Immortal++ University XV - Churchill in a Hostile Continent

silverbullet · Oct 15, 2008

In an effort to increase the challenge of immortal games without going all the way to the very difficult deity level, we can up with the following game:

* Churchill is our leader
* No copper or horses near the capital - don't bother counting on an axe rush (you might have iron though, who knows?).
* A crowded map - 8 civs on Pangaea.
* Nasty warmonger backstabbers are our close neighbours.
* Nasty imperialistic land grabbers are nearby too, to guarantee we don't have much land to settle
* Nasty wonder/tech whores are far away, to guarantee we don't stay in the tech lead and we don't succeed to grab all the wonders.

I expect this to become an interesting game, with a lot of early declarations. Protective and walls might finally get it's use.

The save:
ImmortalChurchill.zip

Thank you TMIT for generating this save for us.
Can someone please post a screenshot of the starting screen?

Dirk1302 · Oct 15, 2008

A good start actually,

Thx for making the map TMIT.

DanF5771 · Oct 15, 2008

The problem with playing from WB-files on the higher levels is that barbs will "forget" all their starting techs. This in turn leads to a long period of only barb Warriors roaming about the map and the earliest barb cities being defended by only Warriors ("let's give Shaka's Impis a warm barbarian Welcome...").

Went into WB again (without looking around since I want to play this myself) and gave them their regular techs (Hunting, Agriculture, Archery) and saved as a normal save. I recommend starting from this file.

TheMeInTeam · Oct 15, 2008

Oooooh, my bad Dan...I always forget to do that

. It's even an easy thing to do - just copy some techs into the team that represents barbs. Thanks for catching it.

Artichoker · Oct 15, 2008

Move Warrior 1SE to assess the possibility of settling on the Incense.

Gliese 581 · Oct 15, 2008

Artichoker said:
Move Warrior 1SE to assess the possibility of settling on the Incense.

That looks to be the best move anyhow, doesn't it? +1 commerce, riverside.

Edit:I would rather move the warrior NE to check how good the plains hill might be.

silverbullet · Oct 15, 2008

I don't like settling on incense.
It is a great tile to work (7 commerce with plantation), especially when we are going to be with a very small empire for most of the early game.

Artichoker · Oct 15, 2008

silverbullet said:
I don't like settling on incense.
It is a great tile to work (7 commerce with plantation), especially when we are going to be with a very small empire for most of the early game.

Would you rather settle in place?

I think it comes down to 3 choices: 1) in place, 2) on Incense, 3) on Plains Hill.

Only 2) provides a rivered center tile, which means the option to build Levees in the lategame (although all 3 options have +2 health, thanks to the lake).

3) loses an extra turn, and all other things being equal, is not as good as 2), IMO.

Working the Incense is like getting a fully mature Plains Town right after Calendar...which is good, but not excellent.

silverbullet · Oct 15, 2008

+2 health is guaranteed anyway because of fresh water from lake. The benefit of incenses comes much earlier than the benefit from levee. Therefore I prefer settling in place. This city site has a lot of riverside tiles making it an excellent commerce monster. Moving to the plain hills might work if you gain as many riverside tiles as you lose.

Artichoker · Oct 15, 2008

silverbullet said:
+2 health is guaranteed anyway because of fresh water from lake. The benefit of incenses comes much earlier than the benefit from levee. Therefore I prefer settling in place. This city site has a lot of riverside tiles making it an excellent commerce monster. Moving to the plain hills might work if you gain as many riverside tiles as you lose.

However, if you settle on the Incense, then the extra Grassland tile can be used for a Farm, thus freeing another Grassland tile for a Cottage.

DaveMcW · Oct 15, 2008

You shouldn't be farming any of the grassland tiles in this city...

Dirk1302 · Oct 15, 2008

Start raises a few question, i'd normally cottage all these riverside tiles early in the game. Here it's an option too but there's some risk getting them pillaged. On the other hand there's so much food in the capital that farming the tiles isn't so great either, maybe just leave them be concentrating on the other tiles, these tiles have more chop power after math.

We'll need early research bad in this game and nothing's in sight right now so maybe risking cottages is best after all, otherwise we'd need several early libraries.

Settling on the plains hill is an option, i don't think it's our cities that're in danger though but the surrounding land. I'll let the warrior find out.

Artichoker · Oct 15, 2008

Dirk1302 said:
We'll need early research bad in this game and nothing's in sight right now so maybe risking cottages is best after all, otherwise we'd need several early libraries.

Again, it comes down to settling the Incense vs. the other 2 options.

It's a question of a flat +1 commerce, or an extra 2-3 commerce only after Calendar.

If the Warrior moves 1 SE, maybe it can better evaluate these options.

oyzar · Oct 15, 2008

silverbullet said:
+2 health is guaranteed anyway because of fresh water from lake. The benefit of incenses comes much earlier than the benefit from levee. Therefore I prefer settling in place. This city site has a lot of riverside tiles making it an excellent commerce monster. Moving to the plain hills might work if you gain as many riverside tiles as you lose.

the +1 commerce from settling on insence is probably going to matter alot more than the +7 from working the tile later on though... Beakers earlier is better than more beakers later...

DanF5771 · Oct 15, 2008

TheMeInTeam said:
It's even an easy thing to do - just copy some techs into the team that represents barbs.

I haven't managed to get this to work -- what is your trick? Adding Tech=TECH_ARCHERY for all the empty teams and even adding a team 18 and a player for that team did not succeed in getting the barbs to know archery from the start. :confused:

I'm afraid this is not possible for the unmodded game, since the game handles all players with ID < MAX_PLAYERS during its initialization, but the barbs are team 18. :dunno:

Artichoker · Oct 15, 2008

oyzar said:
the +1 commerce from settling on insence is probably going to matter alot more than the +7 from working the tile later on though... Beakers earlier is better than more beakers later...

I agree...although the margin gained by working the Incense is less than it appears, IMO.

After Liberalism and Printing Press, it's somewhat likely we will be in Free Speech, which allows for 8C for a riverside (plains or grassland) town, thus surpassing the 7C for a riverside incense plantation.

Also, losing a turn by settling on the plains hill will sacrifice about ~100 gold by the time we get to Calendar.

If we settle on the Incense, then the grassland tile currently occupied by the Settler can be used to build a Farm at some point...not necessarily right away, but when the extra food is required to sustain growth after an early emphasis on Cottages.

shyuhe · Oct 15, 2008

I've tried this map twice and got declared on pre 1000 BC both times :lol:

This may be harder than I thought...

TheMeInTeam · Oct 16, 2008

shyuhe said:
I've tried this map twice and got declared on pre 1000 BC both times This may be harder than I thought...

I wasn't sure how to balance this one - they deliberately said they wanted a hard map...I could easily have made it a bit harder :rolleyes:

. I figured it was good enough as is though in terms of being difficult, but hopefully someone actually wins to prove the start at least possible...on paper it looks it but I'm no immortal player just yet.

Dirk1302 · Oct 16, 2008

So We'll have to be prepared for an early declaration, was always likely of course. It should be possible to keep our cities at least.

MattX · Oct 17, 2008

Tried it and didn't get DoW until 585BC. Did get me tempted to try some difference city placements next time.

Immortal++ University XV - Churchill in a Hostile Continent

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