Immortal University 47: WvO

TheMeInTeam

If A implies B...
Joined
Jan 26, 2008
Messages
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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 47th 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:

Willem The Orange Man

The UU gives you a little extra oomph before chemistry and adds some naval carrying capacity. Not a big deal on most scripts. The UB is a painfully overrated but still solid replacement for the levee, and will add a couple base hammers to some of your cities.

Here's the start:

Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg


Another IU, another random fractal start. We've seen better, and we've seen far worse. Here's hoping for some decent surroundings.

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 47 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
 
From Autosave...

25 AD

Spoiler :


Settle in place. Warrior 1st. AG ----> AH ----> BW. When we realize SB is going to box us in, we chop out 2x settler after initial worker to rush him with settlers. Building great library + going sistine to win border wars.

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I really hate fighting a spammy, PRO AI. RNG likes to hose me at every turn, so I decide that settlers are my best rush unit. SB is the #1 peaceful AI @ cautious, and pacal is easy enough to move to friendly. At this point they ALMOST like me enough to avoid war already. The instant I trade for monarchy (2 turns later), pacal is @ friendly.



1890 UN

Spoiler :


I was not the 1st to astro but I was the 1st to the island. Zara got 1 city there...I got the others. 2 of them were barb cities defended by longbows, which got cut down by treb + musket. As you can see below I was beaten to lib by the other continent, but still bulbed it for trades on my own.

Sistine city surround allowed me to flip the city SB squeezed between me, and allowed serious pressure on his 2nd city. I put hermitage in my SW city which allowed it to press him and keep my tiles (I was owning him in culture the whole game).

Civics: all bottom civics except NSR theocracy (izzy + zara in different religions, but they cheated to go pleased/FRIENDLY due to hidden modifiers), but both liked me. Zara declared on pacal and darius followed. Darius built the UN (as he was our resident culture whore). Thanks to ruling the astro island + abusing bio farms, I get to #1 in pop and convince izzy, #2 pop zara, and SB to vote for me. The latter took forever, but once I had enough with zara/izzy I could afford a switch back to hinduism, allowing SB to favor me and a win.

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Minimal units but just enough cities grown up to compete. I was a bit behind in tech but had a reasonable production base, if I felt like slogging. I didn't.

 
Spoiler :
Yech, grotesque map. I have four cities with stone and marble. Too bad there are no hills in my cramped corner or I might be able to wonder my way to a lame culture win (if nobody on the other continent decides to eradicate me, that is). There aren't, so I hit the resign button on this baby.
 
Imm-Normal

Spoiler :

Perhaps it was the easy barbs, although the land was easy to work with anyway, but the start wasn't hard. Settled SW near the FP/stone first, then NW claiming the gold/sheep near SB. 4th city the fur/deer one for early commerce. Then filled with junk, really. Having both marble+gold meant aest>lit was even more obvious than usual, although SB and Pac were teching slow, so I slotted in Alpha+currency before those. SB built the oracle and took caste, only one religion, so easy diplo.

No horsies and bad midgame land meant either steel or rifling. I'm more a fan of trebs+rifles than I am of cannon+pike. I was building the MoM for failure cash, but decided to complete it because the cash would be less of an advantage than the extra GA duration.

Some screens (I hope, photobucket is slow)

Spoiler :

Me winning Lib
Civ4ScreenShot0018.jpg


Built the Taj
Civ4ScreenShot0019.jpg


Rifle+Treb Army, SB doesn't have RP, Pacal does. No problem; I'll get through SB before he has any counter, and already have more power than Pacal.
Civ4ScreenShot0021.jpg



Don't think I'll finish this, my PC's slow, and it's a done deal from here. Even if I fall behind conquering the continent, the UB+financial will make my recovery very fast for a strong endgame.

 
I have had civ4 for about 7 weeks so far. I do have a lot of experience with civ1 (what i remember) and a little civ2 though. I have won a few games on emperor so I thought I would give this a go.

1 AD Save View attachment Immortal Student Willem AD-0001.CivBeyondSwordSave

Spoiler :
I have 5 cities. One on the flood plains, two near the tundra and one on a hill applying culture pressure to SB capital.

I have calendar and am in the process of hooking up those resources. I am running scientists as much as possible and bulbed Alphabet. I have construction and am slowly builgint catapults. I gave SB mathematics for IW and have hooked up the iron in the desert. As great scientists appear I am going to turn specialists off to speed up catapult production.

SB is working on currency. I am going for MC and machinery. I have aesthetics and am hoping to trade for currency, which will speed up civil service. I am then looking to hit SB with macemen and catapults.

If this fails, I am going to grab drama and push him with culture while I get optics and find the other AI.
 
Is this the third or the fourth time Willem comes up as the guy for the Immortal University? Are you positive you don't like Ramesses, Victoria, Elizabeth, de Gaulle, Pericles, Huayna Capac, Darius, Augustus Caesar, Catherine or Gilgamesh? They could make fine leaders for these games and you have a couple of choices if you insist on having a financial guy...
 
Is this the third or the fourth time Willem comes up as the guy for the Immortal University? Are you positive you don't like Ramesses, Victoria, Elizabeth, de Gaulle, Pericles, Huayna Capac, Darius, Augustus Caesar, Catherine or Gilgamesh? They could make fine leaders for these games and you have a couple of choices if you insist on having a financial guy...

Willem has not been done in a while. Vicky has shown up in like the past 5, as did cyrus. I will bear cathy/gilga/AC/HC in mind next, although note that all are very strong leaders (on par with willem at least excepting cathy who is more comparable) and as such I have a mild bias against them ;).

IU will probably see a strong leader or two before I hand you guys Sid.
 
Willem has not been done in a while. Vicky has shown up in like the past 5, as did cyrus. I will bear cathy/gilga/AC/HC in mind next, although note that all are very strong leaders (on par with willem at least excepting cathy who is more comparable) and as such I have a mild bias against them ;).

IU will probably see a strong leader or two before I hand you guys Sid.

Ok. I read my post again and I saw it may have sounded a little harsh. I apologize for that. I was only expecting to see new faces, that's all. We've seen Willem hosted by Ignorant Teacher and by you.
 
HC is overrated, as well as Elizabeth and WvO. Try playing Islands on MP and you'll see what I'm talking about.

I'm not rating him myself. However I do know several things are doable with him that cannot be accomplished with any other civs.

Never needing archery for barb busting at high levels (HC can always do this, others may be able to skip archery sometimes, but this is map dependent for everyone else.)

Warrior rushing on high levels. (HC is the only one who can do this with a success rate).

Finally for people looking to learn(the point of IMM/U) a civ that encourages wonder spamming is encouraging things one should be weening themselves off of as the advance.

That is why I say he isn't good for a IMM/U.
 
I'm not rating him myself. However I do know several things are doable with him that cannot be accomplished with any other civs.

Never needing archery for barb busting at high levels (HC can always do this, others may be able to skip archery sometimes, but this is map dependent for everyone else.)

Warrior rushing on high levels. (HC is the only one who can do this with a success rate).

Finally for people looking to learn(the point of IMM/U) a civ that encourages wonder spamming is encouraging things one should be weening themselves off of as the advance.

That is why I say he isn't good for a IMM/U.

I see your points. Still, Gandhi was a leader, right? Besides, if you get a map where you get a really bad starting position and Louis and Ramesses in the other side of the world, all you got is an anti-barb unit that is good until barb axes start showing up.
 
150 BC
Spoiler :

With the axe rush I bottled up SB into two cities in the NW taking 3 of his to the south and settling the fur silk site as a blocker. Also got a city blocking Pacal by the horses bottling him up across his little desert isthmus. Took peace with SB so I could take out the barb cities in the south before Pacal. Though I just found out both are still at 1 pop so far and would raze anyway. My first real tech will be alphabet in ~4 turns. Pacal doesn't have it yet. He is however sending me 3 different types of missionaries. I'll be quite happy if he gets the AP in.

We'll see if financial can dig me out of this hole. At least I have 2 happy sources.
 
I'm trying it on Emperor/Epic.

Start -> 10 AD

Spoiler :

IMHO not an easy map.
I was not so quickly to avoid SB' block, so I was able to settle only 6 cities, some of which in northern tundra (a little curiosity: I have settled 4 coastal cities and there was no one singol seafood resource avalaible! :crazyeye:).
There are 2 resourceless-early UU civs (one of which is also protective), to me not so easy to rush.

civ4screenshot0000r.jpg


Capital seems well suited for bureaucracy:

civ4screenshot0001k.jpg


Tech rate is about 90/bpt with a +gpt and without building wealth/research (but I think a bit poor for a financial leader).

Anyway this is the tech situation:

civ4screenshot0002g.jpg


The plan: I'm researching literature to have the monopoly (SB and Pacal didn't have Aestethics yet) to obtain Construcion and CoL by trades.
Also, having marble, I'm thinking about building the Great Library and NE in capital.
With the GS which is coming (5 turns) bulb Philosopy and then switch to CS/pacifism to bulb the liberalism path.

Meanwhile, build A LOT of cats and go against SB.

Is needed to settle one further city only to hook up the desert's iron?

Of course, I'll be grateful for any suggest, thanks :)

 

Attachments

Up to 1000 AD ish

Spoiler :
Settled capital inland (hate settling on coast with no visible seafood), made settler at size 2 (I think) to quickly settle sheep and gold. Then backfilled while chopping Pyramids and GLibrary at Amsterdam. I now have 7 cities and will probably have an easy time beelining riflemen and taking over the continent. Won Lib around 950 AD and picked Nationalism. I currently have 2 Great Engineers sitting in my capital twiddling their thumbs. One will probably burn itself on the Taj Mahal and the other I'll save for Oxford University or Ironworks. I don't think I'll continue as it looks like an easy ride out from here. (Pacal II is Friendly and Sitting Bull is Pleased.)

The game was slow initially since no one had Alphabet.

Civ4ScreenShot0540.jpg

 
Off the autosave to 1AD (Imm/normal)

Spoiler :


Settled in place, worker first. Tech path went AH-Mining-BW-TW-Pottery-Writing. Sitting Bull would box us in so I rushed out some settlers. Claimed pigs/stone/lots o' floodplains first for early commerce, then marble/deer, sheep/gold, and backfill fur/sheep, and northern fur/fish whale. Managed to raze a barb city and refound 1 E for horse/fish/corn spot. Plan is culture with marble and crap land. Went aesthetics-poly-lit. Working on Parth ATM, then TGL and Sistine.

Current lands:

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Tech:

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Calender would be nice as we have silk, but it can wait. Music is more important. 3 cities will probably be Amsterdam, Utrect, and undecided on the last. Either east barb city, gold city, or fur site. Could use some help with picking that. Culture should be fairly easy.

 
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