Montezuma Immortal Cookbook

[CivConVict]

a) Continue to cripple Julius
In support of crippling Julius, the goal would be to explore his territory using stacks of Jaguars. Some Jaguars would have to defend Rome, while others would stand "guard" between Julius' western Cities and our homelands, preferably in Forests.

The idea would be to secure a Forest and "funnel" Julius' troops that head towards our capital such that they will have to walk onto flat, unforested terrain if they want to walk past our Jaguars. So, we don't need a total wall of Jaguars--we just need enough to force Julius' Archers to walk between our Jags onto flat terrain, where they will be relatively easy pickings and free Great General points.

Hmm, it's not really obvious whether settling 2-3 cities towards Frederick or taking out half of Julius' cities is more advantageous. Our Jaguars have better than 50% odds against Archers in flatland cities. We may lose out on some of the grassland to the south, but the problems even cities without any resources can cause should not be underestimated either. The AI may not deserve the name, but it does know how to whip.

We may want to try and capture ONE City between our capital and Rome, so that we'll be able to have a Trade Route connection between those Cities.

Otherwise, Julius will simply have Cities and Archers. We'll Pillage his improvements and use our Woodsman II promotions to keep hunting-for and stealing his Workers. Yes, that's abusive, but letting an AI get re-established by making Peace would be abusive and downright criminal towards OUR people.

I'd also suggest keeping Antium. It's close to Tenochtitlan and while it's not a great city, it can work enough cottages to more than make up for its cost in a relatively short time.

b) Get Pottery and Writing
Pottery = Cottages. I don't care what anyone else says, if we don't have The Pyramids and if we don't have a lot of Gold, Gems, or Silver Sources, it's going to be hard to justify skipping Cottages.

Even WITH The Pyramids, Representation only provides a limited amount of Happiness, such that feeding Specialists off of Grassland Farms isn't going to work all that well when you're short on Happiness Resources, like we are.

So, to me, Cottages are the way to go.

I couldn't agree more.

Researching Writing will mean the time when we will have to decide whether or not to give Peace to Julius. He may not want to Open Borders with us, due to the War Declaration's hatred, but if there is a chance that he'll give us Open Borders, we can always take a Cease Fire for a couple of turns to see if he changes his attitude towards us. If we can get Open Borders with him, then Peace can last for a while, but if not, then we'll probably redeclare, to prevent him from building up too much again.

I don't think making peace with Julius is a very good move. He may not be a threat any more, but as soon as we sign a peace treaty he will start settling again and much more likely to our disadvantage, than to Frederick's.

I would also strongly suggest that you gather your roaming Jaguars in group of THREE. One to attack/defend from an Archer, while the other two to guard the wounded unit until it heals. You can feasibly still fight another battle with one of the two unwounded units while the first wounded one is healing, while still having a fully-healthy stack defender this way.

Having so many units in enemy territory is very expensive. The AI usually doesn't attack with inferior odds unless it can make use of collateral damage, so 2 Jaguars (Woodsman III or Woodsman II + Cover) should be enough and we get two such "stacks" free of supply.

d) Settle a City or two towards Germany, to secure some land
Again, we'll want Road connections to these City locations, for Trade Routes, so continuing to capture and leverage Julius' Workers will help in this regard, while our Cities focus on producing Settlers. We'll also want to quickly set up and start working Cottages in the newly-founded Cities.

We should probably consider working a Riverside Cottage as our FIRST improvement in some of these distant Cities, then only switching to an improve Food Resource once our economy can handle doing so.

Unless you really spam Jaguars the economy isn't that bad. I'd still go food first.

e) Anything else?--additional random comments
I see no reason to try to be the first to building a Wonder. For example, we're not likely going to get The Oracle in time to get a free tech from it, given our tech situation. The Great Lighthouse is probably far out of reach and we aren't likely going to have a ton of Coastal Cities, anyway.

I don't have the saved game open but I remember Obsolete mentioning something about getting access to Stone.

If we DO get access to Stone (which means also researching Masonry to build a Quarry) and if we have a City that has nothing better to build, then we could try and build a Stone-based Wonder for Failure Gold.

Rome has Stone in it's second ring, so Pyramids and Hanging Gardens are very good candidates for failure gold, so is the Statue of Zeus. Finishing the Pyramids might be even better.

 

[Wafflecakes]

Oops, forgot to add my save:

 

[Sebed]

I assume this round's been extended then? I was going to join in round 3 but I'll start now if it's going on.

Don't wait for me though. I still choose to play settler (although I'm probably around warlord). I won't be contributing the successful save file.

 

[kossin]

Yes, we'll wait as long as needed. One week or more if necessary.

 

[Fierabras]

1100 BC - 600 AD (turns 70 - 140)

When I first looked at obsolete's save, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it:

• dubious capital location
• no Pottery
• messy war with Rome

I'd rather had played Dhoomstriker's save, but with hindsight I appreciated the "Praetorian prevention" approaches obsolete and GKey (amongst others) chose.

I thought about letting this game go, but decided that I should play the hand that was dealt. It was time to put on my batman suit, have a cup of coffee and play the game to my best abilities.

Spoiler :

Ok, so we have Rome and we have jaguars. There's stone nearby and I followed obsolete's suggestion to have a go at the Pyramids, so I switched to Masonry. I also straightaway decided that we should get the cities connected. For this, Antium had to fall.

I wondered if it was a good deciscion to keep Antium as all roads were leading to Rome, but it became a decent hybrid city (hammers and commerce) later on.

I did not make peace with Rome and took more cities for gold mainly as tech pace was rather slow. I did take my time to snatch a lot of workers. In the screenshot below there were 2 workers on the same tile as the Roman archer, which I captured the same turn.

I used my Great General to create a super-Jaguar city raider, although settling him would have been better with Representation. Rome was building walls in the remaining cities, so I thought I needed such a super-unit.

I made sure to settle towards the south soon enough and first settled near the corn/pigs/ivory on the river. Without sailing and roads it still was connected right away. I don't understand the mechanics behind it, but I guess it has something to do with being connected through cultural borders?

I liked how I timed it as Frederick was settling northwards. I settled another city to the southeast. I though a long time on it's exact location, but decided to make it a coastal city to have at least 1 coastal city.

I continued snagging Roman workers with woodsman II jaguars and razing cities for gold.

The captured workers were sent to help chop the Pyramids, which I finished in Rome at 525 BC (turn 94).

After Pottery and Writing I went for Alphabet. Only later did I realize I should have gone for Fishing - Sailing first for the trade routes with Frederick (or build roads to the south). I mistakenly though that trade routes are always a two-way street

Alphabet was taking too long for my taste and I grew impatient and I decided to finish of Rome for more gold (I played until this point before reading Dhoomstriker's suggestions).

I guess I should have kept Julius alive, but at least I got 7 workers from him.

I started to lay down some cottages and finished Alphabet at 150 BC (turn 109). Hinduism also spread to me and I switched right away. I love the spiritual trait as you don't have to worry about anarchy.

After Alphabet I went for Mathematics. Frederick wasn't going to trade anything useful, so I decided that I would take it another way. I noticed Frederick was researching Construction, so I sent a spy to one of his cities and left him there a couple of turns to do this:

With the help of the espionage slider I had just enough points to steal Construction. With running a lot of scientists I teched Fishinh and Sailing both in 1 turn and continued with Currency. After that came Code of Laws and I build Markets and Sacrificial Altars in most cities, while also settling 2 more cities near the German border.

As Frederick was spreading Hinduism in all my cities I took a detour into Polytheism - Monotheism - Priesthood before finishing Code of Laws. Priesthood wasn't really needed and I mainly wanted to switch to Organized Religion, but the cheap temples might be needed later.

I also researched Horseback Riding and Calendar and this is where I am now.

I have scouted the German lands and it looks like I have a monopoly on Ivory. I guess war elephants and catapults next could be good to take on Frederick.

 

[Sebed]

I have a problem loading the save file. It says it was expecting something to do with 301 or lower, and the save file is 302. Something like that anyway.

 

[Fierabras]

I have a problem loading the save file. It says it was expecting something to do with 301 or lower, and the save file is 302. Something like that anyway.

You should install the update to BTS 3.19

 

[GKey]

Looks like rl will prevent me from playing this. Had a great time here. Good luck to all.

 

[kossin]

Take care!

 

[kossin]

Anyone needs more time?

Anyone wants to start the new round?

Anyone wants a new game?

 

[vranasm]

well I planned to play the 2nd round tomorrow afternoon, but not much submissions anyway... tough to judge what to do

 

[drlake]

If this one dies, I'm game for another. I wonder if the difficulty of playing forward from the save (at least, I found it hard to figure out what to do) is the cause of the low number of submissions for this round?

 

[Fierabras]

I found it hard as well, but once I got into my groove I had fun playing this round. I wouldn't mind starting another.

 

[kossin]

Is 70 turns too long for the second set? Turns to get longer to play.

 

[CivConVict]

Depends on what the goal is. I find shorter rounds to be more educational, while longer rounds are probably more fun to play, at least if you know what you're doing.

 

[drlake]

I like the longer first round, but would be fine with a shorter second round for educational purposes.

 

[vranasm]

ok I am out, I will not post my round. After I lost on 12% odds jaguar against barb warrior I came to conclusion i really hate this combat system. And that means that I am finally finished with playing CIV even if it's in other aspects then combat superior to CiV I will stick to CiV.

 

[obsolete]

I am back from my little vacation with the GF. If the deadline isn`t too soon, I will get around to continuing from my save this week.

 

[kossin]

vranasm: it happens. I assume your Jaguar was wounded quite badly though =\

obsolete: deadline is still undetermined as we don't really have enough participation right now. You should have more than enough time.

 

[vranasm]

vranasm: it happens. I assume your Jaguar was wounded quite badly though =\

obsolete: deadline is still undetermined as we don't really have enough participation right now. You should have more than enough time.

he had over 4 strength, woodsman promotion on jungle tile... as I said the attacking warrior had 12% to success...
doesnt matter now... I am really happy that in CiV they tried to change it (and one of things that is better)...