Acid_03: Anabasis Alexandri, our way - Immortal

[acidsatyr]

Difficulty level: Immortal
Map type: Fractal
Map size: Normal
Climate: Temp.
Game speed: Epic
Leader : Alex
Victory conditions: All enabled. All allowed. (Domination anyone?)
Opponents: random 7 (my lucky number)
Barbs: On


Ok, here's the roll. I will settle in place, mining->BW->Wheel. We seem to have some nice hills around.
Lets hope we have bronze around, if not I’d go for Archery after BW. Let's hope we are not alone on island as well.
First words b4 I begin?


Roster:
---------
acidsatyr
uberfish
Mutineer
Qwack
ThERat

[ThERat]

some words of caution. the only immortal game I played as SG (we won diplo), saw the AI expand like crazy and we were happy to get a few cities up. Thus, we do need to expand quickly, if possible.

And of course, we do need to hope for the luck of resources, else we are toast

[Mutineer]

I would consider moving one up to plain hill.
It migth be not a bad idea to make second scout.

[acidsatyr]

@theRat, yeah I know the SG your talking about, you also had some luck there, but you showed skill. Let's hope for at least same here.

@mut - I really don’t like the idea of moving on the hill, we are loosing one forest down south, and we might loose some resource we don’t see. The only time I actually trust that blue circle is when settling capital. Anyone else on this? Scouting down sout might help on this.

The way I see this is, settle one more city to grab bronze ASAP, and start killing our nearest civ ASAP. I think one of the mistakes of that other immortal SG was very passive start.

[Mutineer]

You are not loosing forest, you actially saving forest by not setling on it.
I would say risk in moving is negligible and 1 more shield is nice.

I think blue circle based only on what you can see. If there any resources outside, you can not see them.

[acidsatyr]

lol i didn't see we’re not in the midd of forest. These finals finally got me... Ok, I guess you have a point. I will scout down to check if we’re not going to miss there, if nothings there I guess I’ll move north. Otherwise go as planned.

[acidsatyr]

Ok, I wanted to move scout on the hill south, just to be sure we’re not loosing anything. If there was nothing there, I wouldn't have played yet, but wait for more responses so we could decide what do to.
It seems that I was right however and there is some food just south of us (trust that blue circle lol).
We also pop another scout! There you go Mutineer, going as planned.
I settle and my computer freezes. Darn.
Started mining. Started warrior. And my comp now freezes AGAIN, unbelievable piece of junk.
We also pop mysticism from another hut. Sweet.
I already see Cyrus just left. Crazy.



Elizabteh just east of us. Ouch.
Our scout barely kills a lion.
Our capital expands now; it will be excellent production center.
We meet JC......
We meet Sahaladin.
Ok I think its pretty obvious we are on fairly big piece of land, not sure if it's continent or Pangaea yet.
Warrior done, start barracks ( I’ll let capital grow until 2 [6 turns], then worker, it should be done at the same time as BW).
Buddhism found in distant land.
Capital grows to size two, switch to worker [18] , BW in [18].
Meet Mao. Interesting.
One scout killed by panther, other barely survives lion.
I think we know who to sac first lol



Hindu found in distant land.
One turn to BW, please let it be.
YES!!!!!! Awesome, ladies and gentlemen we have a game here This is emotional moment for me really...




Start wheel, start chopping for settler. There is gold west really close to Cyrus but worth of shot, since we don’t have a single happiness resource (pre calendar, monarchy). I suggest we don’t pop rush axes here since our capital will produce them out fairly fast normally.

Oooops I think I played 43 instead of 40, so excited about metal, sorry about that. Next player play 22 then. Barbs started showing, I start mining bronze, settler in 16. We can’t get him out there without some protection anyway.

I don’t believe we'll be able to get that gold west. Our second best city is just NE to grab fish and clam (and get there library as fast as possible for scientists). Another spot is just NE to get food resources again for scientists.
Actually i dont know if we can exand anywhere else but there...I also think stopping Elizabeth first is good idea, she is ridiculously close. Tech wise I suggest Agriculture, Pottery, AH!, writing.



I think this will be extremely interesting game, I believe we can pull this one off, and remember that this is Immortal and no place for errors so discussion is a key. That said fun IS on the first place ofcourse.


Uberfish, your up!

[uberfish]

First I considered waiting to discuss city position, then I realised with Cyrus and Elizabeth this close, the AI are probably going to decide it for us.

Researched animal husbandry when wheel finished (we have cows, and presence of horses would really affect where to settle) and connected bronze.

Cyrus takes the gold as expected.

Uh oh, we are building a settler with no fog cover at all on immortal, could be messy as I can see quite a few barbs wandering around there. Once settler finished I inserted an axeman in queue ahead of the barracks. I tried to escort settler towards the NE site with our warrior but get jumped by 2 barb warriors in the forest, lost warrior and our settler had to run back home.

Elizabeth beat us to clam site anyway, she settled Nottingham at a weird location, but once Animal Husbandry completes I see why (horses there.) In the meantime, the last 2 civs made contact with us, we're on a crowded pangaea.

I am not an early chop fan, but we had 1 forest growth and a few otherwise idle worker turns, so I chopped the barracks so we can get our next axeman faster for defence. here's the position



City positioning is pretty easy, there are only two choices going. I was originally going to settle at Blue since fish and cows are uber, but I think Red is probably a better idea for now as we need too much (obelisk, workboat, granary) to get blue up to speed.

I guess everyone will want to attack Elizabeth. What we need to decide on is tech plan. Elizabeth has marble at her capital so maybe we could beeline for Literature once Agri is done.

[uberfish]

Mutineer up.

oh, I think I forgot to switch to slavery.

[Tatran]

Lurker's comment :
Let's hope no one has claustrophobia in this team.

[Mutineer]

Sorry, I press enter one to many times.

OK, Lisa got Monotheism and judaism spread to as. I did not convers, as we do not need happiness right now.

Reseach set to writing, as ability to open border and trade resources are critical in my book.
Our only axe kill 3 barbarians, was promoted to shock in order to be sure it kill last barbarian warrior.

I think we should conver to Judaism, make nice with Liz and hit cyrys. I want this gold. This gold will carry as into the future.

I was building only axes and one phalanx. Second city building barack.
I would ignore barbarian city, as I am afraid it will delay as to mach.

[Qwack]

Ouch.. Cyrus near us. I think we are stuck to 2 cities here until we capture some more.

Anyhow, got it. Ill play this by tonight or tommorow morning, I still have some other games to play before this.

[uberfish]

That gold city is tempting, yeah, it can happily sit on size 3 and run FP farm + 2 gold. And since we are Alexander it would just be appropriate to attack Persia. The only trouble is it's on a hill. Should send an axe or something to the hill 2 southeast of it, which hopefully will be able to eyeball the defences. Cyrus has stone and if we want to grab that city we have to hit very fast before he builds walls, gets +40% culture defence, or decides to park 4 archers there.

If we do end up stealing Cyrus' gold I would be inclined to make peace after 1-2 cities, turn round and hit Elizabeth. Since she has a holy city with 3 wine right on our doorstep, and her cities will become productive much quicker (no jungle to clear.)

[acidsatyr]

Hmmmm... ok i looked at the save, here's few suggestions from my side.

-first of all, do not convert to any religion yet. Too early for that.

- 2nd and most important observation ->> from my experience, WE NEED to stay on good side with LUI and JC!! We must not be friend with Elizabeth (LUI always hates her, and he always does good, and Rome will hate her later me thinks), Lui will hate Cyrus very soon since they are both creative (and I think Lui must be just left of him or down touching his borders).
SO, I say get up a stack of 5 axes and start killing Elizabeth. Two very nice city locations NW and just SW (for temporal money we could build cottages on wines). Forget that gold for second. There is another one EAST, anyone see that. I say we try that route. I really thing we must open borders with JC an LUI and NOT open with Elizabeth or Cyrus. If we can make sure we are on good side with JC and eventually pay him to kill someone else, we can go logway in this one. LUI will never attack us if he's please with us. Diplomacy is key here.
I aslo agree to delay that barb city,leave it be for a momoent, its not going anywhere
That gold east is so close!

[ThERat]

acid, your strategy sounds good to me. In this game we need friends to soften our enemies. Immortal stacks can be very scary.

[acidsatyr]

"damn, that is a sweet earth you may say.....RAUUND!!"

[uberfish]

Louis and Cyrus have shared religion though, generally this is a stronger factor than border tensions. If Cyrus founds Conf or Tao and converts to it, they will hate each other, otherwise they will most likely remain on good terms.

This map is basically Pangaea and I agree with Rat, it's best to cultivate some sort of ally, but I think it's too early to decide on who our allies are going to be. The decision on whether to attack Cyrus or Elizabeth first should rather be based on tactical considerations - which captured cities will do most for our economy and production in the short term, and how many losses we're likely to take on the attack.

[acidsatyr]

if we hit cyrus now, we'll get neg rep with lui. We should convert to hindu for now as soon as we can
Edit:
I agree it is too early to know who all our allies are going to be, however i think it is just not smart to go agains JC and lui under any circumstances, especially not this early in the game. Saladin is JC's neighbor, and frankly i think it is question of time before JC kills him, making himself a dinosaur. Same thing with lui.
Good think about civ4 is that you know already how you should handle your neighbors, since you know exaclty how they act and react.

[ThERat]

Good think about civ4 is that you know already how you should handle your neighbors, since you know exaclty how they act and react.

This might be good for us now, but this is one of the major flaws of the game, everyone is too predictable...

[acidsatyr]

I beg to differ, I really like this thing about Civ4.
Good thing is that you can check that "Random personalities" option anytime however