Help Me Get Better on Immortal!

[dankok8]

Played to turn 157 (960 AD).

Spoiler :

For thousands of years, the Spanish people carrying wooden clubs were terrified of the mighty Sumerians wielding iron weapons but no longer. Now Spaniard had men with guns riding horses. Greedy men who talked about gold and plunder. The Spanish started talking about El Dorado or as the Sumerians call it Uruk.

640 AD - all techs for Conqs ready; switched to Police State, Vassalage, Slavery; tech path set towards Astronomy
760 AD - after merciless whipping of the Spanish population I had 12 Conqs in position and a few more being whipped which I felt was enough to get the ball rolling

I went for a multipronged attack to quickly deal lots of damage. On the first turn of the war, I captured 3 cities. Notice I used my idle Workers to scout Sumeria!

The nice thing about that was not just reducing his production capacity but capturing Ivory away from him and stopping him from building any more War Elephants. I lost I think five Conqs in the war and three of them were to those bulky giants. I would be happy after getting the Ivory from him. I think this war would be a lot more difficult if he built more of those.

3 turns after the war started, Qin was willing to join the fight and I took it with open arms. Gilga actually made concerted counterattacks and his hordes of melee units didn't worry me but WE and Catapults did and I would be happy if Qin had to deal with some of them.

In 940 AD, El Dorado was captured with no losses. Great city with Corn, Pigs, two Clams, and Iron. Gilga now has no more Iron in his land from what I can see.

The troops then went after Eridu which was an isolated enemy pocket and had a fairly large stack of Gilga's army. They were no match for rampaging Conquistadors and here is the state of the world in 960 AD.

 

[sampsa]

Looking good. The way I usually proceed is accept capitulation when available and move to the next victim. The alternative is to keep on rolling, just capturing everything. I tend to try to prioritize winning date, but there are other ways, too. Game is in the bag anyway.

 

[dankok8]

Played to turn 174 (1150 AD). Forgot to attach saves last time so here they are.

Spoiler :

In 1140 AD, Gilga was wiped out. All in all the war took 26 turns which I guess isn't too bad considering the size of his territory. The war itself went pretty smoothly. Sumerians have terrible land though. Other than Uruk which is an absolute prize and a few decent sites down in the jungle that aren't even fully developed, the rest of his land is plains and desert with little food.

Economy is in fairly rough shape after intense shipping (angry facing are slowly dissipating) and Sumerian cities are still coming out of revolt and they are the ones being whipped now. I switched to Rep and Bureau now because the economy needs a boost. The happy cap was unbearably low with whipping anger, war weariness, and no resource trades. At this point during the upcoming China war only the former Sumerian cities and especially small ones coming out of revolt will whip.

Thoughts on the game. It isn't in the bag yet.

Spoiler :

The plan is to capture the tiny city of Kaifeng garrisoned by a single knight and then make a push straight for Beijing. If Beijing falls, China will fall! Qin's power is roughly equal to mine but I think a lot of his units are down south fighting barbs. I'm hoping I can strike a quick decisive blow.

Thank goodness I'm close to Astro and I already have a Caravel headed over to the other continent. I badly need foreign trade routes and capturing GLH in Uruk will help with one extra trade route as well. I also badly need happy resources which the other continent should help with. I recently switched to Free Religion because cities are growing and not running GP's now which should also help relations with the other continent. I was paying double unit maintenance with Pacifism.

After Astro, I'm thinking Printing Press and then beeline Rifling.

I don't think I'm getting too much out of Bureaucracy. Maybe switch to Free Speech soon?

I don't know what's happening on the other continent but I'm a bit worried that someone has almost double my power. And apparently a huge land area as well. I saw notices of GG's popping on the other continent. I hope I don't see a 25 city Shaka with 2 vassals!

 

[dankok8]

Played a small 7 turn segment to turn 181 (1220 AD).

Spoiler :

Started the war with China in 1170 AD and immediately captured Kaifeng and killed a few stray Catapults. In 1200 AD went all in for Beijing and took without too many problems. 2 Conqs died.

Killer capital with 2 seafood, 2 gems, and a bunch of wonders.

Next turn I'm going to take Shanghai and then it should be mop up. Right before I contacted the other continent, I was losing gold at 0% research so it was quite bad. As soon as I opened up intercontinental trade, things improved but not as much as I hoped because Mansa is the only one not in Mercantilism. Still the resource trades are helping. Despite my struggling economy, I should be ok because I have a healthy tech lead.

Situation on the other continent:

Spoiler :

Charlemagne is the big dog and has two vassals in Mansa and Tokugawa. Tokugawa is a war vassal of course. Justinian is not under Charlemagne but the two love each other and basically the whole continent is a love fest now except for Toku who hates Mansa but who cares since Toku won't trade anyway. Simple diplomacy. Domination could be complicated with Charlie so strong but my plan after Qin is to go after Justinian vassalize him and then use his land as a springboard for the war to end all wars.

Given my tech lead, I should also be able to go for Space I think. No one seems to be going for Culture so that's good if I end up going that route. It's less likely though.

 

[sampsa]

I would recommend just winning conquest. Inter-continental warfare is something you should just start doing and you'll notice it's just easy. Of course you can also win space if you want.

 

[dankok8]

I would recommend just winning conquest. Inter-continental warfare is something you should just start doing and you'll notice it's just easy. Of course you can also win space if you want.

I mostly win by conquest or domination actually so I'm used to it. But not on Immortal unless I have Praets or another uber UU.

A crazy long game I played recently on Emperor was on the Earth 18 map and I won domination as Catherine. It was fun but it was a slog especially landing on the other continent and finding that Monty has like 536 Catapults to throw at my Tanks LOL.

Spoiler :

I think capping Justinian (hopefully I can beg for 1 gold from Charlie to get a 10 turn peace treaty while I'm doing it) and then using his land as a springboard seems very doable.

 

[dankok8]

Played to turn 206 (1470 AD).

Spoiler :

China is no more. The continent is ours.

3 turns from Rifling and maybe 10-15 to Steel. Going to have to draft/whip/chop (yes chop; there are lots of forests in former China) an absolutely massive army of Rifles and Cannons to supplement the Conqs. Mansa and Justinian are closer than ever in tech but they are still lacking military tech.

Going to try and create two army groups of about 50 units each. One will capture Costantinople and another one another big Byzantine city. I want to cripple him fast.

Right now the power graph doesn't look good. Justinian is slightly stronger than me as well but I don't have enough EP as of now. I'm emphasizing him right now.

Spoiler Question - Is something weird going on? :

Charlie has been WHEOOHRN for the last 20+ turns since I met him. Since he doesn't have Astronomy I can't imagine myself or Qin being the target. Is it Justinian? They are Friendly so that's quite weird as there's no one else to attack.

Spoiler A bit worried... :

Charlie is a runaway AI with over double my power.

My economy isn't that strong and AI are catching up to me in tech. I could probably get beat to Space even if I tried.

Mansa may be going for culture. Actually a little worried about that too as his three cities are all around or past 5000 culture.

I'm definitely going all in for a military win. Should be a fun finish!

 

[LincolnOfRome]

I think the only thing castles lose is the extra trade route. They just can't be built after economics.

 

[dankok8]

Any feedback before I continue this game? I'm planning to finish it tomorrow. I had a long crazy day.

 

[dankok8]

Domination Victory is pretty much certain.

Spoiler :

Charlie was still plotting when the round started. As soon I got Rifling, started producing rifleman plus some cavalry by every means possible. I have to say I'm amazed by the power of Slavery late in the game. which is something I haven't done much before. I was 3-pop whipping Rifleman with Police State. I was drafting a bit too but draft is 3 unhappiness and -1 pop while slaving is 1 unhappiness and -3 pop. If the cities have food to regrow, slaving > drafting. I drafted in only a few food poor cities in Sumeria and China.

Anyways Charlie tried to win an AP victory but I voted for Justinian. This produced the unexpected effect of +8 with Justinian and he became Friendly to me even though I was in Free Religion. It was a strategic vote but Justinian took it as a sigh of friendship. Charlie declared war on me and landed several big medieval stacks but I shredded them and he paid me for peace. My invasion fleet was ready but instead of attacking Justinian I decided I would go for the head of the snake. Mansa was also about 30 turns from a cultural win and close to Rifling so I decided to attack.

I continued on and practically won the game. Razed Djenne which was one of the three soon to be legendary cities, captured one of Charlie's cities as well and established a foothold on the other continent. I don't want to finish this game because it's gonna be a 2 or 3 hour slog taking out their cities one by one and an absolute logistical nightmare sending hundreds of units over the ocean in creaky Galleons. I got Steel too soon after Rifling and started spamming cannons. Next turn I was due 9 more cannons, 4 more rifles, 1 cavalry, and 2 galleons. To the power of slavery!

Charlie has 13 cities and I have 30. The power graph tells the whole story.

Thank you so much guys! Without you, this wouldn't have been possible!

 

[Harv]

It looks like as soon as you figured out how to set up a flood-plain cottage economy, (and Pyramid combo) the game got much easier!

 

[dankok8]

It looks like as soon as you figured out how to set up a flood-plain cottage economy, (and Pyramid combo) the game got much easier!

It's not the cottage economy and the Pyramids. It's being able to see how to improve my game and how to be more efficient early on in the game. Doing everything a few turns earlier snowballs and has a huge effect on the rest of the game. With my first playthrough to turn 49, there is no way this game ends in a win. @sampsa taught me so many things in this thread. Everyone was helpful but he really gave me a lot to learn from.