[BTS] Immortal University 77 - Charlemagne

[Habitus]

Greetings, Immortals and would-be Immortals (and indeed any other players of any level), and welcome to the Immortal University.

Here is our Leader:



Here's the opening scene:



The following settings were used to create this map



Before we start, here's the copy & paste bit where I get to pretend that I'm TMIT:

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. The intention of this and any other game thread I post is to get better. Play whatever level you need in order to improve.

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.

We also have an initial Immortal/Normal autosave which is much more convenient since you can avoid all the worldbuilder shenanigans. It comes with my personal seal of approval (not least as my worldbuilder edits may contain hideous game-destroying errors that could cause your computer to explode ).

[Habitus]

Abit since made a WB save so if anything is messed up tell me please so i can fix it

[pixiejmcc]

A leader I normally avoid so good work forcing him on me Doesn't look like a particularly abundant start either. Should be interesting!

[gspchamp999]

No gold mine start?? Signing on

[Tachywaxon]

What a nice looking leader. Certainly a good choice from RNG.

Tempting to move onto FPH, but this is a sacrifice of two hills. Assuming copper/horses from unforested plain tiles, that tile plus cows and the remaining hill can make up.

An uncovered tile west can hold a good resource like cows.

Agri -> AH seems a no brainer (especially with Hunting 20% modifier).
But then the worker remains idle...

[Pengu]

I hate getting leaders who start with techs you can't use at the start.

I don't see a single hill on the screen so you must self tech min, agr, AH, BW and no commerce to boot. This means the worker will sit there doing nothing after awhile.
You can't start with BW cause it will take too long and if I go AH and agr there is nothing to do after that as BW is far away.

[plasmacannon]

I am not an Immortal player.
Of which, I became evident and brutally reminded of, when I grew to a total of 4 cities with 0 RP and 1Gpt and hadn't finished teching TW to get to Pottery.
I got out-teched fairly quickly too.
I researched Ag->A->AH->F->M->BW->TW-P path

Spoiler:

Really poor land nearby. Stuck on a small penisula, desert to the East, very little food, of the seafood available only 1 fish and 1 clam are possible. I settled my Capitol 1E on the double production hill river tile. I grabbed mine and England's copper, but she has axemen anyway. Finding No Horse resource really puts us at a disadvantage vs England's Axemen. Having 3 FIN empires near us is going to make this a tough game. I checked the Trade Screen and everyone has already traded techs and has none for me. England is 6 techs ahead of me. I will need to try trading sooner.
I might try this again with a different tech sequence. Usually, I would have teched towards BW faster, but the extra prod wasn't needed. I will have to get pottery faster to be able to keep teching. Everything happens so fast. I am playing a marathon always war NTT NTB LAN game offline. I think, I was caught offguard by the fast pace. I am used to them not being able to trade techs. That just hastens the early eras away.

[pixiejmcc]

Originally Posted by Tachywaxon

What a nice looking leader. Certainly a good choice from RNG.

Tempting to move onto FPH, but this is a sacrifice of two hills. Assuming copper/horses from unforested plain tiles, that tile plus cows and the remaining hill can make up.

An uncovered tile west can hold a good resource like cows.

Agri -> AH seems a no brainer (especially with Hunting 20% modifier).
But then the worker remains idle...

Its a really tricky start. IIRC I went AH, Masonry. Not something I would normally do but I think the commerce from marble and the fact the worker wasn't idle for too long made it worthwhile.

[gspchamp999]

250 BC

Spoiler:

Tech: Mining, Bronze, Wheel, Agriculture, Pottery, Writing, Aest

Tried to chop out a quick settler and steal the gold from Victoria because our accessible land does not seem large enough. Victoria beat me there and I took peninsula blocker on incense.

My second settler headed out following a warrior north. When no resources were revealed, I moved him down south and no where to settle but on the suggeted blue circle. Ended up being Iron there.

I just built the great library and NE is on its way up. I have some hammers invested in Parth for fail gold.

Most likely headed to Music for the artist. I just traded for calander after discovering the final civ Zara this turn and am thinking about going for MoM in Prague(3 chops available and will use corn to grow for whip). If I get MoM, then I will certainly tech/lib Nationalism for Taj and set up a 6th city to claim Whale and put the globe city somewhere for drafting. I don't think I want to go engineering and take Hannibal out with Mace/Trebs to get horses so I am probably going to be doing a Cannon war.

Pics:

Spoiler:

[TheMeInTeam]

Not sure I'll play it out.

Spoiler:

Really poor land quality so spammed cata + axe + couple spear (realized she had no horse) and crushed vicky down to 2 cities. Took tech rather than cap so that I didn't screw diplo.

As of mid renaissance pacal is running away in tech a bit, but I'm about to get assembly line late 1600's and am #1 in land. Infantry/arty would spank enough of the world that I could just chaincap, starting with hannibal. For me this came down to beat vicky and win or fail and lose, and I didn't fail.

[BurN]

Haven`t played in a while and I played it quick to +- 200BC

Spoiler:

Went AH, agri, writing, mining, bw, wheel, fishing. Made a settler at size 2 I think, I didn`t manage to get the gold but I got the sheep in first ring. Sheep city had lucky bronze in second ring (since I didn`t have BW when I settled). Settled another city at clams/bronze and then start chopping axes everywhere.

Didn`t run into any problems and easily got Victoria down to 2 cities, then got currency and monarchy in trade for peace. Leaving me in a tech advantage + land advantage + Aesth + forrests to chop TGL + HE = easy win.


Then restarted to try a non axe approach. I used to same tech path and first city placement with a quick library in the cap and 2nd city. Chopped parth/tgl/NE, founded toaism and started teching CS at 175BC with 2 GS waiting to bulb (and one more in 5 turns). Got 350 gold from missing MoM as well.

Thought it would be more interesting trying to get riffles or cannons but ... Surry had horses for trading so.... easy win with cuirs.


Didn`t or won`t finish the games though, just playing a quick game of civ. Thought I`d share.

[Tachywaxon]

@all

Do you think it's winnable on deity?

Spoiler:

I tried it but threw the towel.
Not because I was losing to Vicky (I was controlling her), but I couldn't do anything with those stacks of archers, even with 8 axes...and then strike. With so few lands, I'm so claustrophobic and then attempt an agression stupidly.

With marble, I should have waited, but those gold plots made my fear.

I went Agri > AH > Archery > Mining > BW > Wheel > Science slider down.

[pixiejmcc]

Originally Posted by Tachywaxon

@all

Do you think it's winnable on deity?

Spoiler:

I tried it but threw the towel.
Not because I was losing to Vicky (I was controlling her), but I couldn't do anything with those stacks of archers, even with 8 axes...and then strike. With so few lands, I'm so claustrophobic and then attempt an agression stupidly.

With marble, I should have waited, but those gold plots made my fear.

I went Agri > AH > Archery > Mining > BW > Wheel > Science slider down.

It'd be tricky that's for sure. I might have a go but I've seen the map. The AI just has one settler in the Deity WB save though.

[Tachywaxon]

Originally Posted by pixiejmcc

It'd be tricky that's for sure. I might have a go but I've seen the map. The AI just has one settler in the Deity WB save though.

I don't think so,

Spoiler:

sheep and gold city was founded under 10 turns, so she definitely had two settlers.

[pixiejmcc]

Originally Posted by Tachywaxon

I don't think so,

Spoiler:

sheep and gold city was founded under 10 turns, so she definitely had two settlers.

Ok i'm clearly doing something wrong

[Habitus]

In the worldbuilder saves, all units but the players have been removed so that the game auto spawns the correct AI units to the difficultly you select. I may play this deity or just go with the standard save not sure yet

[pixiejmcc]

Ouch!

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

I figured a picture tells a thousand words, but Vicky built the Oracle in 1840BC and took Feudalism!

[Tachywaxon]

^

Spoiler:

Victoria sure likes early feudalism slingshot...

[DanielTorrence]

Originally Posted by TheMeInTeam

Not sure I'll play it out.

Spoiler:

Really poor land quality so spammed cata + axe + couple spear (realized she had no horse) and crushed vicky down to 2 cities. Took tech rather than cap so that I didn't screw diplo.

As of mid renaissance pacal is running away in tech a bit, but I'm about to get assembly line late 1600's and am #1 in land. Infantry/arty would spank enough of the world that I could just chaincap, starting with hannibal. For me this came down to beat vicky and win or fail and lose, and I didn't fail.

My respect for that. I found that start quite difficult and did not accomplish a thing, even started to go broke around 200 BC...What was your attack date, if I may ask?

[TheMeInTeam]

Originally Posted by DanielTorrence

My respect for that. I found that start quite difficult and did not accomplish a thing, even started to go broke around 200 BC...What was your attack date, if I may ask?

Spoiler:

I don't recall exactly but it was very early ADs, like in the 75 AD to 200 AD region. She got access to longbows just before I declared, but many of her cities still had lots of melee (having open borders, I confirmed no horses thankfully). Longbows suck but xbows suck more and she got her hands on them after I took 4 cities (3 very strong core ones) and I had to let her buy out to regroup. She only had 1 more iron city (scouting is very important) settled right on iron and it was close so I declared 10 turns later with a massive stack of axes/swords/cats and mopped it, pretty much ending her ability to build anything useful at all (she never made civil service in time for maces). She did get engineering and I did have to power through a castle, but by then my dated units were largely dead weight regardless so I didn't bombard it beyond a turn.

Although I technically didn't kill her, she only had 2 tundra cities left when I stopped and started to switch to econ. Nobody took her as a vassal lol. Those cities were not capable of giving me culture problems so I was fine with it and took the techs instead to get a head start in econ recovery (IIRC got CoL, metal casting, and a lesser tech).

My behavior left me behind in tech but on immortal that just doesn't matter like it does on deity. #1 land and military security is a tough position to lose once you have it.