Immortal University IV: Suleiman of the Ottoman Empire

I've always thought that cristo redentor came too late to be of any use, i know better now, gonna beeline that wonder next game

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Cristo is a great wonder if you beeline for it. It's great for late game espionage and diplomacy. It's also on the way to mass media, so it works great with diplomatic victory.
You switch to a state religion that your opponent doesn't have, or if you control a holy city, you make sure to spread that religion to a city of your opponent.
Then you start messing up with their civics with espionage. Force your opponents to switch religions, force them out of favourite civics of other, or just force them into barbarism. A great way to spoil relations of others or get temporary boost to yours.

I also really like the mining and sushi corps. With a good sized empire and plenty of resources they are so much better than SP. You can get to +10 to +15 production for EVERY city, which means it's a good time to spam cities on all those tundra tiles. This helps many type of victories - space, diplomatic, domination.

1500AD - Heeding the advice I've been given, I built/whipped a caravel on each coast ASAP. Once the caravels were built, I revolted to FS/FR for a culture/science boost.

1570AD - Meet all remaining AI. Qin, Peter and Shaka are Jewish; Gandhi and Vicky Hindu. All the Jews are at war with Vicky, but Peter's her worst enemy, which means she and he will miss out on the trading bonanza for now.

I made some trades, initially gifting Shaka philosophy for his world map to bump him up to pleased. He then gets PP for engineering, monarchy and 50

1575AD - I get the circumnavigation bonus! Qin gets education for Feudalism and Music (I want cathedrals). That gets me -4 with Gandhi, but he looks like he's going to go cultural (5 religions in his cities; Bombay is a 4-headed hydra and he's just gone FR) so I'm better off befriending his enemies.

1590AD - Trade for Guilds with Qin and Chemistry with Shaka.

1665AD - Shaka (who had been WHEOOHRN for ages) declares on Gandhi

1680AD - Qin asks me to DoW on Vicky; she's toast so I join for the Diplo boost.

1700AD - Victoria capitulates to Peter.

1715AD - Democracy in > revolt to US/Emancipation.

1775AD - Simultaneous DoW by Willem (Pleased the turn before) and Shaka (at war with Gandhi the turn before).

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Didn't realise Willem was a backstabber

Should have taken the military option like the rest of you. Oh well, live and learn. Willem had a fair tech lead on the rest of the world, but I was in a position to bribe Qin/Peter to war with him, which would have slowed him down some. Didn't really have any military of my own though; just a few Jans and they're no match for cav/arty.

Tech order: Gunpowder > Banking > Replacable Parts > Rifling > Economics > Chemistry.
Traded for: Nationalism, Music, Feudalism, Guilds, last part of Printing Press and Liberalism, Constitution.

1295 AD.
I deliberated some on the questions I had at the end of the last round. I decided to go for drafted riflemen as I felt Willem was only a couple of turns away from Gunpowder.
Astronomy had played its part now that everyone was getting close to researching it on their own and was running Mercantilism, so I did some trades.







After the trades, Qin hit WFYABTA, wow that was quick. I'll have to remember to hate this guy even more in the future. Peter definitely became my enemy after these trades but he was not exactly Mr Popular himself although Gandhi made peace with him. As I wrote in my last post, both Qin and Vicky was WHEOOHRN at this point and Vicky's worst enemy was Peter but I wasn't sure about Qin's target.

1335 AD.
Qin DOWs Peter, great news I'm confident that Vicky will follow suit soon.
However..



Backstabber! I got her up to pleased a tad bit to late but that was a really crazy DOW. Peter is her immediate neighbour and he's getting attacked by everyone and Vicky didn't have Astronomy at the start of her WHEOOHRN session, yet she attacks ME?
I lose a coastal city to the invasion.



I had planned on waiting for a GP and a golden age but I went into anarchy here and switched from pacifism and bureacracy to theocracy and nationhood to draft some janissaries in defense.
It turns out Vicky only sent 4 macemen and I quickly retake Konya but lose several buildings in the process, delaying Oxfords in my capital.

1450 AD.
Shaka breaks free from Qin and becomes a free state after capturing some russian cities. That gives me another enemy.
I Bribe Vicky for peace with 150 gold and world map. Then I do some trading with her.



Willem has gunpowder already and I suspect he's getting close to replacable parts. He doesn't have anything to trade for it at this moment anyhow and his buddy Qin has it on offer as well. I can use jails for the upcoming war against him. Might still have been a bad trade though, not sure.

1475 AD.
A GS is born and I burn him for a golden age. I switch from
HR, Nationhood, CS, Decent. and Theocray to
Rep, Bur, Slavery, Mercantilism and OR
and get started on Oxfords in Istanbul and the GT in my GP city Ankara to the north (To bad I didn't make another food-rich city). As my cities finished universities and theatres I then switched to producing trebs.

Qin asks me to DOW Peter and I agree for the diplomatic benefit. I make peace with him at the first opportunity at no cost since he's already fighting Qin and Shaka.
I gather my trebs and the janissaries I drafted to defend against Vicky and stack them by the border then start drafting riflemen. In 1545 I DOW Willem.



Rotterdam is lightly defended by a musketman and two longbowmen and quickly fall and is razed. I sacrifice half of my trebs here to save all my riflemen for Amsterdam.



My army wait for my first GG to arrive from Ankara. i attach it to my chariot and move on Amsterdam. Gandhi DOWs Shaka.




I revolt the city on the second try and sacrifice the rest of my trebs then easilly capture it. A view inside:



Not bad, the hindu shrine, TOA, SP, a Scotland Yard and three settled gps. The city also got the gold by an event if I remember correctly. I'll make it my Wall Street/Espionage city.

I destroy the city up north that Willem captured from the barbarians earlier. It is lightly defended with no musketmen.



Peter is getting his ass kicked on the other continent losing more cities to Shaka, including Moscow. They make peace.
Then Gandhi and Vicky both DOWs Peter. Gandhi is quite the bully in this game isn't he? I don't think I've seen so much war going on between the AI in a non-AggAI game for a very long time.
I continue to steamroll Willem who for some strange reason teched steam power instead of rifling after I attacked him. Next to fall is a city on the east coast that I was originally going to raze but I opted to keep it now to continue working the already developed town.




I decided to pause here and post the round so I could read a little more about your games. At the end of the round Qin completed the SOL.
The tech situation.



I'm waiting to trade rifling until Willem decides it might be a good idea to get it after all.
The world at war.



I think everyone has fought just about everyone else on that continent except Qin and Gandhi who's been buddhist friends all along. I'm hardly falling behind in techs despite drafting/building some 60-70 units.
Demographics.



Some shots of the empire.





I'm putting Ankara back on GP duty as I feel I have the troops I need to conquer Willem. I'll probably let him keep one city if I can get a tech or two from a peace treaty. I've saved a GE in Ankara that I will use together with the next GP for another golden age to switch back to peace-time civics. I'll probably go for Steel after Chemistry as that would be useful for tech trading. Economics was kind of a stray cat I researched on the way to enable Free Market but I forgot I only had one GP.

Interesting about the cuirassiers. I've been meaning to try that out ever since I read Rusten's (or was it Burn's) Monty game but it will have to be some other time for me.
Talking about the viability of cuirassiers got me thinking about spanish conquistadors. I've been of the opinion that they got nerfed in BTS but perhaps they are actually better now?

I suggest you keep the GE for mining inc. It is great on this map. You get +8 or +10 hammers in EVERY city, before modifiers. All you need to do is beeline railroad and the game is won.

The thought about keeping the GE for Mining Inc. actually occured to me but thanks for pointing it out. I have to decide if I want to go for domination (much strife and slow teching on other continent) or space, diplomacy seems out of the question. If I go for domination I'll probably go for SP and then I wont have a use for mining inc. I would also really love to have another golden age since I'll be switching many civics once the war stops and I don't know how long two more GPs will take. If I can get two more GPs fast then I should definitely save the GE to keep my options open.
By the way can you decide which 2 GPs to burn if you have 3 different types saved up?

Advice for getting Peter greased up to declare on Gandhi has just one snag:



Erm? Peter is afraid of Gandhi Indeed, I'd later deduce that Gandhi is actually the power leader! Perhaps that is why this was possible:



Qin has a DP with Peter and Victoria is Gandhi's vassal, so relations quickly turn red:



Shaka would pile onto Gandhi as well. Gandhi's power starts a precipitous plunge:



I've stationed a squadron of airships in Zululand to keep an overview of the carnage:



Meanwhile my army needs some upgrading (and some transports):



Eventually enough troops gets over to India to begin capturing cities. Gandhi hits my stacks with unopposed bombers, but its not nearly enough. Delhi falls:



I'd also take two coastal cities, and get Gandhi to submit:



Despite capturing Delhi, Gandhi third cultural city still has 20k culture I guess I'll have to move quickly ... it shouldn't be a problem as all the AIs just lost their offensive stacks.

Save attached.

Ouch, yeah we were unlucky in this game with the amount of backstabbers. I checked the bts reference guide and there's 26 non-backstabbing and 24 backstabbing civs (at pleased) so statistically for a normal game you should get 3 or 4 out of 7, we got 6 this time, all but Gandhi.
I think that explains why we've seen so much war in many of the games, coupled with the fact that they were 5 civs with a chance to get different religions on the same continent.

Teching: Chemistry > Steel > Corporations > Railroad > Assembly Line > Biology > Combustion
Traded for: Democracy, Scientific Method, Steam Power, Physics, Electricity



This session is pretty straightforward with warring and rebuilding the economy.
1615: I continue the war effort against Willem, capturing The Hague with my main army.



Peter capitulates to Qin and I get some new resources as a result.

Reinforcements also saw some action and were sent to capture smaller cities up north.



I raze Nijmegen who gets 6(!) musketmen, which is more than Willem had in the rest of his empire at this time. I guess it took me burning down their homes for them to get their lazy asses enlisted.
I planted a city a little to the south at first possibility to prevent foreign land grabs.
My cities stopped building troops around this time and focused on infrastructure once more.

I still had enough to attack in the west as well.



The main army moved on Utrecht.



Willem had finally got riflemen in time to defend his last two cities but it didn't help him as Middelburg got attacked with overwhelming numbers.



I then finally was able to trade away rifling for something after putting in some research.



I also decided I didn't like the WHEOOHRN status of Shaka who hates me so I stirred up some trouble. I was still a little worried though as Qin also had been WHEOOHRN for some time.



The next turn I got another trade from the newly aquired Democracy.



In 1675 a ghost worker was officially sighted to the north east of Leiden. There was a general outrage, the people was shocked and could hardly believe it.



Alas, the soldiers pulled themselves together to finish of poor Willem. The gods had put down a neon sign telling them to raze the last city, so they did.




After this a general rebuilding got underway.

1706: Vicky asks me to dow Shaka, he hates me and Vicky likes me so I agree.

1712: Steel is finished and I'm ready to trade.



More strange things happened. Gandhi made a demand (can't rememeber which). I refused, I got no demerit, Gandhi just sulked a little.



1726: I make peace with Shaka for 20 gold.

1728: a GS is born in Ankara. Now I have a couple of choices, I can wait to generate one more gp for a second golden age to switch civics to save my GE for Mining inc. I can switch anyhow and have 5 turns anarchy, or I can burn my two gps right now. I chose the latter as it would take me another 29 turns to generate a GP at best and I had already been in bad peace-time civics for 17 turns since Willem was killed.

I switch from
Rep, NH, Slavery, Merc, Theo
to
US, FS, Emanc, FM, OR

I pondered going to Bureacracy to gain favors with Qin but FS was a good bit stronger already and would only get better with time and I hate anarchy and don't want to switch civics from here on out more than absolutely necessary.
If I get a new GE fine, I'll found mining inc. if not, I'll save them for a possible third golden age. I had decided to shoot for space victory at this point so I'll probably get 3 more guys.

1744: Qin is no longer WHEOOHRN.

1748: Gandhi DOWs Shaka and completes Rock & Roll. He already built Broadway so he's definitely going for a cultural win, still a far bit off though.

1750: Qin DOWs Gandhi, dragging his vassal Peter in with him. This puts me on the spot diplomatically as I trade lots of resources with both Gandhi and Qin and I don't want to lose either. I decide to try and weather the storm and keep trading with both of them. I looked at the reference chart and apparently Gandhi will trade all but strategic resources even at furious, wow.
Qin will trade most stuff even at annoyed.

The glance tab at this point.



Me Gandhi and Vicky is one informal team, Qin, Peter and Shaka is another although Shaka is naturally a bit hard to please there. Interestingly enough Qin also likes Vicky but she's annoyed at him, a 10 point difference between the two. I'm trying to keep Qin at cautious at this point (but mainly at war).

Around this time Shaka captured London, Vicky is getting her ass kicked by him despite having infantry vs rifles and railroads vs roads.

I continued building more stuff. Then it was time for another trade.



Vicky and Shaka made peace, leaving Gandhi alone vs three civs.
He was losing cities and I figured I'd have to step in and stop the war against Qin and Peter if I wanted a chance to keep both him and Qin as trading partners.



Unfortunately Gandhi makes peace with Shaka the turn after, so now their continent is at peace once more, maybe I should have let Gandhi have it and just traded more with Qin as he took Gandhis resources? The problem is Qin is already at WFYABTA here so I want Gandhi around as a tech trader together with Vicky.
Gandhi completed the Eiffel Tower as well, I'll have to ready a few transports when I get the chance if I need to raze a city.

1780: Qin asks me a second time to adopt bureacracy and I refuse, dropping him to annoyed.

I switch research to electricity to try and trade with Gandhi but he's probably researching biology on his own so I switch back at the end of the round.

The tech screen:



One more round ought to do it, I'm feeling confident, the last ch1nk in my armor is getting a destroyer fleet up asap to fend of an invasion since I have no fleet at the moment. I'll have to keep Qin busy though as my power rating is only at 0.3 of his.

After Gandhi's capitulation the game is just a race to see how fast I can get the rest of the AIs to follow suit. Lets start with Qin -- the fall of Beijing:



Shaka gets in the way a bit and declares on us -- Qin is too scared of Shaka and won't capitulate until we capture some Zulu cities and kill a large stack. They both fall in line quickly enough . Meanwhile, Peter has destroyed the English. I'm at 61% of the world area, but declare on Peter anyways -- maybe we can cap him too before Domination is triggered. No such luck:



GNP, Power, and Score:


The meat of this game was blocking and dealing with Willem. After that Gandhi posed a cultural threat, but since Willem was dealt with in plenty of time Gandhi's Gambit was doomed to failure. This was a fun game -- the start was not quite as powerful as it looked at first glance.

I read how you did now and I've noticed that I used the same city spots like ABigCivFan only in another order. I'll get more detailed later...

1804: Shaka is WHEOOHRN and I'm the obvious target so I stirred up some trouble.



1820: Gandhi completes the UN and the first elections are held, everyone but Vicky abstains and she likes both of us but me more, giving me the sec-gen chair.

1822: Gandhi completes Hollywood, he's getting all of the culture wonders, I'm measuring his progress towards a cultural win every now and then.'

1838: Qin completes the Manhattan Project.

1842: A GE is born in Ankara, I use him to found mining inc. in Amsterdam. I decide somewhat belatedly to go for the internet. I have intel on Qin and I see that he is going for computers and will brat me to it so I start building wealth and research in almost all of my cities to max out science.

1847: Finish Plastics and start on computers with an ETA of three turns behind Qin.

1862: Qin finishes The Internet three turns ahead of me (two with the whip I guess).

1867: Qin is WHEOOHRN and annoyed with me. I also dget some disturbing news.



I'm basically doing all I can to boost my power rating and this didn't deter me. I also switch research to fission to get my own nukes.

1872: Qin complete The Apollo Program.

1874: I Complete The Apollo Program.

1887: I get the UN to ban nukes after building some of my own.

1894: Qin's WHEOOHRN dissappears, I'm thinking an attack is imminent as I've seen WHEOOHRN go away a turn or two before an attack before but nothing happens.

1897: Qin is WHEOOHRN again. The world trembles once more under the threat of an intercontinental nuclear war.

1900: Gandhi DOW Shaka who's beaten down Vicky bad by this point. Vicky becomes the vassal of Gandhi.

1901: Qin is no longer WHEOOHRN. He completes The Space Elevator.

1907: Shaka becomes the vassal of Qin. Qin DOW Gandhi, dragging Peter and Shaka with him.



My team is going to lose here but I draw a sigh of relief that I'm not the target. All this backstabbing really made diplomacy hard in this game.

1908: I complete the SDI. Qin and Peter launches three successfull tactical nukes at Gandhi followed by more the turn after.

1914: Gandhi asks to become my vassal, I politely refuse. I get a third GP and start my third golden age. All cities are pretty much done with infrastructure at this point and all the other civics are likewise useless (I have religious buildings for extra happiness so I don't want FR) so I switch from OR to paganism. Not often that happens..

1917: Delhi reaches legendary culture. No worries, I've had a fleet complete with tactical nukes, mobile artilley and marines to invade and raze Bombay, should it become necessary, stationed just outside the indian borders for some time.

1919: Qin captures Delhi and Gandhi capitulates to him.

1924: Qin kills of Vicky.

1927: I launch my spaceship with all components including two engines, which actually cost me three turns.



1940: I have some fun.



There we go. I'm still a bit addicted to building unnecessary stuff and to spend a huge amount of time just nitpicking stuff, checking statistics and the like. It can be quite draining in the long run.
It's clear to me that I'm not very good in the late game, probably bc I often don't finish offline games when I know I've won.