Level up: Emperor & Immortal with 4 games

[Fippy]

On game, okay you will want to use slavery instead of slow building a size 3 settler here.
It's only 1 turn faster (8t until slavery, 10t until settler would be slow built), but you can create overflow for another worker.

So i would grow size 4 (can keep warrior build), then start gathering settler hammers.
After whipping (no anarchy yay) you should get your worker in ~3 turns afterwards.
The unhappy created will not matter, it's going away while growing again.

Meanwhile your worker can put 1t into a road northeast, then go on the green hill for mining.
Most likely settling spot is probably south, there are 2 floodplains you can secure from Willy and share your pigs with that city as well.
(so your 1 turn into road would be useful soon)

Pic

Spoiler :

Elite with the same thoughts i just saw ~~

 

[elitetroops]

Good point about whipping settler. Much better than slow building, indeed.

A note on the land layout, seems you are in the NW corner of the map. There will be no AI north of Willem to your west, but probably room for 6-7 cities there. Willem also has room to his west and probably south, so if you let him get all of the corner, he might get close to 15 cities here. Problem is that the land to your west doesn't look very good, which makes it harder to justify grabbing that land. We'll see how close Pacal is and what else you find here.

 

[Gasp]

Pascal is somewhere to the East, took him 12T to meet me. He might be 20 tiles east.
i'm going to mine that hill probably before roading 1SE of Mecca.
Unless my warrior finds some better east (a gold+corn?) I'll most likely settle 2S1W of Pigs. It'll share tiles and block Willem from settling here and more south east. I guess he is close to the jungle at his southern side. But it looks like there's some more land to the west I have to discover.

Edit: I should have mined that grass hill! And I didn't think about waiting for the whip. Indeed it sounds better to avoid slow-building a settler. I'll follow your recommendations!

 

[Gasp]

Spoiler A little update: Played on to discovery of BW = T32 :

=T25
1T of road NE of worker
Move eastern warrior SW and meet Lion
T26
Lion has killed my Warrior... on a forested hill.
Mecca will finish this warrior before starting on a settler
We meet Suryavarman II coming from the East
T27
Mecca grows size 4
Worker starts a mine
T28
Warrior is out heading east
Mecca does a settler
T29
Western warrior is healed and goes south to fogbust city spot
T30
Mine finished - settler in 6T.. my warrior will be late
Mecca is now working mine instead of 2 forest
T31
My worker could road or move into forest for a chop; I choose road
BW finished end of this turn
T32

Spoiler Discovery of BW made me laugh :

Fippy was so right about that PH!
My worker feels under pressure suddenly

The settler is at 50/100

Spoiler The World :

Spoiler Mecca city :

Off-topic about BUG: how do you get rid of these % of turns on the screen? and how can you show the number of turns to grow/build next to city/unit name?

 

[Fippy]

madness lol, i have never seen so much copper
(also makes the 2nd city spot from earlier better)

Hmm if you have only 50h for your settler, you finished the warri first at size 4?
Better gathering more settler hammers instead and finish him later
More overflow for 2nd worker this way, who is much more important.

I would say it's still best to whip now, cos if Willy might happen to steal that city..would be bad.

Road speeds up settling by 1 turn, so it's still your best worker action.
Then you could move towards green copper, with 1t road again (i see you did that before, so i edited something out here too )
Or you could chop between corn and copper first for your worker..that's advanced fine tuning thou, not sure if you want to dive into that yet

edit: city bar info is under normal options, not bug (mixed that up sorry)
At graphics / 3rd option from top.

Tile yields you can turn off where those buttons are above the mini map, 3rd from right.

AH vs. pottery is interesting here, besides pigs there are also sheep around as other food resis for more cities. And with so many copper power tiles, they could be worked instead of cottages.
Not sure.

 

[lymond]

Willie must die to the axe

Edited: Yay tapatalk! Nice double post..

tapatalk still works here?

 

[Gasp]

My worker is going to end that road for sure. Then move toward copper. If I whip that settler I'd want to put OFH into a worker. Finishing my worker with a chop is something I wanted to do here. I'm never against learning new things. I'll see if I can use them now or later
@Fippy what do you have in mind?
And thank you for the off-topic answer.

@lymond are you suggesting that we don't let Willie live more than 100 turns?
I have no experience with axe rush. I guess I have to expand to 3-4 cities then build only axes and that's it. By the time I have the opportunity to start an army it'll be T60 at least and Willie will have 5-6 cities. Axes don't do too well so I should count 2 axes for 1 defense units... in the end that's a lot of them needed.

AH vs. Pottery is a tight choice. I tend to think that AH first will speed up my expansion with the extra food I get. But I'm not even sure it'll make a big difference if Pottery comes first. Pottery allows me to improve more tiles and speed research. Also I'll need to build 3 cottages very soon. So AH, with only Pigs to pasture for a little while (until I have extra settlers) will have to wait after pottery.
But then Fippy is probably right and without happy resources I won't have the opportunity to work many cottages. So AH first?

After Pig city I'd like to settle where I can share copper tiles. So in between green copper and sheep on the PH is one option. And for the other what do you think?

Spoiler dot map :

 

[Gasp]

I played on to T51 the turn I get AH. I'm up to 3 cities now. Not sure I was right to settle Damascus where it is and especially 3rd. Perhaps the other sheep city would have been better?
I desperately need an extra worker (or 2).
We met some other guys Cyrus and Tokugawa are in the game. I believe they are south of Willem.

I didn't note everything I've done each turn this time.
I whipped a Monument in Medina. Chopped a settler and a worker in Mecca.
I have to road that Pig tile and pasture asap so my worker there is going to give up cottaging and road before he finishes. Then he'll chop and mine that grass hill (not sure yet). Other worker improve sheep near Damascus then will cottage the FP and then move to that river tile to road and cottage as well for next city.
Both Mecca and Medina are going to whip next turn respectively settler and worker. BUT i'm not sure this is optimal. Perhaps I should build/chop a granary first at least in capitol?

Spoiler Map :

Spoiler Stats :

Oh and I need some axe for defensive purpose.

 

[Fippy]

Hiya, chopping for the worker would be useful for growth (always nice with tiles like plains copper which slow it down later).
River forest next to green copper would mean you are also in a good spot, basically you would switch to stonehenge for some fail gold when your worker reached 30h and then complete him on the chop turn with 30h again.

Axe rushes are not really a good idea when playing Imm for the first time imo..
you are not boxed in here. They are done with 2 cities (sometimes even only 1) cos you have no time for more.

Dot map looks okay at first glance
Copper sharing with the east city probably not very useful thou, and it could go east on ph instead.

And just like that, i am late lol

Damascus was good, best spot you had with a river traderoute and first ring sheep + fps.

While there are no food resis east, it's still very nice land.
3+ floodplains count as food anyways ~~
I would switch cities 4 and 5 (not a huge priority nw), you want to grab those floodplains first before Pacal gets there.

 

[Gasp]

I need to think about failgold. This is not into my game yet!

Copper sharing with the east city probably not very useful thou, and it could go east on ph instead.

This was my hesitation. If you tell me it's not useful to share that copper then there's no hesitation anymore
All my cities east are resourceless though! West land isn't nice neither.
If I have horses it's all good I could make more room for myself with HAs but if I don't..

Spoiler Can you see Horse? :

I guess I have to rush that city spot if I really want horses.

 

[Fippy]

Edited some stuff in above, depends if you want to do HAs yup.
But remember, all rushes get more difficult on Imm now.
It's a decent position for HAs with strong core cities and plenty forests, but it's also okay land for something else.

 

[rah]

Note great generals appear in the city that helped you cross the GG points. So this is why you have a GG in Ciombra. Better to use a unit from London and get the GG in a place where it can help.

Never knew this. I'll have to pay more attention to this. Always figured it was random but should have known better.
Learn something new every day I come here. Thanx.

 

[Gasp]

It's a decent position for HAs with strong core cities and plenty forests, but it's also okay land for something else.

Meaning getting the Horse tile with my next settler is not necessary. In case I settle on the PH east of my caption "city5" we can say good bye to Horse because Pascal is expanding my way.

Edit: I don't want to reproduce the scenario of my last game with HAs but HA rush here could be an opportunity to grab good land for something else

 

[Gumbolt]

Your certainly not late for an HA rush. You would be settling the city primarily for the horse. You could settle 1W of the horse but it would be sharing the sheep and using the Oasis. Border pop required.

Nothing to stop you using axes and pults.

Chances are Willem will attack you if he hooks up metal. At present he states - Soon my numberless archers will destroy you all. Run for the hills! Toku says the same which is very reassuring. No metal or horse yet?

I think you have 5-6 good city sites here. Getting some decent cottages up here could be good. You can defend with axes/spears.

Later on you have forest to chop for units. Capital should be a nice bureau city. That SE city has so many cottageable tiles. Might have health issues but looks good. Connected by river too.

 

[lymond]

I'd expect Pacal to settle those horses very soon, so watch out

Ha...yeah, I understand the need to focus on better things with the move up to IMM, but axe rush so tempting here..and very viable. (i did play this one some )

and yes, Gasp, as My said, you axe rush at no more than 2 cities on this level. chops and whips will get you a sufficient army in no time. approach diagonally from NE so that you can hit city in one turn. (interestingly, in my game, willie got a holy city there and popped borders, but still took him down easily)

 

[Gumbolt]

One plus to axe rush. All your cities are connected to copper. Your less than 5-6 tiles from the Dutch capital. Dutch only appear to have archers. Albeit will likely get iron at some point. Still options to play this peacefully short term. You learn higher levels by not just attacking but by expanding peacefully at times.

One downside being creative his cities will reach 40% defences much sooner.

 

[elitetroops]

Not a very big fan of HA rush here. Would probably work against Willem, but then we have Pacal with his resourceless spearmen on one side and not sure who is behind Willem. Worst case Toku, who also is a horrible target. Axe rushing Willem would have been nice, but should have been done at 1 or 2 cities.

You have room here for peaceful expanding and could aim for a later breakout. I don't know if your city sites are intended to be settled in number order, but city 4 can for sure wait. Better secure more land first. Willem won't steal that northern sheep. I'm not too excited about that horse spot. I don't think it's the end of the world even if it was taken, if I instead could get some better spot. There are other ways to fight wars as well. And remember that your knight-UU doesn't even need horses.

I am quite interested in knowing i there's something of value in the NW corner of the map.

 

[Gumbolt]

One thing I don't like here is happiness. Oracle for monarchy could still be useful here. You have no early happiness resources here. If you whip axes you will quickly run into happiness issues. Otherwise calendar seems a good alternative. Medina might be good for this wonder? 2-3 chops?

Your capital could of used a unit for happiness.

The early barracks in your capital was likely questionable. Granary would of been more useful.

My worry is by what date might you actually have the axe army ready by? I would want at least 12 axes. Whipping without a granary could be painful for regrowths.

 

[lymond]

Long past the axe rush, Gumbo. (my original comment was at t32 and meant immediate action)

 

[Gasp]

Lots of comments to make me think here!
So no immediate war plan and let's try peaceful expansion. I especially forgot about my UU and no need for Horse.
I have a settler ready very soon. I need to know where to settle next city. My idea was that PH east as city n°4 then another one south of this position on the coast with a lot of FP as well.

Spoiler east side story :

I believe at least this land has to be secured from Pascal

NW side means settling quite far from Mecca. I'm not sure about this: we find Pigs, Horse and Fur

Spoiler NW land :

Settling 1E of Pig makes a nice city with a border pop.
We can't have these wine tiles because his border are going to pop out very soon. But settling the PH NW of Wine is possible.

On the tech side, my original plan was to research Writing after AH. If we want the Oracle though I need Med+PH which should take approx. the same time to research as Writing.

Building the Oracle is a good solution to get rid of some happiness problem and certainly quicker than Calendar. I don't think it's late to try but I doubt 2-3 chops in Medina will finish the Oracle without Marble and Math.

What do you think about this plan?