable Factory power without massive food surplus or teching Refrigeration/Ecology (even then you need a lot of resources and wars can screw you over). The downsides aren't that big without corpos (or small-ish corpos) and without a multi-landmass need for SP in a small empire.

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/2898/civ4screenshot0298.jpg

Somewhere along the line Pete and Bisse decided to whack Lizzy around a bit, but mainly I just whacked enter for the victory. Sorry about the semi-useless game and writeup but as I said I just felt really lazy :crazyeye: If I had been the biggest population I could have tried gifting Hannu up to Mass Media and won a non-warfare Diplo, but it was not to be :p Maybe if I had got those barb cities...

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/2585/civ4screenshot0302.jpg
http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/1718/civ4screenshot0304.jpg

@IT et al

I played to 600 AD, I'm on par with IT tech-wise due to shrine income. So we're the same situation, except I don't have everyone at pleased. Wondering what your thoughts are for VCs at this point, I'm thinking that war at trebs is doable - an army has to be built regardless to avoid getting declared on and grabbing several more good production sites has to lay the advantage to us over anyone on the continent despite being behind in military techs. Workshop+caste for production? since we have high caps and don't want to whip off the tiles that could be worked?

@IT et al

I played to 600 AD, I'm on par with IT tech-wise due to shrine income. So we're the same situation, except I don't have everyone at pleased. Wondering what your thoughts are for VCs at this point, I'm thinking that war at trebs is doable - an army has to be built regardless to avoid getting declared on and grabbing several more good production sites has to lay the advantage to us over anyone on the continent despite being behind in military techs. Workshop+caste for production? since we have high caps and don't want to whip off the tiles that could be worked?



Deity/Normal warfare with Trebs? That's pretty damn hard to pull off at least if you're gonna bombard their castles down. Deity wartime production just eats humans for breakfast.

Building an army is gonna do absolutely nothing to prevent wars though. You need to bypass certain power ratio thresholds that are practically impossible to reach on Deity.

I guess I'd gun for the traditional choices of Cavalry blitz before AIs get Rifling, or a massive Tank/Fighter rushbuy preferably with the Kremlin. You have so much land that a spaceship could be in the cards also if you can keep the AIs fighting each other instead of you I guess - those shrines are only going to get better.

Thank you all for the help.

IT:


Only thing I notice is that I would have traded for gpt instead of resources since your caps are through the roof already and gpt would have given a ~30% sci boost. Actually I'd trade singleton resources away as well for gold (when/if they have it for trade) and only cancel trades when the green and red faces start to show up.

Great idea! I'll do that as their 10 turns pass.
IT:
Also, change build in Isca to 2xWorkboats, lighthouse, granary, library and market to run specialists. You have only had 1GP so they'll come quickly once you start farming them.

I also did a few changes (without ending turn):
Asked Hannibal for mono, didn't work, but the Queen was kind :) Bismarck gave me 50 gold
I'll do that. It's funny because I never build a lighthouse before a granary. I'll try it. Good to know I can get Mono for free. :D
@IT

I added my save. You tell me if my game is salvageable? :)

I'm 22 turns behind your save, and appear to be way behind in tile improvements. And the diplomatic situation isn't as nice looking as yours despite the possibility of war at pleased. :( Hannibal just missed a barb city next to me - he could turn around the next turn and roll over me :)


Well, you're playing on Deity so you have more tricks than me to use in difficult situations. ;) I hope Hanny will just go back home. There's another side to everyone liking each other, though. They're all trading among themselves here.
Ignorant Teacher


Judging by your screenshots, it looks like you are not behind at all, but rather decided to invest more heavily in land acquisition than in tech.

In fact #2 in land is a very good demographic to leverage.
Yeah, the land's a good thing, at least I hope so. It's just that I'm not used to the Immortal AIs yet and I kind of freak out when I see them steadily getting further and further...
@IT et al

I'm thinking that war at trebs is doable - an army has to be built regardless to avoid getting declared on and grabbing several more good production sites has to lay the advantage to us over anyone on the continent despite being behind in military techs. Workshop+caste for production? since we have high caps and don't want to whip off the tiles that could be worked?

I'd like to see a medieval war on Deity if you can pull it off.

IT - "There's another side to everyone liking each other, though. They're all trading among themselves here."

I never thought of this, if you go for religion and can manage to control the diplomatic situation a bit early tech trading could be easier. On deity I always waste a lot of time checking F4 and worrying about who to trade what to. Are there many AIs that will not trade at annoyed?

Most leaders will not trade techs at annoyed.

I never thought of this, if you go for religion and can manage to control the diplomatic situation a bit early tech trading could be easier. On deity I always waste a lot of time checking F4 and worrying about who to trade what to. Are there many AIs that will not trade at annoyed?

Well, worst enemy factor and wars aside, not many of them refuse to trade techs at annoyed. (Monopolies are different). I haven't checked the XML, but, according to the Reference PDF, the leaders that will not trade techs at annoyed are: Ragnar, Shaka, Stalin and Tokugawa. Weird, huh? I always thought there were more of them. (Or I read it wrong and most of them will not trade at annoyed and these ones will not trade at cautious, probably that's more like it. I'll review that later).

I've played until 1520AD and the situation isn't so grim anymore.
I love Peter! He's my main trade buddy. Elizabeth hates him, but I couldn't care less - she's a wimp. I'm going to have to declare on her sooner or later anyway. She's disconnected one of my cities with her annoying culture. This is our land at the moment:

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB19.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB20.jpg


Some cities are unhappy because I've just switched to Universal Suffrage and lost the Military Police bonus. Still have to disband the older units.

Our demographics:

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB24.jpg

And civics:
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB21.jpg

Now, I thought I'd better dedicate a whole chapter to the techs and how I kind of caught up. For starters, I remembered someone saying somewhere that the lower techtree was the option for who was playing defensively (I guess it was Artichoker, but I'm not sure. Sorry. :)). So, instead of doing the usual Liberalism beeline, I went Machinery, Engineering, Guilds, Gunpowder, Nationalism, Military Tradition. At that point I started to feel a little safer. That route allowed me to trade for some techs. Then I got Steel and that's when the real dealing started. It's in the spoiler.
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB08.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB09.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB10.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB11.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB12.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB13.jpg

Then I went to Rifling.
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB14.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB17.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB18.jpg
And this is where I stand. I still have to trade with Bismarck. (Silu, you were right about getting him to Friendly).
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB22.jpg



Of course, it's not a Celtic world yet because:
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB15.jpg

Which made him drop to cautious immediately. To protect myself, I did this:
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB16.jpg


A while later Hannibal started to prepare for war. I'm heading to Assembly Line, but he will get there first, if that's where he's heading. What do you think: there's a possibility that Hannibal will attack Bismarck and not me. Should I abandon the Defensive Pact or include Peter in it?

Diplo Glance:
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/iuxxxi/IUB23.jpg


BTW, as you can see in the empire pictures, I have a Great Merchant that I'll send on a Trade Mission.

Thanks again everybody for the help. :goodjob:

Immortal/epic rage quit.
Liz of all people declared war on me at about 1200BC when we didn't share borders and she was worst enemies with Han. I had done well to block out the barbs with warriors and as such had no defences. :cry:
Looked like such an awesome map too, ah well live and learn.

I lost too.
Bribed Bismarck to declare on Hannibal, but it backfired - he capitulated. After that I thought I should conquer Elizabeth and Peter to be able to prepare for war with Hannibal. The problem is that he declared on me when I was missing three English cities and with my main stack in England. As he was running around with Modern Armors and Gunships, my Tanks, Fighters and Paras couldn't do much. As it was not a human, I quit. If I feel like it, I'll edit this with the screenshots.

Silu, you're the only one who has won this game so far. I guess there's a reason you renamed yourself Immortal Master. :)

About the map:
I guess the AIs have too much land to expand. Even though I was #2 most of the game, I had a similar size to #3, #4 and #5.

IMM/Norm No Events/Huts

1 AD



Moved scout onto plains hill and saw nothing but crap land ----> moving isn't worth it. Settled in place. Opened AH, AG, Mining, and other assorted worker techs. Went aesthetics ----> trade alpha ----> lit since marble is close to the west. I put the pedal down to get early expansion going in this one since there was a lot of land to block off.

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0002.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0003.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0004.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0005.jpg

Tech situation is pretty terrible. Iffy shot at TGL as of 1 AD. I am cottaging capitol for bur the rest is going farms ----> whip infra (especially AP buildings once someone builds it) ----> build research (later wealth).



1695 AD Apostolic Palace win (to end things sooner)



In this segment...well it goes pretty straightforward/typical. I DO get TGL (aggressive chopping) and so stay in slavery with just farms everywhere. Cities grow big. Once I trade for MC I put forges in there too. I was going to go oxford (I could have had it ~ 1100 AD for a change) but realized I could just stomp all over liz in a game of "pick on the backwards heathen" instead. After that, it was a question of how to win. A little backwards, but with jails/IA I could have made that up in a hurry using move palace + spies on bismark (holding DP's with the other two). No need for that though. I took over the AP because of the land I captured, since Bismark built it. The other two liked me more (I'll post the pictures here for why that is). However, bismark had too much pop in the AP for me + allies to get 75%...or DID he?!

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0006.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0007.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0008.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0009.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0010.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0011.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0012.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0013.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0014.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0015.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0016.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0017.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0018.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0019.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0020.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0021.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0022.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0023.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/IU%20Brennus/Civ4ScreenShot0024.jpg

Yes, I swapped FR, spy swapped bismark to FR (in which he stayed due to his multiple religions), then swapped back to theo. During this exchange I got impatient and decided to go pay gandhi and master alex (who didn't even have paper yet) a killing visit. With airships and cavalry (a lot of it 3x promo) against longbows, it was going very nicely. But, my AP trick worked so there was no need for a stealing spree or zerging on bismark!

As for how I'd have fought bismark if I had to do it: Cavalry (I had so much already) + arty + some anti-tanks (suck it panzers). I had 2 cities capable of CR III arty once I got there (heroic/national epic + 2 GG's + theo and IW + WP + theo) so that would have been cute.

TMIT: Damn, under 2 hours - nice. I don't think I've ever reached that. Nice K/D ratio too :)

IT: Haha, didn't think anyone would notice. Hope people don't think I'm arrogant in this company - just did it as a crappy joke.

About the map in general:

I would have thought this map to be pretty easy because of all the land that's easily available. It seems to depend massively on the religion die roll though, all different isn't good but neither is all having the same. I had almost the optimal situation, some Friendly guys with a punching bag to throw some people at. He (Hannu) didn't keel over to capitulation until the Modern times, too, in my game.

- 1620AD Imm/Normal



Not much to mention for the first 5000 years. I settled in place and went for pottery quite early to get some commerce going. Makes a change for me as I generally don't build to many cottages (porbably why my late game tech is not up to scratch sometimes :)).

Managed to get the Parth and GLib with some missed gold for the SoZ. Other than that didn't really try for any more until the Taj.

Religion wise we had a happy Jewish club. Except Liz that is who decided she would rather be a hindu. :) Apart from one early war with Han it didn't seem to cause her to many problems though.

So after Lib. Tech

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/AfterLibBrennusTechs0000.jpg I took Nat from Lib and it was a race between me and Biz who got the Taj first. Glad to say it was me. :) At the time the tech situation wasn't to bad but I headed for Mil Trad and rifling looking to expand which caused me to fall behind a bit.

Glance

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/AfterLibBrennusGlance0000.jpg

Good relations with everbody except Liz that is. :) She did build the AP so by voting for her we did get to pleased a few times.

Lands.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/AfterLibBrennus0000.jpg

I have played quite a way ahead of this but didn't take any screenies. Basically I teched Mil Trad then to rifles. Attacked Liz with Curassiers and some late cavs. Vassaled her. Went straight for Peter after and vassaled him. Unfortunately he bribed Biz into the war against me. Unfortunate for Biz that is as I've just vassaled him as well. Next is Han. He is up RR and AL on me so I'm going to head for AL then look to my 4th vassal. Also he is in WHEEOH atm and could be me but probably Alex or Ghandi. Not that bothered if it is me though. :)

I do like the way you can get your vassals to trade monopoly techs now. Helped me big style as I've been getting about 100 - 200 beakers for the last 400 years so with trading I've been able to keep up.

- 1750AD



Well ended quite easy. Sent some troops over to Ghandi and Alex and capitulated them. Should have gifted Ghandi his cities back as I took one of Hans cities and.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/SJG12345/BrennusDomination0000.jpg

Really wanted a conquest but not to be. :)

@Silu, IT

Hehe yeah don't know what I was thinking. Hammers are not as good as I was thinking looking back at the save. England's land sucks and shes behind in tech, but again the land sucks so a lengthy war makes no sense even if it was possible. And the diplo situation doesn't support it at all since I lost my all hindu but peter continent. Hannibal should actually switch back to Hindu since my missionaries got him to more hindu than confuscian now, but I guess I'll have to trade him into it.

EDIT I'd love to rerun this game so I don't have that terrible luck of confuscianism spreading so fast and Hinduism so slowly. It's good to be able to control the religious situation here. Though if I get Hannibal back to Hinduism the only thing I lose is England who will probably get attacked and vassalized for being heathen before I have a chance to get her. Probably why I was building up my hammers and considering the possibility of pre cavalry war here.


EDIT2 - Isn't starting a deity game on a worldbuilder save like this easier? They aren't getting the true deity start are they?

^ Grashopa:

Yeah they less techs and no 2nd settler at the start, so it's easier. One reason why Oracle went really late in your game I guess.

I'm not sure your game would have been easier if all had been going the same religion - Deity AIs in a group hug can tech insanely fast and leave humans in the dust no matter how many times he presses F4 :p

EDIT2 - Isn't starting a deity game on a worldbuilder save like this easier? They aren't getting the true deity start are they?

No, they still keep their Deity bonuses, but start with Immortal units and techs. A simple way to give them the right units would be to delete all the beginunit and endunit lines in the WB Save using a word processor. (It's better to keep the human's to avoid the scout or warrior spawning in different places each time you start).

Do you guys want me to post a Deity save as well from now on? I don't know which extra techs they get on Deity, but it takes less than a minute to prepare the file with the correct units.

can't say for all, but i am actually planning to run few next IU on diety using easier time due to Ai having one settler. [maybe i will get somwhere]

Although Duckweed said it is not that much difference. Will see soon, i guess.

can't say for all, but i am actually planning to run few next IU on diety using easier time due to Ai having one settler. [maybe i will get somwhere]

Although Duckweed said it is not that much difference. Will see soon, i guess.

I'm guessing the only change is that you get a couple extra turns to get your cities down ;).

They'd get 2 settlers if I swept the beginunit line, but when I was hosting and asked if people wanted me to do that, even the deity players said they didn't care :p.

Immortal/normal. Had some funny moments.



My first funny (bad) moment was when barbs took one of my cities. Liz then captured it, forcing me to declare on her so that I could take it back. Definitely not the smartest way to play the game...

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/Civ4ScreenShot0129.jpg

She ended up not liking much for a long time until I got a religion. The midgame was pretty peaceful - not many wars on my continent. The only midgame wonders I got were Sistine (useless), MoM (useful), and UoS. I also got circumnavigation from maps and liberalism:

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/Civ4ScreenShot0125.jpg

At one point, Hannibal attacked Liz who vassaled to Bismarck. Liz was my first target so this put my ambitions on hold, until the war ended and Liz eventually broke free. That's when I struck. I would have attacked sooner if she weren't Bismarck's vassal but I had to wait - but it game me time to get cavalry:

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/Civ4ScreenShot0127.jpg

I was clearing through Liz, but wanted to make sure she didn't vassal to Bismarck. So I bribed him:

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/Civ4ScreenShot0128.jpg

Expensive, but it did the job. I cleared through Liz, then made a quick strike against Bismarck before he got rifles. Once he started fielding rifles, I took peace and teched for a little bit while building the espionage buildings. Alex declared on me at one point, taking a crappy city from me. Unfortunately for him, this opened up the chance for a holy war against him (I was the resident). So off blew the horns, and everyone dogpiled on him. I was still preparing for Bismarck who was still score leader after having vassaled Hannibal. Eventually, Bismarck took peace with Alex and then immediately went hands full. The very next turn, he declared:

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

I'm guessing he was broke? I thought the AI weren't supposed to do dagger beyond the beginning game but who knows. Anyways, I cut down his army gradually and stole lots of techs, then got tanks and started to go on the offensive. After that, it was a spy/tank barrage against Bismarck, then Hannibal, and then Peter. Got a late domination for about 80k.

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/Civ4ScreenShot0133.jpg

My final stats:

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/Civ4ScreenShot0134.jpg

I lost a bunch of tanks at the start of the Peter war as I underestimated his artillery and bomber stack when I invaded the first time.

immortal, normal:

not really too exciting a game. the available land was pretty good and I got a bonus sneaking a barb city by the 2xgold:

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff77/ungy_2007/Civ4ScreenShot0553.jpg
Han had left a single injured unit:lol:

Not having copper I was pretty weak early on and traded very carefully (and dumped tech to get Liz and Bis to pleased). Bis and Han were conf and Liz and Peter hindu.
I could have blocked Bis in the jungle and claimed a bunch of calender resources but after a lot of hesitation I gave him the site. Hadn't gotten him pleased yet and calender was a long ways off so I started backfilling the good sites--seemed like I had enough land to win unless I got an early DOW.
Oddly enough I get lib although Han was well ahead of me--he took econ but then researched something else.
Then it was a draft/rifle/cannon war which vassaled Liz, Bis and Han go after Gandhi, I start on Peter. I also get sushi. I've got a couple of cities and it looks like it'll be a grind here but I'm starting to pull way ahead. Not sure if I finish this one.