Immortal University V - Cyrus of Persia

[Sleepless]

@Dirk1302

Spoiler :

Yep I was wondering about the conquest win as I was expecting to get a domination victory. The only other conquest victory I've had I wiped everyone off the map. Without Churchill I only had about 55% of the land. Even when he capitulated I still only had 68%. Anyone able to confirm whether you can get a conquest win if you vassalise everbody under the domination limit?

As for using spies as siege. Unless I plan on stealing techs I set my ep to a civ I intend to attack. Then using spies it seems quicker to remove the cultural defence. I then use my siege weapons to soften up the defenders. This is one of the first games where I have lots of siege weapons so it makes a change for me to have enough weapons to remove defences and attack in the same turn. One of the areas in my game which has definitely improved for playing these games.

 

[Dirk1302]

@Dirk1302

Spoiler :

Yep I was wondering about the conquest win as I was expecting to get a domination victory. The only other conquest victory I've had I wiped everyone off the map. Without Churchill I only had about 55% of the land. Even when he capitulated I still only had 68%. Anyone able to confirm whether you can get a conquest win if you vassalise everbody under the domination limit?

As for using spies as siege. Unless I plan on stealing techs I set my ep to a civ I intend to attack. Then using spies it seems quicker to remove the cultural defence. I then use my siege weapons to soften up the defenders. This is one of the first games where I have lots of siege weapons so it makes a change for me to have enough weapons to remove defences and attack in the same turn. One of the areas in my game which has definitely improved for playing these games.

Spoiler :

Indeed all those spies also cost hammers which can also go into more cannons, sometimes spies fail, sometimes they're discovered. I have played without Bhruics patch for quite some time and then spies and mission costs are really a pain (they got evicted before the patch on declaration). That's why i switched from rifles to cannons in the first place, now with the patch cuirassiers or rifles with spies appeal to me once more.

It seems these games are indeed beneficial for our understanding of the game,some examples: Rusten's games for instance show that FE economies are still alive and kicking, also that cuirassier rushes are lightning fast if you strike early enough. Also silverbullets spionage tricks are enlightening, i have to read up on those games to see when the circumstances are right for some espionage hanky panky. I got alot of great spies this game, had no idea what to do with them, in the end used most of them for golden ages. Maybe i could have stolen currency.The several early rushing situations that we've had clearly show that you've got to strike as early and as hard as possible, i certainly failed in this respect this game and it cost me. I knew that currency was a rather important tech but i've always underestimated it somewhat, time and time again it has shown to be crucial in these games though especially after an early rush. Or on an island in contact with the other AIs.

 

[JBossch]

1070-1565: "I ignore everyone's advice"

Spoiler :

Thanks for the advice Olodune and Rusten. Unfortunately I played a bit of the war against Hatty without waiting for it. Still, I think it turned out ok.

@Olodune:

Spoiler :

You are very right about the NE. I put it on hold like a millenium ago to keep pure scientist points and foolishly didn't finish it.

First, I did not take nationalism for lib but instead held out for steel. I have seen this strategy be effective in others' games but never done it myself. My economy had recovered remarkably well and I felt like gambling. I traded for machinery and engineering while teching gunpowder and chem. I managed to pull it off in 1200AD. I even teched nationalism and pulled off the Taj (which was real dicey, others had had nationalism for a minute).

Next was the task of building a military. The cottages were pretty thick on the ground but I had some things working for me which caused me to again ignore everyone's advice and not use drafting or rush buying.
1) Though I had invested heavily in cottages, only 1 was really a hammerless wonder and it kept slowbuilding markets and the like. Almost all of my other cities were viable unit builders.
2) I had set up a solid HE city in the north and everybody else was decent enough. Even my GP farm helped out a bit.
3) Almost all of my cities had barracks and forges at this point. (many barracks were built in the lean years when I was so backward I couldn't do anything else.)
4) I burned one of my billion GSs on a Golden Age timed to finish the Taj just as it ended, touching off another GA. 16 or so turns of GA really helped my hammer output. (I was still in GA for a few turns after declaring war).

I just built muskets (while teching chem/1 turn of lib) and then cannons nonstop in almost all cities after taking steel. I also had to solve the problem of transport (I actually considered going with just galleys but it seemed crazy). In the time it took to tech/trade to astronomy I had built a huge pile of cannons the old-fashioned way and without seriously disrupting my econ.

I declared on Hattie in 1380AD and wailed on her. I just backed up the cannons with muskets and veteran immortals which have since been upgraded to curaissiers. I have taken the northern portion of her empire and have paused to consider my options. One thing I did not do was use galleons to ferry my troops around like others which was probably dumb. The few extra turns of trudging through the desert have added up. War weariness has crippled my economy and I am bleeding money at 0% science and 40% culture. However, she only has two major and 1 minor city left and my forces are totally intact. She cant do anything about the cannons and I have naval supremacy. I don't think she has iron to build curaissiers. I am considering switching into police state (I have the mids) and finishing her.

Any thoughts are appreciated, though I have a tendency to ignore advice and go on instinct. Sometimes its a disaster but seems to be going ok right now. I don't know if I can match a 1765 conquest victory but I'm sure I could dominate in a reasonable time frame if I can quickly finish Hatty and then Sitting Bull.

 

[JBossch]

A save and a couple Q's:

Spoiler :

1) What is everybody doing with the southern island once Hattie and SB are subdued? It would seem like a good opportunity to use the colonization option but I have never done this before.
2) I still have not built Globe Theater for drafting. I can't think of a good spot. I usually pick a place that looks like a gp farm - high food - but the only city that fits the bill is....my GP farm. I really don't want to build it there. Any ideas?

 

[Sleepless]

@JBossch

Spoiler :

I had no intention of taking the all the Southern Islands so teched towards State Property after rifles and stayed in it for the rest of the game. Though making a colony doesn't seem a bad idea. Wouldn't rely on them for much help in future wars though.

I put the Globe in Karakorum (also my NE city) but will admit to playing the last few hundred years very sloppily. Micro management whats that.

All my main cities were permanently on military late on so I had no real need to draft after the initial burst.

 

[ungy]

I have a problem I haven't seen in a while: the colony bug that causes a DOW when the AI creates a colony. I've forgotten what causes that (and I incorrectly thought I had fixed it)--anyone know?

my game:

Spoiler :

I ended up settling the NW horse--I had scouted almost the entire E except one or two tiles--including the horse .
I ended up with a little later rush than most--I built a third city as it took too long to hook up the horse. Mongols build GW for me and I keep 3 cities of theirs. I meet Iz, Churchill, Maya and it looks like I cruise to an easy victory.
Then I get the Iz colony event that really screws me up--I lose my two resource trades as well as all of my trade routes and crash the economy big time.

 

[Rusten]

I have a problem I haven't seen in a while: the colony bug that causes a DOW when the AI creates a colony. I've forgotten what causes that (and I incorrectly thought I had fixed it)--anyone know?

Lack of Bhruic's unofficial patch causes it.

 

[Gliese 581]

Finally finished the Suleiman game, I really need to tie up games quicker, I always get bored in the late game though, a problem with civ since the first game. It's just micromanagement hell and no discoveries to be made (all the map explored and so forth).
I'll give this one a shot at normal speed, see if I can survive the transition from epic.

 

[Dirk1302]

@Ungy, Bhruics patch fixes this and some other annoying things involving spies as well. You can't trade iron for huge amounts of resources and gold to AI's who already have 2 or 3 iron already anymore which hurts but is realistic as well.

@Gliese 581, I agree that late game MM is tedious, reason is that the game is decided on immortal at that time and the only thing you can do is score enhancement at that time. I remember that when i began to play on immortal i loved the late game because i could get victories from bad positions sometimes. For this reason i'm planning to play more deity games in the near future they're always a bit of a gamble but if you aren't dead before 500 BC highly entertaining, you need some late game skills there i think.I'll keep on playing the immortal students threads though also because there are so much participants and comparision is fun and educative.

 

[Sleepless]

@Gliese 581

I used to play all my games on epic but after playing the university and a few other games on normal I much prefer that speed now. It does take a little time to adjust as everything seems to happen much faster but game goes quicker meaning time for even more games of Civ.

 

[Dirk1302]

^I also began on epic, normal speed has a more exciting feel about it. I also like the tight planning for military operations on this speed, on epic you've got some more leeway in this respect. Going with mounted units is more advantageous on normal speed then on epic. Besides movement epic feels different but is the same as normal speed.

Indeed you can play more games in the same time which is a good thing indeed.Game is time consuming enough as it is.

 

[Olodune]

Cyrus, Chapter 6

1615-1785

Spoiler :

Not a peaceful round ...

At 1615 we had artillery in force and were poised to take Hatty's first city and sink her navy -- we do so and have a fun romp through northern Egypt. Airship supported artillery are devastating to defending renaissance troops

The master plan was to quickly turn Hatshepset into a Vassal, but she didn't play along even when she was down to 4 cities:

I don't quite know why she was still "doing fine on her own": her power is greatly reduced as well:

Oh well, there is nothing for it, but to turn up the culture slider a notch or two and finish her off ... Having done so some of our new cities were under fairly severe cultural pressure from Sitting Bull. Naturally, the best course of action available to us is to press our army straight into Native America. After briefly remembering that CGIII/hilled rifles pack a bigger defensive counter-punch than anything in Egypt, we advance smoothly:

Soon the southern continent is all clear:

We didn't fall behind technologically either:

The end game is going to be a little more complicated than ideal -- all the remaining AIs are either named Churchill or vassals to him. Any win condition is still open to us, but military domination is the most obvious ... unfortunately its a massive logistical nightmare to get my armies into position.

 

[Gliese 581]

Well, it seems I might need a little more time to get used to normal.

I'm ready to give up on this one, I'll post the last Suleiman and my progress here soon.

BC spoiler:

Spoiler :

I tried to rush KK with immortals but he had Keshiks when I reached his capital.
I might have been a bit to complacent with the buildup, I didn't switch to slavery I simply had several workers chop away all the forests. Still, could he have popped it? Either that or he went straight for HBR.
KK wont make peace so my only hope now would be to try and find copper on Izzys landmass and get some axemen and spearmen, but turning this around would be a legendary feat indeed.

Edit: I just checked the time spent on the Suleiman game and interestingly it was approximately the same length as the Monty game although I used BUG in it, around 30 hrs.
Well, it did take me about a century longer to finish..

 

[Sleepless]

@Gliese 581

Spoiler :

Just wondering when you attacked Kublai? Having Keshiks (as long as he doesn't have many of them) isn't to bad if you could take his capital on the second turn of war then pillage his horses on the third. I think that is what I did although he didn't have Keshiks with me. I think I declared around 1050BCish.

If you go the peaceful route . I would advise trying to grab as many spots on the island to the West and on our island. Although that won't be easy especially as you have now @@@@ed of KK.

Good Luck whatever you decide to do.

 

[patagonia]

Turnset 6: 1802AD - 1929AD

Spoiler :

At the end of the last round, I'd just eliminated Egypt in a war that had had me bogged down running a high culture slider for way too long. I was a few techs behind my main rivals, but on good terms with 3 of the 4 left (Churchill being the only one that hated me).

Once I revolted out of war civics and found myself leading comfortably in GNP and production, I decided to harness that for a space win rather than go through the slog of building up a modern army/airforce and shipping it from one continent to the next.

Early in the round a nice random event gave my economy another boost:

And a little later I made this deal with Isabella to help keep Churchill off my back.

Aside from a few turns where she went to war with Pacal, taking his remaining cities on the big continent, that pact remained for the rest of the game.

Because I'd captured the University of Sankore/Spiral Minaret combo off Hatty, and because of my strong GNP, I took a different tech route to normal, shunning computers and heading to fusion via laser instead. I think this was a smart move because Isabella didn't build the internet until after I'd launched and I wouldn't have got anything useful from it myself. I'd also captured the Mausoleum of Masullos from Hatty and fired off 3 golden ages with that to get things wrapped up quickly, leading to:

The ship reached its destination in 1929AD for my first Immortal space win

End game demographics:

Spoiler :

And the tech situation on the last turn - comfortable win in the end:

Spoiler :

Final Score:

Spoiler :

That's my highest-scoring BtS space victory, but I've had far quicker ones on Emperor. This turned out to be a very entertaining map, enabling us to see the best of Cyrus as a leader (early immortal rush, empire building and some overseas war). I think an early rush on Kublai was almost inevitable at the start, but although a lot of us then conquered Egypt there were generally a lot of options after the first war.

 

[JBossch]

1565-1948: "Churchill never saw the nukes coming..."

Spoiler :

I will try not to indulge too much in the details of my McArthur-esque path to glory. I ended up winning my first conquest victory in 1948.

At the end of the last round I was in the middle of the war with Hattie. The cannon/musket/veteran immortals combo went through her medieval units like a hot knife through butter. I ended up switching to Police State and finishing her off. As soon as I could reinforce my stack, I invaded SB. I took about half of his cities and accepted his capitulation when I noticed infantry in his cities. My tech had fallen way behind due to years of full-on culture slider usage and I was working with rifles/artillery. I managed to stay ahead of most AIs in siege weapons even while behind in other ways. This ended up working out pretty well.

I decided to grant Hattie's old lands independence which resulted in Saladin's birth. I had never done this before and honestly did it more just as an experiment. I really think it turned out to be a bad idea. The maintenance was really not as bad as I thought it would be especially since I had captured Versailles. My tech would really have been helped by keeping it I think. I also gave back SB's cities because the culture would have overwhelmed me. On the plus side, Saladin traded with me a bunch and helped me keep up a bit.

I then rushed my army back north to attack Isabella. She had lots of infantry but no artillery yet. I had a small foothold on the island in the middle but she had 5 cities on it. I decided to split my army in two: The best veterans were loaded onto galleons (yes, galleons. I was close to combustion but could not wait any longer. She had destroyers everywhere so it was dicey). I think someone else may have done this as well but I used them to do an amphibious attack on Madrid. The other half proceeded to mop up the middle island while Izzy smashed most of her army on my forces now occupying Madrid. When the secondary army was finished, it moved to the mainland and I again split the army to take the next 2 cities before I accepted Izzy's capitulation.

By the time I got to Pacal I really had the lightning war down. I took his 4 mainland cities in short order using my fleet to transport them along the coast instead of trudging through cultural borders. His cities on the SW island capitulated as fast as they could.

Again, granting independence was stupid as I would otherwise have won a domination victory at this point for sure. Is the rule vassals are only worth half toward the domination requirements? At any rate, on to Churchill, by far the most advanced and most powerful.

I trudge through Nottingham and London the old-fashioned way. Churchill has Mech infantry and my best unit is a paratrooper. Needless to say, there are losses. Getting air power going helped a lot and reinforcements pour into the meat grinder. I take a couple more cities but Churchill still won't capitulate. I give him one more chance but he won't budge.

I warned him what would happen....

Only after completing the Manhattan Project did I turn off tech funding. I just put it all toward gold for a few turns and told every city to exclusively build nukes for the rest of the game. After building up some cash I switched to US (apparently I had captured the Christo Redentor because there was no anarchy) and rush-bought a nuke in almost every city. Along with the few I had built in my best production cities, I had enough to obliterate Churchill. He had researched laser but apparently had not built SDI. I was even able to capture cities that turn by wiping out all defenders with nukes then landing a paratrooper to walk into the undefended city. I also used carrier strikes to destroy Churchill's uranium mines every turn so he couldn't retaliate.

The next turn he capitulated for a 1948 conquest victory.

Once again, I am finishing 1-200 years later than the experts but hey, an immortal win is an immortal win, right?

Thanks to Silverbullet for hosting another fun game. I learned a ton about warring in this game and it was totally different from the Pangaea. I always enjoy a good renaissance naval war as well which was provided here. Also, I will never again underestimate the power of siege. The steel beeline is fantastic.

In retrospect, granting independence was stupid. However, my allies did contribute by having destroyers roaming about which picked off a lot of my enemies' navy which can be real pesky taking out workboats and such. Also, drafting or rush buying as Olodune and Rusten suggested may have sped up my victory a bit. A little more micromanaging toward the end might have helped a bit as well. I honestly have little experience at late game war. I also learned that nukes are not just a fun thing to fire off the turn before your spaceship arrives. They have very practical applications for conquest and if I had beelined them a bit more I could have won sooner.

Good luck to anyone still playing!

-JBossch

 

[Gliese 581]

4000 BC - 750 BC

Spoiler :

Tech order: AH. Mining, BW, TW, Fishing, Sailing, Mysticism (bad call on sailing).

3960: Settle 1N, pop hut for 50 gold.

3640: Meet Kublai.

2200ish: Settle my second city to claim horses, plan to rush KK.

1880: Meet Isabella

1350: DOW Kublai. Destroy a small city directly in my path to capital, probably bad call.

1320: Stonehenge built.

1160: Oracle built.

1040: Arrive at the capital only to get a horrible surprise.

As I move the stack to attack anyway figuring I can take care of 1 Keshik, KK sends three more into the city. I pillage the horses but is stuck with a huge army, only two cities and a fubar economy.

1000: Tried to make peace but KK obviously wont as I have nothing to offer.

950: TGW built.

750: Ready to give up.

As I said in my earlier post, I could try to get bronze off west somewhere though it's not certain there is any to claim there (my economy is to trashed to research IW). I'll probably call this a loss though, its unlikely that I can turn this around and you guys are probably getting ready for a new game soon and I'd rather get on schedule. KK must have gotten HBR around 1200s or something? Is this normal on normal?

 

[Sleepless]

@Gliese 581

Spoiler :

It seems you were just unlucky with the Keshiks. Most of us managed to avoid meeting them. Possibly he popped something from a hut which made him go for Hbr? I'd have to have a look but I'm pretty certain I declared on him later than you but did take his capital on the second turn and after pillaging his horses only faced archers.

 

[Gliese 581]

Dirk1302

Spoiler :

Well, I'm pretty new on immortal so I don't know that the late game will always be easy for me but it can still get tedious.

Sleepless

Spoiler :

I probably should have went straight for the capital although he had a chariot that needed to be controlled in the city I razed. I might have been at the capital in 1250ish BC. Then again he might have popped HBR from a hut, don't the AI start with archery? What are the other preqs, AH?

 

[Olodune]

Cyrus, the Endgame

1785-1858

Spoiler :

Upgrading and mobilizing our forces to launch an assault on the Churchill/Isabella/Pacal behemoth takes some time - I'm short of transports and destroyers.

Finally we're in position:

The tactical plan is to take down Isabella in one quick strike before focusing on Churchill. In the above screenshot you can see our force imbalance problem that I didn't fully realize until next turn -- I have far too much siege, meaning to actually kill anything will take longer than I'd planned for. (I have a similar "northern stack" that is even more artillery biased).

The current Power graph shows Churchill would hardly be a pushover:

Madrid holds a very powerful Shrine (for a normal sized map) explaining why Isabella was able to keep supplying Churchill with techs leading up to our war:

Unexpectedly, Churchill throws several large amphibious stacks at former Native America, where my forces are sparse:

He would capture 3-4 cities, that quickly became slaughtering grounds as my counterstrikes hit home. Industrialism is Churchills next tech, so instead of facing wooden ships our naval engagements shift to Battleship attrition wars.

Land battles soon become large engagements involving Marines/Tanks/Infantry/Recoats/SAMs/Artillery on the English side and Paratroopers/Tanks/Infantry/Artillery/Fighters on my side:

We had many tank battles too:

Luckily Persian air superiority allowed for most of the stack combat to fall heavily in our favour. When Radio is finished bombers start pulverizing the British cities, pinning down offensive stacks where they are killed. We also finish a late wonder:

Shortly thereafter Persian forces have taken a large chunk of land, meaning:

This was very fun endgame war, since we were at near tech parity and fighting against three opponents on multiple fronts. Modern War is very fun when the game is still contentious. I'm fairly happy with my game -- Sleepless' vassalization game was certainly more impressive, however

Kill stats and Losses:

Spoiler :

Kills (note the 42 enemy airships shot down )

Besides Artillery and Immortals, losses are quite light:

Final Score was ~118k.

Part of the reason the endgame was so much fun is that Imperialistic/Charismatic allows for some viciously promoted units. Karakorum was building 19/20 exp units at the end Having CRIII/BarrageII tanks, combat IV/March paratroopers, and CombatII/RangeII bombers is too much fun.