Moving from Emperor to Immortal

[Major Tom]

Spoiler :

Thanks for the link. It's the same one I tried before. I keep getting this!!!!! but I'll try it out anyways.

What? The file name is exactly the same as i have. (....(2010-09-26)).

 

[cseanny]

Played til 1000 BC.

Spoiler :

Settled 1S. Opened Myst (hut), AH, Min, Pot, Mas (hut), Bw, Wrt, and currently researching Alpha. Initial build order was a bit weird. Worker, Warrior, Barracks (fog busting only warriors, no chariots), at least 4 or 5 more warriors (poped +2H from tin) while growing to Happy Cap. Settler, 2nd worker, 2 or 3 more Warriors to finish fog busting my half of map. Lost 1 Warrior.

Settled my 2nd city West picking up Corn, Stone and sharing Horse for good worker/settle pump. Immediately began working Horse and Stonehenge (chopped out). Placed 3rd city way way up North by Pigs/Oasis near Zara blocking off some land. 4th city was 5 or 6 tiles South of Zara Capital and then I gifted city. 5 or 6 is the magic number to receive a permanent +1 for Liberation.

Then Settled the Corn/Gold city North of Capital and at exactly 1000 BC settled 2 more cities NE and Eastish blocking off pretty much rest of my side of map. A barb city spawned at the tip of the Eastern Pennisula (good spot) and leaves 2 more spots to be taken in a bit. Research is pitiful lol. Put so many hammers in to Warriors early and only had 3 cities around 1800 BC. I've got 5workers (need more!) but things should start looking up by 1AD.

 

[Major Tom]

Played til 1000 BC.

Spoiler :

Settled 1S. Opened Myst (hut), AH, Min, Pot, Mas (hut), Bw, Wrt, and currently researching Alpha. Initial build order was a bit weird. Worker, Warrior, Barracks (fog busting only warriors, no chariots), at least 4 or 5 more warriors (poped +2H from tin) while growing to Happy Cap. Settler, 2nd worker, 2 or 3 more Warriors to finish fog busting my half of map. Lost 1 Warrior.

Settled my 2nd city West picking up Corn, Stone and sharing Horse for good worker/settle pump. Immediately began working Horse and Stonehenge (chopped out). Placed 3rd city way way up North by Pigs/Oasis near Zara blocking off some land. 4th city was 5 or 6 tiles South of Zara Capital and then I gifted city. 5 or 6 is the magic number to receive a permanent +1 for Liberation.

Then Settled the Corn/Gold city North of Capital and at exactly 1000 BC settled 2 more cities NE and Eastish blocking off pretty much rest of my side of map. A barb city spawned at the tip of the Eastern Pennisula (good spot) and leaves 2 more spots to be taken in a bit. Research is pitiful lol. Put so many hammers in to Warriors early and only had 3 cities around 1800 BC. I've got 5workers (need more!) but things should start looking up by 1AD.

Interesting. Stonehenge good idea as Zaras steles and creative trait makes tremendous borderpressure. My second city settled near gold to help happiness. Thought happiness could be a problem. Third was razed by barb spear. Then another east for stone. Then more east for bronze.

Did the city gifting trick make Zara willing to techtrade?
How about religion on the island?
Beeline CS?
Archery for Bowmen?

 

[cseanny]

Did the city gifting trick make Zara willing to techtrade?
How about religion on the island?
Beeline CS?
Archery for Bowmen?

Haven't played past 1000 BC yet but I've got another Settler almost finished which will gift him another city 5 tiles E of his Capital which will then give me +3 Liberated cities (+1 jumps to +3 after 2nd gift) and he'll then be at Friendly. So 100% yes I'll be able to trade .

No religion yet but should get to Philo 1st either way. And yes, I plan on heading over to CS quick. Once Library finishes I'll run 2 scientist and bank gold till I can make an Academy. There is no need for Bowmen imo. Our Continent is already completely fogbusted and Warriors are cheaper garrison units.

 

[sampsa]

To 500BC

Spoiler :

I'm surprised I'm the only one settling 1E so far, as it's clear that there is going to be many floodplains there. 2E makes a lot of sense, too, though.

AH-min-pot-wri-BW-myst-mas-math-(currency-medi?-priest?-CoL?-CS?). Banked a LOT of gold pre-library and some also after math, waiting for academy.

T50 3rd settler on the way to claim gold, fog busting with warriors.

T75 4 cities up, all flood plains + stone claimed. Trade routes with Zara are online, too.

T95 5 cities, just got the Mids, 77 pt even without a single specialist.

Maybe my play has been a bit reckless diplomatically, as I'm just lost if he attacks. Haven't planned city gifts yet, but I should be able to get him to friendly pre 1AD. With this tech power the game is just technically won at that point in my opinion.

 

[cseanny]

Just past 1AD

Spoiler :

Lot's of land to settle (max hammers into Settlers/Workers/nothing else) so I continued whipping, chopping, and using good overflow to get out as many settlers as possible. Gifted my 2nd city within 6 tiles of Zara's Capital which automatically gave me +3 Liberated cities (never goes away). It's the only way to get Zara to Friendly in a quick manner w/out religion. Just gifting him cities will not work.

So a few trades. You'll notice in the 1st screen shot below I'm Zara is in peace with me because he gifted me Iron Working before this trade. Got some nice gold and Sailing and shortly after traded for Calendar and then bought Meditation for cheap. Used the gold I had been banking while running Scientist and from trade to boost research once I got my Academy.

Not really sure what tech route I want to go for yet. I kinda want to keep Zara around for trade because I feel it would take a bit too long to make good use of Astro. Either way my research is going good. I can trade for Philo but for now I'm going to try and be 1st to Music then probably use GA and head over to Education (maybe Oxford). Not sure yet.

 

[sampsa]

@cseanny

Spoiler :

Very impressive. I have no idea how you managed to pull off the to gift him two cities in time, as in my game I wasn't able to find even one gift spot. I was late with that, of course.

By 75AD I'm about to settle my 9th city (Zara has 10), have mids+HG+academy and I'm teching paper, but the fact that Zara is not friendly is the biggest issue.

 

[Major Tom]

Well done sampsa and cseanny. Thanks for tips and tricks to both.

I am about to resign at 1814 due to a pathetic tech situation. Launched a 2nd attack on Zara around 1600 and took 3 cities (well, razed one) and now I launched a 3rd attck with brand new cavalry and rifles. As soon as my troops was dumped near a city by him, there was suddenly 3 infantery (turn before only rifles) on that hilltopp city and destroyers lurking behind.

Was consistently winning on emperor, but think I had to mutch respect for imm, playing with low risk. Also sloppy fogbusting (been playing other games in the meantime were that did not matter). And of course, expansion was too slow.
Teching was about beelining CS and astro which was ok and then weapons. Running Monarchy, nationhood, slavery and paganism did not help for tech either.

Both of your games are probably a technically win when Zara is eliminated sitting there with a 30 city continent by yourself.

Thanks for the shadows. Learned a lot.

 

[sampsa]

@MajorTom

I think you should try pangaea map script, as it's the easiest one due to lucrative trade possibilities. On fractal the difficulty level of the map varies a ton (isolation and semi-isolation can be very hard). Also you could try to play without Better AI, although I'm not sure how much harder it makes the game.

 

[cseanny]

@ Major

Shadow games are fun and lot's for everyone to learn, myself included. I agree with Sampsa in regards to Pangae. It's the most predictable and reliable map, especially when moving up levels. Even if you're not isolated like this game land balance is all kinds of crazy on fractal or continents which means some AI's might have room for 18-30 cities!! Talk about a runnaway (Deity for sure).

@ Sampsa.

Spoiler :

Remember my 3rd Settler was a strategic gift so lots of land at that point. I did pick a spot which would put less pressure on my future cities too though. And the next city I gifted him was actually made from Dur Kuri which was at 2 pop in the 1000 BC screen. I already had 2 workers roading and there is lot's of forest (there was a lot of forest in my 2nd Stone city too). Simply grew 4 more turns to 3 pop and had 2x chopped timed out then whipped w/ overflow to granary.

 

[Pangaea]

Thanks for the link. It's the same one I tried before. I keep getting this!!!!! but I'll try it out anyways.

Is Norton the bug you're talking about? Yeah, it can be a real pain in the nether regions to remove that virus

PS: It's probably just a false positive.

 

[cseanny]

Nice work in the current G Major 144 btw ^^. You seem to have a very nice game going for sure. Been following that thread every day lol. Now Imo, the settings of Marathon and Huge are just plain broken and silly (being serious, I would never even consider playing such settings - truly horrible) but I still find it quite interesting to follow nonetheless.

Seems the RNG is screwing you (Religion spread) and Sera (war) over pretty good but you both appear to be fairing extremely well. I'm curious as to what this WasinTimes new game breaking method for all games are though. I'd love to improve my own game on settings of my choice.

Cheers. ^^

 

[sampsa]

@cseanny

Spoiler :

A big sacrifice that early certainly, but paid off superbly. Should be smooth sailing now. Props.

 

[Pangaea]

Nice work in the current G Major 144 btw ^^. You seem to have a very nice game going for sure. Been following that thread every day lol. Now Imo, the settings of Marathon and Huge are just plain broken and silly (being serious, I would never even consider playing such settings - truly horrible) but I still find it quite interesting to follow nonetheless.

Seems the RNG is screwing you (Religion spread) and Sera (war) over pretty good but you both appear to be fairing extremely well. I'm curious as to what this WasinTimes new game breaking method for all games are though. I'd love to improve my own game on settings of my choice.

Cheers. ^^

Thanks. Looks like we're doing pretty well overall, but in such a tense game, any small thing can be enough to screw you, and taking 20 turns longer to get CS due to Willem not becoming friendly due to all those missionary fails, and the wrong AI getting very early Feudalism, those are pretty big setbacks. But it's the best start I got, by far, so I just have to try to play it out I think. It's an entirely new game type for me, so it's a learning experience, but naturally I'd like to make as few mistakes as possible.

Totally agree Marathon is a different ballgame. Things are possible there that simply isn't possible on any other settings. Sushi in the BCs? 20 cities by 2000BC? Good luck!

It's still a fun game, however, and that's the main thing, and I'm glad others that follow the thread find it interesting too

Think we all wonder about that new trick he has talked about, because whatever it is, it seems to be a game changer, so much so that the rest of us simply cannot compete. But if we compare our current games to the previous top ones, I think we look in pretty decent shape, and that's a pretty high bar too.