Immortal University XVIII

[zizzeus]

I'll give it a try tomorrow, have won my last two Immortal games. I'm excited to see what all the difficulty is!

 

[Skurn]

IMM / normal, 1AD

Spoiler :

Settled SE

AH > mining > BW > archery > Writing > Myst > Alpha (750BC) > IW > Monarchy > COL
I got wheel and pottery through trade, so I started cottaging late.

Settled 2nd city east, 3rd city SSE, 4th city SE to block Charly, but I'm under big cultural pressure : Charly founded buddhism, he has SH, GW and Mahabodi in his cap.

1st GS in 850BC => Academy in Ulundi
2nd GS in 25 BC => settled in Ulundi

North half :


South half :


I put a 5th city by the fish, and I have room for 2 more.
Notice the small mongolian stack on the 2nd screenshot. KK has enough on his hands. I think he's coming after me though he's pleased with me and Charly (everybody is buddhist). That's why I'm queuing 4 impis, I plan to whip them next turn.

Overall I'm not in good position. No copper, horse in Charly culture so no horse. I will need KK help or a tech advantage to take Charly. And I don't trust KK, I'm sure he's after me!

 

[Sleepless]

Immortal/Normal - 1600 AD ish

Spoiler :

Decided to abandon my first attempt. Managed to get rifling/cannons even with my very poor tech rate. Then unsurprisingly Cathie with vassals decided to attack just as I was about to go for Charlie. I had signed a dp pact with KK before I swapped out of Burea to Nat (thought she might attack). So it was me and KK who had a lot of military against the world. So with no chance of attacking Charlie to get the much needed land I gave up.

Second Attempt Immortal/Normal - 150AD ish

Spoiler :

I've tried a different tack this time. I think I'll still need to tackle Charlie along the way but I'm planning on drafting rifles or a mace/cannon attack. Probably the latter. So I settled 1SE again. I've built the GLib and SH in the capital and I'll try the bulb to Lib route and see how that goes. Can't be any worse than the previous attempt. Tech wise I'm on my way to CS. About 1200 years earlier then the previos attempt.

 

[Fluxx]

Probably the only way to tackle this is getting IW ASAP, and get a good city placement with the iron.

After that focus on Charlemagne, and kill him asap. Get like 3 cities, 2 production, 1 commerce, and mass outproduce charle and rush him.

If that cant work, you wont win the map

 

[PaulisKhan]

Probably the only way to tackle this is getting IW ASAP, and get a good city placement with the iron.

After that focus on Charlemagne, and kill him asap. Get like 3 cities, 2 production, 1 commerce, and mass outproduce charle and rush him.

If that cant work, you wont win the map

Spoiler :

This is exactly what I did, I had secured all that good jungle grassland in the middle and cottaged it heavily after knocking him out of the game (he vassaled to KK with two cities left) but KK decided to be a pain in the butt and come for me. Maybe in another life I might have got him to friendly a turn or two earlier and saved myself but it wasn't that enjoyable attacking protective archers on hills with swords, I might come back later and try again though.
As a strategy it works, the execution was just slightly off. Cathy can still potentially be a major problem though.

 

[GenerallyGreat]

I decided to give this a go on Imortal/epic as I'd never been Shaka before.

Spoiler :

This will be pretty minimal as I haven't figured out how to do screen shots etc yet. Anyway I got ambushed by barbs buidling my third city so I was near ruined from the start, in the end I managed to get another settler out and took it all the way down to the copper in the jungle for my third city before the AI totally took over the area, I later founded a junk city for a total of 4. Basically I've spent my whole game trying to get my neighbours to war but we are a harmonious hindu bunch. I've kept pace with techs and have Cannons and rifles ready to finally take a shot at Charlie but I doubt this one is winnable.

 

[ungy]

Just a suggestion for all participants: I think posting up earlier saves and thoughts is a good idea.

to 1160 BC:

Spoiler :

I settle 1SE to put the pigs in the BFC. If necessary they can be shared later. Despite the great capital, this one is obviously tough. I hurry down to contest the corn/horse (Charlie had already settled there but 2 away). City 3 goes in between sharing the pigs to block. I have to research myst to hurry out monuments but I have the land blocked off--although I'm blocked at the SE.
Charlie founds Buddhism and my top priority is to get him pleased. I'm assuming there's iron in my lands but if I get attacked before then it's game over.
I considered rush possibilities but a chariot rush against protective AI w/culture seemed dubious and researching IW just didn't seem realistic.
I can fit 7 cities in the lands here--although 2 are pretty weak.
Top priority is to get monarchy--lots of food but no happy to grow and atm nothing much to build. I'm thinking aesth-trade alpha+iw or monarchy+ IW but not sure. Then at least I can build research.
I get a random event that really helps--silver!


In fact that's so strong that I may play out 2 game from here--one editing it out.



Now KK is running 0EP against me--I'm thinking there's more AI here. Should know soon enough though.

 

[Fluxx]

Ya silver is so strong that it totally opens new options.

 

[JBossch]

To 700BC:

Spoiler :

I got DoWed by KK in about 700BC. I had expanded really well and controlled nearly the whole river including the sugar and gems and I was in the process of recovering my economy. I had tons of workers because I hadn't had anything else to build for so long. Not sure what I could have done to stop this since I had no ability to trade anything this early. I was surprised because we only shared a fairly small border. Anyway, all I had was warriors and so I was totally screwed. So much for busting myself down to immortal for a self-esteem. boost. Maybe I will try Bismarck....

Also, I don't think moving the capital 1SE is a good move. In place provides plenty of food and the second city really needs the pigs full time. Also, this denies a real nice 2fish spot just south of the capital which I was setting up as a GS farm.

 

[ungy]

JBosch

Spoiler :

I think the opening settler move was solid. Looking at the full map, maybe not. But with the knowledge we have, it looks like:
1) we may be moving from 2 away from the coast to 3 away--possibly opening up another city site
2) we get a 3rd big tile in the BFC. while that may need to be given to another city, we can pump out setters/workers with 3 of the biggest tiles in the game. That's pretty big initially (we don't know we're going to get so boxed in turn 1).
3)with 2 corn we may need hammers. we add hills to the BFC.

 

[ungy]

Probably the only way to tackle this is getting IW ASAP, and get a good city placement with the iron.

After that focus on Charlemagne, and kill him asap. Get like 3 cities, 2 production, 1 commerce, and mass outproduce charle and rush him.

If that cant work, you wont win the map

err have you looked into this more closely:

Spoiler :

you need IW+wheel at minimum. No pottery nerfs whipping--do you detour for that (you're expansive after all). Not much commerce so by the time you hook up iron (asssuming it's in the BFC--should be) you won't exactly be rushing.
Where do you settle--if you don't claim land first it will be lost by time you have IW?
If you claim a bunch of land IW is too slow.
Other potential problems--you'll be warring late enough that it's possible KK gets bribed in, Aachen may be on hill. If you're successful--then what? You'll have totally crashed the economy and you'll have knocked out your trading opportunities if KK is the only other AI

 

[Dirk1302]

To 1080 AD,

Spoiler :

Since there is a new one up already i won't go into too much detail. It was clear very early that Charles is very near. So i went bw first beginning with 2 workers chopping out a third immed. By 2000 BC i had chopped out 4 settlers. Just enough to hold Charles at bay by cutting him off at the gems sugar point. He was slow settling the pig/copper point subsequently too so i took that one too. Since the clam spot stayed open for some time and i had a spare settler i also settled that spot. reaching 6 cities at 1 AD. Maintenance wasn't really a problem, after BW i went wheel pottery and cottaged a lot of tiles early on. All these river cottages produce really soon. Went through the motions next, just finished oxford and took astro from lib. Caravel is almost ready after forge so i'll meet the other continent soon, hope they're not in merc .

Diplo wise i gifted alpha to Charles and Kublai since a dow from one of them seemed to be the only problem, i built some impis too since Kublai can still declare at pleased and if so he'll come with keshiks, not a good choice against impis.

I think this is a fairly average immortal map, it's not particularly harsh unless you stop early on to build a wonder losing a lot of land in the process. After scouting you see there's great land to grab in the south and that sugar/gems is a cut off point. Only 2 slow techers made trading a bit hard. i self researched everything except monarchy,construction and machinery iirc. Now i'll research PP first, this will help a lot for the empire. I'll trade for engineering, then i have to decide. i think i'might try a cav rush here maybe just plain old cannons. With all those rivers a dash for steampower, AL is also possible.

 

[shyuhe]

Diplo win in the 1900's

Spoiler :

I settled in place, went BW, then AH before going towards pottery. I got cutoff pretty badly by HRE because of a barb city near the sugar/gems area - I couldn't take it with my forces so the AI got that one and blocked me off. I ended up planting two far away cities - mostly to prevent HRE from getting the land instead of actually making money on them.

My empire around 175 AD:


Teching was super slow, but I have no borders with KK so it's highly unlikely he'll declare on me. He eventually declared on HRE and took two cities. I then dogpiled, but quickly bribed KK off after I saw his huge stack. He was still friendly with HRE after stopping the war so he wouldn't re-enter. I gradually finished off HRE with maces and trebs + later muskets and cannons.





I then hunkered down and was aiming for a diplo win. But the relations and pop counts didn't work out so I ended up going space. Cathy did not grow large in my game until the very end when there were a bunch of wars. I was friendly with HRE (until I backstabbed him), KK, and Cathy for a big part of the game. KK annoyingly nabbed a few modern wonders from me but I got the internet which sealed the SS win.

I think I had an easier time in my game because I founded Confucianism and Taoism on my continent, so the other one was less likely to engage in religious strife.

@Dirk

Spoiler :

Some of the overseas AI have the potential to grow huge in this game, which can complicate the endgame. It's partly luck driven unfortunately.

 

[Dirk1302]

@shyuhe,

Spoiler :

Ok, we'll see. But i must be able to take a lot of land myself too, i think i'll outtech my own continent heavily the next 30 turns. A quick push with cavs should be possible, well production is a bit of a problem i guess. Should get some workshops up.

 

[nanomage]

to 1105, immortal/marathon.

Spoiler :

took peace with charlie, giving away CS. I captured 3 of his cities and can do no more. Well, maybe later.
KK went WHEOOHRN (must be against charlie, he is friendly with me and hardly can decide to attack other continent w/o astronomy)
popped GS, bulbed philo and traded it to both KK and charlie (he's pleased back again)
swapped civics to rep/buro/cs/paci
Lib is lost

Soon met cathy from other continent

Half-researched half bulbed Edu, and

not too bad, and next GS in 19 turns.

half researched half bulbed PP, met Mao.

and this and trades with whoever i see brings me to




almost tech parity.
looks much better than my older report. i thught i've lost, but it's an illustration for "never surrender"
i plan cav or cuirassiers against charlie. should start when KK asks to join in.

 

[Dirk1302]

To 1812 AD, Didn't encounter any further problems,

Spoiler :

Teched to cav/rifles/cannons,could have taken on Charlie there and then. Decided to build some more units and upgrade cannons to artillery, makes the war less tedious to play with more and better units. Standard ~ 20 turns war against Charlie beginning 1550 AD with cavs/artillery, didn't have too much ww so i could just tech on at a decent rate with the culture slider between 10 and 20 on average. I always had at least 3 big techs on the others, for instance electricity/radio/industrialisation on all.

Game's almost over now, internet will be build in ~10 turns, it's just cruising from there, only problem could be a Kublai declaration but i have quite a lot of advanced units and i will always see it coming. He's pleased with me so a declaration is rather unlikely. Wonder if i can get teh ship going before 1900 AD, the others haven't helped me at all and there's still some techs to research. I could also win a domination from here by teching to some really modern stuff.

Cathy is rather big in my game and she'll become bigger after Pacal is taken out, she never really got going researchwise though, Kublai is relatively the most dangerous guy in my game really.

 

[Dirk1302]

From reading the spoilers, some tips:

Spoiler :

I firmly agree with Ungy that a sword rush is a bad idea, far too late. No fun to rush a protective leader who has high units production and has >= 40% culture defense in his cities by then. I think trying to rex to the south is best, it needs a bit of luck though. If Charlie is first on the gems sugar point you will be boxed in to some extent. In that case you may try a cat war, it'll go slowly but if executed right you will have a good chunk of land. Shyuhe played it this way.

I think best in this case is to build 6 cities (this must certainly be doable, build a crap one somewhere if you can't get 6 good ones). Focus on getting np up in the 2 fish city to get some bulbs to edu going. Don't delay drama to get theaters up. After edu is done whip unis asap and build oxford, should be possible to finish it 1000 AD in this case. Meanwhile switch your gp farm to building the GT, prebuild trebs in the other cities. I think you can hit with a drafted musket/cannon stack around 1200 AD which is early enough on our continent. It's a bit boring script play maybe but i'm sure it would be working on our slow teching continent.

 

[ungy]

up to 1625:

Spoiler :

having been boxed in with Charly getting the sugar/gems I gave up on the rush idea, founded 6 reasonable cities and a seventh at the whale/wines.
I had popped silver so the commerce/happy boost makes my situation not really comparable but I researched poorly--took the aesthetics path then no AI alpha forever...
Probably just as well I got boxed in--KK came after Charlie and if he'd have come for me it would have been ugly--he had huge stacks and I eventually had to offer him 2 techs for peace. I spread KK the faith, and after that it was all smiles on our continent--until my turn
I took astro from lib, and the other continent was pretty peaceful.
I ran to rifles/cannons and did the boring draft/cannon thing vs. KK. His SOD was on my border preventing a culture flip, and the first 2 turns of war he loses >50 units. His empire is large, and it's a slog (still going) but at this point I don't think I have anything to worry about. I think I lose about 7 or 8 units killing around 150 or so--despite having curaissers he never once attacks me.
Dunno if I finish this one either--I'm getting a little tired of the slaughter but he's got a lot left.

Dirk:

Spoiler :

I think this is a hard one. If you're able to escape being being boxed in you become a prime target for a pretty much unstoppable attack--reasonably likely before you get a chance to do anything about it. If you're boxed in there is not too much land.

 

[Dirk1302]

Ungy,

Spoiler :

A dow by KK can seemed to me the biggest problem in the game. Buddhism spread to me ~600 bc, gifted alpha to them some turns later and had both at pleased. KK can still dow you at pleased but there's a 90% chance the dow decision will be over ruled in this case.

But indeed before 600 bc there are considerable risks , Zulu's are well geared to deal with mongolian attacks though, in the king of the hill challenge i noticed that mongols attack almost exclusively with chariots/keshiks early (But maybe Dhengis just had no metal in that king of the hill game). Impis deal with those correctly so i built a few with 2 axes as backup in case he comes with some swords too. Later on KK has indeed lots of units, i had much better ones but dowing Charlie seemed considerably easier to do as KK had about twice as much units. KK was friendly then so no trouble.

I self researched alpha after accumulating gold waiting for the academy, i could reach it in 4 then and they still didn't have it.

Just looked at your save, you'll win it easily from there.

 

[Skurn]

1AD => 1000AD

Spoiler :

KK dowed me as I more or less suspected.
I had no border with him, but I was weaker than Charly, so I guess he chose me as his target.
I fought a defensive war, killing his stacks in or around my southern city.
He attacked mainly with keshiks, with archer for stack defense. Later he sent a couple WE and catapult.
I used mostly impis and swords against him.

War casualties :
zulu : 4 impis, 2 axes
mongol : 8 keshik, 4 archers, 3 chariots, 1 catapults, 2 WE

He wouldn't accept COL for peace, but when I gave him CS, he agreed (560AD).
Charly and KK were both friendly before 1000AD. The war had slowed me a bit, I was just starting on education.

1000AD => 1400AD

Spoiler :

I bulbed partly Edu (finished in 1050) then researched Philo and traded with KK and Charly for optics and music.
In 1170 Louis was the first to reach our continent. I traded him paper for HBR and a map, which allowed me to know the other landmass.
Cathy was the biggest, but she had not eaten the other. She took a chinese city and that was it.
Louis was a bit ahead in tech, even if he didn't have Educ yet, but I was concerned about Pacal who is usually a good techer even with a small empire. So I finished Lib (1200AD) and took Nationalism, even if Louis had it already.
Researched PP (1300AD) and astro (1400AD) on my own while trading for guild, optic and Engineering.
I sent a caravel eastward, since the french had come from the west and I had that part of the map. I proved the world was round and contacted the last 3 IA. It was a judaism lovefest, though Pacal founded 4 religions and Louis 2. Louis had revolted to FR at that point. Considering the situation, a diplo victory was attainable and that was my goal from that point.

1400AD => 1745AD (end)

Spoiler :

I beelined straight to Mass Media after Astro. I used 2 GS and 1 GA to speed up the process. Charly was putting heavy cultural pressure on my cities but I didn't really care at that point.
Pacal and Mao converted to FR. Cathy, though still in judaism, wasn't far from friendly.
The bad things were that :
- Mao had taken Charly as worst ennemy, and I got negative modifiers for trading with him and refusing to close borders.
- Cathy and Charly had very close pop, and I wasn't sure who would be my opponent. Charly was better because Pacal and Louis could vote for Cathy but not for Charly. I may need to gift a city or two to Charly, so there was no point in accepting Mao's demands, as I wanted Charly as strong as possible.
- Louis and Pacal switched to US though HR is their fav civic. I couldn't make them change back to HR through diplo So I wasn't sure they would vote for me.

I finished MM in 1655AD and completed UN in Ulundi in 1710AD. I was elected Sec General.
I considered signing def pact with Cathy, Pacal and Louis to further increase their friednliness, but didn't do it.
The next vote came in 1740AD and I chose diplo victory. Charly was my opponent, he had 200 pop while Cathy had 198!
KK, cathy, Pacal and Louis voted for me, Mao abstained, and I was victorious!





Louis was only displayed @pleased +8 with me. I think I got hidden modifier for being last in score, but I wasn't sure he would vote for me, and I needed him to win.





Without the early war with KK, I would probably have tried to attack Charly with him. After that though the opportunity had passed for the medieval era.
When I saw the situation on the other continent, UN victory became the obvious choice. It wasn't that easy though, and I think I was a bit lucky, because a couple things were out of my control.
I didn't play an outstanding game (far from it) but still managed to win at immortal and I'm happy with it