Immortal University 108 - Napoleon

[Pangaea]

Yeah I know, but there is supposed to be some option in there to turn it off. So I've heard anyway, because people have made complaints about it on some other forums I frequent. Don't have it myself though.

Spoiler :

HA seems a good choice here, IMO, and it's nice with 2-move wars a everything is so much quicker, and it's much easier to steal workers. The "other" approach would work well too, I'm sure, but it was fun to start a fairly early HA war and stomp weak units. It is a good practice for me at least.

 

[pepe26]

You are correct, good sir found it, was pretty hidden though. Thanks for the heads-up

 

[Thrar]

@Pangaea: yeah, I noticed the spam as well but it seems to be the tapatalk app that I'm using that is causing this...

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May I suggest...

 

[Pangaea]

Have continued playing this today, waging some wars in the early ADs. 680AD now.

Spoiler :

Shaka the little runt had backstabbed me, so I had to end the war with Montezuma and turn around for Shaka's place. That went well enough. We fought back his attack and countered him, sacking a city and capturing two others. But it was clear we wouldn't be able to push ahead as he had HAs too and was sort of even on techs. Took construction and peace and moved west towards Montezuma again, utterly backwards technologically.

Sacked a city (in the exact same spot as Shaka's sacked city, which would later be rebuilt by Saladin), captured the last remains in 'our' sphere of influence, and then we moved westwards and ever more westwards. In 680AD his last stronghold had finally been found and he was marched out the gates, hands aloft.

The empire now counts 20 cities, and stretches far to the west. Those things will cost a bit. Maybe I should have let Hannibal re-settle them, but I didn't really want to make him stronger either.

Spoiler :

Paris. Have settled all GPs so far, but if I get a GProphet next he'll shrine Judaism. That should net at least 20 I reckon.

There is a big worry coming up though. Is it possible to avert this "too close to call" catastrophe?

Spoiler :

 

[Gumbolt]

@ Pangea.

Spoiler :

You are fine with AP. He can't win vote with just his points. He needs a second vote. Sal does not have his religion and likely never will. In any case you can set up a colony to avoid any issues if need be.

 

[Thrar]

Finally finished this, religious diplomation in 1510AD. Justin was the last man standing, maybe 2 turns away from capitulation.

Elepult followed up with musketeers. Got a critical mass through drafting and from that point on, siege became meaningless even though I libbed Steel. I actually skipped cuir upgrades to save money and went straight for cavs. Two-mover wars from Gunpowder are fun.

 

[Izuul]

Immortal 1190 Conquest

Spoiler :

As i mentioned in my previous post in this thread, i tried something that i had done once in another IU game quite awhile back. I went for a HBR Oracle only researching AH & Mining before Oracle techs and then slow built the Oracle with mines + FPHs while teching Pottery and BW. I finished the Oracle in 2040 BC (chose tech in 2000 BC) which is pretty close to a sure thing on Immortal. I also stole 1 worker from Pacal early and he was willing to take peace on the turn that i finished the Oracle, presumably because HBR boosted my power enough to make him worry.

Spoiler :

The point of this HBR Oracle wasn't JUST to go for a HA rush, my larger plan was an elepult attack, but there's not nearly enough commerce here to Oracle Construction, and that's risky even under good circumstances, and a Math Oracle is something that i find pretty wasteful. Since phants need HBR anyway, i thought i could just Oracle that, take out one AI with HAs while teching Math and Construction, and a lot of that research could be financed by capture gold.

I didn't go for too early of a rush against Pacal. I took the time to settle 4 cities then attacked in 825 BC with about 8 HAs. He really had nothing in his first city or his capitol and it wasn't until his 3rd and 4th cities that i really had to contend with any Holkans. I had an opportunity to bribe Monty in on Pacal earlier while i was still building up for my attack, but one thing i have learned in the past is that it's actually not good to put a peaceful builder AI like Pacal into war mode early in the game. All that typically does is cause them to start spamming troops and little to no AI fighting will actually occur at that stage of the game. So anyway, i passed on that and let Pacal sit there building missionaries and stuff.

Another nice thing that happened in this game is that Hannibal got Alpha pretty early for an Immortal AI, and i was able to trade HBR + PH (i think) for Alpha without having to put any beakers into it. I also got it early enough that i was able to make this awesome trade with Sal.

Spoiler :

That kept me from having to trade the better techs around early and kept the tech pace slower since only Hannibal and I had them.

While fighting Pacal i got the Mids in 600 BC. I chopped HAs in the cap up until Math came in (which was also about the time i felt enough HAs out of that city) and then switched to Mids and let the stronger chops finish it. My other cities contributed the rest of the HAs needed to finish the war.

Spoiler :

Once Construction was in i started assembling a stack to go after Monty and the next tech was CoL to whip some cheap ORG CHs. I think after that i went for Aesthetics > Lit for TGL, HE, etc, and then went for CS. CS finished in 125 AD, the same turn that I declared war on Monty.

Spoiler :

And on the turn after that i popped a great prophet in Paris. I started to save this guy for either my first golden age, or for a shrine (Mutal was buddhist holy city and Monty's cap that i would soon take was the Hindu holy city), but i instead decided to bulb Theo. That allowed me to switch into Bureau and Theo at the same time, and 1-2 turns later Justinian demanded that i switch into Hinduism which i was glad to do because i was going to do it anyway

Spoiler :

Monty fell in 540 AD around the same time that i got Engineering.

Spoiler :

After adding some trebs and maces to my stack i declared war on Saladin and he capitulated after losing just one city.

Spoiler :

The game was essentially over at that point, especially with Justinian and Shaka tied up in a long war that went from 400-500 AD until i finally capitulated Shaka. After Saladin i took out Hannibal followed by Shaka and then Justinian to end the game. I actually took MT with Lib and got a few Cuirs out near the end of the game, but they were really just window dressing and never even got a chance to attack anything.

Spoiler :

 

[pomthom]

Very impressive showcase Izzul

 

[pepe26]

Ya pretty sweet indeed

 

[Pangaea]

Excellent game Izuul.

Will I finish this one day? Who knows...

 

[Izuul]

Thanks guys. Oh and this might have been overkill, but it certainly does seem to intimidate the AI into capitulating...

Spoiler :

This was a few turns before the end of the game, before i split my stack.

 

[Grashopa]

I played a few turns to take a look at the start

Spoiler :

Settle on the wine for sure. Exploration naturally goes from Monte to Pacal. I'd probably worker steal Pacal when the worker gets to the dye. If you go settler at size 3 and settle your first city to pick up the sheep-horse-corn site you will have a great city to assist with settlers.

With all the hills you have to go for an HA rush on immortal. The cap will be 1 per turn after the HE. You should be able to finish the game with HAs. Just build 6 cities. Great Wall gets you fail gold, stonehenge / oracle for GP points. Bulb theo for 7/8 HAs if the religion goes your way as it did in my start.

I'm not sure I'd oracle hbr as izuul did. I'd more typically oracle alphabet as Cseanny did. Alphabet gets you the econ techs you skipped + allows research building so hbr + chops and getting HAs out isn't much of a difference.

Thanks for the musketeer spam game gumbolt I remember someone else doing it before on here though so I never considered it Always wanted to though. I have run a gunpowder beeline game previously and perhaps it is possible to get it earlier and not bog.

 

[Gumbolt]

Yes I should of got it much sooner really. I didn't pick the most ideal city locations. The rush was still fun to do even aginst LB defences. Of course the issue is I could of wiped out 1-2 Ai by the time I had gunpowder units. Of course I captured much better developed cities.

Still I had a fun game none the less and it made a change from my usual Cuirs bashing.

 

[Seraiel]

Strange that people would decide to rush HAs on a map that has this good a start. Is this for fun purposes or did you actually figure this to be the best option for a quick finish date?

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Come on, is it really so easy to understand?

HA good
Settler bad

Players that are able to beat Monarch know that, how come that you don't?

 

[Gumbolt]

Come on, is it really so easy to understand?

HA good
Settler bad

Players that are able to beat Monarch know that, how come that you don't?

HA requires less hammers than a settler. You can gain 3-4 cities. 2-4 workers. Cities with tiles already worked too. The only downside is your cities may not be optimally placed. This assumes that a rush is viable. AI like GK can quickly build up many units.

 

[Pangaea]

A leader like

Spoiler :

Pacal

on the other hand...

 

[Izuul]

A leader like

Spoiler :

Pacal

on the other hand...

Spoiler :

I would be some-what more hesitant about trying to HA rush Pacal on Deity. You can do it fairly easily on Immortal because he just doesn't build troops, but on Deity he would pump out significantly more Holkans and there's no way to stop him from doing so.

 

[Gumbolt]

That is an interesting thought on deity vs troop levels. I was watching the series by Kossin comparing up the AI. It's rare on my immortal game to see an AI stack of over 30 let alone 50-60 units. Come 1000ad some even struggle to have 9-10 strong stacks. When they do often a large number of these is stuff like pults. It's one of the reasons the Ai are no good at combat. Very predictable and quite easy to destroy their stacks in the field. Also their thoughtless process to mindlessly suicide stacks at cities they had no hope of capturing.

A little tale of Ai woe non game related.

Spoiler :

On my current game Viking and Koreans have been at war for 20-30+ turns now. They have swapped over a viking city 2-3 times now. In the Koreans defence with 5 cities vs Rags 8 they have done well to fend him off. The point being is they both mindlessly destroy eachothers stacks. Then rinse and repeat. I figure they have both lost over 50 units each. Absolutely pointless. Do I feel guilty that I bribed them into war with eachother?? No I was happy to grab the weakly defended Korean citty and run.

 

[cseanny]

@ Gummy! The Unrestricted leaders game eh!

 

[Gumbolt]

@ Gummy! The Unrestricted leaders game eh!

Never played an unrestricted game. I get too confused by them. Sometimes I just roll out new games. I have at least 5-6 I need to finish off. I am terrible like that.