First stab at immortal

[Etheric]

After I managed a convincing dominatin win on emp, thought I would have a stab at immortal. Is going to take some thoguht I think.

Again Darius, to cut down on the variables, and make it slightly easier. I need to branch out and try different leaders, but I want to get comfortable with a level before doing that.

Peter had the misfortune to be 11 squares away from my capital, so again we got the immortal rush out. By 800 BC the Russian empire was no more.

Looking at the capital sites his capital is proabbly better for cottage spam wheras mine makes a better gp farm, so will proably have to build a new palace eventually.

Looking at the 800 BC map, huge amounts of jungle to the north, and the japanese are up there as well.

For techs going to do masonry to work the stone, preisthood for some oracle failure cash and to reduce the beakers on writing, then writing to get some libraries up. Should really have done masonry before meditation, got distracted by the war and was not thinking.

Got 7 workers, from the ones I made and captured, so ok there.

Not had a good look for city sites yet, will have to use the immortals to scout more. I found the edge of teh japanese empire, they are in the jungle up north, but without ironworking and more workers getting cities in there is going to be a drain.

The one site on the coast where the razed city is looks a decent site, and later on I can settle the two crabs south of my capital.

It was noticalbe that Peter had a lot more units than on Emp and lower difficulties, I thoguht I might have been in trouble for a second. Thankfully he only had one city on a hill, and that one only had 1 archer in it, so it was not too bad. I actually killed 18 archer units for the loss of 6 immortals, so I guess there was some luck there too.

Anyway hopefully my economy is in not too bad shape, and we can see where we go from here.

 

[oranje willem]

Your situation is looking good, I would expand peacefully as much as possible now, starting with the 2 gold sites, because you need happiness, but also because they will pay for themselves right from the start. Dedicate your cities: let moscow/st.petersburg work as many cottages as possible. Your capitol can spam settlers/workers with those high food tiles. Make Pasargadae a military production city; it has enough food to work the 3 hills and the stone, with the horses as well it gives 18 base hammers, quite enough. Since you don't really need more military right now, the city can be used to generate your first great scientist, then your capitol can be used for later GP generation. You have stone, you might want to use pasargadae to build the piramids, if it fails you get a good sum of gold anyway.

 

[Shurdus]

In general it is sound advice to post screenshots as well as saved games. I would like to give advice but I am at work right now. I have no use for the saves as it is.

 

[oranje willem]

Spoiler :

I executed my own plan, things are going really well. Mids were gotten really early by someone else, got me some gold though, I expanded as much as possible, friendly with joao which has toku as a vassal, pleased with wang. Basicly i was safe for my neighbours, only charlemagne who vassilised lincoln could possibly have been a thread, but I had a little defense army anyway. All with all i could tech freely. I converted confucianism, which became the aposotlic religion, since I also had sangkore, my temples+monasteries were really powerfull. Delayed liberalism because no one is close to it, now I have Steel from it without anyone having even education.... 11 cities with immense tech advantage. Maybe I will finish it but it's really easy from here.

 

[Etheric]

Ok more or less followed what you did, got steel then decided to take out the japanese. Seemed to be reasonably sucessful at that.

One problem is jao is starting to get a tech lead, think I proabbly traded with him too much, not sure.

I think next step is take out the backwards americans, who are vasseled to the equilly backwards HRE.

tech situation

Spoiler :

My SoD

Spoiler :

world map

Spoiler :

[IMG=http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/1138/civ4screenshot0007b.jpg][/IMG]

Tech rate is down to 50%, but there should be no problem as they are missing gunpowder I think. They do have knights, but cannons vs longbowment and knights hsould be no problem.

 

[Shurdus]

You are doing fine it seems. What tech rate you are down to says next to nothing, it is the amount of beakers that you rake in every turn that is significant. Also I cannot tell how big your SoD is based on that screenshot.

You may trade liberalism to that korean guy for some gold, or see if you can sell something else. If you can get yiour hands on that 2k gold you can then tech a tech or two to see if you can get back in the trading game with Joao, or you may upgrade units. In this era techs are flying out of the window left right and in the centre anyway. Be careful not to trade a military tech to anyone who is willing to trade with your wartarget.

Unfortunately the world map pic is not working for me so I cannot really tell where you should go from here. I do however spot a little island in the ocean that seems uninhabited. Get over there quickly and settle what is left since Joao probably has a city or two there already. Of course there was no way you would beat him to there, but if you can still serttle something I think you should. Those cities will pay for themselves soon.

 

[Etheric]

Hi, saw the past post after I took the war to the US and chalamain.

Went ok, managed to break the US vassilation and they are now my vassel. I think I went in a bit light though. The screenshot above was supposed to show I had 11 cusieres and 11 cannon plus a few musketmen. Thought it would be enough. Was easily at the start, destroyed the dual SoD easily. The mass reinforcments started to get a bit much in the end.

I gave Chalamain NewYork for peace, which puts me up a net 2 cities and a vassel for the war, which I ugess is ok. One of them at least I will have to give back to the americans, as it is under real culture pressure,and will be a long stronger with the american culture backing it up (it was their city to start with). The 2nd one I might be able to keep, it depends what it looks like when I give washington back.

Will post some SS when I get home.

 

[Shurdus]

20 units is indeed a bit light. Cuirassiers can take on longbows singlehandedly if you bring enough of them. Then keep teching to rifling in order to upgrade cuirassiers to cavalry eventually. You can use some spies and focussed spy points to get rid of a cities culture. this essentially buys you the effect of bombarding cities, even though the effect lasts one turn. One advantage of a mounted war is that it is faster since cuirassiers have a movement speed of 2. A disadvantage is that they do not get defensive bonusses making it harder to hold cities and to defend your stack.

By bringing cannons you negated the major advantage that cuirassiers have, which is speed. I would try to go for cuirassiers/cavalry + spies or for cannons + maces/drafted musketmen/drafted rifles. You can check games by Rusten or Kossin on these boards to see how mounted wars are waged. Kossin has excellent DR (daily round) games that demonstrate his solid skills on deity.

In the end I would not declare war with any less that 30 units in the renaissance, unless maybe I am close to 30 and I am asked to join a war, then I may declare for the diplomatic bonus.

 

[Etheric]

Hmm a good learning experience, then chalamain gets a cheezy AP victory. It was almost the old chestnut of make the AP and spread your religion to 1 city of the other players, or in this case lose one of your cities to all the other players...

Was shaping up for a tight finish, but not to be.

 

[Sportyatuncw06]

I hate AP. I turn off diplomatic victory for this reason

 

[Riot]

Yeah, the main advantage of Curis/Cavalry is speed. If you're first to MT by a longshot and if your target is non-protective, you can take 3-4 cities easily in 3-4 turns. That's usually enough to cripple your enemy, especially if you're taking his capital + 1-2 of the oldest cities first. That would knock out any/all national/world wonders they have, plus their biggest commerce/production cities.

Again, speed is the advantage. So long as you have spies and you're tracking the enemies SoD, your units should be able to match them in terms of garrisoning, meanwhile your units should be moving quickly from city to city. The AI usually settles all their cities within 3 tiles of each other, so you can move from city to city and take them quickly.

Note that Conquistadors do gain defensive advantages, so if you're playing Spain or against them, beware!

 

[Shurdus]

Hmm a good learning experience, then chalamain gets a cheezy AP victory. It was almost the old chestnut of make the AP and spread your religion to 1 city of the other players, or in this case lose one of your cities to all the other players...

Was shaping up for a tight finish, but not to be.

Spreading the AP religion amongst your cities for the bonus hammers is very, very nice. This may also give you a blocking vote for the diplomatic victory.

Also keep in mind that you can essentially block the AI from winning an AP win by simply running theocracy since it blocks the spread of the obscure AP religion. Remember, everybody needs to have at least one city with the AP religion in order for the AP diplo victory resolution to come up.

Switching off the diplomatic victory because of the AP seems a bit much in my hunble opinion, especiallly since you can see the victory coming from miles so there is plenty of times to act on it, and since the AI rarely ever gets to a point where winning an AP win becomes realistic.

 

[Etheric]

The city I had with the AP religion was a city I captured form him (well from his vassel the americans).

Similarly Wang Kon had probably only one city again captured from him. I should have saved the screenshot I guess, to see the voting. Joao was a neighbour so I guess the religion had spread there too.

It can be a cheap victory condition, similarly the UN diplomatic one which can be won by vassals voting, I find a bit bad. A genuine diplo victory where people DO actually like you is no problem. One that is a glorified domination one, by different means I like less.

I agree there is always something you can do, the simpleset one in this case would have been to give my one city with teh AP religion back to the americans. I don't feel like reverting a save though, so will try a new game.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I ran this game. I used almost 100% unadulterated full-auto workers...the only exception was to have them improve resources that were discovered after a tech...everything else was off "workers start automated" .

Spoiler :

I thought I was toast a few times.

First of all the obvious tech was AH, so I did that and saw horse and Peter nearby. I opted to hit Peter. Wang founded hinduism and converted toku. Everyone else went buddhist, so I did also.

This promptly got toku to DoW on me over all the other targets with which he was annoyed. This was interesting. After killing peter, I had immortals but also built some axes/spears (I'm not an idiot when it comes to super mass warmongers). I also expanded as much as possible (got double gold/pig, the copper to the north of that, Joao wedged one in between). Ultimately toku's somewhat smallish stack fails on one of my cities, and I sandbag him for 2 cities...gold/seafood (just north of my cap) and tokyo, which of course is culture'd to hell. I take peace for some minor tech then.

The reason that was interesting is that I spent the whole damned thing at 0%. I had to pull some magic here. Aesthetics got me alpha and IW in trades...then I went COMPASS! I used compass to trade math + CoL, which then allowed me to be 2nd to philo off a scientist bulb (my first). I'd actually BEGGED meditation off Joao. Long story short, this nonsense got me lots of tech, and caste/pacifism vaulted me to the front of the lib race.

I libbed nationalism, bulbed printing press, beelined democracy, traded (due to friendly) with an AI for sci meth (it was a monopoly tech), and won the race to communism. I used our stone resource to put up kremlin, and off we go vs the heathens using massed $$$ bought cavalry. Neither of them got rifles before they were snuffed.

Ok, as for how AP was won ----> Charlie built it, and I got the remaining 2 to like me more. I had a DP, fair trade, resources/tech supply, and a cristo last-second HR bonus with Joao. Lincoln was friendly w/ me due to accrued emancipation.

If that didn't work, the only people near mass media were me and lincoln (both had it). Since joao was only pleased toward lincoln, I'd have simply won UN a few turns later off of just me + joao if the AP failed.

I was also in solid space position since for whatever reason the AI wasn't running away tech-wise...nobody had AL which means I'd have been in a dead heat for internet that with my city count I'd have probably taken.

Note: I don't recommend auto workers, but what won this game was the overall strategy ---> toku was crippled by his DoW, but BOTH he AND Wang fell insufferably behind because the buddhist tech alliance ostracized them. Ultimately this made it very easy to pick them off with a military tech lead, even though my tech pace was pathetic for most of the game.

"Peaceful" victories FTW.

 

[Etheric]

Interesting how the different games play out. Chalamaine ended up vasseling the US in my game, in yours he seemed to have done less well. Ah the difference there is that Wang Kon got Hinduism in your game, and in mine chalamain ended up with both I think (whihc is how he and the americans ended up being different religions and at war).

I do have to try the cavalry + kremlin method of warfare though . I think I am taking the small advantage of hitting lib first to wage war too much, I have never got close to comunism first ever (or tried to be honest). A bit more peace after lib I think next time. A combination of cavalry and airships seems interesting too.

Interesting too that you did not move the capital, I think that helped a lot having Moscow as a buro capital and the old capital as a gpp farm.

I am glad you did the immortal rush too , it seemed a farily obvious thing to do. You also blocked off Joao better than I managed for sure. I don't know if you got the immortal rush done faster or just expanded better there. You know what year you killed peter? I don'¨t think the west sites were available when I started expanding. Possibly I was too conservative after the war too.

Do you have any intermediate saves? Would be good to compare city placement and so on.

The huge number of units needed at high levels is quite staggering though. I need to get out of habit of going in so light. Was a bit mistake there, especially when fighting 2 AI's. Should have tried to bribe Wang Kon in the battle earlier than I did I think. Was cutting through the units no problem, there were just SO MANY to kill, it took me too long to go through the territory.

Anyway thanks for looking at it, I did htink it was a very winable immortal map, just did not quite execute it right. Will go more extreme army next time .

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm afraid I don't have any intermediate saves. I wound up killing off Peter ~ 675 BC or so, but I stopped making immortals and started making workers/settlers before that since I knew I had enough (post healing) to finish the job. That's probably where the difference came. I'd have been much more efficient if I didn't full auto workers on that rush .

I thought about moving the palace but what wound up happening is thanks to the toku DoW on me my tech pace was 100% trash outside of bulbing, then took off. When it took off, bur wasn't practical for very long, and before that I needed every hammer toward military I could spare.

Unfortunately my saves are closer to when I had cavalry already, and won't be very meaningful.

 

[Etheric]

Well a save close to the end would work too, as it will have all the city placement and I can watch the post game replay for when you settled where etc.

I finished the war at 800 BC, which is a few turns earlier, but I was definately conservative after that as I was really worried about my economy. I also kept 2 of the Russian cities which might have been a mistake. Clearly moscow was a great site, I decided to keep st petersberg too. I need to get better at blocking off the AI too, particularly expansive ones like Joao. They expand rather fast.

Anyway thanks again it is always interesting to get another view on things.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well a save close to the end would work too, as it will have all the city placement and I can watch the post game replay for when you settled where etc.

I finished the war at 800 BC, which is a few turns earlier, but I was definately conservative after that as I was really worried about my economy. I also kept 2 of the Russian cities which might have been a mistake. Clearly moscow was a great site, I decided to keep st petersberg too. I need to get better at blocking off the AI too, particularly expansive ones like Joao. They expand rather fast.

Anyway thanks again it is always interesting to get another view on things.

This is the earliest one I have:

View attachment Jon AD-1610.CivBeyondSwordSave