Immortal Game #1

[Snowbird]

That's what I'd probably do. Requires Alpha to free up the bulbs but you can probably get it from GK by the time you're ready to bulb Machinery+Optics

Aesthetics was teched for failgold+prereq for Litt, not for trades. Getting the GLib is huge here.

Don't know. He is philosophic and already has one GS banked. In current situation he needs GLib for failgold rather badly, true. You also overrate immortal AI. GK getting Alpha....

Failgold... GLH was built 500BC, wall ~1800BC... It might be ~700AD before somthing like Zeus gold happens (unless he finishes it himself).

Bulbing Machinery and Optics will get him out of the tech hole very quickly.

Most likely he needs Alpha, sailing, Calendar, MC, IW, and compass on his own if he kills Zara. I would suggest keeping Zara at ~2 cities (current cap and whatever else) and try extort. Immortal GK for trades.... not gonna help.

 

[Wrathful]

Thanks for the good discussion everyone.

Overall what is your plan after you have wiped him out?

I think the plan here is to get Aesthetics and Literature for the Great Library and failgold, then get to Astronomy for lucrative overseas trade routes. Since every wonder and religion (except Confucianism) has went over there and I haven't seen any Great Generals being born my hunch is that the other continent has some pretty good techers on it.

We'll get four GS to bulb Machinery, Optics, and Astro. I have one GS already.

Bulbing Machinery might be hard though. We'll have to get Sailing, Calendar, Alphabet, Metal Casting, Compass, and Iron Working beforehand. GK should be able to provide us with at least Iron Working and Sailing (hopefully).

All espiionage on Mongols. Wasted on Zara at this point.

Good catch, will switch right away.

in yours I would probably just kill Zara slowly, not overbuilding troops. He has plenty of cities left for conquest gold and taking out the Mongols (up in the jungle belt and above) would most likely drag you down.

Ok, sounds like a plan. I think I'll whip out a few more guys then slow down the military production.
Mongols will have to be dealt with eventually. They might declare on me. (Actually, they could be plotting on me right now!)
Wait till Cannons to kill Mongols? I think you had suggested Knights with Guilds before.

Zara somehow took Yeha back while the Mongols were taking his silk city, and I saw a potential golden opportunity :

Aww, so close!

Yes rivers and grassland in the middle area but not so much in the southern part of the map where you have wasteland. There are also large swathes of plains here. The Ai will not be so clever in where to settle cities here. Hence why I suggest a slow tech rate here. 125bc and no alphabet for Zara or Mongols seems very late. 53BPT with 100% science at 125bc is very low. Apart from capitals you will be lucky to find a city with 2+ food resources here.

The land we started with was pretty terrible. Zara's land is nice I think. Lots of flood plains. Of course creative Zara had a lot of liberty with his placement of cities.
I think it might be rough for a little while but things should improve later.

Update to T120. Things got a little messy, recovery didn't go quite like I had expected.

Spoiler To T120 :

Declared on Zara again on T112. Stole 2 workers. I have stacks advancing on two of his cities.

T113: Aesthetics finished. Research set to Polytheism.
Zara took the Barb city I had shown in the previous turnset.
Captured his silk city with no losses.

T114: Captured Debre Berhan with one loss.

T115: Polytheism finished. Literature next.
Good news! GK got Alphabet in 1AD. Trading time!

I can grab Sailing at some point too. I could have gotten Archery as well but I want to avoid "We fear you are becoming too advanced."

With Alphabet I might be able to get some tech from Zara in a peace deal. Note that this forces ten turns of peace.

T117: Genghis demands tribute. I accept.

Got him to pleased.

T118: Statue of Zeus got built before I even had a chance to put any hammers into it!

Sparta has 178 hammers or so put into the Parthenon. Getting more in Corinth.
When Mids is built I will get some failgold.

Hit STRIKE this turn...that's fine. It doesn't do anything the first turn you get it...

T120: Things are looking better now. Captured three of Zara's cities. Razed two of them. Got some cash now.
I'm deleting some of my units. Will keep the highly promoted ones.

Decided to do a peace deal with Zara. I won't attack him again for at least ten turns. I don't want Lalibela (his capital).
Got some techs out of the deal:

Should get trade routes with Genghis next turn.

I think the key now is growing Aksum and getting the Great Library built there.

Lack of workers is a problem. I could have stolen one more during the war(s), should have done that.
I might whip a worker in Sparta.

Maybe I should have razed Qohaito (silk city). It's costing money and not really helping me at the moment.

 

[intutama]

Putting in a spoiler tag just in case... Played until turn 150 or so I guess.

Spoiler :

Having a lot of fun playing this map, even if my first try was a wreck : a little late Axepult rush againt a Zara who chose to beeline HBR and Construction -> Elephants... Even after taking 3 of his cities he wouldn't peace without me giving up a tech. With the cultural pressure the 3 cities were useless, and seeing the number of elephants available to him I decided to restart the game.

Second try I managed a better timing, and with a peaceful Zara beelining Music... I took 3 cities and wanted to peace for 10 turns, but he wouldn't so I went for his capitol... Big jackpot moment when he completed the Great Library the turn before I took his capitol and then some techs for peace. Cha-ching!
10 turns later rince and repeat, leaving him one city so I could get some last techs. This warring naturally crashed my economy, got some units disbanded, but I managed to get CoL and started Courthouse everywhere, FP then build research, forges, and now stomping Hannibal with Trebs+Muskets so I don't have to deal with him anymore.

@Wrathful: I'm not very good, but what worked for me after the warring:
- Get 2-3 spies to sleep in the weakest Hannibal city (check via spy screen), you can get all his techs for half the points (cost = (1.5-bonuses)*BaseCost, with bonus = -25% for open border, -25% same religion, -50% 5 turns sleeping spy, so in the end 0.5*BaseCost). Got Machinery, Lib and others this way, good for trading.
- If you meet someone from the other continent try to get some nice trade deals, in particular get techs from one guy then sell this tech from another guy...
- Consider using GP for golden ages instead of bulbing. When you have many cities it can be way more efficient than bulbing (for example GA -> build courthouses everywhere then build research).

I wonder if a simple diplomatic win is possible, the continent is big, and we can probably get some friends on the other continent...

 

[Pedro78]

@intutama please be careful about the spoilers!

- If you meet someone from the other continent try to get some nice trade deals, in particular get techs from one guy then sell this tech from another guy...

There is no "if". In this kind of situation you have to get early Optics to meet everyone

 

[Wrathful]

Hey intutama, thanks for playing along. I will read your report when I reach T150.

I have progressed to T124. Wanted to play a bit more, but I'm not sure how to proceed from here.

Spoiler To T124 :

I don't have much time to make a detailed report, so I'll just include some highlights here.

• T122: Genghis declares on Zara (finally).
• T123: Zara begs Alphabet. Nope!

T124: Got around 120 failgold from Pyramids. Literature finished. Not sure what to research next. Metal Casting? Starting The Great Library in Aksum.

I'd like to declare on Zara again. Can't do it for 6 turns due to the peace deal.
Really want to get CoL from Zara in another peace deal. City Maintenance is killing me here.

These are my questions:

• What to tech next?
• Most efficient way to recover?
• Declare on Zara or not?

 

[Gumbolt]

I still don't understand why were avoiding currency here. With foreign trade routes it add 18 gold at 100% tax and allows wealth. It won't delay your optics. Unless you believe you can trade for it after optics? With currency and foreign trade routes it's worth 27 commerce to you.

The peace deal you got with Zara wasn't great. He had COL. Better to have teched PH first and tried for COl? You have not made good use of sailing yet either. A workboat right now could be worth +1 commerce on all your trade routes. You don't get foreign trade routes unless you have a view of his cities. You need a connection by road or sea. So maybe send a land unit up north to find his coastal cities. (East coast.)

I guess the ultimate plan is to bulb towards astronomy here. So one GS from Athens. Albeit if you want a great person for golden age you could run artists here to? That or grab music. One from Aksum. So one for optics and 2 for astronomy.

Corinth research vs parth? You already have 100% bonus on GP production here. At best you are looking for fail gold here. That is 16 hammers that could go towards research. Be a while before any AI completes the wonder. Should it still be growing with deer too?

You have a lot of small cities here. Some needing border pops. These cities need time to develop in size. Granaries will also help here. Aksum still lacks a granary. So growth will be key in your cities. Taking our Zara's 2 remaining cities should also be a priority. Helps with GK diplomacy. The bad news is GK can declare at pleased.

So you do have a decision on what to do about him.Leave him alive or take him down. His KK unit is quite frustrating and will walk through forest like it is not there. You do have ivory but lack HBR. His flanking will be a big pain. You have deleted quite a few units so this option looks less exciting now.

So Currency vs HBR vs MC towards astronomy. Personally I think Currency helps pay itself back. Calendar also offers happiness and some commerce. Fail gold on MM wonder.

 

[Pedro78]

About Currency. First it will only add internal trade routes because you'll have more cities than GK. Second you can already build research, which is almost as good as building wealth, and have marble for failgold, which is far superior to building wealth. Currency only delays your Optics date, you'll trade for it as soon as you meet the other AIs anyway.

Albeit if you want a great person for golden age you could run artists here to? That or grab music.

The GLib city will pump out enough GS for both Astro bulb, golden age and Edu/Chemistry bulbs np with PHI trait. Music is imo a huge waste of beakers by itself, and you're not even guaranteed to get there first.

Corinth research vs parth? You already have 100% bonus on GP production here. At best you are looking for fail gold here. That is 16 hammers that could go towards research. Be a while before any AI completes the wonder. Should it still be growing with deer too?

I'd argue that fail gold is always superior, but that might not always be the case on IMM. A shame that the AI is so slow.

So Currency vs HBR vs MC towards astronomy. Personally I think Currency helps pay itself back. Calendar also offers happiness and some commerce. Fail gold on MM wonder.

I don't see a reason to go for anything else than Calendar right now -- happiness and extra commerce + potential fail gold. MC can come later, and Currency is imo not worth it (at all).

I don't know about taking out GK, that might actually be a good idea. You can now pump out a decent amount of units at very low cost, and conquest gold will keep you afloat + you have a very high GPP potential to still reach Cuirs/Cannons in a decent timeline. I think I'd still wait for Knights though, mostly because of the reasons Gumbolt stated.

 

[Izuul]

With all of your cities focusing on failgold and infrastructure, i think it's actually worth revolting just to switch into OR. It looks like all of your cities but two already have Confucianism. Missionaries are good two pop whips for OF into wonders as well.

If you are going to build the NE after TGL in Aksum, you may want to put some hammers into that now in another city. We really don't know when the Parthenon will be completed, but you can control when the NE is built therefore you know when you can expect to get that gold.

 

[Fippy]

Currency should pay back, mostly cos i would expect tech sales to Genghis (and Zara maybe if kept alive).
Also with alpha & maths there's a discount.
Would probably tech it first, then calendar..happy seems not urgent, and workers are best used for chopping currently.

Trade routes with Genghis are missing, send an unit up east coast fast for a water route

Chopping into NE in other cities (Yeha or Addis have forests) would be good here, guaranteed gold when it's built in Aksum later.
Or you can also chop into Glib in Addis (has lib soon), and Aksum switches to NE on turns where no chops arrive.
(Izuul also had that idea, yay x-posts)

 

[Pedro78]

Fippy, remember this?

Guys please remember, when you think about tight AIs..

Spoiler :

Edit - a link to the quoted post as it isn't very readable on the picture: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/nobles-club-189-mao-zedong.622507/page-3#post-14870652

(Oh and that was deity btw, so just imagine the mountains of gold IMM GK will have available for trade )

 

[Fippy]

 

[Gumbolt]

Fail gold is useful assuming the Ai are anywhere near completing the wonder. On this slow map I am not so sure. Do they even have aesth yet? Agree on NE fail gold. Addis seems great for this with chops. Capital could also borrow mine and quarry to build NE now. Or use mines to west. NE downside is Gart points. A risk.

I guess wealth pays back less on this map. At 100% science you are only 121 beakers. So it's marginal compared to some maps. Lack of a bureau capital slows down science greatly here. Albeit being able to beg gold to trade for techs is always useful.

I would still take out Zara otherwise GK will. If GK catches Zara's city pillage any land you can for gold.

 

[intutama]

Finished the game, but with a ton of reload for this or that... Was fun still, it shows you how far even an axepult rush can bring you if you focus ...
My biggest problem at the beginning of the game (first war against Zara) was that he would simply not accept peace... Maybe I should have given him something and make smaller wars like Wrathful did. Also I really don't know how to dimension my army, I usually won't start the war if I don't have something like 6/6 axepults, and I attack with a lot of catapults before using the melee... Maybe I'm losing a lot of time here.
Anyway thanks for the game and good luck!

 

[Wrathful]

Sorry for the delay everybody. I really want to continue, but real life is interfering. Hopefully I can continue playing soon.