Immortal University 28: Isabella

[norxposr]

@shyuhe

Spoiler :

This is how I know just how far I have to go. You make a "bad" move, albeit on purpose, don't get the religion, and kind of have to start from scratch well into the game, yet still recover and dominate. I can't even recover if I accidentally give a worker the wrong order for 1 turn.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

@norx:

Spoiler :

the path to victory on this map is stained with the blood of hammurabi. he has awesome land at his disposal, i would at least consider either rushing him (like me) or blocking him out of contention (like TMIT). the floodplains are invaluable.

Just for the record:

Spoiler :

I screwed up in letting him get metal in his city to the west. If I'd been a little more dilligent with the pillaging, I'd have stayed at war until construction, built about 5 catapults, and killed him outright for 3 more cities. I got away with the mistake here because all the good land was taken by the time he was able to build that spear.

 

[Lansky]

Haven't had time to play a game in forever, but I think I'll give this one a go.

 

[Lansky]

Immortal/Normal

To 1AD

Spoiler :

Settle one south on the plains hill. Meet Hammy’s scout from the SW very early. Send the warrior down and reach his border finding unimproved gold/cows/pigs. Wait a turn and the worker pops up.



Worker scurries off to the capital while the warrior gets cozy for a while on a forested hill. Only lasts maybe 10 turns before a bowman ends that, but at minimum I’m +1 worker and delayed a settler or any tile improvements for 10 additional turns. My scouting is severely lacking due to this short lived choke.

Tech went AG > AH > Wheel > Pottery > Mining > BW > Writing then it was shut off until after both libraries and an academy went down. Meanwhile as the early wheel may indicate the nearby horses were irresistible. From here it was fairly routine. Chariots > Chop Barracks > More Chariots.





Sent the first 10 for the capital and the next few towards the second city he founded to the west. Thankfully neither were on hills and with a bit of luck catching a couple bowmen in the open both cities fall and Hammy is gone. Settle Cordoba to block HC and capture two well placed Barb cities to the south that along with the mountains block everyone else.

Once the first GS puts down an academy in Madrid I go down the normal Aes-Lit path. Only Saladin has Alphabet though so that has to be my first trade with Aes. In the end from Aes/Alpha I get a ton of backfill including masonry, math, and calendar despite the pyramids, HG and MoM still being up for grabs (in fact they still are at 1AD). With marble up I get lazy and just plop Parth/Glib in Babylon. This is going to be my HE city so Glib there is really silly, but I essentially built it just to speed up the next 2-3 GP whatever they are. If I set up a GP farm it will be on the flood plains south of Seville with the wheat, but it’s likely I just won’t have a proper one this game.







I grabbed the GA from music and self researched CoL/Currency with the remaining gold. Plan is to now set research to 0 until I chop out MoM (won’t take long with OR and marble – maybe 4 turns) then use the GA to start a golden age. Next couple GP’s will come form Babylon which is heavily split right now between artists and scientists. If I get a scientist I’ll likely bulb Education. If it’s another artist I’ll try to get a scientist next and likely just launch another GA and go for MT and then rifling from Lib. At this rate I may start my war before I fill the rest of the land I’ve blocked.



Only tech threat seems to be Darius. Heck, only threat period seems to be Darius.

 

[tycoonist]

not a big spoiler, not really an update, just something ridiculous:

Spoiler :

darius is 3 turns away from finishing fission in 1480AD!!! he is teching sooo fast

 

[mirthadir]

1834 Normal Domination:

Spoiler :

Early game was a bit interesting. I went south to settle on the hill and began a quick push to agg/AH while building SH (for failure cash). After meeting Hammy this suggested a possible chariot rush. After seeing his gold and pigs I knew I had zero chance of getting out enough chariots to kill him before he got bronze linked up (assuming he had it somewhere in the first 4 cities); and a good chance he'd get iron even if he lacks bronze.

So I worker poached and then played kill the woody warrior across the river. This got me up to woody II and time to get chariots in the NE and SW of Babylon (settling immediate NW of the horses near the cap). Using the hills and move I burnt every improved tile, and rolled back and forth until between north/east and south/west keeping his workers in the city, but staying out of immediate target range of the giant stack o bowmen (upwards of 12 early on). This effectively neutered hammy, even though he founded Buddhism. I opted to block settle the cows/bronze to the west of Babylon, the two westernmost furs, the ivory/spice/corn and eventually the wine/wheat/cows/lake slot.

Tech was agg -> AH -> wheel -> mining -> BW -> writing -> pottery ->aesthetics. The economy tanked completely during aesthetics (losing cash every other turn at 0% slider), but I got aesthetics soon enough to swap that around for all manner of goodies. Religious situation:
Hammy - Budhhist, everyone hates
HC - Hindu, no one cares.
Everyone else - Jewish founded by Sal

So I swap Aesthetics to everyone and even get to tech broker Alphabet. After that It is just the slow matter of cottaging up, letting the economy rebound and getting a stable source of GP; queue the GL. I chop out the GL and trade Lit for Math and few smaller trades. HC declares on me, but I have a walled city on a hill with C1 axes and a C1 spear. I kill his pults and a few swords, he is willing to give me peace if I give him meditation; works great for me. AIs are starting to get feudalism so I settle a crappy block around Hammy at the wheat/cows to the north. Tech is now out to CoL with the bulb to Philo (founded Taoism but did nothing except get another mon for my academy cap with it) after that.

Trading Philo and brokering nets me: calendar, CS, currency, construction, MC, HBR and some pocket change. The economy kicks into overdrive and I whip out a few phants and pults. Hammy has insane numbers of bowmen, but luckily for me HC declares on him. I wait for HC to shoot his bolt and kindly bombard off the defenses for him. It takes several turns and pults, but eventually the phants stomp 20 odd bowmen to death and I net Babylon (which has only 1 pop and a grain inside). I backfill all my blocked land and generally cottage or watermill/windmill spam.

Tech here is a bog standard bulb to lib run where I take PP and then swap those with Vicky and Darius to head out to cannons. I get a nice set of cannons to go smack Darius, but he gets mil trad, but I do as well (teched while building mass cannon). After that CR III cannon en mass, a pike, and mass conquistadors (mostly highly promoted phant upgrades). A dozen turn and four cities later (including his rocking cap with Notre Dame, Spiral Minaret, UoS, Hagia Sophia, and SH) Darius caps and gives me guilds for my troubles. I immediately reprogram him to tech out to arty while I head for electricity. The British still lack rifling so I flip over, take two cities (London has SoL, Kremlin, and Chicken Itza) and I acquire a second vassal.

At this point the game is in the bag. I have two vassals who tech reasonably well (decent land, some overseas cities, and both are FIN) so I can direct them down seperate paths (Vicky to flight, Darius on to Rocketry) and keep a third to myself (fission). I trade electricity to my vassals and broker multiple times to come out with communism, biology, railroad, arty, and rifling. Cuzco gets smacked with my freshly upgraded cannon (after letting him immolate his stack against a set of CG MGs) and I take a city he settled to the SW of Babylon right when Hammy died. He caps as well, I don't bother meddling with his techs as he is backward. This nets me some obsolete wonders, the GW, and a 16 shrine.

Fastest win looks like a quick cap of Mao via nukes. I build some subs and send them off to his ports while finishing Manhattan (IW in Babylon began that while I was still killing HC). Once it finishes I rush buy a swarm of tac nukes and a few ICBMS (Mao's interior is not nukeable from either Sal's cities or the coast) and have prepositioned transports with cav waiting to take down everything coastal. I have cav one square away from his two interior cities in Sal's territories. Mao's SoD is trapped in Hastings (a one tile Chinese territory between Sal and Vicky) and I have my Arty inbound on rails. War is annoying.

I launch about 15 tac nukes the first turn and kill everything on the on coast and just waltz cav in to take it. I nuke the interior and take one of the cities with cav, the other I leave without defenders, but don't have an unirradiated tile to get there in one turn. Mao pulls back a stack and even retakes a coastal city and his interior city (I had been counting on complete erradication of Chinese cultural borders in the interior to reinforce on the now useable roads/rails). Three turns and 6 nukes later I get Mao to cap and gift him back a border city to prevent Sal from culture swiping my tiles. I accidently liberated on of Mao's cities to the English (how they have a claim is beyond me), so I'm a bit short on land. Thankfully I have some left over cav and transports which I ship off to go kill the barb cities. Now I could take the arty with me and kill their rifles with it after unlaoding ... but that takes an extra turn and ICBMS let me go straight off the boat.

So, in a first for me, I nuke a barb (actually 3) and just pump the culture slider up. Once the first city is out of revolt and gets its border pop I cross the threshold and it is gg.

Mistakes made:
1. Not keeping an early barb city, I poached it after it was weakened and razed it (economy was crap and burning it gave me a much better ETA on CoL), the english resettled directly to the SE). I also might have wanted to take the barb bannana city but units were at a premium with the 4000 year war.
2. Not capping Sal instead of Mao. I forgot that Mao refuses to talk for forever. Mao was just easier so I went for him instead.
3. Not teching facism and having paratroops ready for the nuclear decimation. I hard turned off tech when it was trivial to tech one more thing (superconductors or somesuch) and then swap it between vicky/Hammy and get some paratroops.

 

[Ringwraiths]

Immortal Normal Diplomatic Victory in 1832 AD.

I'm not sure how to post pictures, but I'll detail the game in spoilers at least:

Spoiler :

In my previous post to 1 AD I mentioned how after chariot rushing Hammurabi I was worried about Darius being WHEOOHRN. Turns out he was going after Mao (good call shyune).

To get back on track, first I targeted the Shwedagon Paya so I could run Free Religion. That helped me avoid all the religious haters and scored points with Darius, who I was at peace with the whole game.

I moved my bureaucracy capital to Akkad on the flood plains site and built Ironworks there. Along the way I built the Taj Mahal and The Statue of Liberty which was very powerful on this map. Madrid got Oxford U and National Epic (didn't really have any other good GP farm sites). Babylon was my Heroic Epic city.

As I mentioned, I chariot rushed Hammurabi around 1200 BC. Then I attacked Huayna Capac with one of the most powerful armies I've ever used: Conquistadors and Citadel-buffed trebuchets. It was like carving through butter!

I was way behind in tech by this time. Darius got to liberalism before I could even think about it. I also stayed in bureaucracy too long. Once I switched to Free Speech things really sped up. I also ended up running environmentalism, which is very rare for me, but in this game it really helped me industrialize my larger cities.

When I had the Incas down to their last city he vassalized to Mao and I got auto declared on. Luckily there was a strip of Arabian land between me and China. Since he didn't have open borders with Saladin, Mao couldn't do a thing.

I moved my veteran army all the way back east and once I had Assembly Line I upgraded my CR3 macemen and siege and plowed through Mao. Since he had such a long border with Saladin I vassalized him so I wouldn't have to guard it. I waited for tanks to launch my attack on Saladin. Victoria was his vassal so I took Hastings (which was Arabian) and then London. Meanwhile I helped Mao defend against Saladin's stack. All it took was taking one more city and Saladin and Victoria capitulated.

I missed a diplomatic victory by 10 votes prior to warring Saladin. With 3 vassals it was a done deal.

Thanks, guys, for letting me join the fun. I will probably start playing along from now on.

I've attached the latest save I had. I didn't have the final save.

 

[tycoonist]

@ringwraiths:
pictures are actually fairly easy to post. I'd recommend using photobucket to upload your images (its completely free), then you just wrap the link in

 

[shulec]

Immortal epic. Painful outcome thus far. Please help.

Spoiler :

Settled 1S on plains hill. I tried a non-rush rex with little success. Research string AG>Min>BW>Wheel>AH>Writing>Hunt>Alpha>trade for IW>Aesthetics then trade. 1st defining moment: worker steal from Hammurabi. Long, painless non-offensive war. 1st expansion, settle south of Madrid. I was afraid to settle near Hammurabi with only warriors protecting against his Bowman. I was slow to settle west near Hammurabi waiting to get bronze to protect my city.





I declared war on Huayna Capac to take a barbarian city far south that he had taken the previous turn. Peace was made in about 7 turns.



I am getting it handed to me in the research department.



My rex to the west went bit too far or I was too slow to pop my borders. Hammurabi eventually got two cities north of Madrid. My economy was too far in the tank to put cities there first.





I am still trying to get a foothold. I have only gotten one great scientist which I settled. I have 6 cities, 10 workers and I don't have monarchy, representation, or calender, but I have Fur and have traded for silk, wine and sugar.

 

[tycoonist]

victory, AP diplo, 1800-and-something:

Spoiler :

so, despite darius being far better than me in every aspect, i finally managed a diplo victory. the plan for an AP victory goes way back, to when i initially bulbed theology. i founded christianity and made it the AP religion. and i would have won earlier, except that huayana spread christianity to all his cities but still refused to vote for me. so i conquered him with infantry:


...destroying Hammurabi and capitulating Inca. that still wasn't enough so i started gearing up for the war to end all wars against darius, who was far more advanced than me and far more powerful.

but eventually i befriended saladin, which led to this:



yay!

here was my army about to invade darius (the plan was to finish Manhattan project and nuke is army out of contention):



and here is the power screen showing the extent of my problem:



thanks to the host!

 

[shyuhe]

1610 conquest

Spoiler :

So picking up from where I left off, my economy was in decent shape, I had good land, and the AI were getting busy with themselves. I decided I'd use citadels this game, so beelined engineering. I got it second (after Darius) and built citadels in my two best production cities - Madrid and a workshopped Barcelona. My other cities built miscellaneous stack defenders (like maces, xbows, and elephants). I also revolted to theocracy to enable CR3 trebs out the gate



Hammy got himself stuck in a war with HC, which really slowed down his tech rate. When I declared on him, he didn't have engineering (no castles) so his cities went down really fast. I capitulated him after two cities as I didn't want to bother taking more. I had been in a fake war with HC and had just signed a peace treaty (to remove capitulation difficulties). As a result, I couldn't declare on HC for ~8 turns, in which I continued massing more trebs. I then declared and took two ciites driving straight into Cuzco. HC capitulated then.

I then moved my army back east to the Darius border and declared war once my troops were in place. Darius didn't have rifles or steel yet, so his best troops were grenadiers. I moved my stack in, he suicided a few units, then I took down Pasargadae and then Persepolis. Darius had Vicky as a vassal but she had broken free, so I went ahead and capitulated Darius.



Vicky was next, and I didn't take any of her cities but killed enough of her stack to capitulate her. Mao followed after that, with a stupid war bribe for Saladin.



I took a ceasefire with Saladin as soon as I could to capitulate Mao,



then redeclared on Saladin. A few turns later, I took one of Sally's cities and capped him as well, ending the game.



I basically stopped building research and commerce multipliers after attacking Hammy. As a result:

 

[Kadazzle]

Nice game Shyuhe. I'm going to try this again, and hopefully REX better and get my economy going quicker.

 

[chris.]

My first go (Immortal / Normal):

Spoiler :

Has anybody had any luck sacking Babylon with a chariot rush? I will admit my first go at this map was rather sloppy, leaving forests to be chopped , not building enough spears, etc. I also ran into economic problems, mostly from overexpansion, which I really didn't mind because I could just cottage later and pillage some of Hammurabi's improvements. I enjoyed the start, especially for the capital, with prime land south (both sides. I did take Akkad, but Hammurabi was not willing for peace. My bid for his capital was pretty unsuccessful, despite having 13 Chariots. Pillaging did reap some benefits, such as Babylon's gold mine (maybe 2 N, 1 E from Babylon). Unfortunately, it went sour, and my war skills certainly need work at these high levels.


So anyway - sorry for the lack of pictures. But as a brief-

Settled 1 S, as suggested on this thread.

Went Worker-Warrior-Settler-Warrior-Worker; pretty much in this progression until I chopped chariots out.

Techs: Poly (unsuccessful, don't think I'll bid for it again) -> Ag -> Animal Husbandry -> BW -> Writing; I believe.

Settled City 2 1SW of the horses W of the capital.

City 3 went S in that spot 1NW of the lake.

Took over Akkad, losing maybe 4 or 5 Chariots vs. 2 Bowmen

Pillaged the rest.

Economy was shakey. I didn't like how it was going. I can do better, certainly.

I'll give the map another go soon. Lots of fun.

 

[Dendrite]

I’ve been playing for a while at Immortal with about a 30-40% victory rate (mostly space race) so I thought I’d give this one a go.

Immortal/Normal, BTS 3.17

To 1 AD

Spoiler :

I usually settle in place, but moving 1 S seemed a much better option here as I knew I wasn’t missing out on anything to the north. I was tempted to start with a warrior here since I didn’t start with any worker techs, but in the end I build the worker anyway so I could get the food resources.

Tech order is Agri -> AH -> Mining -> BW -> Wheel -> Pottery

No chariot rush for me.

I use my warrior to sweep out in an arc to the west.

The floodplains were discovered in about 3500 BC along with Hammurabi’s borders. At this point I decide to claim as much of the floodplain as I can, so after my worker I grow to just size 2 before building two settlers as quickly as I can, because of this enticing terrain:



I was going to settle the second city to the west, next to the corn, but on seeing even more floodplains, and the horses, to the south, I decide to build further down. Here I used my warrior to lead the way, followed by a fogbusting worker . Once the city was built (after dodging a lion) the worker built a pasture on the horses.

The third city was built as planned (in 2280 BC) after a delay caused by some mild bad luck with barbarians, effectively blocking off Hammurabi from expanding to the east at all once I get monuments built. I start building a few warriors for spawnbusting – while doing this I discover Darius’s borders to the south. I’m going to try to settle a couple of cities to the south to block Darius, and then try to get my economy back on track.



Surprisingly, I got both of those cities to the south, but my economy has crashed (to 2 bpt, 10% slider) since they’re so far away. Hinduism appears in one city, but I’m not converting until I see how the diplomatic situation plays out.

My tech path from here to 1 AD:

Hunting (to get ivory) -> Writing -> Aesthetics (trade for Alpha, Maths, IW, Meditation) -> Literature (trade for Monotheism, Archery)

It takes a while but I eventually start to get my economy moving, with only 30 bpt at 1 AD, and cottages spammed everywhere. I’m also forced to build a filler city to the northwest to keep out Hammurabi – I had a settler on standby but didn’t want to settle for the maintenance costs. Hammurabi’s also built the Great Wall, which is usually bad for barbarians but since I’ve got all the unoccupied territory covered with warriors I don’t need to worry about that.

Once I get Aesthetics I decide to build SoZ in Toledo (far to the south) for culture vs. Darius. I think Toledo is going to be a production city, with the three western cities being perfect for commerce and the capital as a GP farm (with GL).

Anyway, for 1 AD:

Southern empire



Northern empire



Unfortunately Victoria snuck in a city to the southeast of my capital

Tech situation



Quite far behind, and Darius is teching very quickly with Machinery and Theology. The Liberalism race here is going to be tough.

To Liberalism

Spoiler :

Tech path: Calendar (partially traded from Literature) -> Code of Laws (traded for Currency, Monarchy) -> Theology (traded for Construction, Horseback Riding) -> bulb Philosophy (traded for Feudalism, Metal Casting, Music) -> Paper (trade for Drama) -> Education (part bulbed, traded for CS, Machinery, Divine Right, Compass, Engineering, Optics)

The GS I pop in Barcelona is used for a golden age to boost my science, and to help with SoZ and the GL. SoZ was built in 75 AD and the GL was built in Madrid in 225 AD. Madrid has become a temporary GP farm, with a total of 4 scientists, increased to 6 after I went into Caste System.



Darius already has Education at 500 AD, but not Philosophy (Victoria founded Taoism in that city she built inside my empire).

I popped a GS in Madrid in 520 AD, and used it to bulb Philosophy. At about the same time I researched Theology. HC asked for Music, which I accepted in order to keep him at pleased. I also sell Music to Mao for 30 gold to get him to pleased. I get a world map from Hammurabi in a trade.

At 720 AD, I find that Darius has Philosophy. Another GS pops and I use it to bulb the rest of Education. Then



Darius gets Liberalism in 800 AD. At this stage, I have a serious lack of production cities – Toledo in the south is OK but not great – so I’m preparing to build one to the north of my capital.

To 1550 AD

Spoiler :

Tech path: Guilds -> Nationalism (trade for Banking) -> Gunpowder (trade with Banking for PP, trade with PP for Economics and Constitution) -> Military Tradition (traded for Replaceable Parts) -> Chemistry (traded for Corporation) -> Steel (traded for Astro, Scientific Method) -> Rifling

At this point, I decide that Darius is too dangerous, and I start preparing to DoW him with Conquistadors. I do, however, take advantage of the opportunity to trade him Divine Right for 1150 gold. Education was a great trading tech here – I got 6 techs and about 1500 gold from trading it around and the subsequent brokering.

In 1000 AD HC goes into WHEOOHRN. He and Hammurabi are best friends, so I may well be the target. I really can’t afford a war yet (I still have warriors in most cities, and a couple of axemen on the border) so I pay a high price for Mao to declare on him instead.



Yes, it was worth it, in the end.

Meanwhile I sign a defensive pact with Saladin for the time being for the diplo points. He doesn’t have any powerful enemies so I shouldn’t get involved in any unwanted wars. It doesn’t last long, however – in 1230 AD the AP votes to declare war on HC – which means everyone is at war except Darius. This isn’t a problem for me since Hammurabi is a buffer between myself and HC.




Saladin asks me to switch to Hinduism. Since I’m in control of the diplomacy now, I accept, making him Friendly. When I’m 1 turn from Rifling, Darius builds the SoL in his capital – another reason to conquer him (He hasn’t got Rifling yet, and his army is quite weak).



In 1440 AD I declare war on Darius, who has, of course, neglected his military techs for scientific ones - he has Communism, Physics and Medicine (!) but not Rifling or Military Tradition, making him a pushover. I pick up the Kong Miao with 10 gpt in Pasargadae, and the Statue of Liberty and Stonehenge in Persepolis. Once I’ve taken every city of his on the mainland he capitulates. Meanwhile I finally make peace with HC, after getting +3 shared war diplomatic bonuses with the other civs. At this stage I’ve falled behind quite a bit in tech, but it doesn’t matter since Hammurabi and HC (my next targets) are just as backward.

Diplomatic victory, 1868 AD

Spoiler :

Tech Path: Steam Power -> Liberalism -> Communism -> Assembly Line -> Physics -> Artillery ->

After getting Assembly Line I DoWed Hammurabi in 1675 BC with 3 substantial SoDs. Once again, Hammurabi made the mistake of researching Radio rather that Rifling, so apart from 1 machine gun in each city he looks like another pushover. It’s a bit harder than that, however, because the turn after I declare Mao dogpiles on me. I look for his SoD to the east, but can’t find it – turns out that’s because it was to my west!



Apparently Mao had captured a city from his earlier war with HC, and his main SoD was still stuck in that city. After a lot of drafting and the retreat of my southern stack, I eventually defeat Mao’s army. Meanwhile my northern armies easily take their targeted cities. I also get this curious graphical glitch after razing one of Hammurabi’s cities



The war with Mao slowed the advance down a little, but nonetheless I take the rest of Hammurabi’s cities without much resistance (my armies consisting mainly of Cavalry/Cannon). Babylon comes with no fewer than 6 wonders (including Broadway and the Great Wall), Scotland Yard and a military academy – one of the advantages of leaving your neighbours alone for a while. Mao takes Hammurabi as a vassal before I was prepared to have him capitulate, so I wipe Hammurabi out completely and make peace with Mao. (Meanwhile I pop a silver on one of my mines).



My next target is Huayna Capac. This time I attack with Infantry and Artillery as well as cavalry, plus some old cannons I didn’t have time to upgrade. Once again Mao declares war on me, this time from taking HC as his vassal directly. I’m prepared this time, however, and his SoDs are destroyed before they pose a threat. I wipe out Huayna Capac, but Mao still won’t talk – that’s OK because Victoria’s culture is now cutting him off and they don’t have open borders.




The game is pretty much won now – it’s just a matter of timing – so I build up an unbeatable stack and invade Victoria (who’s just built the UN). I only have time to take two of Victoria’s cities before:



Saladin’s votes got me over the line – although I would have got a domination victory within ~30 turns anyway.

 

[cheffster]

I haven't been playing all to regularly lately, and I've very limited experience playing Spain, but I can usually win on Immortal so I gave this one a shot. Sorry if I'm a little late starting, but I wanted to post my game anyhow. I played with the speed setting of epic, 3.19, with Blue marble and Bug Mod.

Initial start (current game SO FAR, will update asap):

Spoiler :

I settled 1S of start location, as what seemed the obvious choice to get the extra +1 in off the start (which can make a HUGE difference)
I liked the timing of getting my initial worker finished the same turn as I would discover agriculture to start improving that tile.

Tech patch was:
Agriculture ->Animal Husbandry -> Mining-> (changed my mind here) Wheel ->Bronze-Working ->Pottery

My strat was to mass chariots as soon as I had my 2nd city settled near the Horses.

3675BC:
Always a nice suprise to see the AI leaving a an open worker waiting to be captured, he was just asking for it and I cant resist these sorts of opportunities:



1650BC:
After having some lucky rolls at ~20% odds in taking Akkad, I went for a shot at the Babalonyian capital. I lost a few chariots but I'm feel good since that's already one Civ out of the way and O boy look that FAT cross

I attached my save as of 1575BC, I know its early but hopefully later tonight I can edit this and give an update of my progress

 

[cheffster]

So I played my game through, finished with a Domination Victory by 1794 AD, scored 137910 and overall feeling quite good about the game.

Spoiler :

I'm just going to post a very breif synopsis of my game:

I discovered Liberalism by 1050AD, and took nationalism as my free tech in order to secure the Taj Mahal Wonder:


Since the Inca's weren't part of the Buddism Clique I decided to declare war on HC first. Here's a few SS's of my army buildup and war, as soon as I discoverd Rifling I upgraded all my muskets and declared war the next turn:



Needless to say the Incan cities fell over rather quickly.



I finally captured Cuzco and eventually got him to Capitulate:





Next up for grabs was Darius:


Meantime I managed to build the Statue of Liberty:


And to make a long story short, after wrecking up some Persian cities then moving on to run over some English Cities I got my Domination win by 1794AD:


With a score of 137,910 this is one of my best games score-wise:


And that's that, for anyone curious I posted my last save which was 1788ad.

 

[Grashopa]

Immortal/Normal 275 BC - Got a question on what to do next... I've been sitting on this so I could explore the wonder economy with war monger ghandi, but I'd like some thoughts before I go all willy nilly on this one.

Spoiler :

I chopped out horse archers for the rush on Hammurabi (built 13 and lost 5) and just peaced him out in order to take code of laws and monarchy from him. HC just completed the pyramids which is in his capital which also has the Buddhist shrine. I'm considering rushing him just for his capital. I only want his pyramids and to keep him from picking up the gold each turn.

I've prechopped Babylon so can put a couple swords and archers out quick which should be good enough.

I can also chop the hanging gardens there and then the HE which shouldn't slow me down too much for going after the pyramids.. I can also just declare in a few turns, my 8 horse archers should have no problem picking off his guys in the open while I get the HE out and get some swords..

I figure Akkad will be running 6 merchants very quickly as I am pumping out warriors right now for the happiness. So with the rep I should be set.

 

[GenerallyGreat]

I'm posting a second attempt at this game after my first go went bad. Immortal/epic.

Spoiler :

In my first attempt Hammy's worker was guarded by an archer, this is the second game in a row it's happened to me and it seems rather random anyone else see much of the same? Anyway in my first go I wasn't quite ready to war with hammy yet when Vicky DOWed me when she had a much, much more obvious target. Anyway I rage quit and this is my second go.

I kinda forgot screenshots again but it followed much of what others have done. I chariot rushed Hammy and took him out then rexed out and floundered until about 500 AD. I got lib just before 1000AD and took nationalism while using great merchant money to research MT and upgrade some knights. Using Conquisidors is a blast when your opponent doesn't have rifles so I ran all over HC only mixing in a few cannons to one stack, flankers did the job otherwise.

Darius had to go next as he was researching like crazy but I only got one of his cities with my Cavalry army as he had infantry and was near tanks! Also he bribed backwards Vicky who was still a pain due to massed Redcoats. After about 20 turns of no progress other than successfully directing HC the vassal to take a small English city I got peace and decided to end things with massed tanks/spies.

Booting Darius off the continent was fun but it later ruined my attempt at taking a relatively rare cap victory, I really need to remember how capitulation is evaluated. I took Vicky in 2 turns and turned my attention to Saladin and his vassal Mao. (Does Mao ever do anything in anyone else's games? Seriously he is mediocre at everything and always ends up someones . .. .. .. .. . who then contributes nothing at all to wars!)
Mobile wars have to be the AI's worst nightmare I tore through Saladin without much reaction at all other than one couterattack on a bunch of wounded tanks I forgot to protect. He wouldn't cap however even after China broke free and I had 6x his power. Domination was tripped in the 1845.

 

[Grey Fox]

Crap I thought I posted here yesterday.
I'll have to repost later tonight...

 

[DanF5771]

Whoa -- a certain AI who is a fan of Free Religion managed to grab the Mids for very early Representation and aided by a triple gem city succeeded to get Liberalism in 500 AD . That's a first for me @ immortal. Didn't help him much though...

I've tried something interesting out in this game: apart from the first GG who got settled in the HE city for 10xp siege, I attached all following GGs to Cannons (sharing xps with 2 Warriors to get them to Woody3 Medic1). These GGs didn't engage many combats, instead they were given Morale and Accuracy and thus fulfilled the role of mobile Artillery to support/enable a devastating Conquistador/Cavalry blitz. I gotta say it worked very well. After getting the AIs out of Slavery before the war and using the Barrage3 siege to smash their SODs during the first turns, the wars were over *very* quickly.

I had 3 of them at the end and they could drop cultural defenses of a 60% city without a Castle in a single turn, improving the odds for my march-promoted Cavs significantly so that I hardly lost any (you need 5 GGs or 2 turns of bombardment for Castle cities).

Has anybody else ever tried something like that?