Immortal University 65 - Shaka

[Jester Fool]

Got overrun by barbs the first time. Tried a different approach.

Spoiler :

Moved to get copper in BFC. Maybe first game was bad luck but axes came real quick causing mayhem. I should have moved the capital once the barb problem was taken care of (at least by the time I adopted Burea). Way behind in tech but still managed to win Lib 940AD. Not impressive at all but the AIs are teching very quickly so it's a victory of sorts.

Spoiler :

Luckily, I made this trade w/ Wang which will allow me to get to cuirs. I have most infra up and should have unis up by the time troops get spammed. I think I have a chance but it is kind of late. Really depends if I can cap Hannibal while still leaving him enough cities to help in the following wars. Should be fun finding out though.

Spoiler :

 

[Habitus]

Looks like 1505AD to beat at the moment, waiting till later in week/next weekend to play so I forget anything the WB save showed me when i made it. Hope its not been too hard of a game for everyone

 

[Jester Fool]

@ Habitus :

Spoiler :

It could be unwinnable if diplo get screwed. Barbs are tough to deal with (Inland Sea is always like that though). The land gives you a chance as long as diplo/barbs don't wreck your day. Good challenging map (for a so-so player like me).

 

[Tempesta13]

1060 AD to 1545 AD

Spoiler :

After declaring in 1060 i sent my 1 move army to take the northern two cities while Cuirassiers go for the rest. He had a large stack of about 20 units to the East of me - he had taken a city from Spain before I declared. Having to take care of that slowed the war down a bit. I saw Spain moving a couple large stacks across my land before that so i thought she was going to make it easy for me. Turns out she just gave him a lot of promotions. I get rifling in 1190 so i can reinforce with Cavs instead of Cuirs which helps. Had to take 5 cities and kill a lot of troops before he capitulated in 1280.

1390 Izzy declares war on Asoka which works out great for me. As soon as i think her stacks are in India land I attack. She actually takes Delhi but her cities on my borders aren't defended well at all. 1510 i take madrid and she capitulated without ever getting to send her stack out of Indian land. 1545 Asoka capitulates - he had infantry but so few troops and cities he gave in after losing about 10 units and 1 city.

1545 to 1800 Domination victory

Spoiler :

At this point game is won but everyone has rifling and are close to infantry so i decide to spend 180 years getting the tech rate up so the final war will be fast and easy. Went for tanks, bombers and nukes which is definitely overkill but fun to play as you can take out city after city with pretty much no losses. Declared on JC/Pacal in 1720 the turn i got Radio and 3 turns before nukes come online. The 24 tanks and more than 30 cavalry are plenty. Nukes and bombers will just save me from having to stop and heal tanks - not like it matters when you are producing like 6 tanks/turn though...

Eliminated Pacal and capitulated JC in 1760. Next war was even more one-sided. She has two stacks, one in London one in Hastings and I happen to have 4 tactical nukes within 4 tiles of those cities. Declared in 1775, 2x nuke on her 2 stacks and take Coventry and she capitulates right away.

Finally, Korea in 1795 to get the last couple % i needed.

Was a fun map - liked the mix of AI's and tricky diplo. Inland sea usually are good maps except i think there's too much land. Didn't like low sea level as barbs almost killed me and forced me to whip the crap out of my capital right during the time i really needed to grow it. 6 or 7 AI's with high sea level is what settings i would probably use. Also didn't like Asoka's triple gem start which led to me losing lib by 1 turn. Was a fun game though.

Also... didn't like JC having too much on his hands all game long. He fought a couple wars vs England but i think she declared both times. He was making me nervous until i got to the point where a DOW wouldn't have hurt. Anyone know why this happens. I was thinking maybe he was plotting on me, then i took Hannibal as a vassal and JC got confused on what to do then. I don't know. I know at least from 1000 AD to when i declared on him in 1720 he was plotting but never fought a war. Elizabeth declared on him in 820 AD but that war was over by 1000 AD. I thought maybe he was doing his troop build up the same time i was and just never got enough to want to declare on me but that didnt' make sense - i scouted him after i finished one of the wars expecting to see a giant stack from 500 years of building up troops but he didn't have much.

 

[GenerallyGreat]

Got overrun by barbs the first time. Tried a different approach.

Spoiler :

Moved to get copper in BFC. Maybe first game was bad luck but axes came real quick causing mayhem. I should have moved the capital once the barb problem was taken care of (at least by the time I adopted Burea). Way behind in tech but still managed to win Lib 940AD. Not impressive at all but the AIs are teching very quickly so it's a victory of sorts.

Spoiler :

Luckily, I made this trade w/ Wang which will allow me to get to cuirs. I have most infra up and should have unis up by the time troops get spammed. I think I have a chance but it is kind of late. Really depends if I can cap Hannibal while still leaving him enough cities to help in the following wars. Should be fun finding out though.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Any particular reason why you are planning on attacking Hannibal? Spain is nearly always a softer target if she doesn't have her UU.

 

[DanielTorrence]

1505AD
Domination came in just one turn after...

Congratulation to a very good finish date on that map. As far as I could see you were the only person civ with rifles even with all the wars...amazing. Could you lay out some of the diplo strategies you used to keep the AIs away from teching too fast? I understand you bribed some of them to war, and do you perhaps have some of your the saves left?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Roll a deity game, make a WB save, start a game of the produced scenario on Immortal, add barb techs. Save game and it's all ready the ai get immortal bonus other than starting units+techs so it isn't deity level but is a immortal+ game. Biggest difference is tech bonus, only 20% compared to 40% on deity iirc.

Their production, while at usual obnoxious immortal levels, isn't deity class either. I'll give pictures later, but I'm taking a break ~1020 AD:

Spoiler :

Strange game with AGG AI but they tech like hell. Got early pottery/archery based on the start. Settled/captured to 8 cities but gifted 1 to hannibal. Izzy went WHEOOHRN and despite her being annoyed towards others I was scared (turned out to be Pacal)...however this resulted in me spamming out ~10 extra axes and walls so it slowed me up.

Hit 500 AD (exact) lib using bur cap + scientists from great library (we have marble). Didn't hold off for anything because nationalism opens taj (nobody had nat yet) and we have marble. No horse so no cavalry so I've opted steel. At 1000 AD I have it and around 10 cannons + 12 muskets...building up slightly more before hitting izzy who is lacking guilds and won't ever see rifles before I put her under. As my west is largely hindu and my east buddhist, I intend to do a full run of smacking the buddhists around. AP is buddhist so i've spread both that + hinduism to all cities (running hinduism but want AP control ASAP and the hammers while building up).

Things definitely felt...well...off this game but it's doable. I knew to be suspicious when opening the 4000 BC and check the settings for map script and see "worldbuilder". Hmmmm .

 

[GenerallyGreat]

Congratulation to a very good finish date on that map. As far as I could see you were the only person civ with rifles even with all the wars...amazing. Could you lay out some of the diplo strategies you used to keep the AIs away from teching too fast? I understand you bribed some of them to war, and do you perhaps have some of your the saves left?

Spoiler :

To be honest I didn't do anything special. There were a bunch of wars I didn't have to sponsor as well as the ones I did. Asoka was strong early but he had to deal with Izzy fighting him all game, Jao was nerfed by a lack of room to build his usual 12 cities and with Wang and Asoka so far ahead of him he didn't have a Hindu trade partner. Wang at some point converted to Conf which didn't help his cause. Pacal was solid techwise but he didn't have a lot of friends, Hannibal built an army of 50+ troops and was constantly warring with England and JC IIRC.

As for attacking order, Spain was obvious as she doesn't spam units and she was busy fighting India so sneaking up and capping her was super easy and she stood between me and the main dangers to get to rifling in Asoka and Wang. I took out Asoka, Wang and Jao then started building a Western army as Hannibal was starting to get his act together after dealing with England. I guess being careful with which techs you trade helps, I like to trade away techs that can lead towards rifling to civs that i'm within 10 or so turns of crushing rather than going for whatever is just the best deal. I don't think I traded much at all with Hannibal after 700AD as I wasn't planning on killing him for a long time and he can be dangerous with enough momentum.

This is the only save I have as I played the first time in one go. This is my second run at as I wanted to see if the slow tech rate in my first game was a fluke. It's a bit better in this run but as you can see I'd have a pretty good military advantage for a while.

 

[Jester Fool]

@GenerallyGreat :

Spoiler :

Hannibal is in Taoism. Right now his stack is far away in Liz's lands. I am a land target so he will attack me at some point anyway. I might wait for cav since Asoka is WHEOOHRN and I could cap Asoka when Asoka attacks Isabella. Then maybe backstab Isabella. The problem is can I do all of that before Hannibal declares. Might need to rethink things before continuing the game.

 

[GenerallyGreat]

@GenerallyGreat :

Spoiler :

Hannibal is in Taoism. Right now his stack is far away in Liz's lands. I am a land target so he will attack me at some point anyway. I might wait for cav since Asoka is WHEOOHRN and I could cap Asoka when Asoka attacks Isabella. Then maybe backstab Isabella. The problem is can I do all of that before Hannibal declares. Might need to rethink things before continuing the game.

Spoiler :

Fair enough. I was lucky enough to have Hannibal, Pacal and Isabella all in Buddhism. Going up the left side of the map might be a better option for you, especially if you can keep Isabella and Asoka locked in a stalemate for the immediate future.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Now with pictures!

1 AD

Spoiler :

Bit behind on worker turns. Went great lib because of marble...chopped it out on izzy border. Tech position is unusually fast for imm but we know why that is .

Lib

Spoiler :

Nationalism for Taj. Going cannons because I don't have horse. Plan is to play nice with hindu while running up the world counterclockwise.

1864 Conquest

Spoiler :

Used musket and cannon on izzy, and then had grenadiers after that. Asoka dogpiled on me but I owned him with cannons too. I then proceeded to chain cap everyone in that path until julius caesar with just gren/cannon...where I started finally adding in infantry (vassal broker tech to stay relevant). AI even built Manhattan and traded me fission . Lots of cities taken by my vassals since I gave the cities of theirs I captured back. Pacal and Hannibal were the last targets and neither had a chance because my side had nukes and theirs didn't. Coalition of Shaka's "willing" roflstomps the world, conquest!

 

[GenerallyGreat]

3:13 on Inland Sea with single move units in a game that lasted to 1860! That's some fast clicking right there.

 

[Mylene]

Yay for Agro AIs..Lizzy vs. Pacal, Hanni in war mode and iam not sure if he goes for me ~~
Switched this to Deity, gonna see how it plays out. Land area is some of the easiest i played so far, candy candy.

 

[Quiver]

Greetings fellow civvers,

I've been at Civ4 off and on for a couple years. Emperor is comfortable--usually. Goal is to get to the point where I can occasionally win on deity.

I'm not sure this was the best game for me to start trying to make the leap from emperor to immortal though....

Spoiler :

Tried an impi rush! Used the desert copper to the east. But Isabella took monarchy from oracle and must've traded it for ironworking: a few turns after she goes to slavery, she has swords. My impis took one city, but couldn't get take Madrid. Oops.

Also have tried a couple other openings.

Noticed something:

Spoiler :

If you move to the plains hill to start, Isabella founds buddhism. If you settle in place, she doesn't get buddhism (or, in my game, hinduism or judaism either!). I bet that will affect the diplo.

Well, time to try another approach. Great to have wins posted from high level players to study! Time to click and learn....

 

[Noogai]

I got GL 500BC.

Then I got SM from Lib at 1000AD.

Now it's 1500AD and I have a small tech lead (teching combustion at the moment).

I'm aiming for the space race victory, and I'm going to get there by building The Internet. Also I'm going to build Creative Construktions in couple turn.

Sorry no pics, because my internet connection is really slow..

 

[Mylene]

a 625BC save on the (real) Deity version of this, the tech pace surely is fast ~~
But they are mostly plotting and war-ing, if i get TGL i should be fine.

Spoiler :

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Nice city placement . I dropped the horse city for favorable diplo but we're otherwise identical!

 

[GenerallyGreat]

Sucks to not have the shared religion.

 

[DanielTorrence]

a 625BC save on the (real) Deity version of this, the tech pace surely is fast ~~
But they are mostly plotting and war-ing, if i get TGL i should be fine.

I saw in your save that you did not trade for alphabet yet, although it seems you gave aesthetics to some of the AIs. Was there a special reason? And how did you survive the barb storm, it seems you spawnbusted only with warriors? Did you go for early cottages?

I tried the 5x5 rule for spawn busting but got overrun pretty bad...

 

[Mylene]

^^ I built an Iklanda first and used 2 promotion warris, they get comfortable winning odds when fortified somewhere, and can attack annoying warriors. It's still a gamble, but with BW and 1 chop you can chain produce them in 1 turn each if needed.

Yip early cottages, pottery first. Didn't treade for alpha cos i took maths, mono etc. first, everyone knew Alpha already so it wouldn't have given a benefit other than building research. And cities been busy ~~