Immortal Cookbook I: Roosevelt

[carl corey]

Well, I'm getting withdrawal symptoms. How about we end voting soon? Otherwise I fear that next rounds will go as round 2, with half as many saves as the previous round. And since we're already to 6 saves...

 

[Sleepless]

Eventually back with internet access. Unfortunately no real time to look at saves so my votes are.

3. Winston

2. Gliese 581

1. Carl Corey

Just a couple of thoughts. A couple of the saves are going to lose the pigs on the copper site to Mansa which isn't optimal. Depending on whose save we take an early attack on Ragnar might be a good idea although I don't like getting involved in wars at this time as on immortal you can find yourself falling behind very quickly.

Regarding my save.

@Berkobob, when all you can build is chariots or warriors, I prefer chariots for fogbusting.

no-one fancies an espionage game then. I'm going to have to play my save alongside the others just to see how it goes as I don't usually use espionage a lot.

My biggest vote though goes for starting round 3 as soon as possible.

 

[Gliese 581]

Anyone seen tycoonist? It seems clear WHs save is the starting point for round 3. Is this game still on? What happened to setting a schedule? Am I speaking into the void?

 

[tycoonist]

this things going slower than the ALC, which is entirely my fault. the winner is clearly WH, so lets get started on that save. i'll try very hard to play this time, just life is very hectic atm.

 

[Berkobob]

Agreed, WH's save clearly had the most votes.

How long is round 3? another 75 turns?

 

[Berkobob]

Bumping this thread again.

If no one clarifies the length of round three, I intend to play 75 turns tomorrow and post up another report.

 

[tycoonist]

yeah i think 75 sounds good

 

[Gliese 581]

I'm ok with continuing but the game is in some danger right now as we only had 5-6? saves last time. If it drops further it loses some of its appeal.
New players would be very welcome right? Even if they haven't played any so far.

 

[carl corey]

Game over for me this round...

Spoiler :

Got declared on by Gilly, who then bribed Mansa into war too. No way to get out of that.

I am certainly not used to Immortal...

 

[Berkobob]

Well, my luck was a lot better than Carl's (Not much you could do there mate), so I have posted a round three.

This will be a tough game to win.

Spoiler :

Turn 179 – Korea kills the Vikings. Mansa Musa's city on our borders steals pig/silk tiles from us.

Turn 180 – Wang pops in offering Construction for CoL. Decline, but decide to make the same trade with Alexander (he techs slower than Wang/Mansa)

Turn 183 – Mansa builds SoZ.

Turn 185 – Beg 60G from Wang Kon. Gilgamesh has full hands.

Turn 186 – Civil Service done. Check tech screen, Alexander can research Paper without CS, decide to trade CS + 15 gold to him for Metal Casting and Aesthetics. I want forges to boost production from Washington, NY and the ability to build Workshops for Philadelphia.

Start researching Paper.

Washington is a beast, so I revolt to Bureaucracy.

Turn 188 – Mansa has two cities over near the Marble/Cows, his borders completely encircle ours. For this reason I think we have to fight him first. Current 'army' is 3 swords, 3 axes

Turn 189 – Mali culture steals another row of tiles from Philadelphia.

Turn 190 – Gilga gets a GE. Notice Gilga has Machinery and is willing to trade it but not CoL/CS. Mansa now has CS. Wang is three techs behind us but cant be bribed into a war and only has archery/poly/meditation for trade.

Decide to take a punt on getting Machinery for CS with Gil, sell him CoL for 60G. His hands are still full.

Turn 191 – Gilga builds Sistine Chapel. Won't trade Machinery for CS.

Turn 197 – Paper in. Start Education. Trade Wang Aesthetics for 60G plus his world map.

Turn 200 – Mansa is one turn off Paper and has Macemen in his border city. Sigh. Trade Paper to him for 60 gold.

Turn 201 – Mansa is going for Guilds. Current army size is 6 cats, 4 axes, 4 swords and a spear. Mansa also gets a GS.

Turn 203 – GS born. Use him for Academy in Washington (he would have almost bulbed Education for us) – BPT went up by 29, from 172 to 201.

Turn 206 – Alex gets a GS

Turn 207 – Alex founds Taoism.

Turn 209 – Mansa gets guilds, goes for banking. GP born in distant land.
Turn 210 – Gilga gets another GE. Try unsuccessfully to beg from each AI. Mansa at Friendly, others all Pleased.

Current army is 8 Cats, 7 Sword, 5 Axe, 2 Spear. Power is about 2/3 of the closest AI, Alexander.

Take a short break here.

Turn 211 – Gil builds Notre Dame.

Turn 213 – Trade Paper to Gilgamesh for Drama, Poly, map and 70G.

Turn 214 – Trade Paper, Drama and 55G to Wang for Machinery. Wang is now at Friendly with us also.

Turn 216 – Trade Drama to Mansa for Literature and 40G. Mansa has Banking and is now researching Education.

Turn 217 – Mansa builds UoS. Wang gets a GP.

Turn 219 – Trade Meditation + 40G to Wang for Literature.

Turn 220 – Education in. No one will trade Philosophy so decide to self research it. Mansa is 8 turns away from Education.

Turn 223 – Gilga and Alex DoW me.

I can bribe both Mansa and Wang in using Education. Give Wang Edu for war against Alex, he also throws in Philosophy + Monotheism + Priesthood + 40G. Mansa is 4 turns from Education, decide not to bribe him in (he wants Edu + 130G).

Gilga has a smallish stack (8 units) near my border. Can easily destroy it once it leaves the forest tile it is currently sitting on.

Turn 224 – Gilga suicides the bulk of his stack against Philadelphia. I lose one Axeman. Mop up the rest of his stack. He loses 4 Chariots, 2 Vultures, 2 Macemen and a Catapault.

Current army size is 13 Cats, 9 Swords, 4 Maces, 2 Axes and 2 Spears. Decide that Alex is too far away to start attacking, keep army on defensive against further incursions. Decide also to go for Oxford Uni + NE in capital. Have whipped a Uni in Washington, rest of cities are building/whipping Uni's also. Army should be big enough for now. Plan to beeline Rifles.

Turn 226 – Mansa completes Angkor Wat and enters a Golden Age. Finishes Edu. He starts on Liberalism and will reach it in 5 turns. I will take 13 turns to finish even at 100%, so I switch over to Printing Press.

Turn 230 – Gilga takes peace. Gives me 80G, 4GPT, Archery and his map. He has five cities total.

Given he cant build Oxford and I lost Liberalism, I trade him Education for Monarchy and Engineering.

Turn 232 – Mansa gifts us Feudalism. Can't see what tech he took from Liberalism, but he gets a GM, so I am guessing he took Economics.

Turn 234 – Wang takes a city off Alex (thats four he has captured so far)

AP vote comes up, Mansa against Wang. I vote for Wang.

Turn 235 – Mansa wins AP vote.

Turn 239 – We generate a Gspy in Washington. Mansa is very far ahead in tech, I decide some stealing is in order and use him to infiltrate one of Mansa's cities.

Turn 240 – We take peace with Alex at the cost of 10G. He will OB with us but he is worst enemy of Wang so I decline.

Turn 241 – Wang gets a GA.

Turn 242 – Gilgamesh founds Islam.

Turn 244 – Mansa is researching Corporation (Sigh). Wang takes Thebes. Alex gets a GG.

Turn 248 – OB with all members vote pops up. Vote Yes.

Wang makes peace with Alex.

Turn 249 – PP in. Start working on Gunpowder.

Trade PP to Wang for Guilds + Compass.

Steal Banking from Mansa Musa. Try to steal Economics but get caught.

Turn 250 – Turnset done. Save attached.

Mansa will trade us Liberalism (I researched about 500 beakers into it) for PP. We have 5k EP on him which is enough to potentially steal Economics + Liberalism, possibly Nationalism.

Gameplan for round 4 is to steal Nationalism + Economics, finish RP + Rifling, draft Rifles like crazy and hope we have enough firepower to bring Mansa Musa down. I think he is too far ahead (Currently he is researching Military Tradition) but we might have a chance if we get Rifles before he does.

 

[Bleys]

Before I start my report, I have a confession and I hope it doesnt annoy the other participants of this thread as much as the same actions annoyed me in the Monarch CB. I didnt peek in the Round 3 spoilers, but from the extraneous comments, I didnt really have too, so I went back and played from Carls' chosen 1500 BC save.

I started playing Winstons, but it soon became apparent that I would not be able to compete. I just didnt have enough land, and the AIs were screamin fast up the tech ladder. So I decided to go all the way back to Carl Coreys 1500 save, and re-play that set with the best choices from Berks wonderful synopsis all rolled into one.

Here is the result:

Spoiler :

My first goal here was to try to secure more land. This meant really aggressive settling toward Ragnar. So right away, I jammed out 2 settlers and grabbed the Cow-Gem-Horse site just NW of Rags incredible Capitol, and the Copper-Pig-Sik spot.

As I was looking at this area, it occured to me in hindsight that my initial gambit of grabbing that Horse-Dye-Sugar spot in the jungle may have proved stronger than we thought. It secures a bit more land, enough to squeeze in a couple more decent cities. Heres the pic:

Spoiler :

Of course, I would rather have the GW and the Mids than these advanced cities, but both might have been doable.

Anyway, back to my game. I grabbed the 2 spots I wanted, and made it to the GL, and slow-built it with overflow and chops because I didnt pop the borders to the Marble in time for it to help. I traded Aesthetics around and got good value, and the GL + Mids gave me the GSs I needed to get to Lib. I have actually built 3 Academies, bulbed Philo and part of Edu, and settled a GE.

Naturally, this Gem spot being right in Ragnars face, he DOWed on me. But I had been cranking out enough units, and managed to be at Maces/Pikes/Trebs tech wise, so he couldnt get through with just Zerkers and HAs.

I had also adopted Buddhism early in the round, when Mansa asked me too, and it worked like a charm. Mansa was my best buddy, number one in score, army, and land. He built the AP in our relilgion and then gifted Theo to me! He also let me trade for his spare Ivory, so I had some War Eles up. When Rags DoWed, I gave Mansa Paper for joining the war and Ragnars fate was sealed.

Rags tried to make a move, by making a colony out of that island to his East, but it wont help. Rags is finished. I played a bit past here (was so caught up I forgot to stop) so I already know, I take this Banana-Dye city, and Mansa gets Rags to vassal, but leaves the Capitol in Rags hands, which is good, if Mansa added this monster city to his empire, it would be truly over.

Heres some pics:

Spoiler :

The SE portions, showing our cities, as well as our army poised on Rags city

The NW, which I settled later, rather than sooner as many of the rounds did:

The Cap in 1060 AD, NE is up, also got the UoS, beakers to go with the hammers from our religious buildings:

Tech and Glance situation:

If you dont want to use my save here, I understand, there is no question a bit of foresight went into that Gem City, which proved to be pretty key.

I have learned a lot about the Immortal AI in this game, and I think playing these Imm games in general helps me compete at Emperor and just plow through Monarch, even though I lose a vast majority of Imm level games, or I save/reload a 100 turns, etc, as I did here, to play it differently. Sorry about going out of format slightly, but I was a goner at this level.

 

[Berkobob]

Yes, I probably should not have commented on the difficulty of round three and the winnability of the game. Sorry.

I am also losing lots and lots of games at Immortal, but I started this game as a Monarch player and have now graduated to Emperor, so no complaints about that!

@ Bleys:

Spoiler :

I don't see the problem with playing the saves the way you did. In fact, it shows you actually learned something from the game!

While I was going through the round 2 saves I did (with the benefit of hindsight) think your Horse city was a stronger choice than we all gave you credit for. It would allow us to backfill another city near rice/fish and cut down Mansa Musa's room to expand.

I considered settling it during my own round 2 but my economy was shot - I was hoping Mansa would settle the site and I could cut him down with medieval era units.

 

[pigswill]

Bleys: this ain't a competition, its about learning how to survive (and hopefully win) on Immortal. I really can't see the problem.

Edit: As I posted earlier I played on from my original 1500bc save. Got up to 10ad. I then looked at the other saves, got demoralised and gave up (or at least put my game on hold). But having bolstered my ego by playing the latest Nobles Club on noble (and winning!) and having seen that other people are struggling I think I'll carry on from my 10ad save game (which I'll post below for everyone's amusement and/or sympathy).

Pigswill's Recipe 10ad:

Spoiler :

It started off peacefully enough. Grew cities a bit. Fought off a couple of barbs (but not that many). Got Pyramids in Washington in 750bc.

I then decided to go for Glib. Research headed towards lit and I built Atlanta in 550bc for marble. Ragnar had a city close by and the culture war for the marble built up. Rags decided that culture was too posh for him and declared conventional war in 395 (the same year I got a GS for the Washington Academy). The three axes and spear in Atlanta proved no match for Rags stack, Atlanta falling the same turn (it was an eventful year). I frantically whipped axes everywhere while Rags stack headed towards Washington. By a combination of luck and AI stupidity I eventually polished off the stack (in total I lost four axes and a spear; Rags lost 4 swords, 4chariots and 3 axes).
I then proceeded to recapture Atlanta in 95bc and after a lot of marching around doing nothing Rags gave me mono for peace in 5bc.
I finally finished off Glib, also in Washington, the same year. Somewhere in the war I picked up a GG that I settled in New York which is currently building HEas my military city so hopefully other cities can focus on running representative scientists so I don't fall too far behind.
The known world has turned Hindu except for Alex, as soon as it spread to me I followed suit. Rags is cautious, Wang and Mansa are pleased. I've had vague dreams of a distant civilisation far far to the south but I remain sceptical about dreams.

 

[Bleys]

I do feel kinda bad for going off-format. I am still not sure I have even achieved a winnable position, this is a ROUGH game.

Spoiler :

Mansa gets so much land that he is impossible to stop. I am wondering now about bringing him in on the war with Ragnar, it may be better to leave him out, and plan to take his cap ourselves. That city would have given us a powerful asset. As it stands, with Rags and Peter both about to become Mansa's lapdogs, this game is in trouble.

 

[carl corey]

I'm really curious what WH will do with his save.

Bleys, don't worry about going off-format. This certainly doesn't look like an easy game, and I might retry the last round starting from the same save or others. Although I'm not sure I'll submit the results for consideration for the next round; I'd rather not since I already played this once and read all the reviews.

 

[Winston Hughes]

I'm really curious what WH will do with his save.

It's nearly finished, and the simple answer is "more of the same".

Unfortunately, my civvable time is almost non-existent at the moment (my band's album launch is this friday), so it may take a few more days to play the remaining turns and do a report.

 

[Gliese 581]

Unfortunately I have to cut a few games from my list so I won't be playing this round at least. I love the idea of this series though I would prefer normal speed.

 

[carl corey]

Well, we're not too spoiled with the number of saves for this round. If it's alright with everybody I'll try to replay this round and post it for consideration, from WH's save as the first time.

Going up to 1050AD is longer than 75 turns though, isn't it? If we're sticking with that as the end date, I'll try playing up to that point tomorrow.

 

[Bleys]

(my band's album launch is this friday)

You're in a band WH? Hook us up some tunes bro! You got a free mp3 out there?

 

[carl corey]

I only read as far as "unfortunately my civvable time is almost non-existent" the first time... WH, I see three myspace links in your sig; what's each one of them? I'm guessing Sunday Driver is your band?