Immortal University 49 - Catherine

[Grashopa]

You know I really like IMP a lot. Without it here my settling order would have had to change. Its nice being able to hammer them out easily. Theres been several IMP forum games recently and all of them have been extremely useful.. you don't need to be in a rush to benefit from allowing a hammer site to take over settlers from your high food sites.

CT - I never see spearmen in my games, so I can't answer. I do delay BW often though. And obviously deity/immortal games. But

Spoiler :

After my third city with my 3 spawn busters I believe that covers the island.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

@Grashopa

Spoiler :

So it seems the wrong idea that I had here was that I should spawn bust the island completely before even settling my second city. I'll give it another try in which I spawn bust with the cities as well.

Thanks for the info!

 

[NihilZero]

@ CT:

Spoiler :

Spawnbusting should not be a problem here because horse is readily available (and with pigs around you should be teching AH pretty early). I saw quite a bit of barb action but it wasn't a problem as I had chariots and it unlocked the HE for me.

My spawnbust only had to hold long enough for me to get chariots, so here's roughly how it went: Scout searched around about half the island and then settled near the peninsula to the south of the cap, preventing any barbs from spawning there. 1 warrior stationed on the spot where I wanted my second city (pigs, fish and horse), 1 warrior in a forest where I wanted my third city (floodplains), 1 warrior on a forested hill beside the stone, and my last warrior was stationed on the silver (or beside it).

One nice benefit of fast Creative border pops is that it makes spawnbusting easier.

@ Grashopa:

Spoiler :

I did indeed play it safe and go straight for lib and the Taj. Turned out to be a good move as by the time I met Willem soon after, he already had Liberalism so I'm pretty sure I would have lost it if I had tried anything fancy.

Oxford took me a long time to build because I made the mistake of staying in Caste...bad move as the whip would really have got my universities up faster. I've attached the earliest save I have with Oxford for your perusal.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Delaying BW actually slows the rate at which barbs get axes and spears, ironically. Similar deal with sailing + barb galleys.

 

[Grashopa]

1460 AD

Spoiler :

I grabbed lib-steel, then whipped dry docks and lots of privateers. Peak was almost 100 gold per turn stolen before the huge stacks of caravels started cutting down my groups of 2 privateers recently. I would have saved them but was building up for war and didn't bother.

I grabbed the Taj and did a double GA, switching to Police State and vassalage to knock out cossacks. I had picked up Military Science so I could build 3 military academies with the GGs from the privateers so I was popping out 1 every 2 turns in most cities without much whip.

After I get communism I'll switch to State Property and Caste. Probably let the HE city do cossacks so I can take out Izzy too and everyone else will run rep scientists for a push to fighters before I sweep the other continent... Course at this point the game runs too slow so I'm probably done here.

PS I hate mercantilism. It took 200 beakers off me once everyone switched. I almost started handing out education and economics so I could bribe people out.

 

[shyuhe]

This map is funny:

Spoiler :

This is an 11 city Monty, who doesn't have Mining Inc.:

HC is at 5 cities, as is Brennus. Willem got capped by Izzy at 4 cities. Talk about strange distribution!

 

[Grashopa]

shyuhe

Spoiler :

I provided Monte with iron as soon as I picked up astronomy - he gave me about 8 resources and 16 gold per turn for it. First time I've ever seen that happen. Monte and the mongols of course end up same religion.

 

[bhavv]

I'm trying this one because I like isolated maps:

Spoiler :

Initial start with some fogbusting, I'm looking to settle my initial cities on hills so I can keep them defended with warriors

The third city will go on the riverside plains hill to the south, while the warrior that was camping there moves to bust the fog around the pig.

Complete fogbust with just one plains tile at the east left shrouded (will reveal it once my next city is up):



Well, I'm also missing the grassland forest NE of the sheep, I'll be able to get that revealed after Rustovs border pops.

I crashed my economy before getting to Writing, and couldnt get oracle built before writing for CoL, so I'm going to retry and not build the SW plains hill city, just the Marble / Stone + Silver sites untill Writing + Oracle.

Heres the Oracle CoL shot one turn from completion. If an AI beats me to it the next turn, I rage quit immortal difficulty for good:



Took me ages to manage.

 

[Grashopa]

bhavv

Spoiler :

Your silver city Rostov needs to be 1SW to pick up the 3 green tiles so that it can be useful later, and you should probably settle it a few cities later in the order as its quite useless right now.

2N of the stone looks bad because you give up a great cottage site by picking up all the flood plains and green tiles in one city. Also if you went coastal ( On plains hill next to the stone like me) you could have built a workboat for the SW fish site, which would have made a big difference in your early beakers.

 

[bhavv]

Right, I think I'll start this yet again, My economy was too bad.

This time it went a lot better, but I knew the map really well by now

Spoiler :

My economy turned out to be a complete failure again (go go Immortal maintanence costs), and I lost liberalism by 3 turns .

So what better a thing to do then to start again and make sure I spawned two Great Prophets:

Spoiler :

Before I hadnt even gotten one. This time I built Great Wall > Oracle > Temple and started working a priest specialist right away, and both my first two great people were priests . Then I changed over to scientists.

I confess, I am a restart noob.

This is nice, I got a great scientist spawn on the turn I finished Divine Right and went onto Education (I went for Divine Right because I also had a Great Engineer, so I got Spiral Minaret and Education half bulbed in one turn )

Spoiler :

 

[NihilZero]

Continuing my writeup from 1000AD:

Spoiler :

At the end of the last segment I was puzzling over my tech path. In the end, as my failure cash deficit research would only carry me so far, I decide to rush for a safe but boring Lib-Nationalism, attempt the Taj, and tech my way to Optics>Astronomy, aided by the GA and a Printing Press bulb along the way.

Naturally I revolt to Free Religion ASAP, might as well benefit from my godlessness.

In 1250, My caravels reveal most of the other civs - Willem and Isabella (both Christian), Huayna (Confucian) and Kublai (Jewish). Kublai has 15 cities and Huayna as a willing subject. It would seem that I was wise to err on the side of caution with my Lib plan, as Willem has Lib by the time I meet him.

All the warring and religious hostility has lead to a manageable tech situation, though. There are still the Hindu and Buddhist nations to reveal themselves...

Turns out to be Monty and Brennus, who are at war. There is plenty of hate so trade possibilities are limited if I don't want to become everyone's worst enemy. Oddly enough Monty is not Brennus' worst enemy, Isabella is, so I get some trades with featherhead.

Plenty of careful tech trading ensues, making sure not to ruffle any feathers (Monty's or otherwise) by trading with worst enemies.

Much needed resource trades raise my happy and health caps, at last.

Izzy enters WHEOOHRN. She has a worst enemy and is annoyed with three other civs besides. Is she going to attack me at cautious? Probably.

Next thing you know, the Mongols are planning war too. Stressful.

Isabella DoWs Brennus, he of the four cities who is already at war with the Aztecs. Defying her stupid AP attack resolutions starves my single Christian city to death.

Monty gets peace with Brennus, and moves his big stack to the North...(this screenshot is especially for that guy who thinks the AI never builds mounted units)

and DoWs KK. This should be a good fight.

Huayna breaks away from KK soon after, and surprisingly I rise to number one in score. Don't think I've ever done that peacefully on immortal before, but then how often do you peacefully get fourteen cities on a standard map?

The Aztec-Mongol war ends with victory for Monty after he takes back both his own cities (lost in an earlier war before I met them) and adds one of KK's for good measure. KK peaces out but Monty continues to fight HC for ages.

It's time for me to make a move. Isabella is one of the most irritating AIs in Civ, so killing her is always a relief. Thanks to Willem for providing a nice launch point.

This Cossack land assault is augmented with a naval invasion to the north, and initial progress is decent.

Izzy tries an ambitious but rather futile counter-invasion with medieval units...

My initial attack is slowed down by Izzy's acquisition of rifling (probably traded with Will for Medicine), but I get there in the end.

While I was busy with that, Kublai reopened hostilities with Monty in 1795. Monty gets the better of it through sheer numbers. KK has infantry and cannon, Monty hasn't discovered steel or rifling yet, but his cuirassiers and grenadiers are so numerous that KK is getting mauled.

For a while it looks like might overrun Mongolia completely and vassalise Kublai. That would be problematic. But then KK's cavalry steal back Kazan (lost in the last war) and the war ends with a treaty.

The next order of business is taking out crazy teching Willem. At the moment he's building the Electricity-Radio-Mass Media wonders for me, but he needs to be stopped soon before his teching goes too far. Fortunately I can outproduce him massively.

Attacking Will, the first step is to knock out his single oil city.

Then the rest will is just a grind to destroy all his infantry. Unable to build planes, tanks or warships and defenceless against my bombers for a few turns until he gets to rocketry, all he can do is delay the inevitable. Everything goes as planned.

Before I can finish Will, Monty DoWs Brennus. Naturally, KK takes Brennus as a vassal, and another big war is on. KK starts to get beaten soundly, so I use the just-captured UN to put a stop to it.

Willem gets eliminated. At this point I was in Police State pumping out units to win militarily, but then my diplo penalties with KK dropped to manageable levels. So I switched to his religion to get him to friendly, and that was all it took.

Thanks to the host, looking forward to another IU soon.

 

[bhavv]

Well, I have no idea how I'm meant to win this game, Kublai has Vassaled two other civs on his island, has twice as many points as anyone else, and is much further along the tech tree than I am

 

[Grashopa]

US lost to Ghana sending me into a funk that only domination could get me out of.

EDIT - Me and my computer aren't 15 hours slow. I left the game on overnight.

1780 domination

Spoiler :

We left off just before war with Willem/Izzy in 1460. Izzy finally declared on me suiciding 2 longbows and 2 macement into 2 of my cavalry. By 1565 both of them were finished - think I lost 6 cavalry against their longbows. At this point I am on my way to flight, and Brennus is next with airships to back me up against his guerilla longbows on the inland hill cities.

Monte was the first AI to rifling and has a big stack of rifles/cav about 40-50 units. So I bribe KK into free religion to get them out of friendly and then this:

Unfortunately KK hasn't been in any wars and his stack is not as strong.

But it scared HC into breaking away from Monte and his war with KK I'm a turn from flight and about to take HC's 3rd city.

I actually think I could have gotten domination with just attacking KK and leaving Monte and HC alone, so hitting Monte was a bit of a mistake. He split his stack to retake 2 cities I had stolen and that was enough to allow my bombers to pin him in those 2 cities - each turn I took his stack down to half strength and so they would heal in place. A short while later I took out those stacks and Monte was ready to capitulate giving me just enough land for domination.

 

[NihilZero]

@ Grashopa:

Spoiler :

Awesome. To what do you attribute your very rapid teching? The GLH primarily? I assume you avoided Economics and built castles? How important was your privateer spam?

I wasn't in a position to attack anybody until the 18th century, and I had the Pyramids. Prioritising an early Optics like you did seems like a good idea as I probbaly could have got a better Lib technology if I had done that.

edit - actually I see you did have economics...

 

[Grashopa]

nihil

Spoiler :

The GLH meant about 80 commerce/turn before the AIs went into Merc. And of course my astro came at 400 ADish so thats a big difference from your game.

I also had 3 golden ages before 1460. Taj + 3 great people. And had 5 more Great People than you did at your 1370 AD save. Adding these up gets us about to the beaker difference in our games.

The privateers did give me about 3000 gold, however I could have avoided researching chemistry and engineering by going straight for rifling. The Great Generals though were invaluable as I had military academies in 6-7 cities. You need IMP for this. Though I could have whipped cossacks over privateers, I would not have sustained as high a cossack production to the end game without the military academies. Oh also I blocked all the seafood so was able to trade seafood to everyone for more resources.

Castles really come too late to matter much and I was able to get the GM off of economics for 1700 gold.

 

[Irgy]

I gave this a go but didn't get far...

Spoiler :

An absolutely pathetic effort that reminds me that I still have a fair bit to learn. Settled on the Marble for a very fast start. Decided to grab the Oracle for a change.

Unfortunately, the result of researching religious techs early and having too much production for my own good was an economy which crashed and died before I even had The Wheel. If I can get at least pottery (preferably Writing) before the economy dies completely then I'm ok, as it was this was such a mess that I quit in disgust. Not helped by a barb archer taking one of my cities against the odds, mostly because I couldn't afford to pay for enough warriors to fogbust properly.

A very very early Oracle date, but nothing much to take from it as a result, so why did I bother?