Immortal Cookbook II: Pericles of Greece

[Kaleb]

I've never even tried Deity as normally Immortal, or even Emperor on a huge map, is hard enough for me. Might like to give it a go though

 

[DMOC]

Anyone plan on continuing this game?

Edit - game for me is done, won diplo around 1700 (maybe before? I don't remember).

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Hi,

me at least... i will try to post my save today...
Since I subscribed to the forum, I hardly find time to play , posting can be so time consuming...

Cheers,
Raskolnikov

edit: played, went well... expect a report tonight

Spoiler :

building cannons to invade Cathy... but I looked at ABCFan's spoiler and I've to say that his empire is far better specialized than mine!

 

[carl corey]

Anyone plan on continuing this game?

Of course. Round 3 reports aren't due until tomorrow. I've got 100 or so years more to play with no major decision in them, just build some units. Will probably post the save & report tonight.

 

[KingMorgan]

Count me out of round 3, been sent away on business again.

Cheers

 

[carl corey]

Finished round 3, but it's too late now to post the report. Short summary:

Spoiler :

Continued from my save, to see if Cathy was going to backstab me. No such thing happened. Took another city from Sury (crappy one so far), finally saw a stack from him so took peace. Went for Military Tradition. Late in the round Cathy declared on Wang and as I didn't want her to vassalize him I declared on her. Took 4 cities so far.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

round3:

Spoiler :

I planned to take on Cathy, the strongest opponent, first. So the round was devoted to acquire the military techs needed and make the troops build up.
I chose to take liberalism in 600 AD. I calculated more than 40 turns with the GNP at that time to tech to chemistry (and take steel of liberalism)... I thought that woudn't work so i took PP out liberalism... I thought cumulative advantages would pay off...
Switched to FS and FR (FS was not needed but as I didn't planned on the Taj, I didn't want to loose a turn in anarchy).

Tech path was engeenering->gunpowder->steel-> MS (3 turns to go). I backfilled some techs like Music and Theology ( , even now I don't know why I did these trades ???)
We are currently building cannons in our three production cities and in some other cities which don't need major infra anymore.
Oxford is not started yet because I build markets first and then prioritize troops everywhere (almost). That's what you get when you lack the HE
I think we will declare in about 5, 6 turns... after MS and some upgrades...

Diplo is good, Cathy is friendly (gave her music I think to achieve this), and Sury is pleased... I refused a tribut from Bis (engeenering I think) because he will be soon be busy with Sury. I can bribe those two at least into war before moving my SOD.

I have a monopoly on liberalism, PP, gunpowder, chemistry, and steel... The wars should not be too difficult i hope .

Some screenies:

Techs:

Spoiler :

Diplo:

Spoiler :

Power graph:

Spoiler :

General view of the empire:

Spoiler :

A funny screenshot for Attacko's lovers: i managed to train stealth workers!

Spoiler :

Sum up:
the good-> nice tech lead-> war against Cathy seems really doable (which would secure a win)!
the bad -> no HE ... I weren't able to make a level 4 unit... I can't remember the last time it happened to me... though I have really nice prod cities with forges (and caste + chemistry means 5 hammers for plains workshop!)... I plan to build it and the IW in the next peace time (before moving on Sury)... but still that's such a waste! Hopefully, we will get some GG from the war with the russians to make military academies...
Also i am still at 12 cities... with no very good sites left, I choose to put the hammers in the military build up... and I am first in production anyways. It's best to take the cities from Cathy!

Finaly, after playing, I looked at ABigCivFan's report and I see he chose cavs as dominant troops as opposed to my grens and cannons... I am too used to marathon, but in normal speed, this choice seems way more appropriate ...

Cheers,
Raskolnikov

 

[carl corey]

Round 3 report, from my save:

Spoiler :

Pre-turn:

Athens, Sparta and Mycenae switched to Macemen. Corinth to build the Trebs, Thebes the War Elephants.

Set research to Nationalism. Will try to get Military Tradition from Liberalism, then self research Gunpowder for Cuirassiers.

Start of the round:

Continue war with Sury. Cut Angkor Wat's land route to the rest of the empire.

Take Angkor Wat.

Meet Sury's stack near his capital, so I'll have to make peace. For now.

Cathy starts a golden age. Pretty good choice, especially with all her land. I double-bulb Education and start building Universities in cottaged cities. Finish Nationalism, start on Liberalism.

Bismark asks to convert to Judaism. Drat, a few turns more and I would have been in Free Religion. I hate to disappoint him, but I have to decline with Cathy's power rising near me.

Wang and Link get Paper, and Wang also has Philo, so I decide it's time to trade:

"Unfortunately" only Lincoln has Guilds, so I only get Feudalism in trade. Not bad though.

Capital starts on Jewish Temple followed by Forge. Probably going to build Taj Mahal in it.

Corinth finishes HE, set build to infinite twice-promoted Trebs & Maces.

Link has 660 gold out of the blue, I decide to make it count by trading Philo. Darius gets 400 next turn, I sell him Music for it. Link has Education and Guilds, will certainly shoot for Economics.

Finish Liberalism in 1020AD, take Military Tradition from it. Research set for Gunpowder.

Cathy and Darius are ready to sign a Defensive Pact with me. I'd rather have Cathy on my side, but Wang, Darius and Link are all annoyed with her, and Bismark is cautious. Sury is pleased, but who's asking him? On the other hand Wang is Friendly with Darius, Bismark and Link are Pleased.

Question of the day: do I switch to Free Speech for happy teching (to where?), do I switch to Nationalism (draft Muskets & whip Cuirassiers) or stay in Bureaucracy for Oxford/Taj? With 888 gold in the Treasury I can easily afford to set research to 100%, which gives me Gunpowder in three turns. I'll have 7 drafting cities if needed, 4-5 for Cuirassiers.

In the end I decide to go with Nationhood and of course Free Religion; Cuirassiers are good enough to take down Cathy.

Sury becomes a vassal of Bismark. It's cool, actually. One less problem from that side. I keep a few troops near the border for now, in case Bizzy gets busy.

Finished Gunpowder, set research to Chemistry->Military Science for Military Academies and Grenadiers.

Link gets Nationalism too, so I decide to sell it to Wang for Guilds and some money. I'm not planning to build the Taj anymore, I don't have any bonuses to speed it up and I'm already gearing up for war.

Finally, Cathy declares war... on Wang. She's probably powerful enough to finish him/vassalize him, I can't have that. I wait a turn to let her move all her troops south, then I declare war. I'm not very prepared for this, but reinforcements will come steadily from now on and she won't be able to counter anyway.

By the end of the round I manage to take four of her cities:

We just got Economics, so we can revolt to Free Market. Tech-wise we have a monopoly on Military Tradition, Liberalism, Chemistry and soon Military Science. Only important tech out there is Constitution, as for now I don't care for Compass-Optics-Astronomy line. We can follow up with Steel and Replaceable Parts & Rifling.

We have updated maps from Darius and Wang. The bad news is that Cathy still has an ivory near Darius's border. The good news is that Wang hasn't lost a city so far, so Cathy is having problems on both fronts. (Might be because I traded Gunpowder to Wang. )

We have a Great General in the capital, waiting; he could build a Military Academy in there in a few turns. A second MA could go in Sparta; we need to build some workshops in there. Visigoth doesn't look bad either.

All in all, it's an easy ride. I didn't draft at all, didn't need to, but in case of emergency a lot of our cities can draft. Plan is to finish Cathy, then go for Wang and Darius.

 

[carl corey]

Question about ABigCivFan's save:

Spoiler :

I don't understand why you built HE in the capital. It's a cottage city, with an Academy and Oxford. How does commerce and building units mix? I'd rather build HE in a hammer city, one that doesn't need to build Library, University, Oxford, etc. Yes, the other city isn't boosted by Bureaucracy, but it would build units for a much longer time than a commerce city that needs research boosters and money boosters.

Also, what are we teching to? We have the techs to completely stop teching and simply build/buy units all over the place and take over the world. Getting to Infantry won't speed things up, the AI won't be able to deal with Rifles/Cavalry anyway. Not saying the save's not good, on the contrary, it's too good to still want to "improve" on the tech front! But we're behind in power although there's no reason for it.

 

[carl corey]

For those who are interested in future IMCs, there's a poll that lets you choose the rules you want for it in terms of what save to play for: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=300567

 

[ABigCivFan]

@Carl:

Spoiler :

If you see the production power and tech lead of my empire, there should not be any concerns about power, capital is producing 1 cavary every turn.

My teching plan is Steam power-Assembly line-Rail road---- beeline Artillary - shut down.

My empire has 6 powerful cities built by river, I am running US/Enmacipation. With fully mature cottages + levee + Factory/coal plant + railroad mines this empire will be an extremely efficient war machine. It wont take much longer to get there given the high tech rate and fast maturing cottage all over. with railroad and prod power you will see the AIs falling like domino and reaching a fast domination.

It should not be very hard to tell from my save that this empire is built for a single, sustained war to reach domination.

With matured cottages, capital is hammer rich, it already has every improvements built and now can be a great military city that is why HE is built here. After levee i can go Free Speech and it will still produce 1 cav/infantry/arty per turn.

 

[Kaleb]

Sorry, late as usual. Had to rush the last turns so didn't do as well as I would have liked

Save is attached, report coming

I will probably post some screenies of 1 turn after 1200 because a fair few things happen in that turn.

Just for reference, at 100% I have -207G and 1080 science

 

[Jet]

1200 AD

Spoiler :

From Raskolnikov save.

Got the barb city Visigoth with Catherine's "help".

Built a bunch of Workers (we now have 18) and developed cities either for cottages or farms and workshops.

Surya declared in 800. I fought defensively, getting a level 4 unit, and a GG which was settled in Corinth.

Teched Engineering, Gunpowder, Chemistry, then Wang had just gotten Education, so I finished Liberalism in 1070 for Steel.
Traded Liberalism+Gunpowder to Lincoln for PP+Optics and to Wang for war on Catherine. I just thought it would be more convenient to attack Surya, since he had attacked first. At some point, Bismark and Darius joined in on Catherine mischief.
Later traded Gunpowder to Darius for Guilds.
Other trades were Silk to Lincoln for Gems, and minor refusals to Lincoln, Wang, Surya, Catherine.

After Steel, Nationalism, then Military Science, 3 turns left in 1200.

I stayed in Caste although I wasn't really happy with it for that part of the game, and in hindsight I am convinced that a switch to Slavery in 600 would have been better. After Nationalism it was 2 turns for Nationhood + Slavery, so I hired a few more specialists and popped a merchant in 1200, intending to use it for a golden age and switch to Nationhood + Slavery + Free Religion.

Buildings are fairly light because of Caste System. Have most Courthouses but not all, no FP, no AP buildings, just finished 6th University with no hammers in Oxford. 1 turn from HE. Some Forges, and Barracks pretty much everywhere for drafting. Military is pretty light too, just some defensive Muskets and 7 Cannons.

Bismark won the AP seat in 1100. As a cliffhanger, in 1200 there was an AP vote to declare on Catherine (I voted no). Surya will take peace on good terms if needed.

 

[carl corey]

@ABigCivFan:

Spoiler :

I guess I kinda see your point, but I'm not used to that kind of play. With such a big military advantage you could easily take out Cathy, Wang and Darius. I don't see what the advantage is in fighting it all at once. You have less land for a longer time, you run the risk of being declared on since you're weak, or the big military forces will attack weak AIs and vassalize them and you'll have to fight more than one at a time. Yeah, you're producing 1 cavalry per turn from the capital. But 1 cavalry versus 5-10 older troops will still lose. 3 cavalries won't. It's as simple as that for me.

 

[ABigCivFan]

@Carl

Spoiler :

Why would I fight everyone at the same time? I will kill them one at a time and win domination. It will be a sweeping military campaign without needing any pauses. I made my plans like this because I want to finish this game quickly. The actual war will not take very long since I will soon have levees/factories/power/infantry/Railroad/Cannons/Artillary/High EP and I do not expect to face anything more than Rifles from any AI.

I am at a point that I will call all the shots in this game by bribery and DOW.

Capital is not my only production city. Within a few turns I will have a very significant army and my army will get only stronger thereafter.

I do not understand why you are making your judgement because you see I have only a few cavalries/Curis ATM. You should really be comparing the hammer counts/tech rates/diplomatic relations/EPs which are the real reflections of the strength of empires at this stage of the game.

 

[carl corey]

@ABigCivFan:

Spoiler :

Why would I fight everyone at the same time?

Oops, I wasn't clear. Yeah, I understand you're going to fight people one by one. The question is, is it faster to do that all in one go (as in war1-war2-...-victory) or war1-war2-peace while teching some more with more land-war3...-victory.

I made my plans like this because I want to finish this game quickly. The actual war will not take very long since I will soon have levees/factories/power/infantry/Railroad/Cannons/Artillery/High EP and I do not expect to face anything more than Rifles from any AI.

Question still stands. Is Artillery/Infantry vs Rifles better than Rifles/Cavalry/Cannons vs Longbows/Muskets? I'm not convinced. You're trying to "advance" but in the end the AI will advance just as much (percentage-wise) and you'll simply fight the same battles. Who says an AI won't get to Machine Guns/Infantry too in the time it takes you to tech to Artillery, build factories, levees, coal plants AND an army? You'd be in the same position of either continuing the war with similar troops or waiting to tech some more. I see it as having missed a window of opportunity for Rifles/Cavs wars, so I'm not sure it will be any faster.

I am at a point that I will call all the shots in this game by bribery and DOW.

IIRC Wang is Cathy's vassal already (or am I remembering the wrong save? If so, sorry). You've already lost part of your leverage against Cathy, and any troops the eastern block will send to attack Cathy will get there too late to be really effective. That leaves you + Darius vs Cathy + Wang. How's that better than you + Wang (+ Darius if you want too) vs Cathy?

Capital is not my only production city. Within a few turns I will have a very significant army and my army will get only stronger thereafter.

I'll wait to see that. I don't understand why it should be now though, and not earlier, since you can build essentially the same army you would have built much earlier, namely Cavs & Rifles for now.

Anyway, I'm not saying your way is bad. But if I had to choose between your save, in which you have 0.5/0.6 the power of other AIs, and one in which you didn't have Constitution/Democracy/Corporation/Steam Power (all of which give you no new units) but had a power rating on par with the AIs while currently at war and taking cities, I'll take the second any time.

 

[ABigCivFan]

@Carl

Spoiler :

You are missing my point. I am not saying I will wait until I have every tech before I attack. I will start the war with Cav/Spies/cannons vs. Cathy, while continuously teching, and later when other AIs have Rifle I will have ARtillary/Infantry. My point is maintaining a consistant military superiority against all AIs at this point.

Using your example, if save 1 can crank out far better units faster than save 2 and have double the tech rate, I would take save 1 anytime.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Good discussion guys!

Spoiler :

Not much to add except that I am not as confident as Carl, I don't think we will only encounter LBs from immortal AIs until the end of the game...

 

[carl corey]

@ABigCivFan:

Spoiler :

You are missing my point. I am not saying I will wait until I have every tech before I attack. I will start the war with Cav/Spies/cannons vs. Cathy, while continuously teching, and later when other AIs have Rifle I will have Artillery/Infantry. My point is maintaining a consistent military superiority against all AIs at this point.

You had the same units 4 techs ago (not counting cannons as you don't have them now either). Cavs vs medieval troops win without cannons/spies anyway; even Cuirassiers do in many situations. I think we're talking past each other here; you're saying you'll attack with Cavalry, I'm saying that by now you should have had Cathy's land too. Does anyone have Rifling now? No. Would they have it if you went to war with Cathy in the meantime? No. You seem to define military superiority in terms of what units you can produce first, I define it in terms of current power first.

Using your example, if save 1 can crank out far better units faster than save 2 and have double the tech rate, I would take save 1 anytime.

As I said before, now, 4 techs after Rifling, you are still producing the same units as then. You are not cranking units faster, you are not cranking better units. You have traded unit production for 4 techs. Again, it's not bad. It's focusing on something I'm not used to focus on. My usual play is "get military advantage/use it/get another military advantage/use it, etc.". Your play in this game seems "tech/tech/.../tech/attack".

 

[carl corey]

@Ras:

Spoiler :

Not much to add except that I am not as confident as Carl, I don't think we will only encounter LBs from immortal AIs until the end of the game...

Not saying we will either. I'm saying you can safely fight 3 wars, even if the AIs get Muskets, or the last AI will have a few Rifles at the end of the war. Nothing stops you from teching further once you take out Cathy/Wang/Darius.