Immortal University VII - Hannibal of Carthage

[Gliese 581]

I've been very busy lately and I'm getting Mass Effect in a couple of days but hopefully I'll do the last update this weekend anyhow.
Following silverbullet and Rusten's games with interest in the meantime.

 

[silverbullet]

Report up to 300AD
Probably not an optimal game, but still seems promising. Comments/suggestions are welcome

Spoiler :

I whipped Carthage for 3 pop to complete the settler. I couldn't let toku steal that jungle spot. I managed to settle Kerkouane to grab 2 bananas, 2 spices and grassland cows.

After trading Currency to Cathrine for Construction, I build 2 catapults in Utica, just in case Toku gets some crazy idea of bringing SODs into our border. He is already annoyed with me for different religion, but he doesn't have enough on his hands yet.

I made a mistake and revolted to hereditary rule, thinking it would improve my relations with Cathy, but I didn't notice she is not in hereditary rule. I didn't need the happiness yet and could have made the revolt together with bureaucracy.

I trade mysticism to toku for 60 gold and beg for 40 gold from Sury, which give me a few turns of 100% research.
Next tech was code of laws, which I traded for Calendar.
Then I went civil service->paper->compass. It might have been a mistake to delay philosophy (Sury got it first). I revolted to bureaucracy+caste system to get a faster GS, but now I fired the scientists in carthage to work tiles and build a few more settlers.
After trading world maps with everyone except Toku, I can see the world and there is still some unclaimed land:

I have a settler that has just arrived to the point marked "Next city". It should be a good production site and will have decent commerce from trade routes.

I am building another settler in Carthage which will settle here (marked "next next city"):

I managed to get another great scientist and he sleeps in Carthage. After Philosophy I will revolt to pacifism and get another GS in Carthage, to bulb education.
Current Tech Status:

Our cities:

Spoiler :

I urgently need more workers and perhaps another settler for a filler city between Kerkouane and hadru
I can also start to build a lighthouse in Utica and chain irrigate it so it grows some more. 2 coast tiles will give almost the same as gold mine and let the city grow.

My long term plan is to tech ahead and attack Toku.
My biggest fear is getting attacked too early (Toku, Sury and Cathy - we cannot trust any of them right?), so I am taking care of building enough army to defend myself (slowing my expansion and infrastructure) and for this reason I think I will give up the marble spot north and let Toku have it.
Hopefully I can bribe Sury to a war with Toku soon, so it will give me some safety until I have a tech lead.
I am still not sure if I want to go to a rifling/draft war or to a cannon/grenadier war, or maybe take advantage of the UU and build some horses which will be upgraded to cuirassiers later with a free flanking promotion. The empire is low on production, so a lot of whipping and/or drafting will be needed. Luckily I have a lot of luxury resources on this map.

Diplomatic status:

The hindu block are fairly good friends, I would be happy to try to do something to break it. In any case, they seem to be behind the advanced Confucian block (that's us!!)


POTENTIAL TROUBLE
Hmm... I just looked again at the tech status and noticed that Isabella and Cathrine have theology, while Sury doesn't. This means that we will have a hindu AP in this game. It might be worth it to switch sides and go to war against Cyrus and Sury. Let's hope Hinduism spreads to us soon, because I am really afraid of "declare war on the infidels" decision, which will result in a dogpile by Cathrine and Toku.
Diplomacy is not my strong side (except begging for money - I am good at that ), please help.

Any advice is welcome, especially if there is something important I am missing.

 

[Gliese 581]

silverbullet:

Spoiler :

Good job on settling Kerkouane, I feel getting control of the northern jungle in this game is important for the resources and since it holds a dominant position for expansion west north or east.
Your thinking resembles mine alot when it comes to the expansion although I attacked Cyrus first. On the other hand you have a much better tech situation than I did at this stage though which is great. I would start sending troops up to the barbarian city even if you only can spare one or two, to take advantage of AI suicides to make sure it's not captured, you'll want to try to grab the corn and gold. I think a city between the two resources is the best spot (where I placed it in my game) but first the barb city has to go. Get your proposed city up asap though, it's you corridor.
I agree with letting Toku settle the rest to decrease the chance of early dow.
You can trust Cathy if you get her to friendly, as long as none of the other AIs dislike you enough to bribe her into attacking you (I know that's a small comfort as I found out myself ).

 

[silverbullet]

@Gliese

Spoiler :

Thanks for the advice.
I am not sure if I will go for the corn/gold city. Maybe it would be better to let Sury/Cyrus/Toku share a border.

As for getting Cathy to friendly - I would need to switch to her religion, which is impossible now. I hope that with most of my trade routes going to spain I would get the hindu religion soon, because I am pretty sure Isabella is building the AP right now.
My army is not strong, and if she passes a decision of "declare war on Carthage", I am pretty much done. I don't think I can take both toku and Cathy now, and backstabber Sury may join.
I think the safest route now is to hope to get Hindu spread and convert.
If it doesn't spread I might consider a short war with Toku to capture 1 hindu city and spread it to my empire from there.

If I manage to defeat both Sury and Cyrus, I could win an early religious victory.

I am starting to think that the AP will be a really big problem in this game. Any advice? Should I convert to Hindu if I get the opportunity? What is plan B (if Hindu doesn't spread soon)?

 

[mystyfly]

(short answer to your replies )

Spoiler :

I didn't want to adopt judaism as a both toku and cathy were hindu. Also Cathy provided a great amount of missionaries, unlike sury.

 

[Dirk1302]

Until 1820 AD

Spoiler :

Didn't have too much time the past 2 weeks but i finally played this game until about 1820. I didn't rush Cyrus, though doing so and also getting TGL is the strongest move i feel as shown by Sleepless and Jbossch.

I chopped TGL immediately, then produced settlers to settle the best jungle spots. I get them all. Since there's alot to do i don't overexpand to marble and the north west of the map where there's alot of unclaimed land.Instead i concentrate on workers after settling the jungle. The land there is marvellous but clearing all the jungle cost alot of time.

I explore with WB's to both sides finally finding Izzy and Lincoln. Finding them meant a nice boost for research. Due to TGL and GM's that i get i have adequate research, i went for early currency/calender/compass for obvious reasons. Tech music first also. I'm late setting up NE so most of the bulbing is for PP/chem as getting an academy was more important than bulbing edu. Get lib first taking military tradition.

Since i'm a bit delayed by clearing the jungle i think my first victim Toku must be Cav rushed instead of cannon rushed. Cuirassiers would have been ok too but due to the time it cost to setup production i had Cavs when i was ready. Toku falls quickly around 1500 AD. I've been building cannons and drafting rifles in the meantime. Cathy has artillery already but i don't see too much of them atm. I directly attack her. I can't take her out because once she gets artillery up the war will become too difficult. I take 4 good cities relieving cultural pressure on my Toku cities then sue for peace 1595 AD as i start to incur heavy losses due to artillery/grens.

I've enough land to build up a sizeable tech lead now, i could have gone for Cathy again
with Infantry and Artillery, this would have been faster but also alot of MM , i just tech to bombers, tanks and take Cathy out real fast.

Khmer faction (and the insignificant Persians) are still around. Khmer has alot of fighters
and they're able to field tanks too (don't see them though). I have gunships now and loads of units so i don 't think i'll have much problems if i go for him now. I'm close to Radar artillery/Jet bombers/modern armor now, it'll again save on the MM if i tech Laser/stealth first this'll rule out domination before 1900 AD but what the heck. Also more fun so that's what i do i think.

Post some saves tonight

It's rather quiet in this thread now. Are you going to host another Student game or do we give it a rest for a while silverbullet? As for me, i'd like to play another and have some more time to do so the next 2 weeks.

 

[silverbullet]

@Dirk:

Spoiler :

Can you post some intermediate saves? I think our starts are quite similar.
How did you handle diplomacy with so many backtabbers, and with Cyrus being blocked?
Did you ever get attacked before you were ready with your Cavalry?

I am about to finish my own game (I have been a bit busy too in the past 2 weeks).
I am definitely planning another thread.
I didn't start one yet because I wanted to give some currently open games the chance to finish.

I think we will stick to random leader, restarting if we get a leader already played.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Until 1820 AD

Spoiler :

Didn't have too much time the past 2 weeks but i finally played this game until about 1820. I didn't rush Cyrus, though doing so and also getting TGL is the strongest move i feel as shown by Sleepless and Jbossch.

I chopped TGL immediately, then produced settlers to settle the best jungle spots. I get them all. Since there's alot to do i don't overexpand to marble and the north west of the map where there's alot of unclaimed land.Instead i concentrate on workers after settling the jungle. The land there is marvellous but clearing all the jungle cost alot of time.

I explore with WB's to both sides finally finding Izzy and Lincoln. Finding them meant a nice boost for research. Due to TGL and GM's that i get i have adequate research, i went for early currency/calender/compass for obvious reasons. Tech music first also. I'm late setting up NE so most of the bulbing is for PP/chem as getting an academy was more important than bulbing edu. Get lib first taking military tradition.

Since i'm a bit delayed by clearing the jungle i think my first victim Toku must be Cav rushed instead of cannon rushed. Cuirassiers would have been ok too but due to the time it cost to setup production i had Cavs when i was ready. Toku falls quickly around 1500 AD. I've been building cannons and drafting rifles in the meantime. Cathy has artillery already but i don't see too much of them atm. I directly attack her. I can't take her out because once she gets artillery up the war will become too difficult. I take 4 good cities relieving cultural pressure on my Toku cities then sue for peace 1595 AD as i start to incur heavy losses due to artillery/grens.

I've enough land to build up a sizeable tech lead now, i could have gone for Cathy again
with Infantry and Artillery, this would have been faster but also alot of MM , i just tech to bombers, tanks and take Cathy out real fast.

Khmer faction (and the insignificant Persians) are still around. Khmer has alot of fighters
and they're able to field tanks too (don't see them though). I have gunships now and loads of units so i don 't think i'll have much problems if i go for him now. I'm close to Radar artillery/Jet bombers/modern armor now, it'll again save on the MM if i tech Laser/stealth first this'll rule out domination before 1900 AD but what the heck. Also more fun so that's what i do i think.

Post some saves tonight

It's rather quiet in this thread now. Are you going to host another Student game or do we give it a rest for a while silverbullet? As for me, i'd like to play another and have some more time to do so the next 2 weeks.

I'm in for more games too . 3-4 hour playtimes keep me in every series on this part of the forum (and allows me to make my own .). I still have a lot to learn to consistently win at immortal and this is the place!

 

[Dirk1302]

@silverbullet and @TheMeInTeam,

Good to hear that guys.

@silverbullet

Spoiler :

In my game Cathy,Izzy,Lincoln and Toku were buddhist, Cyrus Hinduist and Sury Judaist
with the AP.

Diplomatically i had Cyrus and Cathy to pleased quite soon. Cyrus valued peace and open borders iirc, i gave Cathy some cheap tech and Hereditary rule kept her pleased.
Because i didn't expand too much i didn't share borders with Sury (cautious) until later. So the only real risk was Toku (cautious) and i checked him for "wheoohrn" quite often. I played 1-ad-1000 ad some time ago so i'm not toally sure but i think there was a war between Toku and Cathy also. I adopted Sury's religion getting him pleased around 800 AD, i had enough modifiers with Cyrus and Cathy to keep them pleased and i didn't mind Toku anymore as he was totally backward so if could always get enough maces up fighting his axes/swords if he planned an attack.

In the very early game Cyrus was the biggest risk i think, he's a bit of a weirdo if you get him to pleased he's a very good friend but he's mighty dangerous and unpredictable when cautious or below going for rushes quite early (probably because of the immortals). I was ready to feed him techs but didn't need to give him anything in the end because he was pleased already.

I'll try to post some intermediate saves

Off topic, i have some problems with the newest bugmod, alt-M didn't work anymore and sometimes in the left below corner of the screen the data of a unit persisted, obscuring the data of other units. I only could get rid of that by saving and loading again

Reinstalled the previous bugmod which works fine. Has anyone experienced similar problems? The new bugmod has some fine features so i'd like to install it again

 

[silverbullet]

@silverbullet and @TheMeInTeam,

Good to hear that guys.

@silverbullet

Spoiler :

In my game Cathy,Izzy,Lincoln and Toku were buddhist, Cyrus Hinduist and Sury Judaist
with the AP.

Diplomatically i had Cyrus and Cathy to pleased quite soon. Cyrus valued peace and open borders iirc, i gave Cathy some cheap tech and Hereditary rule kept her pleased.
Because i didn't expand too much i didn't share borders with Sury (cautious) until later. So the only real risk was Toku (cautious) and i checked him for "wheoohrn" quite often. I played 1-ad-1000 ad some time ago so i'm not toally sure but i think there was a war between Toku and Cathy also. I adopted Sury's religion getting him pleased around 800 AD, i had enough modifiers with Cyrus and Cathy to keep them pleased and i didn't mind Toku anymore as he was totally backward so if could always get enough maces up fighting his axes/swords if he planned an attack.

In the very early game Cyrus was the biggest risk i think, he's a bit of a weirdo if you get him to pleased he's a very good friend but he's mighty dangerous and unpredictable when cautious or below going for rushes quite early (probably because of the immortals). I was ready to feed him techs but didn't need to give him anything in the end because he was pleased already.

I'll try to post some intermediate saves

Off topic, i have some problems with the newest bugmod, alt-M didn't work anymore and sometimes in the left below corner of the screen the data of a unit persisted, obscuring the data of other units. I only could get rid of that by saving and loading again

Reinstalled the previous bugmod which works fine. Has anyone experienced similar problems? The new bugmod has some fine features so i'd like to install it again

Yes, I have had the same problems with the new BUG mode. I think it's just a bug in the BUG.

Regarding my game,

Spoiler :

I will post a nice report later, but I had made a mistake with Toku that nearly cost me the game. He had enough on his hands with me, and I mainly focused on building numidian cavalry, as I was a few turns away from liberalism->MT and had 1000 gold for mass upgrade.
The problem was, he came into my border with something like 15 catapults and a lot of elephants and horse archers, some axemen and swordmen. I had only 3 catapults and something like 7 curassiers, and it was not enough to delay him. The rest of my army was very weak (an axeman and spearmen in each city as garrison, and 2~3 longbows). After my initial attack of his SOD with suicide catapults and curassiers, he attacked my best jungle city, nearly capturing it (2 wounded curassiers left there).
That was VERY close. I later destroyed his SOD and just stayed at war with him so my army can get target practice. Finally after rifling I marched into his lands with Cavalry and he is nearly dead now.
What bothers me is that I was very close to winning what should have been a very easy game.
Some mistakes I think I made:
* build more catapults
* I should have kept some numidian cavalry to flank the catapults, unfortunately curassiers don't damage catapults.
* I should have whipped a castle in my border jungle city.

I found it was pretty hard to balance military/expansion on this map with the late start due to great lighthouse and the large amount of jungle, in addition to the fact that there are no great production cities for military, making me rely on the whip more than usual for defensive military buildup.

I am very curious to look at your early saves to see how you balanced all these factors as it seems our starts are very similar.

 

[Dirk1302]

@silverbullet

Spoiler :

3 saves indicating how i progressed in the important 0 to 1100 AD era. As you can see in the 1100 AD save i still haven't got HE up indicating how hard it was to make the land profitable. I could have teched to space easily i think, imagine all that workshops as being constantly worked cottages.

As you can see i was worried about Toku, got him to pleased probably with gifting techs like compass i think, useless to someone like Toku.

 

[Bleys]

I have had this save kicking around a while now, and decided to play it a few turns, and I noticed something:

Spoiler some interesting info on that closest hut :

I did the "standard" and settled in place, and moved my warrior directly to that hut, and popped BW.

Since this was a save and not a WB Scenario file, I decided to check on the other games, and wouldnt you know it, every single player who settled in place and moved to that hut also popped BW.

Saddly, since I suck at Normal speed, I decided to WB the file, and make it a scenario, so I could play at Epic, and when I did, naturally, the hut gave me 50 gold. Further re-starts (for experimental purposes) yielded a different result every time through the Scenario menu.

Thought some of you might find that interesting.

 

[tycoonist]

finally got around to playing some more, but i am giving up:

Spoiler :

lost lib by one turn to cathy, before getting declared on by sury (at pleased )and his gigantic army of medieval units. lost two cities, gave up.

 

[silverbullet]

Tycoonist:
Too bad about your game.

Spoiler :

This map seems to produce either a very easy or a very difficult game for people because diplomacy is very complex here. Sury, Toku and Cathy are all nasty backstabbers, and our nice little Carthage is right in the middle.

In spite of the good traits of the leader and the good land i find this game challenging in this aspect (but not nearly as bad as Charlie's game).

 

[fjordan]

I have had this save kicking around a while now, and decided to play it a few turns, and I noticed something:

Spoiler some interesting info on that closest hut :

I did the "standard" and settled in place, and moved my warrior directly to that hut, and popped BW.

Since this was a save and not a WB Scenario file, I decided to check on the other games, and wouldnt you know it, every single player who settled in place and moved to that hut also popped BW.

Saddly, since I suck at Normal speed, I decided to WB the file, and make it a scenario, so I could play at Epic, and when I did, naturally, the hut gave me 50 gold. Further re-starts (for experimental purposes) yielded a different result every time through the Scenario menu.

Thought some of you might find that interesting.

Well actually I gave this game a shot but Immortal is a bit above my level. The interesting thing is that I also settled in place but I popped some gold from the hut. I reloaded several times, after I read the spoilers here, but I always got gold. Very frustrating.

 

[Dirk1302]

@Tycoonist and Fjordan

Spoiler :

@Tycoonist, was Sury always pleased with you? Did you share borders? Always possible that he'd do something like this but i find most of the time that these declarations are actually made when they're cautious or below getting them to pleased afterwards won't help.

@Fjordan, if you're not going to rush Cyrus not popping BW is not a great deal, the gold is useful in it's own right and our starting position makes more than one route possible. Early BW didn't do much for me in my game, just came along as a pleasant surprise. What did alot was chopping the TGL, going peaceful this was very lucrative , not popping BW delays this somewhat but if you beeline correctly you're still sure to get it. And it really is a huge wonder, profitable early trade routes just can't be matched by anything not even Pyramids.

Key to the decision to chop this wonder was scouting and seeing that there'd be enough land available to get 6-8 cities up after (possibly much more even in this game but i didn't know that at the time i chopped TGL and didn't go for it once i found out).

This game is imo not nearly as difficult as the Charlie game, i'll get domination in my game, i could have expanded more than i did to N/NW and go totally peaceful, i could have gone totally peaceful from the limited position i had if i had cottaged everything instead of workshopping everything.

I took some risk leaving Sury at cautious till 800 AD also because we didn't share borders, got the rest to pleased by gifting techs. Since it's possible in this game to get a very easy early tech lead gifting some should always be considered.

This game left me with one strong feeling which i may never be able to shake off entirely, TGL is huge, this was a fairly normal start, even on Pangae 30-50 % of your cities tend to border on coast and you can play along with the wonder to get this percentage up. It depends on good scouting, if you're alone with one AI it's not that powerful. In most situations i can see this relatively cheap wonder giving you a huge boost in science till corporation. I was 100 + beakers pre 1 ad where i use to be 60-70 or so with a financial leader. You also get a GM first so you can research at 100% for a long time too. Just take care that you build NE in a food rich city so you can catch up on lost GS points (you need a GS for academy to boost all your trade routes even more, don't rely to much on bulbing in a TGL start, you research techs easily without). I'm almost convinced now that it's more powerful than mids (at least for my style of playing) it really leaves things like GL in the dust.

 

[JBossch]

@Dirk, about TGL, not really a huge spoiler if you have played at all (though I am excited to see this thread is still around and people are still finishing games. I had a great time with this one.)

Spoiler :

I really agree about the TGL being a beast. The great part is that, besides the hammer commitment, it is really compatible with a lot of strategies. In my game, I started out intent on building it (I was so easily swayed by the pre-discussion). I popped not only BW, but masonry from the next hut, meaning TGL or a rush were options (or both, as it turns out). When I saw how close Cyrus was I decided on a rush and figured I would probably miss TGL. I ended up building it in his capital after crushing him with axes (which was a gambit time-wise, I know). I disagree that it precludes bulbing though. By building it in a second city I kept Carthage a pure GP pool (not really necessary but the techs from huts allowed it, I think). I ended up bulbing like crazy and grabbed steel with lib for cannon devastation.

 

[Dirk1302]

@Jbossch

Spoiler :

Yes, you had a great game rushing Cyrus and getting TGL, well done. Problem in my game was i had great potential cities but due to the need to build lots of workers and clearing lots of jungle i was effectively playing with only the capital and the calender resources for a long time.

So i did get up NE and pacificm in capital eventually but i was already halfway through education then and needed an academy in capital more than anything else. Iirc i stopped education research for gunpowder at the time and bulbed the second half eventually.

Looking back i think in my game i should have built academies or settled Obsolete style, my research was way ahead of production initially and i really didn't need to bulb. It would have been a different story if i didn't have to clear all that jungle, if i'd have more early production i could have bulbed to mil trad fast and a real early cuirassiers rush would have been possible.In this case i happened to have cavs already when i finally had production online. So i agree that there are situations that a TGL/bulb combination can be great. But you don't need to depend as heavily on bulbing with TGL

 

[silverbullet]

(For those still playing: open spoiler only if you have met all civs in this game)
@Dirk:

Spoiler :

The GLH is great on fractal maps, because more often than not you will have an AI on another island that is reachable via a work boat.
On hemispheres or continents map it is less attractive. It is a great boost to early game, but it delays expansion, and in the mid game you get only +6 to +8 commerce for coastal cities only, and that is only if you manage to have good relations with your 2~3 neighbours.

On this game the GLH was great, mainly because of Isabella and Lincoln, and the fact that most cities were coastal. But even on this game it had a cost - late library in the capital, late academy, fewer cities.
I can see an alternative play on this map with more bulbing and tech trading without the GLH. The advantage is that you remain with more cities for drafting/whipping.

Finally, I think the GLH is a bit of a waste for someone like Hannibal. The more trade routes you get the less effective they are usually, so with his UB encourages NOT to build the GLH. The financial trait means that you don't have to get a financial wonder to help your economy and just focus on expansion.
GLH is much more important to someone like Charlie or Toku, who have no financial advantage. For Hannibal it is a nice boost, for others it could make or break the game.

 

[Dirk1302]

@silverbullet

Spoiler :

I'm not totally with you here,

-I can agree that GLH is only very useful instead of great before astro on continents/hemispheres, still most of the time it's possible to have fair relations with your neighbours and especially in your bigger coastal cities there's a fair chance that all the routes will contribute.After astro, oh boy, I always build GLH on isolated starts nowadays for this reason. Even with domestic routes it makes building new coastal cities less painful.

-Agree with delayed expansion, it's imo extremely important that you have a good idea of available land before you build any wonder on immortal, scouting is always very important even more if you plan to build early wonders. This game it was clear that we'd get some good cities, i could have build some 3-4 cities more than i did if i wanted too. I wouldn't have built it if i'd rushed Cyrus though.

-I know Rusten also said that with Hannibal GLH is not that great. I don't understand the argument exactly, i assume that it runs as follows, correct me if i'm wrong:

1. With Cothons and currency also you've got 5 trade routes in coastal cities, chances are that they won't pull their weight.

But especially in capital and iirc in other cities too all the routes contributed significantly. This argument would hold more water on a continents map because you probably run out of useful routes with only 2-3 civs nearby. Still after astro...

2. You get enough research with Han anyway.
Partly true but more research is always good and put me in an easy bribe position this game.

Concluding i can't see any situation where the wonder is not at least very useful, it's a game breaker on archipelago but we knew that already. It was fantastic in this game too where the map wasn't special in any way,certainly Izzy and Lincoln gave it a further boost but the extra routes with Sury and and Cathy were great in their own right.

Just some thoughts:

It'd be interesting to see if chopping GLH then race to construction and do a axe/sword/cata war is a viable strat.Most of the time i reach construction too late to make this worthwhile but maybe it's doable, atm it's just theoretical though, i can see some problems with this, probably you're too late with workers/infra after chopping GLH. Also some serious scouting has to be done to get full profit from GLH. Early treb war might also be a possiblity since you're not as dependent on lightbulbing it might be possible to research quickly along the bottom of the techtree, also here you need to have some means to build the expensive medieval units otherwise it's useless to go this way.