Let's Play Immortal! #03: Charlemagne

[Wulf38]

Playing this on Immortal with Better AI. Something tells me this won't end well

Up to 300AD:

Spoiler :

Settled on the wine and opened with agriculture, mining, BW. I really hate starting with Mysticism and Hunting. How can he be the Burger King if he doesn't know how to farm grains to make buns?

For our opponents, we get a bunch of warmongers who are all in love from turn 0 thanks to peace weights. And we don't have copper anywhere remotely near the start. Mehmed went war mode on like turn 30, which suggests he probably has copper right in his capitol. It looks like I'm the only possible target. This is bad. Protective archers can wall an attack in standard BTS, but one of the differences in Better AI is that the AI won't suicide its units against a hill city full of archers.

I needed units that could fight in the field to avoid getting pillaged to death. Preferably axes since I expected him to have spears. So I went with the unorthodox strategy of early IW, right after picking up wheel/AH for the pig city down south. This isn't going to be a tech game, judging by the selection of AIs, so I don't think it's much of a concession. Thankfully we do have iron in the capitol, so it paid off . I made the unusual trade of IW for writing with Cathy, and went for HBR next, planning to trade it for alpha.

I built a force of spears, axes and swords, expecting the DOW from Mehmed at any moment. But he was slow about it, so I just declared on him myself, destroyed his stack when it entered my territory, and captured his weakly defended border city. He accepted an even peace treaty.

The instant our peace treaty expired, Mehmed declared on me, and bribed in Kublai. He marched his stack up to his former city, where my units were still sitting. I wiped out his stack again, pushed in to find his capitol lightly defended, and captured it. Good job, Agressive AI . This time he gave me Math, Sailing and Poly for peace. I killed a couple of Kublai's units and gave him Poly to make him go away.

Hinduism spread to my cities and I adopted it. This doesn't seem like the kind of game where staying neutral will keep me out of trouble, so I decided I'd rather at least have some friends. Cathy asked me to stop trading with the Celts, and Julius asked me to join a war against them. I accepted both requests. Boudica didn't like me anyway, and I don't even know where she is. Probably on the other side of the world.

Going forward, I think I'll say screw the lib race in this game. I'm just going to go military tech and keep building units. I just got construction, which means elephants . I'll probably take Mehmed's last two cities soon, then try to take some ground from De Gaulle since he's getting kind of big.

Spoiler :

Note the copper in the first screenshot randomly appeared recently, it wasn't there during my wars with Mehmed.

 

[Wulf38]

gah, I was bound to get screwed eventually... (1150AD)

Spoiler :

One turn after the last report, Kublai declares war on me and bribes in Mehmed. Convenient, as I was just getting ready to finish Mehmed off. I took the last two Ottoman cities, then moved my units north to destroy Kublai's armies. Unfortunately he took my capitol with a lucky chariot kill against my horse archer. I took it back, pushed north and took one of his cities before buying peace. Kublai peace vassaled to France the turn after the war.

At this point I'm fearing a DOW from France. The only people he hates are me and Cathy... and he has a peace treaty with Cathy. And of course, a couple turns later, he declares on me and takes back Kublai's old city.

De Gaulle then proceeds to dump a HUGE stack of units right outside Aachen. I was able to fend off the attack, killing 27 units and losing 9. But in the process, he destroyed most of my developed cottages, which shatters my economy. And there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it, just because I couldn't kill that sheer volume of units in time to stop their pillaging. I also still have only half his power, and he refuses to make peace for anything less than Aachen.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

To 1000 B.C.

Spoiler :

Scouting east revealed a grassland cow, so I settled 1E.
In retrospect, that lost the Stone in BFC (settled very early by Mehmed), with which I could have gone for early Masonry + G. Wall and H. Gardens/Pyramids later on. OTOH settling a little further of Mehmed sounds good when he is landlocked.

I wanted the Oracle for the Rathaus so the techpath went like this :
Agriculture -> Wheel -> Pottery (2nd city south by the floodplains + pigs) -> Meditation -> Priesthood -> AH -> Writing -> Bronze Working -> Maths.

The Oracle was completed on 1600B.C. with a 2 city Empire : expansion lacked. Maybe I should have trained another settler before completing it. Or researched Bronze Working earlier.
At 1000 B.C., most good nearby land is settled and we have 4 cities - so much for the Rathaus... Now either I tech up (Marble wonders and/or Caste system bulbs...) or I go for Construction and military expansion.
Maybe Construction is the safer choice : the crew around looks like it could launch B.C. wars.

De Gaulle has Alphabet. We have Maths + Meditation + Priesthood on him, so I hope a turn or two into Alphabet will allow me to backfill some stuff (Sailing + IW at least). He isn't willing to make the deal at the moment.

The lay of the land :

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[Noogai]

1300 AD

Spoiler :

Lol I don't even have gunpower yet
It's been crazy house. Mehmed and Kublai declared on me all the time (I always declared peace with the old war mate and moved my stack back and forward..). Then the reason why I hate Cathy the most happened: She got bribed on me when she was friendly! I gave her a useless city for a sign of peace and finally vassaled Mehmed.
Now Julius and Kublai are in WHEOHRN, but Julius hates France so I should be fine as long as Kublai wont birbe Cathy on me.
The only and usual problem is my terrible tech rate.. Mehmed will help me with that later, but probably I wont be winning because of that anyway. Unless I manage to vassal Kublai AND he gives me some techs.

Techs:

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Map:

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[BornInCantaloup]

To 50 A.D.

Spoiler :

At 1000 B.C., we were left with a 4 cities Empire and a small tech lead due to the Oracle.
While those cities are very solid (floodplains, multiple food resources, Iron + Ivory), I was hesitant with regards to which strategy to pursue.

Getting a military advantage seemed pretty useful. What kind of military was the question.
Well, I didn't head straight for Construction, judging it was the safe and unfun path.

The Library in Aachen was used to produce a great scientist around 650 B.C.
That allowed to bulb Philosophy. Followed an immediate switch to Pacifism + Caste System + Hereditary Rule.
Cities grew and infrastructure was chopped.
We switched to Taoism, the only religion I could have in Aachen and Prague : Aachen produced 2 Great Merchants and Prague did 1.
The plan, at that point, was to research Metal Casting, Currency, bulb Civil Service, bulb Machinery and train a taskforce of Macemen.
Unfortunately... lol Once we have Civil Service, we can't bulb Machinery with a GM but rather Paper, which looked useless. So instead of bulbing, we triggered a Golden Age to hasten the research and avoid anarchy while switching civics.

Diplomacy...
Is good. I've had plenty of demands made to me, which secured peace.
De Gaulle asked for me to revolt to Hinduism, which is fine with me (3 other civs are Hindu), as it is the foreign religion I had started to spread.
Boudica (Buddhist) is at war with De Gaulle (Hindu).
Catherine (Jewish) is at war with Caesar (Jewish... go figure).
And, finally, the Khan (Hindu) is at war with Caesar as well.

Techs...
Not bad :

Spoiler :

Lay of the land... Didn't change much. Cities are bigger. A 5th has been settled recently.

Spoiler :

War target :
I think I'll go for Catherine first because :
1- She's already at war.
2- She culture presses me (stole my Marble early on and my Sheep more recently).
3- Has a nice chunk of land in the corner of the landmass.
4- Has the Jewish shrine.

Miscellaneous:
I intended to bulb Civil Service + Machinery after Philosophy and trigger a GA afterwards for civic + religion switches.
The bulbs didn't go as planned, hahaha ! As a result, I have a spare Great Merchant who is headed for Paris, the home of the Temple of Artemis.

Miscellaneous, part II:
Early Caste System is very enjoyable. It had been a long time since I last switched to it in the BCs.

 

[Noogai]

This is not too popular, eh?

Anyway I got Domination/Conquest Win 1850 AD.

Spoiler :

I attacked Kublai with my stack (or he attacked me, I'm not sure) and vassaled him. I upgraded my stack and attacked Cathy, here it is:

Spoiler :

I vassaled Cathy and then attacked Julius. Julius peace vassaled to Boudica, so it was my side vs their side. I took a while at first since I didn't have any organized SoDs (I had too small ones attacking Rome though). After stacking some units I started sending them to attack and took their cities.
Then Boudica vassaled to me and at the same turn France vassaled to me too (Julius was dead). So I won Conquest and Domination, but since I got domination first it is the official one.

Vassals:

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Win map:

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Power graph:

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Demos:

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Stats:

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Score:

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Imperialistic was ok trait, since I got 10 GGs instead of 5. Protective was useless until I got gunpower units whose are multipurpose.

Thanks for the game Gwaja! Are we going to get another one on friday?

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@ Noogai :

Spoiler :

Well done !
How did you get out of your "tech hole" ? Did you catch up at all or did you force your way through manu militari ?
It is very fun to war at a tech disadvantage, not always easy, sure, but fun !

 

[Noogai]

@ Noogai :

Spoiler :

Well done !
How did you get out of your "tech hole" ? Did you catch up at all or did you force your way through manu militari ?
It is very fun to war at a tech disadvantage, not always easy, sure, but fun !

Spoiler :

Thanks!

After vassaling Kublai (couple grenaders are nothing when facing 20 threbuckets) I just researched right techs and traded those with my vassals. I focused on the bottom tech path and got steel which was already a good trading tech. I put slider to 0 and upgraded trebuckets to cannons (large empire also built cusarriers quite fast). I was behind in tech all the time, but with right military techs it's not a problem.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I played some more. It proved more difficult than I expected. Or slower, rather.

To 760 A.D. :

Spoiler :

The techpath went something like Music -> Education -> Nationalism (in progress). Gold from the trade mission has exhausted, so research is slower, now.

I don't think that this session is the most interesting part. I prefer the B.C.s, so that will be a short report.
From the last post, we finished the Forges in our cities and put them on Macemen/Catapults duty.
Then, Caesar came around 200 A.D. with a proposal to declare war on Catherine and I accepted. In retrospect, maybe I should have refused since the army was still very small at that time.

350 A.D., I was ready to capture a first city. Then another around 500 A.D. And finally it took some countryside combat to capture the last 2 cities.
I had started building stuff like the Great Library, the 2 Epics, a Market here and there so my military was lacking (Catapults, really).


Here's how the war went :

Spoiler :

And Catherine capitulated. I'll spread Hinduism (AP religion) to her so that she doesn't annoy everybody around. I missed on the Jewish shrine, by the way : Caesar captured it. And I had to bribe him out of the war so that Cathy doesn't vassal to him.
Caesar or Mehmed are probably next. Mehmed has the Hindu shrine and a few wonders (Chichten Chicktza, GLH), Caesar has some very nice land... Rathaus start to become attractive.

The lay of the land (notice the stream of late catapults ^^) :

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And our tech lead (only Mehmed does a recent job at researching techs) :

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I'm not sure I'll play this much further... Maybe I will, maybe I won't.
In any case, it's been fun so far !

 

[Noogai]

BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

I bet Mehmed is going to attack you soon if you don't attack him yourself, since you're his only reasonable target. Though now with Cathy's land you have to be careful..

 

[gspchamp999]

1838 Culture Win

Spoiler :

Used aesthetics for trade. Used construction and currency to start wars. Settled four cities, and took 5th from barb (flipped some of cathys late in game). Took two cities from Mehmed, while Caeser fought Boudi and Mongolia fought france. Took his hindu shrine. Ended up capping him and he had an amazing tech rate for only two cities. Founded confu and taoism. At this point had four religions. Took democracy with lib (I dont think anyone even had paper yet). I guess aggressive AIs really slows down tech as they build more units?

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@ Noogai :

Spoiler :

I just checked and Mehmed won't plot war when he is pleased with you... So my SW front is safe
Declaring war on Mehmed could also drop the Khan to Cautious, so... I guess Caesar is the better target

EDITED : Right, plotting and declaring war aren't the same...

 

[Noogai]

@ Noogai :

Spoiler :

I just checked and Mehmed won't declared war when he is pleased with you... So my SW front is safe
Declaring war on Mehmed could also drop the Khan to Cautious, so... I guess Caesar is the better target

I totally forgot all about the pleased-attack thing. He WHEOOHRNed me before I got religion and then attacked while pleased.
Make sure he won't become cautious when you attack ****.