Immortal University XXIX: Hammurabi

Settled in place. I got it in my head to use the capitol for GPP. Cute. AH---->mining---->fishing---->BW----->pottery/writing----->aesthetics/lit

Great library race was a little tight but I got it.







All kinds of ugly.

A lot of GPP can pull someone out of tech death even if the base rate sucks.



Lib actually wasn't contested much, but taj mahal was and I wanted it due to marble.

Was cranking HAs, then knights, then cuirassers en route to attacking mao. Problems...well mao has a TON of power, so that sucks. Also, despite being backwards he beelined rifles. Not wanting to actually let him abuse his upgrades for that, I declared on him before I got rifling or burned a GM to upgrade my mounted. Nevertheless, I had MT/gunpowder, he didn't, so it's not hard to imagine I came out quite favorably as I fought defensively.



I eventually got rifles (about 10 turns before mao), upgraded to cavalry and promptly took 3 cities before suing for peace.



I grab steel, trade for physics, and let my HE city (attached a GG to unlock it, got a BUNCH fighting defensively) start building first 9 then 11 XP cannons . Capitol quit being a GP farm to go make some airships. CR cannons vs 11.2 strength rifles is advantageous. This time Mao wouldn't fare so well despite tech parity.





I took his capitol and all his good cities, I'm going to workshop them and get them spamming units immediately. Arty will be a welcome siege upgrade ----> nothing can flank it until gunships, and CR III (!) arty will do quite well in most instances I imagine. Hatty is Sury's voluntary vassal (giving sury 30% world pop). Sury beat on washington earlier but america is still free and not at war ATM. I will probably hit washington, then mansa, trying to cap them both. From there I will take on the sury/hatty crapliance and hope for the best. This is probably going to look a lot like my IU nappy game in that I'm going to be backwards as all get out but relying on siege and good mounted promotions.

If someone gets tanks at least I'll have ATs. I will try to get infantry after arty though, for the production boost and topline unit.

Oy. Whatever works.

Sury starts off this segment as trouble:



With hatty in tow as a voluntary vassal(and land targeting mansa), this looks bad. He's got about 70 units worth of rifles/cavs in mansa's territory, and I'm afraid mansa will cap, so I offer some assistance.



With airships, powerful 3 promo cannons, and lots of pinch/combat cav I OBLITERATE Sury's forces in mansa's territory, capturing both cities sury took and restoring them to mansa. I also took out about 15 troops of hatty's.





Cease fire with Sury it is then.





I leave sury at war with mansa since he is now backwards (rifles vs infantry) and his entire stack used on offense was completely destroyed. I go after an easy target:





And then onward to finish the fight with Sury



AC jumps in but I'm not worried at this point.





Close to domination and with enough anti tanks and infantry to keep mansa's forces off of me (note that he was at war with sury until I capped sury so not a lot of units really), my CR III (some CR III + drill I) artillery demolish anything he dares put in cities, allowing for a quick war against the games tech leader (he was able to research plastics or computers...I forget).



That's enough for UN, but it is also enough for



Now a look at the stats:





Cavalry sweep units very well. I never used to use them into the industrial era but the 2 moves and general lack of true weaknesses (and low cost) makes them viable.

I was very worried about sury in this game, so hitting him with a ridiculously vicious in mansa's territory was fairly decisive.

Everyone except mao and washington were ahead of me in tech at the end, although sury only barely.

I was not going to take UN here (though I used it to ban nukes just in case...nobody ever got fission). If mansa wasn't enough, I had 2 drydock cities producing destroyers/transports and would have allocated more until I had enough to drop 100 units in AC's territory on turn 1 .

Settled in place, went AH first for pigs. Scouted towards the south and found an unprotected worker of Mao. Time to steal! I then proceeded to stay at war for him for about 5000 years. At least for the first 3000, I crippled his growth with a single warrior.



Basically I would move my warrior here, then once the settler left the city move SE to scare the settler back into the city. Rinse and repeat and Mao can't do a thing I kept him from getting any metal hooked up (tile yields are great). Annoyingly, stupid Mansa eventually traded him horses for wine. I hate it when the AI do ridiculously lopsided deals amongst themselves. Oh well.

I lost liberalism to Hatty around 1000 AD. She had Philo early so was gunning for it. Meanwhile, I had a totally underdeveloped empire from choking Mao and trying to grab too much land.

I did get the GL, which gave me a shot at the liberalism race via bulbs but it wasn't quite enough, considering how much of my economy was spent on hindering Mao's growth. It worked though, as Mao didn't have feudalism when I killed him:



I then teched MT + gunpowder and prepared for war against Mansa. I had scouted his cities and found them woefully underdefended (as usual).



So once I had a meager 10 cuirassiers, I declared and started to take his cities with minimal resistance. I upgraded them to cavalry shortly. MM did bribe Hatty:



But I took peace + 15 gold with her once she was willing to talk. I didn't see a single troop from her (not surprising). I've finally droven up to Mansa's capital which is nice:



I have almost 40% of the map already, so it's just going to be mop up from here on out. Washington has a reasonably large army so I'll probably take him down once I get some siege in place to whittle his SoD. He is far from rifling though so I have plenty of time to abuse cavs/cannons on him. As for Mansa, he just vassalized to Hatty but that's not really a problem. He's down to 3 cities that I should be able to finish up fairly soon, at which point I'll probably be able to take peace with Hatty again. I'm currently going for state property, after which point the AI is just dead. Yeah, Hatty probably has infantry by now but I'm not too worried as she doesn't spam units.

100 AD

I figured that between the chinese there was nothing but me and sea. So I took 3 city spots (1 of which was not the best) to border him, and filler cities later.
I hate choking the AI with no knowledge of the rest of the map. Sometimes it tends to backfire if they attack your warrior and win an easy battle.

It was pretty close at a certain point when I saw him having 2 SM, 1 Axe and 2 chariots. The moment I spotted that, I had to switch tech line to hunting/archery.

The moment I hit archery I got him to pleased... Sigh.

Well started to keep settling, got 8 cities went for Aest and traded as much as I could (Alph, Math, IW). I had to DoW washington for general good relations with the rest of the AI (wasnt in the best of relations with him anyways).

So 8 cities AD, at least place for 3 filler cities, and room to expand to the north. Bit backwards partially because of low commerce tiles and the awkward archery tech line.

The choke I did on Mao stemmed from a worker steal initially. I stuck my worker around (across the lake) to watch his development and when he started moving his settler around, I tried to stymie him. Apparently it worked too well because of the AI script. I think the settler escorts are programmed to not attack any units, so they would retreat with the settler back to the city and offensive (or reserve) archers would come out after my warrior. But once I moved 2NE from Beijing, they'd go back in the city. I think it was a little abusive of the AI script but it was fiendishly effective.

And I had explored some of the jungle to the NW and found lots of good resources to settle (spices, silk, gems, ivory) so I figured that I could get ~10% land just setting around my capital and pick up another 10% from the Chinese lands eventually. I hadn't made any early contacts - I think Mansa was the first about 20-30 turns into the game at least. so I knew there was lots of land to expand into. I guess a peaceful expansion would have been just as effective here.

Settled in place. My capital ended up as my GP farm and settler pump.

Tech Path: AH -> Fish -> Mine -> BW -> Myst - > Writing -> Aest -> Pottery -> Lit -> Music (got the free artist) -> CoL -> CS -> Paper -> Education (1bulb) -> Lib -> GP -> Chem -> Steel -> Rifling
Back filled all the good stuff with trades.


The organized/aggressive combo is a little weird for me, and I didn't know quite how to use it effectively. So I basically I ignored the aggressive trait for now, and just rex'ed with the lower maintenance costs.

My first city was the triple ivory/banana/gems up north. This was my first of many mistakes. I settled on one of the ivory, so I did get the happiness well before IW, but still the city just sat there for the longest time. I knew it would when I settled it, but didn't want Mansa to have it. Come to find out Mansa was a long way away, and I should have aggressively settled East toward Mao, not West. Mao never got pissy with me, so maybe it worked out better this way in the end. Second city was 4 tiles SE of capital, good production, and was set on culture items to provide a path into Mao land later. Third should have been East, but was well West near Washington. It was the rice, silk, horse, cow site. It is by far my best city now, and is keeping Washington at bay. By 100AD had 9 cities. Claimed the marble city right as Lit came in, to help with GL. Didn't get it but got good cash. Marble still helped for the epics and Taj later on.

I accidentally finished the Sistine Chapel. Was building it for cash since it has marble bonus, but forgot to stop. At this time, I thought about a culture win. I had three religions and 9 cities, and got along with everybody around me. In the end I decided my mid/late game warring/diplomacy is what really sucks, so I wanted to focus on that. I’ve won the “press enter” culture game several times on immortal already.

Got my first GP around 100BC and built academy in the capital. This was another mistake, should have gone in the wild west city. Second GP was an artist at 4% odds...crap. The third bulbed Philo. Didn't get the religion, but only one other AI had it. The AI’s eat this tech up, giving me all sorts of good stuff. Half bulbed education and printing press.

A counter intuitive thing happened in this game for me (it happens a lot actually). I circumnavigated the globe around 800 AD having built exactly 0 boats.

I won Lib race in 1090AD and took Nat. I most likely could have gotten steel if I tried, but Mansa had Nat, and I wanted the Taj. Is this a mistake? I think I value the free golden age too much. I did a hefty civic change for free and got through GPowder and a lot of Chem, but I’m not sure if it was worth it.

I just traded Lib and Nat with Sury for RP to get to rifling faster. I’ve been avoiding trading with him because Washington hates him, and I mean worst enemy type hate. But this one trade gets me to rifles 16 turns faster. I’m now 14 turns from the rifle/cannon combo. My power ratio with Washington is 1.0 even.

I am currently at 1500AD, with about 20 cannons and 30 troops (mostly musketmen) getting ready to invade Mao. So here is my question: My power rating is 0.9 with Mao and he is nowhere close to steel or rifling. I’m at 1.4 with Mansa, but he has Chem.

I could steam roll Mansa right now, but He and Washington are best buds, and I'm afraid of both of them together. Even though he is protective, Mao is at my back, and he could attack me after I shift my troops to the North and West. I'm his only reasonable target if his trigger finger gets twitchy. Mansa and Washington have Sury to deal with. They aren't at war right now, but they have been off and on for 4000 years. I don't doubt I can take Mao, but will suffer heavier losses and will take a long time. When I'm ready to turn to Mansa, I may have to wait for infantry or artillery. Who is the better target in this scenerio. I realize without at least screen shots or a save, you would be guessing a little, but is there any insight you can shed.

Target one Mao: Power=0.9, Best unit is CKN and treb, will definitely be fightly alone.
Target two Mansa: Power=1.4, best unit musketman and treb (will get steel before I'm done with him), might get Washington involved (Power=1.0, techs are the same as Mansa)

I'm geared up to declare on Mao, but if I knew Washington would mind his own buisiness, I'd go for Mansa. By the way Washington was pleased, but just dropped to cautious because of my little RP trade with Sury.

Mistakes to learn from:
1. Slow down. A lot of little mistakes due to "one more turn" disorder.
2. Think about what WILL be your best science city, not what IS now.
3. My cities are not specialized enough. I have mature cottages in my HE city and not enough food to work a mine...not good
4. Need to think a little further ahead about what a city is going to take to not be a liability (i.e. my gem city witout IW).
5. Should have gotten pottery earlier. I kind of forgot about it, until I wandered where my granaries and cottages were. I've never been this late to pottery (something like 25BC).
6. Fight some renaissance wars. I had Mao back at elephant/catapult days, but wouldn't pull the trigger. I do this every time. I'm a chicken until I have cannons.

Is Washington pleased with you? If so, I'd beg some gold from him (10) right as you declare. I'd also check the BTS sheet to see if he can be bribed against you at pleased. I don't think he can, but I'm not 100% sure. I would definitely steam roll Mansa first though. Chances are, he probably has yummy wonders and shrines for you to gobble up. Just make sure you keep him from vassalizing to anybody you don't want to go to war with.

He was at pleased until I got greedy with that RepPart trade with Sury. Now he is cautious. So if you beg gold, and they give it to you, you get 10 turns of guaranteed piece, same as if they begged it from you? If that is true, then that tip alone is worth the price of admission to this thread.