Immortal University 95 - Bismarck

[Izuul]

Immortal 1610AD Domination (and Conquest)

Spoiler :

I left off fighting SB. He was a complete pain in the neck. Not because he was the least bit dangerous or even put up much resistance, but because of his unwillingness to capitulate (he has the highest rating for that of any leader in the game). I had to beat him all the way down to 6 cities which was really time consuming.

Up next was Sury who was very large and also had Gandhi as a vassal at the start of the war. I thought Sury might put up some decent resistance but Monty decided to do a lot of my dirty work for me by declaring war on him while i was still cleaning up SB. By the time i got over there they had made peace, but i think Sury lost much of his stack in the affair. I rolled over him pretty easily due to battles like this.

Spoiler :

He did get quite a few Cuirassiers before the end of the war, but they were all in cities where they posed no real threat.

On my way down to Monty, Gandhi (who had broken free from Sury) approached me with this proposition.

Spoiler :

Sure thing buddy! Less work to do. I found it kind of funny that he was Annoyed with me here while offering himself as a peace vassal, but then immediately became Friendly when i accepted.

Monty was up next and greeted me with this stack.

Spoiler :

I hit "next turn" and his stack magically vanished!

Spoiler :

Note that i lost 0 units in the exchange. 1 turn later he capitulated leaving just Charlie and WK.

My espionage points had been on Charlie for quite some time so i actually had full visibility of everything he was doing over there, and i was able to track his stack while i was fighting him. I started off by taking a border town, and leaving a token garrison in it to lure his stack out. It showed up outside of Ulm in 1590AD.

Spoiler :

I moved all of my units 1 tile south of his, and left the city unoccupied for him to retake. He did exactly that allowing me to shred his army with cannons.

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A few turns later he made this crazy face and capitulated.

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And on the same turn Wang Kong did the same thing (except he looks a bit more serious).

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And on the next turn i won a domi-quest or conque-nation victory or something.

Spoiler :

And then there was this hilarious shot of the info screen displaying the 334 units that i killed over the course of the game.

Spoiler :

My losses were 10 cannons, 2 axes, 2 scouts, 1 mace, 1 worker, 1 sword, and 1 cavalry for a grand total of 18. Gotta love those cannons! Especially when no rival AI even manages to get rifles...

Thanks for the game Klonoklown!

 

[lymond]

1625AD IMM Domination

Spoiler :

Not a very impressive victory at all. It's been a while since I've played a forum game and an Inland Sea map, so I thought I stick this one out. Inland Sea can really be a beast of a map.

I went a straight worker tech approach, shunning wonders until TGL. AG>AH>BW>POT or something like that. I wanted cottages as soon as I could to fund a fairly decent expansion rate - 10 cities by 1AD. BK snuck in and took a barb city next to SB which he end up keeping all game.

Tech pace was pretty slow in the BCs for me and the AIs, as I pushed out of my economic hole from lots of cities. However, the amount of cities and cottages, plus TGL started to pay off some. Still, Libbing MT at 1000AD was not that great although I could have pushed it a bit sooner had I desired. Regardless I had a strong tech lead, especially militarily at this point. My dates were impacted a lot by lack of tech trading opportunities, except for some initial tech trading early on in the Alpha phase. For one, Gandhi would have been useful but I stay at war with him for a very long time so that I could keep others at war. Sury/SB would never trade with me and everyone else just sucked with teching early so there was nothing there.

Interestingly, Wang, who I deemed my first target anyway, had gone fist mode against me quite early. I pushed this off with begs like 3 or 4 times. The good thing is this worked out such that he DOW'd - I knew he would - just a couple of turns after getting Curs. So I just waited for the DOW as opposed to attacking him directly as a) his large stack would be easy pickings b) no diplo hit. BK and Wang were Bud with me, but Wang went fist mode before hitting pleased with me.

Wang attacks and I gradually wipe out his stack as I'm whipping away curs left and right. Then I push in a take several cities and Seoul, then cap him.

Meanwhile, Sury, who is just massive has been at war pretty much the whole time with Monty and SB. (I'd kept Monty at war constantly with Gandhi as well as bribing BK twice on Gandhi. Gandhi held his own quite nicely) Sury eventually vassals SB and makes peace with Monty with nothing happening on that front.

BK is Friendly so I decide to go straight for Gandhi and then Monty, both of whom cap very quickly. I give back their cities after upgrading Curs to Cavs, which I have at this point.

Now for Sury/SB tandem, and this is where things really bog down. I don't know exactly how to draw a picture for you about this, but Sury had just freakin' gobs of units. I mean tons. He had a large empire anyway, but he was producing units like crazy.

I had a large stack in Monty's land. I DOW'd Sury but let him bring is large SoD into Aztec lands where I promptly ride Sury of that stack. On the SB front I had another stack put together that went to work taking his cities.

Even wiping out that huge stack of Sury's did not put much of a dent into his overall army. His cities were just full of units, so this final war was just long and slow as I had to be cautious. I even had to take a 1t or 2t ceasefire as one point I just took a city that was in danger due to one of his stacks, as well as my own rather injured units.

Sury was so powerful that SB never even broke away from Sury before I just wiped SB away. I decided that it would work out to hit Dom by just taking Sury out altogether as opposed to moving all my units back way over to HRE, although in hindsight I really should have just setup a stack to take on HRE simultaneously.

So I continued to whittle away at Sury's empire until I finally wiped him out. It wasn't that I had a lot of losses really as much as Sury just had so many fargin units, it was ridiculous. Plus, he had tons of cities and units. His last few cities went down easily and then it was just a matter of border popping to end the game.

Pretty fun game although a rather sloggy war with Khmer.

Some of my empire:

Spoiler :

End Tech:

Spoiler :

 

[teakbois]

Monarch 1949 victory by PANZERPOCALYPSE (conquest)

Spoiler :

1830 is where it all began. Korea capitulated after 1 and a half turns.

Next up, was Sitting Bull. Even with his protective machine guns he was no match for the treads of doom. Had to take 3 or 4 of his city and was knocking on Cahokia's door when he threw in the total.

Next up was Suryavarman. What a pain in the ass. Tons of units and resisted capitulation, and loved to sneak behind to retake cities. Which i used to my advantage, because by then I had lots of city raider 3 and higher Panzers, so i would take a city, leave it empty with a stack outside and wait for him to reclaim it. Also, he learned the hard way you cant fight the PanzerPocalypse with tanks

Finally I was knock, knock, knockin on Monte's door

This was the merger of all my troops from the Khmer war

Spoiler :

While he had what he thought was a large stack in his capital, it was crushed by the treads of doom. And he wisely surrendered. Not enough for domination, it was time for Gandhi.

Now all this while my cities were still producing units, because I was too lazy to go switch em to something else. I could have won Diplomatic at this stage but I wanted to see this through. ended up clicking next turn once my stack was done its actions.

Gandhi lasted two cities, but it still left me short of domination. So Charlemagne was not to be spared today

But he didnt need much punishment before admitting that his anti-tank guns were no match for the Panzerpocalypse

final units built/units killed totals:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

this was actually my first conquest or domination game, I usually win via space because I suck at going to war. but I think all things considered given my goal was to use the panzers, I did alright. If I was more ambitious I could have attacked Charlemagne while attacking Monte and Gandhi, but I didnt realize I would have to deal with Charlemagne at all.

 

[JBossch]

1854AD Diplo-mation victory:

Spoiler :

Glancing at some of the others that won earlier, seems like attacking SB first may have been best. I was actually allied with the Buddhist Wang and Charlemagne for a while, but eventually converted to Jewish to ally with SB and Sury.

Anyway, I wonder-spammed in the beginning, grabbing most of the stone and marble stuff, which is always fun. I grabbed steel with Liberalism around 1080AD I think, proceeded to whip up a bunch of cannons to go with my rag-tag axe/mace/musket army and DoWed Wang. From then it was pretty much non-stop war until the end, with a break after capping Ghandi to upgrade to infantry and artillery to take on Sury (who had Monty as a vassal).

The main thing that slowed me down was Charlemagne. Not that he was difficult, he just refused to cap until he was down to 2 garbage cities. I've never seen anything like it. So that war was really a grind and put a serious damper on my economy. Had to run 30% culture to combat the war weariness and emancipation anger.

After Sury and Monty capped, I was able to win the next vote for UN diplo victory, just shy of the land requirement for Domination.

Spoiler :

SB teched like crazy in my game, but I was prepared to hit him with a fairly large infantry/artillery army, which I planned to supplement with a few turns of building tanks.

Spoiler :

Thanks for the game Klonoklown! Inland sea was a fun twist.

 

[Smilingrogue]

Chalking this one up as a loss for me. The only good thing was I managed to Lib Rifling in 1160 AD. I never Libbed it before and it was fun arranging all the pieces needed to Lib it.

Spoiler :

Other than that, it all went to hell.

Spoiler :

First, I get locked out of every strategic resources except Copper, I had like four copies of the damn thing and nothing else, no Horse, no Iron and I couldn't trade for them either as people either don't like me enough or I don't have enough GPT to pay for it.

After Libbing Rifling, I drafted an army in a hurry and capitulated Wang after taking his nice Shrine.

Spoiler :

But everything was already going downhill from here. Gandhi was running away with tech, Monty declared war on Suryavarman and capitulated to him after losing one bloody city! It's irrtating that I had to nearly wipe out Wang just to cap him but the AIs will apparently throw themselves at other AIs as vassals if they look at them mean!

Sitting Bull got to Rifling by the time I managed to crawl to Steel and I still beat him black and blue by bumrushing. His stack's dead, his 11 city empire cut down to 5 cities with another city about to go and he won't capitulate. Gandhi's going culture, Sury is huge with 14 cities and an 8 city Monty as a vassal. I am not teching well at all to keep up and war weariness is decimating my cities. I don't have the heart to slog through anymore.

Another loss on the Inland Sea map script. Oh, well, time to play Toku NC game.

 

[rfcfanatic]

@teakbois

Nice stack Did you whip it or rush-buy it?

 

[teakbois]

@teakbois

Nice stack Did you whip it or rush-buy it?

Neither. just non stop panzer production (with 2 cities making artillery). All cities had factories/power and I ran police state.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Spoiler :

fairly large infantry/artillery army

Spoiler :

Fairly large or... humongus. I count close to 150 units...
Any particular reason why the army is stacked on a single tile?

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Imm, normal:
4000 BC - 1 AD.

1 AD - 500 AD:

Spoiler :

Round starts at +3gold/t, +21beaker/turn. Research is courtesy of the Pyramids.
Closing in on 10 cities, Currency is the next tech target (compulsory). Then Music (optional).

Objective is to stabilize the economy asap. Primary steps are:
- spread of state religion;
- keep up with the worker count (10 -> 15);
- Get a few more libraries to run scientists / multiply commerce;
- Grow cities;
- accelerate Great People production.

Bonuses: Hanging Gardens in Berlin, GLib and National Epic in Zhou.

325 AD, Music is done, there is an interesting happening. Khmer has completed 3 wonders at once:

Spoiler :

Failgold is almost exclusively whip overflow from when I didn't have much to overflow into.

Lay of the land at that point:

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Just... one... more... turn. 500 AD:

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-56 gold/turn, +204 beakers/turn. Now we're out of the hole. Actually 2nd in GDP.
I'm going for Machinery as I intend to bulb Engineering before getting Civil Service (did skip Fishing + I'm pretty sure I have enough production to invade neighbours). Alternatively, one could switch into Caste System to breed lots of little Cantaloupians increase the research rate.
Philosophy has been bulbed already but Khmer founded Taoism (Espionage is now split between Korea and Khmer).
Few turns to Sistine Chapel.
3-4 turns till Hamburg completes the Heroic Epic.
Confucianism (Apostolic Palace religion) spread to our newest city. That's good: I'll spread & convert.

Our minimal army:

Spoiler :

Hey, that's enough to take a city, so who cares? War happens next turn. Korea is tied in their war against HRE (Charlemagne captured 1 city already). They'll be easy pickings. 0 chance for a counter-offensive. Ok, to be fair, maybe I'll wait for a reinforcement unit: there's a Korean Horse Archer nearby; not sure it'll go towards the HRE front.

 

[Izuul]

@BiC

Spoiler :

Nice fg there. What's the long range plan? Trebs, maces, and xbows followed by cannons and grens?

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@Izuul:

Spoiler :

Thanks, I used to have lots of trouble shaping up the economy after RExing too hard. Recovery was pretty good, this time. Capture gold, fail gold and representation specialists all helped a lot.
I'd like to transition into a mounted war at some point. I think. I don't have a stack, yet, so I don't feel tied to any particular type of war.
But, yes, Cannon warfare is tempting as well. Depends how well a 1-move army survives. I'd like several armies, if allowed. Khmer is strong but Sitting Bull is weak, so having one army in the west and another in the south is a possibility.
With 11 cities and the Heroic Epic almost built, I know I want units now. Not sure about next eras.

Long-range target n°1 could be Communism for State Property (0 maintenance issues).
Railroads would be very nice but maybe the tech comes too late (hastens reinforcements to circle that inland sea).
It's also contradictory with Communism. A major question is: when to research Scientific Method? Maybe it shouldn't be researched at all. Could focus on Assembly Line + Combustion. Pyramids + Hanging Gardens also mean I might get to found Mining Inc., which supports this tech path. Not sure about Sankore/Spiral Minaret, yet (also supports a delay on Sci Meth).

This is all dependent upon the AIs tech pace and our conquest pace. So... I'll see and adapt.
For now, I can tell maybe I won't be first to Liberalism. Suryvayarman has Philosophy and has had Civil Service for some time, now.
I'm going there after Machinery, though, so maybe I can get to Lib -> "something". Short-term, I just need another Great Scientist before reaching Civil Service (bulb Engineering rather than Paper). Prolly I'll switch into Caste System once most infrastructure is done and the Heroic Epic city pumps enough units to reinforce an already existing army (so I can bulb into Education and maybe more).


What does fg mean? EDIT: got it, that's "fail gold". No wonder the urban dictionary couldn't help...
Aye, got at least 600g. Could have used the Parthenon but losing it ain't crucial at all. Mostly I wanted the culture in a border city (same goes for S. Paya). Sistine will solve any culture issue. Stonehenge helped a lot already.
Actually, Industrious leader + stone + marble makes for a rather easy game.

 

[DanielTorrence]

Well, what can you say, inland sea is kind of a different play, gives the AIs a lot of room. I am not used to settle that much land in the early game. Still, a fun map.

I followed Izuuls approach and early settling, although I have no idea how one can finish the mids so early, it took me until 725 B.C.

Spoiler :

I researched AH, Wheel, BW, Agriculture, Pottery and then went for aesthetics, which Gandhi had already. WK did not declare early and allowed me some peaceful wonder whoring, so I got the mids and TGL, the rest of the stone wonders went for fail gold. Some wars between Charly and Gandhi and Monti took place, slowing the overall tech rate and allowing me to lib rifling around 1120 I think. It took me another 6 turns to research MT. Plan was to upgrade my elephants/knights with the money from three GM, but WK declared on me three turns to early and my GMs where transfered back from Seoul (ToA) into my territory. After building enough Cav, it was WK, then Charly (at war with Monti), Gandhi, Monti and the rest (Clockwise). SB took some time, since he had Machine guns, which eat Cavalry for lunch, but my vassals and some airships did their job okay.

A late victory, but I consider everything before 1700 A.D. a quite okay finish date.

Thanks for hosting.

 

[DanielTorrence]

Spoiler :

Hey, that's enough to take a city, so who cares? War happens next turn. Korea is tied in their war against HRE (Charlemagne captured 1 city already). They'll be easy pickings.

That is an impressive rexing. My question here is:

Spoiler :

Why do you plan to attack WK with such a small stack? Only for that one city? Because I don't see any troops to push on afterwards. You could trigger a GA to farm two or three GS with pacifism, that would bring you in the position to bulb Lib, if you stay away from machinery, and go on from there. But it might be faster to start a war at that point of the game and not later, when the AIs are taking off (which they will with their 10+ cities)

 

[BornInCantaloup]

^@DanielTorrence:

Spoiler :

Yes, basically, I'm just invading for 1 city, because I can, since Charlemagne is doing the heavy work. I also have 2 spare archers garrisoned in nearby cities, btw (should have moved them).
Next units will have to wait a little but no more than 4-5 turns. In 10 turns, maybe, I'll be able to push forward again.

However, more elaborate reasons aren't lacking:

- Wang is the only Buddhist. As such, he is useless longterm and should be erased from the map. Even more so since the Apostolic Palace religion recently spread to me.
- Seoul hosts the Mausoleum of Mausoles. I'd like to capture that before launching a golden age. It would be kinda bad if Charlie did capture Seoul.
- Wang is already at war, it's not like I'll switch him into war mode. On the contrary: one less city = less units produced.
- Golden Age right now could take us to Military Tradition relatively fast but that would be a delay nevertheless. Also, I'd rather trigger a GA when the production bonus is relevant, too (not just the GPP boost).
- Half the tiles of that border city already are in our culture. There are also plenty of forests to convert into units/buildings.
- Heroic Epic. That's a stand-alone reason but would be more relevant in 10 turns (not thaaat long).
- Our land is mostly improved/infrastructure is almost done: we can manage with more land and we can get a production spike via chopping.
- We're facing Archers/axes/HAs/WEs: with catapults, elephants and swordsmen of our own, our tech level is appropriate. Soon, trebuchets will give us a fine edge.
- Wang has several happy ressources we need (for ourselves and for trades), especially since we're not running Hereditary Rule: wine, dyes, spices. Those are important to get asap.

Well... not many excellent reasons in there but it all adds up. You get the idea It's a mix of diplo opportunity (when will Charlemagne settle for peace? That I do not know...) and of production capabilities.
EDIT: finally, I have vision over Wang's territory since he stole the secrets of Horseback Riding... so I could see Charlie's stack before he captured a city. It's pretty large, there were about 10 units. So I trust him.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

War Chariots and Quechua are awesome and I might put Conquistadors in the same category, but for my money the Indian Fast Worker is the best UU in the game. Panzers are lame.

The Fast worker is tied with the Quechua for being strait up stupidly broken for certain games, No Barb lucky hut HoF games makes the Fast worker the best unit in the game, and still super strong in all other situations. But the War Chariot comes in a very close second as it can win the game on it's own before Monarch, and a lot of the time on Monarch. But there is no way that Conquistadors come close to the same category as Immortals, Praetorian, or Vultures. Conquistadors make the top 10, but even then they are bottom 7 tied with Redcoats, and the 3 4 power no resource units. Granted they are good, but they are not god mode. But yes Panzers are possibly the worst UU in the game.

About the start I don't see why anyone would want to do anything but SiP here. You have an amazing cottage capital, and moving would lose your only hill that is seen.

 

[lymond]

I rate Conks as top tier, right below War Chariots and Fast worker. (I honestly don't really even recognize the Quechua). Definitely top 3 UU. Granted, I judge everything by its efficacy on higher levels. I don't consider Praets, IMMs and Vultures even close to those 3 units, although you can easily stomp with any one of those on lower levels.

 

[Izuul]

Immortals can be almost that good if you are able to choke early and cut off metal.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

^@DanielTorrence:

Spoiler :

A little more on the DoW with minimal stack:
- you were right about the number of units: the earlier the war, the less units the AI will have. That's convenient and, arguably, just as nice as having a tech advantage;
- war didn't happen. Clicked end turn and Charlemagne capitulated Wang. Another reason to wage those wars of opportunity asap, even though Player might not be fully ready.

@Detouring via Engineering. Might have been a mistake. Or trading for Code of Laws might have been the mistake, since it unlocked the Philosophy bulb, delaying Engineering by about 10 turns.

660AD: Getting it next turn and Civil Service the turn after. That's rather late.
Sury has Nationalism (is probably starting on Taj Mahal).

Not sure who and how I'll invade, now That's what plans are for, being foiled.

 

[Izuul]

@BiC

Spoiler :

Sury is probably the long-term threat on this map. He's consistently one of the most balanced and competent AIs in the game.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Yup,

Spoiler :

Indeed, he's got the lead I wonder whether he'll go for Cuirassiers soonish. Sitting Bull is in the way with plenty of hill cities. Both are Confucianist (AP religion, which Sury controls), so he's got a nice buffer, there.