Immortal University XIV

[Dirk1302]

That sounds challenging indeed, Snaaty knows a german guy who creates maps on request, i'll have to contact Snaaty though since my german isn't good enough to relay the map facts to him properly. I can ask for an appropriate map for the next deity challenge at the same time.

I think some decent researchers further down the map otherwise the game is won once we've stayed alive.

How about iron btw, i think random so we won't know once we get the map to beeline, iw or construction. Walls could see some use in such a game, don't build cottages early.

 

[silverbullet]

I think some decent researchers further down the map otherwise the game is won once we've stayed alive.

I would leave it random. Sometimes having mansa or ghandi in the game actually makes it easier (more trade opportunities, lousy at war)
Having some AIs who love to expand peacefully (Zara, Suleiman) together with warmongers will guarantee some good techers in the mix.

How about iron btw, i think random so we won't know once we get the map to beeline, iw or construction. Walls could see some use in such a game, don't build cottages early.

I agree iron should be random. Why not build cottages early?


Potential leaders we could play:
Qin Shi Huang
Churchill, Elizabeth
Frederick
Wang Kon
Darius
I elminated all leaders that have already been played and all spiritual/creative/imperialistic/expansive and leaders with early resourceless UU .

Protective might actually prove useful in such a game.

Who are the worst opponents? Monty? Gilgamesh? Genghis? Catherine?

 

[Dirk1302]

I don't mean cottages're not allowed. There's a fair chance you get pillaged in an early war though with these neighbours and only archers to defend, cottages 'd be expensive and frustrating to lose.

I agree with Zara and Sulei, both capable ais. The worst opponents are Shaka, Monty,Ragnar and Ghengis iirc. It would be boring to have only them though, Gilga and Cathy can tech and expand well so i'm ok with your selection. I think that at least one of the top 4 should border us, it's relatively easy to get good relations with Cathy and Gilga and we'd still see no early war.

 

[DMOC]

You'd see no early war with Gilgamesh or Catherine? You must have different experiences than I have...

 

[Gliese 581]

Gilga is one of my least prefered neighbours so I think he would be a good challenge.

 

[Dirk1302]

You'd see no early war with Gilgamesh or Catherine? You must have different experiences than I have...

Well they are certainly not averse to some fighting but not as bad as someone like Ragnar who's almost sure to be fighting before 1 AD. Cathy often gets into early fights with other ais but she's relatively easy to please since she demands so often and i tend to give in to her wishes in the early game. So i don't remember that many early fights with her. She keeps on demanding however giving -2 for every rebuke so she and i tend to fall out later.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Man, I reinstalled civ and accidentally removed ALL SAVES when I did it . Forgot I actually put my save here.

Anyway, map fudging is certainly possible for me but if you want me to do it I'd have a hard time prior to this weekend or at least Friday evening. It wouldn't be too hard to roll a Pangaea, pick obnoxious leaders and some random ones, and swap starting positions so that the annoying/fast expansion ones are nearby the player. Hell, that'd be a lot easier than what I did in PYL making Roosevelt start where he did. Deleting copper would be pretty easy too obviously.

I or anyone else you guys would use would need some consensus on which AIs to use and which one is available to the player.

Edit: Montezuma and Shaka are aggressive neighbors, Ragnar is placated with HR but is also very much so (but the former 2 have favorite civics you won't be running for a long time). The thing about Cathy or someone like Joao is that they'd expand into your land faster, which would be arguably worse than attacking you, seeing as how the player would lack metal.

IMO Gilga is actually one of the worst neighbors to start next to. He expands pretty quick, applies culture pressure, and on top of that will stick you if you don't protect yourself. Mehmed also likes to spam units (ibuildunitprob is greater than monty's, and the same as shaka's, making him somewhat tough to deal with early on). Sitting Bull is also a very spam-tastic leader although he tend to tech poorly and has a high peaceweight. IMO the worst guys to start next to when you don't have metal are creative fast expanders, but people who actually attack carry other risks too.

 

[DanF5771]

Why not start a game with <iAIStartingUnitMultiplier>1</iAIStartingUnitMultiplier> for the Immortal handicap ? AI will start with 2 Settlers, so it would be Immortal +.

 

[Dirk1302]

That's a very good idea. Doesn't this give problems with downloading the start though? Changing the XML is in fact making a minimod and i wonder if the game'll ask for this mod. However if i change the xml in the game directory then produce the start it's just a start with an extra settler so other's probably won't have a problem right? It would be even better to set research speed (and some other factors) to 0.7 it's 0.8 for immortal, 0.6 for deity iirc. However i don't know if the game reads this parameters when starting in which case it would be easy to manufacture a full blown immortal+ start or every turn in which case everyone'd need a (simple) mod with the adjusted xml file.

So how do we feel about this?
if we do it this way we'll need a proper name for this level.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

That's a very good idea. Doesn't this give problems with downloading the start though? Changing the XML is in fact making a minimod and i wonder if the game'll ask for this mod. However if i change the xml in the game directory then produce the start it's just a start with an extra settler so other's probably won't have a problem right? It would be even better to set research speed (and some other factors) to 0.7 it's 0.8 for immortal, 0.6 for deity iirc. However i don't know if the game reads this parameters when starting in which case it would be easy to manufacture a full blown immortal+ start or every turn in which case everyone'd need a (simple) mod with the adjusted xml file.

So how do we feel about this?
if we do it this way we'll need a proper name for this level.

My experience with XML edits: do it with care. It'd prolly have to be a "minimod" as you say.

Except that if we make the map a scenario file, the person making it can just...um...give them an extra settler, either through the worldbuilder or even just notepad as a defined starting unit. Find/replace could pull something like that easily - no xml changes required.

Edit: now that I look at it, this could very well be what he was suggesting...

 

[Gliese 581]

I wouldn't mind it as I'm winning a majority of my immortal games now and quite consistently with the best leaders.

 

[DanF5771]

IIUC the 2-Settler change would only require replacing the current value of 0 with 1 for iAIStartingUnitMultiplier temporarily in the CIV4HandicapInfo.xml for one person to create the 4000BC start save - then it's a normal save which everybody can load without any need to change their xmls as well. No work in World Builder or editing of scenario files necessary.

Adjusting other values like iResearchPercent would require a mini mod that everybody has to use since these things are not stored in the save while in effect throughout the whole game. But I think the additional Settler should provide quite a challenge. Another easy increase in difficulty would be to give the AI more starting techs like Mathematics.

 

[Dirk1302]

I think you're correct in this, pity really since i don't think the game really has to read this handicap values every turn, then again maybe storing these data in the saves makes them unneccessarily big which is important with un/uploading.

Indeed giving the ai an extra settler and maybe an extra worker will make immortal more challenging. I'll try in the near future to feel how it plays.

In the meantime the idea of playing a game boxed in by unfriendly ais is appealing too. I've done this long ago on warlords in a thread ABigCivFan started, that was an easy game afterall but we found copper then in BFC,it'll probably much harder without copper.

As TMIT says we'll have to agree on ais i'm ok with silverbullets selection. As definitive selection i propose Ghenghis (i hate him the most), Shaka (meaner than Monty, more units and difficult to please),Cathy,Gilga,Zara,Sulei. As our seventh opponent i propose Joao, he's dangerous late game in space races, imo much more so than the likes of MM, Pacal since he rexes well and often manages to stay alive in the early game. Ghenghis or Shaka must border us (both?).

If we're ok on this selection TMIT can produce a map, thx in advance.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

To be sure I'm clear on this before I make it:

Our leader would be, say, Churchill. We have 8 AIs, and start next to two mean ones on a pangaea. I delete any horse or copper within range for the human. I use the AIs in the post by Dirk above, except remove Sully to add napoleon, and play Pacal as the 8th. I wonder though - might we actually want a power techer? These guys aren't really other than pacal. We can swap Zara with HC possibly.

I'm debating placement of AIs that will cause troublesome religion spread - as a mapmaker I can make it so that the player is surrounded by different religions, although that may be a bit much . Edit to clarify: certain leaders are more likely to found religions. Merely by making ais that found religion far away from each other vs close, the game is more likely to have blocs. I wasn't suggesting actually handing AIs religion at the start. Although one AI could conceivably found multiple religions and spread a different one by accident (not that uncommon), making it likely that differing religious blocks sandwich the player would certainly be challenging, and this can be done by merely locating certain AIs properly. I think I'll take a "surprise" approach with this element, depending on how the map I ultimately select looks .

Other than that, just swap startling locations to get placement right, correct? No extra settlers for this one? XML tweaks aside, since we're not changing difficulties I don't have to clean units. I could just plop a settler down for every single AI lol - I can't see how there's any real work involved for that...but that's a no go for this one correct?

Who should I PM the worldbuilder zip to once I have it?

 

[Dirk1302]

I'm basically ok with this,

- Leader Churchill, good choice for what we're about to do.
- No extra settlers for this one
- No Horse No copper within reach
- 2 top aggressive civs nearby
- Random on iron
- I'd leave things like religion etc random. otherwise it gets too predictable.

- I don't mind swapping Sulei for Nap, i personally think Huyna and certainly PacalII are rather weak ais, so i'd leave the very strong Zara in, for the 8th ai a punchbag like Pacal could be fun, Joao is stronger i think but the game seems difficult enough as it is and one pure techer and non expander like Pacal adds flavor. In my game in this thread btw Huyna and Joao had similar empires and Joao was the better techer by far.

Most important is the aggressive civs nearby. So i'd say go with the core, Ghenhgis,Shaka,Cathy,Gilga, and some of the other suggestions or surprise us with some other leaders you think are tough.

You can PM save to me. I'll post the start soon since i've got some more time on my hands lately. Thinking about it it promises to be a really difficult game unless they don't declare on us for some reason, even then we will probably have been very cautious with rexing so there might be trouble in this case too.

 

[Gliese 581]

How about Wang Kon or Hammurabi as techers? They are both hard to attack early so they could hold their own long enough to get a tech lead.

 

[Dirk1302]

Wang Kon is a reasonable techer, Hammurabi is always behind for some reason in my games, too much emphasis on culture i think.

 

[Berkobob]

Finally finished backtracking through these (quite an excellent collection of games IMO)

The only games I won were the Sury and Genghis games (Lost two other space races by less than 5 turns) Clearly I am not an immortal level player.... yet.

Here are saves from 1AD and 500AD. I got Liberalism and Rifling first on my original playthrough, but could not convert this into an advantage.

After losing from this position, I tried a number of methods to win after the 500AD save but I ended up getting frustrated. (I deleted later saves in a bout of petulance - fortunately I saved these two in a different folder).

I generally don't like replaying/restarting games but I feel that this is one of the easier games in this series and that I can win this. I might try again from 4000 BC at a later date.

Is the game winnable from either of these saves? I am pretty sure it is but I would like some feedback on what I could do better.

 

[Dirk1302]

Looked at your 500 AD save, your position is fine imo. I compared with my own save from 520 AD, i noticed that research wise there's not much difference you have a bit more than i have 500 AD. I'm a bit ahead settling the island and i took care to build cities near my capital so they could help working all the cottages there.I also have the double clam city founded already, this spot is important for GT and possibly also NE later.

I don't know what happened after, position is such that you need a plan from here. In my case that was getting oxford as early as possible, get GT up in double clam city (i'm already building theaters in this save to prepare for this), draft and build an army. Go to war with someone. Tech to space after.

Alternatively the island is probably good enough to tech to space without war, you'll have to settle every reasonable spot pretty soon in this case so your cities'll have time to mature (and the cottages around them). I was forced into SP later since maintenance would have been too high otherwise. If you stay on your island though i'd do my best to found sushi and mining. It may be a bit difficult to find resources but you can probably buy some more from ai. War is the better shot though imo.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7327536&postcount=28

 

[Berkobob]

Well, I planned to war Hannibal with Rifles after this save.

Ended up building double clam city next, built Moai there. GT city was 2x fish/Sheep/Horse city near capital.

I had problems with getting Universities built - all sites bar capital were horrible at producing.

I used Pacifism/caste after getting Philo but I think this was a mistake as I only got two GS - I really only think I need one for the academy. The anarchy cost me quite a bit.

I did start a war on Hannibal with a tech advantage, however he had tons of units (even though he was fighting Washington AND Elizabeth - by the time I half conquered him everyone else had Infantry!)

I reloaded from a 1400ish save tried a few quick wars against Washington and Montezuma , neither of whom had Rifles either, but I ended up with the same result, killing a bunch of outdated defenders without capturing any cities.

I think I was too slow in getting GT up and drafting rifles, I had time to tech Steel and upgrade about 12 trebs while waiting to get enough rifles (~10)

The GT is something that I have not used much in games, probably because I already have a large production base and don't notice those extra troops are missing.

Monty also settled my island after being vassalized which suggests to me I was too slow in taking the northern tip of my island.

I will try again from the 500 AD save at a later date. Probably squeeze in Drama and build Theaters ASAP.

Thanks for the comments.