Immortal University 111, Gilgamesh

[pandamancer]

IMM 1690 AD Cultural Victory *Giggles*

Spoiler :

Ok, enough giggling here is what happened.

Settled on marble because of pigs and extra hammers. Scouted and found Sitting Bull and Saladin nearby. Tech path is Mining > BW (we found copper beside the capital!) > Animal Husbandry

What now? Of course axe rush! I weighed the options and chose Saladin instead. He is happily expanding and spreading Hinduism when suddenly


I went for his capital instead (Mecca). He got chariots but they were outmatched by my superior numbers. He manages to pull a few axes but it's too late to save his kingdom from being invaded. At 975BC his civilization is no more! (see save for details)

Pottery > Writing > Aesthetics (half way)
Here goes my first mistake, I forgotten that priesthood is a priority due to Oracle and Sumerian UB. I switched halfway but too late Oracle is already built eons ago



LOLz even the pyramids is already built! There must be a industrious civ on the other side of the map (see Oracle and Great Wall on the same city ).

Mysticism > Meditation > Priesthood > Fishing > Sailing

My economy is in chaos but good thing the ziggurats are a good consolation for the Priesthood route. Now at this point I formed my plan for the rest of the game. I remembered Sitting Bulls attributes here and two religions in my empire so I decided to go for Cultural victory instead!

The plan is:

1. Select 3 cities. Here I chose Uruk (capital), Mecca (Arabian capital), Eridu (due to double food tiles)
2. Build Temples and Monasteries Asap of both religions (see the forest around Mecca and Uruk? They are all gone even before Mathematics!)
3. Snatch wonders of good cultural value (marble wonders )
4. Ignore military... SB never declares at Pleased (switch to his religion)
5. Try to win the liberalism route if possible but prioritize music for GA/Sistine Chapel/Cathedrals

Well I am thinking that since they are busy wonder spamming at the other side of the map. I might as well gave them the GLH in exchange for better culture yielding wonders like Parthenon, Statue to Zeus and MoM.

Aesthetics (Finished it) > Polytheism > Alpha > Masonry > Monotheism (trade)

At this point my situation is quite challenging, my economy has not well recovered. Currency is not yet researched and I am pursuing Aesthetics > Literature hoping that SB will trade them for Math or Currency. Unfortunately SB is stingy in tech trades so most of this part are all self researched.

At 350BC, MoM is gone! I aimed for statue of zeus and parthenon. I even overwhipped my auxiliary cities overchopped my culture cities for monuments for the prerequisite for the statue of zeus So chop, chop and chop... I don't want to miss another marble wonder now. Some idiot pop out a Great Engineer, luckily he just rushed chicken pizza. So long story short, I got both wonders .

Meanwhile SB is expanding furiously but I ignored him because we got 7 cities already and so my 2nd mistake: Forgot to build 2 more cities early on. All cities have hindu and jewish temples + jewish monasteries. I need to be the first in Music so the tech path is now:

Literature > Math > Music (no tech trade so far from SB )

Taoism is founded in 125AD so goodbye liberalism race. I built HE and NE on Eridu . For Mecca, I need another marble wonder so I am in crossroads whether to built the Great Library or not. I decided to go for it in the meantime for the sake of failgold but that never happened because I got the wonder. After that, I got first in music and got ample time to build the Sistine chapel as well! In normal situations, wonder spamming is an invitation to be DoWed but this ain't normal afterall. (see 960AD for details)

Currency > Drama > Col > Civil Service (switch to bureau)

Uruk has two cathedrals, both Eridu and Mecca has one. Got screwed by GLib by popping out a great scientist instead of an artist. Build an academy on Mecca as well.

Calendar (trade) > Philosophy > Paper > Education (halfway when liberalism is gone )

The rest of the marble wonders are all gone now: Hagia Sophia, Taj Mahal, Notre Dame. But nevermind, I think I have enough already. Attempted Shwedagon Paya (due to gold production bonus) but someone stole it from me. SB built the AP, so kind of him to grant me production bonus on my Jewish temples and monasteries.

Hunting/Ironworking/HBR/Monarchy/Metal Casting (trade ) > Nationalism > Machinery/Feudalism/Archery (trade) > Education > Printing Press > Liberalism

At this point, I am waiting for my win. I met Justinian/Du Gaulle/Qin (near the end of the game)/Hannibal (at the turn of my victory ) See how I am so behind at tech.



Both Qin and Justinian are already plotting... fingers crossed!



Victory!

 

[Seraiel]

@ pandamancer:

GG, but some serious mistakes:

1. AH is more important than BW,

Spoiler :

even with finding Copper, which you could not know.

Food first, always. You could have at least had one more Vulture if you had improved the Food first.

2. Going Aesthetics before Currency was a big mistake, which I think you noticed, because you wrote, that your economy was crashed. Currency is the most important classical tech. Forget about Priesthood and Zigurats, if you got Currency and TRs, every city can sustain itself without investing many , way more important.

3. Forget about all those Wonders, most of them are completely unnecessary. Parthenon is good for Culture and Sixtine is a must-have, but all others are fluff. You wrote that you overwhipped your cities to get the SoZ built, just imagine you could have had 2 additional Villages in the end? I don't know how much pop you sacrificed, SoZ is a cheap good Artist Wonder, but the alternative is quite strong aswell, and allows for other infrastructure too. I also don't build the MoM in culture games, as I rarely trigger more than 1 GA.

4. Instead of building an Academy, which is of only little use in Culture-games, you should have bulbed Philo for the extra Religion. Every Religion means 1 more Cathedral / L-city, that's a tremendous advantage! 2 Religions are enough for a good date, but 3 improve the date by up to 300y!

5. Going PP before Liberalism = big mistake. Liberalism is the most important tech in a Culture-victory, because of Free Speach. Every turn you get Free Speach earlier, is about a half turn shaved of the winning date. Try going directly for Lib next time, switch immediately, and slow-tech PP while running the culture-slider at 100% via building Research and running Specialists in the helper-cities that won't create a GA.

6. Did you trigger a GA? Would have been more useful than a 2nd Academy, because of the bonus on GP-production. Also: Not bulbing Education and researching Drama may have costed you Liberalism. Losing Liberalism is no big deal in culture-games though. It's helpful, but as long as one can trade for Nationalism, everything is fine.

Still: Well done, 1600 AD is a good date for a 2 Religion Culture victory, I think my best was 1300 AD, and that on a really good Inland Sea map with fast-techers as trading partners. Also very good idea to Vulture rush, Vultures are beasts, I once conquered a whole map with only 20 of them. Didn't think of them, when I talked about HA-rush, early BW can be really good on this map.

 

[Hollow Bow]

I knew when i loaded the map culture was a decent option . Glad to see someone did that gg pandamancer.

 

[NihilZero]

Nice game, Panda!

Spoiler :

It's always refreshing to see a culture game. I also considered it here, but I haven't done that in a long time and I was worried that some bruiser on the other continent would surely take exception to such a strategy. So I chickened out.

My intuition tells me that a peaceful culture - ie, one without Vultures, might be more expedient here. You can certainly get to 9 cities without war and the resultant postwar tech isolation might have slowed you down in the long term. I'm not really sure though...

 

[Ironlungs76]

GG panda nice date, I considered Culture as well (even built Sistine but more as a preventative measure).

I did Culture victory for a recent Zara NC game so I took a different route for a change.

 

[pandamancer]

where are my saves?? I will try to reupload them.

@NihilZero

Spoiler :

I think leaving Saladin is possible but I see some challenges. First of all, there is a marble resource in Saladin's territory making it another contender in wonders race. Of course, you can opt for cottages as Seraiel said though. Secondly, you will be juggling your military and diplo in case he is of different religions with Sitting Bull (He has a peace weight of neutral so there is the possibility of declaring war on cautious attitude). Lastly, you must block two AIs from taking good spots which I think isn't even a problem once Saladin is gone.

On the plus side, he is a better trade partner than sitting bull as stated here vs here. Saladin's leaning toward religious techs might give you another religion which lessens your expansion requirement to 6 cities instead of 9. Maybe someone will try it, you will never know

@Seraiel

Spoiler :

Thanks for commenting on my game. Here are my reasons or misconceptions on why I did that.

1. AH is more important than BW,
I got entranced by the *bling* gems *bling* and lots of forest to chop. Since we got an irrigated corn. I having a commerce over food mentality hence mining > BW. Also, I am just not fond of over growing my capital to but if there is no gold/silver/gems, I always go for AH.

2. Going Aesthetics before Currency was a big mistake
Correct! In addition to that I failed to realize that Sitting Bull is a poor trading partner.

3. Forget about all those Wonders
I will try to unlearn this habit of mine. if you will inspect my endgame save, you will see that the cottages in Mecca is not even worked! Not good. For that statue of Zeus, I did not overwhipped my cities but overchopped

4. You should have bulbed Philo for the extra Religion with that extra GS
That's impossible. Taoism is founded in 125BC and that's even earlier than my GLib. I should have save him for Golden Age but the odds of popping another GS is so high that I decided to spend him on a shabby academy. Could have bulb paper though but I am on semi isolation so forget about it!

5. Going PP before Liberalism = big mistake
No idea on that one. I will prioritize Liberalism next time.

6. Did you trigger a GA?
Nope, the odds of Great Library is screwing me up. Someone on the other continent has Philo in the BCs so most likely liberalism race is lost early on. I am just starting teching education when liberalism is lost (880AD! ).

 

[Seraiel]

@ pandamancer: Bulbing Philo before 125 BC is not impossible. It simply requires you to run 2 Scientists in the capital from a Library and spend your 1st and maybe only GS on it. Academies are not necessary in Culture-games, not at all, so bulbing (Philo, Education) are really the stronger choices. If you had beelined CS via Currency, you'd have had CoL without problems at 500 BC with such a high Commerce start and with building all the Cottages Culture needs, and creating a GP until then is usually even easier.

 

[kevtrev]

To 900 BC

Spoiler :

Despite peeking in a few spoilers, I decided to play this with a cultural victory in mind.

I skipped AH at the start in favor of Masonry on the way to Oracling CoL. I've seen lots of better players say this is a poor choice, but the ecologist in me can't accept those 20H chops. Tech went mining-bw-myst-masonry-med-ph-writing. I chose CoL over MC, alpha, aesth or math because I want the religion for my temple spam.



After backfilling AH and pottery, I selftech IW Far from ideal but a necessity. The economy grinds to a halt as Uruk spams settlers and I expand. Eridu stays at size 3, working 2 scientists. I think I want him to bulb Philo as the capital doesn't have so much riverside land as to make an academy attractive. Kish produces some Vultures to guard against the barbs.



Hinduism spreads to me this turn so the love-in is on. The final non-backfill site is marked in white and then I'll concentrate on righting the economy before settling cities 8 and 9 in the space around the capital. My GS will be born next turn and I'm still unsure what to do with him.

Advice and comments welcome.

Thanks to Hollow Bow for hosting.

 

[Pangaea]

I see great players say Academy isn't really needed in culture games, so with that in mind, perhaps you're better off bulbing Philo with him. Gets you another religion. Three should be fine, I hear.

 

[Izuul]

Well once you start running 100% culture slider the Academy is doing nearly zilch (4 culture per turn from the building itself) so the only benefit it really offers is faster research on the way to Lib and FS, but bulbing Philo does that as well in addition to likely securing another religion.

 

[kevtrev]

It doesn't surprise me much that

Spoiler :

I lost It took me so long to get all the missionaries, temples and cathedrals set up that, despite winning Lib, I switched into FS far too late. I was about 10 turns from victory when DOWed by a fat stack of cavs with only a warrior guarding the already legendary Uruk. Game over. It was fun and I enjoyed not fighting any wars and the diplo shenanigans to keep Sitting Bull onside.

Glad to know I did the right thing with the GS in saving him for Philo. Going for 9 cities and 4 religions was my mistake. If I have another shot (and I'm not averse to replaying maps for learning purposes) I'll stick to 6 cities and 3 religions.

All in all I don't feel too bad about failing. Last time I did a culture game was back when I was a Prince player and involved founding a religion in each of the to be legendary cities.

Panda's 1690 date seems impressive now I've tried myself and gives me something to punt at if I have another go...

 

[NihilZero]

My game's done. 1826AD Space on Immortal.

I laid out my initial strategy here, and my game up to 1AD is here.

And the rest:

Spoiler :

Soon added a ninth city by claiming a barb settlement at the northeast corner of the map (fish and corn). Then I just settled in for a long, patient game as I was planning on spacerace from the outset.

Civics were HR, Bureau, Slavery, Decentralisation (obviousy) and Pacifism when it became available (bulbed Philo, although Taoism was gone). My economy was largely reliant on great people if I wanted to have any hope of not being horribly backward when the other continent was revealed.

Diplo was pretty simple. I was in Sal's religion and SB very rarely attacks, especially if you give in to his demands.

Wonders - GL and Parthenon.

Lib was at 900AD, for Astro. Justinian already had it.



Note the starvation as I pushed all my cities for evey last beaker so I could get Lib one turn sooner as Justinian already had Education and I assumed others on his continent did too.

Why Astro? Because most of the civs were on the other side of the world, and it was vital to meet and trade with them on a large map like this. War can come later. The alternative of going cuirassiers/cannon/rifles or whatever was risky as it might have meant falling too far behind the others and delaying meeting them too long.

Needless to say, I was pretty far behind the Buddhists already:





But I started to backfill pretty quick, and within a few turns I was closer:



Needless to say, I had switched to Free Religion by this point (burned a GS for my first Golden Age).

Lost out on the Taj (not surprised), but surprisingly I got the Economics GM.

Although I had caught up a bit, I still wasn't happy with Justinian's teching. However, he opened a weakness when he switched to FR (surprising) and dropped from friendly to pleased with his neighbours. A bad move on his part, as it meant I could orchestrate a two-front war against him!





And that was the end of Byzantium as a world power, as they were subsequently dogpiled, partitioned, and ultimately subjugated by the French in 1230AD.

1230AD was also the year I kicked off my own aggressive expansion.



All very well, but I was still looking at the tech screen with concern, noting that Hannibal hit Assembly line some time in the mid 1200s...

Took me a while to knock out SB. I couldn't afford the resources to commit to a pangaea-style total war as I had to keep building infra, teching, and so on with long-term considerations in mind. His Grenadiers and Chichen Itza didn't help either.

I made do with limited resources by outmanoeuvring him, however. I'd put units at one end of his empire, let him move all his men to there, and then either slaughter troops in the open field as he transferred them, or sweep around behind the lines in my own territory and capture the cities he had just moved men out of, hehe.

Also, airships. Lots of airships.

SB was laid to rest in 1460AD.



Then things were peaceful, until Saladin insulted me:



Yes, he founded a city, and named it "Yamama". Now, I'm very sensitive about my mama, so I opened a dialogue and demanded her return. He said I could take it from his "cold, dead hands", so I killed him, and the city of Yamama was razed to the ground.



After that it was standard space stuff. Hammers, workshops, watermills, state property, you know the deal.

The SS My Mama was launched in 1806.



I had defensive pacts so it asn't like anything unexpected was going to happen.



Come on Gil, how about a smile? You won!

 

[Seraiel]

GG NihilZero.

Nice to see you even using Irrigation Chains and not connecting the Oil, for the extra .

 

[NihilZero]

Haha, very observant!

And yes, to hell with oil. Who needs it?

 

[kevtrev]

Culture 1770 AD (2nd time lucky)

Spoiler :

I skipped Masonry this time in favor of early AH. Tech went Mining-AH-BW-myst-med-ph-writing. Took CoL from the Oracle. Stayed at 6 cities and only got 2 religions as Taoism went early on the other continent and Christianity spread to me too late for it to be viable. The lack of stone also made it unattractive.



3 GS's led me to bulb Edu and Lib but I put off going straight to Free Speech because I wanted to build the Taj and the Hermitage. In my second GAge I finally made the switch. When the zealots and warmongers from the other continent showed up I went to Free Religion at the expense of Artist production. I also gave in to all and any demand and gifted away the few techs I had. It seemed to work. I cranked up the culture slider, pressed end turn many many times I bombed my 9 Artists for (at last!) an IMM cultural victory. Some final turn screenies:

 

[ShiVvV]

I won't go into a lot of detail but I wanted to post something as I've finally gotten a chance to finish the game.

Spoiler :

Not having access to iron determined the way this game played out for me. The last available iron resource on our continent was taken by Saladin (although I didn't have IW at the time so I didn't know it). So, I decided to head for Rifling soonish--especially after losing Lib--to take on my neighbors.
Drafted rifles + trebs were used to take out Sitting Bull entirely; and a combination of rifles/infantry/cannon used to vassal Saladin (grenadiers/cannon).

I lucked into TGLighthouse very late--200AD. Also, the AP was captured in one of SB's cities. I was able to secure a source of iron post-Astro by settling an ice island northeast of the other continent. The AP vote followed within a handful of turns after vassaling Saladin and I was close to the 75% vote limit from my own population.

Civics--I stayed in free religion once I could for entire game so that diplo with the other continent wasn't as problematic as it could've been. Also HerRule for majority of game with US very late.

Had I not settled for the AP win it's doubtful whether I could've won space as 2 AIs on other continent had already built Apollo. I suppose eschewing going AP would have meant a nuke-fest eventually. Justinian was creeping up on a culture victory though also.

All in all, a fun map and good to see some IU games again.

victory screenshot

Spoiler :