Immortal University XIX - Bismark

[zizzeus]

1500BC-155BC

Spoiler :

I continued to expand, keeping troops near the southern barb city. Joao gave me a hand in busting the archers, and I nabbed it from him, although it's 1E of where I would have settled it myself. Ditto with the barbs on the east coast. It looks like I'll squeeze in 4 cities along the coast instead of three.

This barb worker tried to take refuge in my borders when Joao took a city. No dice!


I got GLib easily in the cap to go with the 'mids. Mansa demanded aesthetics as soon as I got it, before I had traded it for alphabet to him. I refused, as it's easy to trade with this guy even if he's pissed, and he's too far away for a DOW.

I made this trade with Stalin: I think it was worth it - he can't cap Mansa without feudalism, and Mansa tech and score are better so he may just hold his own. It might backfire on me, but if it doesn't it'll slow these guys down while I backstab Joao a little later. I didn't make any other trades. I'm holding currency, waiting to get both MC and const. with it.



GE popped despite some scientist help along the way, so I rushed Parthenon in Hamburg near Joao's border. I wouldn't take this wonder if I were philosophical, but it's a nice boost for Bismarck. Now, I should take over his sheep pretty easily. I stopped at 155BC because a GSci popped - I'll be getting them every 10 turns or so now, and I need to decide what to do with him.

Academy in the capital seems logical. Will certainly need one eventually.

Philosophy bulb is open, and no one has it yet. Someone on the other continent took Confu, which is good because they had only buddhism until then. With two religions, there's a chance of strife. With three+, I have to worry about culture. I'm thinking of taking this option now - it will give me at least 3 religions this game, and with 9 cities culture would be quite simple.

Of course there is settling, which was my original plan (9 beakers and a hammer each!)

GA seems the worst of the options, although I do need a civic change into pacifism/caste/bureau shortly. On Epic, there's no use in delaying a civic change to wait for another one.

Any thoughts? Should I go pacifism/caste and farm great people? Or OR and slavery and whip out those courthouses? Should I war with Joao - elephants and cats, or wait until renaissance, or not at all and go culture/space? This game has so many options!

Empire:


SSE-wonder cap:


Future HE + IW city, now GP farm:


Cottage Spam:


Not sure yet, probably GP for now:


Future drafting site, workers improving the land now


One other city near Joao's border as well.

Tech situation:


The save:
View attachment Immortal Student Zizzeus BC-0155.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[JBossch]

To 540AD:

Spoiler :

I didn't keep very good notes so this will be a brief report.
I have 9 cities and space for 5 more in 540AD. The tech pace has been really slow. I managed to get SoZ, The Parth, and GLib, all well into the ADs. Joao DoWed me around 650BC but he was easy to fend off. He remained more interested in chasing barbs. I settled the silk/2gems spot along the river, which ended up a little surrounded by Joao but it will be no problem when I attack him. The capital is just amazing and my cottages are starting to stabilize my economy. I will go for Lib, probably as part of a push for cannons for a war against Joao, who is slipping a bit on tech. MM is a good friend and Stalin has been keeping him busy. Stalin founded Buddhism while everyone else is Hindu so he is hated. I am a bit worried about the other continent running away but my ability to grab wonders so late must mean they are struggling too. We will see...

My northern gems city:

Hard to lose with this capital:

 

[KingMorgan]

Immortal/Normal to 50AD

Spoiler :

Just a wild guess, but i'm betting AI didn;t start with all it's techs?

Easy REX for me, cottage spam mainly, conti is Hindu so no issues there. Stalin and Mansa are a having a bit of a rumble, Aplha has just been discover, i have Asth to trade. No big issues, was little low on workers, but as you can see took a size 6 barb city with 4 workers, so that saves a few hammers
Missed all the wonders i wanted - not that it is a bad thing, will head to Lib and then see what can be taken, hopefully take steel and take the continent with cannon. Will have to see, need to start scouting as well, put those open borders to good use. Stalin had the Mids (the cheek) so he's first in line.

El North

 

[Tempesta13]

Immortal/Normal to 1 AD

Spoiler :

Settled 1W which seemed obvious for the irrigated corn. Went for archery/pottery before BW since i felt i didn't need early axes and had land to settle - worked out well i think with the early cottages. Went for alphabet even though i know aesthetics is a safer bet on immortal - only did this due to gold and i think it worked. I got IW and fishing from alphabet. Got Math from Aesthetics. Got code of laws first, founded confucianism, and traded it for Monarchy in 125 BC. Don't really have a plan now - maybe get Joao friendly and attack Mansa and Stalin in the Renaissance? My axes are going to raze that barb city in the SE in 6 or 7 turns (i think they are in my capital now heading over there.) If there's seafood that might change my city placement down there.

Bad:
1. Figured Joao wouldn't settle that desert since there was no resources - but he did. Settled on the iron that appeared later. Don't really like him having a city right next to my capital in the middle of my empire.

2. The barb city Harrapan was only guarded by warriors - Mansa took it around 1600 BC.

3. Joao settled next to the gems (Faro) in the NW and took them from my city after a while since they were in his 1st ring and my 2nd ring.

4. Despite all 3 AI's being Hindu i STILL haven't had it spread into my cities. Diplo would be much easier when this happens.

5. Kept the barb city in the NE - but it missed the 2nd fish. Should have razed and re-settled.

6. Relatively late monarchy (125 BC) and losing gems to Joao's culture kept my cities from growing. With ivory/monarchy now they can start growing.

7. Mansa got literature so i won't try for TGL even though i will have marble soon.

8. Need to scout more - judging by score Mansa is small since he has lots of techs but low score - stalin is probably small too. Joao might have a lot of land because his score is really high but he's only 2 techs ahead of me. Need to build a couple scouts and check it out instead of guessing though.

9. Got academy up using 1st GP - but 2nd one is 33 turns away. I switched to caste and in a few turns that city that's running 2 scientists now can run 3 and i think 4 later so i can probably speed that up. I didn't plan this very well - should have done philosophy bulb right around now.

Good:
1. Stalin is very backwards and declared war on Mansa. As long as he can hold his own against him it should slow MM down.

2. Joao is pleased because of HR. Mansa is easy to get pleased. Once i get religion they should both be friendly.

3. Still got 8 cities at 1 AD and economy never crashed (thanks to gold probably). Room for 1 more good one and 2 more bad ones (for crab and silver).

4. Tech isn't that bad - way ahead of stalin, 2 behind Joao and 5 behind Mansa but i have code of laws on him. Teching drama now for trading (not sure if this is a good move or not).

 

[Lansky]

Immortal/Normal to 1AD

Spoiler :

Oh man, so much nicer than that last one. Normally I'd hate starting next to Joao but it just doesn't seem that bad now. Settled where the scout started 1E of the corn. Build order was Worker, Warrior, GW, Settlers/Archers. Decided to tech Masonry for the GW after AG due to all the tundra and jungle. After that it was a bit scatter brained. Went up Wheel-Pottery-Writing-Alpha then traded around. Did not get much in the way of techs but I paid off Stalin to convert from Hinduism to Judaism and bribed Mansa to do the opposite. Joao and Stalin now absolutely hate Mansa so tech in my game seems to be slightly slower than some others I peaked in at. I'm about to get Lit but the turn before The Great Library was already built on the other continent so now I need to trade around Aes and get Monarchy so I can grow out the cities along with more workers. I'm horribly worker deficient atm. Just finally roaded up most of the resources/cities in the last 10 turns. Had Currency before most cities even had one trade route... whoops. Will also likely tech/trade Calendar before heading towards Lib for the extra food/commerce from the jungle cities.


As a final note you can see city ruins to the SE of Berlin. Joao actually snuck a settler between Frankfurt and Munich (won't be a complete seal until 2nd border pop) but there are quite a few barbs down there that I never dealt with. Joao has killed off some but there are at least still 2 axes and an archer down there. Joao only escorted his Settler with oen axe and actually had his city razed after a few turns. Totally worth getting a GSpy as my first gp

 

[Fluxx]

ok, reached Lib first now, 1230 AD.
3th in power rating, of which 1th is Joao. I will probably declare war on him now or within 10 turns because I mustered up 2 big armies in the meanwhile that can take his 2 main commerce cities instantly and his empire will surely crumble.

Joao down will mean me getting the continent, because my 15+ cottage cities can start kicking in under freedom of speech.

Hopefully game will be in the pocket, and it will be my first immortal win

Spoiler :

 

[mzprox]

I've won a warless game in 1868, space race.

Spoiler :

Actually there was a short war between me and Stalin, I took one city because he settled a spot which i wanted. Other than that it was just a tech race between me and the Joao&Mansa duo (latter was the vassal of the former). The other continent was backward.
In the beginning i went for the pyramids, then settled along the river and later the coast. It was more than enough cities for me and more than i used to get in immortal games.
In my last few games i have learned a lot about spying: even a small country is capable to generate 4-600 spypoints/turn at 0% spying slider. I was in slavery thru most of the game and builded every spy building everywhere. After i got liberalism the others totally neglected that tech and i hadnt traded with them-so they hadnt had communism nor freespeech civic. probably this saved me an intervention against Mansa who went for cultural win, but i was faster with my ship.
In the end spies become really annoying, they managed to destroy a few sship parts..

 

[zizzeus]

to 1000AD

Spoiler :

I've got one turn left on liberalism, have teched PP and part of replaceable parts. I managed to trade for everything else up to gunpowder, which mansa is teching right now - without trading either philo or education! I'm sure I can get rifling, although I'd like to make contact with the other continent just to make sure Gandhi isn't there. I was hoping someone would tech optics for me but I might have to do it myself. If I make contact before the rifling bulb, I may consider shooting for Assembly Line although Mansa will probably vassalize by then, and I'd like to cap Joao before that happens.



Taj is due in capital (I made a detour for nationalism) in one turn, and I've already queued up some units for the switch out of pacifism into theo. I have a great merchant due in 2 turns, and may make the detour to economics for the other one. That will pay for upgrading CRII maces to rifles, and trebs to cannons when the time comes. The SSE is outstanding on this map. I have gotten the following wonders:
Pyramids
Parthenon (GE)
GLib
Sankore
Shwedagon Paya
Sistine
Angkor Wat (GE)
Taj (in one turn)

most are in the capital, although the artist ones are in my border city with Joao.





NE is up and running, and universities 5 and 6 are being built now, finished in 8-9 turns with some chops. Next are theatres for the globe, with trees being pre-chopped for that. The switch out of bureaucracy will hurt, but I'll be able to draft up an army quite quickly while building trebs. My happy cap is enormous so I'll be able to draft everywhere.





I've been trading surplus resources for cash to Joao and Mansa, trying to keep him balanced in his war with Stalin. So far, no cities have changed hands which is good.

The only bad thing is that I haven't unlocked the Heroic Epic yet. My power is quite low, but it's not too big of a risk on this map, and power can change quickly after the draft.

Other cities (there is also a marble colony):









The save:

View attachment Immortal Student Zizzeus AD-1000.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Ai Shizuka]

0-2 at Immortal so far. Let's see what happens here.

Imm/epic, to Liberalism:

Spoiler :

Settled 1 W, early tech path was: agri - ah - masonry - bw - mysticism - wheel - pottery - writing

Great Wall 2200 BC, Great Library 55 AD.
Didn't kill myself with extreme REX, but still sealed a nice chunk of the continent for myself. 8 good cities, 2 down on the ice to claim resources.
I adopted Judaism to avoid trouble with Joao and Stalin. Mansa went Hindu and got declared twice by Stalin. Then he capitulated to Joao.

Wonders:

1st GS academy, GSpy settled, GS bulb Philo, GS bulb Edu, GS golden age.

First to Lib, beating Joao by 2 turns:

Empire, golden age to speed up the Taj and double it:

Capital. Cottages are lagging behind, but I was running 2-3 scientists most of the time:

Techs:

Diplo:

Not sure about the plan. Probably cannons vs stalin and later infantry/artillery rushbuy vs Joao. He's big and teching well, but doesn't build a lot of units.

 

[Tempesta13]

Immortal/Normal Part II to 1460 AD

Spoiler :

My bad GP farming cost me lib - didn't bulb philosophy until around 300 AD so i teched gunpowder while waiting for the GS to bulb 1/2 of education. Joao beats me to it by 3 turns.

I am doing very good even without getting lib however. MM and Joao had chemistry, nationalism and astronomy which would have been my preferred lib targets anyway. Still would have been nice to get something for free though but it wasn't the end of the world.

I got the museum awhile back and still haven't run my 1 GP golden age. Just popped this merchant same turn as i got rifling. A few turns back i got steel and have maybe 5 cannons. I have 4-5 cities that can build a cannon in a few turns right now. I still haven't done a religious civic switch, or free market (just traded for economics) so i'm really thinking about starting my 12 turn golden age, switching civics (which would include nationalism for drafting) and keep building cannons. In those 12 turns i could get 15 or so cannons probably (more if i use the whip) and i could draft probably 30 rifles. I don't have globe up however, but will finish my 6th theater in a couple turns so i could probably build it somewhere fast during the golden age. Only problem is i don't want to put it in a great production city and draft it down to 6 pop.

Another question i have is whether to go to free speech now or not during my big civics switch. Not sure how many towns it takes to be worth it. Anyone have a good rule of thumb they go by for this? Like X amount of towns outside capital?

Joao has more units than Mansa (my power is .3 Joao, .4 of mansa). Mansa has stalin as a vassal. They have grenadiers but neither have rifling yet. MM doesn't even have replaceable parts. Hammy and Bull are very backwards but i'm tempted to attack Joao or Mansa instead and save them for later. I can probably attack in 15 turns with 20 cannons and 30 rifles at least. No one has steel either yet but they could tech it. I really didn't think i'd be able to get this advantage on immortal but the land was good enough for me to do it. Whichever i don't attack will likely get far ahead of me on tech, but the land i'll get should allow me to compete later with them. Willem is also going to get way ahead as well. So anyway, i think i'm going to just run the golden age, switch civics, build/draft as many cannons/rifles as i possibly can in the next 15-20 turns, and attack whoever looks easier at that point. If the war fails i lose the game, but i don't think i can compete later in the game on immortal if i don't go for it. So unless someone talks me out of it that's the plan. I have a couple explorers running around i think, checking their stacks might help choose the target. This position is good enough to win on emperor, but i'm a little worried about facing more units here. Also if they both get steel and rifling in the next 15 turns i lose my advantage. Another problem is the AP is built in our religion so it could end a war before i take more than a couple cities. Maybe i can time my attack to come right after a vote pops up?

 

[Lansky]

Immortal/Normal
1830 Religious

Spoiler :

Well first thing was first – Mansa was progressing far too quickly and could have become a pain in the ass. Thankfully Joao had declared on him, but was unable to do much. So I decided he could use some more stuff to deal with. Ender good ole Stalin.

I suppose because of all the warring Mansa did not get around to building a lot of his normal wonders, mainly the AP along with the other two religious world wonders. Judaism had spread almost over my entire empire so it was a very nice boost. I wanted to get Steel from Lib but Joao was very close in heel. Ultimately managed to get Steel but had to burn two GS’s on Chemistry to make it in time.

Took Mansa and his 4 Holy Cities (3 Shrines) in quick order as longbows are great but Cannons still ruin them. After the war is over and I’m reconsolidating the troops trying to decide to take out Stalin or Joao next something quite unexpected happens. Joao voluntarily capitulates.

His army is small but very current and he actually proves to be a valuable ally against Stalin who’s Cossacks are actually a huge pain in the ass. Stalin actually kills more troops than I do, however I out produce him by a lot and just swarm him. Moscow falls and Stalin throws in the towel.

I begin to mobilize again and aim at Willem who is well on his way to a culture win at this point. The AP resident vote pops up soon after and I decide to try and circumvent having to build 30+ galleons just to move my army – freaking hate overseas fights. Send out a few Galleons to each AI on the other continent, but I still can’t win quite yet and have to spread more to Joao as well so the vote will actually be available. I miss one round but the second time is a charm.

End game Tech and Demographics. Willem and Joao were the tech leaders but I had everyone just slightly dominated in production. The area is very river heavy and State Property, Replaceable Parts. and Electricity make watermills so amazing. I actually bulldozed over Towns in this game to put more down.

 

[Gliese 581]

Deity Normal with archery added for barbs, 1AD:

Spoiler :

I settled 1W after the scout found nothing of interest to the NE.
This game saw alot of barb activity, I tried to spawnbust but it's hard when the barbs come from all directions as in this case. The derth of jungle in the immediate vicinity helped a bit though as did the early access to copper.
The gold mine was pillaged once and I had to spend alot of time and hammers on units but overall I fended off the attacks decently.

The teching went: Ag, AH, BW, Archery, Mysticism, TW, Pottery, Fishing, Sailing, Writing, Aesthetics then trade for stuff and on to Lit for the GL.

I don't usually go for Archery as late as 4th tech on deity but with the gold and all riverside tiles I had enough research to speed through it.
Early focus was on working FP cottages and to expand and block a good chunk of the good land from Joao.

Early shot of capital (first expansion went west 1S of copper). This picture is so beautiful it makes me want to cry, that is a no overflow production of worker.

Expansion continued to the north. My 4th city I placed in a suboptimal location because as you can see Joao was already there with a settler and I didn't want him to slip through my culture. Looking at the scorecard you can see that there are alot of aggression going on. Joao dowed MM in 1520 bc and Stalin joined in in 650 bc.

I hesitated on giving Joao both of the prereqs for Lit but I felt I had the advantage with the industrous trait and focused chopping and my research was good enough that I would get to Lit in a reasonable time.

Expansion continued.

With 1 turn left on the GL I traded with MM. He had made peace with Joao at this time but in any case it's my experience that you usually get away with early tech trades without demerits and if you do get a demerit they quickly disappear in the rapid succession of turns in the early part of a game. As you can see Joao was WHEOOHRN again, guess who's the target?

Yep.

I had a 4 turn warning which turned out to be just enough with some incredible luck, check this combat log. My force of 1 axeman, 1 spearman and 1 warrior, all but the warrior unpromoted, fought off 6 chariots, 1 axe and 1 spear with the warrior at a few hp left standing as the smoke cleared. Reinforcements arrived the next turn to hold the city.

The turn after my first GG and first GS was born, the GG was settled in Berlin and the GS sent there to construct an academy.

End of round shots:

Demographics looking excellent, 2nd in BNP and 3rd in land. Joao is 5 turns from War Elephants though.

The land. I tried to keep a unit at the barb city location to claim the ivory, sugar and double fish there but I was constantly diverted to defend my own territory so unfortunately a city popped up. However as a beneficial consequence of this I had a small army, that was preparing to take the city, ready when Joao went into WHEOOHRN which might well have saved me from losing cities in the initial assault (he attacked in both the north and the south).

I'm thinking of getting the HE up in Berlin, not something I usually build in the capital and a drawback in later stages but it could be really helpful if the war drags on. Even if there will be religion and civic bonuses to potentially take care of Joao diplomatically there's the hard-to-please Stalin as well.
I'm close to getting Currency which I hope to trade for Construction with Mansa. I'll also attempt to get HBR by trade or teching and to trade for Mansa's spare ivory/get my own ivory from the barbs asap to challenge the War Elephants Joao will be sending shortly.
I can't see me pushing the offensive until such a time should this turn out to be a prolonged war.

It seems my 2048x1152 resolution is not kind on the eyes when I try to post screenshots uploaded to photobucket, it's very hard to read information in their smaller size here on civfanatics. Does anyone have any suggestion on how to remedy that? I'm not too good with these things..

 

[Shurdus]

There is one question concerning the rules of the Immortal University threads I have.

This weekend I thought I'd have a go at this game and I did rather well. However this attempt was at the laptop of my girlfriend and now I forgot to mail myself the saved game. SO there is nothing to it but to start over again. If I have another go at this, will that be acceptable or will it be considered a 2nd attempt and frowned upon? If it matters anything, I was doing rather well for myself, took a barb city or two in key locations and would probably do worse the second go.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Second or 50th attempts are fine from the start, so go ahead. The only thing that sucks is the frustration involved for you. You can make as many attempts at any IU game as you can tolerate, this isn't HoF or XOTM .

 

[JBossch]

Question about barbs and starting techs:

Are the barbs different from normal Immortal games here? I played immortal and the barbs cities were mostly normal (4 archers) although a couple had just a warrior. Some are talking about them not having archery but most of the spots I saw were filled with archers. Also, they behaved somewhat strangely, sometimes leaving cities in groups of two archers to raid my territory, never really seen that before.

Also, do the AIs start nerfed on tech? I teched Aesthetics only to get stuck for years waiting for the AIs to research Alpha. I eventually had to research it myself wasting tons of time.

 

[zizzeus]

I agree, these AIs are teching pretty slowly for Immortal, although Mansa teched Alphabet in my game shortly after I had aesthetics. They also didn't go down the compass/optics route, which they usually do. I was first to compass AND music, and traded them both around for the things I usually have to give up philosophy for. It's 1000AD, and nobody has optics yet. Stalin doesn't even have Metal Casting!

I'm just hoping there's no Gandhi or Willem on the other continent, because I'm planning to delay liberalism for awhile.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's a scenario file, but the AIs retain all their starting units AND all their techs, since I based the original game off immortal. The only variance should be that the barbs don't start with archery unless you worldbuilder that in. Note that since all the AIs have archery anyway, the barbs will get it quickly either way, but it makes the early game slightly easier to not WB them in.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

IMM/Normal to ~ 1500 AD

Spoiler :

Keep settling...

I took this by accident but I'll post it, just as an intermediate picture:

I finally make a passing use of GPP, though I did bulb philosophy with an earlier guy too.

I win lib even with the mass rex

I get prompted to build up military:

And do so:

Annoyingly, he just got rifling. In order to preserve my cannons and potentially diplo, I'm going to keep teching for infantry/arty while massing troops. My production is weak since I have tons of cottage cities. Once I get IW up (somehow, the warrior fogbust was effective enough to block heroic epic ) and a tech lead I'll do better though. Joao and MM are ahead of me in tech, but the others are far behind. Even if I take out Stalin first, I'll still have time to wipe out another AI on the other side of the world infantry/arty vs rifles.

Since Joao/MM are ahead of me the plan is to vassal stalin (can't hold his cities w/ the culture), make sure he stays buddhist, then go vassal everyone else...converting them to buddhism as necessary. Then ideally someone other than Joao or me can build the UN and I'll win, but I could also just vassal EVERYONE but Joao and that would supply the votes.

I think my tech rate is good enough for this.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

I'm new to Immortal, so I don't know the usual dates, but I got Lib at 1070 and

Spoiler :

Joao

2 turns later.

On the other hand:

Spoiler :

Stalin was teching pretty horribly. No CoL and Paper at 1000 AD but for some reason he never techs well in my games.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Third game is a charm.
Oh wait, it's not. But looking better.

Spoiler :

Round starts with the Taj:

1305 - Stalin declares:

1310 - And my pal Joao calls AP peace:

1440 - Stalin declares vs Joao+Mansa.

1450 - Cannons are ready, so I dogpile:

1530 - 4 cities captured by me, 0 by Joao and Stalin capitulates. To Joao, off course. Nothing to bribe him off and Stalin doesn't cap to me.

1760 - Joao+vassals declare vs Will+SB, screwing me again. Will was my target.

1770 - And AP forces war vs Will, so I'm dragged in.

1806 - First stack landing:

1808 - Ham declares vs me, but my second stack can easily defend with railroads:

1818 - SB breaks free and Will caps to Joao. I managed to capture 2 coastal cities.

1820 - SB capitulates to Joao as well and UN forces peace with Hamm. So everyone is at peace now.

1822 - Mansa breaks free, but I can't declare vs him. No more religion bonus with Joao and he'd become cautious if I declare on Mansa. Not mentioning Hammurabi. I'd end dogpiled by the world via war bribes.

Mansa is going for culture, Joao for space, but I manage to slow them both with spies.
Then industrialism reveals I don't have Al, so I retire.


Basically Joao screwed my plans all along. First he vassaled Stalin, wich was an easy target. Then he declared vs Will, beating me there as well.

Should've gone for a deep beeline to the Interwebs right after the war vs Stalin and then space, trading something to Mansa for Al. Instead I turned off the slider for a while to rushbuy an army of infantry/artillery for Will, only to see him vassalize to Joao again.

Hardest jump so far. Monarch-Emperor was nothing compared to this.