S. You missed my favorite part.
In the pre game we hypothesis about how the leaders traits UU/UB should be used. Usually in the post mortem you give your thoughts on how they actually worked out in practice. Was the apothecary much help or was the bonus not noticeable? And do you think the Immortal is as powerful as say a prat or a war chariot. Personally I think it's better then the WC.
A good point. Here's my take based solely on this game:
Immortals: I'd say they're on par with the War Chariot, which puts them very high on the list of the best UUs--just below the Praetorian, in my opinion. They're available early, they're cheap, and they have terrific bonuses. As you saw, you can base your entire early military on Immortals. And you can certainly use them to take out at least one or more nearby opponents.
My mistake was not getting
more use out of them. I was reluctant to send them against Huayna because he had metal for Spearmen, and because I was focused on conquering China. What I should have done was DoW'd on Inca
as well as China, then sent a couple of Immortals over to Incan territory early on to prevent Huayna from getting copper for Spearmen. Basically, keep one Civ down so they're easy pickings when I'm done with another. If I'd done so, I could have conquered the continent that much sooner and beaten my Mongolia ALC game score by a very big margin.
Apothecary: I didn't find this UB to be nearly as big a benefit as the Persian UU. Health doesn't become an issue for most cities until very late in the game. If I'd had a city with, say, 6-8 flood plains, it would have been a benefit much earlier, but I didn't, and even then that's only one city. The fact that I ran a specialist economy where commerce multipliers like the Apothecary were mostly unnecessary also limited its effectiveness.
We agreed pre-game that Cyrus lends himself to war-mongering; that pretty much means a Domination or Conquest win, and given the early UU, the sooner the better. That means--even in a game like this, where the domination win came later than it could have (see my comments on how I could have more effectively used Immortals, above)--that this UB will get limited play because of its lack of synergy with Cyrus' traits and UU. Overall, then, I'd say it's a good UB, but not a great one; definitely better than the Celtic Dun, but not as good as, say, the Egyptian Obelisk, the Mongolian Ger, or the Korean Seowon.
If it isn't too late for a request, I'd rather you do Stalin instead of Peter. I want to see someone do Agg/Ind.
Nice win. So who's next? I thought I saw mention of Catherine being the next leader, but I may have been mistaken. Be careful when playing as her. You'll need to grab latex as an early resource so your health doesn't go down.
The next ALC will be with Peter of Russia. I'm afraid your requests were counter-productive and only served to stiffen my resolve, reminding me that he's a very unpopular leader--which is exactly why I want to play a game as him.
As for the next ALC, I'd like to suggest playing with the Better AI mod. It's coming down the pike in BTS, so starting a Monarch game with Better AI would be a good preparation for playing BTS without the headache of trying to learn the new aspects of the game at the same time.
I like this idea a great deal, even better than moving up a level to Emperor. I already play all my off-line games against the Better AI on Monarch level, and it is definitely more challenging. And since, as you say, the Better AI will be included in BtS, it would be a good way to get prepared for the new expansion pack--which will be in place for the very next ALC, which I'll play as Isabella of Spain. So look for the Peter game to be played against the Better AI!
