Montezuma Immortal NTT

[sampsa]

Monty 1100AD

Spoiler :

A buildery phase ensued. Gifted two cities to GK to guarantee friendly. I don't fully understand AI behavior, but immediately at friendly he moved his stack away from Salamanca (city bordering us).

Mostly just growing cities. FP+moai in Tenoc, now slow building Taj there (in org rel). Starting GA when eastern -cities are very close to -cap, then run specialists under caste+paci. GLib+NE in Madrid, got GP which starts the golden age and hoping for GSpy from the lottery now which I think would have the highest value. HE in Cordoba (took some fail gold as well).

Then I realized Colossus isn't even gone yet. Well, would've been quite a big boost had I noticed in time, some ~35 pt anyway. Another massive mistake was not going for music in time and in the end lost the race by 1T to Cathy. Tech pace is extremely slow and can take almost what I want with lib. I think I need cannons to win. Probably draft rifles, cannons and cavalry is enough for conquest, though the empire has -power to go much deeper if I want to.

Start GA 1100 AD. Asoka is getting destroyed but not much I can do. Oh got GS from lottery and bulbed edu. Next bulbs go to lib and PP I think, then GMs. Plan is to steal monarchy-feud-machinery at least. It's a 17T golden age so I think can get out from 4 eastern cities and cap (NE), haven't done any calculations. Aiming for ~1600AD conquest.

 

[jorissimo]

Monty 1100AD

Spoiler :

A buildery phase ensued. Gifted two cities to GK to guarantee friendly. I don't fully understand AI behavior, but immediately at friendly he moved his stack away from Salamanca (city bordering us).

Mostly just growing cities. FP+moai in Tenoc, now slow building Taj there (in org rel). Starting GA when eastern -cities are very close to -cap, then run specialists under caste+paci. GLib+NE in Madrid, got GP which starts the golden age and hoping for GSpy from the lottery now which I think would have the highest value. HE in Cordoba (took some fail gold as well).

View attachment 708992

Then I realized Colossus isn't even gone yet. Well, would've been quite a big boost had I noticed in time, some ~35 pt anyway. Another massive mistake was not going for music in time and in the end lost the race by 1T to Cathy. Tech pace is extremely slow and can take almost what I want with lib. I think I need cannons to win. Probably draft rifles, cannons and cavalry is enough for conquest, though the empire has -power to go much deeper if I want to.

Start GA 1100 AD. Asoka is getting destroyed but not much I can do. Oh got GS from lottery and bulbed edu. Next bulbs go to lib and PP I think, then GMs. Plan is to steal monarchy-feud-machinery at least. It's a 17T golden age so I think can get out from 4 eastern cities and cap (NE), haven't done any calculations. Aiming for ~1600AD conquest.

View attachment 708993



View attachment 708994

Spoiler :

Very intrigued by this. Some stuff seems kinda out of character for you, especially the fact that you're working a lot of mines! I'm also kind of curious about the decision to move your capital to Madrid, it doesn't seem like a typical bureau cap to me, I had expected you would move it to Barcelona.

 

[sampsa]

Spoiler :

Very good points. I am building buildings and working a lot of green mines. The reason is that the game will be longer than usual mostly due to NTT, so things have more time to pay back. Mines are worked mainly because nothing better available and plenty of food around.

The main reason to move the capital to Madrid was that it could be done a lot faster. Barca had no forests and actually no pre-IW. The capital move was done more for maintenance than for -potential. If I wanted a space game I think it might make sense to move the capital again , I mean 160 is not that much at this point.

In general I think bureau-cap is important only if other cities are weak. Here I have +10 strong cities so it makes little difference.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Still going strong.
I suppose GK is the next target?

I can see you're making him pay for his keeping both Gems in his borders by using that city for your spy missions.

Re: Bureaucracy capital... I'm wondering wether this might not be an egg-chicken case.
Planning a Bureaucry capital means not hesitating to sacrifice the potential of the cities around so that they can fulfill their main mission: work cottages for the capital. So in a way, it's not so much that Bureaucracy is better when the other cities are weaker... it's planning for Bureaucracy itselft which tends to make the other cities weaker!
Which actually makes the "civilization simulation" aspect of it even better through a serenpiditous effect (although I have immense respect for Soren as a game designer, I don't think this is something he could have foreseen).

 

[sampsa]

Still going strong.
I suppose GK is the next target?

Yes, unless some bozo decides to attack me. Should not be too hard with cannons - need to just wipe out his stack which might be close to 100 units already. He has been playing a very strong game but it's about to end.

I also only now realized SA works with drafting too. It actually makes total draft war very attractive. No, it doesn't, which means I'm going back to the old assessment (SA is not great).

 

[sampsa]

Monty 1400AD

Spoiler :

Chilling, teching, stealing some old stuff from GK (and putting him in caste). Libbed steel and started the unit buildup. Those 14 workshops look nice, but that means I'm in caste and need at least some whips somewhere. Went theo for extra xp only after rifling, though I'd win economics easily but lost it to Asoka.

Decided to draft some muskets even because I thought it's only 5T unhappiness (even musket draft would be super stronk if the -penalty wasn't so severe). Oops, but not a huge deal I guess.

Drafting and whipping now, have 40 cannons and 40 units so ready very soon. Both GK and Ragnar WHEOOHRN:ing so stalling a bit to see what happens. Haven't seen GK stack in a while so maybe going for Justinian? Hope Ragnar goes for GK (or me).

Stopped teching but I don't really need upgrades anymore so probably going commie for fun. Oh have GS to bulb half of scimeth too. GM on the way to Constantinople which I think pays better than size 12 inland ToA-city.

 

[sampsa]

Monty 1540 AD

Spoiler :

Can't wait forever so declared 1450AD. In 2T his stack entered, totaling around 100 units, which isn't bad at all pre-1500 for immortal AI. Not that those units survived for more than 3T, as cannons/rifles vs non-gunpowder units isn't exactly fair. Got 2nd GS so double bulbed scimeth and went for communism. More of a builder play than anything else, it won't help me win faster at all.

His eastern cities were easy to take. Mostly with cavs, a revolt here and there. 1-movers for some cities.

Of course he would capitulate around here, but I can just take it all quickly and go for domination just for a change. Ragnar also declared on GK+Asoka a bit before Asoka broke free. It caused me to lose -trades for 1T and couldn't get them back because now he is not pleased with me anymore (went PS instead of fav civic HR...). It caused a "nice" mini-game where I shuffled produced units between cities to keep them from starving down. Started building crossbows (cheapest unit available) for this reason.

1535AD he is gone. That's 12T from 21 cities to zero. It's not difficult to take down a "monster" if you have a huge tech lead! Don't heal. Just have enough units and plow. I regret not building a bit more cavs, they were easily the most useful unit in such an easy war.

East. Doublenanner-city not looking bad at all. Settled a couple of fillers for fun and profit at communism. Techwise going physics for them balloons, but it probably won't make any difference. Infiltrated Rags with the commu GSpy, which will at least give some visibility.

New land. Started drafting immediately again just get some extra units to the field. I have more than half of the cities, but still need to capture some more.

 

[sampsa]

Monty end

Spoiler :

Asoka capped to Ragnar shortly. I declared on the trio in 3T when most of my units were close. Ragnar didn't have much and grenadiers don't help. Again cavs did most of the city capturing and cannons+rifles took out AI stacks.

War weariness was very bad and I just went 100% culture slider to stop the nonsense. Ragnar ran out of cities soon. Took Moscow and gave it back to Cathy to show humanity. Actually I was trying to get her to peace vassal but she didn't get to friendly.

A bit of an anticlimax to win when Asoka had one city with 3 units left... anyway 1650AD domination!

Fun game, thanks!

 

[Thrasybulos]

Well done!

I'll have to try and finally win that game at some point, now that I have a blueprint.