Immortal Students, Re-examination, the IIIrd !

[Takesitez]

@georgjorge

Spoiler :

Valid points.

I'm slow since it's been awhile since I did a full on Medieval war; I do alot of my conquering on Horseback or with big frigging guns normally

I put the National Epic in the capital because I needed the production from the pig city to churn out trebs. I'm trying to balance the tech to Edu with the war effort, and I felt that I needed all hammers I could get, since the capital will probably not be building many units. National Epic at least gives some early guys together with the other wonders that I can use to bulb with.

On the peace treaty. This may come back to bite me. I fully agree. The theory is that I'll be taking the statue of Zeus early from Monty and I've gone to the trouble of building the Notre Dame to help offset the war weariness; should SB cap to him. Militarily he's not a threat at all anymore.
On top of that I didn't even have Feudalism yet so, it was either whipe him or do this. I felt that taking the time to whipe him would be so wasteful considering the amount of work I will still have with Monty.

It might be a reload point if the war weariness kills the economy though. I agree I don't feel good about it either ^^

 

[MeowZeDung]

Take two. Imm, normal, NH NE, to 2160 B.C:

Spoiler :

After face planting on this map a few days ago I figured I'd give it another shot. I settled 1 NW for a stellar bureau capitol and it appears I had forgotten the map layout, since by moving the settler 1 NW I orphaned a wheat tile and made a fishing site to the west pretty meh. After further exploration, I think it will be fine anyway.

I met Sitting Bull after 3-4 turns of warrior moves to the south. Unfortunately I lost said warrior about 10 turns later to a lion. Monty also introduced himself and founded Hinduism. No Buddhism on our continent.

The Capitol's queue was worker -> warrior -> warrior -> settler and the tech queue was AH -> mining -> masonry -> BW. The Great Wall is finished this turn with a chop and 2 pop whip and should be mine. I have scouted out the rest of our continent north of the jungle and dot mapped an empire of 5 cities. Upon further consideration I think I will add one more between the pig and ivory since my second city can work the corn after my capitol has grown enough off of it and is working FP cottages.



The current plan is to chop out the Mids in the Capitol while building a settler in my second city. Tech will be some combination of hunting/pottery/writing, probably pottery next since chop/whip overflow into granaries would be nice and I wouldn't mind cottaging sooner rather than later. I am thinking a 6 city elepult strategy might be worthwhile here. Maybe a medieval or renaissance war would be better? I have never been good at war in those eras, so it might be a good learning experience. I guess if I pop a GE I will consider the machinery bulb for xbows and then trebs/maces. Thoughts?

 

[georgjorge]

Deity, to 1020AD:

Spoiler :

As I suspected, the war against Sitting Bull is a major slog. I didn't suffer any big defeats, and my army grows, but he has so many units around. If he would stop fighting against Monty for a time I wouldn't be able to progress but thankfully me and him always vote against the peace vote proposed by Monty .

I have 12 cities now and first in score on my continent, though I suspect everyone on the other continent is miles ahead of me. It might come down to nukes in the end...

Oh, and ever wondered what Sitting Bull does with all the Great Generals he gets?

Spoiler :

@Takesitez: Our games are very comparable (though Immortal - Deity):

Spoiler :

I have one city more, and as to research we should be doing about equally bad (I went down the bottom route towards Chemistry and have just researched Gunpowder, if I hadn't gotten a Great Artist right now I could bulb Philo and then Chemistry for super workshops).

Here's how I specialized Paris in 700AD:

Spoiler :

And here my Great Person farm:

Spoiler :

Actually why don't I chain-farm the grassland and run another specialist there? Stupid.

I built the Heroic Epic in a third city which has only a Floodplains farm and a grassland farm for food but lots of mines (and workshops after Guilds). It's size 11 I think.

@MeowZeDung:

Spoiler :

Good city locations and a good plan. Renaissance war seems too late with the amount of land that Sitting Bull will be able to claim.

A Great Engineer has great value on this map because you don't have many forests to chop for wonders. Bulbing Machinery is nice, and if you want to attack with Catapults - which can be a good option here - it's fine. But if you wait for Trebs I think going Aesthetics - Literature and rushing the Great Library with Pyramids already out is better since you will be getting more Great Scientists and can use those to bulb both Machinery and Engineering (and you need Aesthetics first anyway to bulb Engineering).

 

[georgjorge]

Deity, to a 1120 AD defeat:

Spoiler :

As I feared, Monty seemed to realize he can actually make peace without using the Apostolic Palace (whose vote I controlled already by that time). And as soon as he made peace Sitting Bull started taking back some of his cities with his now freed-up units.

To make it clear: Sitting Bull has fought a two-front war against Monty (unitspammer) and me (who has killed MANY of his units with Trebs) for six centuries. I think I took eight of his cities. But after all that he still has more than enough units left to not let me win the war (I still have only 0.9 of his power), and he still has seven cities left.

Neighbouring Deity AI with too much land = insanity.

I saw early that Sitting Bull would get a lot of land, so not going for Catapults instead of Trebs probably was a mistake. Still, a mildly evil map (even with the promises of easy Pyramids)...thanks for hosting!

 

[Rusten]

Deity 125 BC:

Spoiler :

I settled on the stone for a faster start.
Built the Pyramids early on. Decided that it was a good game to skip fishing to be able to lightbulb engineering. None of the cities really needed it. And the ones that did could be delayed.

Plan: bulb machinery with GE or GS from Paris --> bulb engineering with GS from city #2.

--> Ran 2 scientists early on in city #2 for 100% GS --> 99 or so GPP in Paris (Pyramid city) by the time the GS was born --> 2 scientists +engineer (forge) +passive GPP for quickest possible GP in Paris after the first one.

Result: 250 or 225 BC engineering (can't remember).
DoW on SB 125 BC with 7 trebs, 10 axes and 11 Elephants.

 

[MeowZeDung]

Imm to 1640 B.C:

Spoiler :

The capitol went from GW straight to the Pyramids with two workers chopping away. After the second city built a worker I allowed it to grow one pop and steal the corn from the capitol so it can build a second settler more quickly. At the end of this round I 2 pop whipped the Mids in the capitol, and 1 pop whipped the settler in city #2 giving the corn back to the capitol for faster growth. This settler will claim the eastern corn/copper/ivory site and the next two will claim pigs/ivory and wheat/fp respectively. I am going to delay the fish city for a little longer since I don't think fishing is a great idea on this map with the opportunities to bulb machinery/engineering.





As far as the overall strategy here, I am inclined to war with SB sooner rather than later to keep him at from getting unreasonably huge, which would mean an elepult "rush" with five cities and later a GE/GS bulb strategy for machinery/engineering to follow up with a second war against sb or monty with xbows/maces/elephants/trebs. I like georgjorge's suggestion to use a GE (if we get one) to rush the Great Library and use scientists for bulbing. However, I don't think a proper elepult "rush" can afford the aesthetics detour. Tech path would probably be writing -> hunting -> math -> construction -> hbr. The question is, can a cottaged capitol and some rep scientists get me there in a timely enough fashion? I'm also wondering if an attempt at the hanging gardens might be worthwhile for the GE points down the road. If nothing else the failgold would help push through construction and hbr.

@Rusten:

Spoiler :

Nice! I am always impressed when Deity players get awesome dates for war techs, lib, etc. Perhaps the GW isn't the best idea on this map.

 

[georgjorge]

@Rusten:

Spoiler :

Impressive!

As I assume that you didn't have more than five cities on declaration, I am already impressed by the 10 Axes + 10 Elephants. But to also get 7 Trebs to the frontline within 4 turns of Engineering? I'm clueless on how to make this work. I can only assume that you ran Police State + Slavery to make that many units quickly, but then how did you get the necessary research to get Aesthetics + Maths/Alphabet + Metal Casting + Construction fast enough?

 

[Rusten]

@MeowZeDung

Spoiler :

Nothing wrong with building the GW if you're intending to use espionage. It's crazy strong. At least if your only goal is to win and not to win as early/fast as possible. In my opinion espionage is completely broken and I wish the designers had spent more time on it before abandoning the game.

@ georgjorge

Spoiler :

5 cities, yes.

To quote a famous member of the board: "Cottages!!"
Serious answer: Careful micromanagement and emphasizing commerce.
I started working cottages early and my first three cities were all riverside. Quick development and immediately profitable. They were on stone, PH by wheat+floods and the northern wheat+floods.

You can compare your empire with mine -- I would imagine you had much less commerce compared to screenshots below (975 and 2000 BC).

Tech trading was awkward as Monty oracled Metal Casting. In the end I think I traded for maths, alphabet and part-teched IW.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Looking back at the save it was 225 BC engineering and 100 BC DoW -- not 125 BC. The 7th treb was 1T behind.
I did not enter police state at any point -- maybe I should have. I think I'd have trouble with happiness though, as I worked my cottages non-stop -- even while getting my army. First axes, then WEs, and then trebs.

Oh, and I did pop gold in one of the mines at some point. That helped a little of course, but it wasn't until 5-600 BC so it didn't do anything for my engineering date -- the bottleneck for that one was the GPP.

400 AD:

Spoiler :

SB is dead and I'm going to DoW on Monty soon with my veteran units. He has a lot of units, but they're almost all mounted (HAs) which have no chance vs my WEs. Furthermore he only just got metal and I can take that city on the first turn of the war, so there will be no spears or anything. Should be easy from here.

Monty has also teched CS+philo amongst other things, so I'm going optics+Astronomy to get in touch with the rest of the world and will vassal Monty and trade for the aforementioned techs using astronomy once he's my vassal.

 

[Pinďa]

Rusten, nice game so far

Monty has also teched CS+philo amongst other things, so I'm going optics+Astronomy to get in touch with the rest of the world and will vassal Monty and trade for the aforementioned techs using astronomy once he's my vassal.[/spoiler]

Do you think that those few techs are really worth it? I mean, is it not better to completely wipe out Monty and settle all the continent yourself for maximum future research potential?

 

[Rusten]

^He'd only be left with the poor cities. Tundra and/or coast. Easily worth the several thousand beakers and +1 happy.

 

[Izuul]

I'm basically just playing this on Immortal for fun to see how many wonders i can build in the capitol. Didn't really feel like going through the grind on deity. I'm hoping to post some kind of an update tomorrow.

 

[shakabrade]

Looking forward to this one after I finish Toku game in NC.

I see a lot of cottages available. Nice.

 

[Takesitez]

Wow, Rusten just took away all my desire to continue grinding through this game

Spoiler :

125 BC 7 trebs + massive army? I know that you can get earlier dates on Deity through the tech trading, but this is just ridiculous Well played sir !

For my part, after playing on a bit after my previous report, it is obvious to me now that I poorly prioritized, trying to do the teching + warring even on only Immortal. Definitely should've gone all out police state from the get go. I will beat Monty and have the continent to myself, but it will be so late that to win this, I'll probably have to go to nukes. It looks like such a slog that I currently can't muster the patience ^^, prefer to read how everyone else is progressing.