Immortal University VII - Hannibal of Carthage

[tycoonist]

@Tycoonist

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.

Spoiler :

well, he had been pleased for a while, but had consistently been WHEOOH. i just assumed it would be toku as he was less friendly with him and he was weaker.

 

[JBossch]

@ the GLH discussion (spoils all AIs met if anybody still cares):

Spoiler :

I'm with Dirk on this one. The GLH was huge in my game and the trade routes weren't watered down at all - why? because of early WB scouting that located Izzy and Lincoln. They were on a separate continent but still connected by sailing, long before astro - a common situation on fractal maps it would seem. Yeah, the GLH was weaker later on when my empire was a beast supported by maturing cottages in old Japan (btw, he had nothing when I got there, nothing! Just endless jungle!). But it totally propelled me to be able to trade techs at a massive advantage, completely control the diplo situation with bribes, and be able to wage a war in 720AD.

 

[silverbullet]

@Dirk:

Spoiler :

I think the argument on continents map/astronomy is that by the time you get astronomy most people will be in mercantilism. When they switch to free trade, corporation is very close anyway.
It's never bad to have the GL, it's just not that great in some situations. I wouldn't build it on continents map with no islands if it means I lose a good marble spot for GL later. I agree with you that it is probably very good more often than not.

The argument for Han is that on some maps the 3rd trade route is already internal (therefore small), and getting 5 routes means you will get +2 or +3 commerce in each city from the 2 additional internal routes.
This argument is not true on this map. There are 2 islands next to the capital, which can provide and intercontinental internal route to EVERY city you have, so GLH would be really great on this map even if Spain and America were not reachable by workboat.

Regarding catapults rush - I think there was one game here that managed to get both GL and axe rush cyrus. I don't remember which one at this point, but look for one of the early posters.

 

[Dirk1302]

@silverbullet,

Spoiler :

I see your point , it was a good map for GLH. But i even value a traderoute that's only 2, it adds up pretty quick. In the early game even 2 extra trade routes worth one are very good as in isolated starts.

I see the argument about astro and mercantilism, depends a bit on which civs are in the game, sometimes civs are in merc forever,sometimes (more so in isolated start games it seems) they stay long in decentralization (or barbarism?) because they're backward or they switch FM soon. In my experience with isolated starts i see that even with alot of civs in merc GLH ensures at least that the best intercontinental trade routes go to the biggest cities.

I do think that on average GLH is alot better than GL (but much more difficult to get also of course). I used to build GL always, nowadays i tend not to build it if i don't have marble, just too expensive in that case. I think that if you plan bulbing carefully growing the city that builds NE timely(often the capital, another city is much better but often not realistic) you can always get the 4-6 scientists you need unless you polluted the pool before.On average GLH roughly compares in strength to Pyramids imo but alot depends on playing style in this case.

Finally expansion is most important if there's any risk of being boxed in you shouldn't build any wonders i think. If i met a civ like Zulu's or Aztecs very early nearby i also wouldn't build it concentrating on expansion/defence or a rush instead.

jbossch and sleepless both rushed Cyrus and build GLH and had very strong games. There rushes were with axes, i have tried in offline games to make cata rushes succesful without much success. a simple axe rush almost always gave better results. I wonder if GLH/high research will change this, i think not because i don't think it's possible to get production online in time but treb rushing might be interesting. Since you beeline Machinery/Engineering in this case you can build a nice army of Crossbows/Pikes/Trebs, if you're able to field this combo early, well could be good if there are some weak/backward civs around. I have to try this sometime. Good chance you can trade machinery or engineering for civil service too.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

@ Dirk:

Spoiler :

I also axe rushed and failed to build GLH, but was lucky enough to get it in the persian capitol along with colossus which probably helped me overcome a level that's still a little high for me. I'm great at fighting but my expansion timing and tech timing seems to be somewhat off still.

One thing I should mention is that I've had considerable (to the extent of it seeming really easy) success with getting to construction/catapults early, IF there's ivory. I prioritize it much less otherwise, instead going for early pure axes. However the presence of ivory allows a troop with medieval strength in the classical era. Seriously - there are 0 medieval combinations that can beat a stack of elephants/axes walking around in the field pre-muskets (which the AI is terrible with on offense, and don't hold up to knights). Pikes are the only things that can beat elephants outright (maces have same str but no inherent advantages otherwise, and elephants will have more xp normally), and they'll die to axes!

Of course you'd still want to push for engineering as a priority tech in that scenario for the powerful trebs but as you can see the elephants allow otherwise too-weak classical stacks to stay viable a long time and work your own medieval troops in as you go. Such a large window usually means the destruction of a civ or two, although it depends on a relatively rare resource. Otherwise I normally wouldn't put high priority on construction or try to "rush" catapults, as like you I've found it easier to just blast out mass axes.

 

[DrJambo]

The GLH is one of the best wonders in the game.

 

[Dirk1302]

@TheMeInTeam

Spoiler :

Valuable insights in your post,i'm a reasonable fighter myself, might not be the strongest side of my game but adequate.

It's not that i don't win the cata fights in the end also on immortal, if you really focus it's almost always possible to bring down a civ in the end with catas it just takes too long on immortal and without elephants you're a bit vulnerable to counter attacks too. I seldom have ivory it would certainly make a cata rush a better proposition as you probably don't have to sacrifice as many cats (though swords are probably as good for this purpose) and you're stack is totally immune till grens/rifles, as you said a mace is the only unit with a chance against a phant/axe/cata stack and with stables phants have more experience. I think in this case (of ivory) you don't need to rush your cata rush (without ivory i try to be ready before 200 BC).Probably better to build a solid army in this case as fast as possible to save on maintainance and run over some poor sod (backward Toku for instance) in a short time. If we'll have ivory in our next game i'll try it though i might use trebs instead of catas.

Thing is these sort of attacks are much more fun in planning than the successful but boring suicide axe attacks or the always winning cannon/muskets/pikes versus longbow/muskets attacks. It's hard to get them as succesful on immortal though. I'll have to give the Rusten game a good look to see if he did something i missed sofar in his Monty game (except abusing sacrifial altar of course).

 

[tycoonist]

when is the next starting? i will win one eventually (i have been very unlucky IMO in the three i have played)

 

[silverbullet]

The next one will start today.
We will keep it random leader, fractal. I will regenerate a leader we already played.
As for my game, I am close to finishing it, and will write a bit more detailed report later

Spoiler :

Toku declared war on me a turn or 2 after completing liberalism->military tradition.
In the mean time Cathrine switched to free religion and became friendly.
I nearly lost my best city to Toku, who destroyed most of my curassiers with his 15 catapults and 20 old axes/swords/horse archers/elephants.
After that very close loss, I destroyed his SOD (what was left of it) and just kept a long defensive war while building my own SOD. This war great for XP and getting GG. I had a medic and a lot of combat 4 curassiers when I entered his territory.
I bribed Cathrine into war with him, because I was afraid of her joining him in war against me. Toku vassalized to Cathrine a bit sooner than I had wanted, but I got most of his good land.
At this point Cyrus, Sury and Cathrine were all friendly with each other and with me, which means that everyone trades tech. Sury's tech rate got really scary as well as his power, so I didn't dare to switch out of organized religion.
I managed to somewhat keep up by trading with Cyrus and Cathy, and signed a defensive pact with all 3 of them while going cottage crazy in emancipation and rush buying infrastructure. Going to war with Cyrus or Cathrine would have probably been better, but I wanted to try a peaceful game (no single declaration from my side in this game so far).

That didn't prevert backwards Isabella from declaring a war on me. Unfortunately Sury and Cyrus didn't actively take part in the war, and it just stopped Cathrine's research a bit.
I beelined railroad and was lucky to get a GE (I was planning to build NE in the ironworks city to get one, but I got one earlier in the capital at 14%).
+10 production in every city is not bad.

I next beelined the internet and managed to complete it. Now I am ahead in tech and production, and the space race is pretty much in the bag.
I got elected to be the UN secretary general, but Isabella and Lincoln will vote for no one. I guess I could also vassalize them with my mechanized infantry.

The only potential problems are not to hard to prevent:
1) Cathy is only pleased and my army is weak, but I have started to build mech. infantry and have a def. pact with Sury.
2) Isabella is going cultural - I might have to actually declare war in this game and raze her cities. I think I have some time though. her best city is at 20,000 only and it won't take me to long to build an army and navy to raze her cities.

 

[Civahaulic]

I know it's way after this thread happened, but I'm going through and trying to beat all civs on immortal. Since there was a Carthage, I decided to tackle this immortal U game.

I didn't peak before hand at what you all did, but compared after. Here's how it all went down:

Spoiler :

Like most people, I realized that The Great Light House was the key to making this game a cakewalk. I settled 1N because I value early hammers especially when I'm building wonders. Unlinke many of you, I thought it was silly to go after cyrus considering he doesn't declare at please. Besides, I needed to be building Great Light House, not axemen.

My first hut popped BW and my 2nd sailing. So I settled the crappy Gold city to block Cyrus, Built stonehenge and TGL, and proceed to settle Costal city after costal city. Cyrus founded Hinduism in my game and Tok converted. That made my decision easy.

By 75 AD, I had 6 Cities (all costal), TGL, TGLH and as you can see, I claimed that marble up north. I need to work on my scouting more: I was kind of lax in that regards:

Won Music.

Easily won Liberalism and took Nat. Built taj. Went for Ecconomics but lost to Catherine by 3 turns. BTW, Catherine volentaraly gave Tok a vassal hug. He's huge but he likes me and hates lincoln.

I was super diplomatic this game: giving in to all types of demads and gifting teches left and right. That allowed me to really hold back on building troops and focus on buildings.

What bugged me about this game is that Tok was in WHEOOH for like 1000 years before he went to war.

It didnt change my plan: Draft an army backed up with cannons and go after the Lone Jew: Surveyerman. I had two stacks:

and

The tech situation at the time:

It took about 30 turns, but I kicked him off my continent.

By then, Tok was getting huge. I was planning to go after Cyrus, then I noticed that he's got a defensive pact with Tok. I signed a defensive pact with both Tok and Cyrus.

Then my plan became build temples in every city (cirus had the palace), spread Hinduism to the 2 heathens, and win a religious victory.

But get this, Isebella built the UN and guess who won SG?

Yours Truly.

The turn before the vote, I gifted Tok Industrialism to get him to friendly. Even if I needed more, I could have swapped civs to merc and he would have loved me. So plenty of wiggle room.

So The exciting conclusion is that both the UN Vote for Diplomatic Victory and AP Vote for Religious Victory Came up on the same turn:

and as you can see: I won both:

A DOUBLE Diplomatic Victory on the same turn. Anyone ever have that happen before?

Anyway, this Immortal U was unusually easy IMHO. If you build TGLH and settle Coastal cities, you'd have to try pretty hard to lose. Well, I take that back. I suppose that some people might have had Tok and others in different religions, and that would add some difficulty. But the free BW + other tech early on was like getting a free 25 turns. Add that to TGL and the UB of Carthage, and things were basically on monarch mode.

All in all, an easy start: but fun!