Immortal University XLIV: Willem

Hello all and welcome to the Immortal University! This series was started a long time ago to move a group of the forum's players to the next level. It is now hosted by professors Ignorant Teacher (on sabbatical) and myself, TMIT. Are you ready for the U?

This is the 44th beatdown on the AI, in case you're keeping track.

We will uphold the university's traditions...smacking down the hapless AI!

Our leader this time around:



If the dike wins one more top UB poll I'm going to personally murderize kittens en masse'. But, overall the civ + leader *is* good, or at least easy to use

Here's the start:



Another IU, another random fractal start. What does the fog hide? Anything? Let's throw some dice!

Huts and Events are off. If you don't like it, just plop 4 warriors somewhere in world builder and give yourself 60 gold to simulate huts, and just delete your capitol and put 3 archers there to simulate events.

Copy and Paste of the doctrine:

To play, just extract the WB save file into your worldbuilder saves directory, then play it. Use custom scenario if you want some extra settings to tickle your fancy. This series was designed for people learning immortal, so most people here will be at that level or trying to attain it, although deity players are welcome also. Hell, if you want to play this on NOBLE, go ahead, but I'm not peeling off the AI bonuses. The intention of this and any other game thread I post is to get better. Play whatever level you need in order to improve. Just remember, there are immortal bonuses and that's not going to change unless you WB edit it.

If you are aspiring IMM+, try to remember to add archery back to the barbs in WB. Every time you don't, a deity AI will kill a kitten, although there are a lot of kittens so it's not the end of the world if you prefer easymode barbs .

I do request people to list their difficulty and speed. In terms of updates, well nobody follows that anyway. Post in the manner you feel comfortable. Typical comparison dates are 1 AD, liberalism, and victory/defeat, as well as any major events. If in doubt, go with that.

The save!

View attachment IU XVIV Willem.zip

The initial autosave for those who want to duck having to add barbs or possibly use proper colors. It's IMM/Norm no huts/events.

View attachment AutoSave_Initial_BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave

I'd be tempted to move the settler east for more land and food since spices aren't that great, but surely there is another food resource in one of the fogged squares here? I've never seen just fish and spice.

nice BFC. I would settle down at the initial position.

Apparently boats can sail along the coastline and find another island on the west, where I guess you can find other AIs. The GL is the best choice in that case.

I'm guessing you have a food resource like corn 2E of the settler.

is that a valid roman numeral?

It most certainly is not. I believe it should be XLIV (for 44).

Syiss_ said:

It most certainly is not. I believe it should be XLIV (for 44).

Click to expand...

Correct, I don't bother thinking about them and just google it, but in this case I copied/pasted the wrong thing since I was on skype AND talking to someone else in person while setting this up.

I almost always settle in place but in this case, unless there's seafood 2N1W, I see little reason not to move 1E, unless you really value coastal tiles that highly for the dutch...

Have to go catch up on the football games, but I thought I'd race to 1 AD - interesting game! Haven't played civ in three months until shadowing mad's latest rpc, so I'm a little rusty, not only at the game, but also at taking screens...only 3 shots in spoiler.

Hmm, I had such an over-powered start, that I don't see how I could lose. Especially not with this leader, on this sort of map. You'll see why...

However, it does look like I am forced to restart over because of a really nasty bug. I got a little too ahead of myself, and founded a colony with a bunch of settlers nearby. Unfortunately my colony never grew its cities past a size of 1. I kept hitting end turn, after turn, after turn. Nope. He refused to work any of his city tiles. He refused to make even a worker, or a workboat, or even any units at all.

Disgusted, I just threw up my hands since obviously I would not have done this if I had known colonys were so broken. The one time I finally get a chance for this, and I find out they are almost useless.

Did I run into a rare bug or is this a very common issue?

The above is a slight spoiler, even if we do know there is land to the west from the opening screen shot.

And that's the first I've heard of this bug. I suggest reporting it even though I don't have high hopes of anything coming of that .

Imm/norm to 1 AD

before reading a warning:

1 AD

obsolete said:

However, it does look like I am forced to restart over because of a really nasty bug. I got a little too ahead of myself, and founded a colony with a bunch of settlers nearby. Unfortunately my colony never grew its cities past a size of 1. I kept hitting end turn, after turn, after turn. Nope. He refused to work any of his city tiles. He refused to make even a worker, or a workboat, or even any units at all.

Disgusted, I just threw up my hands since obviously I would not have done this if I had known colonys were so broken. The one time I finally get a chance for this, and I find out they are almost useless.

Did I run into a rare bug or is this a very common issue?

Click to expand...

I ran into this bug on the Earth Map. I put Shaka in New Zealand the first turn and after about 100 turns I rechecked the WB and Shaka just stuck there w/ his settler. I have to give him some ships, couple workers and found the capitol for him and then he starts to function normally. Not sure how to fix this problem.

1874 UN

obsolete said:

Hmm, I had such an over-powered start, that I don't see how I could lose. Especially not with this leader, on this sort of map. You'll see why...

However, it does look like I am forced to restart over because of a really nasty bug. I got a little too ahead of myself, and founded a colony with a bunch of settlers nearby. Unfortunately my colony never grew its cities past a size of 1. I kept hitting end turn, after turn, after turn. Nope. He refused to work any of his city tiles. He refused to make even a worker, or a workboat, or even any units at all.

Disgusted, I just threw up my hands since obviously I would not have done this if I had known colonys were so broken. The one time I finally get a chance for this, and I find out they are almost useless.

Did I run into a rare bug or is this a very common issue?

Click to expand...

Was his only citizen turned into a specialist or something?

Note to self: Don't put the game aside for three months, pick it up again and assume you'll instantly be back to winning regularly at immortal. Guess this means if I want to play this game well again, I need to get back to playing regularly. Ouch.

budweiser said:

Was his only citizen turned into a specialist or something?

Click to expand...

I assumed so, but even then, he should have at least produced SOMETHING! 1 hammer from city tile + 1 specialist = 2 hammers each turn. So why can't Firaxis get simple math right?

Furthermore, just to show how bad this colony thing is bugged, I had pre-improved the rich tiles. Not to give away any spoilers, but the horses, etc. Yet he refused to work any of them? WTH. He had both hammer and food rich tiles ready to go in his cities and did nothing.

I'm never trusting this colony sh*t again.


Anyhow, I will try to finish up this evening. It's taking FOREVER, because I've been bogged down in wars and wars and wars.

Start to Finish

Did a re-play after that bug screwed me over. Unfortunately this time around the RNG didn’t give me my E. for the Pyramids, typical. So things were not as spectacular, but good enough.

I don’t get it, is the AI that dumb that it thinks it has a chance because it has a useless vassal still?

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In a word, yes. A useless AI vassal is the worst thing possible.

1. It takes a dump on the average power rating
2. The AI counts its power as part of its own
3. The AI multiplies that combined power by a factor (I forget what) just because it is the master of a vassal.

It is very difficult to get a master/vassal combo with all those stacked "perceived power" combinations/multiplications below the average, especially when the craptastic vassal also drags that average down. That's why capping a master of a vassal is so rare.