learning new things the hard way, lol

[Hammer Rabbi]

also, PhilBowles, in my Patronage list of reasoning, #1 and #4 are intertwined. Ive never been in a game past 1950 where the UN wasnt eventually built. and seeing how deep Globalization goes is why i never thought you needed to go much for techs/science, particularly if its your secondary vic condition to Culture. If it's primary then i absolutely agree.

 

[Gucumatz]

I like playing for Cultural Victories. I find it tougher. Highest Cultural victory I have attained so far was on Immortal.

 

[PhilBowles]

[PhilBowles: Mausoleum of Helicarnassus...

Temple is good (+10% growth and 25% reduction in ranged unit cost), but it's steadily fallen down my priority list as I've got more of a handle on the Civ V versions of the Wonders. Mausoleum is probably the Wonder that rewards a specific strategy more than any other - with a GP-heavy focus you can be producing them every few turns, and 100 gold is a useful amount to gain for free at any point in the game./QUOTE]

yeah, i meant Halicarnassus. I just got that expansion 2 weeks ago in the steam sales and was still confusing a few of the new wonders i was seeing in-game. and yeah, i only go for it if i m doing a GP strategy. otherwise i dont bother.

im playing in immortal now and im learning i pretty much have no chance of completing any early wonder outside of the ones the AI never goes for like Heroic Epic.

Heroic Epic is a National Wonder; you can build one even if other civs have built one. The key is to know which Wonder you want early and tech to it as soon as possible; the AI often won't prioritise Wonders, so for example they'll build Temple, Oracle or Mausoleum either some time after researching the relevant tech, or they'll wander aimlessly around the tech tree and tech up to it late.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

even when i know which ones i need and i tech rush it as soon as possible they are still in the 20+ turn range and always get sniped by someone else. the bonuses they start with in Emperor and up are just always ahead of mine in tech. the difficulty is honestly just getting lucky in choosing the one wonder that they aren't super fast on getting. some games no one gets stonehenge, other games no one gets Hagia, etc. buts its never a guaranteed consistent range. the only one i see getting teched very early every game is the Great Wall. i just know better than to go for it.

of course this is a bit easier with Egypt for the wonder production bonus and certainly easier with Babylon if you bulb the scientist to get the tech that holds your wonder early. otherwise i just have no chance.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

also, i wondered why i never saw some of the wonders pop up. stuff like heroic epic, national treasury and Ironworks never showed so i always felt safe in going for them. thanks for the tip on why.

 

[PhilBowles]

even when i know which ones i need and i tech rush it as soon as possible they are still in the 20+ turn range and always get sniped by someone else. the bonuses they start with in Emperor and up are just always ahead of mine in tech. the difficulty is honestly just getting lucky in choosing the one wonder that they aren't super fast on getting. some games no one gets stonehenge, other games no one gets Hagia, etc. buts its never a guaranteed consistent range. the only one i see getting teched very early every game is the Great Wall. i just know better than to go for it.

of course this is a bit easier with Egypt for the wonder production bonus and certainly easier with Babylon if you bulb the scientist to get the tech that holds your wonder early. otherwise i just have no chance.

Hmm, just tried my first game on Immortal (beat off a Persian attack very early but it set me back too far, and I eventually fell to the Inca), and I see what you mean about just how quickly these Wonders come up. I had no trouble at all on Emperor, though - was beaten to one or two, but got most and ended up building more Wonders than anyone else. Though my Immortal game was on a Huge map and the Emperor one on Standard, so clearly there were more civs vying for Wonders.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

i realize now some of that is random choices by the a.i. after a 4th restart trying for the great library on the same map/settings, babylon finally got it done. this was going pottery-writing-bulb to philosophy-immediate production switch to GL. each time before, it was getting finished before turn 35 by someone else, this time no one finished it before turn 42 which was when mine would always finish. (they were instead finishing Temple of Artemis, Pyramids, and Great Lighthouse) so i guess their wonder choices are kind of randomized. my scout had to capture a worker and he had to immediately get to chopping forests to help too.

immortal is the bane of my civ existence right now. it sounds so damn easy from other threads but im not there yet.

edit: i also got another boost from a ruins that gave me +1 pop.

 

[PhilBowles]

i realize now some of that is random choices by the a.i. after a 4th restart trying for the great library on the same map/settings, babylon finally got it done. this was going pottery-writing-bulb to philosophy-immediate production switch to GL. each time before, it was getting finished before turn 35 by someone else, this time no one finished it before turn 42 which was when mine would always finish. (they were instead finishing Temple of Artemis, Pyramids, and Great Lighthouse) so i guess their wonder choices are kind of randomized. my scout had to capture a worker and he had to immediately get to chopping forests to help too.

immortal is the bane of my civ existence right now.

Hmm, starting to get the same feeling. Had a moderately good starting area in my second Immortal game, though I had a production capital and very little gold available. I did have access to Old Faithful nearby so settled that quickly (silk in the same area clinched the deal). This time I was unmolested for long enough to start on Temple of Artemis (beaten to it) and then Mausoleum (beaten to that too), only to find that my closest neighbour was Montezuma. Despite keeping my units (except for one Warrior) alive, by the time Monty declared war he already had at least three Swordsmen and my trio of Archers was nowhere near enough to salvage the game, since he hit Djenne the turn after I settled it.

Actually, the AI played combat more impressively than I've so far seen. With one Barbarian it did the characteristically stupid thing of attacking my Warrior across a river (when I was in a forest on the other side). But the next turn he actually retreated and came back with support for a flank attack. This happened to another Warrior later on.

Probably Monty would have suffered casualties if he'd attacked a tougher target than Djenne and my archers had been quicker to reinforce (no roads, since the town had just been settled), but even so he attacked the city fairly capably too, retreating or not attacking with damaged units (he had no ranged units). He did throw away a wounded Jaguar against one of my archers on a hill after Djenne was his, but that was the only obviously bad move and it's one an overoptimistic human might have made rather than something wholly moronic.

EDIT: Incidentally, and especially when both city names are spelled correctly in the Songhai intro blurb, does anyone know why the city names are misspelled Jenne and Tomboctou in the game? I can only assume it's a provision in case they plan on either (a) reintroducing Mali as a separate empire, or (b) adding Timbuktu and/or the Grand Mosque of Djenne as Wonders at some stage.