Immortal University 96 - Wang Kon

[Izuul]

I don't know what difficulty you are playing, but starting on Prince the AI gets a research bonus. If you and an AI both try to found the same early religion, they will win unless you are generating more commerce. That's one of the numerous reasons that trying to found Buddhism/Hinduism is generally a poor strategy. It's much easier to get Confucianism or even Taoism (though that's gonna be a bit late), and both of those techs come with several other benefits.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

I understand what happened, you tried to found a religion which is always a bad idea unless you play on settler.

I agree with Izuul to settle on the Incense, as Vranasm said it gains you a forested hill which seems to look like a plains hill to me. It also gains you a junky desert hill, but hammers are hammers, and this start needs them. I would just make another commerce city to the north if it was good enough, otherwise it will do fine to produce settlers, and workers early, and GP later.

 

[klonoklown]

@ Robert Fin

Izuul hit the nail on the head. Post #21

Edit: I don't mean to be the police but please watch your language buddy. (post #19) Some people might take offense.

 

[Robert FIN]

Shh... I don't wanna be reported... . Sorry! I didn't want to be a meanie . I just got angry because my new strategy didn't work... I'm still a newbie. Its difficult to recognize but what can I do? Don't leave me buddy! I need you! I will try again tomorrow and I won't use bad language if I lose! I promise. I will pray that god makes you give me another chance! I REALLY DO! I'm sorry buddy.

 

[Tall German Joe]

i dunno. on one hand, i agree with what you guys are saying about wanting +production in a bureau cap, but on the other hand you have remember that we have lousy starting techs, lousy UU and late UB, and protective trait. financial is the one real advantage we have to work with for the first 100-150 turns. to me, that means that of the first dozen tiles my cities will work, i want as many as possible to be cottages. any hills mines i work (that aren't adding +8 commerce, ofc) are a waste of time.

so, with the wet corn and gold a given no matter where we settle, then, at least for the next 80 turns or so depending how we overlap, that leaves us at only +4 food in the capital. working a hills mine is essentially punting on the cottage metagame. that leaves the floodplains + free hammer start much more desirable; gives you +3 highly shareable food and +2 river cottages compared to SIP. as far as "greenery" goes, don't forget that 3 flood plains and 3 plain plains give the same net food as 6 grassland! with an early granary and of commerce, i think sidelining BW before the oracle is still a very reasonable move to get all the production you need for the essentials.

 

[klonoklown]

Shh... I don't wanna be reported... . Sorry! I didn't want to be a meanie . I just got angry because my new strategy didn't work... I'm still a newbie. Its difficult to recognize but what can I do? Don't leave me buddy! I need you! I will try again tomorrow and I won't use bad language if I lose! I promise. I will pray that god makes you give me another chance! I REALLY DO! I'm sorry buddy.

No worries, I'll help you with this game. I'm about 700 AD into it now, probably do a mini write-up once I'm finished. Remember Robert, adapt to the map, play your leaders traits. Whenever you have time give me a brief summary of what your strategy is and we can go from there.

 

[ben-jammin]

Keep in mind that settling in place gives you a grassland hill which is just barely visible in the opening shot. To me leaving those floodplains to a secondary city is not a big deal here, the financial trait makes cottaging outside the capital much more appealing.

 

[Fippy]

Think it's a matter of playing style overall
I only care much about hills if i plan for wonders in my Cap, and Wang on Deity (where i usually play) rarely builds wonders for me, if there's no stone visibile right away.
Settling on a PH just gives many advantages, if barbs come as early as turn 35-37, esp. if you must tech Agri first.
However losing forests makes moving less appealing, that's a fair point.

 

[Tall German Joe]

Think it's a matter of playing style overall
I only care much about hills if i plan for wonders in my Cap, and Wang on Deity (where i usually play) rarely builds wonders for me, if there's no stone visibile right away.
Settling on a PH just gives many advantages, if barbs come as early as turn 35-37, esp. if you must tech Agri first.

Spoiler :

agreed for sure that early archery is a must. i played my opening turns (diety, standard speed, NHNE) during my lunch break; when i saw the iron in the cap when adding the barb techs, i knew that a.) plains hill was the way to go for 100% sure, no question for my style at least, and b.) no way will there be BOTH iron AND copper nearby! i went agri -> TW -> pottery -> hunting -> archery -> BW -> meditation -> priesthood -> writing; landed oracle at... i think 1820 BC? maybe it was 1800 BC? possibly even 1780 BC? somewhere around there... really wanted CoL after i saw that i was alone on an island with gilagamesh. that dude REALLY REALLY hates sharing borders with people, so the plan is to share confucianism ASAP before he gets a thinkin' that he wants to clobberate me just for minding my own business...

 

[ben-jammin]

Think it's a matter of playing style overall
I only care much about hills if i plan for wonders in my Cap, and Wang on Deity (where i usually play) rarely builds wonders for me, if there's no stone visibile right away.
Settling on a PH just gives many advantages, if barbs come as early as turn 35-37, esp. if you must tech Agri first.
However losing forests makes moving less appealing, that's a fair point.

You miss out on leveraging hammers in your capital with the 50% bureau bonus for fail-gold. It's true that you don't really need a ton of infrastructure in your capital and you don't need to build any wonders there, but it's nice to have the option (wang is well suited to building the oracle, for example). And you are still going to want at least a granary, library, and forge.

 

[ben-jammin]

@tall german joe

Spoiler :

seems to me that archery without even hunting as a starting tech is a pretty big setback on this map. When I settled in place it of course revealed the riverside grassland cows, so my second tech was AH (on the way to writing anyway, for a very strong tile that only takes 4 worker turns). This revealed nearby horses and made chariots the only thing required for fogbusting. There are excellent vantage points for an initial 4 warriors that leave very little spawning room for the barbs, especially in the ice/tundra to the south and the desert to the west where you have to worry the most. I know it's a gamble on deity but even then I try to avoid archery as much as possible with early AH or BW.

 

[Tall German Joe]

@tall german joe

Spoiler :

seems to me that archery without even hunting as a starting tech is a pretty big setback on this map. When I settled in place it of course revealed the riverside grassland cows, so my second tech was AH (on the way to writing anyway, for a very strong tile that only takes 4 worker turns). This revealed nearby horses and made chariots the only thing required for fogbusting. There are excellent vantage points for an initial 4 warriors that leave very little spawning room for the barbs, especially in the ice/tundra to the south and the desert to the west where you have to worry the most. I know it's a gamble on deity but even then I try to avoid archery as much as possible with early AH or BW.

@ben-jammin

Spoiler :

it wasn't too bad, what with a cottage already up + the gold mine. still, it cost, i think 9 turns total? 4+5? but yeah, annoying to be sure. a chariot really woulda been really nice, although my 2 cities have thus far, knock on wood, been able to share an archer just fine. he's gotten his 7 XP the hard way, defending 1 unit at a time. i had 3 fogbuster warriors out, but 2 of those have died on forest hills so far. so it goes, so it goes...

gilgy got the horses to the SW of the capital (i assume that's the spot you took?), which is a nice 2nd city spot, with a wheat, floodplain, and shared cow. looks like i'll still get the ones to the NE of cap with the culture from my holy city. probably plant city 3 there too, to work the marble, horses, and fish. a barb city just popped up 3 spots to the east of the SE horse spot sumerian city, next to the wheat, so maybe i can get a couple chariots down there and poach it after giggles suicides a bunch of archers at it from across the river...

 

[blunderwonder]

So, my 3rd attempt, after two prior mess ups, one which was really just for fun and another that was frustrating, this is what i have now

Spoiler :

i sip just like the 2 previous times, i usually let the computer decide, and i trust it to give me some food or other resources even if it fails to put me on the perfect tile, quickly settled to 3 cities, built oracle, spread my religion to gilga, and we both adopted immediatly, i quickly switched to hr, basically gifted him some techs, and started building archers like mad for the + happy bonus that i knew this time around i would need, something ive forgotten in past games. Anyway, i settled a far north city on the bronze PH, and another on the little penisila with iron and clams. i lib'd mt, and won econ, upgraded tons of HA's and knights with the GM and failgold from the sixteenth chapel and parthenon, and i think MoM i took a large chunk of fail gold from as well, i did mean to get MoM, but the other civs beat me to it. So around 1250AD i roll over giggles with cavalry. i dodge 2 bullets when joao declares on me and throws away like 10 trebs and a few other crap units on 2 riflemen. i ceasefire with giggles while my stacks are resting and building reenforcements, and then after getting a ceasefire with joao mehmed does the samething and throws away the same amount of troops on a CG2 rifelman and a few archers. I picked up optics on the way to econ, and missed the +1 movement bonus by like 2 turns to pacal who is teching like mad with 12 cities and noone to fight with, hes really the only guy with a substantial tech lead sort of, he wont trade with me though and neither will most of the others even after switching to FR because of the -4 trading with enemies crap. Anways, its 1500AD, i cap giggles with only 4 crap tundra cities left to the south, and im not sure what to do now with the 12 cities i have. i still need 1 more university for oxford, and maybe move my capital to the city with the marble/horses and 5 or 6 fps. I could build like 10 galleons, and move all my cavs to take out mehmed, because hes way behind in techs, but he could hit rifling before the 20 or so moves it will take me to get to him, ghandi would be quicker, but he will have rifling very soon still he would probably be a pushover with 2-3 units per city, and i have a stack of like 30 Combat3 cavs already. Anyways im not too keen on these continents maps, in retrospect i should have taken giggles early with the UU that i didnt really know about, i could have had it early enough that longbows wouldnt have been an issue. Or at least gone cannons/grens because those stacks last a bit longer than cavs and have the added bonus of taking less losses overall. If i had known in advance what a pain these oversea wars could be i might have gone for a cultural victory or tried to get the AP instead of CS

anyway, not sure im gonna finish this one, because it will be painfully slow, even if i can cap ghandi quick cause hes a pansy, and mehmed cause hes behind and will be far less land/cities, i doubt i can get rid of the other 4 civs in a reasonable time, all of them have like 12 cities, and by the time i get there they'll either crush me in open water or be at a huge tech lead. its a difficult endgame scenario for me.

 

[rfcfanatic]

1957 AD Domination victory.

Spoiler :

Spoiler screenshot :

I knew it! This map had a twist attached to it! But otherwise this map wouldn't have qualified as an IU map I guess Well, the twist - this map was one hell of a huge map with several continents and one additional civ!

Third time on Monarch managed to break the magical barrier of 40000 points:

Spoiler score :

Power graph:

Spoiler screenshot :

Statistics:

Spoiler statistics :

As planned, I settled on the plains hill. Teched Agriculture first and then The Wheel and Pottery in order to start the cottages on floodplains. With the help of the Marble, I completed the Oracle in 1320 BC and as usual, chose Metal Casting as the free tech. The commerce was so good that I founded Confucianism before 1000 BC and built The Great Library in 375 BC and The Parthenon in 75 BC - all in Seoul. Even managed to receive a couple of Great Engineers who hurried The Pyramids, Mausoleum of Maussollos and later, Notre Dame. With so many wonders in the capital, it made perfectly sense to build the National Epic there.

While I was being intoxicated by wonder-building, Mehmed did Catherine - sneak-attacked from the sea and captured one of my coastal cities. But that was just a minor setback.

Finally, I have won the Liberalism on Monarch :

Spoiler screenshot :

Gandhi was the only one on whom I went medieval. Giggles was my Confucianist buddy until early-mid-19th century. Then I decided to put an end to his protective Infantry. After annexing all his lands I settled some old business with Pacal who also got completely annihilated. Then it was time to make a war against Saladin's Modern Armor and Mech Infantry. After capping him I went after Cyrus who was even easier target. And then - the game was over.

Joao had been attempting the Space Race victory, but in fact, he was far away from it:

Spoiler victory conditions :

klonoklown, thanks for the map!

 

[Kingjester1]

Fun little map so far. Played to 1000BC on Immortal/Normal.

Spoiler :

Went with SIP since I didn't feel like giving up the plains hill 2N by settling on it. Went Worker -> Warriors to size 3 -> Settler -> Warrior and Granary (partial) to size 4 -> Settler #2.

With cows nearby I went Agriculture -> Hunting -> AH -> Wheel (saw the nearby horses to the NW and SW) -> Pottery -> BW -> Asthetics

I'm 4 cities now, 2 to the north and one to the SW of the cap. I should be able to settle a nice amount of cities during this REX phase. Met Ghandi, Giggles, and Mehmed, all of whom are Hindu at this point (Ghandi founded). Once hinduism spreads to me I'll swap without waiting for an AI demand since I want to keep Gilgamesh off of me.

This maps seems ripe for a war against Gilgamesh after I get a tech advantage. Since I got Pottery early I have both a gold mine and some nice cottaged flood plains and I'm teching very quickly.

 

[Robert FIN]

No worries, I'll help you with this game. I'm about 700 AD into it now, probably do a mini write-up once I'm finished. Remember Robert, adapt to the map, play your leaders traits. Whenever you have time give me a brief summary of what your strategy is and we can go from there.

Thanks for forgiving me klonoklown ! I will ask your and others help if I need to and I'll tell you what happened in my game atleast. By the way, one weird thing happened me last night: I woke up at 4.00. Am. because I got really bad toothache. Then I remembered what I did yesterday (outburst of anger to foruums after ragequit) and I really regretted what I did yesterday. Then I managed to sleep and now, in the morning I see that klonoklown is still willing to help me. Karma ! And about start: That place is good for a commerce city, isn't it?

 

[Smilingrogue]

That place is good for a commerce city, isn't it?

Actually, that city isn't really a good commerce spot based on what we see on the screenshot. A city 2 North of the gold has potential to be an excellent commerce site if it has food there. What SIP does give is a solid starting city that covers all the bases for a quick start. We have wet corn for food, Plains Gold for commerce and a Plains hill and a Grassland hill barely visible in the fog to the South West for production. This city can do everything a cap needs to get us rolling.

Worry about city specialisation after you have settled a few cities and have the techs to improve the land.

 

[Robert FIN]

Is it good place to GP farm then or what? I'm confused ! I've never specialized my cities so I'm trying to do it this time.

 

[Izuul]

I don't really use a classic GP farm, but i only have two simple requirements for mine.

1) Enough hammers or forests to build the NE and (ideally) the TGL.
2) Enough food surplus to get to at least size 12 (bigger the better) by the time i trigger my CS + Pacifism golden age.

That's enough to get out several GP, and then i usually switch it over to producing units for awhile.

 

[ben-jammin]

Actually, that city isn't really a good commerce spot based on what we see on the screenshot. A city 2 North of the gold has potential to be an excellent commerce site if it has food there. What SIP does give is a solid starting city that covers all the bases for a quick start. We have wet corn for food, Plains Gold for commerce and a Plains hill and a Grassland hill barely visible in the fog to the South West for production. This city can do everything a cap needs to get us rolling.

Worry about city specialisation after you have settled a few cities and have the techs to improve the land.

Not a good commerce spot? It's got wet corn, gold, at least 3 riverside grassland and plenty of green. On top of that you're financial, making cottaging away from rivers more attractive (but you want to do this regardless in your bureau spot). This city can easily support 10+ towns plus the gold hill. Flood plains are good but not at all necessary for a commerce city. Wet corn alone allows you to work the goldmine the whole game while still always growing if all your other worked tiles are grassland.