Immortal University 51 - Brennus

Playing this now. Plenty of value from the scout here - a warrior cound'nt do anything like this. Shame there are no great city 2 sites around. I grew to size 7 before my first settler!



FWIW this is the best place I can think of for him.

Settled in place and built worker, 2 warriors, settler, more warriors...
Teched Agriculture, Mining, BW, Wheel, Pottery, AH, Alpha, Currency

Settled my second city west of the capitol, then settled east and then south, like so:



My swords and axes are gathering to try capturing the barb city. Turns out we have sailing access to Augustus as well. HC actually gave me Vilcabamba for free Unfortunately it sucks and has no food until I can spread irrigation to it. I half considered just giving it back to get cheap diplo points with him. But it does give me marble, and it's one less city to capture later.

I am thinking about adopting Judaism to make Washington like me. He's the more trustworthy of my neighbors (won't declare at pleased). He's also bigger and shares a longer border with me. HC is kind of a culture fruit who I expect to spam more wonders than units, and all but one of his cities are on flat land, so I might be able to take him with just cats and swords even though he's pushing longbows. Or I could just be peaceful and hope he's too timid to attack me.

The tech picture. I'm researching Monarchy prereqs to trade Currency for it. Hopefully I get Math for Currency as well.

I should mention this was my second attempt (first attempt I pointlessly tried to block Washington and it slowed me down too much), and it also involved at least a couple of reloads when I kept losing my second, warrior-defended city to an archer.

0 A.D(ish)

I kept mulling moving options over and over. I decided to be a big pansy and just settle in place.

I took a sorta-shot at gwall and missed (delayed it too long and wonders went early). Opened AG, wheel, AH, mining, masonry, writing, archery, BW, pottery, aesthetics. First GS was an academy in capitol. Second GS...bulbed...metal casting? Well, nobody had it and I was able to trade it to both AI right away, helping me out of a mini-hole.





Washington beat me to the SE city by ONE TURN. Ouch. Other than that relations are good, and TGL + Parth look likely. Will try for sistine too, I love getting sistine when I have marble because it OWNS AI culture attempts so badly that late-game time pressure is reduced.

Bulbed things like philosophy, education, printing press (I was running pacifism). I took constitution for the instant science boost and fact that nobody had it:



Though sci meth for higher trade value was tempting, nobody had anything that I couldn't use constitution to trade, the AI likes sci meth, and it would have hurt my research a little to get it right away before the other important bio pre-req, chemistry. I do put a bulb in sci meth though.

Tech picture after a few post-lib trades:



Helped mostly by bulbing because my tech rate was otherwise pitiful. The only person who's really giving me fits tech-wise is HC, who is going pretty fast for immortal.

HC kept up his breakneck tech pace, and I didn't have the long-term oomph to compete with him. I sat on my cities all the way to tanks/bombers...and he had the same type of military techs I had. He was nearing internet for god's sake though! That means he hast to die obviously.





Although at tech parity, this wasn't much of a slugfest: bombers saw his stack before DoW, I got 10 turns of peace from all relevant AI, and I let his stack enter my borders where 1) fighters caused his fighters to die trying to intercept 2) bombers smacked his stack down a notch 3) combat II tanks eradicated his stack.

From there, I let my 2 medic 1 explorers heal up my stack and pushed into his territory. I saw only minor resistance from there, easily punting him from MY continent.



Next up is Washington. Like me, washington was heading for nukes, but then the UN banned it. Similar to the HC war, we're similar in actual military tech. When he was down to 3 cities, he managed to get mech infantry. Didn't matter; by then he had no air power and bombers trounced the mechs so badly that they might as well have been rifles or something.





Towards the end of that war, I bribed AC out of war w/ genghis because he was winning it and would soon cap genghis. genghis + sury signed a DP, but AC and bit...er...peace...er...PAssal mansa still declared again. I declared too, bribing AC out with money (4k!) YET AGAIN so that I could get the cap:



Somehow, someway, AC capped SURY ACROSS CONTINENTS, without either exchanging a city!!!!!!!!!!

That meant I couldn't duck fighting AC, who already had jet fighters. Knowing this, I added a TON of arty to my stack and later added infantry/SAMs (SAM to beat the gunships off my stacks). Taking Genghis as a vassal was a critical point! It allowed me a "home field" of massive culture where I could fight the advanced stacks of AC without nukes:





This was a slugfest; I produced and killed hundreds and hundreds of units. Sury didn't do much to me just as he didn't do much to AC: mostly just tried to pillage tiles with jet fighters of carriers. I shuttled troops across the small channel safely with transports and had my naval assets go around killing stuff that got too near. Mansa's contribution was likewise minor.

That means that all of the fighting that mattered happened in the area surrounding the city pictured above. I did hit-and runs using my tanks to kill units and run back: one city was returned to GK, but many I COULDN'T RETURN despite them being 90%+ mongolian culture and former mongol cities? Some were former mali cities...regardless most of the surrounding cities got hit-and run burned while I killed 3 30+ unit stacks entering mongol land. I couldn't use my air power...jet fighters were too powerful. With SAM and infantry/arty/mass tank (and many tanks starting with combat III, some even making it to IV/V/commando) I was able to get the collateral initiative I needed for tanks to slaughter everything.

Once the major invading stacks were taken care of, I pushed out with first 2, then 3, then 4 stacks of 30+ tank/infantry/SAM/arty. AC had mechinf by then, but many of the arty were CR III. Out of production, out of help, and out of time, AC started losing cities. Mali died off entirely, sury eventually broke free once he was above thresholds, and AC folded and capped, giving me the required % for domination.

SURY WAS GHEYTASTIC GHETTO MORON. Yes, that. After I blasted his master and had LITERALLY OVER FIVE TIMES HIS POWER, his response to capitulation?

"WE'RE DOING FINE ON OUR OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWN". I am almost 100% certain that was because I left HC alive. Fix your game firaxis...BEFORE you make new ones. Well, fix those too.

Regardless, I had what I needed.









Although a bit long, once I had sistine chapel and met other AI I knew I had this game. The AI is simply too miserable at modern warfare to beat a similar-sized human empire.

As you can see, nobody was actually close to winning, but everyone was near computers for SO LONG that I didn't think I would get out of this peacefully. Maybe I could have, but certainly nobody else could win culture or space NOW. HAHA!

So another no-mids spec game finishes with a W. I'll take it.

Well, ultra early dagger DOW from Capac ended this one way too early for me, though I probably did play this a bit unoptimally. Do I get another try, or is that against the rules or something?

Barbs certainly are a lot more annoying in Civ4 than in Civ5. But while the BetterAI does make barbs pillage instead of suiciding into fogbusters the AI still does some strange things. Hindu-founder Capac decided to declare on Buddhist-found Washington around 450BC. And the city HC chose as first target was this totally crappy hill-city waaay down south,


1AD Washington has managed to assemble this decent stack:


He might actually succeed capturing a city with that one. I wouldn't mind joining the war, but I need a couple of more units. But as long as the war goes on, I'm at least safe

I settled in place, and teched agriculture,mining,bronze,wheel,pottery,AH,writing,aesth,poly. Empire:

Met HC and Washington,found some health resources but no happy ones so was glad of stonehenge.

HC and Washington both went hindu so I joined them(nice trait SPI),met Gengis by going to the edge of USAs border-he went judaism so I didnt open borders with him.I felt that the Deer resouce was a priority and with a city there I thought I could block the USA.This is where things started to get interesting...

Great prophet came along and I built the shine,Buddism spread like wildfire through the USA and washington switched religion.I managed to get some Techs out of both civs when they were at pleased,but at this point I got HC to gift me masonry then I switched to Buddism(nice trait SPI)and now HC is annoyed.

The situation now is war is a coming with HC,but it looks like Im going to have a good ally in the USA.Because of my starting tech path(slow rex) and open borders both USA and HC have got citys to the far east of Bibracte-although Washington is already offering the Liberation of San-fransisco(what he,ll take for it I dont know).I have a barb city to the SE which I should be able to take in the next 5 turns.

SIP
Techs: Agri, Mining, BW, TW, AH, Writing, Slider 0%
6 cities
No wonders; ToA, TGL, Oracle are gone

Screenshot of the empire:


Save:
View attachment Phil BC-0850.CivBeyondSwordSave

Not sure what to do now:
1. Poly, Aesthetics, Literature -> Parthenon, GLib, NE, HE
or
2. Alpha, Curr
or
... ?

Suggestions and criticism are welcome!

Another question: Whipped settlers from 6 to 3 in capital without granary -> good or bad without granary?

On the marble. I built 2 warriors in 5 turns working a forested plains hill because of barbs then took the capital's wet corn and built 2 12 turn settlers allowing the capital to work corn and 5 fp cottages at size 6... Good idea or not?