Immortal University XXIII: Saladin

[poky123]

First game on Immortal - jumped from noble

Normal speed

to 1380 AD, my plan was to get grens+ cannons and start taking land...

Spoiler :

My five cities

475 BC
http://s59.photobucket.com/albums/g317/lokpq/?action=view&current=Civ4ScreenShot0012.jpg

Another look at my cities at 475A AD
http://s59.photobucket.com/albums/g317/lokpq/?action=view&current=Civ4ScreenShot0012.jpg

Going ok-ish in terms of tech trading
http://s59.photobucket.com/albums/g317/lokpq/?action=view&current=Civ4ScreenShot0013.jpg

A look at my capital at 780 AD - getting a GM out for trade mission, plan is to use that money later on to upgrade trebs to cannons- though I'm still a long way from getting trebs. Also I built a cottage on one of the wine resource early on and decided not to change it
http://s59.photobucket.com/albums/g317/lokpq/?action=view&current=Civ4ScreenShot0015.jpg

A look at the tech trading screen when I got philosophy, it appears that William and Qin have already researched it long before me, probably won't get to Liberalism first. Will try anyway by bulbing Education which cuts the turns required for research by half (22 to 11, if i remember correctly)
http://s59.photobucket.com/albums/g317/lokpq/?action=view&current=Civ4ScreenShot0016.jpg

http://s59.photobucket.com/albums/g317/lokpq/?action=view&current=Civ4ScreenShot0021.jpg
http://s59.photobucket.com/albums/g317/lokpq/?action=view&current=Civ4ScreenShot0022.jpg

As expected, I was beat to Liberalism. Ah well, beelining to steel to upgrade my stack of trebs...
http://s59.photobucket.com/albums/g317/lokpq/?action=view&current=Civ4ScreenShot0024.jpg

1350 AD, Bismark declares war, he had it planned out the whole time...Huge stack of death crosses the border
http://s59.photobucket.com/albums/g317/lokpq/?action=view&current=Civ4ScreenShot0025.jpg[
1380AD, retreat trebs back to capital, put my small group of musketmen in medina in an attempt to halt the attack hoping there'd be some sort of miracle...they die the next turn, GM has finally arrived, but it was over...
http://s59.photobucket.com/albums/g317/lokpq/?action=view&current=Civ4ScreenShot0027.jpg

Well...1 turn before chem was done, which I might have been able to trade for nationhood and have a small chance of drafting musketmen. Or if Bismack wasn't being a douche and left me alone, Id probably have a chance to crush William.

Erhm... Immortal is so darn hard imo... most of the time I had most of my cities set to research in order to keep up in techs (not actually keep up as in 1 for 1, but having a monopoly on a certain tech and then trading to keep even in tech) can anyone provide me with some feedback or tips? this game was pretty iffy, not too sure or anything and so on...

some things to note are - I did not whip, Built Hamasses (Library) in every city, forges in cities that would be producing units, market in capital, chopped wood only for buildings, and some other things like racks in production cities, etc...

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Yay new youtube playthrough.

TMiT:

Spoiler :

That's an interesting plan and I'll definitely try it in the future. But in my game the only possible option to involve Hat in some war was Qin and Bis hates him, so no way for him to reach Egypt. I don't think they can nuke each other on neutral land anyway. So I've tried nukes+inf vs Hatty myself and actually got MY stack nuked.

And I had to defy the nuke ban TWICE.

I'll just reload and go with inf/artillery.

 

[PaulisKhan]

I found this one to be the easiest of all the IUs so far (and yay for not being surrounded by mongols or protective civs >.<)

1655 Conquest (not a great finish date but the result was never in doubt)

Spoiler :

-Moved settler south to claim the rice
-built two cities, one on horse to claim two seafood (this was my primary gp farm throughout) and the other to claim pigs and hills.
-Capital and pig/hills built axes for a relatively late axe rush on Willem, he's such a pushover in the early game that I wasn't really worried.

Lots of good land, cottaged newly acquired Dutch lands and was running a few specialists here and there.

Hit the egyptians with a mix of swords and axes as they were mostly just running around with war chariots, they capitulated to the greeks and dragged them in so I paused the war while I built up more troops, fortunately they broke free from the greeks at the same time that the peace treaty wore off.
I went in to finish them off, halfway through she capped to Bismark and dragged HIM into the war against me, I finished her off though and sued for peace with the germans.

Hit the greeks with maces and they capped 2 turns later after losing just 1 crappy city

At this point I consolidated and raced towards cannons, took chemistry from Lib. Declared war on Bismark with a mix of cannons and maces, capitulated him after capturing his capital (with 7-8 WW's) and two other cities (including Sistine).

A few turns later I hit the Americans and capitulated them after taking two weak cities, a few turns after that I capitulated the chinese after capturing just two of their weakest cities.

I'm not really all that informed about capitulation threshholds but this one seemed particularly easy in that regard. Everyone just bent over for me.

Was a pretty wierd game for me.

ps. Sugar/banana/gems city is one of the best ironworks/HE cities I've seen. So many grassland hills and enough food to run a few grass workshops too

I also moved my capital to the former dutch capital around the time Education came in so I could maximise Oxford. This was a rediculously good city, especially with a levee in place.

Didn't build any WW's though I took a shot at Taj and GLib (lost out both times to Industrious marble owning hammer heavy bureau capital Bismark)

 

[Ginger_Ale]

I am interested in downloading the save and playing a shadow game. However, I have the BUG mod installed in the MODS folder so that I can play MP games without the CustomAssets folder screwing things up. Is there a way I can get this WorldBuilder save to load in the BUG mod?

When I tried to load the BUG mod and then select Custom Scenario, I ended up with no interface. Any workaround?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

To be honest, I'm not very familiar with BUG because I'm in the minority that doesn't like it. Is it possible to load non-BUG standard BTS saves? You could always try starting the scenario w/o it, saving it, then loading BUT and loading it :/.

 

[PaulisKhan]

Hmm, I play these IU games BUG mod enabled so it's possible, but I'm no help on the technical aspects of making it work.

 

[Lansky]

Normal/Immortal
1898 Culture

Kinda long since its all in one write up so pics are spoilered

Spoiler :

In a peaceful mood lately I guess. I actually really like Saladin as a war leader with Pro/Spi but meh. So instead I go agriculture>pottery timing the worker so he finishes the same time pottery is in. Settled on the inland river wine (since you can&#8217;t settle on an oasis gdi!) and decided to just cottage the holy **** out of the river and forget resources. Not entirely normal but it kinda works out since it&#8217;s a peninsula and one city blocks Willem off fairly well. Speaking of which I didn&#8217;t scout so well and um&#8230; one from the coast? Doh!

Spoiler :

Oh well. Set research to 0 after writing, which came immediately after pottery no other worker techs needed! Working unimproved hills to finish the madrassa was quite amusing to me. Once it was in Mecca had several villages and Willem had spread Buddhism to me though I waited for him to ask me to switch for the easy diplo. I sped to Lit/Drama/Music relatively speaking and traded Aes to backfill. Willem gave me Ironworking and then a few turns later the nice guy gave me iron too when I pushed his borders back. Go madrassa go!

Spoiler :

Oh first to music. Left all the forests up for this reason here. It is going to take centuries to finish this thing even with every forest going into it. The GA is settled in Medina as to ensure I don&#8217;t lose ground to Willem.

Spoiler :

Head to Philosophy while building the two wonders and settling a southern city claiming the rice/copper/spices/sheep. This acted as a worker/settler pump since the other two cities spent 20+ turns building wonders by quarrying nonexistent marble with herrings. The herrings of Medina were much stronger and finished first. Feeling pretty confident about completing the Sistine first I went ahead and packaged Music with Philo in widespread trades. Considering I did not have CoL/CS/Monarchy and was 2nd to Philo it still paid off really well. I&#8217;m already hitting WFYABTA, luckily it does not last long.

Spoiler :

The Sistine Chapel! Wooooo!

Spoiler :

Willem already had paper but not Edu yet so with a GS coming soon I decide to try for Lib figuring with my pile of gold still holding up I have a shot. Well I bulb Edu, put a few turns into it to finish and the turn I finish Willem decides to be annoying!

Spoiler :

Bastard. Just as all my cottages were growing up too. Should have had more than 4 cities and I would have won probably. Oh well Sistine will help a bit towards a cultural victory at least. I snag Nationalism and trade it around and do the same with PP. Put a GS bulb into Astro and am chugging along. Cottages are maturing but I desperately need US for the hammers and rush buy. I&#8217;m still whipping in Universities and now Observatories. Most cities have enough food that it doesn&#8217;t matter too much but whipping Mecca is painful. Suddenly everyone goes to war and I even jump in for some diplo. Qin is essentially a world enemy and Willem spit in Washington&#8217;s cereal or something.

Spoiler :

Well Washington is marching on Willem and has him destroyed, but I don&#8217;t want Willem going down. Willem and Hatty are my barrier to the rest of the world atm so I pay Washington off.

Spoiler :

Instead of turning off research at PP I decide to go for Mass Media to get broadcast towers. I feel I tend to turn off research too early normally. I reach Physics first and put an academy in Mecca. GP generated from my cities? 2. GP generated from techs? 2. I trade around physics but I do however hang onto my monopoly on Electricity and see how long it will last me. I also set gold to 100% to ensure I get the culture wonders. No Kremlin but it works well enough!

Spoiler :

Oh and Electricity is still all mine.

Spoiler :

Complete Mass Media and decide to tech Medicine for Environmentalism before shutting down. Reasoning was I&#8217;m using windmills for the extra commerce plus I can then trade away some health resources for even more gpt. Along the way I nab these two nifty things. GP generated by me #3 and it&#8217;s only 1745AD! I know right. I&#8217;m amazing.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

This Is a picture of me rush buying Hollywood that I can't find. Use your imagination!

I swap to full culture permanently from here on and the rest of the game can be summarized with these pictures showing diplo moves and pressing enter. Sure I can train infantry and go terrorize the world but I&#8217;d rather just play a game of cma with the AIs.

Pay Washington to end a war against Willem 2.

Spoiler :

Declare war on Qin 2.

Spoiler :

Pay Quin to end war when I see transports coming.

Spoiler :

Pay Washington to end a war against Willem 3.

Spoiler :

Victory.

Spoiler :

 

[Gliese 581]

Deity, Normal to 1000 AD:

Spoiler :

Decided to settle on the wine NE for extra commerce after moving warrior unto plains hill but not finding the coastal spot very exciting.

Went after Poly first working the second wine for 12 beakers while building warrior and got hindu at turn 12. This is usually the sweet spot for hindu (buddhism is turn 9 most often so go for hindu) so if you can hit 12 beakers and have mysticism you've got a fair shot of success. Turns out it was useless since I'm on a pangaea. Oh well it was mostly for horsehockys and giggles, it can be very good with some luck. It was funny to see TMIT settle the same spot in his video and also his decision not to go for the early religion. Well I can't blame you it's always kind of a gamble, but it makes things more interesting.

I met Willem early but since I was slowed down a bit by the religion gambit I decided to use warriors for spawnbusting the jungle and to rush a settler to claim gems before Willem gets there as he's close.



A second settler blocks of my peninsula just in time, Willem has a settler 1W of my chariot here. He was stupid enough to move them only 2 tiles from Medina but I would have beat him to the sugar by 1 turn even if he'd hugged the coast. As you can see I wanted 2 cities in the vicinity but Willem forced my hand here.



After that fairly standard play, no wonder-runs with lack of resources traits and forests in general. The jungle cities and less than awesome capital as well as some military buildup when Willem went into WHEOOHRN (turned out he was after Hatty) made for slow development and I was a bit careless with trades so that I narrowly missed several windows.

First I only got IW for Alpha then I got only Maths for COL (1 other civ had it). I got good return on Compass though after that and later on Edu. Fortunately there's been lots of conflicts between AIs so they've been slow as well despite the fact that more or less everyone is a techer.
I put all EPs on Willem from the start so I could see his teching as he went for Lib. I got there first in 940 AD with the help of 1 edu and 1 lib bulb.

I've decided to attack Willem with cuirassiers, I have enough EPs to revolt at least his two closest cities - a good thing since one of them has the SOZ and sistine chapel - and he's in WHEOOHRN and preparing to attack Hatty a 2nd time so hopefully his army will be occupied. With this in mind I picked Nat.
I traded Edu for Machinery, Feudalism, Drama, Lit, Theocracy, HBR, Optics and about 500 gold, not bad. The best part is Willem was 1 turn from finishing it and now he gets no trade value at all.



I put in 4 cities under my blockers for 7 total as you can see, here's a shot from 1000 AD when I stopped, building war infra. I really love the spiritual ability to switch for free between OR, Philo, Theo CS and Slavery here, it's made this game so much easier. Well that and the fact that Willem chose Hatty over me as enemy, allowing me to run buddhism safely in defiance of the rest of the world and utilize the powerful religious civics.



Techs. I'm probably going to sell Music to Washington for 310 gold since I need about 700-750 gold to deficit research 18 turns at 100% for the 2 remaining techs I need (Gunpowder and MT). I'm very tempted to take Hattys gold as well but I'm not sure as she's Pericles worst enemy and Bismarch Washington and Qin have hit WFYABTA. You can trade very aggressively in this game because of all the techers but I think I'm close to the limit with the last guys here.



There's also the possibility of trying for Economics and power-research to Rifling off a trade mission but if Pericles is going for it I'm going to lose that race anyhow and my window in 18 turns will be small enough as it is, I don't want to delay the attack on Willem any further than I have to.

 

[DampRain]

For all the people who've posted, it is pretty fun to see what you are all doing . GJ on the culture win lansky, although normally I look down on culture wins (I'm an aggressive player ^^"), I have to say it was pretty kool (to me at least ).

 

[mystyfly]

IMM/Normal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6u-b...x=0&playnext=1

Obviously viewing the video is a spoiler .

Edit:

There are 16 10 minute segments, so the first couple are good for the BCs, then you're into the ADs and so forth.

 

[Volapyk]

Haha love your you tube segments TMIT, I'm yet again surprised as to how much our playstyles match.

Even from your early thoughts of settling on the PH or scouting was exactly the same (Though I ended up settling on the hill)

 

[PaulisKhan]

I'm surprised at how few people moved south to claim the rice like me.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Imm/epic, 1812 - 1914:

Spoiler :

Turn off research, rushbuy gogogo.
First is Hatty:



1870 - UN in Thebes. Game is won. Well, not yet, but I'm in very good shape now. 2nd candidate is Washington.



1873 - Look at Hatty. Some 60 units running around her empire and she sends out a settler:



1879 - Hatty's out:



1883 - Next is Pericles. He has all the modern jazz: mech inf, modern armor, jet fighters, but not enough to stop the industrial zerg.
Peace treaties aren't active in this shot, but I've really abused Spiritual to prevent vassalization garbage. First, beg 10 gold from Qin. Then, switch to FS (Washington's fav civic) to push him again to pleased (dropped to cautious when I declared vs Pericles) and beg 10 gold from him as well. Then switch again to Bureau to keep Qin at friendly.
10 turns of forced peace with both of them are enough to take Pericles.



Shrines and wonders. Pericles was going for culture. At the end of the game I have all shrines except Taoism.





And Pericle is done. More diplo hits with Qin, but he's still safe at friendly.



I need a few more votes to win. Mehmed will do:





Nothing to worry about vassalization surprises. Meh is Will's colony. In the same turn Qin declares vs Washington and I join for even more diplo bonuses.

2 cities are enough. Looks like Qin razed some major american city. 29 points of population just vanished.







Demo:



Power. Qin and Washington was completely out of my league.



Stats:



Score:



Techs:



And diplo:




Forgot to mention, but Bis is Qin's vassal. Has been for a while.

Edit 2: Washington launched his ship when I was about to declare on Meh. Not fast enough.

 

[CivCorpse]

Great you finally play one of my favorite leaders and my computer is being worthless.

 

[ungy]

I'm surprised at how few people moved south to claim the rice like me.

where did you settle?
I figured it was better to go up to the river and get a mess of river tiles than the non-irrigated rice. Plus settling the wine gave the extra 1c from the start.

 

[ungy]

up to 1550

Spoiler :

took me a while to realize we were on pangea as Willem put all his EP's to me and initially I thought we were alone.
settled NE to the wine, blocked Willem settling on the banana and also the clam site on the W. Played nice and there was not a war until I attacked WIllem in 1330 with rifles/cannon. He bribed Bis and his vassal Greece in against me but it was pretty routine--(although he did have rifles). Took his capitulation and seems like it's an easy cruise from here.

 

[PaulisKhan]

where did you settle?
I figured it was better to go up to the river and get a mess of river tiles than the non-irrigated rice. Plus settling the wine gave the extra 1c from the start.

I settled south of the oasis. This let me work rice+cows+floodplains+oasis+2*hills at pop 6, knowing that I could then expand onto a minimum of 6 cottaged grassland and the spices once the happy cap went up. By the time my capital hits pop13 I'm going to have a lot of options available to me. I much prefer grassland over river plains for the early half of the game (I don't recall exactly but I think moving the warrior to the hill revealed a bunch of boring plains tiles to the N/NE which scared me off from moving that way).

I've become increasingly blase about settling 1 off the coast.

 

[shulec]

TMIT,

Excellent youtube playthrough. I have a question and possibly more to follow.

Once you got Civil Service, you offered it to Willem and he offered Metal Casting, Aesthetics and cash. And you removed the Aesthetics from the que, then made the trade. You said "I am only going to trade for the techs that I need." (Immortal 9 at 3:26.)

What is the benefit of passing up Aesthetics since he was willing to give it?

 

[tycoonist]

TMIT: can you just quickly tell me how you recorded this?

 

[Kadazzle]

TMIT,

Excellent youtube playthrough. I have a question and possibly more to follow.

Once you got Civil Service, you offered it to Willem and he offered Metal Casting, Aesthetics and cash. And you removed the Aesthetics from the que, then made the trade. You said "I am only going to trade for the techs that I need." (Immortal 9 at 3:26.)

What is the benefit of passing up Aesthetics since he was willing to give it?

Once you get X amount of techs (depends on leader) from a trade, people refuse to trade with you, stating "we fear you are becoming too technologically advanced" or something similar.