Immortal University 95 - Bismarck

[Izuul]

Spoiler :

2 prot civs the other direction too and Charlie surely has a large stack down there. Cannons would be the safest route and that fits well with having teched engineering. Upgrading trebs is cheap.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Overview at 660 AD:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Stats: units, buildings, improvements:

Spoiler :

16th worker would be convenient. There's also an additional city spot (settler! Fish + horse) but I'd rather complete a few Courthouses first.

Techs:

Spoiler :

I'll hand over Music. 440g is a lot.


@Izuul: thanks, that sounds like a fair plan.
I wonder whether it's worth it to delay Paper. Paper unlocks Sankore, which is good. However, Paper also unlocks Printing Press as a bulb target for great scientists. Skipping it may allow to bulb into Chemistry more easily... maybe. Trouble is that I may have a hard time getting my hands on Gunpowder (reqs Guilds or Education - and nobody has Guilds, yet).

Did switch into Vassalge + Caste. Will soon switch into Bureaucracy + Pacifism and maybe trigger that golden age.

Got to notice I'll get Notre-Dame. Lol. I'm not sure I've ever built that wonder. Probably once or twice but I'm not used to it. Happy boost is welcome.

 

[Izuul]

Spoiler :

Chemistry bulbs are frustratingly difficult to pull off. There's no logical reason that a GS should bulb Printing Press ahead of Chemistry, so I would have to assume that's specifically in place to make the Chemistry bulb more difficult.

If you think you can comfortably win Lib (and it seems like you can), it's probably a lot easier to use bulbs on Education. It looks like you have ~410 bpt at 100% research, which is quite good if you can find the money to finance it. The 440g from Sury will definitely help a lot, and 60g for Lit from Monty isn't bad either since everyone else has it. A GM to finance research (or upgrade units if you have gold left over) might be just as valuable as a GS here since your bpt potential is quite high.

 

[DanielTorrence]

^@DanielTorrence:

Spoiler :

A little more on the DoW with minimal stack:
- you were right about the number of units: the earlier the war, the less units the AI will have. That's convenient and, arguably, just as nice as having a tech advantage;
- war didn't happen. Clicked end turn and Charlemagne capitulated Wang. Another reason to wage those wars of opportunity asap, even though Player might not be fully ready.

@Detouring via Engineering. Might have been a mistake. Or trading for Code of Laws might have been the mistake, since it unlocked the Philosophy bulb, delaying Engineering by about 10 turns.

660AD: Getting it next turn and Civil Service the turn after. That's rather late.
Sury has Nationalism (is probably starting on Taj Mahal).

I am pretty sure you will get the Taj since you are industrious and in the end, the number of cities will pay off. On the other hand, its to lay out an attack plan.

Spoiler :

Never tried these kind of attacks before, since it takes a lot of considerations as you rule out...diplo, warring between the AIs...I usually build a huge stack and start with it, but that takes time and the AIs advance further. You are surrounded by protective, fast teching AIs. The time frame for attacking is shorter since the big AIs with vassalls/befriended AIS will tech much faster and its more difficult to get a longer lasting tech advantage. Cav wont last long enough, so cannons might be the better option. I would start a build up with trebs and maces and go towards military science here. Perhaps stay in caste after your GA?

 

[reddishrecue]

Spoiler :

Those're some impressive wins you guys had on immortal and building wealth and 60+ stacks. That's good job.

 

[Smilingrogue]

@ BIC

Spoiler :

Chemistry bulb is one of the most stupidly contrived things in the game. I have been trying to do it for a while and I concluded that it's just not worth it. At least not worth it if the plan is to Lib Steel as Lib bulbs and Chem bulbs take vastly different routes.

You seem to be in a position where you can easily win Lib. So as Izuul said, I would bulb Engineering, then Education, self tech Lib, flip techs for Guilds (AIs prioritise this tech highly). Now self tech Gunpowder at a discount due to both Edu and Guilds, Tech Chemistry, Lib -> Steel.

If you planned it, it works out to be no more costly than Libbing Military Tradition. (Can skip the Music route and Nationalism is replaced by Chemistry). But since you didn't seem to plan on Steel from very early and went down the Music, Nat route, it will now take a little longer than absolutely necessary to Lib Steel, but the upside is you are in a much stronger position to pump out the Cannons thanks to Taj and the Music GA.

 

[Tall German Joe]

hmmm, looking to bounce off some ideas here. got a tough decision - what i do next here will either make or break the game! diety, standard, NHNE, 960 AD

Spoiler :

so, first of all, some good news - i was able to get incredibly lucky and won lib! how? well, it turns out you get a pretty good shot when all of your main contenders declare war on each on the turn the race starts!

mmmmmmmmmmm... don't think so buddy boy!

i wasn't sure how intense this war would play out, so i sent down my scout to find out. turns out they're really going at it! i just passed by a similar-sized stack of charley's sitting outside of one of ghandi's cities.

so this brings me to my dilemma - who to go to war with? sitting bull or sury?

the situation: it's 960 AD, i have about 25 cuirs (including a few more on the way), and am probably pumping about 2-2.5/turn total out of my non-capital cities. sitting bull is tied with wang (and, humbly speaking, myself) as the tech leader, probably because of all the techs i've sold him over the years for 120-200 gold a pop. he just got gunpowder about 2-3 turns ago, and am sure already has a few stray muskets littered about, in addition to his pikes and super longbows. however, the few cities i've scouted looked pretty lightly defended (3-4 units a piece), and he has chemistry, which would be a nice prize if i'm forced to stop the war before he caps. (likely, since 25 cuirs probably won't cut it).

the other possibility is sury. sury is heavily invested in a war on the direct opposite corner of the map from him. (as shown by that enormous stack, plus all the other units he has littered around ghandi's territory). he doesn't have gunpowder yet, but could get it any turn. (i.e. he'll get it the turn my cuirs make it to his border) sury is also "annoyed" with me - he's the worst enemy of 3 or 4 other civs (including wang and sitting bull) and so i've refused his every demand and offered trade. he's also the likeliest to win an early cultural victory, not only because he landed TONS of wonders due to having an absurd 7-8 tech lead on every other civ up until the renaissance, as well has having cottaged his cities to the gills. so, while it would be a lot more inconvenient to war him, it might also be a lot more fruitful. alternatively, i could plow through sitting bull and then assault him with cavs and cannons. a counterclockwise path towards domination victory is a certainty with friendly wang kong at my back.

what do you guys think? sitting bull or sury? and should i tech towards cavs or cannons next? each is 2 techs away! i think if i go for sitting bull first, i should try for cavs first, otherwise directly to cannons.

would love to hear some thoughts!

 

[Smilingrogue]

@ Tall German Joe

Spoiler :

I would tech to Cavalry and hit Sitting Bull. From the screenshot, it looks like Sury was dragged into the war via the AP (when was the last time you saw Gandhi declare war voluntarily? ). If you decalre on Sury, he can easily pay his way out of the war and then he will come at you with that stack. There's also the AI's stupid tendency to not capitulate until its stack is dead. You will have to either wipe Sury off completely or wait a long time till the stack comes back and kill it.

Taking SB gives you two buffers in a vassal and Friendly Wang (who won't plot below Pleased) and keeps all future wars off your home turf. On the other hand, SB is a pain to capitulate and his units are tough as nails, but Cavalry should be able to take down even SB's super-protective Muskets.

 

[Izuul]

@Tall German Joe

Spoiler :

This is a tough decision, and i wouldn't rule out going for Sury. He's easily the biggest threat on this map, so the earlier you can take him out the better. I'd keep good tabs on that war down there, and if Sury's stack gets hammered that could leave you a really nice opening to hit him. 10 cities really isn't that hard to deal with, so if his stack dies in Holy Rome you could probably roll over him and cap him. Another idea would be to see if you can get Ghandi to stop trading with him. That would leave his stack stranded.

The one thing i really don't like here is that Sury and Monty are both attacking Charlie. If it were just Sury vs Charlie i would say there's a really good chance Sury gets beat back. With both of them attacking it could get ugly, and Sury may just end up stronger rather than losing his stack down there.

If you go for SB it's going to be a slog because he's going to have a pretty big stack plus all of the super longbows, and on top of that he resists capitulation more than any other leader in the game. You will likely need to take 6-7 cities to break him. I'm not saying it's a terrible idea, but it's possible your mounted units will reach the end of their useful lifespan by the time you finish dealing with him.

How is the tech situation? Are the AI close to Rifling? That's the big factor that's going to determine what kind of window you have to strike. Even cavalry will be useless against a Deity AI with rifles. I would really be looking for a way to take out the most threatening AI (definitely Sury here IMO) while your cuirs/cavs are still viable.

 

[Tall German Joe]

@SmilingRogue

Spoiler :

the more I think of it, the more I think you're right. with gunpowder and chemistry, SB is just a military science away from ruining my day with grenadiers. and, it turns out (checked before I went to work this morning) that monty has military science! although sitting bull isn't trading with him, that would still shave a turn or two off the cost for him.

i had been worried that waiting until rifling wouldn't give me enough time to deal with sury and monty after the war before they hit infantry; however, i think monty will have it no matter what I do, and as long as sury is still streaming units halfway across the map, I think i can get him before he becomes an insur-"mount-"able mischief problem. at any rate, it would give me more time to build up. figure another 12-15 turns before rifling, plus another few before i have the $$$ to upgrade my stack - any way you slice it, hitting SB with 60 cavs sounds a lot a lot safer than 30 cuirs.

@Izuul

Spoiler :

hmmm, the tech situation isn't bad. nobody yet has replaceable parts, although I wouldn't be surprised if it landed soon. i'll have it in 6-7 turns probably, assuming i can't get it half-researched from the wangster. i think, if i really have to, i could pully monty off of charley, but i think that it'll be ok. he's still at war with ghandi too, after all!

 

[Izuul]

Spoiler :

Well my fear would be if you leave Sury and company alone while you fight SB Charlie will get beat down in the 3 vs 1 and cap to Sury or Monty. Then if you attack later you will face all three. I don't think SB is all that threatening.

 

[Kingjester1]

This map has conspired against me.

Spoiler :

I went for and got Steel via liberalism and went to war against Sitting Bull with Maces and Cannons (later upgraded those CR maces to grenadiers). Things were going great and I was about 3 turns from taking the cap when he vassaled to Surry

I thought I would just hike my stack over to Charlie's territory since he was far enough behind I could easy get him to cap, but a few turns later Wang Kon capped to him

Now I'm surrounded by the vassals with a slow army like grenadiers and cannons. If I try to walk my units or boat them over to Monty or Ghandi, it will take forever and I will grind to a stalemate.

It looks like I have to go get bigger faster units, probably Panzers and tear into SB and Surry as fast as possible to crush them before they get too far ahead. Its gonna be a slog.

 

[Tall German Joe]

Spoiler :

Well my fear would be if you leave Sury and company alone while you fight SB Charlie will get beat down in the 3 vs 1 and cap to Sury or Monty. Then if you attack later you will face all three. I don't think SB is all that threatening.

Spoiler :

it's not really 3v1, because monty and ghandi are also at war; monty would have to walk all the way though ghandi's territory if he wanted to attack charley! (not that i would put it past him...)

i think i should gift charley gunpowder so he has a better chance at defending himself. yeah, i think i'll do that..

 

[Tall German Joe]

diety, 1360 AD

Spoiler :

well, good news and bad news. good news is that sitting bull is now my vassal; bad news is that everybody else is a solid 6-7 techs up on me now, and montezuma just declared on me on the turn i was vassal SB. (perhaps a war bribe?) also, he has infantry! montezuma the tech leader, who'd have thunk it.

the war was pretty fun though. i scouted out a big stack of his on sury's border beforehand:

and then managed to lure it out with the help of a few bait workers: (thanks for being team players, fellas!)

wiped the whole damn stack over the course of a turn with just 1 loss.

after i took 6 cities, he still wouldn't cap, and then got rifles; needless to say, the last city was a real slog. he finally capped after that though, and threw in scientific method to boot.

i think i might give up here though. sury has rifles, is close to infantry, and is about ~50 turns from a cultural victory it turns out. my options for stopping him are not great: i'm 2 turns to steel, which i could use to trade for (i hope) a tech from each sitting bull and charley. (who ended up vassaling to sury, after wang kong was bribed into the war and took 2 of his cities. i even gave him rifling, the poor guy!) were it not for montezuma, i think i could upgrade enough trebs (i've switched from cav to treb production about 7-8 turns ago) to stop sury before he can win, as i still have about 30 cavs and could switch into nationhood for a bit with a golden age.

one possibility is to run 100% spy points on sitting bull for awhile, which could get me a few more techs, two of which (communism and soon to be physics) he has a monopoly on. however, that won't get me to infantry, and, without anything to trade, i'll just keep falling further behind. so, if montezuma actually bothers to try to kill me, i'm dead meat.

arrghh, these last few maps have been so tough! 3rd loss in a row!

edit: ha! next turn sury and charley are along for the ride. et tu, charley? don't you remember all those nice gifts i gave you?

 

[Smilingrogue]

@ Tall German Joe

Spoiler :

That's a shame. Did taking SB screw up Diplo and lead to the dogpile? Maybe getting to Cannons will let you kill the incoming stacks and take peace? Sury can be halted by razing one of his culture cities and I think you have the time to do it. If you can get out of the wars, make Wang close borders or hit some one, it might work.

 

[Tall German Joe]

@ Tall German Joe

Spoiler :

That's a shame. Did taking SB screw up Diplo and lead to the dogpile? Maybe getting to Cannons will let you kill the incoming stacks and take peace? Sury can be halted by razing one of his culture cities and I think you have the time to do it. If you can get out of the wars, make Wang close borders or hit some one, it might work.

Spoiler :

nah, i don't think so. sb and sury have hated each other all game, but he's been pleased with monty. sury and monty have disliked me all game (they've been the worst enemies of my allied block, so i've had to turn down their demands and refuse their trades) so, what i think what happened was, SB, in one last way to spit in my face, bribed monty into the war on the interturn before he capitulated, and then monty likewise bribed sury in. (they've been pleased/friendly with each other all game). wang kong and charley have closed borders for sure, and i think that's also the case for sury since wang and him are still worst enemies.

i dunno, maybe i'll try playing a few more turns and see what happens...

 

[Tall German Joe]

Update: 1832 A.D.

Spoiler :

ok, so the situation is that i'm at war with the #1 and #2 military powers, just after finishing out a meatgrindy war with SB, and have become crazy behind in tech. i need a little luck just to survive.

apparently the gods of civ heard my prayers, and calmed monty's raging heart. despite killing just his explorer and a pair of cavs, he was willing to talk pretty quickly:

turns out he was willing to settle for peace for the price of a beer and peanuts! hey, have all you want - its on the house, buddy!

the war now being a 1v1 fight, i was able to beocme a little more offensive. razed one border city, and then tried to march on legendary-to-be #2, but:

needless to say, i got the hell outta there! before giving up completely, my brave warriors tried one last desperate gambit on sury's #3 legendary-to-be:

and, though marching through loads of airship fire and cav harassment...

BAM! razed that baby to the ground, and then got sury to pay me a couple hundred gold for my troubles! :laugh:

so, next i got to work on an espionage economy. my first target was sitting bull, and i was able to steal communism from him, with which i used to whip out intelligence agencies and security bureaus in every single one of my cities. i was also able to use it to buy part of democracy off ghandi (i was getting creamed by war weariness + emancipation + motherland), and then bribe wang kong into war with sury. after getting a couple more basic techs from SB, i turned my attention to wang kong:

yes, that's 2660 espionage per turn, at only an 90% slider! that's about 3 times as much gold, and 2.5 times the beakers, as i could have gotten.

his cities were very close to mine, but unfortunately all had security bureaus installed... EXCEPT the one lone city in the middle of the ocean! i had this hilarious pipeline going, shuffling a dozen spies into the city with a half dozen caravels. after the initial 9 turn latency (4 for transport, 5 to wait), i was able to buy techs with just 2 turns worth of espionage points!

fast forward 30 turns; tech situation in 1730 AD:

not too shabby! except there's one new problem:

well, i forgot to take more screenshots here, but it only WAS a problem. turns out legendary epics and dozens of nuclear weapons don't really mix too well. war really woulda been impossible without nukes; sury had the biggest stack ive ever seen in a game of civilization stored in his capital, at least 250 units large. its rare enough to see a stack so large you have to scroll through it - and this stack scrolled for 3 pages !!! monty decided to join in on the fun, sending at least 2 dozen tacticals at big blue himself, but i got sury to cap to me in the end.

current situation is that both wang kong and monty are just a couple components away from finishing their spaceships. the game is becoming a real chore to play; the ai hasnt really cleaned up any of the fallout, and so every turn 3-4 of my tiles turn into desert. i've built up about 2 dozen icbms + a handful of tacticals, but both wang and monty have sdi. i will unfortunately need to cap both of them to win, as i only have 36% land area, while monty+ghandi have 26%.

i think i'll just shelve this one for awhile and try the wang kong game instead. here's to hoping the map is a little more manageable this time!

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Sorry, late response. I've been doing other things since I quit/lost this game around 1000 AD, little before... Your answers have been appreciated, though.

Spoiler :

Never tried these kind of attacks before, since it takes a lot of considerations as you rule out...diplo, warring between the AIs...I usually build a huge stack and start with it, but that takes time and the AIs advance further.

Perhaps stay in caste after your GA?

Well, it certainly helps to read the AIs right: strength, attitude, techs. Get hints where you can and act accordingly.
Easier to say than to execute, yeah... Don't declare wars you can't win seems like a good rule of thumb. See below

I think a switch to Slavery is compulsory after that golden age: lots of new techs and new religion multiplies the available builds: temples, monasteries, forges, courthouses are all desirable in most places. Libraries, Universities should be built asap if they're ever to be built. 1st thing to consider.
Also, we wanted to go to war asap, so whipping extra units would have been convenient.

Caste System is a dangerous civic to run in wartime unless you already have inevitability (e.g. an army) or very large cities.
Problem with Caste around that time (after GA) is that the cities wouldn't be large enough. Growing in peacetime, under Caste System, is a very reasonable option but it's best if there aren't that many things to build. Production surge was needed.

Chemistry bulbs are frustratingly difficult to pull off. There's no logical reason that a GS should bulb Printing Press ahead of Chemistry, so I would have to assume that's specifically in place to make the Chemistry bulb more difficult.

If you think you can comfortably win Lib (and it seems like you can), it's probably a lot easier to use bulbs on Education. It looks like you have ~410 bpt at 100% research, which is quite good if you can find the money to finance it. The 440g from Sury will definitely help a lot, and 60g for Lit from Monty isn't bad either since everyone else has it. A GM to finance research (or upgrade units if you have gold left over) might be just as valuable as a GS here since your bpt potential is quite high.

Given science multipliers and specialists (slider independent), research at 100% was “only” 350bpt. However, with Civil Service came Bureaucracy and a golden age, so research got quite high, indeed. I don't think I broke the 600bpt line but 500bpt was comfortably passed.
I agree that in this situation (converting 100 gold into 500 beakers), a GM is vastly superior to a scientist. It's much more difficult to produce gold, so gold is expensive while the beaker is cheap. The only advantage of a scientist is that it is instant beakers. Its large drawback is that you need to be at the right point of the tech path for those beakers to be relevant. Timing issue can be solved but then it acts as a major constraint.

Delaying Paper “just” to bulb Chemistry was indeed a terrible idea. Didn't go with it but kept Railroads as a long-term tech target (mobility + 65% odds to get an Engineer in Berlin, + doesn't require Scientific Method).
So 1 turn Engineering (bulb), 1 turn Civil Service, 1 turn Paper (with full overflow but still got me raise eyebrows ), 5 turns Education (missed the bulb): Great Scientist -> 1 turn Printing Press. Few turns into Liberalism waiting for Great Merchant mission in Angkor Wat. Gandhi researched Guilds and was willing to trade, unlocking Banking (researched) for Replaceable Parts. With only Gunpowder lacking to the equation, Rep Parts + Chemistry would have unlocked Steam Power... Steam Power, being on the way to Railroads and allowing to build 7 (or was it 8?) Levees, seemed like a very nice prize.

… However, Friendly Sury got the idea to get Paper + Education around that time, so I'd have been a little late to get both Replaceable Parts and Chemistry in time. I was also still lacking Gunpowder (possible but unlikely trade). So prolly I'd have taken Economics to refuel. Or maybe Steel, as per suggestion, but I didn't really like that whole “Lib a military tech” idea. lol.
Got surprised again by how a golden age can accelerate the game.

… However, I also got stubborn and pushed the idea of capturing Korean cities (vassal of Holy Rome) a little too far. Prospect of having an Apostolic Palace world war against HRE seemed alright. Didn't look further than that and didn't bribe anyone right away.
In fact, I declared war during my golden age, having 2 cities locked to produce GPs, 2 or 3 others tasked to spread Confucianism, most building infrastructure while getting the occasional unit and counting on the Heroic Epic to do its 1/turn thing.
So I captured 2 border cities. Didn't get a look at Seoul. Came the Holy Roman stack, 2 or maybe 3 times larger than mine. Lost both cities. Stared at angry Charlie... While I could hope for reinforcements from the Khmer (bribed at the cost of Printing Press when he started researching Education - 3 turns tech for him) and hope that I wouldn't lose too many cities, too soon, especially my frontline and sorta needed National Epic...Called it game over. It was a good fun. Thanks for hosting.

Cleansed the saves. No screenshot, sorry.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Deity.

I try not to correct spelling errors... but this is the 3rd IU game in a row that I've seen it.

I'm not convinced it's technically a spelling error when it comes to civ IV. I don't see much resembling gods, but I do see lots of death.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I'm not convinced it's technically a spelling error when it comes to civ IV. I don't see much resembling gods, but I do see lots of death.

Very true, very funny. Granted. But still... as in a... diet? Gross... Can't blame someone for blaming someone on that.