Immortal University 68 - Sitting Bull

which is pretty irrelevant to this start

Decided to settle on the plains hill, because I knew there was nothing in the shadow (all forest) and 1 extra hammer in the early game is a great deal (first worker alone is 3 turns faster). Then I scouted Joao very nearby and decided to steal his worker and change my worker to work boat. This decision backfired a bit because after peace (for free) he later declared on me, but it was easy to manage.

With very little room to settle I decided to attack Egypt (I was building chariots for an attack) who had a very easy city to pick off, unfortunately the rest of his empire was well guarded. However I pillaged his land which gave me much needed money and crippled him badly + I also got writing from him.

There are some Islands which I settled, tech situation is ok, but will be better soon with massive bulbing. This game is far from over, but I think my position is ok, at least the diplo situation is looking allright.

the thumbnails are spoilery. I recommend uploading to an image site like imgur or imageshack and pasting your screenies in spoilers. Whatever you do, don't leave thumbnails exposed. I think there's a way to copy them into spoilers as well when you attach here, but I find the image hosting sites much simpler.

SiP, built second city on the marble.
Sailing -> mining -> bw -> myst -> masonry -> polytheism.
Tried to grab oracle, but lost it to Ghandi.
Got Temple of aritmetis and the great lighthouse.
Settled a city near the fur, working the deer.
Settled 3 cities on the islands.

Got a GMerchant from ToA, and I bulbed metal casting with it.
Self-teched machinery, while waiting for trade for ironworking and archery.
Built an army with prot xbowmen with +3 xp as the backbone and started to steamroll over Joao who kindly enough had built Mousoleum, great wall and colossus for me!

Still pretty far behind in army/space, but only Ramsy is ahead of me in tech.

Not sure that the fur-city was worth it..
Should probably have built archers ahead of time, and saved up gold to upgrade them, that would have made the attack even quicker.

SIP and went min->BW while building WB first followed by a worker. Don't know if that was optimal but there were no idle worker turns this way.
Met Joao and Ramesses early so i skipped some fogbuster to get a couple settlers out. Second city went on the marble, and third grabbed deer+fur before i ran out of room.
Meanwhile i spotted an island in the fog to the east so i decided to go after the GL, instead of rushing. Wasn't a really difficult decision because i delayed AH a bit, and got no copper or iron for quite a while.
I got the GL and started to rush out my second wave of settlers to grab as much islands as possible.
After a couple turns i got 4 more cities and a lucky colossus to boost my research significantly.
Ramesses founded judaism and converted everybody except sully and ghandi, which created a nice monetary situation for him and diplo situation for me.
Joao went in war-mode after there was no more room to expand and declared on ghandi. Sully joined in on the fun, and so did I shortly for diplo benefits.
Ghandi made peace with sully and myself before screwing joao completely by bribing JC in. Joao quickly made peace with india, trapping his SOD on foreign soil in the process.
JC was in a good mood though and agreed to peace after just one conquered city from poor joao. Ghandi peace-vassaled to JC after that...
I bulbed my way towards Lib, and got a nice tech lead, so the plan was to get MT to increase my city count. Joao was the first target, because his SOD was still in Ghandi's territory.
Bribed JC and freddy in on the same turn and sully kept Ramesses busy. Got every city from joao on the continent (he had 2 more on the islands, but i didn't bother to get them for the rest of the game).
Then declared on Ramesses and capped him. Sully the hindu heathen was next, followed by Freddy. At this point everybody had rifles so i stopped, and beelined mass media.
3 vassals+ Bio got me easy diplo win.

I guess GL abuse made this map a lot easier than regular immortal games, but i take it.

ferrying units over from all those islands, such a PITA

4000BC: SiP. Building wb with the plains hill and researching mining/bw.

3640BC: Steal Joao`s worker. Not my usual play but hes very close and it fits my mining/bw plan perfectly. The worker had some idle turns after farming the corn.
I stalled the 2nd wb a bit to grow to size 3 on the corn. So the capital is getting pretty big pretty fast.
I did not want to camp at the forrest hill at Joao`s capital and went westward. I want him to expand a bit and build me some cities. Also with all the food at the capital it was hard to get some extra warriors in so I didnt scout much (AND Ramses is close as well but I havent found him yet. So Im being generous to Joao and just take enough with his worker.

My warrior from Joao discovers a nice corn/gold spot close to Ramses. Thanks to Joao`s worker the capital got big quickly and I could chop/whip a settler & dog soldier with overflow in a second worker.

2720BC: Found Poverty Point 1W of the gold (ooh the irony... poverty...gold...get it?...). Having both corn/gold/floods in the inner circle. Was a bit worried I might lose the corn eventually to Ramses wonders/culture but atm he only build GW. So that corn is going to be mine for a long time. Even without the corn its a strong early commerce city and later a good cottage city. Joao settled a city 2S of his ivory close to my capital and actually cutting my 2 cities. No roads and happiness for a while.

Management in poverty point were: Grow on floods till gold is mined->work gold till corn was farmed->and then everything above 2 pop whipped. (untill I cottaged the flood)
Builds: Totem-Barracks-Dogs

1600BC: Joao still refuses to make friends. And he actually sends 2 axes + spear to camp on one of my mined hills. ffs man.
Anyway just chopping/whipping dogs in capital and poverty point. Its actually quite annoying since I dont wanna risk workers to road... giving an akward building of an army in 2 disconnected cities.

Also Im actually sending a 2nd settler west to grab deer/fur. Which was not a very strong move since I shouldve been building an army. Its also not the greatest city but its close to the capital and will pay for itself once it works the fur. I thought I could just sneak another safe settler out as I couldnt really attack Joao.

1320BC: Finally made peace with Joao, thank the gods. Now I can finally road my two cities.


1080BC: Discovered writing.

1040BC: Dow Joao with 14 dogs.

1000BC: I get some rediculous luck attacking Oporto. It didnt have any defense bonus but still.. took out axe/2archer and no loses. If I remember well it was something like... 25% 25% 50%.

825BC: Took Joao`s Capital. And Im in a tricky situation as he has a little sod of 4Axe/1Spear aiming to take it back. But I have enough (wounded) dogs to hold him off. Actually taking his capital was less "lucky" and was expensive to take. BUT it has a settled GG and many forest. Since I kind of stopped producing units, I will use his forests/GG to stamp a new army out of the ground.
I did some scouting later on and it was not possible to take either of his 2 cities with only 9 dog soldiers. I didnt want to sign peace because apparantly Caesar didnt like me dowing Joao... last thing I want it Praets plundering my cities.

Basically atm it will be: Capital=GP farm / Poverty point=commerce / Joaos capital=for now military-later cottage city / Oporto=commerce with all those inland lakes.

Been a bit worried someone might settle the islands to the east (which I have not scouted properly). But I couldnt find the time yet to get something over there. Mostly worried about Gandhi.

650BC: Managed to lure out Joao`s little sod (still 4Axe/1Spear) and he was aiming for his ex-capital. I tricked him by placing dogs in the woods leaving only 1 way to get closer which was on an unforrested tile. In a spot I could 2-move attack with my sod. gnignigni
Next turn he did exactly what I wanted and wiped the last of his copper units (Lost one dog though )

550BC: Now Joao is desperate, actually attacking a dog guarding in a forrest, obviously dieing?? Anyway Im just moving my units around to prevent him to get units anywhere and trying to induce some bad military play.

500BC: First GS from Capital and I opt for an academy. Been hoarding gold and I got libraries in the commerce cities so now I can go 100% science to Aesthetics/Poly/Lit.
I stopped asigning scientist and focus on food/hammers to get a gally and a settler out there on the islands.

450BC: Ramses ask me to convert which I do... for 5 turns. Double anarchy sucks but he doesnt seem to happy with me. If he dows its game overs. Im not really sure how agro he is.

400BC: Finally managed to capture/raze the weakest city of Joao (No food and Gandhi is just going to culture crush it). But where in the beginning of the war I was lucky... I hit some baaaaaad luck and lost many dogs. Sigh when will this nightmare end. I just want to build a pretty and shiny empire dammit! Die already!

200BC: Cats for Joao

150BC: Suleiman ask me to convert... not going in 2x revolt again sry mate.

125BC: Had to whip in povery point to get defense since Joao is sending some random units that way. I rather kill them in the field then behind his wall.
Also my first trade! Aesth->Alph to Sulei. The AIs seem rather backward or maybe its just because I cant see what craze things theyre beelining.

50BC: Fiiiiiinally destroy Joao and keep the city. Rice in first borders, I dont think Gandhi will culturecrush it.

Tech overview: Gandhi, Caesar & Freddy still dont have Alph/Aesth. Whaaat ? They dont want to trade Maths. I have nothing on Ramses and Lit on Sulei. Techs I want to acquire in a way is IW/Maths... so no trading atm.

Decided to 1turn research priesthood to see if I could get monarchy in a way. But nope only Ramses has it. But I could trade priesthood/literature to Sulei for IW.

25AD: Got the GL and stopped playing. I didnt go for Parth because I didnt find the time/hammers for it. Also I still dont know if Ramses has marble or stone.

Empire:



Tech overview: As far as I can tell everyone except Ramses is rather backwards. Unless Im missing something. Still have Aest/Alph on Gandhi, Fred and Caesar. I think I might have to research maths myself if I want to go currency->col->bulb phil->etc. Or I could go for music though atm it seems I wont have good trading opportunities if I take that path. But having a free GA to bomb a city at will is a plus. Both Ramses and Gandhi at the borders. Though atm it doesnt look too bad.
Ramses is teching Feud atm.. still 10 turns.

Diplo: Not too good, not too bad. But the only one who has too much on his hands is freddy. I need to look into that. But I met him quite late so I dont think hes comming after me. For the rest im safe for now. Religions are divided so I will wait for now. I need a scout or two and get more info as I dont really know whos bordering who. But Becoming jewish with Ramses and Sulei seems very plausible a bit later in the game.
Anyways atm everything seems rather neutral with no wars yet. I had the option of bribing Sulei into war with Ramses but since Sulei is on the bottom and Ramses on top... I would probably do Ramses a favour.

Gameplan will be pretty basic. Grow all my cities and the lakes city will be a settler/worker battery to settle the islands. When Island cities develop, tech to harbors in time Not too sure about national wonders yet. Obviously NE in capital and less obviously Moai in lakes/iron city.

The AI seems to give me a pretty easy game for some reason. 25AD, 3 AIs dont have alphabet or Monarchy? Wth is going on here!? (Well Gandhi has MC... good for him )

Workboat first, working the PH. Seeing Joao so close, I decided to go for a worker steal. Got lucky with the animals as 2 wolves attacked my 2nd warrior for 1XP each and killing a lion with 65% odds gave me 3 more XP for woodsman II. Learnt this woodsman-dude idea from AZs videos, of course.



Started farming workers off Joao.



2nd city on the marble. Didn't build a single worker myself, as Joao was in the mood to donate plenty of them.



Early techpath was AH-TW-mining-BW-hunting-writing-HBR-math(bulb 1200 BC)-archery. 3rd city to deer + fur. The main point of this exact spot (rather this than 1S imo) was chopping power, as the plan was to chop HAs after math-bulb. For some reason I didn't think of settling towards the gold at this point like BurN did. It would have been a better play. Instead I put my 4th city there grabbing gold+stone (stuck at size 1 for a long time), as I wasn't interested in a cultural fight with Ramesses over the floodplain.



Removed Joao from the game 875 BC with HAs helped by some chariots and some dogs. 5 cities, 5 workers.

Attacked Ramesses 725BC with 10 HA's. He has only 3 cities (??) and is spamming wonders and missionaries. He didn't have copper, but just managed to connect iron and whip a single spear before I captured Thebes (removing iron from him). His cities are defended by 2-3 archers and there were a couple of wandering WC's.

Research set towards Alpha.



Killed Ramesses 550 BC. Captured big cities (Memphis was size 8 I think) with good stuff. Alpha is in, and we have enough cash to get to currency. 8 cities, 9 workers, 10 HA's, 3 wonders + a shrine. AI seem to be rather slow on research on this map as nobody has alpha, and some AI's lack writing. Lots of forests to chop to wonders or units.





No doubt I got lucky in this game in several spots: early woodsman II, good luck in battles, Ramesses's wonder-spam followed by missionary-spam (although I guess that is the standard strategy for him).

Not planning to finish it, as I see no real challenge here.