Immortal University XXXI: Brennus

[Ignorant Teacher]

I never thought of this, if you go for religion and can manage to control the diplomatic situation a bit early tech trading could be easier. On deity I always waste a lot of time checking F4 and worrying about who to trade what to. Are there many AIs that will not trade at annoyed?

Well, worst enemy factor and wars aside, not many of them refuse to trade techs at annoyed. (Monopolies are different). I haven't checked the XML, but, according to the Reference PDF, the leaders that will not trade techs at annoyed are: Ragnar, Shaka, Stalin and Tokugawa. Weird, huh? I always thought there were more of them. (Or I read it wrong and most of them will not trade at annoyed and these ones will not trade at cautious, probably that's more like it. I'll review that later).

I've played until 1520AD and the situation isn't so grim anymore.

Spoiler :

I love Peter! He's my main trade buddy. Elizabeth hates him, but I couldn't care less - she's a wimp. I'm going to have to declare on her sooner or later anyway. She's disconnected one of my cities with her annoying culture. This is our land at the moment:

Some cities are unhappy because I've just switched to Universal Suffrage and lost the Military Police bonus. Still have to disband the older units.

Our demographics:

And civics:

Now, I thought I'd better dedicate a whole chapter to the techs and how I kind of caught up. For starters, I remembered someone saying somewhere that the lower techtree was the option for who was playing defensively (I guess it was Artichoker, but I'm not sure. Sorry. ). So, instead of doing the usual Liberalism beeline, I went Machinery, Engineering, Guilds, Gunpowder, Nationalism, Military Tradition. At that point I started to feel a little safer. That route allowed me to trade for some techs. Then I got Steel and that's when the real dealing started. It's in the spoiler.

Spoiler :

Then I went to Rifling.

Spoiler :

And this is where I stand. I still have to trade with Bismarck. (Silu, you were right about getting him to Friendly).

Of course, it's not a Celtic world yet because:

Which made him drop to cautious immediately. To protect myself, I did this:

A while later Hannibal started to prepare for war. I'm heading to Assembly Line, but he will get there first, if that's where he's heading. What do you think: there's a possibility that Hannibal will attack Bismarck and not me. Should I abandon the Defensive Pact or include Peter in it?

Diplo Glance:

BTW, as you can see in the empire pictures, I have a Great Merchant that I'll send on a Trade Mission.

Thanks again everybody for the help.

 

[GenerallyGreat]

Immortal/epic rage quit.

Spoiler :

Liz of all people declared war on me at about 1200BC when we didn't share borders and she was worst enemies with Han. I had done well to block out the barbs with warriors and as such had no defences.
Looked like such an awesome map too, ah well live and learn.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

I lost too.

Spoiler :

Bribed Bismarck to declare on Hannibal, but it backfired - he capitulated. After that I thought I should conquer Elizabeth and Peter to be able to prepare for war with Hannibal. The problem is that he declared on me when I was missing three English cities and with my main stack in England. As he was running around with Modern Armors and Gunships, my Tanks, Fighters and Paras couldn't do much. As it was not a human, I quit. If I feel like it, I'll edit this with the screenshots.

Silu, you're the only one who has won this game so far. I guess there's a reason you renamed yourself Immortal Master.

About the map:

Spoiler :

I guess the AIs have too much land to expand. Even though I was #2 most of the game, I had a similar size to #3, #4 and #5.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

IMM/Norm No Events/Huts

1 AD

Spoiler :

Moved scout onto plains hill and saw nothing but crap land ----> moving isn't worth it. Settled in place. Opened AH, AG, Mining, and other assorted worker techs. Went aesthetics ----> trade alpha ----> lit since marble is close to the west. I put the pedal down to get early expansion going in this one since there was a lot of land to block off.

Tech situation is pretty terrible. Iffy shot at TGL as of 1 AD. I am cottaging capitol for bur the rest is going farms ----> whip infra (especially AP buildings once someone builds it) ----> build research (later wealth).

1695 AD Apostolic Palace win (to end things sooner)

Spoiler :

In this segment...well it goes pretty straightforward/typical. I DO get TGL (aggressive chopping) and so stay in slavery with just farms everywhere. Cities grow big. Once I trade for MC I put forges in there too. I was going to go oxford (I could have had it ~ 1100 AD for a change) but realized I could just stomp all over liz in a game of "pick on the backwards heathen" instead. After that, it was a question of how to win. A little backwards, but with jails/IA I could have made that up in a hurry using move palace + spies on bismark (holding DP's with the other two). No need for that though. I took over the AP because of the land I captured, since Bismark built it. The other two liked me more (I'll post the pictures here for why that is). However, bismark had too much pop in the AP for me + allies to get 75%...or DID he?!

Yes, I swapped FR, spy swapped bismark to FR (in which he stayed due to his multiple religions), then swapped back to theo. During this exchange I got impatient and decided to go pay gandhi and master alex (who didn't even have paper yet) a killing visit. With airships and cavalry (a lot of it 3x promo) against longbows, it was going very nicely. But, my AP trick worked so there was no need for a stealing spree or zerging on bismark!

As for how I'd have fought bismark if I had to do it: Cavalry (I had so much already) + arty + some anti-tanks (suck it panzers). I had 2 cities capable of CR III arty once I got there (heroic/national epic + 2 GG's + theo and IW + WP + theo) so that would have been cute.

 

[Silu]

TMIT: Damn, under 2 hours - nice. I don't think I've ever reached that. Nice K/D ratio too

IT: Haha, didn't think anyone would notice. Hope people don't think I'm arrogant in this company - just did it as a crappy joke.

About the map in general:

Spoiler :

I would have thought this map to be pretty easy because of all the land that's easily available. It seems to depend massively on the religion die roll though, all different isn't good but neither is all having the same. I had almost the optimal situation, some Friendly guys with a punching bag to throw some people at. He (Hannu) didn't keel over to capitulation until the Modern times, too, in my game.

 

[Sleepless]

- 1620AD Imm/Normal

Spoiler :

Not much to mention for the first 5000 years. I settled in place and went for pottery quite early to get some commerce going. Makes a change for me as I generally don't build to many cottages (porbably why my late game tech is not up to scratch sometimes ).

Managed to get the Parth and GLib with some missed gold for the SoZ. Other than that didn't really try for any more until the Taj.

Religion wise we had a happy Jewish club. Except Liz that is who decided she would rather be a hindu. Apart from one early war with Han it didn't seem to cause her to many problems though.

So after Lib. Tech

I took Nat from Lib and it was a race between me and Biz who got the Taj first. Glad to say it was me. At the time the tech situation wasn't to bad but I headed for Mil Trad and rifling looking to expand which caused me to fall behind a bit.

Glance

Good relations with everbody except Liz that is. She did build the AP so by voting for her we did get to pleased a few times.

Lands.

I have played quite a way ahead of this but didn't take any screenies. Basically I teched Mil Trad then to rifles. Attacked Liz with Curassiers and some late cavs. Vassaled her. Went straight for Peter after and vassaled him. Unfortunately he bribed Biz into the war against me. Unfortunate for Biz that is as I've just vassaled him as well. Next is Han. He is up RR and AL on me so I'm going to head for AL then look to my 4th vassal. Also he is in WHEEOH atm and could be me but probably Alex or Ghandi. Not that bothered if it is me though.

I do like the way you can get your vassals to trade monopoly techs now. Helped me big style as I've been getting about 100 - 200 beakers for the last 400 years so with trading I've been able to keep up.

- 1750AD

Spoiler :

Well ended quite easy. Sent some troops over to Ghandi and Alex and capitulated them. Should have gifted Ghandi his cities back as I took one of Hans cities and.

Really wanted a conquest but not to be.

 

[Grashopa]

@Silu, IT

Spoiler :

Hehe yeah don't know what I was thinking. Hammers are not as good as I was thinking looking back at the save. England's land sucks and shes behind in tech, but again the land sucks so a lengthy war makes no sense even if it was possible. And the diplo situation doesn't support it at all since I lost my all hindu but peter continent. Hannibal should actually switch back to Hindu since my missionaries got him to more hindu than confuscian now, but I guess I'll have to trade him into it.

EDIT I'd love to rerun this game so I don't have that terrible luck of confuscianism spreading so fast and Hinduism so slowly. It's good to be able to control the religious situation here. Though if I get Hannibal back to Hinduism the only thing I lose is England who will probably get attacked and vassalized for being heathen before I have a chance to get her. Probably why I was building up my hammers and considering the possibility of pre cavalry war here.

EDIT2 - Isn't starting a deity game on a worldbuilder save like this easier? They aren't getting the true deity start are they?

 

[Silu]

^ Grashopa:

Spoiler :

Yeah they less techs and no 2nd settler at the start, so it's easier. One reason why Oracle went really late in your game I guess.

I'm not sure your game would have been easier if all had been going the same religion - Deity AIs in a group hug can tech insanely fast and leave humans in the dust no matter how many times he presses F4

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

EDIT2 - Isn't starting a deity game on a worldbuilder save like this easier? They aren't getting the true deity start are they?

No, they still keep their Deity bonuses, but start with Immortal units and techs. A simple way to give them the right units would be to delete all the beginunit and endunit lines in the WB Save using a word processor. (It's better to keep the human's to avoid the scout or warrior spawning in different places each time you start).

Do you guys want me to post a Deity save as well from now on? I don't know which extra techs they get on Deity, but it takes less than a minute to prepare the file with the correct units.

 

[Soirana]

can't say for all, but i am actually planning to run few next IU on diety using easier time due to Ai having one settler. [maybe i will get somwhere]

Although Duckweed said it is not that much difference. Will see soon, i guess.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

can't say for all, but i am actually planning to run few next IU on diety using easier time due to Ai having one settler. [maybe i will get somwhere]

Although Duckweed said it is not that much difference. Will see soon, i guess.

I'm guessing the only change is that you get a couple extra turns to get your cities down .

They'd get 2 settlers if I swept the beginunit line, but when I was hosting and asked if people wanted me to do that, even the deity players said they didn't care .

 

[shyuhe]

Immortal/normal. Had some funny moments.

Spoiler :

My first funny (bad) moment was when barbs took one of my cities. Liz then captured it, forcing me to declare on her so that I could take it back. Definitely not the smartest way to play the game...

She ended up not liking much for a long time until I got a religion. The midgame was pretty peaceful - not many wars on my continent. The only midgame wonders I got were Sistine (useless), MoM (useful), and UoS. I also got circumnavigation from maps and liberalism:

At one point, Hannibal attacked Liz who vassaled to Bismarck. Liz was my first target so this put my ambitions on hold, until the war ended and Liz eventually broke free. That's when I struck. I would have attacked sooner if she weren't Bismarck's vassal but I had to wait - but it game me time to get cavalry:

I was clearing through Liz, but wanted to make sure she didn't vassal to Bismarck. So I bribed him:

Expensive, but it did the job. I cleared through Liz, then made a quick strike against Bismarck before he got rifles. Once he started fielding rifles, I took peace and teched for a little bit while building the espionage buildings. Alex declared on me at one point, taking a crappy city from me. Unfortunately for him, this opened up the chance for a holy war against him (I was the resident). So off blew the horns, and everyone dogpiled on him. I was still preparing for Bismarck who was still score leader after having vassaled Hannibal. Eventually, Bismarck took peace with Alex and then immediately went hands full. The very next turn, he declared:

I'm guessing he was broke? I thought the AI weren't supposed to do dagger beyond the beginning game but who knows. Anyways, I cut down his army gradually and stole lots of techs, then got tanks and started to go on the offensive. After that, it was a spy/tank barrage against Bismarck, then Hannibal, and then Peter. Got a late domination for about 80k.

My final stats:

I lost a bunch of tanks at the start of the Peter war as I underestimated his artillery and bomber stack when I invaded the first time.

 

[ungy]

immortal, normal:

Spoiler :

not really too exciting a game. the available land was pretty good and I got a bonus sneaking a barb city by the 2xgold:

Han had left a single injured unit

Not having copper I was pretty weak early on and traded very carefully (and dumped tech to get Liz and Bis to pleased). Bis and Han were conf and Liz and Peter hindu.
I could have blocked Bis in the jungle and claimed a bunch of calender resources but after a lot of hesitation I gave him the site. Hadn't gotten him pleased yet and calender was a long ways off so I started backfilling the good sites--seemed like I had enough land to win unless I got an early DOW.
Oddly enough I get lib although Han was well ahead of me--he took econ but then researched something else.
Then it was a draft/rifle/cannon war which vassaled Liz, Bis and Han go after Gandhi, I start on Peter. I also get sushi. I've got a couple of cities and it looks like it'll be a grind here but I'm starting to pull way ahead. Not sure if I finish this one.