Immortal Huge 18 Civilizations

[Kadazzle]

Everyone here is accustomed to Standard size maps, so as I've recently been trying to improve both my expansion, diplomacy and military strategy, I thought it would be a good idea to throw up an Immortal Huge 18 Civ game, and see how I do compared to others. Please post progress in spoilers, and write dates above spoilers.

Random Leader
Immortal
Epic
Huge
18 Civilizations
Fractal
Medium Sea Level

We rolled...



De Gaulle!

Fine leader, Charasmatic and Industrious work well together by whipping early wonders while not having to worry too much about unhappiness. Charasmatics gives + and + for monuments, while Industrious gives +50% wonder productions. The UU and UB for France are a bit meh but the starting techs help out.

The start:



Coast and lots of hills + seafood. I`d be willing to move, but it looks best if we settle in place. Could chase GLH. I`m worried about spawning Horses or Copper in the grassland to the west, so I vote settle in place, worker first while teching to BW/GLH. IW will be needed early as there looks to be jungle to the south.

Good luck!

Rounds up until...

Turn 10
Turn 54
Turn 83
Turn 110
Turn 140
Turn 161
Turn 200
Turn 231
Turn 248

Note, all saves are at the bottom of each round.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

I'd really like to participate, but my PC can't handle it. In case it's alright for me to give up around the Renaissance, I'll be happy to play along.

 

[Kadazzle]

Up to anywhere is fine, I'll post where I'm at tomorrow.

 

[Infantry#14]

settle in place

the warrior should pop the hut and a map is not bad for this situation. I dont think barbarians exist this early (simply restart, may get a better start)

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Triple clam + river + a bunch of hills + industrious leader = good start

 

[Shakes]

This one might not be everything you dreamed it would be ... play it out for a while and you'll understand what I mean.

 

[Kadazzle]

Well, I decided to move my settler east, as I realized if I were to pop a resource in the unforested grassland tile, it could be covered by a second city I was most likely going to place on the coast/riverside grassland.

And I guess we got lucky


Our warrior moved southwest and reveal fish, making that spot even better if we pop a resource on the unforest grassland, but that's not even the good news! We have stone! This looks like a nice wonder spam map. So by moving our capital, we got more forests and more production too!


I decided to tech Fishing first, and move the warrior to pop the hut next turn, while the capital produces another warrior until Fishing is in (which will be the same time the warrior is finished):


We move the warrior the next turn and pop a map. It reveals another hut, and it reveals the eastern coast, which I thought was likely going to be there. Are we isolated?


I move my warrior down the western coast, and I know the map generator well enough to that.... we're isolated! Well crap Now it seems like a 18 civ LHC, which can't be a very good thing. The upside is though, is that we can expand as slow as we want!


After scouting 3 turns more, it turns out we are isolated! Huh.

The capital has been working on the forest grassland, but once the borders popped (turn 8) I switched it to the forest plains hill so that I could get the warrior out in 1 less turn, work a turn on another warrior, then switch to a workboat.

Now, I have a lot of questions, and I'd really like your opinions:

1) What wonders should I build? I was obviously thinking of The Great Lighthouse and The Pyramids, but are there any others that might help? I think we can easily grab those two wonders.

2) After my first workboat, what should I build? Should I finish the 1-turn in warrior, start on a worker (my only techs at this point would be Fishing, The Wheel and Agriculture, which won't help my worker at all) or go for another workboat? Personally, I feel like I should go another Workboat after, but I'd like your opinions.

3) Tech order. Personally, I was thinking Mining -> Bronze Working -> then either Pottery, Sailing or Masonry. What do you guys think about Mining -> Bronze Working? What is your opinion on a tech after Bronze Working, if I decide to go that route?

Regardless of others' activity on this map, I do want to play it out all the way. Keep in mind though, I do want a lot of discussion, so I will be playing short turns daily, and will be asking for opinions often. Because the map generator made it interesting for us, I have a feeling this will be a fun game to play, and to watch, so tell your friends

EDIT* Forgot the save

 

[kossin]

1) If you can grab both... you'll be in a commanding position. Alternative is go for stone wonders and neglect GLH since you have quite a bit of food anyway. Unless coast looks like you can see another landmass, then GLH would be much better I think.

2) A worker wouldn't help on food so wb and then worker.

3) If you go for both Mids and GLH, Pottery will have to wait after Sailing+Masonry.

 

[Supp]

I play exclusively on huge fractal maps (vanilla though, monarch-emperor) so here's my 2 cents.

The AI doesn't really expand too fast in these maps, even though they get a ton of land, but they get a much larger bonus in that they can afford the land once the game starts rolling.

For an isolated start, you have about an average amount of land. I've personally had isolated starts on huge that ranged from about half this size to three(3!) times the size.

What I usually do NOT do however, is play with 18 civs. With 18 civs, even on Huge, the AIs are not going to have much room to expand at all. Expect a few to drop really fast, and expect to be one of the largest, if not THE largest civ on the map.

As far as wonders go, yeah Mids and GLH will be useful, but remember that you have a lot of land that you have to spawn bust all by your lonesome little self. That might delay a few of your wonders. I don't know how fast you can get units out, but depending you may not be able to have enough time.

Then again, your capital is perfect for wonder whoring.

 

[CarlH]

I recently played as Charles De Gaulle, Immortal on an isolated map. I lost an attempted cultural victorty, but thats not the point of the post.

Of the early wonders, I manage to get stonehenge, great wall and 'mids.

I would reccommend going mining, mysticism, masonary, sailing and then bronze working.

Whilst you are teching sailing build the GW (if you can). I found barbs to be a massive issue on the isolated map (I had to reload and then tried the approach I am reccomending) as there is so much space to spawn bust. This slight detour will really free up your production in the immediate and long term.

Good luck.

 

[Kadazzle]

Well, I have one warrior, and I have another coming in 1 or 2 turns, so I should be able to place them so that no barbs spawn in the middle/upper part of my island, near the mountain range. Then I'll only need 2-3 more warriors if my guesses are right, but I'll look at the map again once I have the first two warriors set up, and a full view of the map.

 

[Kadazzle]

I recently played as Charles De Gaulle, Immortal on an isolated map. I lost an attempted cultural victorty, but thats not the point of the post.

Of the early wonders, I manage to get stonehenge, great wall and 'mids.

I would reccommend going mining, mysticism, masonary, sailing and then bronze working.

Whilst you are teching sailing build the GW (if you can). I found barbs to be a massive issue on the isolated map (I had to reload and then tried the approach I am reccomending) as there is so much space to spawn bust. This slight detour will really free up your production in the immediate and long term.

Good luck.

I was thinking about hitting up Stonehenge, as I do plan on bulbing Philo to get Tao in the future, but would that take away too many hammers for the other two more important wonders (GLH, Mids)? Plus, I can easily just whip Monuments, which is rather preferred as I get overflow hammers.

I don't think I'm going for GW, as Spawnbusting as rarely been an issue for me, and by getting the second warrior out quick it seems fairly easy to spawnbust the lower half of the map, even if I'm trying for those two wonders.

 

[Shakes]

The other problem with going for the great wall in this situation is you don't want to be popping spies when you have nobody to spy on.

 

[Herrhals]

Wouldn't it make sense to gun for an earlier religion in order to get a quicker state religion for the organized religion bonus to facilitate wonder spamming even more?

Personally I would oracle Metal Casting, bee-line Code of Laws or vise versa depending on how late the oracle goes up. The forge+OR+industrial= 100% wonder building. Add stone, and some wonders will go up 3x faster.

That seems preferable for any wonder=spamming strategy...but I'm only a prince player =/

-Herrhals

 

[Kadazzle]

As I said, I was thinking about getting Tao, but Confu is also do-able if I just get Writing and Priesthood and hit up The Oracle. I'm not really sure what to do, but because we're isolated, and I was never really a fan of being a religious nut, I think I'm going to go 'Mids and TGL. If enough people would like me to go a religious route, I'd be more than happy too though.

Next turnset shall be played tomorrow. Time depends on how many replies I get regarding which wonders (so I can choose a good tech path) but I do plan on playing one or two rounds tomorrow (the second depending on how we are going to move onward from the first, also depending on how many decisions we have to make).

 

[Kadazzle]

Turn 13, as we got our second warrior out, we popped a hut and got a technology! Sadly, it wasn't anything good, though it does give us Archery as a good fall-back if the Barbs somehow get out-of-hand.



On turn 18, we finish scouting out the map, and we also have one of our warriors in it's spawnbusting position.



By turn 27 we have two of our warriors out spawn-busting (a third is being built), we have Hunting, The Wheel, Agriculture, Mining and Fishing technologies and we have our first workboat on it's clams. I decided to go warrior after the first workboat, as I really wanted to make sure the northeast tip was 100% spawnbusted, and that the "middle belt" of the island was blocked as well, meaning that the only place the barbs could spawn was to the south.

(Red shows possible barb spawn spots, excluding south)



Turn 28 I finish my third warrior, and send him 1N of my easternmost spawnbusting warrior, who will be moving south. I am now building a Workboat next, and switched from working the forest plains hill to the clam, so that we can grow and increase commerce to get Bronze Working + other techs quickly.



Turn 33 I grow to size two so I switch from working the clam to the two forested grassland hills, to get the last workboat out quickly. I also have my spawnbusting warriors in decent positions, though I will still need two more, one for the southeast and the other for the southwest corners.



We got a lucky event: "Knowledge is Power" leading to a 33 beaker advance in Bronze Working. This means we are 100% going to go worker next.



Nice stuff happened on turn 41. A forest grew, giving us an extra chop, we built our second workboat, and we started on our worker. We also just switched both citizens in Paris to the clam tiles, making both commerce increase and the worker get built quicker. Barb archers have been spotted.



I stopped at turn 54, as it's decision time, as we got our worker out, and need to figure out a next build. I teched Masonry instead of Sailing as Stone is a decent tile to work, but Sailing will be next.



Questions:

1) What should my dotmap look like? I know my second city i going to be on the west coast by the fish + riverside grassland + hills, but what about the jungle cities?

2) After Masonry, should I continue to tech Sailing?

3) Should I be building a Workboat, or should I be building more warriors or a settler?

4) What should I build after this current build?

5) What should my worker be doing? I have him chopping the Workboat, and then mining the riverside grassland tile. After, should he chop + mine again, just chop or Quarry the stone?

'Mids and The Great Lighthouse are still looking good.

I will post a dotmap shortly.

 

[Kadazzle]

Here's my beautiful dotmap, drawn using MS Paint by yours truly:

North


South

This would give me a total of 7 cities, which is not nearly enough Problem with the map is that most of the food resources are sea-based, meaning it is very hard to share food. I could squeeze a city North of the Pig (in hopes of finding another seafood resource) and share the pigs, and I could also put another crap city south of the wheat, and once my original wheat city is grown to work 'nuff cottages, I could share the food. That would give me a total of 9 cities, which is enough for Oxford.

I've noticed a lot of good things about this map though - it is green, making cottages and commerce very easy to come by. It isn't lacking food or production, meaning that I should be able to hit up Optics quick enough that I won't be too far behind in tech (but then again, this is Immortal 18, meaning if the AI are all in a Continent together I could be screwed). None the less, here's my proposed city specialization:

1) Mixed city. On a river with 4 hills, so production will be easy, but so will commerce.
2) Mixed city, possible HE or GP site.
3) Commerce site, little hills, 'nuff riverside grassland tiles.
4) Mixed site. I COULD move it 1E to get the GLH bonus (if we get it) which would be a better move, but in doing so we will lose 2 hills, although we would have room to squeeze in another crap city.
5) Mixed city.
6) Crap cottage site.

Most, if not all of my sites will have cottages. I plan on chain irrigating the wheat, and maybe some southern squeeze cities too.

----

North of Pigs: Crap filler city, maybe a GP Farm.
East/South of Wheat: Crap filler city, cottagable.

Questions:

1) Should I settled the two questionable city sites? If so, how late into the game? (I'm guessing around Oxford, if I don't find any islands).

2) Where should my GP site be?

3) - Post a better Dotmap -

4) Should I farm #1 and make a mini wonder-spam site?

Looking at the map, cultural is an option, though Stone + Lots of Green + Oxford = Easy cottage land as well. Why not have both?

Comments are appreciated, will play another round in 2-3 hours.

 

[brothatactics]

Most, if not all of my sites will have cottages. I plan on chain irrigating the wheat, and maybe some southern squeeze cities too.

I've seent his several times on the forums and am unclear of what this means. Can someone explain sharing food?

 

[CHEESE!]

'Chain irrigation' means creating farms to irrigate (+1 food) resource farms. Because farms after CS spread irrigation, you build a farm on a river, probably not to be used, so that you can have an irrigated resource tile.

R= river W= Wheat (random farm resource) C= Cottage F= Farm

C R F
C R C
C R C W
C R C

In this case, W is NOT irrigated because F is not adjacent to it.

C R C
C R F W
C R C
C R C

W IS irrigated

C R W
C R C
C R C
C R C

W IS irrigated (next to river).

'chain irrigation' is

C R F F F W
C R C
C R C
C R C

W IS irrigated, as are the three farms.

 

[Kadazzle]

Sharing food is where you use the food in two cities BFC's. Meaning, that you use the food in one city to grow the city to the happy cap/grow into it's cottages/grow into it's specialists, then you switch the food to the other city and grow it.

Regarding chain irrigation, I want to chain irrigate the Wheat so that it gets +1 food.