airny, I put my science to 10% after two of my three cfultural cities when legendary. The last one was my GP farm, and almost half its culture came from the artist specialists, so I calculated the turns left for it at 80%-100% culture, and since I came out with only 2 turns difference between 80% and 100%, I decided to go with 80% and try to get at least one more research finished before it went legendary.
GOTM 10 Second Spoiler
- Thread starter ainwood
- Start date
JerichoHill
Bedrock of Knowledge
Balthalion said:Nine great artists and six other great persons too? That's fantastic. Your great artist farm must have been supurb.How did you do it? Or -- not to be too selfish about it -- how can I learn to do it?
I'm still trying to get the hang of producing great persons efficiently.
I got the GM off of economics, and one GA off of music. I ran Mercantilsm for a large portion of the game (never really discovered the other continent until the game was nearly over). I also had Caste System for unlimited Artist specialists. Both GPFs I had were running 5 or 6 GA's, and one of my cities had 3 GEs. I used the GE's to rush wonders, which I think I had about 8 or 9 by the end spread out appropriately. Finally, I was also running Pacifism, which doubled my GP rate.
Diplomatic Victory 1700A.D.
Wonders Built: Hanging Gardens, Great Library, Broadway, U.N.
Techs: Bronze Working, followed by beelines to alphabet, liberalism and the
U.N. , all other needed tech`s were traded for as needed.
Hateshput, Catherine, Asoka and Cyrus all voted for me. Gengis fought
a few wars with Egypt and India taking a few citys, I joined in to get the
diplomatic bonus but I never had to fight them because Egypt was blocking
their way to my territory. The only time I had any real problem was when
H.C suddenly declared war on me, fortunatly I was able to bribe Egypt, India,
and Russia to declare war on them with techs, so they were only able to
take one city on the small island off the capital (whih I later retook) before they were distracted by other wars.
Overall I found this to be the least didfficult imortal game I have ever
played. The A.I tech pace seemed to be slower and I was able to found
more cities than usual in the beginning. Despite this I am pleased at
getting both my earliest, and highest scoring win in this game.
Wonders Built: Hanging Gardens, Great Library, Broadway, U.N.
Techs: Bronze Working, followed by beelines to alphabet, liberalism and the
U.N. , all other needed tech`s were traded for as needed.
Hateshput, Catherine, Asoka and Cyrus all voted for me. Gengis fought
a few wars with Egypt and India taking a few citys, I joined in to get the
diplomatic bonus but I never had to fight them because Egypt was blocking
their way to my territory. The only time I had any real problem was when
H.C suddenly declared war on me, fortunatly I was able to bribe Egypt, India,
and Russia to declare war on them with techs, so they were only able to
take one city on the small island off the capital (whih I later retook) before they were distracted by other wars.
Overall I found this to be the least didfficult imortal game I have ever
played. The A.I tech pace seemed to be slower and I was able to found
more cities than usual in the beginning. Despite this I am pleased at
getting both my earliest, and highest scoring win in this game.
MacBalt
Learnéd Fool
Thanks JerichoHill.JerichoHill said:
Plenty of food for thought here. I'll have to start putting some of these ideas into practice during my games.zagnut
Monarch
I lost to Russia, which won a spaceship victory in 1897. The lack of posts in this second spoiler indicate to me that a lot of other players also lost.
My game was adversely impacted by a few decisions that I made early on. We all know the early game is crucial, but on Immortal those early errors are exacerbated as the game goes on. Once you fall behind in the middle game it is very difficult to catch up. But the game was fun and I thank the staff for giving us a fighting chance with the good starting position.
My game was adversely impacted by a few decisions that I made early on. We all know the early game is crucial, but on Immortal those early errors are exacerbated as the game goes on. Once you fall behind in the middle game it is very difficult to catch up. But the game was fun and I thank the staff for giving us a fighting chance with the good starting position.
ElWanderer
Warlord
On the way to a loss at the moment...
Things looked ok in the early mid-game. I was first to Liberalism in 1085AD, used a great engineer to build the Taj Mahal and launch a golden age and appeared to be level in technology with the leading civs. I was third in score and not too far from the leaders.
That hasn't lasted. I'm now several techs behind and can't see a way back. The Incans declared war on me in the 15th Century and landed an invasion force next to my Toaist holy city (on the Northwest corner of Treasure Island). It fell the next turn, but I was able to recapture it immediately using a pair of grenadiers and a knight ferried over from the mainland. Having lost their land forces, the Incan navy proceeded to sail around tearing up all my nets. They've not inflicted mortal damage, but if they return with a stronger stack, I may have trouble holding Treasure Island. I expect I can hang on for quite a lot longer... but it's not going to be much fun.
My main problem seems to be a lack of decent production cities (especially coastal ones). I knew I'd be attacked sooner or later as my army is just too weak and my navy almost non-existant.
It's very tempting to retire and have a look at the Warlords GOTM!
Things looked ok in the early mid-game. I was first to Liberalism in 1085AD, used a great engineer to build the Taj Mahal and launch a golden age and appeared to be level in technology with the leading civs. I was third in score and not too far from the leaders.
That hasn't lasted. I'm now several techs behind and can't see a way back. The Incans declared war on me in the 15th Century and landed an invasion force next to my Toaist holy city (on the Northwest corner of Treasure Island). It fell the next turn, but I was able to recapture it immediately using a pair of grenadiers and a knight ferried over from the mainland. Having lost their land forces, the Incan navy proceeded to sail around tearing up all my nets. They've not inflicted mortal damage, but if they return with a stronger stack, I may have trouble holding Treasure Island. I expect I can hang on for quite a lot longer... but it's not going to be much fun.
My main problem seems to be a lack of decent production cities (especially coastal ones). I knew I'd be attacked sooner or later as my army is just too weak and my navy almost non-existant.
It's very tempting to retire and have a look at the Warlords GOTM!
Mad Professor
Deity
ElWanderer said:
Yes, I had mainly coastal cities and enjoyed the financial benefits of that with the Collossus, but production was weak. I was going for a space race victory (which I will write more about in the third spoiler when that becaomes available) and needed production. I overcame it to some extent by spamming workshops late in the game. It cost me a couple of population in places as it hurt the food supply, but the extra hammer combining with the resources and buldings for increasing production of space ship parts proved very effective. I'm not sure where you're at in the game, but if you want to get that production up, and you have a few turns available to do it in, you could get workers busy on workshops. It really does make quite a difference if you have a forge (which you should have with an industrious leader!) and perhaps other building which increase certain parts of your production (like heroic epic for military units).
ElWanderer
Warlord
Mad Professor said:
Thank you, that's a very good point. Though I have/had a plan to perform a mass conversion of towns into workshops (combined with state property) for when the time came to build spaceship parts, I hadn't really considered building workshops earlier than that. In fact my only workshop is a tile that flipped from the Egyptians. I hardly ever build them because of the food penalty. As I can research biology, I guess that shouldn't be a problem for long.
Having built the Angkor Wat (I'm still waiting for a great prophet to build the Taoist shrine...), I had been trying to use priest specialists to boost my production, but with all my fishing nets gone, I've had to get rid of them all! I neglected my navy and spent what production I had building a strong deterrent in my cities on the Egyptian border. As Hatty is friendly with me and doesn't have open borders with my enemies, that was a rather poor move.
My play-style is not up to the rigours of Immortal level (even with a kind start)... I still can't believe I got a victory last month.
I wouldn't advise workshopping if you're behind in tech. You'd be better off trying to get some defensive pacts with civs that are close to Huayna capac. That way if he declares again then he will spend most of the war fighting the other AI instead of you. Try to research techs the AI doesn't have and trade as much as you can. I'd worry more about your tech defecit than your lack of production. Possibly think about the UN if you have good relations with a couple other civs. I imagine free religion would help a lot to prevent wars. I'm guessing Huayna is a different religion than you.
Mad Professor
Deity
Shillen said:
All very good advice. The only problem with the defensive pacts is you can't get them while you're at war. If you can get peace with Capac, then the pacts will be helpful. I agree being behind in tech is a problem, and converting towns to workshops then is not a great idea if you want to win a space race victory from behind. Building the UN might be a good plan B, though I usually wouldn't succeed in that, because don't do well with such plan B's since I haven't being paying enough attention to getting enough people pleased enough with me to win diplo vistories when I've been concentrating on something else up tothat point. I usually just do enough pleasing to keep them off my back, and not much more!
Ah, I didn't realize he was still at war with Huayna. Well then the best you can do is try to sign in another civ to attack him or research a tech he doesn't have to make peace with him. If you're near getting railroads then I'd shoot for that tech because it's extremely easy to defend against an overseas AI once you have a rail system in place, even if you have inferior units.
ElWanderer
Warlord
I gave Hatty a tech in return for her joining in against the Incans. She has had the occasional scuffle with Ghengis, and I've always declared on him when asked to pitch in. I've not done any actual fighting, mind. EDIT: I think Catherine may still be at war with Ghengis too (I got her to declare in the hope it would slow her down... she's running away with the game at the moment)
I guess aiming for diplomatic victory is possible... but tricky. I've not managed a victory like that for a while as the balance of power is so easily upset. On the easier levels, I did it all the time as backdoor domination.
But I don't think I can play again until Wednesday. Thanks for the advice and thoughts
EDIT: Oh yeah, I've been in free religion since hitting liberalism in the 11th Century. I've run without a state religion for most of the game to keep my head down. I did switch to Buddhism shortly before going to free religion as Asoka asked me, both he and Hatty were Buddhist and I knew I wouldn't be running it for long.
I guess aiming for diplomatic victory is possible... but tricky. I've not managed a victory like that for a while as the balance of power is so easily upset. On the easier levels, I did it all the time as backdoor domination.
But I don't think I can play again until Wednesday. Thanks for the advice and thoughts
EDIT: Oh yeah, I've been in free religion since hitting liberalism in the 11th Century. I've run without a state religion for most of the game to keep my head down. I did switch to Buddhism shortly before going to free religion as Asoka asked me, both he and Hatty were Buddhist and I knew I wouldn't be running it for long.
The-Hawk
Old Original Geezer
Well, I'm through 1500 AD. I've almost cleaned off my continent, but Cathy and Huayna are still teching ahead of me so I'm not looking forward to attacking their continent. I'm not sure I'm going to try to finish my domination... still a long way to go for land and the map has so much ice and tundra (pop won't be a problem). Might just settle for diplo.
As I mentioned in the first spoiler, I never settled the island with the special tiles... hadn't noticed them. Later Huayna settled there. Right after he settled (only one longbow in his city), in a bizarre example of AI folly, he DOW's on me. Problem is he has absolutely zero units anywhere near any of my land... other than the one lonely longbow in his new city. I pop three knights and a cat over on two galleys protecting my fish... and take the city. He later pays me 200 gold for peace having never brought a unit near my land.
to be continued...
/edit... kind of wishing I had gone for culture, this map set up for it very nicely! I almost could still go for it with a couple of my commerce cities.
As I mentioned in the first spoiler, I never settled the island with the special tiles... hadn't noticed them. Later Huayna settled there. Right after he settled (only one longbow in his city), in a bizarre example of AI folly, he DOW's on me. Problem is he has absolutely zero units anywhere near any of my land... other than the one lonely longbow in his new city. I pop three knights and a cat over on two galleys protecting my fish... and take the city. He later pays me 200 gold for peace having never brought a unit near my land.
to be continued...
/edit... kind of wishing I had gone for culture, this map set up for it very nicely! I almost could still go for it with a couple of my commerce cities.
Meatbuster
formerly Robo Kai
I was going for a culture victory but I think I shut off the tech too fast, resulting in Cathy invading me with 2 frigates and 2 galleons containing some grenadiers. Too bad, I was close to the limit with Beijing. 
First time playing Immortal and I can't even beat Emperor that easily yet. Oh well, live and learn.
First time playing Immortal and I can't even beat Emperor that easily yet. Oh well, live and learn.
Contender, Diplo in 1628, score 85983
I decided to move the settler 2SE as I suspected there might be some resources nearby and was a little worried about getting boxed in at the end of a peninsula. Turn 2 my warrior spots the gold which warrants moving the settler ne for further exploration.
This leads to the plains/forest hill 4e of the starting spot, which to me seems like an obvious spot to settle. You can get the extra hammer and defense on the city, as well as have corn, sheep, cow(grass), and gold (the stone was not visible). Although it looks like there will be some later limitations, for a start it doesn't get much better than this. I mean you can get it up to 10 pretty quick w/o farming and working the gold. The game will surely be decided before the food limitations matter. It also preserved the start location (minus the corn), for city #2 which can then start whipping WB. A bonus is the ivory which will be in range by the time you need it.
I would appreciate any commments on the start as I have only read of one other player choosing this spot which unless you are going cultural from the get go or don't move just seemed so obvious to me--what am I missing?
The rest of my game was not that eventful--I played very conservatively as I normally only play emperor and didn't have a good feel for the level. I made a couple of changes of direction which slowed me considerably as well as a few significant errors--I built a reasonable force to take Hattie before she hooked up any resources then decided I should wait and grab colosseus (having foolishly delayed MC). I hadn't noticed the island food and let Hattie settle--no real big problem but would've been better to do myself. I lost an Egyptian city to Genghis that I wanted--I had sent a force down to pick it up in the event he weakened it for me but was not to be--another unit and I'd have had a chance at it--meanwhile my SOD was overpowering as she had surprisingly few units.
The rest of the world was mostly Hindu with Asoka buddhist so he was my next target and surprisingly weak. I was planning on dom with Genghis after Asoka, but at that point I saw all friendly on my foreign advisor screen--something I had never seen before and Genghis had a large army as result of long wars with little losses vs. Hattie and Asoka. So I decided to switch to diplo despite having researched a number of techs that I didn't need for that.
The vote was easy when Cathy(#2) went FR. Was still all friendly at the end.
Wonders:Colosseus,SL, UN. 2 shrines captured (Asoka), parthenon (Hattie).
Overall I was happy with my game--fewer errors than usual and as I played very cautiously I was pleased with the result. It all seemed much too easy for immortal.
I decided to move the settler 2SE as I suspected there might be some resources nearby and was a little worried about getting boxed in at the end of a peninsula. Turn 2 my warrior spots the gold which warrants moving the settler ne for further exploration.
This leads to the plains/forest hill 4e of the starting spot, which to me seems like an obvious spot to settle. You can get the extra hammer and defense on the city, as well as have corn, sheep, cow(grass), and gold (the stone was not visible). Although it looks like there will be some later limitations, for a start it doesn't get much better than this. I mean you can get it up to 10 pretty quick w/o farming and working the gold. The game will surely be decided before the food limitations matter. It also preserved the start location (minus the corn), for city #2 which can then start whipping WB. A bonus is the ivory which will be in range by the time you need it.
I would appreciate any commments on the start as I have only read of one other player choosing this spot which unless you are going cultural from the get go or don't move just seemed so obvious to me--what am I missing?
The rest of my game was not that eventful--I played very conservatively as I normally only play emperor and didn't have a good feel for the level. I made a couple of changes of direction which slowed me considerably as well as a few significant errors--I built a reasonable force to take Hattie before she hooked up any resources then decided I should wait and grab colosseus (having foolishly delayed MC). I hadn't noticed the island food and let Hattie settle--no real big problem but would've been better to do myself. I lost an Egyptian city to Genghis that I wanted--I had sent a force down to pick it up in the event he weakened it for me but was not to be--another unit and I'd have had a chance at it--meanwhile my SOD was overpowering as she had surprisingly few units.
The rest of the world was mostly Hindu with Asoka buddhist so he was my next target and surprisingly weak. I was planning on dom with Genghis after Asoka, but at that point I saw all friendly on my foreign advisor screen--something I had never seen before and Genghis had a large army as result of long wars with little losses vs. Hattie and Asoka. So I decided to switch to diplo despite having researched a number of techs that I didn't need for that.
The vote was easy when Cathy(#2) went FR. Was still all friendly at the end.
Wonders:Colosseus,SL, UN. 2 shrines captured (Asoka), parthenon (Hattie).
Overall I was happy with my game--fewer errors than usual and as I played very cautiously I was pleased with the result. It all seemed much too easy for immortal.
I'm not sure, but I don't think that plains hill was even visible to me at turn 2. I moved the warrior SE then NE and the settler SE, SE. I'd have to replay the start to see if that hill shows up but I don't think it did. Even if I did see that hill the grassland cow definitely was not visible, it would have taken the settler 2 more turns to get on that hill and I'd be losing the fish/coastal access/ivory. If I knew the cow and the stone were there I might have moved but without seeing them it didn't even cross my mind. I think settling on plains hills is a little overrated anyway. It's a small boost to production early on and a loss of production later in the game (provided there's enough food available that you could work it).
Great game. I'm sure your date will be in the running for fastest finish.
edit: I wouldn't mind hearing a few more details about your wars. Such as dates, what units you used, how big of a resistance they put up, etc. A screenshot of your final minimap would be nice as well.
Great game. I'm sure your date will be in the running for fastest finish.
edit: I wouldn't mind hearing a few more details about your wars. Such as dates, what units you used, how big of a resistance they put up, etc. A screenshot of your final minimap would be nice as well.
Based on my strategy of teching fast and keeping maintenance down, I was able to get to Maces fairly early and then went after Egypt and India who both went down fairly easily (Khan had attacked Egypt early in the game and stayed at war for a long time.)
After India, I faced the same situation as several people. Khan had a ton of guys around (just waiting for a war). But, I hadn't built up a navy, so I went after Khan. Sheesh, what a pain he was. I did okay, but his counter attacks were bad. I realized that I should have been traveling with some long bows/muskets to plop into newly acquired cities - not to mention to defend as you move toward cities. Twice I captured cities only to put in my weakened city attackers (for healing) and then face a nasty counter - and city attackers don't defend well. Live and learn.
The other thing that I found very useful this game was a suggestion I'd read on one of the prior GOTMs. I started moving up my culture slider much more aggressively to counter unhappiness and thus extending the war much longer than I used to - and not losing population in my cities as I went. Normally I would have stopped half way through the war with Khan, but in this case I went until he was dead. I lost a bit of tech research, but it didn't really cost me much in the end game. I'm going to have to play with it more, but certainly helped a lot.
FYI - The next attacks were Incas then Russia (only captued about half to reach dom). Cyrus would have been much easier, but my troops were a long way away, so I went Russia instead.
After India, I faced the same situation as several people. Khan had a ton of guys around (just waiting for a war). But, I hadn't built up a navy, so I went after Khan. Sheesh, what a pain he was. I did okay, but his counter attacks were bad. I realized that I should have been traveling with some long bows/muskets to plop into newly acquired cities - not to mention to defend as you move toward cities. Twice I captured cities only to put in my weakened city attackers (for healing) and then face a nasty counter - and city attackers don't defend well. Live and learn.
The other thing that I found very useful this game was a suggestion I'd read on one of the prior GOTMs. I started moving up my culture slider much more aggressively to counter unhappiness and thus extending the war much longer than I used to - and not losing population in my cities as I went. Normally I would have stopped half way through the war with Khan, but in this case I went until he was dead. I lost a bit of tech research, but it didn't really cost me much in the end game. I'm going to have to play with it more, but certainly helped a lot.
FYI - The next attacks were Incas then Russia (only captued about half to reach dom). Cyrus would have been much easier, but my troops were a long way away, so I went Russia instead.
andybrown65
Chieftain
Well I usually struggle not to get wiped out on Prince, so I played this on the easy level. I didn't get wiped out, but went for a cultural victory becasue I was behind on everything else. I must have played dipolomacy quite well as I had 2 defensive pacts and the tech leaders gave me techs without prompting. However I learnt a lot, especially about managing happiness levels. Still not sure I get cottaging - I have to place people on a cottage for it to grow; however sometimes sometimes hamlets grow on their own, sometimes they don't - I don't get it. So a big thanks for setting the game up I really enjoyed it. BTW I lost in the end; but given 25 more turns...
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