The Immortal Challenge 1: Apocalypto

aelf said:

What do you mean by finding out about my schedule? I'm waiting to get into university after about two years of compulsory military service. In the meantime, I'm just working part-time. But because I'm in the food and beverage line, I don't have a fixed schedule. And I also go out, go to the gym and fence, so Civ time is really limited

Anyway, couldn't you ask in a PM? Now everyone knows what I do

Click to expand...

Thanks for answering, and sorry - I tend to forget PMs are even an option. I'm pushing 40 (guess you could call me old school), I'm just used to old forum styles. Re: your schedule, you open many of your posts with "I've been working x days now" or "RL intervened over the weekend" or something along those lines - so I was just wondering what kept you so busy sometimes and less so other times. I work in a lab and always feel busy (but part of that's bad time management on my part ). Best of luck getting into Uni, though. My stepson's into fencing too, btw. I've watched a couple times - pretty interesting.

Now, I'll keep my mouth shut and not cause any more trouble while we wait for the next round.

Round 7: 1370AD - 1600AD

I have a little time, so I'm posting the first half of the update today.

As recommended, we went straight for Democracy. To help finance our research, we sold Constitution to Mehmed for a little gold:



Again following the advice of the WFYABTA advocates, we didn't take Theology. The amount of gold we got may seem paltry for a tech like Constitution, but since Mehmed refused to give us Feudalism for it, that's pretty much all that was useful that we could take. At least with the gold, we'd be able to stay on 80% science rate for a longer period.

Then we met the last civ in this game:



Ramesses has some pretty good techs to trade. Too bad he's Shaka's worst enemy (they're at war), so, tempting as it was, I stopped myself from trading with him.

On the same turn, a few other things happened. Our next GP, a Great Scientist, was born. And gems were discovered in a mine near Teotihuacan:



Look at that. That city would be one hell of a gold mine (pun intended ) in RL. This is a bonus. Maybe the gods have finally taken pity on us.

Anyway, as you can see from the screenshot, Ramesses became a vassal of Shaka on the same turn, ending the war between the two. You might go at this development, but I also saw it as an opportunity for us, now that the relationship between them was no longer marred by the war:



Indeed, we got no demerit from Shaka for this. He was Cautious towards Ramesses now and no longer had a worst enemy.

Since there was really no point in lightbulbing Compass, I used the GS we got to build an academy in our capital:



That shaved one turn off Democracy immediately, so all's well.

A few turns later, we built the last city in the north, again based on the excellent dotmap by uberfish:



Check it out. We beat Augustus there by one turn (that longbow accompanied a settler). That was close.

Then Huayna came to us with a demand:



Well, we are Spiritual. However, the mandatory 5-turn wait to switch back might damage our efforts at getting Democracy asap (we're getting valuable beakers from Representation specialists, enough to make a difference of at least 1 turn). It might also be a setback in our quest to make Augustus happy with us. Anyway, I didn't see a need to try to please Huayna. He's difficult to please and will never vote for us should we go for diplomatic victory, given the circumstances.

After discovering Democracy, we went for Liberalism, more for its civics than anything else, though we might be able to trade it away for something.

And we shopped around with Democracy. It was not an easy task, though. Some are stingier than others, and I had to get the order of trades right to get the most out of it. In the end, I made the trade with Mehmed first (he seemed to be the stingiest of the lot):



Yes, I heard one of you asking if we could foment strife on the other continent. Indeed we could. And since Mehmed still refused to give us Feudalism, that was the most that we could get out of him.

Shaka was next:



Well, Mehmed is a little far from Huayna. To more effectively take down the tech leader, we would need to enlist Shaka's help. He shared a border with the Incas. Anyway, now that HC had more reason to hate us after we turned Mehmed against him, it would do us good to make sure that he's really weakened.

Then we went to Augustus, but only after waiting a turn so that Mehmed, now at war with Huayna, would see the Inca as his worst enemy and not the Roman:



And we also traded it to Ramesses, now that we've got Feudalism and could get one of the better techs available:



It's not great, but better than nothing. I think we only have a little time before Shaka decides to gift Democracy to his vassal. I have observed that the AI loves to do that.

Meanwhile, we got our war machine going again:



This, time, we'll take Louis out. The annoying iron city would go first. It fell quickly and was razed to make room for the western copper city in the dotmap.

On the next turn, I noticed Ramesses did not have Chemistry. I didn't know how long this situation would last, so I decided to make a trade:



The WFYABTA advocates might scream at this. Music?! Whatever for? Well, I wanted Banking (which leads to Economics) and threw Music in to make the deal a little more even. I thought that we might be able to trade Liberalism for Military Tradition, which may be useful for defense and to build the West Point. And since we would be facing the problem of encroaching Roman borders pretty soon, I thought it may be useful to be able to build cathedrals or at least culture, if it came down to that. The good news is WFYABTA didn't seem to have hit anyone yet after that trade, so it might not matter much after all.

[to be continued in the next post...]

PS: The second half of the update will be posted in about 24 hours' time.

Well executed series of trades there aelf, definitely worth stirring up some fighting on the other continent. I think it should be quite possible to catch up so long as Louis doesn't vassalize to Rome.

Yeah, I agree with uberfish. Nice trades and stirring up trouble. As long as the war with Louis is short then he probably wont vassalize. But then again, you have already played so it doesn't matter what I say.

What can I say, diplomacy is the name of the game.

Brilliant removal of Augustus from Mehmed's worst enemy list.

I'll wait for the rest of the update and look at the economy. Now that you are dedicated to CE and space race, it will be easier to advise.

Wow, that's some heavy trading there! Looks like beelining for Democracy payed off really fast.

Bravo! Another superlative demonstration of how diplomacy can be used to turn a desperate situation into one which is merely difficult.

Interestingly, it looks like Mehmed would have declared on the Zulu for the right price (though I'm guessing that would have required a lot more than you were able to offer), suggesting that it should be possible to secure Shaka's votes against him. With Egypt and Rome both up to 'Pleased' as well, your chances of a diplomatic victory look a lot brighter now.

However, if you were wanting to take that path, I'm wondering if it wouldn't have been better to join the war against HC yourself. There's also the possibility that Shaka will take a few cities from HC, and so put himself in the running. I believe vassals have to vote for their master (is that right?), so that could lose you Ramesses' votes as well. (Does anyone know if vassals count towards the pop needed to qualify for the election? I'm guessing not, but if so that could change things a lot).

In my experience, winning diplomatic is most easily achieved if you can predict your opponent well in advance, and so concentrate your efforts on winning over the other civs (and, where applicable, helping them to build up their populations). At this stage, if I'm reading it right, your opponent could be Mehmed, Augustus or Shaka, depending on how things play out. If you can identify the likely opponent early enough, and throw every effort into winning the other two (and Ramesses) to your cause, then a diplomatic victory should be within your grasp.

On the other hand, and bearing in mind that I'm a total disaster where the spaceship is concerned, from the sounds of it you might be able to win a space victory instead. If you do decide to take that path, a detailed explanation of how you handle the balancing act between production and research would be most enlightening. I've read numerous explanations of how to win the space race, but still I always end up stalling in one or other department unless I've taken control of an entire continent.

ps. imo, this has been the best challenge so far. Putting yourself on the line, as it were, by taking on a difficulty at which you're clearly well outside of your comfort zone, and opening yourself up to public criticism for the tiniest of oversights, takes a lot of nerve. But it also makes for a truly riveting read.

Sure, I second that about accepting critism. If I see crap in online forums, I ignore it. I only comment on things that are worthy of commenting upon. Immortal is my comfort zone, deity I can only sometimes win, so I may start one on deity and see if online advice can help out.

First off, your diplomacy is amazing. You empire SIZE is alright, but your number of cities might not be. A diplomatic victory would not require any more serious expansion, as you have enough votes already. But if you're going for space race, a dozen cities may not be enough for the research necessary. Space race is always bottlenecked by research, not production: more often than not I beeline to fusion, rush the space elevator with the engineer in my ironworks city, and build 2/3 of the parts in that one city. The other cities only build casings.

A good warplan against the Romans would not be capturing cities however. One thing I find people are too hesitant about is razing cities. You have a narrow piece of land between your empire and the Romans (which is why the French were taken down so easily). Build one huge stack of grenadiers and cannons (you have chemistry right?) and run a straight line through his empire, razing every city in the way. Your goal is to divert his forces away from his frontier towards the center of his empire. Meanwhile, build another stack and start attacking cities near you, but also razing them. You are inferior in tech and numbers; your aim is to pummel him into submission. Near the end of the war, build settlers and then resettle his former sites. At this stage of the game, and with your cities at good production, settlers are a lot cheaper than trying to build the units and infrastructure to fight against cultural differences in your newly captured cities anyway. The grassland in the middle are good cottage grounds.

[continued from previous post]

After getting Liberalism, we looked around for potential trades again. But there was really only one that was worth making:



Well, the gold would be useful for quickly researching the next tech - Steel. Why that, you ask? Because I noticed that nobody had it An excellent opportunity for us, don't you agree?

And the war against the French was going well:



The city was razed due to its proximity to Paris and the Roman border. There is nothing useful there anyway.

And now that the French iron city was no more, we could build the western copper city:



And thus we filled up all available space on our part of the continent.

We did our usual thing after discovering Steel. For some reason, the WFYABTA syndrome suddenly hit Shaka a few turns ago, without us making any additional trades. Does anyone know how or why that happened? But, fortunately (in a way), it had zero impact on us because, apparently, Shaka had researched Steel by himself anyway. So we went to Mehmed, who didn't have it:



Now, this is a sweet deal I thought he would refuse it, even with Liberalism thrown into the deal.

And then we went to Ramesses, who wasn't quite as generous:



Well, it's not like he poses any real threat of running away with the game anyway. And everyone else had those techs already (Augustus seemed to have researched Steel by himself too).

Biology was our next research target, since it would give our growth rate a badly needed boost.

Shortly after that, the war against the French was finally over with the fall of the last French city:



Bye, Louis. It's been nice knowing you. This city we kept, even though it was near the Roman border. It just seems criminal to raze such a big city. And it would be a useful addition to our empire, whether we are aiming for a diplomatic or a space win. If need be, we can switch back to Slavery for a while to whip some buildings up in the city for some quick culture.

A few turns later, we got our next GP:



It came from the Great Wall's GE points. And this might be the right GP at the right time. You'll see why.

The round ended at the discovery of Biology. A look at the tech situation now:



Now that HC seems to be in trouble in the war against both the Zulus and the Turks, Augustus looks set to be the next tech leader. I think some of you would suggest that we take him down. But, given his tech lead, I'm not sure how we can do that without ruining ourselves And we seem to have hit a dry patch in terms of tech trading. We only have Liberalism (which isn't worth much now) on Mehmed and Biology on Ramesses (who has nothing valuable to offer in return). Most of the AIs know the immediate techs that we can research, and they most likely have Rifling on us. I won't be surprised if it turns out that one or two of them (especially Augustus) already have Steam Power. And, as you can see, WFYABTA has hit both Mehmed and Shaka.

The power graph:



I know, I know... We need to do something about it. We've been focusing on civilian builds this round.

The GNP graph:



Now that we're running the CE civics (Emancipation and Free Speech), our GNP has skyrocketted from being one of the last to being one of the top. The economic miracle that we hoped for is happening. Quite amazing, isn't it?

However, I'm concerned that we might still not be able to catch up with the AIs in time to win a space race. Assuming the AIs are several techs ahead of us, can we really out-research them? They seem to get a new tech in several turns at this point in the game, unless they're constantly at war or have already taken a beating, and that's my experience on Emperor. Immortal must be worse. In this light, a beeline for the Internet might be necessary after all.

How about diplomatic victory? How possible is it? IMO, it would be very difficult to achieve at this rate. I shall not go into a lengthy analysis of the situation (it's getting late over here), but I think you should be able to see why.

Here's the map of our continent:



And the other continent:



In terms of raw size we're the largest now, but probably not by far.

So what now? What should our short-term and long-term goals be? Should we beeline for the Internet and aim for space victory? Should we try to build the Space Elevator? Should we try to manage a diplomatic balancing act and win enough votes to win that way?

We also need to decide on how to use our GE. Our capital has been building the Statue of Liberty for a while. Initially, I thought it wouldn't get far and the gold we get from the attempt would be nice. However, it has been at it for almost 20 turns now. I'm starting to think: What if we do build the wonder? The free specialists would provide a good boost to our research under Representation. However, somebody else is probably going to complete the wonder before us unless we use the GE the rush it. We'd probably waste about 100 hammers if we do so, but if it would help us catch up with the AI, I would do it. Then again, the gold we get from a failed attempt can also help our research. We might be better off burning the GE on an immediate Ironworks in Paris or saving him for a future wonder (eg. Space Elevator). What do you think?

For some reason, the WFYABTA syndrome suddenly hit Shaka a few turns ago, without us making any additional trades.

Click to expand...

WFY doesn't apply if both you and he are in the bottom half of the scoreboard. So he was over his limit, but playing nice until he passed HC in score.

Nice round. I think you're going to have to keep using diplomacy to keep the peace and focusing on economic builds. Shaka and Mehmed are the ones to worry about. They're both nicely pleased, but at least with Shaka that doesn't mean much (and I think I've been backstabbed by Mehmed, but I don't recall for sure). Mehmed favors vassalage and Shaka likes Police State, neither of which I think you can afford. Any chance you could get a DP with someone?

I don't have a lot of experience with diplomatic victories, but I can speak to space races. Here's a thread on the ordering of the endgame:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=163579
I agree with most of it, though if you read down a few posts I posted a slight modification, and some of the earlier benchmarks. It can also vary if you still have trading opportunities. Ramses should trade as long as he stays below the median score, and Augustus has a high limit. The next major target is Assemby Line to get factories and coal plants in almost all your cities. In the meantime you should be building a lot of Observatories, both for the research boost and as a pre-req to Labs, and Universities in the cities that can get them done before factories are available.

I've never built the Internet. It seems like it comes too late, but maybe not. I also skip all the dead-end techs -- Communism, Mass Media, etc. If it doesn't lead to a part, it's just a distraction for the AIs to follow. I'm even unsure of whether the Space Elevator is worth it. Launch date is defined by your last part, and that's determined by when you get the tech to start it. In that sense, spacerace is research-limited rather than production-limited. I ususally have built the Space Elevator, especially if I have a GE, but I don't think it's necessary.

Speaking of the GE.... The question is, are you going to be in Representation to keep Augustus happy? If so, the SoL is 88 beakers/turn times modifiers, and probably worth it. Rush-buying isn't really a good deal most of the time -- you need to be running the science slider as high as possible -- but the bonus hammers from US are awfully nice, turning your commerce cities into hybrids that are at least capable of building casings, sometimes thrusters. The other use for the GE would be the Space Elevator.

So I think it's a diplomatic question, and not clear-cut, but I'd be inclined towards Representation and the SoL, hoping to bring Augustus up to Friendly for a DP. If you do go for Rep, ask yourself whether Mercantilism actually makes more sense than Free Trade. I notice that most of your large cities are inland, so the specialists might make up for the trade hit.

And finally a small tactical suggestion: if you don't know what to research, and you suspect Ramses will come up with something better to trade for Biology (e.g. Replaceable Parts), set the slider to zero for a few turns and just bank the money. You can run deficit research later, and it preserves your flexibility.

peace,
lilnev

Economic turnaround, smart trades and finally mopping up the French - excellent turnset, Aelf. Keeping the other AIs at war while going for space seems the most straightforward way to victory. However, keep an eye on how the war against HC goes. If he gets eaten up entirely by his neighbours (and now war-allies) you might have a problem.

It is best to rush Statue of Liberty because

- In this scenario it is correct to stay in representation for the rest of the game anyway.
- You don't want it falling into the hands of an AI, strengthening its economy further at the expense of yours.
- You get extra turns of having free specialists that you wouldn't have had if you didn't rush it.

Thanks for the quick response, guys. I know it's the weekend and all

A couple of points:

lilnev said:

Nice round. I think you're going to have to keep using diplomacy to keep the peace and focusing on economic builds. Shaka and Mehmed are the ones to worry about. They're both nicely pleased, but at least with Shaka that doesn't mean much (and I think I've been backstabbed by Mehmed, but I don't recall for sure). Mehmed favors vassalage and Shaka likes Police State, neither of which I think you can afford. Any chance you could get a DP with someone?

Click to expand...

A DP shouldn't be too difficult to get if we really try. I think the easiest would be with Augustus, but I'm not too familiar about how likely he is to sign one.

lilnev said:

I've never built the Internet. It seems like it comes too late, but maybe not.

Click to expand...

That is assuming that we can eventually gain tech parity or even out-tech the AIs. If not, I think it might do us well to build the Internet.

lilnev said:

I'm even unsure of whether the Space Elevator is worth it. Launch date is defined by your last part, and that's determined by when you get the tech to start it. In that sense, spacerace is research-limited rather than production-limited. I ususally have built the Space Elevator, especially if I have a GE, but I don't think it's necessary.

Click to expand...

I have gotten in situations where both the AI top dog and me have all the necessary techs and are just racing to complete the last few parts. Having the Space Elevator in these situations probably made the difference. Some of the times I even had to resort to sabotage on top of that to win.

lilnev said:

Rush-buying isn't really a good deal most of the time -- you need to be running the science slider as high as possible -- but the bonus hammers from US are awfully nice, turning your commerce cities into hybrids that are at least capable of building casings, sometimes thrusters.

Click to expand...

Personally, I find that only the production cities matter in a space race. Three of those would be good enough. I have all the time in the world to build the casings while waiting to get all the space techs, while the production cities can take turns to build the thrusters. There are only three of those and usually there aren't more than 2 expensive parts to build at any one time.

lilnev said:

If you do go for Rep, ask yourself whether Mercantilism actually makes more sense than Free Trade. I notice that most of your large cities are inland, so the specialists might make up for the trade hit.

Click to expand...

Good point. I'd have to take a look at how much those foreign trade routes and the extra trade routes from FM are bringing us. Mercantilism might be the better option.

lilnev said:

And finally a small tactical suggestion: if you don't know what to research, and you suspect Ramses will come up with something better to trade for Biology (e.g. Replaceable Parts), set the slider to zero for a few turns and just bank the money. You can run deficit research later, and it preserves your flexibility.

Click to expand...

Hmm... I have no idea how long it would take Ramesses to get Replacable Parts. If you think he's researching it right now why not just research something else in the meantime then?

Just a wild idea, what about stockpiling nukes just in case? Let's say it comes down to a race to complete an SS part between us and an AI and the AI has a headstart. Wouldn't it be nice if we could nuke the AI city that is building it? It would totally destroy the city's productivity and we might be able to stall the AI's army for a couple of turns until we win.

Of course, SDI means that we probably need a couple of ICBMs just to ensure a hit. Add to that the fact that we probably have to build the Manhattan Project ourselves

You'll almost always get a couple of useful techs out of internet at this level, but I find it usually works out better to get assembly line first (Apollo and internet take too long to build otherwise and cause production bottlenecks)

Been following this since the beginning - just wanted to say 'well played so far!'

I'd definitely rush SoL. What else would you use the GE for? There are lots of turns left and SoL will give you a further edge in research.

If you are worried about the power graph, acquire Rifling and draft for 5 turns. That will help without interupting economic builds.

Nice to so how you are catching up.

aelf said:

Augustus looks set to be the next tech leader. I think some of you would suggest that we take him down. But, given his tech lead, I'm not sure how we can do that without ruining ourselves.

Click to expand...

. Actually, not even I would try that at this point...I think you clearly focused on the right things this turnset and it resulted in quite a lot of progress . Note that your UB and Spiritual can play nice here. Pop into Slavery and Theocracy or Organized Religion (depending on whether you primarily want units or buildings), whip, then five turns later whip again, then pop back into your economic civics. SoL and Mercantilism give you two free citizens to help offset the lost population, and since you prioritized Biology you will recover them quickly anyway.

lilnev said:

WFY doesn't apply if both you and he are in the bottom half of the scoreboard. So he was over his limit, but playing nice until he passed HC in score.

Click to expand...

Really? I did not know that...I assumed when this happens to me that I picked up a diplomatic penalty and lowered the threshold. That's good to know.

Darrell

uberfish said:

You'll almost always get a couple of useful techs out of internet at this level, but I find it usually works out better to get assembly line first (Apollo and internet take too long to build otherwise and cause production bottlenecks)

Click to expand...

Does this mean you endorse the Internet? I mean in the context of this game, of course

Godel said:

I'd definitely rush SoL. What else would you use the GE for?

Click to expand...

Rush the Ironworks? It's pretty beneficial as well. We also have the option of hurrying the Space Elevator later to give us a much better chance of getting it.

darrelljs said:

Pop into Slavery and Theocracy or Organized Religion (depending on whether you primarily want units or buildings), whip, then five turns later whip again, then pop back into your economic civics.

Click to expand...

I would rather switch to Nationhood and draft. We aren't creating an offensive army anyway, so the low xp doesn't matter that much. In that sense, I would also not bother switching to Theocracy. It would require us to adopt a state religion, and I'd rather not spoil the diplomatic rapport we've built with the AIs.

This reminds me. I haven't been spreading our two shrines' religions enough

Nukes aren't that great if the AI builds bomb shelters. I don't know what induces the AI to build bomb shelters but if they have that + SDI, your nukes really won't be doing much to the city itself. You'd be better off at that point aiming for the territory surrounding the target city in hopes of crippling the tiles in the cross since you'll have such a hard time knocking out the production builds in the cities.