Dr kossin #10

[kossin]

Welcome to Dr kossin #10, which stands for Daily Round.

Yes, I will aim to get in a update every day - as long as I have the time (work, girlfriend, etc). I might skip a day here and there but I will compensate by playing an extra round here and there.
Now I don't plan on very long updates, sometimes just 10 turns, and will stop at strategic times.

That being said, I'm not a great player but I can manage at times. My goal is to improve and, if possible, help others improve as well. I couldn't beat Noble when I started reading this forum (could barely beat Warlord) and I am now in the process of getting comfortable on Immortal.

That's where you come in. I need your ideas, your criticism and everything else you can throw at me - even if you can't beat Noble. Since I plan on an update everyday, there will be mistakes from my part and I might not always get the best advice going forward. That's life!

You are also welcome to shadow this game, although I would prefer you post it in spoilers and no further than I have already played. You can still shadow the whole game and post it but it is important that no one uses that knowledge (land, AIs) to help me.

Without further time wasting, let's go to the game.

Dr kossin #10

Round 1 Settling, scouting and blocking
Round 2a Chop chop goes the axe
Round 2b Towards Liberalism
Round 3a Sound the trumpets, here comes the cavalry!
Round 3b And they're not done yet
Round 3c Write that down

Game settings:
Immortal
Fractal (I've had a friend check that it is not isolated or semi-isolated)
Normal Speed
No Huts/Events
BULL 1.0+BUG 4.2 in Custom Assets
Everything else normal.

The leader this time is Victoria! Not as strong for teching as Elizabeth but she's really good to tech and block land.

+50% production to settlers, +100% Great General emergence, +1 from tiles already producing 2.

Her UB: a Bank with 10% more bonus to

Her UU: a Riflemen with +25% against Gunpowder units.

We start with Fishing and Mining.

It's quite a fair combo if you start with seafood resource as BW is 1 tech away.

And the start:

Since the warrior would only help by moving NE or SE, I went ahead and checked NE.

Here's what I think is in the fog:

Deer and irrigated corn with a lot of green tiles and some rivers.

We're clearly in the northern part of the map which is hinted by deer and the color of trees. It might be possible to block off a lot of land with a city or two on a bottleneck east of the start, if the western area is decent and doesn't have anyone in it.

I think settling in place is about the best option here. Moving east loses green tiles, moving south loses deer for no good reason to my eyes, moving west is a blind guess. Moving north is interesting because of the blue circle which means there could be seafood there... but I don't think I want to gamble this start.

Techs: Ag>Hunting for now, BW next. It's a bit too early to tell more without seeing the land.

 

[UWHabs]

1E might also be a resource. My guess is copper. Ag/Hunting, then depending on land, either BW or AH next.

 

[kossin]

I haven't forgotten about the game... just short on time! I'll play and post in about 5~6 hours.

 

[ChrisH]

Surely in place>ag>BW because of all the trees? Chop away!

 

[lsgag]

i will follow this again during the xmas "break"

 

[kossin]

Well, I'll have to take a 3-days break at least since I'll be out of town for xmas...
Playing now.

 

[kossin]

Round 1

Apologies for the lack of explanations/pictures, I'm getting bugged to do other stuff

I settled in place and there's marble in the BFC. After sending the warrior south, I saw that it was the end of the peninsula so I sent him to the west instead.

He found this guy who would block my exploration.

The land is not stellar, but it is fine enough.
Imperialistic whip of settlers are really fun.

After teching out the basic techs and having some cities, I stopped.
The land

I have 4 cities and room for another 4, counting that nice barb city. No bronze, but 2 sources of horses. Charley doesn't have bronze either but her just researched IW (he knows someone else so I see his research). A warrior will scout him to see if a HA rush would be any good. (there are gems and a bunch of resources in his land)

 

[Soirana]

I looked at oracle date... Some AI's probably use marble for good. Afterall it is nearly as good as that cottage you are working coin wise.

 

[kossin]

Yea, Oracle went before SH or TGW glad I didn't shoot for it.

The alternative to a HA rush is turtling down, build TGL+Parthenon, rush to Liberalism and go for a Cuirassier/Cavalry war.

I'll make up my mind after scouting Charley a bit, he is Protective after all.

 

[Monsterzuma]

Why use cavalry when you can build rifles at a 1/3.66 discount and get a +25% gunpowder bonus on top of them...? Redcoat drafting is the way to go in this game, imo.

 

[kossin]

I like fast wars Rifles are very slow in general, although redcoats could prove useful to take over the landmass if there are any other AIs out there.

 

[kossin]

Round 2a

I had a warrior scout out Charlemagne. Of course he had Iron next to his capital, but what I didn't like was the amount of troops I saw. Moreover, he started packing some more troops in Augsburg so I just decided against a HA rush despite the prospect of gaining very great land. In the end, it may have turned out to be best...

My exploring workboat meets a buddhist Missionary...

He had wine to trade for my sheep. Early happy is very important to grow. I also open borders in the hopes he would send me a missionary. It didn't take long so I converted to gain war immunity from my neighbors (Pleased is enough for both of them). My first Scientist made an Academy.

Early techs: Masonry>Poly (40 gold from Temple of Artemis)>Monotheism>Aesthetics>Alphabet(partial)>Literature
In that shot you can see I'm researching Monotheism. Organized Religion would be useful to build infrastructure. The RNG gave me copper after all.

A few trades would accelerate my research and building capacities.

After finishing Monotheism, I revolted to Organized religion, and made a few chops in London...

The National Epic was built in the same fashion 4 turns later. Next turn though...

Well, looks like GPP is secured for a long time. Moreover, it gives me a nice culture boost against Charlemagne. I put a bit of research into Monarchy to enable these trades.

Funnily enough, after trading for Sailing, I noticed that the Great Lighthouse hadn't been built...

With all my cities except London coastal, it's a big boost. Also, 2 more coastal cities are about to be acquired. Soon, I got another Great Scientist which bulbed Philosophy for me. I also got the religion as a bonus.

I stopped here as there are a few options.

Techs... neither would spare some change...

I could revolt to Pacifism and back to OR once it gets near the time to whip Universities.
The Music great Artist is still available for grabs, so maybe I will divert research to try and grab it. If it works, a Golden Age>Pacifism is certainly a good plan.

 

[kossin]

Round 2b

Gotta love having free time! This one is to make up for the round I missed 2 days ago.

I took the Music gamble and it paid off! Also, it allowed for a few things:

I decided to stay in Slavery/Organized Religion anyway as GPP was good enough and it allowed me to build infrastructure more quickly, especially since Justinian built the Apolistic Palace, enhancing Buddhist temples and monasteries. With forges everywhere and Organized religion, infrastructure is going up pretty fast.

I also got my hands on that very nice barb city. It will be a great Moai site or Globe Theatre(Coventry has the same number of water tiles) site with all its food.

I used the next 2 Great Scientists to bulb Education while I was researching Nationalism.

Music also got me a bunch of gold from failing Sistine Chapel.

More trades... aka backfilling

I stopped a few turns later. Oxford University is due soon and growth will resume as soon as I can spare a unit to allow it to grow.

Techs

Land... not too much cottages, but a few(9 in all). We're Financial after all Riverside Windmills will be pretty good here as will be watermills in a few techs... The Taj Mahal is also due in about 11 turns.

Here's what I'm thinking of where to go:
Finish Liberalism and take Military Tradition while teching to Economics for the free Great Merchant, while building up Cuirassiers. The next tech will be Rifling to allow a mass-upgrade using Thessalonica, the Temple of Artemis city, as a trade mission.
If things go well, I can swallow both Charlemagne and Justinian and after that the game should be in the bag (although one could say there might be a huge AI out there, or that the game is already in the bag).
With EP focus on Charlemagne, I *should* be able to send a city or two into revolt, likely the hill cities.

 

[BigTime]

When are you going to do a Deity DR kossin? As for the game, nice job. I still wonder how all these players win on Immortal

 

[Ecori]

You make it seem so easy. Well done

 

[kossin]

When are you going to do a Deity DR kossin? As for the game, nice job. I still wonder how all these players win on Immortal

Let's see... maybe sometime in the future, but right now Deity takes too much time to play for me in order to be competitive.

You make it seem so easy. Well done

To be fair... this is another easy map so far... there's so much commerce and production available as well as ok food and peaceful neighbors given the religion situation.

 

[Windsor]

Why did you trade for feudalism and machinery when your going for a cuirassier war? The more backwards they are the better.

 

[kossin]

Trying to make my way up to Engineering to accelerate things. Philosophy really doesn't do much to help their war efforts.

 

[kossin]

Round 3a

Everything went about as I had planned at the end of last round...

I finished Liberalism, selected Military Tradition as freebie.

Unfortunately I couldn't get the CS<->Engineering trade since Charlemagne started researching it quite fast.

However he was willing to part from it for Paper.

Once Taj Mahal was 1 turn from completion, I traded nationalism to Justinian.

The free Great Merchant from Economics was put to good use...

After scouting out Charlemagne's land and seeing his SoD was in Aachen, three turns away fom Augsburg, I declared war and hoped he'd move all his troops in Augsburg... surely enough he did. Charley had a lot of troops all over the place, I hate fighting him.

After a city revolt... the result is pretty good: 19 kills, 2 deaths, 3 withdraws

After that, it's a question of grouping enough Cavalry together to take cities. The 2 major bummers in the round were war weariness (Statue of Zeus in Prague) and the Apolistic Palace controlled by Justinian who tried to force the war to an end - I defied it and got 5 unhappy everywhere.

I traded for Astronomy with Justinian as I have no foreign trade routes anymore and would like some with the other AIs out there.

Another city takes Charlemagne down to just 1...

I meet Sitting Bull... he's backwards as usual. I also avoid trading with him since
a) I don't know anyone else there
b) he's at war, so demerits would just about be guaranteed

Charlemagne bows out soon after.

I hit enter to get rid of war weariness but I'm still relying on the culture slider because of the AP. I stop there as I can either take out Justinian or just go for Space/possibly diplo.

The others...

Pacal, Saladin, Sitting Bull and one of the French leaders. Since Paris has the Pyramids and that I can't see stone over there, I'm guessing it's on of the Industrious leaders.

Techs... if Justinian hits rifles, war would be a bad option right now.

I still have plenty of units though...

If i take on Justinian, the #1 goal is obviously Constantinople for its shrine. I'd probably leave him a lot of cities and vassal him to get a guaranteed good trade partner.

 

[bestsss]

Take his cities and win conquest like a man