Overcoming Ignorance - Immortal Gilgamesh

Some constructive criticism:

You need to get more aggressive with your blocking strat. From your first 11 turns it was looking like you had a smallish peninsula but you were already dreaming about a city due west of the capitol. Instead, when you find your geography limited you should be pushing your scouting toward the exit. Look at the higher level games posted around here and you will see just how far people stretch to block off land for themselves. Lots of complaining about barbs on higher levels, but partly due to second city being 100 miles away from the capitol for an effective block.

In your second round, your 3rd city does no blocking at all. Mehmed may well have another city on the north coast before you do. A serious block would have aimed for the plains hill 3n1ne of Eridu: Creative would let you steal the marble from Ankara and put some real cultural pressure toward flipping. Better scouting of that coast would have told you if there was seafood available to that site. With no seafood, maybe just 3n of Eridu- Still a good block, but less chance of holding the marble.
 
LuCiver, I don't like expanding that much early on. I'd rather grow in circles around my capital. That said, you were right that I could have blocked Mehmed in a more efficient way. I did that now. BTW, the land I've secured is good enough for some 10 or 11 cities. So let me present everyone the nex round:

I won't lose my marbles!!!

Spoiler :
You all wanted marble, right? So let me get myself some Marble!



And making more sure that I won't lose it.



Someone ordered an Oracle?



Now, what should I take? I'm thinking of Metal Casting as a trade chip. That, plus Aesthetics, should get me to parity. Now that I have marble, I'm considering grabbing the Parthenon / Great Library combo. What do you think?



I've done some exploring around and also hooked up the horses. I'll find Suryavarman now because we've already opened borders and I guess he'll be going to missionary mode sooner or later. I have to find him to start profiting from the TRs. I'll chop some Chariots and take Illinois then I'll open my borders with Mehmed. And, of course, build more workers.

Here's the land and a tentative dot-map:




 

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Ignorant Teacher said:
LuCiver, I don't like expanding that much early on. I'd rather grow in circles around my capital. That said, you were right that I could have blocked Mehmed in a more efficient way. I did that now. BTW, the land I've secured is good enough for some 10 or 11 cities. So let me present everyone the nex round:
Click to expand...

I've learned that sometimes 'improving' means not doing things the way I like to do them.


Still no scouting on your SE coast: Seafood down there could make a stone city more attractive.

Dotmap mostly looks good, although I wouldn't even build an outhouse at that northern sheep site. :(
 
I've learned that sometimes 'improving' means not doing things the way I like to do them.
Click to expand...


let me second that, and add that blocking and early expansion (to eventually build 8-10 cities before a war) may be the big step in beating Immortal. Looks like Deity (I can't beat that one) is more about perfect micro and... well, perfect everything. If you are not that perfect, you would fare much better in Immortal if you learned to adapt to at least block/expand when the option is available and is the most attractive map wise .
 
I really don't have any comments this round. From what I see it's well played(but I still consider oracle 775BC a gamble!) and I agree on your future plan with workers, explore rival territory, great library and peacefully settle the rest.

The only real danger I see is a DoW from Mehmed.

About blocking, I did choose to found the crab/marble city as my 3rd city, since we have commerce to pay for it and marble+crab and green hills make the site contribute fast. Still, loosing that site wouldn't bother me much. It's Uruk, Eridu, Kish, Illinois and Moai that will win this game.

In general I find many drawbacks with aggressive blocking and a key to winning deity? Certainly not.
 
Well, I got a little carried away with this round and played just a little further than I had planned. You see, I kind of settled all my new cities at once and then saw myself losing money at 0% science. I struggled to get at Currency, but both Mehmed and Suryavarman were light-years ahead of me then so I tried to fix it. Let's see if I could. I played until 880 AD.
Spoiler :
I took Metal Casting from the Oracle. I figured it would help me with the trades, but the Einstein here forgot to actually trade it and, when I saw it, Suryavarman already had it so I didn't get very good returns. I have to stop doing those stupid mistakes.

I started moving a worker to finally see what lay by that stone site and turns out it was a source of clam. Now Harbors became really interesting because I have all seafood resources.



A while later, I got a scientist to build an academy in Uruk. So far so good.



But this is where I got carried away and started to lose control of the game:



I got excited that I had finally captured that barb city that I went on a settling spree and wrecked my economy for some centuries.

Going back to the GLH discussion, turns out it was a very doable wonder here because it only went in 75 AD. I should have built the damn thing. Shoot!



Some wonders came. Although not game breaking, they are the ones who let me kind of recover from mistakes:





When the southern city's borders popped, I saw that there's an island to our south. I hoped for a moment that it would be someone like Justinian, but it was just the barbs. :(





I had a scientist waiting in Uruk to bulb Philosophy, but Code of Laws came too late for it so Suryavarman already had it. Seriously, how many mistakes and bad luck can I have in a single game?



Some Philosophy bulb...



But, if you look closer at the top of the screen of when I bulbed Philosophy, you'll see that I had a Great Prophet born at that same time so I used him to start a golden age. Let's adjust civics first (the screenshot is from a later turn, but that's when I switched - I didn't have Civil Service when I started the GA).



And adjust the capital:



Four turns later, I get a great scientist. Let's squeeze Uruk a little harder.



After I got him, I switched civics again:



Now, this is our land. Please note that I don't intend to complete the Moai Statues in Bad Tibira, I think I'll build it in Ur because it has much more production.





Techs:



Demographics:



I have two scientists. One of them will bulb Education and the other will bulb Liberalism (I already traded for Calendar and will trade for Compass soon). Then I think I'll get Machinery and Optics and take Astronomy to start profiting from better trade routes. As you can see, Suryavarman is currently researching Nationalism so I don't think I have a great shot at the Taj Mahal. Printing Press could be a good idea. What do you think?


Regarding the aggressive blocking strategy. It's true that many advanced players do it and get great results. Unconquered Sun had a Justinian deity game where he settled his second city some 20 tiles away from his capital or something. OTOH, players like obsolete do extremely well by keeping their empire small. I don't think choosing one or the other is a sign of being a good player. How well you implement either or something in between is what makes you good.
Now, I realized that the way I put it in my other post may have sounded as "I don't do it because I'm used to doing things differently." and that would be a stupid attitude, indicating arrogance. Sorry if I sounded that way, I didn't (and don't) mean to.
I do beat most my Immortal games. They're ugly and late wins, but they're wins. I'm not a great player and I want to improve and that's the point of threads like this one. Your criticism is very appreciated - as I said earlier, it makes you think about what you did and, hopefully, lets you avoid repeating your mistakes. I thank everyone who has and is participating in this thread.
 

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When I played Mehmed was WHEOOHRN on me and eventually declared, so I was massing elephants and catapults. Tech is far behind, but took out most of mehmed's cities. But then he vassaled.
 
2 things I immediately dislike after a quick glance over your screen shots.

1. Overexpanded in the early stage -- your have a very strong capital and a 2nd gold city and a 3rd marble city. I'd slow down settling after that and quickly beeline to Literature and grab the TGL as soon as possible.

2. over tile improvement -- 14 tiles improved in your capital while it's size 5!!!, you either produced too many workers or did not use the workers efficiently. Even in a jungle heavy map, I usually produce 1 worker per city and that's enough.
 
You have it won in your current save, since neither AI will declare on you right now and you have almost 20% land. I played up to 1150 AD (met all AI)

Spoiler :

I double bulbed education and traded Mehmed (rather gifted) to friendly. Then whored my way up the tree while teching optics to take astronomy from liberalism:



Circumnavigation just because I could:



And a good tech lead against the other dudes:



Mehmed has no iron so you can pound him silly with cuirassiers/cavalry. Especially if he goes on the usual SM--physics beeline that the AI loves to do.



As for your play up to this point, it may have been better to take your development slower to allow for better expansion/economy balance. You had lots of underdeveloped cottages in your capital even though you have 4 cities overlapping it. I would have loaned out the fringe cottages to the surrounding cities so that Uruk can concentrate on hammers, then return the grown cottages to your capital once Uruk needs to go more commerce heavy.

I also would have built more farms since you can always cottage over them after democracy, which isn't that far from your save. Plus it gives you more whipping leverage to abuse on the AI :lol: Not that I bothered to farm in my save :blush:
 

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Why did you decide to make this capital a commerce powerhouse? To me it looks like a production monster, what with 6 (!!!) hills, 5 of them plains, lots of easily accessible food with some farming and, later, workshops/watermills... and a levee.
 
Duckweed said:
2 things I immediately dislike after a quick glance over your screen shots.

1. Overexpanded in the early stage -- your have a very strong capital and a 2nd gold city and a 3rd marble city. I'd slow down settling after that and quickly beeline to Literature and grab the TGL as soon as possible.
Click to expand...
It would have been much better, I should have left the hardest expansion to after I could support it.
2. over tile improvement -- 14 tiles improved in your capital while it's size 5!!!, you either produced too many workers or did not use the workers efficiently. Even in a jungle heavy map, I usually produce 1 worker per city and that's enough.
Click to expand...
I guess I made too many workers. I always fear that I have too few. I'll try to do with fewer.
shyuhe said:
As for your play up to this point, it may have been better to take your development slower to allow for better expansion/economy balance.
Click to expand...
Agreed.
You had lots of underdeveloped cottages in your capital even though you have 4 cities overlapping it. I would have loaned out the fringe cottages to the surrounding cities so that Uruk can concentrate on hammers, then return the grown cottages to your capital once Uruk needs to go more commerce heavy.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I need to pay more attention to that tile switching. It is a very good idea.
I also would have built more farms since you can always cottage over them after democracy, which isn't that far from your save. Plus it gives you more whipping leverage to abuse on the AI :lol: Not that I bothered to farm in my save :blush:
Click to expand...
Good idea. I'll keep that in mind for future games. Thanks.
BornSlippy said:
Why did you decide to make this capital a commerce powerhouse? To me it looks like a production monster, what with 6 (!!!) hills, 5 of them plains, lots of easily accessible food with some farming and, later, workshops/watermills... and a levee.
Click to expand...
I don't know. I tend to go for commerce capitals without thinking much about it. I suppose a little thought before deciding stuff wouldn't hurt, right?
 
Duckweed said:
2. over tile improvement -- 14 tiles improved in your capital while it's size 5!!!, you either produced too many workers or did not use the workers efficiently. Even in a jungle heavy map, I usually produce 1 worker per city and that's enough.
Click to expand...

Assigning tiles manually in each city takes time, but it helps greatly getting ride of this problem. When you know how your cities are growing, it's easier to plan the improvements you really need. imo Duckweed is right to stress it as one game improves a lot paying attention to this.

From a quick glance at the screens too, I find your tech path weird. You researched both alpha and aesthetics while taking MC from Oracle in 800 BC (very lucky)? A case can be made for one tech (alpha if AI doesn't have it, aesthetics for GLib beeline), but don't tech everything! Trade more (reach pleased/friendly sooner -easy with Sury as he has an early favorite civic) would be my advice :). I wouldn't have taken MC while beelining GLIb in the first place. Forges aren't even cheap here (look, in 700 ad, your second city hasn't completed its forge, so MC could definately wait).

That being said, your position looks good (winnable) :)
 
So, I'm still shadowing this. Played up to turn 101. Haven't read your latest moves because you're ahead of where I am.
Spoiler :

Here's my turn 28 for comparison, including my city plans at that stage (they haven't changed much since either). It's slightly different from settling 1E, but it doesn't affect things too much on the whole.

As you can see, I switched to a settler fairly early (only 3 population, only a couple warriors out), basically because I saw the pinch point in the land and wanted to grab it. Even chopped just in case. The grab was successful, and the city I've ended up with there is incredible - irrigated corn, marble, sheep, horse. It's like a second capital.
Having grabbed that land, I'm expecting this game to be extremely easy. I got some favourable events along the way - the herb one for +2 health (I almost didn't care at all about the -2 happiness, because building a settler at 3 pop and working the ivory I wasn't at the happy cap anyway) and a bonus 19 beakers for nothing.
With the land secured, I've relaxed somewhat in building cities, building settlers outside the capital while I grab wonders with the stone/marble.
I've grabbed the pyramids (switched to Rep, nearly forgot to though mind you) and look very likely to get the library. I've cottaged the three flood plains and seem to be just plain ahead in tech. Or ahead of my continent anyway, and no-one has grabbed confucianism yet so the other continent can't be too far ahead. Skipped the oracle, because I'd skipped mysticism altogether because of the creative trait. Sharing Judaism with Khmer, but Mehmed has no religeon still. Here's a shot of the land now, not much changed just filled in some cities. Ordinarily I'd have taken the corn-gold-iron spot much earlier, but there's a barb city there and with no copper to be seen anywhere I've waited until I hooked up the iron up north (near the crabs) before building an offensive military.

 

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General comment: I've become a big fan of failure gold when my Econ is tanked. Especially effective when you have the resource bonus for a wonder. I think I would have been working on ToA and/or SoZ for that purpose. Recently got almost 800 for failing the pyramids and it was enough to buy my way back into the game.
 
My shadow 1440BC-860AD:
Spoiler :

Nothing much to report really, very straight forward. Some key notes:

- Finished sailing, then writing, aesthetics, masonry, literature, monotheism, alphabet(AIs where incredibly late, Sury researched MC before alphabet). Some trades for monarchy, IW, math and calendar. Then researched CoL, bulbed philo(founded taoism) CS, paper, traded for machinery and compass, researched optics, 1xBulb on edu and finished edu.

- Built Oracle 1280BC(picked MC), Great library in Uruk(425BC), parthenon in Eridu(25BC) and UoS in Uruk. Uruk have also built NE. Lagash(crab/stone) got Moai. Sury built the Apostolic palace, he also have sistine and will probably go culture.

- Decided on mass cottages. Uruk went commerce simply because I prefer to let two other cities borrow some hills and I have enough production anyway.

- I settled quite slow(to slow). 6 cities @ 1AD, 10(and finished settling) ~500AD

- I switched to slavery at the same time I switched to bureaucracy :lol: Only 1 turn of anarchy for 2 civic changes :)

- Met 6 of 7 AIs. De Gaulle and Shaka on one continent fighting, Sitting Bull on another.

- Really have no further plan. The game isn't won at this moment, but I can't see that the end-game will be very fun. And I don't master the skill of speed-civing. Once I try to play faster I loose interest and most important, I play poorly. Anyway I attached 75AD and 860AD save just for comparison. Will finish the game tomorrow.
 

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i've got to give up. or take a break.

i think that i'm finally losing, though. i'm about halfway through, T223.
Spoiler :
i started off by expanding way far forward. i looked at some of the other games, and i guess that i went too far afield. my economy has suffered for it.



sury has been the tech leader, and a wonderhog. but then he hasn't been building enough units, and has given up a city to mehmed. i've traded basra back and forth with mehmed, giving up a lot of hammers in the process. besides a crap economy, having to build basra twice has really set me back (moai, FP, many culture buildings were destroyed).



cyrus is the scoreleader, with the most land and pop. but he's lagging in techs, relative to the ai. relative to me, i'm losing to everyone in tech. so i need to figure out a way to use some creative espionage and lock down the economy.



i just took istanbul -not constantinople

and i'm second in score. if i knew what i was doing, i should be in a position to win. however, i think that the score is somewhat misleading. the only reason that i've been able to hold any territory is that i've been able to dominate the apostolic palace. i keep using it to end my wars with mehmed, who keeps managing pyrrhic victories. i had basra returned to me through a resolution. sury built the AP, but i've diplo'ed him to friendly +14.

here are some more screens to give an impression of where i'm at:





i have 12 cities, de gaulle has 12, cyrus has 16. i control the: HG, SoZ, SP and sistine chapel.
 

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  • Ignorant Gilgamesh AD-1565.CivBeyondSwordSave
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z0wb13:
Spoiler :
For me it seems like your big mistake was to declare on Mehmed 1440BC. What was your reasoning for doing that? You did an excellent block with Eridu. Now you had lots of good land to backfill, but you chose to attack a unit-spammer like Mehmed. And it's not like Bursa is that hot. You lost a trading partner there while having to worry about military all the time.
 
RRRaskolnikov said:
Assigning tiles manually in each city takes time, but it helps greatly getting ride of this problem. When you know how your cities are growing, it's easier to plan the improvements you really need. imo Duckweed is right to stress it as one game improves a lot paying attention to this.
Click to expand...
I'll beat my laziness and manage my cities manually from now on.

From a quick glance at the screens too, I find your tech path weird. You researched both alpha and aesthetics while taking MC from Oracle in 800 BC (very lucky)? A case can be made for one tech (alpha if AI doesn't have it, aesthetics for GLib beeline), but don't tech everything! Trade more (reach pleased/friendly sooner -easy with Sury as he has an early favorite civic) would be my advice :). I wouldn't have taken MC while beelining GLIb in the first place. Forges aren't even cheap here (look, in 700 ad, your second city hasn't completed its forge, so MC could definately wait).
Click to expand...
Agreed. My techpath was far from optimal here and I could have traded more. When I grabbed MC from the Oracle I thought of it as a trade chip, but then I forgot to trade it around. How dumb can I get?

LuCiver said:
General comment: I've become a big fan of failure gold when my Econ is tanked. Especially effective when you have the resource bonus for a wonder. I think I would have been working on ToA and/or SoZ for that purpose. Recently got almost 800 for failing the pyramids and it was enough to buy my way back into the game.
Click to expand...

That is something I have to start doing more often. I already knew people used to do it, but I've never done it intentionally. I suppose it can let you research a bunch of techs. I'll try to remember failing wonders from now on.


I'm going to play the next round in a while.
 
Failure gold is especially useful when you have overexpanded and are struggling to get that Econ tech to right the ship. 45 turns till Currency with negatve cash and slider at 0 is a miserable place to be.
 
Ignorant Teacher said:
That is something I have to start doing more often. I already knew people used to do it, but I've never done it intentionally. I suppose it can let you research a bunch of techs. I'll try to remember failing wonders from now on.
Click to expand...
Either failure gold or building the Mids with stone (which you had). Lately I overexpanded as Sury on a pangaea (which was the right move because I was boxed in from all sides), then just built the Mids and was back eventually -- blowing the competition out of the water because of all the good land I had secured earlier.

So, yeah, location is everything, which is why the early game matters so much and the right expansion/blocking strategy is called for.

I've learned that pretty late (also because it's not obvious that the AI won't settle behind your borders), but it's the best advice for high difficulties there is.
 
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