Elizabeth (Archipelago Immortal series)

[obsolete]

Turns 60-70

Spoiler :

Here is another wonderful island near Sitting Bull I fear he will get from me. At least I have a galley out now and am working on another settler. I will try and get that stone on Justinian’s continent. I may get more cities up there to use as a spear-head in future attacks vs. him, not sure just yet.

Also, Boudica met me, but no connections yet. And still no one has bronze to trade.

Turns 70-80

Spoiler :

Stone City is founded, working on a Quarry now. I changed my idea and went back to metal-casting because look what metal I found near by.

Next I will found Bronze City, and then we’ll see what happens. But still, forges are very expensive this stage of the game, and I don’t have any more forests to chop or hills to mine. I’m not sure if it’s worth it.

Right now I’m basically just giving away my elephants for relations.

Turns 80-90

Spoiler :

Another look at my elephant city and what it’s doing. I’m going to keep it at pop 2 for a very long time and keep it doing small-cheap units until caste.

My Bronze City is delayed a turn because of barb problems.

Turns 90-100

Spoiler :

We met Shaka, but at least he is the worst enemy of Sitting Bull.

In this shot here, I have just founded my Wine City, unfortunately Barb galleys actually decided to hit quite early this game. My galley survived, but my scouting workboats didn’t have a chance. Grrrr.

A while back I had another bad random event, but can’t remember what it was now. Anyway, I have started on a forge at the moment and we will see how it goes. I opened borders with Justinian since he can go anywhere he wants right now anyway. But my gold hardly increased at all.

Oh yah, I traded stone to Justinian so he could get wonder happy and build some stuff for me. I MAY take it back later if I decide to build that Maoi thing. Also, I haven’t seen all the tiles from his capital yet, but from what I do see, he has at least 2 sea-food sources, a lot of forested hills including plains/hills, and marble all in his BFC. The only thing is it’s a little far away to get to. And I’m not sure yet if I really will invade at all.

 

[monolith94]

I'd prioritize "silk" (actually sugar) city over any others — it has the potential to be a monster GP farm! Plus, some grassland hills for a bit of production punch.

 

[Outshined]

Yeah, I suppose I'm having a lot of problems in the short term because it is still early in the game. Obviously I can't whip vital infrastructure (basic stuff like granary and courthouse) and units at the same time =). I guess it will resolve itself in a few more turns. I could whip a bit more freely if the happy cap wasn't so close. Is it time to find religion, beeline Hereditary Rule, or both?

 

[Joshua368]

Yeah, I suppose I'm having a lot of problems in the short term because it is still early in the game. Obviously I can't whip vital infrastructure (basic stuff like granary and courthouse) and units at the same time =). I guess it will resolve itself in a few more turns. I could whip a bit more freely if the happy cap wasn't so close. Is it time to find religion, beeline Hereditary Rule, or both?

You can't normally build vital infrastructure and units in the same city at the same time either. You'll always have to choose between one or the other with or without the whip... having a heroic epic city dedicated to supplying units to your empire can certainly help. Plop the globe theatre in a high-food city, keep the general population low and you can whip out units like no tomorrow with no side effects.

Also you can time your whips somewhat carefully to get some overflow. You don't have to be exact with this but it can be a good idea to try to get a basic timing down, whip out the granary and then have your axeman half-built next turn.

As for dealing with your happy cap, if you don't have a lot of happy resources (including calendar ones) you don't really have many other options than Hereditary Rule. Religion is nice but that's only gonna be +2 , also make sure whatever religion you adopt is well-liked amoung the AIs so you have friends. (It's perfectly fine if you didn't found it.)

 

[obsolete]

Turns 100-110

Spoiler :

It seems, Justinian got a huge tech-jump on me. I was pretty startled, but then I saw he had built the Oracle. I suspect he took metal-casting off from it. Because of this, I was rather behind, but at the moment F9 doesn’t show him as having finished colossus, so again I will whip it this turn to make sure I get it. And then… off to try and get more land-grabs.

Also, I traded MC to Sitting Bull now for IronW and a lousy 3 turns of Alphabet, yeah not so smart when he’ worst enemy of Shaka, but Shaka seems far away from me at the moment and I’d rather get SB happy with me.



Turns 110-120

Spoiler :

I popped a GE, but Celts had already built the Mids L So I ended up running him as a super-specialist.

Also, looks like I almost missed collecting this Iron site. It’s the only one I have available.

See, missing things by one single turn really can turn a whole game!

Turns 120-130

Spoiler :

Nothing much to say. I got my caste and am expanding borders and trying to hook up food resources in the outer rings.

Turns 130-140

Spoiler :

I completed the Moai this turn, and am finishing a library just before I start to work on UoS. I popped my second engineer, but decided to run him as another super-specialist instead of rushing the wonder, since I have stone and already worked on trying to tweak its production.

This shot is a little… sad. I would have already got the circumfrance bonus, but HC is already my worst enemy the first turn I met him, so I couldn’t even get open borders. Then I was forced to close borders with Shaka due to SB demand. And worse luck still, a barb galley just happens to be right there of all places! I ran circles trying to avoid that galley but now I’m boxed in with no where to go. I have no choice but to kill it just to save 1 gold piece. @^^%@#$%

In other news, Shaka went weehorn… and so did Boudica. I got some warning posts set up for watching Shaka, but Boudica supposedly can’t declare on me cause she’s at pleased. I have some ideas though….

Turns 140-150

Spoiler :

I won the circum-thingy bonus now. And despite there is no warring yet, I expect it shortly. Seems both Shaka and Boudica are going to dog pile SB, I just know it…

Unfortunately I do not have any horses anywhere. Nor can I trade for any. So I am going to do a bit of tech-pruning of my regular tree. No more beelining to MT. Hell, I guess this means I can try building a siege weapon for once. I’ll try it out.

Anyhow, this shot shows a prime example of why I always try to keep some reserve gold handy… These events are just not going my way today…

Turns 150-160

Spoiler :

Hmm, Justinian keeps catching up like there is no tomorrow, and just when I get him lagging, I trade some stuff around to him to get myself deeper in the tree quicker, then BOOM he jumps a couple teirs up again.

Anyhow, I really feel strongly about going straight to my UU then smashing into him. I still may not even bother with siege.

The good news is I’m one turn to Education, so I SHOULD be ahead depending how you look at it.

Turns 160-170

Spoiler :

Liberalism is in, I took printing-press which is often quite different from my normal routines.

For some odd reason, Justinian still refuses to build any wonders despite he has marble in his BFC, (what a waste!), and he never made anything with my stone. He is SUPPOSED to have shiny factors for wonders but I don’t get what happened. And Boudica, who is supposed to almost never build wonders, went off on a building spree.

I think my BtS spec sheet is wayyyyyyy out of date or something.


Turns 170-180

Spoiler :

6 turns to finish Globe Theatre with this golden age, induced by free GM.
Indeed, this does look like a lot of money-bags now. But yet, we STILL don’t have a war going on yet. Boudica must be building up one nasty SoD?

Justinian has no clue what is about to happen with that city…

 

[Outshined]

Would it be worthwhile at this point to get Compass for the Harbors? I see he has The Great Lighthouse already, and Harbors would increase the trade revenue on those extra routes even further.

Do any experienced players feel that this is a significant benefit (or not)?

@Joshua: That's a good idea with the Theaters/Globe Theater. I tend to overlook that path a lot. I've already got Literature (I had anticipated setting up National Epic asap to make the capital a GP farm, since it has 4 food resources and little else going for it) so Drama is just a tech away.

 

[obsolete]

Harbors were on the plan for sure...


Turns 180-190

Spoiler :

Ugh, I can’t trade around for Nationalism, which means my choice of taking Printing Press really was stupid now. I was assuming I could trade for it, but that just turned out not to be. So more delays again….

For now, an inside shot of my draft factory. Which is out of commission but will go online pretty soon.

Turns 190-200

Spoiler :

Alright, we are online for public-drafting. We are also en-route to Justinian. Unfortunately he doesn’t have muskets yet, so our UU won’t be getting any bonuses. That’s a bit weird isn’t it? When you’re actually HOPEING your opponent gets more advanced units, so that you can kill him easier. Ahaha.

Everyone knows by now muskets suck I hope…

Anyhow, I can’t seem to shake off all these stupid-dumb pesky random events…

Turns 200-210

Spoiler :

Waring with Justinian. Lucky bastard is getting horses from somewhere. Anyhow, my UU beats his UU so he can have em. Unfortunately this war is going very slow with rifles. I really miss my cavalry. Maybe I can vassal him and then demand the horses as a tribute.

Turns 210-220

Spoiler :

Taking a look inside Justinian’s capital. Look at this lucky bastard, 4 food sources, a bunch of hills and marble all in the BFC.

I would like to turn this into a priest farm asap, but unfortunately I will not be able to open up enough slots. Ohhh where is my trusty old Ramesses’ UB?

By the way, we vassaled Justinian. We could have done it a bit earlier (without taking his capital) but I wanted to take the capital first! Now, I’m busy doing mass naval upgrades….

I plan to hit sitting bull next, unfortunately we met the Ottomans, and they are the leader right now, and pretty close friends with SB so I will prob get backstabbed. At least Boudica likes me so much we have an alliance now. She’s been weehorn forever now and yet hasn’t DoWed SB.

Turns 220-230

Spoiler :

Well so far the war has been a great success. I am about to take my 4’th city from SB making this the second island I’m taking from him. He still refuses to talk but that’s just fine by me. Luckily Ottoman’s didn’t turn on me yet during the war.

Anyhow, I deserve extra newb points for doing something silly again. I had my vassal research chemistry when I already had it. What a waste of beakers.

Other than that, I experimented a bit with 2 privateers, unfortunately they are useless doing nothing because no targets are coming around anymore. I also tried playing with blockades as well, but I can’t see anywhere in the GUI where I am gaining or haulting how much gold.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

With Blockades, you only gain gold from Privateers, Other naval vessels that blockade, only deny trade to the blockaded city, in the 'shaded area's of the blockade, over sea.

With Shaka and Bodica, could it be that they are going against each other?, or its definitely Sitting Bull.

Umm 3rd thing, if your facing Longbows, why not attack from the ship with Rifles, or better (forget longbows) Muskets, it'd speed up war, and losses wouldn't matter so much, Mr "bang my Calvary into Culture/rifles", you should have been in charge of the Light Brigade.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

you blockade(they'll show you graphically how many tiles you blockade) and you'll get 3g/turn or 2g/turn for each city you're blockading with your privateer. Or at least those are the values on marathon.

So, beside starving a city without declaring war... privateers plain suck since the gold gains are so bad. Ok, that gold you're supposedly getting directly from the ai treasury but still... doesn't make much sense.

The only situation where they're worth is: ai wheoohrn, you scoop his fleet which is caravel/galleon and en route to you/whoever you want to defend, you tear them apart with your privateers. This way you don't get the diplo penalities while still defending.

 

[Joshua368]

you blockade(they'll show you graphically how many tiles you blockade) and you'll get 3g/turn or 2g/turn for each city you're blockading with your privateer. Or at least those are the values on marathon.

So, beside starving a city without declaring war... privateers plain suck since the gold gains are so bad. Ok, that gold you're supposedly getting directly from the ai treasury but still... doesn't make much sense.

The only situation where they're worth is: ai wheoohrn, you scoop his fleet which is caravel/galleon and en route to you/whoever you want to defend, you tear them apart with your privateers. This way you don't get the diplo penalities while still defending.

Gold gains are great, you just need to stack them. One privateer on its own can be killed by suicide caravels. Get a bunch and they'll last much longer. You get gold from each privateer individually even when blockading the same city, and if you line it up to blockade multiple cities at once (situational, the cities have to be close) you get separate sums of gold for each city. Ten privateers blockading a harbor can get you 20-30 gold per turn, and it goes uphill from there!

Plus crippling AI coastal cities is always a good thing. Once on a watery map I virtually blockaded Saladin's entire empire. Once thriving, all of his citie shrunk down to size 4 - 6. He didn't put up much of a fight after that.

Plus they're the only way to get great general points outside of war, which is a great benefit.

 

[Single Malt]

Privateers net GG points too. The number of gold you get depends on the trade routes a city has, hence the civ with the great lighthouse coastal cap is the best to plunder, as it can net 4 or more gold.

 

[obsolete]

With Blockades, you only gain gold from Privateers, Other naval vessels that blockade, only deny trade to the blockaded city, in the 'shaded area's of the blockade, over sea.

With Shaka and Bodica, could it be that they are going against each other?, or its definitely Sitting Bull.

Umm 3rd thing, if your facing Longbows, why not attack from the ship with Rifles, or better (forget longbows) Muskets, it'd speed up war, and losses wouldn't matter so much, Mr "bang my Calvary into Culture/rifles", you should have been in charge of the Light Brigade.

Well, even if I am only denying trade, there really ought to be some sort of basic information displayed to the player on how much is being blocked. Again, very bad GUI-design by Firaxis. Typical....

Shaka and Boudica were not fighting each other...

I'm not attacking from Ship cause there is no need to get a 50% penalty. I'll only do it when they are mauled.


Anyway...


Turns 230-240

Spoiler :

I took a bit more off Sitting Bull, then decided to quit the war after this city. My units were getting hurt bad, might as well heal. Good news is I got the SoL on the biggest landmass. Bad news is I will have to wrestle down the Ottomans, and right now it looks like they went weehorn on me, and I’m the worst enemy still. Guess that may save me one declaration.

Turns 240-250

Spoiler :

I have re-DoWed onto SB. Interestingly, the Ottomans finally blew the war horn but went after Boudica and dog piled her with others.

By the way, we finally have some good luck with random events. Unfortunately we already have an academy in “Home” so we can’t take advantage of this. Just great, even our good-luck is really bad luck.

Turns 250-260

Spoiler :

I keep taking city after city, but SB really is a stubborn capiter. Sometimes he never capits at all. The fact he has a small vassal only makes things worse. I guess I’ll just wipe him off the face of the earth then. Ottomans have a LOT of rifles and Cavalry at this time. I think I’ll just let them be while I go after weaker opponents.

I made a dumb move one turn, thinking I unloaded a galleon when I didn’t, then had to send it back and had to use non-fresh troops to suicide taking a city.

The SoB also bribed Shaka against me too (with his vassal). That’s fine, free promotion time. Now.. To finish upgrading my naval to oil-based.

Turns 260-270

Spoiler :

I got SB to capit, and then his vassal to do the same. However, I am still fighting Shaka and his vassal Roosevelt. I had about 70 Redcoats just a short while ago but got really screwed in battles. I couldn’t win a 70% to save my life, then when I got to 85% still couldn’t.. and then when I whittled them down to 90% > odds I still was getting raped.

What a wonderful RNG!

Turns 270-280

Spoiler :

Nothing much has changed. Ottomans are still fighting Boudica, and I can’t get Shaka to vassal (didn’t think I would). That’s ok, I am ready to start taking cities on his own continent NOW. I landed a small party of reds earlier with machine gun, but suddenly he shows up with upgraded cavalry out of no-where and blasted me away, I don’t think I even scratched him! RNG isn’t so good to me today…

Now I’m upgrading to Infantry and we’ll try again.

As soon as I finish taking his capital & other prime cities on his home continent I MAY be able to vassal him. Then I’ll push onward to Incas who I have been allowing to build wonders for me.

(wink)

 

[SnowlyWhite]

Gold gains are great, you just need to stack them.

that's the problem, they're not great, they're crap. In order to be great, the privateer would have to pay for itself in at least a 1hammer/1gold ratio(typically more, at least imho) in the short time frame till the ai gets frigates(when, no matter how many you stack, their frigates will still sink them on a constant basis). Which, combined with the time it takes for your privateer to travel... just doesn't happen; and I'm talking marathon here, where the units are comparatively cheaper and travel time has much less impact... The unit has a bad design...

Well, even if I am only denying trade, there really ought to be some sort of basic information displayed to the player on how much is being blocked.

it grays out the area it's being blocked. Should be very obvious since you have that "show tile yield"(or whatever's the name) turned on. What you get it's shown each turn in the IBT messages.

 

[obsolete]

Turn 280-290

Spoiler :

I am starting to really love Immortal AI bonuses. Roosie keeps making a boat every turn out of his capital, and running right into my destroyers. Even the worst human would have stopped a hundred years ago, hehe.

Nothing else much happened, except one big stack war just now where I took one city from Shaka. Now, onto his capital…

And we had our first restart due to a technical glitch.

Turns 290-300

Spoiler :

A couple more cities taken from Shaka. And one seems to look pretty strong.
Two more left and then I may go for peace, but I don’t know. I am getting so many naval promotions, I feel like it’s just one huge exploit.

Turns 300-310

Spoiler :

Look at this, level 6 destroyers thanks to Roosie’s perpetual-shipbuilding machine. Haha.

The only sad part is I’m getting such bad war-weariness now, but that will change in a few turns. I will try to hit Capac’s capital with a little invasion force, then use the Cristo Rendentor to get some Police State civics.

Turns 310-320
Shaka simply would NOT vassal, not even down to the last. I had no choice but to take out every one of his cities. The last time I remember my power factor was over 13.0 and it was still climbing. I think there is some serious game issues in that, any human would have been doing cartwheels for a vassal wayyyyyyyy before it even got near that point.

Anyhow, I took out HC’s little continent his capital was on then vassaled him. I partly took the vassal because the SoB bribed Ottomans into a war with me. I even lost a city and had to keep trading it after I got hit by surprise with a stack of cavalry, but I’ve wrestled it back finally and think I can have it locked down for now. Unfortunately Ottomans won’t talk to me for quite some time….

This shot my look funny. After I killed stupid Shaka I vassaled his vassal. I was given a city as part of the deal, but was too lazy to see what it looked like. Haha. Well I always hated those annoying pop-ups, but for once I don’t mind. I was happy to send this one back right where it came from!


Turns 320-330

Spoiler :

Finally, the Ottomans agreed to peace for now, I even got a city out of the deal. Though for some reason, Boudica seems to have the same power rating as me just about. Very interesting!!!!!!

Anyhow, I am pretty close to the # of votes needed for victory(I think), so here goes…

By the way, I’m starting to play very non-optimal now just to save time on the turns, simply because I know I have the game locked up in my favour.

Turn 331

Spoiler :

Yup… there it is…



Ending Info...

Spoiler :

 

[obsolete]

that's the problem, they're not great, they're crap. In order to be great, the privateer would have to pay for itself in at least a 1hammer/1gold ratio(typically more, at least imho) in the short time frame till the ai gets frigates(when, no matter how many you stack, their frigates will still sink them on a constant basis). Which, combined with the time it takes for your privateer to travel... just doesn't happen; and I'm talking marathon here, where the units are comparatively cheaper and travel time has much less impact... The unit has a bad design...



it grays out the area it's being blocked. Should be very obvious since you have that "show tile yield"(or whatever's the name) turned on. What you get it's shown each turn in the IBT messages.

I did experiment with a few privateer's this game. Unfortunately the only thing that came along worth hitting was stuff by my own vassals! And I believe vassals will even sink your own privateers also. That's just... nasty game-design.

However, I did notice that they come with the free sentry promotion, and can be upgraded later on, so that can have a nice small niche in its own. Otherwise, you'd have to waste 2 promotions just to get that specification.

 

[EmperorFool]

I believe vassals will even sink your own privateers also. That's just... nasty game-design.

Well, the point of a privateer is that it has no state affiliation. How are they to know it's a "friendly" pirate? And even if it is friendly, you can use it to blockade and attack your vassals, so your vassals need to be able to defend themselves against it.

It would be cool if vassals could detect if each privateer had attacked/blockaded them before, and only be able to attack the ones that had. Or perhaps you shouldn't be able to attack/blockade vassals at all, solving the problem entirely.

 

[JammerUno]

If you're ever in the happy circumstance to aquire privateers before your opponents get to frigates, they're quite nice. On higher difficulty they aren't usually worthwile. On monarch and below, I've parked groups of 3 near big cities where they netted be quite alot of gold, and gained alot of promos. That's the main advantage they give you; they gain some promotions and pay for their own upgrade to destroyers.

 

[UncleJJ]

There is a good thread on privateers in the Strategy Articles section called Privateers for Dummies. That discussed many of the things obsolete is asking about and quite a few more besides. Despite the title, it is a comprehensive treatment of how and when to use them.