Immortal University PacalII of the Maya

[silverbullet]

Rusten:

Spoiler :

I actually tried to go for hinduism, and successfully got it, but I mismanaged the game later. I was late to worker techs and expanded too slowly, leaving many good spot to Joao.
I think I made a mistake trying to go for stonehenge (researching polytheism->BW) and I also worked the wine tile right from the start, leaving my capital really small.

I restarted the game with a more standard opening and it seems to go better.
I would be glad to see details of your early game. If you don't mind, can you please detail the exact build/tech order until the first settler?

Thanks

 

[Dirk1302]

^Rusten

Spoiler :

Early religion is a bit of a gamble in more than one way,
- You might miss it and then you're really sorry you didn't go BW here.
- Another early religion might be founded near you, very risky to found your own.
- Bypassing early worker techs might get you boxed in, i guess you can always go
cultural in this case but personally i don't like to play that way.

Working an extra early tile is nice of course. The main reason i'd consider early religion is to have a means to please other ais if no religion is founded on our continent (semi isolation). But frankly i never consider it as i value early expansion too much.

But seeing how it pans out in your game would indeed be interesting.

 

[Gliese 581]

Everyone who's started

Spoiler :

I think that more people than myself was surprised to learn that it's an AggAI game. That might make it harder to achieve a cultural win although Belisar told us that none of the neighbours are daggers so perhaps not.

Personally I just lack experience with that kind of win (haven't done it since my very first CIV game where I mostly did it for fun after finding out my accumulated civ exp over the years served me more than what was needed at the Noble CIV level).

I played a second round and I think it's going quite well although the speed feels blazing with so few cities. Update to follow later.

 

[Rusten]

silverbullet:

Spoiler :

I grew to size 2 while working flood plain and then used 2 turns with starvation with the extra food (for expansive bonus) and successfully founded hinduism on turn 12 I believe. I then put research to agriculture and timed it with my worker.

Farmed a flood plain and the wine (Mutal getting warriors) and at size 4 I went for a 2nd worker (currently pasturing pigs).

Chopped out a holkan to protect my settler.

Settle Lakamha with my 2 workers present.

(IIRC) polytheism -> agriculture -> AH -> BW -> hunting.

Dirk:

Spoiler :

No need for early BW here IMO -- there are plenty of non-forested tiles to improve. The chance of getting Hinduism is high with this set of tiles to work with (and a financial leader) and it doesn't set you back much either here -- you have tiles to work with.

I don't usually do this either, but this is a very good setting to go for it. I'm not saying everyone missed the best move -- just saying I'm surprised I was the only one trying it. There's no "best" way to start off on this map -- you just don't know enough yet when you settle your first city. I simply enjoy doing these situational gambits much more than playing by the book. Analyzing a situation and coming up with a suitable strategy for it is what makes me enjoy this game.

 

[silverbullet]

Gliese:
What does "daggers" mean? I have heard this term before, but I am not sure what it really means regarding the AI. Does it mean they are more likely to go to war?

 

[Gliese 581]

Well unless I misunderstood it's from a game code variable when refering to backstabbing civs. Anyhow I started calling the backstabbing civs daggers for short.

Any codemaster reading this are free to correct me if I've misinterpreted. I first saw the term in the logic to AI dow thread I believe.

 

[Dirk1302]

^Rusten

Spoiler :

I often tried for the early religion long ago before i read the forums here and i often had better games if i didn't go for i so i stopped trying for it. Then again i play better now than i did then so i can leverage the benefits better than i did then, so i might try it some day.

I like your take on gambits, i certainly play by book more than you do but i try to introduce more variation also. It gets fiendishly boring if you always tech to lib fast trade for guilds bulb chem, research steel and put down a bunch of workshops as i've done often in the past.On immortal this almost always works if you're not dead by then but it takes the fun out. On deity this strat is far from fool proof in the first place btw.

Going AG was a smart move in combination with the religion grab, at least your worker won't be idle nor will it only chop forests. the forested plain tiles are so good that you get your workers out anyway.

 

[Dirk1302]

^Gliese581 and silverbullet

DanF5771's research basically starts here,
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7190899&postcount=84

If i understand correctly a dagger is an ai that has chosen the strategy_dagger strat. It's also what i read myself in this code. So an ai's a dagger not if you're Monty though you're likely to become one but if you follow this strat. If you read this you realize that Han is a dangerous guy. Good chance that he overspends on units making the chance he'll go to war higher.

 

[Dirk1302]

Until 1910 AD

Spoiler :

Started with BW, AH would have got me an earlier pasture but the worker'd be idle some time after. Start with so much forests is great for BW. i chop/whip 4 workers and an early settler, i had scouted the gold near Han and i settle here. Also settle near the
other 2 mines.

I think i have mentioned in an earlier thread that i had done some tests comparing axe rushes with cat rushes on immortal axe rushes are much more efficient generally but here the situation is different, there's room to expand and i have no copper. On the other hand everything favors a cat rush this time

- we have ivory, having phants makes a huge difference.
- Pacal is financial and we have 4 gold mines, no problem getting to construction
- Pacal has ballcourts this means we won't be troubled by ww too much.
- The capital has enormous production potential, ballcourts helps to work all these tiles too.
- We'll have to build an army anyway as no religions are founded on our continent (and aggressive ai is turned on but i didn't know it at the time ).

So i tech construction, next HBR i manage to snatch the marble and a fifth gold from Joao. 400 bc Han goes wheeooh,No doubt he's after me, i go scouting but i don't see much of a buildup as of yet. At this time i have only holkans and cats to defend with, if i can get ~ 3 phants in Lakhama i'll be safe. As it is Han attacks 75 bc, i have a good stack of phants ready now, also the match up is bad for Han, Num Calalry is bad at the best of times, worthless if the only unit your opponent can build for a long time is the holkan. SO he gets hurt bad. Realizing this he's ready to talk peace 125 ad giving up currency. He really must have been desperate to do this, his power dropped from 0.6 to 1.1 in 10 turns.

I'm in a good position now, HE is unlocked,i take some time out getting up Parthenon, GL Ne and HE. Then i'm at his throat again. What ensues is a very long war with short times of peace in between, i first bring down Han to 3 cities. I can see Joao is building units,i'm building units nonstop but my power stays ~ 1,2 * his. I'm a bit surprised at this since Joao is not much of a unit spammer now i know of course why this game seemed a bit off in some respects.

So i turn on Joao next, His stack is in a city bordering mine, it looks mean but mine's meaner around t3 times as big as his with 20+ cat in it to do nice collateral damage. Slaughter him next 2 turns and don't encounter any other problems, the war takes a long time due to losses to lbs and healing.This is why i don't go for cat wars too often, since you fight at tech parity the wars always take a long time especially after lbs.

They're the most fun to play for sure, i love the wealth of different units that can face each other in this era. cat/phant/axe/sword/holkan/horsearcher,
i had them all in my stack and they were all useful though not in equal measure. Also these attacks need to be micromanaged, You don't want to lose highly promoted units and since the battle odds are pretty even you need to bend the odds by getting units promoted fast.The difference between CR1 and CRII cats is significant and CRIII cats are really strong.

it's just more onesided in renaissance. Not so much different units in stack generally and as i tend to have a military advantage just use stack attack in these wars.

I finally get Joao off the continent.I have sailed across in the meantime, lots of war there too, When i arrive it'sMao/Ragnar against MM/Churchill. MM/Churchill have constitution on me , i have lib and PP on them approx tech parity. The others are in the dust.

I fool around alot since then. I beeline demo to build the Sol, someone said lately that it's an overrated wonder, i agree but not in this situation.

Get Mining and Sushi spamming it to all my cities, obviously all this land has a lot of potential but it's only fully realized in the mid 1850's maybe i should have gone for only production builings setting everything to wealth otherwise. As it is i get a beautiful empire but building it meant researching at ~50% for a long time. Staying into merc for a long time to keep MM down won't have helped either. Even with so much cities the extra specialist doesn't beat the trade route income. OTH MM is hurt much harder than i am of course.

I get enormous bonuses from my corps , 12 food 16 hammers. I finished the space ship 10 turns after apollo program arrive 1910AD. Iirc my first succesful cat rush on immortal bts, i did them all the time on warlords but the ais never put up any resistance there and you could actually take cities with cats then.

 

[Sleepless]

-1904AD

Spoiler :

A lot of play left in this game but I'm guaranteed to win.

Current relations.

A nice lot of red there.

Glance Screen.

Carthagian lands.

So how did things go?

To win the game I had to stop Mansa or he would win by space or cultural. My current units weren't going to do it even if I could get to his lands which I couldn't. I traded around a lot of techs, ran a couple of GM missions to keep my slider high and teched towards combustion whilst Joao did the top part of the tree for me. Once he had economics and his UB his tech rate was ok so that helped a lot. I didn't get SM until 2 turns before combustion was finished and was praying for oil. Yippee prayers are answered so off to Industrialism.

Eventually got to tanks in 1806. Lib 2 years before that so wasn't winning that race this time. Mmm Churchill will declare on Mansa for Assembly/Bio so lets do that and let Mansa burn his troops against protective inf.

Spammed tanks in all my cities whilst having my first Golden Age of the game and 1830 ish declared. He fell reasonably easy, getting him and Churchill to fight helped and after losing all of his good cities he capitulated to me.

I was just going to head for space when Han decided he wanted to take me on. I think it was having Mansa as a vassal that caused it. See the screenshot of Carthage earlier. Most of his cities have a few infantry in them and thats it. With tanks/bombers he will fall very easily. He can't capitulate as he made a colony with Isabella and thats where I left it.

To win by domination will take a long time and space for a mediocre score (although I deserve it this game) isn't very appealing at the moment but I will finish it eventually.

Just one thing of note. Early on I had the tin event and the plains tile had coal as well. So with a levee and rr it was giving 11 (might be 10)hammers per turn. Didn't realise that could happen but was pleasantly surprised.

Thanks for hosting this Dirk.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Up to 1280 AD. I'm researching feudalism at the moment and don't yet have CS, but I think I can win? .

Spoiler :

As promised I whipped more sword/axe and now a couple holkan to deal with elephants. Switched to tech straight for construction because I remembered our UB is +3 and that's access to jumbos also. Sweet!

I kept these wars short, fleecing techs along the way:

Yet another DoW:

another peace treaty:

Hannibal was of course teching much better than either of us so I went for his throat a bit:

This caused him to pour into my territory first - I promptly catapulted his forces to hell and then took carthage. This war got complicated though, because he bribed Joao in and got to knights and starting applying pillage pressure. He also captured a 1 pop city that I settled to work oasis/gold mostly that was angry over 2 AP resolution defy decisions (my only city with the AP religion, taoism). I've let him keep it for now as its margins will be small at this point.

I took some gold/minor tech for peace from hannibal and went to finish off joao. Bad news - Joao voluntarily vassaled to carthage and this meant a 2 front war again. It was all I could do to hold off hannibals pillage attacks and siege on carthage with new units over there - thankfully I've long since whipped walls everywhere . Walls really helped this game! Amazing. I finished Joao off and Hannibal paid me 40 gold for peace, and that's where I'm at now:

Ouch.

At least I have a few cities.

Haven't met any other AIs yet which is really odd. Probably war elsewhere also fine by me, I'm going to whip out more military and grab CS for maces to finish carthage off. Tech has been TERRIBLE to this point but sheer #s of cities is making BPT improve.

I'm still pretty new to immortal and it's a big step up from emperor - but it looks like if I can avoid getting declared on by the other continent, I can win this...

View attachment 188022

 

[Gliese 581]

50 BC - 1040 AD:

Spoiler :

50 BC: I started out by switching SOZ in Chichen Itza to building Stables with one turn remaining on the SOZ, as adviced.

1 AD: Joao completes the SOZ in Lisbon!

50: Finish Construction start on Currency. My cities are building stables and then starting to queue build war elephants and catapults and switching back and forth to minimize maintenance.

150: Finish Currency start on Meditation.

175: Finish Meditation Start on Priesthood. I decided at this point to go for Joao, Hannibal is safely locked in Pleased status unless some weird series of negative events unfold while Joao is only Cautious (HR bonus not yet obtained). Besides, Hannibal already has both HBR and Construction meaning I would face his army on equal footing while Joao lacks both of those techs. Hannibal can also offer better resource trading.

200: Finish Priesthood start on COL.

225: Trade Currency to Hannibal for Monarchy +40 gold.

250: Finish COL start on CS.

475: Finish CS, start on Paper. GS#2 is born in Lakhamba and I send him to Mutal to build an Academy.

520: Joao completes TOA in Lisbon. Wow, that's late! Now Lisbon contains the GLH, TOA and SOZ, neat.

600: Paper finishes, start on Education.

620: I DOW Joao and move against Guimaraes with a stack of 8 catapults, 5 WEs and 2 axemen. Unfortunately Joao culture bombed two of his border cities further to the east, eating up alot of tiles and forcing me to spread my army out along a long border to be ready for counterattacks and attempts to pillage my cottages.

Capital before DOW:

By not whipping I essentially kept a research of about 80-100 beakers in Mutal for the entire buildup-period and even during the war, allowing me to tech quite nicely compared to the slower-than-usual AggAIs. The tradeoff as we shall see, would be a slow war process after the initial successes.

640: Joao has aquired Construction by now but is still lacking HBR. I capture Guimaraes on my way to Lisbon.

660: GS#3 born in Mutal, I bulb him for part of Education.

700: Finish Education, start on Philosophy.

720: My army has healed up abit and moved on against Lisbon:

740: Something strange happened this turn. I was only able to kill 5 of the 6 defenders in Lisbon on the previous turn after my catapulting, due to lacking sufficient units. Joao was left with a half-dead Chariot in his city. What happened next is something I can't recall having seen before:

Joao abandons his supercapital. I guess it's actually not a bad decision, his chariot had no chance and he didn't have any reinforcements, but why not whip a unit and why leave a defenseless settler and galley in the city when they could safely have retreated as well?

In any case, a free worker for me on top a very lucrative city.

Not only the wonders but also an academy, several other buildings and a settled GG.
I paused the game here and pondered suing for peace. I had essentially diluted my SOD after taking Lisbon, and continuing would be a slower process. I had accomplished my primary goal by capturing the supercity already and Joao had 2 turns left on Feudalism.
I finally decided that I wanted to push on regardless. My economy was doing quite well, Hannibal wasn't able to trade with Joao since Joao was getting so backwards and wasn't leaving us behind in tech and Joao still lacked HBR.
I ended the turn by trading Paper and 50 gold to Hannibal for Music.

800: Philosophy finished and I found Taoism in Uxmal. Very late for that on Immortal indeed. There's been some warring going on abroad and the general tech pace have been considerably slowed by the AggAI setting. I start on Liberalism.

A birdsview of the empire at 800 AD (how do you remove the clouds?):

920: Hannibal steal Philosophy from me but he still lacks Education and I have 5 turns left on Liberalism.

940: The AP is built by a Hindu abroad.

1010: I finish Liberalism and pick Nationalism after considering Gunpowder for additional immediate military edge against Joao. I decide to go for the longer-term benefit. I start on Gunpowder.

1020: Switch to Monotheism to enable trade of Theocracy from Hannibal.

1030: Finish Monotheism, switch back to Gunpowder. I make a trade with Hannibal that benefits him far more but whatever I gain on everyone else at least.

1040: I finally capture another city after another 3 centuries of warring. I was a little unprepared for the sheer number of units the AI builds on immortal AggAI (never played with AGGAI on this level). Although I won most fights by far my units were constantly healing up from battle and hard pressed to advance.

After this I decide it's time to sue for peace. Joao has finally gotten around to teching HBR and my troops are spent. Joao!
I get Calendar, 100 gold, 2 gold pt and a world map for peace and Joao immediately goes from Annoyed to Pleased (+4 religion, +4 civic).

Demographics after the war, doing quite alright I think:

The reason I can see Joaos research is that he used spies for alot of stupid sabotage/poison missions and the like, all my EPs are on Hannibal since my decision to go after Joao.
I'm considering getting Optics before I move on in the tech-tree but Hannibal is not willing to trade Compass or MC. If I go for extended peace which seems best I need to whip forges, universities and ball courts. After that I'm not really sure how I'll proceed. I need to finish of Joao but riflemen/grenadiers is a ways of yet and I don't know how effective Cuirassiers are when Joao's got elephants.

 

[Gliese 581]

TMIT: I can't access either of your saves. It says they are protected and "loading failed", then CIV ctds.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Not sure why that is. I'm not running HOF mod in this game - and I'm just using the base 3.17 patch.

 

[royal62184]

will "lock modified assets" do that?

 

[Dirk1302]

@sleepless, TMIT and Gliese581, very nice detailed reports , seems you're all doing fine here(well sleepless won already). I enjoyed playing this map a lot myself but my own report is a bit brief due to having made too much of them in the near past , i also accidently threw my autosave dir away by loading something else, i have a few other saves but none of the crucial moments so i didn't have any nice screenshots .

 

[silverbullet]

My game turned out pretty boring. I will not bother to finish it.

Spoiler :

I went for expansion, grabbing both marble/gold/corn city first, then pigs/2xgold city, and then went deep into the jungle to grab ivory+pigs+dyex2.
After that I slowly expanded more with some less attractive city spots.

Managed to keep both Joao and Hanibal at pleased.
There weren't many tech trade oppurtunities as Han and Joao went for different techs so each had monopoly and wouldn't trade.

In any case, with such good land and the great library getting steel from liberalism wasn't an issue, and I managed to get taj mahal too and rifles by the time I declared war.

With such a huge military advantage both Joao and Han have no chacne, and the rest of the AIs in the game are quite backwards (Mansa is slightly ahead of the rest, but behind me).

Aggressive AI feels to me like playing at least 1 level lower - at least on this map - once you can guarantee 100% safe diplomacy. The AI techs so slowly and builds wonders so late compared to a normal game.

 

[Dirk1302]

^silverbullet

Spoiler :

I got declared on by Han but once i had beaten him off the game was quite easy indeed, even MM was pretty slow, unit cost and not building infra is very significant until late mid game also for the ais. Without agg ai on i would have conquered the continent a lot sooner, i had to take down a lot of units with the cats.

 

[silverbullet]

Dirk:

Spoiler :

I think I just got lucky in my game. I had neglected military and didn't get declared. Han focused on wonders, and I didn't see him create a SOD. He never had enough on his hands (now that I know he can easily be a dagger I realize I shouldn't trust WHEOOH message for safety).
There is a point in my game where I would have been wiped out if Han had declared on me, so perhaps it wasn't the safest route for victory.
On the other hand I did make sure to leave him room to expand peacefully. I don't know if it affects his decision to declare or continue with peaceful strategy, but I didn't totally block him until he was pleased.

It could be my impression, but maybe the AI also builds settlers slower with aggressive AI.

 

[ungy]

Up to 940 I manage to struggle with this: (not a very impressive performance unfortunately):

Spoiler :

no disaster, but the vandals raze a city of mine and I end up barely with 6 cities. We have a jewish lovefest here--AP as well. No contacts but from wonders and a tech list rest of world is clearly backwards.
I can pop lib here--not sure if I want to do the traditional rifle/cannon Joao annihilation or maybe try a cultural.