Immortal Cookbook I: Roosevelt
- Thread starter tycoonist
- Start date
Nice analysis Berkobob. Really helpful. 
So far, I've got it down to:
So far, I've got it down to:
Spoiler :
pigswill
fly (one day)
Thoughts on my city placement:
Thoughts on the map:
My Votes:
Spoiler :
Thoughts on the map:
Spoiler :
My Votes:
Spoiler :
Gliese 581
Your average civ junkie
Berkobob:
A more detailed analysis of my game would go something like this:
I decided upon seeing the leader and the start to go for a wonderhog stratey. The most difficult early wonder to get imo is The Oracle unless you settle for getting IW because you need several techs. The limiting factor is almost always going to be your research and not your production in how early you can get it and get a good payoff. Stonehenge/TGW are easy to get and The Pyramids as well. TOA can be difficult but I'd only go for that with early marble.
About New York; yeah it was placed purely for copper/gold.
I had a couple of choices for barb defense:
1: get hunting + archery. Not really viable for this strategy since you need to get other techs fast.
2: Build TGW. I didn't want to pollute the GP pool with Gspy points. We are also placed in an easilly defended area so getting it would be purely to establish early defense enough to make better city placements.
3: Get copper in 1st, 2nd or 3rd ring of capital OR if reasonably close in 1st ring of first expansion.
So I chose alternative #3 for this game. Ideally New York would have been placed 1S to get rice as well but I didn't have time to wait for a border pop to hook up copper unless I wanted to divert time on building lots of extra warriors and if I encountered the scenario that Sleepless? encountered with a barb axe I would have been screwed. As it is, this city is there to get copper fast and to help get writing fast. Later on fish city can be built to take over the gold while NY focuses on production only. Getting writing for Oracle is an extra challenge in this game since there's no huts and normally you'd get at least a little gold for some deficit research.
I also wanted to get something other than IW. The choices were Pottery for MC slingshot or Writing for Aest/Maths/Alph or COL.
MC can be good since we have half priced forges and gold, but it's really not optimal for wonderhogging unless you want the colossus.
That leaves Maths as the typical target. The chop bonus is really helpful for quickly getting The Pyramids and since the AI often make this tech a priority you can't delay THG too long or risk losing it. For this game one could gamble on Aest with this setup as I initially thought of since there's so many potential trading partners, but Maths is the conservative choice.
About the choices I pmd tycoonist:
1 Pete2006
This game looks alot like what I would have gone for if I didn't go for a wonderhog strategy. It's a better strategy than wonderhog here imo bc we can easilly get the best features of a wonderhog game (pyramids, good prod, good science cap) and sustain a big rex (2gold, 2 furs, organized trait). The only thing it lacks vs wonderhog game is fun factor. The tech choices esp. is exactly what I would have picked. Also good bpt, city placement. Lacks workers but this can be compensated for with the worker steal. Also, why is the washington worker building a mine directly instead of chopping first then mining?
2 Jet
Good BPT, 2 good cities (getting gold soon). Seriously lacks defense though which should be remedied asap. it would have been better to go for archery OR get a city with copper in 1st ring imo but potential is great. Washington needs a few more improved tiles.
3 Sleepless
Copper online fast and overall good city placement, decent BPT. Lacks workers but NY can get one in 4 turns and Washington in 2 with whips. Since defense is taken care off and there's lots of forests around Washington it will then be quite easy to chop out two more settler to hook up the second gold and furs fast. Overall a solid start.
A more detailed analysis of my game would go something like this:
I decided upon seeing the leader and the start to go for a wonderhog stratey. The most difficult early wonder to get imo is The Oracle unless you settle for getting IW because you need several techs. The limiting factor is almost always going to be your research and not your production in how early you can get it and get a good payoff. Stonehenge/TGW are easy to get and The Pyramids as well. TOA can be difficult but I'd only go for that with early marble.
About New York; yeah it was placed purely for copper/gold.
I had a couple of choices for barb defense:
1: get hunting + archery. Not really viable for this strategy since you need to get other techs fast.
2: Build TGW. I didn't want to pollute the GP pool with Gspy points. We are also placed in an easilly defended area so getting it would be purely to establish early defense enough to make better city placements.
3: Get copper in 1st, 2nd or 3rd ring of capital OR if reasonably close in 1st ring of first expansion.
So I chose alternative #3 for this game. Ideally New York would have been placed 1S to get rice as well but I didn't have time to wait for a border pop to hook up copper unless I wanted to divert time on building lots of extra warriors and if I encountered the scenario that Sleepless? encountered with a barb axe I would have been screwed. As it is, this city is there to get copper fast and to help get writing fast. Later on fish city can be built to take over the gold while NY focuses on production only. Getting writing for Oracle is an extra challenge in this game since there's no huts and normally you'd get at least a little gold for some deficit research.
I also wanted to get something other than IW. The choices were Pottery for MC slingshot or Writing for Aest/Maths/Alph or COL.
MC can be good since we have half priced forges and gold, but it's really not optimal for wonderhogging unless you want the colossus.
That leaves Maths as the typical target. The chop bonus is really helpful for quickly getting The Pyramids and since the AI often make this tech a priority you can't delay THG too long or risk losing it. For this game one could gamble on Aest with this setup as I initially thought of since there's so many potential trading partners, but Maths is the conservative choice.
About the choices I pmd tycoonist:
1 Pete2006
This game looks alot like what I would have gone for if I didn't go for a wonderhog strategy. It's a better strategy than wonderhog here imo bc we can easilly get the best features of a wonderhog game (pyramids, good prod, good science cap) and sustain a big rex (2gold, 2 furs, organized trait). The only thing it lacks vs wonderhog game is fun factor. The tech choices esp. is exactly what I would have picked. Also good bpt, city placement. Lacks workers but this can be compensated for with the worker steal. Also, why is the washington worker building a mine directly instead of chopping first then mining?
2 Jet
Good BPT, 2 good cities (getting gold soon). Seriously lacks defense though which should be remedied asap. it would have been better to go for archery OR get a city with copper in 1st ring imo but potential is great. Washington needs a few more improved tiles.
3 Sleepless
Copper online fast and overall good city placement, decent BPT. Lacks workers but NY can get one in 4 turns and Washington in 2 with whips. Since defense is taken care off and there's lots of forests around Washington it will then be quite easy to chop out two more settler to hook up the second gold and furs fast. Overall a solid start.
carl corey
Deity
Aside from Gliese's save on which I've already commented, and which in my opinion has great potential for expansion, I also like the saves of:
- pigswill: although I wouldn't have moved the capital, he made good use of the cows we left behind. I'm a bit concerned about the fact that we have no western coastal cities, but that will probably be arranged once we settle/conquer a city in the jungle. The four workers are of course a bonus as we can chop pretty much anything we put our mind to in the capital. Copper already hooked up, check. And 2 barracks - hmm, are early barracks really that useful? We have horses nearby so a combination of Chariots and Axes can easily keep us safe from barbs. We should probably build libraries next in the gold cities to further boost our research, and Pyramids is also an option (or the pile of cash we get if we miss).
- Winston Hughes: 4 workers also, and capital still forested means great productive potential. I just love the second city, it already has 3 resources online (and an unusable mine until Iron Working lets us work the pigs; oh well). The tech rate is excellent due to the early gold and we already have pottery and writing. Of course now we know where horses will pop up, so AH is definitely next. I don't think we have a shot for any early wonders since we don't have a stone city yet but I'm pretty sure we can get the Great Library if we set our minds to it.
So my final vote is:
1. Gliese - 3 points
2. pigswill - 2 points
3. Winston Hughes - 1 point.
Pete gets an honorary mention, but I'm a bit worried about declaring war this early. We have no military boost traits and I think we'd be better off leveraging being Industrious and Organized (hence the top place for Gliese).
Berkobob, to answer your question about the workboat, it's out so that we can explore Ragnar's back yard a bit until we get chariots, and then continue to see if it meets other AIs. My single player games usually lack exploration because I'm rushing through them, I don't want to make the same mistake here, especially on Immortal. And seeing how this is a fractal map there's a chance all AIs might be on the same continent, so getting to know them means trading opportunities once we get Alphabet. If we get a Great Spy we'll want spies to steal things anyway, so Alphabet looks like a good tech goal. If we get a Great Engineer on the other hand we might want to go for Aesthetics and Literature and build the Great Library with it (or without, depends on where the AIs are) and trade Aesthetics for Alphabet and again trade techs around. With the caveat that it would be better to steal cheap techs and trade for expensive ones. We don't want WFYABTA to hit too early.
- pigswill: although I wouldn't have moved the capital, he made good use of the cows we left behind. I'm a bit concerned about the fact that we have no western coastal cities, but that will probably be arranged once we settle/conquer a city in the jungle. The four workers are of course a bonus as we can chop pretty much anything we put our mind to in the capital. Copper already hooked up, check. And 2 barracks - hmm, are early barracks really that useful? We have horses nearby so a combination of Chariots and Axes can easily keep us safe from barbs. We should probably build libraries next in the gold cities to further boost our research, and Pyramids is also an option (or the pile of cash we get if we miss).
- Winston Hughes: 4 workers also, and capital still forested means great productive potential. I just love the second city, it already has 3 resources online (and an unusable mine until Iron Working lets us work the pigs; oh well). The tech rate is excellent due to the early gold and we already have pottery and writing. Of course now we know where horses will pop up, so AH is definitely next. I don't think we have a shot for any early wonders since we don't have a stone city yet but I'm pretty sure we can get the Great Library if we set our minds to it.
So my final vote is:
1. Gliese - 3 points
2. pigswill - 2 points
3. Winston Hughes - 1 point.
Pete gets an honorary mention, but I'm a bit worried about declaring war this early. We have no military boost traits and I think we'd be better off leveraging being Industrious and Organized (hence the top place for Gliese).
Berkobob, to answer your question about the workboat, it's out so that we can explore Ragnar's back yard a bit until we get chariots, and then continue to see if it meets other AIs. My single player games usually lack exploration because I'm rushing through them, I don't want to make the same mistake here, especially on Immortal. And seeing how this is a fractal map there's a chance all AIs might be on the same continent, so getting to know them means trading opportunities once we get Alphabet. If we get a Great Spy we'll want spies to steal things anyway, so Alphabet looks like a good tech goal. If we get a Great Engineer on the other hand we might want to go for Aesthetics and Literature and build the Great Library with it (or without, depends on where the AIs are) and trade Aesthetics for Alphabet and again trade techs around. With the caveat that it would be better to steal cheap techs and trade for expensive ones. We don't want WFYABTA to hit too early.
Berkobob
Warlord
@ Gliese - thanks for the breakdown. As you can tell from my abysmally placed New York, I was also concerned about waiting for a border pop to claim copper. 
@ Carl Corey
Thanks for giving me some feedback on why you have a workboat out. I'll usually not hesitate to ask questions/make assumptions about people's strategy in hope of getting feedback/corrections. Being wrong is a fantastic way to learn.
@ all
Like I said already, this has been a great learning experience for me. I'm a LOT better at starting now, in fact, I replayed this start shortly after my last post (cheating a bit, I know) and managed to get three cities up + SH (rice/gold + 'Petes Boston') squeeze in a fourth worker and tech at around 16 BPT at turn 100 while mining one gold and having copper up in 4 turns (which is probably ~15-20 turns ahead of my original try).
Looking forward to round two regardless.
@ Carl Corey
Thanks for giving me some feedback on why you have a workboat out. I'll usually not hesitate to ask questions/make assumptions about people's strategy in hope of getting feedback/corrections. Being wrong is a fantastic way to learn.
@ all
Like I said already, this has been a great learning experience for me. I'm a LOT better at starting now, in fact, I replayed this start shortly after my last post (cheating a bit, I know) and managed to get three cities up + SH (rice/gold + 'Petes Boston') squeeze in a fourth worker and tech at around 16 BPT at turn 100 while mining one gold and having copper up in 4 turns (which is probably ~15-20 turns ahead of my original try).
Looking forward to round two regardless.
Gliese 581
Your average civ junkie
Waiting for round 2 as well. Otherwise I'll have to start another game and play that one instead.
Start another deity university thread, I need to try my hand at that.
On the other hand I still haven't had time to play anymore on the IUS Pacal game and colonization is due very soon!
Tough choice between the four I mentioned earlier, but:
Gliese's save missed the cut because the Oracle could still be lost, which would leave us with a very weak start. And so...
3 points - carl corey (risky, but I'm a sucker for this kind of gambit)
2 points - pigswill (I love my war)
1 point - Pete2006 (unspectacular, but a solid base on which to build).
Edit:
It was built for the period before the border popped. Not the most efficient use of worker turns at that early stage, I know, but my focus was on getting NY up and running asap. File under Winston's Bizarre and Mostly Pointless Early-Game Decisions.
Gliese's save missed the cut because the Oracle could still be lost, which would leave us with a very weak start. And so...
3 points - carl corey (risky, but I'm a sucker for this kind of gambit)
2 points - pigswill (I love my war)
1 point - Pete2006 (unspectacular, but a solid base on which to build).
Edit:
carl corey said:
It was built for the period before the border popped. Not the most efficient use of worker turns at that early stage, I know, but my focus was on getting NY up and running asap. File under Winston's Bizarre and Mostly Pointless Early-Game Decisions.
carl corey
Deity
Heh, you're welcome.
Keep the questions/assumptions coming.Aha, ok, that actually makes sense.
If I have a "useless" small cross I usually try to chop a forest for the Monument, then I let the city be until it expands to get the resources in the big cross. You got 4 workers out, so using one to build a mine that was used for a short (but essential) period of time is not such a waste as it would be in my case, with only two workers.Well, the tech rate is good, and we'd still get a good cash return for a missed Oracle. We could still research whatever tech we had as an Oracle target with deficit spending. I guess what we need is an estimate of the cash return to see how viable the strategy would be if we missed the Oracle. Ok, enough arguing with your votes...
I took this into consideration, but decided that missing the Oracle would still be a very serious blow (esp. given the poor tech rate in the immediate future - a gold surplus doesn't let you tech faster than your cities can produce beakers, after all).
Eliminating one of those four saves was a tough judgement call, and this was the decider for me.
Why is everyone saying my save is so bland? I'm the only one planning to go to war with a single warrior! Nothing can be more exciting than that. It seems like a lot of you want to sit back and wonderspam. Nothing can be more boring than that. Ragnar will kick our butts if we let him expand.
Gliese 581
Your average civ junkie
I don't think it's bland, but it's "safe". It makes the most sense from a strategical viewpoint so I'm not critical about it at all. I think wonderhogging is fun because it requires precise timing and execution and a bit of luck but everyone has their preferences. Wonderhogging is probably not the strongest strategy here though SH, Pyramids and TGL of course makes sense to get given industrous stone AND marble and no risk of getting boxed in.
In any case I'll enjoy this game wonderhogging or no wonderhogging the 2nd round will be fun to play.
Edit: Though If I'd wanted to really push the greed angle here I suppose I could have gotten wonderhogging going by going Oracle->IW AND aggressively rexed to the gems.
I don't think your save is bland, just that it's pretty standard fare - by the book, if you will.
Maybe that reflects a better grasp of the challenges posed by Immortal, but I'm not sufficiently well practiced at this level to know either way.
pigswill
fly (one day)
@Pete2006. You're worried about Ragnar 'kicking our butt' so you're starting a war with one warrior? 
Personally I never steal workers early on, if the AI did it to us I wouldn't mind but I always see it as a glitch, no problem if anyone wants to do it though.
Why would you want to annoy Ragnar though. He and Alex will probably gang up on Mansa if you leave him alone. Note the probably. Of course the other problem we have to start spamming units as well as Ragnar is not known for his forgiving ways.
Be interesting to find out though.
Why would you want to annoy Ragnar though. He and Alex will probably gang up on Mansa if you leave him alone. Note the probably. Of course the other problem we have to start spamming units as well as Ragnar is not known for his forgiving ways.
Be interesting to find out though.
Jet
No, no, please. Please.
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2006
- Messages
- 2,431
When I played the first turn set I was especially concerned with the opening research rate and was interested in how other people handled it. I may not have time to analyze it though. 
Some of the saves seemed to have vulnerable cities, making me not want to vote for them. With so many saves to choose from, it somehow makes me averse to that risk. Of course in my game I was defending with warriors
but between promotions, fogbusting and hills I was comfortable enough.
I want to defend the plains hill that I and some others settled on. Sure, it stagnates at size 3 until IW if you work a plains hill, but I think that much production and commerce and the defense of being on a hill make up for it. I don't see IW as all that far off, either.
Votes:
I hope I'll have time for more thorough discussion in later turnsets.
Some of the saves seemed to have vulnerable cities, making me not want to vote for them. With so many saves to choose from, it somehow makes me averse to that risk. Of course in my game I was defending with warriors
but between promotions, fogbusting and hills I was comfortable enough.I want to defend the plains hill that I and some others settled on. Sure, it stagnates at size 3 until IW if you work a plains hill, but I think that much production and commerce and the defense of being on a hill make up for it. I don't see IW as all that far off, either.
Votes:
Spoiler :
I hope I'll have time for more thorough discussion in later turnsets.
