[BTS] IMM & Deity lets play collection thread - Henrik

[Henrik75]

Live Stream Game 10/4
Hannibal's brutal immortal struggle.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I was curious why this was brutal. Played some turns and then watched the video.

Disclaimer: Henrik is a overall a much better player. This is just for comparison.

Spoiler :

Starting position. Saw a bit of sickly green that seemed like floodplains.

Since we don't start with agriculture or hunting, I rather farm a floodplains then to wait 20 turns for plains hill squirrels and plains sheep.

He went pyramids, mathematics, and construction, and tried to defend with archers. Not sure why. Charismatic, monument, and fur is already +3 happiness, one more if I pick up a religion. Even if we had the pyramids, there was no food to work specialists or to train catapults. The land wasn't worth defending.

Find better land.

Pillaged the 2 food 4 production tile and Shaka stopped training swordsman.

Ulundi is the only decent city for generating great persons. Next step: liberalism beeline no matter what. If Portugal or Dutch gets lib first then we're done.

 

[Henrik75]

Yeah earlier rush honestly the better. could get 2000BC numids in the right playstyle and forgoe mids.

 

[Hamilton321]

How would you get 2000BC Horse archers/Numids with that start?

 

[konata_LS]

Hello Henrik,

Here is a map I played several days ago at Monarch. It happened to be a semi-isolation with warmonger. So I changed the difficulty level to Immortal in WB and share it in your thread, as you might want to do some off-line practice. Not necessary to record a video for this map (of course you may do that if you want).

Spoiler :

Continents. 1037 land tiles. Semi-iso is not easy, but the river, flood plains, corn, marble and pig make the game more playable.

6 AIs. NHNE. Normal speed. No map edits, except giving AIs Immortal starting techs and units, as the map was initially generated at Monarch.

What I did with this map

Spoiler :

Initially I wanted a relaxing Monarch game after the recent tough Saladin NC, so I chose a civ with good starting techs and above-average leader (more important reason: I don't want to start next to AI Nappy). The starting position looked relaxing, but after 30 turns, I only saw Monty's units, barbs, and coast line. Monty put all his on me. This could only be semi-isolation. Fortunately Monty's capital had Horse but no Copper, which gave me some time to build units. When I saw Monty's worker started building a mine in a 2 1 flat grassland tile, I couldn't delay my attack any longer .
Economy was garbage after the attack. Unit cost was high. Barbs everywhere. Lost a Combat 3 HA to a barb Axe in an unforested flat land . Parthenon and GLib was built before I got Aesthetics . Lack of early happiness was also an issue, as gold, gem, silver, fur, and Ivory were all in the other continent.
Semi-isolation with a psycho was indeed tougher than just isolation. Managed to get 1200AD Astronomy , much later than my isolation games. Luckily there were many nice spots on my continent to backfill after Astro. Dawdling with ~350 towards Steel because the other continent adopted Mercantilism . The opponents had high Military flavor. An AI beeline Rifling. Another AI went straight for Grens and his favourite civic is Nationhood . Managed to get a very late win as Monarch level is forgiving, although the whole game is not relaxing at all. Maybe I made some wrong decisions - for example maybe I should have choked Monty? or I shouldn't have delayed Monarchy? or I should have whipped more when I prepared for the overseas warfare? ...

Despite some challenges, this map is a good start for people who do not play often semi-isolation with warmonger, as "Tokugawa plain cow and semi iso with Genghis" might be too brutal for the first attempts of semi-isolation.

Attached the WB save

Regards,

 

[Mawtle]

Hi Henrik,

I have an isolation map for you, Hemispheres script. The land was very poor - especially low in food resources. I'd be interested to see how you handle it, especially with a leader with no real econ traits. Have attached the immortal worldbuilder save.

Spoiler Start :

Spoiler Settings (no huts no events) :

The layout of the map (script) might make it easier, or harder, I'm not sure. I don't usually play hemispheres but thought it might make something different

 

[Henrik75]

Awesome, when I have time I'll play this gilgamesh one to warm up then do Konata's deity isolation.

 

[drewisfat]

I was curious why this was brutal. Played some turns and then watched the video.
The land wasn't worth defending.
Find better land.

I would have to strongly disagree here. I see enough food and land for 6 good cities and we have FIN. Would def rush Lib, it's just not good YT content.
Shaka is probably the hardest AI to HA rush in the game. FIN, CHA and cothons all scream not to HA rush. Numids aren't a reason to do anything, as they're generally worse at HA rushes than HAs (though I'll grant Shaka is an exception).

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I have never figured out how to coexist peacefully with Shaka. Shaka is the worst! If it were Montezuma and Genghis Khan, they demand tribute so you can get diplomacy modifier points.

Otherwise, yes, with the land and leader, I would have definitely preferred a more peaceful approach.

Also, it's immortal difficulty. Numidian cavalry are made to smash through combat II spearman and swordsman.

How would you have done it?

 

[drewisfat]

I don't disagree that Shaka seems to target the player like no other AI. But there's a big cost difference between defending/appeasing him and conquering him early. If he does his infamous T80 DoW on you it's unfortunate, but pre-catapult rushes can be defended with a few archers behind a wall. To that end there was a good hill city spot SW grabbing sheep that neither of you went for. Leverage your FIN tech advantage to push him to pleased/beg truce, bribe into a war with a different neighbor, or worst case scenario just to sue for peace as soon as he's willing to talk. Like all unit spammers, Shaka will fall behind as the game goes on. Better to attack him later or when he's distracted. Traits and UB both push you in that direction.
Numids aren't better at fighting spears than HAs. The extra 50% is largely offset by lower base strength. Whether it comes out slightly worse or slightly better depends on what other modifiers are in play. Numids are better against axes/swords but worse against archers, the guaranteed defender unit. A 1-dimensional Numid rush (what is generally meant by HA rush) is dubious in general due to the archer weakness, and all HA rushes are dubious against 2 move Impi that will bleed your stack (after all, withdrawal doesn't help on defense). They're a counter unit, so they're better than HAs in a support role but worse as a carry. The main thing saving them from being a literal negative is that the free promo carries through upgrade. So to quote Windsor:

How to use Numidians correctly:
1. Build a nice handful of Numidians.
2. Research Curassiers
3. Upgrade!

I'm not as big a fan of upgrading as Sampsa, and F1 isn't that great. But when surviving cuirs upgrade to Cav, adding F2 is amazing, as they don't have natural FS immunity. In this map with high commerce, minimal production capacity and no marble for GLib, I'd say mass upgrading is very favorable.

 

[Henrik75]

Hi Henrik,

I have an isolation map for you, Hemispheres script. The land was very poor - especially low in food resources. I'd be interested to see how you handle it, especially with a leader with no real econ traits. Have attached the immortal worldbuilder save.

Spoiler Start :

Spoiler Settings (no huts no events) :

The layout of the map (script) might make it easier, or harder, I'm not sure. I don't usually play hemispheres but thought it might make something different

Started playing the map couple days ago and will upload first video in a bit since it's going well.

Spoiler :

The capital is poor, but the land outside the capital is above average I do say, a very nice flood plains and grassland river to the east with fishing resources very easily accessible, thanks to being creative. This trait honestly works wonders here and potentially on par or better than something like expansive. The food might look poor but there are FOUR ocean fish spots saved thanks to being creative. Without creative you would need to build a monument then wait 10 turns for a border pop but we get them very quickly now. We have early access to fur, I would suggest grabbing that fur in your first 5 cities because the happiness is a big deal. The unique build sort of incentivizes settling more cities pre-optics and whipping out ziggurats in every city, than sticking to the usual 5-6 cities max. I ended up getting a pretty late optics but it's only immortal, I will have astronomy before 1000AD and I have 8 power house cities with forges and courthouses and growing cottages, ready to pump. The late game is an interesting story and that will be reserved for the videos to explain.

River of hope

Spoiler :

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

@Mawtle

I believe there is one correct way to play this map.

Spoiler :

This is not an isolation map. Plant city.

Gift city.

Open borders.

Foreign trade route on another continent with open borders is worth 3 commerce. Domestic is only worth 1. Now you can settle as many cities as you want.

The next steps are:
1. Research alphabet, mysticism, meditation or polytheism, priesthood. Trade for monarchy with Tokugawa.
2. Build ziggurats in all your cities.
3. Steal all the techs from Tokugawa.
4. Search every water tile you can access. There may be other civilisations to trade techs with. You may have to wait until their cultural borders expand.

 

[drewisfat]

Spoiler Gilgamesh Game spoilers :

Great job finding Toku immediately! Not sure I would have scouted him out that quickly, and getting OB is half the battle.
Not sure on EE though. It makes sense given that tech trading is going to be minimal and you're PRO. The problem is no TGW, no religious modifiers, and if Toku isn't connected to anyone else, all his espionage spending will be on you. The worst case scenario is he discovers one too many of your spies and you lose OB. Regardless, definitely worth checking the espionage tab to see if he's discovered anyone else.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

@drewisfat @Mawtle

I will not finish the Gilgamesh game because...

Spoiler :

...the game is not isolation! Not only that but I found the borders of another colour. So I settled a city on an island nearby and made contact. We are separated by ocean tiles but since it is covered by culture borders, my fishing boat can pass. My fishing boat then met another civilisation.

So this is just a normal game where I get foreign trade routes with three (3) AIs. Trade routes can connect across oceans if connected by culture borders, EXCEPT for a mysterious vertical line that exists in cylindrical maps.

If I played on, I would go galleys and catapults to invade Japan. Ziggurats are awesome.

 

[konata_LS]

@sylvanllewelyn

Spoiler :

GJ finding Toku early and get foreign traderoutes . It reminds me of a Gandhi "isolation" map: @ Pangaea did a shadow game of a Gandhi map provided by Lain. That map was supposed to be isolation, but AI Cyrus built a city in the human player's continent .

Instead of proving the map is isolation or not, it seems Henrik deliberately avoids pre-Optics trades and wants to do some experiments about the optimal empire build-up in isolation. I guess he might want to know "people usually stay small before Astro in a horrible island, but if there are some high or many riverside tiles, is it wise to grab all these spots and delay Optics for a while?", a way of thinking somewhat similar to Thomas Edison who did many tests to find the suitable material of light bulb filaments.

3. Steal all the techs from Tokugawa.

TBH I doubt if AI Toku has something for you to steal, because you know, Toku is Toku . Even on Deity, Toku is the one who suicided his classical junk onto your Cuirassiers, not to mention that Giggle map is at Immortal level . But you did bring some good points: open borders with Toku and scout his land; the backward Toku is certainly a tempting target for the first war.

@Henrik75

Spoiler :

Watched the first part of your Giggle game and will soon start watching the second part. Generally agree with your tech choice. Non-riverside Spices wouldn't pay for early Calendar. Unfortunately the stone was too far from your capital and Mids was built by someone else. CRE is indeed nice for ocean fish; faster border pop reduces the fog tiles where barbs can spawn.

Having some more well-developed cities before Astro is interesting . Every map/situation is different. But I think in that Giggle map, slightly delaying Optics won't lead to a loss, because the wonders go quite late, 400AD Taoism is fine, and several GGenerals born in far away land. Plus, Mansa is not in the game, so the whole tech pace wouldn't be too fast. Putting off Optics for a few turns would still get some trades. Sometimes an early Optics doesn't bring you many useful trades at Immortal, such as in your WK isolation game (IMM41).
In the opposite situation, for example if the wonders get built very fast, no GGenerals born in far away land, someone got 500BC Taoism, 1AD Sankore and 200AD Lib, in such cases it may be wise to get Optics as early as possible, and late Optics might make the human players miss many trades. Though such a game is usually tough.

 

[Henrik75]

Suleiman Archipelago Immortal

 

[Henrik75]

Brutal Mansa Musa start - deity pangaea

 

[Henrik75]

Tokugawa Immortal Inland Sea - handpicked strong AI

 

[Gwaja]

@Henrik75

That Mansa Musa map was really something. And the excitement in your voice when you had those good charms on your side in your first wave of attacks... priceless. ^_^ That map is a keeper.

 

[Henrik75]

@Henrik75

That Mansa Musa map was really something. And the excitement in your voice when you had those good charms on your side in your first wave of attacks... priceless. ^_^ That map is a keeper.

Thank you I appreciate it

Think I just had an even more insane game, lib went at 50BC....