Awilder's 2nd Imm game - Isabella of Spain

[Hodory]

Since you are playing Izzy, I wanted to ask:

Have you thought about building some citadels for extra experience to your siege units? Now the description says that the effects other than the defense bonuses expire with Economics. So if it is like the monasteries where you lose that +10% bonus upon Scientific Method, it may be interesting to delay Economics until you get Steel at least and crank out some impressive cannons. Perhaps just one or two citadels in your Heroic Epic city and one of the best producing cities?

Right on top of my head, without any warring...
Barracks + (Vassalage or Theocracy) + Citadel = 3 + 2 + 5 = 10 exp = CR3 siege weapons right out of the gate.

I have played quite a bit of Izzy games, but have never utilized the citadels before, as I almost never build castles, let alone walls.

 

[awilder]

@Hodory

In this game, I had a large empire and it was really burning through cash quickly. This made me want to get econ for the GM. Also, while I was only able to get CR2 cannons out, I only lost 5 or so in the war against Hannibal. Cannons are pretty brutal vs muskets/cuirassier/LBs regardless of promotion pretty much.

Otoh, I could certainly see a scenario where citadels would be great. If you have a smaller empire and you need each unit to go far, and you are going to be facing rifles or grenadiers, CR3 right out would be a great thing to have. Or, if you go for a medieval war with trebs, CR3 trebs have decent survival odds against bombarded LBs iirc. They would still go obsolete fairly soon, but if they can get you through that first war then they are worth it for sure.

 

[awilder]

@Agramon

I agree that ToA may have a place. I think it's much stronger on lower levels for example where
1) failure gold takes much longer to get
2) trade missions are less important because maintenance costs are lower
3) losing the 175 hammers (assuming marble) which are basically another settler and worker is less of an issue since you have time to expand

This game I basically got the worst of the worst on my ToA deal. I could have at least made the capital coastal! (Say settle on marble)

 

[Agramon]

It's actually not the worst of the worst, at least you get the Rep bonus for the free priest

 

[awilder]

So we left off last round going lib>military tradition. I decided to go for cannons from there because
1) I wanted to try out a cannon/conquistador stack bc it seemed like a nice faster version of cannon/rifle, much better than cannon/musket, and stronger against mass pikes than cannon/cuir.
2) I have a really large empire, so going for a later war gives me more time to prep my cities for production.


First though, I knew I had a lock on economics, and it would be nice to get that GM. My empire is really burning through the cash. So I make this trade:

Spoiler :

I also FINALLY get some swords over to that barb city that stole my wine:

Spoiler :

Still heading toward econ and then chemistry>steel line:

Spoiler :

I believe I made this trade right after completing the taj. I didn't do it this game, but sometimes it's nice to trade away nationalism (or literature etc.) before you finish the wonder, so that an AI will get failure gold which you can then trade for.

What a lousy trade-mission income:

Spoiler :

This was the best I could find! Meanwhile I'm chopping jungle, building infra (barracks,stables, should have been universities! etc)

1050 AD: Econ in. Save this guy for now (sid's sushi?) Trade missions are sucking anyway.

Spoiler :

One of maybe 8 war demands:

Spoiler :

I got asked by each side of the two wars going (hanny<>hammy) (shaka<>monty) at least once each.

once steel is in (circa 1150AD), I switch to war-buildup civics

Spoiler :

Here is one of many (lousy) trades I made to fuel research more. Of course I was also begging and map-brokering at any opportunity (I think this sort of thing is a key to success on Imm).

Spoiler :

Here I try to trigger a GA:

Spoiler :

I saved before-hand because I know it doesn't work to select two guys you want to use and hit the golden age button. Sure enough, the GS and GM were used and the GP stayed around. I loaded... tried again, same result. I could not for the life of me save the GM no matter what combination of selections I tried. Does anyone know how you can choose which 2 GPs to use when you have 3 and want to trigger a GA??? I ended up just saving all three. Think I bulbed some of sci meth with the GS later.

1300AD, ready to declare on Hannibal. One reason the war buildup took so long: I took a few day break from this game, loaded it up again, looked at date and said, oh obv. I have oxford in already...

Well I didn't so I took a detour from war prep to build Unis. I didn't whip many of them bc my workshops are pretty productive by now (guilds+chem+caste+some GAs). Downside of stopping games!

Here is the first city to fall.

Spoiler :

I have a stack to shave off those two cities west of the mountains, and another one heading (slowly!) into hanny's heartland:

Spoiler :

iirc, I had ~25 conq, ~20 cannon.


One side-effect of war:
sometimes you get cut off not only from the trading partner you declared on, but also the ones on the other side of his territory! Since my economy is largely trade-route based, this was a rough hit. I solved my trade route woes with the following trade:

Spoiler :

should have put her in FM sooner, but I didn't even notice when she went into merc. I played pretty sloppy this round... Cannons sure make me let my guard down

This is one of the rare situations where catherine could backstab me at friendly! I begged 10 gold to keep her off my back

Spoiler :

Again, should have done this earlier. Cannons don't help when they are on teh other side of the map!

1410AD (turn 201) I take Hannibals last city:

Spoiler :

So the war lasted 11 turns. Actually not too bad. A lot of the speed lost from cannons was gained by the fact that I basically never had to heal. I lost maybe 4 cannons and maybe 8 conquistadors. Several times I would have a stack of conqs split off to take an out-of-the-way city. Cannons/Mounted actually turned out to be nice in this way: siege with stack cutting through core/tough cities and splinter mounted stacks picking off other cities.

Here are demographics after the war

Spoiler :

Tech-wise, Cathy has rifling, and that is the only important tech anyone has on me. My plan is to keep rolling (in ~2 turns) through Hammy's land to seal off the Eastern half of the continent. I will probably just tech to space from there. Cathy has 1.4 times my power roughly (see demographics) so it would be a slog to grind through her 14 cities.

The save is posted a few posts up.

 

[awilder]

I think physics is a mistake here. Should probably have been bio first. Oh well, now that I'm this far I'll prolly just finish physics.

Also- forgot to mention I got the GSpy from comm right before physics, and revolted to SP (and philo, probably also a mistake; should be in OR again for infra and kremlin 9->7 turns)

 

[Sleepless]

To start a golden age with 2GP's just move them to a different tile to the one you don't want selected (or vice versa) and select the Golden Age button. Works for me.

 

[awilder]

@sleepless

Thanks! I will give that a try.

 

[awilder]

Game plan:

Finish physics, then bio>Corp(trade?)>medicine

Run scientists in the best beaker multiplier cities and prioritize happy/healthy buildings in those cities while the others run merchants. Hammer buildings once they become available. Possibly after electricity+AL would be a good time to build up cash so I can buy a bunch of infra w/ kremlin.

Meanwhile I will take out Hammurabi, and then get a defensive pact w/ Cathy. Maybe use espionage to keep ppl out of emancipation?

 

[Hodory]

@Hodory

In this game, I had a large empire and it was really burning through cash quickly. This made me want to get econ for the GM. Also, while I was only able to get CR2 cannons out, I only lost 5 or so in the war against Hannibal. Cannons are pretty brutal vs muskets/cuirassier/LBs regardless of promotion pretty much.

Otoh, I could certainly see a scenario where citadels would be great. If you have a smaller empire and you need each unit to go far, and you are going to be facing rifles or grenadiers, CR3 right out would be a great thing to have. Or, if you go for a medieval war with trebs, CR3 trebs have decent survival odds against bombarded LBs iirc. They would still go obsolete fairly soon, but if they can get you through that first war then they are worth it for sure.

Lately I've realized the potency of the cannons against medieval units. They indeed are brutally effective. And you are right... getting free GP from getting a tech first is a huge boost.

I brought up the Citadel question because I don't see a lot of players, if there is even any, that even bother to build castles to begin with. Maybe walls in early situation where you get unlucky DOW by an aggressive neighbor, but for the most part, I think it is one of the least built buildings in the game. And I don't think I've seen high level players as yourself getting Engineering before they get to Liberalism anyway.

I don't dare to shadow your game though because I know I will get killed in Immortal. I am still trying to win consistently with ease on Emperor. However, it certainly is nice to see an Izzy game. She used to be my favorite leader to play when I was playing noble games with religion economy.

 

[awilder]

@Hodory

Agree on castles. I think they just don't make sense based on the common tech path (trade for engineering late)

Glad you are enjoying the game!

 

[awilder]

Last left off at 1410 AD having just killed Hannibal. The plan is to regroup troops and then continue marching through Hammurabi. I have more than enough to get him, so the rest of the empire will start building infra toward space race.

I end up DOWing on Hammurabi the very next turn. Unfortunately it was a pretty slow march to his cities because I had no cultural buffer from the revolting Hannibal cities.

Then Catherine comes to me with this:

Spoiler :

I accept because
1) I will soon be GNP runaway favorite, so it is actually somewhat in my interest to help the AIs keep up with me to give me the odd tech here and there.
2) I want to keep her as happy as possible. I will eventually go to FR and lose that juicy +7 bonus from sharing conf.

You can also see that I stayed on physics despite bio being more important. This turned out to be ok, because I got the GS from physics and popped another right after, so I was able to double-bulb bio and get in one turn of research.

Here was one of the early battles.

Spoiler :

Yep, pretty imbalanced. I thought it would be like this the whole time, but actually Hammurabi had a pretty large stack with some ultra-veteran pikes and stuff in his capital (see below). Probably from being at war his whole life.

Here is bulb number one for bio. I thought about making an academy here, but bio was pretty important to get asap, and there aren't that many turns left to play.

Spoiler :

Here is a shot of Hammurabi's capital with its decent but out-of-date defenses. Lost a few units here, but plan was to delete army after this conquest anyway.

Spoiler :

Here is the last city being taken, and me teching medicine (after bio) to go for sid's sushi.

Spoiler :

A 10 turn war. I was pretty surprised that it took almost as long as the Hannibal war. His big cultural buffer was the culprit; not tougher defense.

As planned, right after the war I do this:

Spoiler :

And then delete all but by city garrisons:

Spoiler :

Also you can see HC adopting emancipation here .

I then switch out of war civics into builder civics. I should have probably switched out of police state into rep during the Hammy war, but I was distracted.

Spoiler :

I built up some at this point to rushbuy some infra. Maybe overdid it a bit. I then switched to slavery for even more infra. Main target was courthouses everywhere and built the forbidden palace too. It is pretty close to versailles which hanny had, because I forgot I had conquered versailles. The will still both help a little though! The other benefit to slavery was having something to do with the starving population when a city first comes out of revolt. Whip away a bunch of citizens that will starve anyway until the border pop from buillding culture. Since I started having issues with some privateers, I whipped a few frigates in this situation. No doubt they are Catherine's:

Spoiler :

After medicine was in I traded for consitution and then corporation from Catherine. I stop the turn I founded Sid's sushi. I accidently just founded it in my cap without thinking. I don't remember if my cap has NE in it or not. I hope not because then I can build wallstreet there too. Oops. It would have been better to found it somewhere with better hammers to pump out execs, but that's not a huge deal bc I will rushbuy a couple and then spam them from elsewhere.

I had 41 towns (mainly captured) at this point (1550AD), and several villages soon to be towns. Seemed like Free Speech would be better than buro bc of 2/town and lowered upkeep so I switched.


Here is a pic of the world:

Spoiler :

And Demographics

Spoiler :

And Techs:

Spoiler :

Research-wise:
HC just got electricity, so I will switch to the AL path, and switch to FR asap to get him to pleased I hope. Then I think I can trade for electricity. After that, I will maybe turn research off for a turn or two to rush-buy sid's execs and factories (almost) everywhere) as well as coal plants.

I am building bank #6 right now but I don't even know if WS is worth it. I plan to be in 100% research supported by wealth-building until the end of the game anyway. If I don't have NE in the cap I will build WS there. If not, I may cancel bank #6. I can see that HC is researching radio next, which is great. I will let him build all the wonders and then trade for the resources so I don't need to worry about happy cap for a while.

Basically I will have some cities with lib+uni+obs that have towns and run scientists, and the rest will run merchants. I will try to monitor happy cap and to a lesser degree health cap and build infra as needed to stay ahead, but aside from that (+factories+coal plants) I will build wealth and research only.

I would really like to win space before 1800AD (50 turns away), but that might be tough since it would mean launching in <40 turns. I'm pretty confident I can win well before 1850AD (75 turns away) which would still be a personal record!

Any advice you guys have for me would be great. How much should I gift techs to Cathy/HC(who peace-vassaled her btw) in the hopes of them teching something useful for me? I would like to know also if people feel it would have been faster just to stay in SP and forget medicine/sushi all together. Also another question: how does unhappiness from emancipation work? If I use espionage to switch both Cathy and HC out of it once, does the unhappiness reset when they switch back or start where it left off? Also, how long does it take for them to switch back, and how many EP does a civic switch cost?

 

[awilder]

I will most likely do 1-2 more updates max. If something unexpected happens I will stop there and do an update; otherwise I may do an update around the time the space techs start coming in. I'm really hoping I can get my empire up to 5k+ bpt in the next 25ish turns; we'll see!

 

[huerfanista]

I saved before-hand because I know it doesn't work to select two guys you want to use and hit the golden age button. Sure enough, the GS and GM were used and the GP stayed around. I loaded... tried again, same result. I could not for the life of me save the GM no matter what combination of selections I tried. Does anyone know how you can choose which 2 GPs to use when you have 3 and want to trigger a GA???

Move the merchant out of the city, then select the 2 you want to use. I've never had this fail.

EDIT: I see sleepless got there first with the same advice.

 

[awilder]

@huerfanista

yep, thanks! For the record that works for me too.

@all

game is finished. update is coming asap.

 

[awilder]

OK, so we just left off founding Sid's sushi in 1550 AD. We are shooting for space win pre-1800. When we left off, the only tech the AI had that I wanted for space was HC. Unfortunately he and everyone else were long since WFYABTA, and the only one I could see a way to get/keep friendly was Catherine. Fortunately:

Spoiler :

She may have traded for it from HC. He is her vassal after all. So tentative game plan is to gift/sell catherine enough techs so that she can get whatever HC techs for me

But wait! I check something before making the trade...

Spoiler :

And then add her switching to caste to sweeten the deal! Something potentially important I found this game:
If one AI is in emancipation, it will be willing to switch out (at pleased, based on this game) but if 2+ ever get in, you cannot trade them out. They will say "We don't want to deal with the unhappiness". For most of the game I was able to alternately put Catherine and HC into caste again and again, which was pretty nice.

When Sid's execs start coming in, I trade for all the sushi resources I can (forgot to cancel that rice trade with HC it seems...)

Spoiler :

To speed up the sushi spread, I rushbuy several execs...

Spoiler :

Pretty cheap!

After it has spread enough to build execs in my IW city (Madrid) and some other places, I switch to rep and FR (+~450 beakers!) Fortunately, Catherine stays at pleased (unfortunately HC doesn't get to friendly):

Spoiler :

Keeping 'em out of emancipation:

Spoiler :

As planned, I had been going the AL route for factories. I built them in all cities with 30+ hammers (arbitrary cutoff, should have gone much lower. It's a question of number of turns left)

To help speed up the factories+coal plants+whatever else, I trigger a GA:

Spoiler :

I decided to go for genetics first since I needed health to combat all the coalplants:

Spoiler :

I think the shot below is supposed to show Cathy going into WHEOOHRN:

Spoiler :

So it appears the only effect of a DP is they declare on anyone who attacks me, and also can't declare on me?

Oh, that's also the first time I passed the 4k bpt battier. I flirted with 5k several times, but never passed it. I could have by overbuilding research but it would have been at a large deficit.

I ended up bribing her out of the war (w/ Monty) since I wanted to make sure to stay in DP. And I was giving her silly tech deals like Genetics for 200 gold+revert to caste all the while so might as well ask for something else.

A while later, I debate triggering a GA with 3 GP. Question is can I get 4 needed for the next one in time. Looks like no:

Spoiler :

So I switch to pacifism. This was a mistake: I didn't have the flexibility to get 4 different GP (one of them would be a GE from fusion, I could make a GS+GM no prob, but then not so hot at others). The bigger reason is I was shooting for pre-1800, so 1690 is exactly 12 turns (have MoM) from my target launch date!

Spoiler: it wasn't to be anyway.

On a happier note, I was still able to keep ppl out of emancipation mostly:

Spoiler :

Bottom shows date:1695!

Pop a GE. Oops! doubling up = no quadruple GP GA for me!

Spoiler :

Around this time it became clear I wasn't gonna make it. I totally lost focus and didn't even try to time all the ship parts to come in at the same time.

The biggest bottleneck (as ppl had warned me) was the engine. Remember kids: tech to fusion early! I ended up having my IW city build both because I had botched up the timing so badly.

I launch on 1806:

Spoiler :

I had to zoom way out to catch that spaceship cause I kept getting build/action prompts!

Here are my latest 3 games/first 3 games on BAT (which I recommend!)

Spoiler :

Recap:

So I didn't get the pre1800 merit badge I was hoping for. Frown town. If I had infinite time/patience I would probably try to load around 1690 when I did the silly pacifism switch and coordinate things better. I'm confident I could have at least launched before 1800, and probably shaved a good 5-8 turns off my finish date.

Emancipation did bite me in the end, but it was really only the last few turns that shouldn't have been there. I never had to devote time to espionage/switch enemy civics.

My empire never passed 5k beakers with 33 cities. Looks like I need to study iggymnrr's space games! It was fun to try to maximize bpt, but the coordination and timing required to launch as soon as possible just really isn't my cup of tea. Practice was useful though!

I suspect sid's sushi was a waste of time. It was nice to have a million scientists fueling my research and running rep, but I think it may have been faster to bypass the spamming of execs, and just build more factories and such everywhere.

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed the game! I obviously left out a lot of details, so just ask if you're curious on anything! I'll attach an autosave near the end if anyone is interested. (do not consider this a model space race finish--many problems. totally checked out when I missed 1800 )