Immortal University XL: Ragnar

With so little land on the main island, space was a total premium. Sandwiched between two other Aggressive leaders, and one of them is a landlocked Toku.
Blocking Toku was really easy to do, and really the only option I could see being plausible. Not that it mattered. With room for five cities tops, he still went balls to the wall military invasion mode, and spammed soldiers until my eyes bled. His soldiers pretty much impaled themselves on shock axemen and walls and died in droves.

The real damage wasn't the invading soldiers though, it was that my techrate got shattered from ~108bpt to something crappy, like 35.
I even managed to capture a city from him, and shift the front into his doorstep, not mine, but at that point I had lost almost a thousand beakers that could have been keeping me in the tech game.
I quit from boredom. It probably could have been salvaged, but a slow grinding game against a Toku that hates me for eternity isn't enjoyable enough to hold my interest.

REX with gold saved up to go horsebackriding to kill Hammurabi if desired. Toku's pleased, my only regret is that I sent a settler to block Hammurabi when it could have taken the flood plain ivory.









Probably won't finish it.

Moved my Scout 2E2N and I noticed the Marble so I settled my capital 2E1S from the starting location. Worker + Agriculture first build/tech.



I found Tokugawa and Hammurabi both on turn 6, I scouted Hammy's capital to the north, and I am fairly sure Toku's capital is to the south. I tech Mining after Agriculture and I built a warrior after my worker. The worker is being sent to Farm the Corn.



After my worker finished improving the Corn he got sent off to mine the unforested hill we have, while we teched Mining so we are now currently researching The Wheel so we can build roads and head to Pottery. We also find Toku (and his second city!) to the south. Not a lot of room!



Once we finished teching The Wheel we head onto Pottery, while after we finish our first warrior we send him to fogbust our next city location. We build another warrior for one turn so we can grow to size 3, then we switch production to a settler. After the mine, our worker is going to pre-road to our next city location.



We research Archery after Pottery as we will need to start thinking about defense as barbs start to grow. Our worker is nearly finished roading, and will then go to the capital and start cottaging it. The new city will be placed on the Wine. After the settler was done I started on a Worker.



In 2575 BC we create our second city, Uppsala! We settled the city on the Wine for the extra commerce (Plus, we get another + commerce due to being Financial) and it seemed like the obvious choice for a good city, and for a good blocking city. We start building a Granary there.



Once Archery was done I switched production in both cities to Archery. We started to tech Bronze Working as it leads to Iron Working, and we need to start chopping/whipping. Our worker moved down to the new city and started cottaging Uppsala.



Once we had our first Archery done in the capital, we sent him off to Spawnbust a new city location, while we finished another Worker. Our current worker finished cottaging the one flood plain, so it moved to cottage the other one.



Once we had our new worker out, we sent him off to cottage our last unforested riverside grassland tile. Good news is, is that we finished Bronze Working, so we switched to Mysticism to get border pops. We start to scout Hammy's borders. We started to build another Archer in the capital.



Once our worker finished the cottage in the second city, he started chopping a forest. Our other worker finished it's cottage as well, so he started roading towards the Marble. We finished our Archery, so we did a little micromanagement so that our garrison troop (the warrior we already had a turn into) would be finished the same turn we hit 5 pop. Sadly, bad news struck! Toku snugged a city west of Uppsala. Luckily, with this land I believe we can easily win the Music race, and nonetheless, we can beat Toku in a culture war. We finished Mysticism, so we start on Masonry.



The same turn we chop out our archer in Uppsala, we grow to size 5 and start on a Settler in the capital/finished a warrior, so I decided it would be a good time to switch to Slavery.



Two turns after we revolt, we whip a Monument in Uppsala and started on a Worker. By this time we finish teching Masonry, and we finished roading the Marble, so our worker gets busy Quarrying it. We are now teching Iron Working as well.



A few turns later our Worker by Uppsala finished chopping the forest in Uppsala, so he moved to the capital and started to chop a forest there. Our new Worker that we built out of Uppsala started to road towards the Ivory. We are now building a Granary in Uppsala.



On turn 97, all of our workers finished their jobs, so I re-assigned them. The worker near Uppsala began to pre-chop a forest (until 1 turn is left) then build a Camp on the Ivory. Our Worker that was chopping, and our Worker that was building a Quarry moved north and chopped/mined a forested grassland hill. We finished a settler in the capital that will be placed down towards Hammy, and we start on another Settler.



Turn 100 brought about the settling of Haithabu! The next turn, our two workers near the capital will mine the hill and road towards Haithabu. Our border will pop in Uppsala next turn, so we will build a camp then.



We finish the turnset as soon as we hit the Classical Era (Iron Working). The final turn brought our scientists onto the path of researching Writing -> Polytheism -> Aesthetics in the future, while expanding towards our friends and foes. We also had to utilize a 2 pop-whip in Uppsala to get out the Granary, but it is for the greater good.



Empire on turn 103:



Resources:



We have Iron/Ivory as war resources, so a quick Cats/Phants/Swords war would go well with a techpath towards Construction. We do have Marble, so obviously the Great Library will be a wonder we want to snag, as well as the Parthenon.

Demographics:



Top 5 Cities:



Good news is Nidaros is number 5. Bad news is a civ on a different continent is wonderhogging! I have a feeling most wonders are going to go late in this game, so I still believe that we could snag the Oracle.

Plans for the future:

1) Expand North/East to block Toku (between his city and the barb city) from expanding.
2) Settle the 3 Sugar/Iron/Irrigated corn site. Superpower city later in the game.
3) Get the Great Library/The Parthenon, and the Music Race.
4) Tech up the Music line, then revert down the Math/Calender/Construction line.

We have more than enough room for 6 cities, so unless some crazy stuff goes on, or the other continent is a crazy mess, it should turn out an easy win.

Ag + worker. seeing toku boxed in as a neighbor, beelined construction then HBR.

Stomped toku in two seperate wars, second he started one turn before I was ready to declare, (lol) extorted MC from him and he vassaled to Hammu. Planning another war in 10-20 turns so I have grabbed Feudalism + Theology rather than techs like CoL and CS. Used Hammu to trade techs like IW + Sailing + Monarchy.

Am the largest Civ already so hopefully other continent has been warring.

I was rather quite happy to find marble near, yet at the same time I was rather upset that stupid Japs was so close. Even worse, was despite I tried to race to a decent spot, he settled it and I lost out on it so I had to settle a bit higher north than I wanted. Ughhh.

And of course, I was expecting the inevitable, so I went over-board on defense etc, which only could result in me falling further and further behind in tech. I couldn’t do anything to get Japs to even open borders with me. I couldn’t even trade with him…. And for some stupid reason, he never got a religion for ages so that was even out of the deal.

I avoided alphabet, only to my horror like 5 thousand years later to find out that stupid Hammy STILL hasn’t researched it. And the only one who did was Toku which was being an idiot so it didn’t matter. So this really hurt on my teching also, not to mention my rate fell so far behind.

Well, eventually the inevitable happens, and Japs turn on the DAGGER mode. Oddly enough, that was just at the time where I was starting to feel “oh well if he hasn’t attacked this whole time, then he probably wont now--”

Wooohoooooooooooooooooooooooooooot!!! (horn blows)

What an idiot, he suicided wave after wave after wave while getting me one great general after another.

I purposely avoided making peace with him despite he wanted it, buwahahah. So I just sat there and let the idiot keep coming to me. Then finally I started to advance bit by bit with elephants and my UU with some trebs. Soon we added cuirassiers to that, and then my master unit… the cavalry.

From start to R.I.P. of Japs, he lasted over 1K years from when he first backstabbed me, and I never let him sue for peace once. While I wouldn’t mind all the extra gold, etc, I felt it was best to let him continually stream into me instead of getting a break. Not sure if that was very smart or very dumb.

By the time I finished with Jap I healed my cavalry and was able to draft a little from my poor-man’s draft factory. Then I DoW on the stupid Babs. He had infantry and artillery while I was so backwards I hadn’t even started near steel yet. However… my capital alone was shipping out level-5 cavalry, so I had no worries. Back to my old tactics of slamming waves of cavalry into fully fortified CG infantry behind a city… and I was loving it.

My only problem was a diversion while I had to split forces a bit because earlier in the game the stupid babs had just beat me to a nice city spot in my far West, but at least this way I let him built all the infrastructure like factories for me and the tiles, despite I didn’t even have the tech to build any of that stuff.

After taking the capital from the Babs, they were willing to capit. I could have continued on, but I was so far behind I decided to just vassal and try to catch up.

Catch up I did, I was able to eventually zoom ahead of everyone else.. (for a while). Romans then vassaled 2 other Ais, and so that was rather scary. However, I had built the internet so that was another ace-in-the-hole.

Things were looking rather unstoppable for me, until I made a few wrong turns. I saved 2 great people and tried to beeline for fusion to get the free engineer for my third GP which was needed for my third golden age. This would have been boosted with my calendar wonder. Unfortunately the Romans were tecking close to 10 thousand beakers a turn at that point, and I just missed out… ughhhh!!! Which reminds me, I also lost the race earlier to liberalism due to a stupid tie too! Son of a …

And to add more fuel to the fire, could have won this beeline race if I hadn’t gone after robotics earlier, but I was EXPECTING at least 2 Ais to research the other prerequisit for this wonder. I really wanted to build the space elevator. Nope.. Of course all the AI’s saved that pre-req for last!! Go figure.

And then when I was JUST finishing off the space eleveator, AGAIN the Romans beat me to a tie on the last turn… Jesus christ this was just one of those games where there is one AI who always has your number out there.

Anyhow, in the end we lift off (with all parts completed) with plenty time to spare still, so no worries.

Well the only worry NOW was Mansa had a third city getting close to legendary. It was too far to beat me in time, but if he got lucky with some great artisits that could be bad. So not taking any chances I nuked it a couple times, dropping it behind another 50 turns. And then I nuked Rammesses too just for the hell of it.

Lucky bastard seemed to evade my SDI though when he nuked me in return! Again… a lot of bad luck in this game, but these are often survivable on immortal so I’m not really that upset. I thinks this is why I like doing immortals, it’s a lot less pressure and you can survive a few catastrophes.


Hmm, now what does this mean?


Or...what does the AI think this means?


Was there really a point in continuing past here?

I settled 1N to get the sugar, which in my opinion is the best start for this game. I have 4 cities by 2000 BC - the power of dual corn and slavery. I have played up to about 1000 BC and am busy cottaging everywhere, building libraries, and of course, some archers + axes to repel Tokugawa. My plan is to make friends with Hammurabi, tech ahead of Tokugawa, and then conquer Japan.

*I also had to research archery since I wouldn't get the copper quickly enough. Archers were a lifesaver with all the archers that came to me.

Did you really move your capital away from that second corn? I can not see the benefit of having marble at all in the capital if you're trading away an irrigated corn AND a sugar resource.

I moved it because I knew the Marble was near the coast, and I wanted to have more room for cities. Obviously now that I know that I can easily fit 6 cities, it seems like a waste, but I still have enough food to grow comfortably there, so I don't mind.

The funny thing is, Tokugawa is the one who started the war. So why am I the one who's doing the capturing?

*Researching alpha to trade with Hammurabi and extort Tokugawa
*After this, all of us are even at 7 cities each, so the human player rises past the AI's