A Semi-Immortal Walkthrough, #2

[lilnev]

A Semi-Immortal Walkthrough, #2

by lilnev

Well the first one was fun, let's do it again. I'm playing immortal, small pangaea. This time I've left the sea level random, as well as climate, shoreline, leader, and AIs. No options checked, all victory conditions enabled. And let's roll the RNG



Isabella. Not too bad. Spiritual and Expansive aren't the very strongest of traits, but they're both reasonable. I'm not usually a big fan of knights, but conquistadors neutralize their greatest weakness (impotence in the face of a pikeman). I'm not sure I've ever played the Spanish since buying Warlords, so this is my chance to try out citadels. +5 experience for siege weapons sounds promising. Rocky climate, medium sea level.

The starting location also looks pretty good. Three food resources plus Silver. Here, I've already moved the warrior. I decided to move the settler one east before building, losing a turn and having fewer forests to chop, but gaining the ability to work the Silver and the plains hill on a river. I forgot to save at 4000 BC, so if you want to play along, you'll have to accept this decision.

Research Mining, build a boat as fast as possible. The next major decision came up quite soon:



Should I steal Roosevelt's worker? The Americans don't start with the Wheel, so it's unlikely he could recapture immediately. An early worker is a huge boon, not to mention a serious blow to my nearest rival. But do I want to make an enemy so soon? I do.

Well it was for nothing. A lion spawned in the scant space/turns between my warrior and home, and it ate the worker. Oh well. Meanwhile I made a minor faux pas in Madrid, failing to switch to the forest-plains-hills tile when my borders expanded. So I'm +3 food but -3H, hence one turn slower to put the boat in the water. Given that the boat can make up the 3F in a single turn by working the fish, this represents a straight-up loss of 3 hammers. Damn, I really wanted that worker.

Next tech: Bronze Working. No Copper, of course.The boat goes to work on the Fish. I build a warrior (not sure this is correct), then switch to the second boat. Fishing starts are always a little weird, often without an early worker (stupid lion, that worker would have helped a lot), but early slavery will straighten things out. At this point, I want a settler soon to claim the crazy-good flood plains plus double Gold spot to my north (see the screen shot below). But since I haven't met anyone else yet, I probably have time to whip out a worker (Expansive multiplies whip hammers when they're applied to a worker) and use him to chop the settler. I actually ended up whipping the boat, with the overflow getting the Expansive bonus towards the worker:



And my size 2 city gets to finish the worker off two improved seafood resources, which is a good thing. Ragnar has sent a scout to my lands. My warrior is temporarily blocked from exploring the lands NW of Madrid by a lion. But I'm patient, and Ragnar's scout eventually collides with it and kills it. On higher levels, the AI gets ridiculous bonuses against animals (and barbarians? I'm not sure). It's sometimes worth waiting to let it clear out hazardous animals before exposing my valuable early units. Roosevelt won't accept a cease-fire.



After BW, I researched the Wheel and Pottery, then Hunting (in anticipation of AH to work the Pigs). In retrospect, this was possibly wrong. My worker isn't ready to build cottages yet (he chopped for the settler, then mined for a permanent production tile. Now he's hooking up the Silver). Wheel, Ag, Pottery would have made more sense, with Ag cheapening Pottery and being more useful on its own than Hunting. Anyway, next up is Writing.

I settle Barcelona on the desert tile. No fresh water (but with Expansive I hope it'll be OK) and no coast (not so important on pangaea, but still nice), but the best set of tiles.

I sign open borders with Ragnar and decide to research Archery next. It feels wasteful (straight to Alphabet would be more common), but I'm worried Roosevelt will drop a couple of units on me. Maybe Hunting wasn't such a bad move.



Next settler is aimed for the NW Fish. It won't make much of a long-term city, but one Fish is all that's needed to run 2 scientists off a library, and for now that's plenty. I can get to work on those key early GSs while Madrid and Barcelona work on production and growing cottages. It'll be kind of slow to get off the ground, needing a monument for a border pop, then growing off the Fish until the library can be whipped. If I weren't at war with Roosevelt I'd consider trying to beat him to one of the spots between us, but now I don't want to risk it. There'll be time to take all he's got once I have catapults (I've grown increasingly cynical about the prospects of pre-catapult wars with these settings. Not that they're not a good idea, just that I seem to have metal in less than half of my games. And I'm not willing to take the chance on IW before Alphabet. If I miss, I'm too far behind in the Alphabet race to get back in it). Alphabet is next. It feels a little odd to wait on AH with Pigs to be worked, but I don't really need them yet. I won't be whipping heavily until I have access to a proper unit.



Mansa showed up in 1800 BC. Good. Roosevelt settled on top of the Stone. That seemed wrong at first, but on second thought may make sense. It allows a 2F3H1C city tile, squeezing an extra 2 hammers out of a food-limited city. I'll probably keep it when I take it.

A Barbarian warrior has appeared by Barcelona, so I whip the granary with overflow into an archer. My fortified warrior should be significantly favored, but the consequences of losing that fight would be devastating. No sense taking that chance.

1080 BC and Alphabet comes in. I am, of course, way behind.



Ragnar won't trade. He's not as bad as Tokugawa, but he's still on my short-list. I gift him crabs, since I don't need the health, hoping he'll thaw. I trade Alphabet to Mansa for Masonry+War vs. Roosevelt. Without knowing the map, it's hard to say whether they'll fight a serious war or not, but it should be distracting and poison relations between the two of them. The other option was IW+Meditation, also a reasonable choice, but I'd rather stir up trouble. Research Math, aiming for Construction.

Mansa becomes pleased, but won't give me AH. Anyone know the mechanics of that? I finally give Alphabet to Roosevelt for peace. He had three archers around Barcelona, which probably couldn't have taken it, but I was getting tired of the pillaging.



Madrid is running a couple of scientists as a temporary measure, since I don't need the production right now. I'll probably put the Great Library here if I get a chance, so those GPPs will be put to good use eventually.



More cottages. I think cottages have been getting a bad rap lately. I still believe in 'em. Mansa will trade Ivory, but he wants both Gold and Silver for it. Once I get the second Gold mine online and the Pigs hooked up, I'll offer him Gold + Pigs instead.

I gift Alphabet to Ragnar, bringing him to pleased but earning me a -2 with Mansa for trading with his worst enemy. Mansa and Roosevelt eventually make peace in 675 BC. Two turns before Construction is done, Ragnar demands I stop trading with Mansa, which I can't afford to do, so Ragnar is back down to cautious, and won't trade techs. Again. Sigh.

The Pyramids are built afar, and the next turn Ragnar adopts HR. I was hoping Roosevelt would build them for me. Oh well.

I finish Construction and trade it to Mansa for IW + AH. What do you know, I had Iron after all. Well, now I have catapults, too. (Don't worry, I switched Madrid to build a cat before ending the turn).



<continued in next post>

 

[lilnev]

Next up, Meditation and Priesthood in a total of 3 turns. I gift them to Ragnar to get him back up to pleased, but he still doesn't like me enough to trade Dye to me. And now Mansa has raised his price on Ivory; I cancel the Crab gift to Ragnar and trade Gold(spare)+Pig+Crab for Ivory. That's fine, I'm not health-limited, and I actually come out ahead on happiness.

Whipping catapults. The usual rules apply: whip for 2 pop at a time, 10 turns apart. Use tile- and queue-juggling to make that work out.

Finally, with 6 catapults and reinforcements on the way, it's time for ... WAR!!!



Atlanta falls at a cost of three catapults (one bad die roll). I'm the first to CoL (Confucianism founds in Seville; I'll save the missionary to hasten a border pop in a captured city, but Atlanta has Stonehenge so I've now got monuments). But only barely, and Ragnar won't give me anything but Ag for it, which I don't want to receive in trade ("... too advanced"). Mansa will give me Monarchy+30, which I take. Researching Lit. I may actually trade it away, effectively forfeiting the GL. We'll see what I can get for it.

I reassigned scientists in Madrid, to lightbulb Philosophy, hopefully for good trade value. Then I put one back onto a cottage for a few turns to time my growth correctly. During tricky periods like this, I check each city every turn. Yes, it's time consuming. But I won't enjoy the game if I don't believe I'm playing it as well as I can, and that means checking each city each turn.



One turn to a GS, 2 turns until the catapult is complete, 3 turns until I can whip again. Perfect. I can reassign the specialists to cottages, finish the catapult and put one turn's worth of hammers into the next unit, and be just about to grow when it's time to whip again.



Barcelona had to emergency-whip an elephant a few turns ago to fend off a stray swordsman. Its now seven turns until I can whip again, but the real priority is to regrow my size, so I'm emphasizing food.



Seville could support some whipping with the +4 food surplus, but I have another plan. As it grows the next two sizes, I'll assign scientists. That should get me a GS to apply towards Paper or Education.



I destroyed one stack of four units in the field. He's put together another stack. It's fine to slow the offense while I reinforce my front, heal, and deal with whatever the AI considers mobile. We'll hit the turtle stage soon enough.

After Philo comes in:



I haven't made this trade yet, but I'm strongly considering it. Roosevelt has nothing to offer Mansa, so I don't have to worry about tech trades between those two. Presumably I could get Calendar from Ragnar for Currency, and hopefully someday MC for Philo (he doesn't want to start trading it yet). Meanwhile I've started on Civil Service. Still no sign of the fourth neighbor. I'm marching a warrior north and east through friendly lands in search of him.



The stack in Washington, on a hill, looks too big to bust. I'll look around for some less well defended targets. I definitely want to take as much as I can off of Roosevelt before he gets Feudalism.

That's all for tonight folks. Sound off in the forums. Questions, comments, rants....



Still the world's best importer and exporter! Autographs available upon request. Seriously, I think the game is going fine. I need to take more land off of the Americans, and I'm a little disappointed that it won't be Washington, but my cities and cottages are strong, my tech position is solid, and I have a good army in the field. 'Til next time.

peace,
lilnev

 

[lilnev]

Here's some saves:

 

[ultra]

more to follow?

looking good, this is a good way to provide tips for less experienced players.

 

[jihe]

actually when I steal a worker now i only move him one step at a time on plains/grassland to go home in case of lions/bears. OK if a panther/wolf spawns it's dead anyway.

 

[obsolete]

I don't like that you gifted a resorce early to mansu. Why give him an advantage free in the hopes it may make him friendlier? If you wait, and he asks for it, then you can give it and still get a + for tribute.

 

[lilnev]

more to follow?

Yep, I'll probably play the next set of turns tonight or tomorrow. It's a bit time-consuming to write it up and upload it. Plus I got distracted by another game, that actually turned out quite interesting -- immortal standard continents, after a long axe war against Alex (he started it, I just hit back harder) I had a slight land advantage but a huge tech deficit (I had a lot of turns to go on Civil Service when Mansa discovered Liberalism). A lot of cottages and some savvy tech trading got me gradually caught up to eventually win a close space race.

actually when I steal a worker now i only move him one step at a time on plains/grassland to go home in case of lions/bears. OK if a panther/wolf spawns it's dead anyway.

Yeah, in retrospect I obviously wish I had. There were only two tiles on which an animal could have been lurking, but I probably should have respected them. I got greedy for the extra worker-turn.

I don't like that you gifted a resorce early to mansu. Why give him an advantage free in the hopes it may make him friendlier? If you wait, and he asks for it, then you can give it and still get a + for tribute.

It was to Ragnar, and I think it was correct. Trading techs is very important to leverage your research. Mansa will probably get ahead of me, meaning I want to be cautious about trading even more tech to him. But Ragnar will likely fall behind, so I want to able to trade techs to him that Mansa already knows, to backfill the holes that I'll leave in my tech tree. And because Ragnar is a bit of jerk, he'll only trade techs when he's pleased. Supplying a resource is kind of a slow way to get a +1, but it will eventually work. And I don't think the AI ever asks for your only source of a resource as tribute, does it?

peace,
lilnev

 

[lilnev]

Round 2

I started this round with a slightly different trade than I was considering at the end of the last: Philosophy to Mansa for Currency, War vs Roosevelt, and 220 gold. I don't really need Monotheism for anything (I'll stay in No State Religion for diplomatic reasons), so I'll preserve the Literature monopoly for now. Who knows, I might even try for the Great Library. But probably not, war is too urgent. I'd rather have more land than the GL. Sure enough, I'm able to trade Currency to Ragnar for Calendar.

Roosevelt, meanwhile, sent half his capital troops towards Atlanta. My stack nearest them stepped back into friendly lands and took him on. I killed four units (losing a suicide cat and an unlucky elephant), and rather than retreating his remaining four, which were at half strength due to collateral damage, he marched them forward and spread them out. OK. I'll kill them too. He retaliated with an elephant of his own. I guess he's got Ivory now. Damn. Whipping continues apace.

My forward stack found a softer target:



In situations like this, I'll sometimes attack without knocking down the walls first. The elephant is favored against any defender. So I'll spend a suicide cat to wound his axe, the elephant will kill the strongest defender (probably the collateralized archer, an easy fight), and the remaining three attackers have favorable matchups against two weak defenders (his cat doesn't get defensive bonuses). Expected losses: one catapult, maybe more with a bad roll, maybe less if I retreat or get lucky. It's a little bit tight -- I'd rather have one more attacker in case things go badly from the start, and if he has a counter-attack I'm not well positioned to fend it off -- but I think it's better than giving him time to reinforce. I have no reinforcements any time soon.

In fact, I got a bit lucky this time. My suicide catapult retreated, and I didn't lose any of the favorable fights. Total losses: nothing. Except for the Swordsman when he counter-attacked with a Horse Archer, but I still held the city.



I decided to try to reconfigure my resource trades with Mansa. The AI values health and happiness equally, and will trade them one-for-one, but it values strategic resources at a premium. The risk is that he might have gained a resource on his own since these deals were set up, and he will no longer be interested in trading for something of mine. I'm not sure, but there may also be a diplomatic cost by reseting the 'supplied us with resources bonus'. Anyway, this is what I got:



I got my Crabs back (Atlanta and Seville were hitting health limits), and he threw in 5 gpt to boot. Good times.

Ragnar has had Metal Casting for a long time, but been unwilling to trade it. Finally Roosevelt got it too, so Ragar gave me MC+240 for Philosophy. All this gold in trade allows me to run the science slider at 100%.

Civil Service finished and I switched to Bureaucracy immediately. Go Spiritual.



Mansa has a lot of cultural pressure on Philly. I decided to go for Music next, for the free artist as a culture bomb. This might be the first time I've pursued the Music race (even the words sound funny) in a high-level game, but I think the situation calls for it. It's a reasonable trade tech, too. No one else has Lit or Drama, so I should get it easily.

My elephant sallied forth, and will now pillage what is hopefully his only metal. Plus I spot the Ivory.

The defense of Washington is starting to look more reasonable. If I consolidate my defense of Philly (archer + spear are on the way) and bring up the reinforcements, I might be able to take it. Roosevelt doesn't have Feudalism yet, and no one will trade it to him (Mansa's at war, Ragnar's annoyed, and he doesn't have anything to offer in return anyway), so hopefully I still have a bit of time before he gets longbows.



Finally, Monty. I figured it was probably him or Toku, or possibly Isabella. Someone who got on Ragnar's nerves early and never got open borders to gain access to the rest of the world. He's annoyed with me and Ragnar, and furious with Roosevelt and Mansa. No friends and no trading, but he can't be bought into a war either. Oh well, he'll do it soon enough on his own, I guess.



Ragnar thinks I'm too advanced. I didn't think I'd traded for that many techs this game, but I guess his threshold is low. After Music is done, I give him a great discount on Literature, hoping to get him up to friendly so I can offer CS for Machinery. My 'fair trade relationships' bonus goes up to its max of +4, but no dice. In time, he'll probably become friendly, since he favors Hereditery Rule, in which I expect to be for a while.

I gift CoL to Monty, bringing him up to cautious, then trade CS+Lit for Feudalism. I don't value Feudalism nearly as highly as the AIs, but it eventually becomes a needed pre-req to Guilds/Banking/Replaceable Parts. Since the Literature cat is out of the bag, I go ahead and sell it to Mansa for 320 gold. I guess the Great Library will have to wait until next game.



I should be able to get Machinery from Ragnar, if he ever thaws, or else by trading away Music+MC to Monty when he gets it. Meanwhile, back to the war (after suiciding one catapult):



It fell at a total cost of 4 catapults. You see why I like war? It's so much more efficient than actually having to build all your own stuff. Ragnar did indeed thaw, but he barely values CS. He must have it mostly researched.



The known world. Seattle is junk without food. My army is nearing Chicago, which is lightly defended. New York is a fine city, too, though the cultural pressure would be even greater than that on Philly. My GA has just arrived in Philly, and I have to decide soon whether to use him there or save him for NY.

Monty just declared on Ragnar. I told you he would. That's good for me. I can take what I want from Roosevelt, then focus on either beating Mansa in a space race or simply overrunning him and taking his land. I suspect Ragnar will get the better of Monty -- he has macemen, plus a bit more production and power -- but not decisively enough to be dangerous.

Enough for tonight.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Tristan_C]

Hella nice guide... thanks for sharing and good luck on your ongoing debate with Roosevelt. I didn't know about the optimal cadence for whipping that you suggested, so I'll be rethinking my strategy a little bit next game. Ditto for your choices on sequence of early research.

One small question regarding the cats: what's your favorite promo for them? I generally do Barrage but I'm always tempted by Combat to just help their odds.

 

[lilnev]

Probably 1/2 or 2/3s of my cats get city raider promotions. If I'm suiciding it into 5+ units, I'll give it barrage instead (and so it's nice to avoid choosing promotions until the last minute if possible). If there's fewer units, I think the CR advantage against the principal defender is more valuable. I try to keep some of my more highly promoted CR cats alive, because there will be fights where they are favored but a lesser cat wouldn't be. And some of my cats get combat I followed by medic. These will knock down walls, mop up crippled defenders, and serve as emergency backup if needed, but try to avoid the frontal assault role.

peace,
lilnev

 

[luniz]

are you saying you'll be done with war after taking out Roosevelt? I can't imagine stopping once I have promoted war units and decent science. Seems like if you could completely crush Roosevelt, regroup, and declare on Mansu, you'd be better off. Hard to tell whether that's possible just reading the thread tho.

 

[lilnev]

I'm going to finish crushing Roosevelt (at least until he capitulates or is reduced to trashy tundra cities) and then probably pause to build some happy/health infrastructure, grow my cities onto a fuller set of cottages, and get to the next big military tech (probably Chemistry, possibly Military Tradition or Rifling). At that point I'll decide whether to tackle Mansa or just go for a space race, mostly depending on who has the land advantage, or just whichever appeals more. Honestly, I'm feeling pretty comfortable in this game -- I'm not behind in tech, I'm accumulating good land quickly, and there's little danger of an unexpected/unwanted war. I think I'll have my choice of victory conditions.

Ragnar and Monty are fast becoming irrelevent. Mansa's power is pretty high right now since he's been at war with Roosevelt as well. He's either highly pleased or friendly, though, so I'm not worried about him attacking me.

peace,
lilnev

 

[ungy]

Linev thanks for the thread and nice game. I've enjoyed both your games here and hope you continue posting more.

I assume you would take a capitulation here if offered--my (somewhat limited) experience is that if you don't Wash would capitulate to Mansa. Is that your take as well?

I'd also be curious if you could out space Mansa after the American war. I've no doubt you win from here if you attack MM later but not sure w/o.

 

[lilnev]

Round 3

As expected, Chicago fell fairly easily. I think one catapult and an elephant. I fought off a couple of pillagers while resting, regrouping, and reinforcing. War weariness is starting to hurt, so I put some cities to work on forges or markets for the happy bonuses. I'm planning to make Madrid into my GP farm (three good food resources should let it employ several specialists even with cottages instead of farms) and to put the Heroic Epic in Washington. I'm saving the GA for New York. Philly whipped a library and monastery. Once I get Drama and Free Speech, hopefully it can assert itself culturally.

Monty built the Great Library. Then he came to me for tribute:



Usually I give techs in tribute, but in this case I've got a Music monopoly, which I hope to parlay (along with Paper) into Machinery/Guilds/Engineering. Plus Monty is far away, and already engaged in a fight with a probably superior foe. I can live with the -1.

Monty's finally got Machinery, and he'll trade it to me for Philosophy+170.

I interrupt researching Education (no one else has Paper yet) to pick up Drama in three turns, which I promptly sell to Mansa for 410. I wanted Drama anyway for theaters; it just paid for itself by allowing me to keep the slider high for a while more (if I didn't have gold from pillage and trades, I'd be running around 60%). Monty and Ragnar make peace (for now; I suspect I can stir up more trouble soon).



Time to take New York. We'll see if Roosevelt wants to capitulate after this. If so I'll accept, to keep him from vassalizing himself to Mansa.



It only costs me two catapults, and I paint the Mona Lisa immediately. I didn't know until recently that this ends the unrest that normally follows a city's capture. Saves me eight turns in this case. Roosevelt still won't capitulate.

A few turns later, Monty has Engineering. I trade Paper+Music to him for Engineering+40. He's still annoyed or furious with everyone, so hopefully the secret of Paper won't spread too far.

Madrid completed the NE:



I'll get specialists there quite soon, but I want to grow a few sizes so that I can stay on the cottages. Happiness limits have risen a lot. In fact, most of my cities are now emphasizing growth. The war is almost over. Washington has finished the HE:



I may as well make macemen, though as I grow I'll work cottages here too. Speaking of war:



Yeah, OK. His "stack" consists of just three units. I go ahead and pound Roosevelt, because I was set up to do that this turn anyway (my other stack is a bit larger than the highlighted one):



I took the city easily. He still wouldn't become a vassal, so I took peace for Mono+HR+map+170. I don't think I want his last two cities anyway. San Francisco is even worse than Seattle.

I deal with a few pillagers from Monty. Ragnar trades Compass to me for Music. I promptly trade Compass to Mansa for 470+map. Mansa is large. He hasn't fully cottaged, but I still think it'll be safer to kill him than to race him. He's currently friendly, so it'll be the truest form of backstab. I still have Paper on him, though he has Guilds and Banking, so when a GS is (finally) born in Seville, I decide to pick up Printing Press before finishing Liberalism.

The next turn, Ragnar became willing to declare on Monty for the low price of Drama. I'll pick off the nearest Aztec city, but then probably not pursue the war further.



This attack actually went rather badly, and I took six(!) casualties while taking the city. Which I razed, because it has no food and it's pressured hard by Viking culture. A few turns later Ragnar resettled the spot. That's fine, he can be the cork in Monty's bottle.

With Liberalism one turn from completion, I switched to Gunpoweder, hoping to sling Chemistry. I wouldn't try this on a continents map, without knowing how advanced the opposition is. If Mansa finishes Education soon, I'll have to go ahead and take Nationalism instead. That's not a bad thing either, as it's on the way to Democracy.



I've got land advantage, and tech advantage (Mansa has Guilds, Optics, and Banking, but I've got Education and Printing Press, and Liberalism is essentially done). I think I'll just cruise to an easy space ship win. Unless I'm in a bad mood the next time I play; then I'll kill, plunder, and burn.

peace,
lilnev