Immortal University 95 - Bismarck

[Izuul]

Oh yeah, i was just thinking about military units. All things considered, i would agree that Faster Workers are the best.

 

[JBossch]

Round 2, up to 1290 AD

A few questions for the experts in this

Spoiler :

Didnt get one of my cities that I wanted, but expanded out to 8 and later took a barb city, which I needed to do more for the heroic epic capability than the city itself.

Had to do a little religion hopping to keep Korea at pleased, I have pretty much completely ignored my army at this point because with a pleased leader who cant DoW on one side and Sitting Bull on the other I am pretty safe for now, although once astronomy gets out (Gandhi has it but dont think anyone else is remotely close) I definitely have to worry about an amphibious assault I am assuming.

I did recently lose out on a whipped Notre Dame (could have used the happiness). I have UoS. Built SC so Gandhi doesnt get any plans of cultural victory.

I want to have some fun and unleash a Panzer assault just for the hell of it.

I dont have Liberalism yet, but thats because the tech situation looks like.

Spoiler :

I have it at one turn, and I dont see the need to get it just yet, might as well save it for the most expensive tech.

Some questions:

1. What is the best plan of action for Lib? No sense getting Mil Tradition if Im not planning an attack, right?

2. Going to head to Rifling to start building a deterrent which I can later upgrade to support the Panzerpocalypse. Sound plan?

3. I am assuming I really should make Essen my capital?

Spoiler :

4. Just how safe am I? Will someone bribe Sitting Bull to attack me?

5. Since Im still running Representation, does it make sense to pick up Democracy for the free +6 science in each city (as well as being able to switch to Emanc to sabotage a potential attackers happiness if it comes to that)?

What mod are you using to get the female great people? That's really cool.

 

[teakbois]

What mod are you using to get the female great people? That's really cool.

BAT mod

 

[blunderwonder]

almost done...

Spoiler :

map is so much bigger than it looks, and annoyingly shaped , i started in 1350, ran over wang fast, he capped, then sitting bull peace vassaled, so i gave him a few techs so he wouldnt get trampled and then a few turns later ceased fire with sury. a long time later char caps because every vote is about stopping me from warring, and all my citizens are already unhappy so i listened once... just monty, ghandi and sury to go, but its insane how fast they tech once they hit the lib/constitution age, im teching along at like 4xx beakers a turn with almost all tiles/production dedicated to units, and theyre tearing me up now, i think by the time i actually declare on either of them they'll have infantry and they already have railroad which puts them ahead of me, which means my army of cavs/cannons will be useless against monty sized stacks. Gonna be an annoying endgame of me using 20 cities to pump out infantry and artillery once i cap ghandi.

 

[Kingjester1]

Played this on IMM until about 800 BC.

Spoiler :

Fairly standard start, SIP and went Worker -> Warrior -> Settler (at size 3) and settled to 1 SW of the corn to the northeast of the cap (netted me copper too). Tech path was Agriculture -> AH -> Archery -> BW -> Wheel -> Pottery -> Masonry (current tech).

At 800 BC I have 5 cities and my income has slowed to a crawl, so cottages are going up all over the place. I'll probably have my highest hammer city build the Mids for fail gold once I pick up Masonry. I have plenty of units to defend with right now, so I'll get granaries and barracks up early in most cities since I'm spinning my wheels for a while until I can get Writing via my cottage powered economy.

What was the best way to handle the barbs? My early tech path was Agriculture -> AH -> Archery -> BW and those archers couldn't have come sooner. It didn't seem like growing the cap early for extra warriors would be worth it, but maybe that would have worked out for the best.

 

[Izuul]

Immortal to 1060AD

Spoiler :

Per Vranasm's suggestion, i decided to go for Cannons rather than Cuirs. I left off in the last segment researching Calendar to go for MoM. I was able to get the wonder, but probably not by much judging by the amount of FG that Sury received when i completed it. I actually didn't realize he had Calendar too, oops!

Spoiler :

I needed a lot of techs to get to Lib and Chemistry and the AI really wasn't being helpful with trades in this game, so i tried to prioritize important techs and techs that the AI was unlikely to tech in hopes that i might be able to get a few others via trade. I started by teching Paper to open Edu build, then MC for forges, followed by Compass to open up the Lib bulb and also use for trades later.

In 500AD i finally got some trade action from the AI. It wasn't a lot but i did get Construction that was on my tech path + Feudalism which is something i would need eventually.

Spoiler :

I had to avoid Machinery until i could get a 3rd GS to bulb Lib, so as soon as i got my 2nd GS, i double-bulbed Edu and began researching Gunpowder. I believe that's also when i triggered my first GA. I got my last GS to bulb Lib to within 1 turn, and then i started trying to get GMs while finishing Machinery and picking up Eng. That didn't go so well at first...

Spoiler :

My first two attempts at GMs came up GA and GS, so i just started a 2nd GA with them and kept trying. I was also working on pumping out some Maces and Trebs now that i finally had Mach + Eng.

Eventually i was able to get a GM just in time for Steel, and then i got a 2nd one 5 turns later which was a nice bonus. I guess it was a good thing that i ended up with the Parthenon, because i probably wouldn't have gotten these extra chances at GMs otherwise.

Spoiler :

You can also see i had a pretty nice chunk of gold during this whole session. That all came from trading old techs to the AI. They were all teching very slowly through the early and middle parts of the game, but always had lots of money. Many of them also had ridiculous amounts of GPT that was never able to get. Sury, for instance, had 15gpt available for a long time, but i didn't have access to a single resource that he wanted.

Anyway, Lib and Steel came in in 880AD. Nothing to set the world on fire, but since i had to self-tech just about everything in this game, it was a pretty good date.

Spoiler :

Trebs got upgrades to Cannons and all Trebs that were still in production were whipped the turn i got Steel so that they would complete as Cannons as well. At this point i had enough to start the invasion into Native America, and I also switched most of my production over to Maces.

Spoiler :

And in 1010AD i finished Military Science and the maces (+1 sword) were upgraded to Grens. One thing to always keep in mind is that you have to promote all of these guys to CR before you upgrade them. Maybe everyone else is good about doing this, but it's a mistake that I've made more than once in the past.

Spoiler :

My cannon + gren stack moved on west to raze Spiro and capture Mesa Verde, and i will probably just continue straight west to take out his capitol rather than mess with the smaller cities to the north right now. I also just received my first GG which is heading straight for my Woodsman III Axe. That guy should become an awesome super medic soon. It's extremely rare for me to actually get a Woodsman III + Medic III guy, so I'm pretty excited about that.

 

[Patchface]

Just throwing this out there - when was the last real coastal start? IU 85 back in October? Technically 92 was coastal but there wasn't even 1 seafood in the BFC and like this one, had lots of plush riverside. Just seems like there is a small bias towards cottage starts and a bigger one against coastal starts which may lead to formulaic play. But if this is what people want then I will stfu and return to my corner.

 

[Izuul]

I would be fine with a more challenging map, and that's often what a coastal start provides. Not too long back i played the old IU 56 Pacal map, and it was a challenging coastal start that i enjoyed.

 

[Smilingrogue]

I think there was an uproar recently (more like quiet shunning than a real uproar) when the Qin game turned out to be a massive map with lots of land. Since then Klonoklown seems to be playing it safe. I wouldn't mind seeing it mixed up, personally. Hemispheres is a good map type with lots of water. (Needs an extra AI added so there won't be a horribly imbalanced three Civ continent; the four Civ continents tend to be pretty good).

Ultimately, it's upto the mapmaker and host though. I am just glad for the various series.

 

[rfcfanatic]

It's my first time ever to play such map type and I like this map very much. Games of big armies are always more fun than games of big techers

 

[erajah]

Just throwing this out there - when was the last real coastal start? IU 85 back in October? Technically 92 was coastal but there wasn't even 1 seafood in the BFC and like this one, had lots of plush riverside. Just seems like there is a small bias towards cottage starts and a bigger one against coastal starts which may lead to formulaic play. But if this is what people want then I will stfu and return to my corner.

Hmmm. Yeah, I'd like to see more coastal starts. I'm absolutely terrible with them. Everytime I have a coastal start I think I'm doing fine, until I look at the year, and then I feel really behind.

 

[Izuul]

You can get some interesting coastal starts on an otherwise-normal Pangaea map by changing the shoreline. I don't remember what the setting is called, but it's on the opposite end of "pressed."

This discussion should probably take place in the IU Bullpen thread.

 

[Smilingrogue]

Second attempt. To turn 125, 250 AD.
Immortal, Normal Speed, No Huts, No Events.

I ragequit the first attempt due to some very weird barb luck.
Excuse my shoddy screen-shotting skills. I was still upset at what happened to realise that I didn't capture the actual result of the fight. (Pic conatins spoilers on the AIs!)

Spoiler :

My spear wins a battle he should lose 2 out of three times. Apparently the RNG decided that such outrageous luck (ha! ) needs to be balanced by a little bad luck.
I settle a new city and discover a Barb Axe right outside the border. I panic and immediately upgrade my warrior I escorted the settler with to an Axe, burning up a large portion of money I was saving up for deficit research. The Barb Axe coolly waltzes into my border, pillages my lone source of metal and then he attacks my newly upgraded Axe, fortified in a city, on a hill with five percent fortification bonus, at less than 10% odds and wins! Of course my new city is auto-razed. I would have gritted my teeth and continued, but I ragequit because my treasury was depleted in upgrading that warrior, my metal is now gone and (the now highly promoted) Barb axe was only three turns away from my cap protected only by a lone warrior with my other axes no where near enough to come to the rescue.

Anyway, on to the second attempt:

Spoiler :

I moved the scout 1SW and then 1NW, uncovering the pigs. SIP now looked a whole lot stronger and it was an even better move once I settled as we have two more floodplains to the North.

Spoiler :

Stinging from my brush with the Barbs on the first run, I spammed a bunch of axes and settlers to quickly settle cities and fogbust heavily to mitigate as much Barb trouble as possible. Though I did manage to have far less Barbs rushing me this time, doing it this way crashed my economy hard. I was hoping for Pyramids to help me get out of the hole, but I lost them by four turns.

Spoiler :

The failgold was welcome and I managed to tech to Aesthetics and trade a bit to get what I needed. (Mainly Monarchy, Math, Monotheism).

Since both my neighbours and one fanatic in Charlemagne were Buddhist, I decided to adopt Buddhism.

Spoiler :

We have two Hindus and a Confucianist. Monty is not worth my time if he isn't nearby as he won't tech anything and not useful to befriend. Gandhi is easy to please and will trade at Cautious. Sury is a zealot who will not trade with the Buddhist bloc and will likely fall behind. So Buddhism made the most sense.

I crawled my way to Drama and this got me a few more trades. (Gandhi was already in possession of Literature when I met him and built the Great Library). Current tech picture:

Spoiler :

Diplomacy:

Spoiler :

Monty was in war mode when I met him and the smart money is on him nailing Gandhi. I would welcome that as Gandhi has Longbows and will stonewall Monty for a bit, maybe drag Sury into the affair too and give me time to tech out of the hole I dug myself into.

Demographics:

Spoiler :

The plan now is to fix my beaker situation. My economy should be coming online soon and I plan on bulbing my way to Lib. I don't have Horses, I have three copies of Copper (if memory serves) and one copy of Iron I need to spam with culture to keep from Wang. I think I will try to Lib Rifles and fight a draft war. My last Inland Sea map with SOM Catherine ended in a Space Race loss to Wang, here's hoping this goes better.

 

[rfcfanatic]

1964 AD Domination victory

Spoiler :

Spoiler screenshot :

Score:

Spoiler score :

Inspired by this walkthrough by TMIT I tried to test a completely new approach in this game: Universal Suffrage and Free Speech powered Cottage Economy. It didn't always go as expected, but in the end I guess I got close to what I had planned. It really works! Universal Suffrage can turn towns into production powerhouses. Here's the unit statistics. Everything since Rifles were produced with the help of Universal Suffrage civic:

Spoiler screenshot :

Didn't even need to use rush-buying, except in an occasion where I had to buy Galleons in order to get to Gandhi's last city located on an island.

Settled to the southeast next to Rice. I hoped that Expansive trait would help me to compensate the lost turn for moving the Settler, but the Worker production still took no less than 15 turns Dry rice was so weak tile that I didn't even bother with Agriculture, but chose BW instead. While chopping the forests, I teched towards Pottery and started some cottages on floodplains. Also managed to build the Oracle and picked Metal Casting as the free tech. Didn't find any happiness resources nearby which motivated me to tech Monarchy for Hereditary Rule civic. Only then I started teching towards Currency. The early barbs were a pain, but with the help of a bunch of Axemen I managed to hold them off and peacefully expand to 16 cities by 13th century AD.

Converted to Sitting Bull's religion of Confucianism which gave me a relation bonus with him. Also, I joined in Wang Kon's war against Charlemagne, but my support was only formal. Diplomatically safe borders didn't last long, because Wang got completely annihilated by Charlie. So much for plans of trying to peacefully tech to Democracy. It was time for a late 1300s medieval military breakout! Assigned all cities on Maces/Crossbows/Pikes/Catapults and repelled the huge invading stack. Then it was time to go offensive! CRTL+SHIFT Trebuchets in every city, whip the turn after and chaaaaarge!!!

I could have taken the capitulation a lot earlier, but because I was short of happiness resources, I had to claim all Charlie's lands and the war didn't end before 19th century. The army grew so large that it started to cause severe economic issues. Banks, Markets, Grocers, Wealth, free Merchant specialists with Mercantilism and eventually the Free Speech civic saved me.

Even in 19th century my medieval stack proved useful when SB made me to declare on Sury and his vassal Gandhi. The latter was a cakewalk.

Soon after Monty declared on me. After upgrading my medieval troops to Rifles and repelling his huge stack of Flies (a.k.a Cavalry), I went offensive. Universal Suffrage powered towns were very productive and a constant supply of reinforcing Infantry and Cannon was flowing to the front.

This map was one HUGE map! Even the annihilation of Monty wasn't enough for Domination. So I had to declare on Sury and SB as well. The reason behind the DoW on SB was his attempt to win a Cultural victory:

Spoiler screenshot :

But in the end it seems that the DoW on SB wasn't necessary, because Sury was soon ready to capitulate which caused the Domination threshold to get exceeded.

The AI tech rate was soooo slow that I even doubted if I had really selected the Monarch difficulty. Here are a couple of examples:

1) The Kremlin available in 1939 AD:

Spoiler screenshot :

2) AI tech situation in 1964 AD:

Spoiler screenshot :

It seems that the AI favored military over science:

Spoiler screenshot :

But that's why the map was fun

klonoklown, thanks for the interesting map challenge!

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Immortal, normal, 1 AD:

Spoiler :

Very strange, I'd have thought German cities had German names... Zhou, Sakae, Kushans, Navajo, Bactrian... What's that?



Can't say I like Inland Sea. It's more like my nemesis. I usually lose cities to barbs and there always are vast areas without resources.
Huhuhu... This time it played different, quite the opposite. I actually survived the early game and could bully the barbs.

Advice for low food areas (flood plains): settle exclusively plains hills. Extra production from the city tile helps counteract the low food.

Also, scout use: circle the sea, first. Meeting AIs gives beaker discounts on the techs they know. Well, you judge: in some instances, one fewer unit might lose you a city.

Did a Stonehenge opening (AH into Myst), feeling safe to postpone BW/The Wheel since we had two non-forested plains hills. 1st settler came rather late: it was trained at size 5. Grabbed the Pyramids late (around 200 BC). Got nothing but axes to build for a long time (built 12), hence... *whistles*
7 Granaries, 5 Libraries, 3 Barracks. 10 workers.
1st GP was a prophet (settled in Berlin). 2nd is incoming.
Could trade for Alpha a little after 500BC.

@Stonehenge: also, as I mentionned as one of my gripes, Inland Sea proposes lots of poor city sites. Having to whip/chop a Monument in a poor site is even more of a setback. So Stonehenge seemed appropriate.

 

[Smilingrogue]

@ rfcfanatic

Congrats on another win! Did you manage to win Lib this game?

 

[rfcfanatic]

@ rfcfanatic

Congrats on another win! Did you manage to win Lib this game?

Nope But I guess it had something to do with the non-existent GP farm. As you can maybe even see from my 1939 AD screenshot, National Epic is still in the build list I hope that I can correct the mistake in the Tokugawa NC game. I'll only hope that early barb pressure or a warmonger AI neigbour will not scramble my plans.

If I could get enough GP for early bulbs, maybe I could recover from an early expansion faster. I feel that bulbs are the best way to get beakers with a completely standstill early economy.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Spoiler :

Some questions:

1. What is the best plan of action for Lib? No sense getting Mil Tradition if Im not planning an attack, right?

2. Going to head to Rifling to start building a deterrent which I can later upgrade to support the Panzerpocalypse. Sound plan?

3. I am assuming I really should make Essen my capital?

Spoiler :

4. Just how safe am I? Will someone bribe Sitting Bull to attack me?

5. Since Im still running Representation, does it make sense to pick up Democracy for the free +6 science in each city (as well as being able to switch to Emanc to sabotage a potential attackers happiness if it comes to that)?

Spoiler :

1- If you want to war with Panzers (for the challenge of teching up that far), then, indeed, Liberalism -> Mil Trad is useless.
Lib -> Steam Power would be prettty cool since it would unlock (many) Levees and doesn't require an absurd amount of techs. To get there faster, maybe you can get some use of Great Scientists bulbing into Printing Press and/or Chemistry.
A Great Merchant trade mission would be a nice alternative to fund your research.

Since Industrialism requires Electricity, another option for the Lib target would be to research Scientific Method asap and Lib one of the big 3: Communism, Physics, Biology.
My advice would be to keep Electricity as a late bottleneck tech rather than making it an early target. Extra happiness from a couple wonders aren't worth delaying the production buildings: levees, Factories (those would help building said wonders).

2- See 4- If you're safe, then Rifling is superfluous.
Also, considering your comfortable tech lead... do you need an extra tech to defend?

3- Essen looks good. But Berlin should be pretty nice as well, right?
Berlin is more central, which has slight benefits in maintenance costs.
Unless you use Berlin as a farmed GP farm, I doubt you'd gain much by moving your palace.

4- You're safe to the South. Did you check who Korea has Open borders with? Can other AIs cross Korean territory?
Sitting Bull, to the West, is annoyed but he very rarely declares war. Typical agressive action on his part is poisoning water. He most likely has close borders with Monty... right?
My guess is you're very safe.
Note that AIs won't plan a naval invasion if they're on the same landmass as their target (i.e. they won't make use of the inland sea).

5- Statue of Liberty... Nope, I don't think it's worth it. Democracy is a very expensive tech and a dead end. Better head for Levees asap.
Had you not built the Pyramids, then Constitution could be cool and useful. Mass Jails results in espionnage overkill, which can come handy when one wars without siege (use spies instead to revolt cities and cancel city defences). Constitution is also an important tech to enter the Modern Era (pre-requisite to Corporations, which is a pre-req to Assembly Line).

Emancipation... no, that idea is wrong. Better use a civic from which you can benefit rather than a civic which will hamper your opponents. That's especially true when you're stronger than your rivals.

Hope that helps. Maybe you played ahead already?

 

[teakbois]

Finished up until the mid 1800s. We are gearing up for PanzerPocalypse.

Spoiler :

1- If you want to war with Panzers (for the challenge of teching up that far), then, indeed, Liberalism -> Mil Trad is useless.
Lib -> Steam Power would be prettty cool since it would unlock (many) Levees and doesn't require an absurd amount of techs. To get there faster, maybe you can get some use of Great Scientists bulbing into Printing Press and/or Chemistry.
A Great Merchant trade mission would be a nice alternative to fund your research.

Since Industrialism requires Electricity, another option for the Lib target would be to research Scientific Method asap and Lib one of the big 3: Communism, Physics, Biology.
My advice would be to keep Electricity as a late bottleneck tech rather than making it an early target. Extra happiness from a couple wonders aren't worth delaying the production buildings: levees, Factories (those would help building said wonders).

2- See 4- If you're safe, then Rifling is superfluous.
Also, considering your comfortable tech lead... do you need an extra tech to defend?

3- Essen looks good. But Berlin should be pretty nice as well, right?
Berlin is more central, which has slight benefits in maintenance costs.
Unless you use Berlin as a farmed GP farm, I doubt you'd gain much by moving your palace.

4- You're safe to the South. Did you check who Korea has Open borders with? Can other AIs cross Korean territory?
Sitting Bull, to the West, is annoyed but he very rarely declares war. Typical agressive action on his part is poisoning water. He most likely has close borders with Monty... right?
My guess is you're very safe.
Note that AIs won't plan a naval invasion if they're on the same landmass as their target (i.e. they won't make use of the inland sea).

5- Statue of Liberty... Nope, I don't think it's worth it. Democracy is a very expensive tech and a dead end. Better head for Levees asap.
Had you not built the Pyramids, then Constitution could be cool and useful. Mass Jails results in espionnage overkill, which can come handy when one wars without siege (use spies instead to revolt cities and cancel city defences). Constitution is also an important tech to enter the Modern Era (pre-requisite to Corporations, which is a pre-req to Assembly Line).

Emancipation... no, that idea is wrong. Better use a civic from which you can benefit rather than a civic which will hamper your opponents. That's especially true when you're stronger than your rivals.

Hope that helps. Maybe you played ahead already?

Spoiler :

Thanks for the help

1. Didnt quite make steam power, Gandhi was going to finish Lib a turn before I finished Replaceable parts. Economics Great Merchant was very nice for research.

2. Didnt bother with rifling or mil tradition, but picked em up in trades eventually

3. Ended up leaving Berlin. Its commerce is good, and I figured id appreciate the 50% production once the levees came out, Berlin has 16 river tiles. Good for the war machine.

4. SB is a pain in the ass, however his demands havent been too bad so hes been at pleased most of the time. But of course its not stopping him from poisoning my waters. Ass.

Unfortunately Korea is starting to grow grumpy so they will be target one. I saw them starting to have stacks in the cities near my border so i gave my pal Monte a few outdated techs to keep him busy

5. Stayed away from Democracy until Gandhi forced my hand. In preparing for full production mode all the factories have made me healthy, and when the Emancipation unhappiness kicked in i had no choice.

I have a jail in every city though, to combat the upcoming war weariness. No reason not to use siege with Artillery the next tech after industrialism


I made a mistake forgetting about combustion, but only really cost me a turn as I had workers ready to go on the oil when i teched it.

My tech lead isnt outrageous, but I should be fine on the war front. Im going to be facing a lot of cavalry.

Tomorrow (or maybe later tonight) PanzerPocalypse begins

I am a notoriously bad warmonger so this should be interesting.

 

[Kingjester1]

Continued up to 425 AD (immortal):

Spoiler :

Tech path was Masonry -> Writing -> Aesthetics -> Lit -> Currency (I backfilled with trades from Aesthetics to open up the path to Literature).

I was able to snag the 'Mids in my 2nd city in 350 BC after Masonry came in and I hooked up the stone. I immediately switched to Rep. solving my happiness cap issues for the remainder of the early game. This was much more useful than I thought, because my tech was kinda poor and my main limit was having larger cities to work more cottaged tiles (the extra +3 beakers on my scientist specialists doesn't hurt either )

After that I picked up Aesthetics to backfill and was able to snag Literature 1 turn after Ghandi picked it up. Fortunately for me Monty's aggressive attitude and religion difference with Ghandi led to war and I was easily about to build the Great Library in the capitol in 400 AD. I had been running 2 scientists in the cap once Writing and a library were done, so I was able to put an Academy in the cap a little before finishing the GL. I wanted icing on my cake and was about 3 turns from finishing the Parthenon in one of my cities, but I lost it and took in 295 failgold.

Wang Kon got into a war with Charlie but it didn't really go anywhere. I was thankful for this though, because the slower tech rate of those two civs helped me tremendously in backfilling techs. To the west of the cap 3 different barb cities have popped (all one hills, too) and has kept my units busy. This is actually nice because it is slowing down Sitting Bull's expansion towards me, so farming unit XP is much more valuable here than busting the cities.

I found time to expand more to the east to prevent Wang Kon from trying to settle in my backfield. With a couple of backfield cities settled a few turns ago, I've hit 7 cities total and will stop actively expanding. I will probably take one of the barb cities in the west and stop, I've got plenty of production and economy (~200 BPT when research is at 100%).

I was entertaining a cultural victory, but the religion spread has been really slow for me so I will shoot for war later. I have iron and no horses, so it seems like gunpowder era is the best shot for expanding. If Wang Kon doesn't die until then, he's the easiest target, but we'll have to see.