My game on Immortal III - Ramesses II

[Deity player]

After a short hiatus, I decided to start my third forum game to get myself better. In my previous two games, I have played aggressive + organized and creative + financial leaders. This time, I wanted to try something new and so I picked Ramesses II.

The settings:
1. Continents. I like them.
2. No tribal villages and no events (unlike the previous two games).
3. Other settings standard.
4. I have recently installed BUG + BULL. If you try to load the game, please let me know if you have any problems.

Spoiler :

The leader.

Spoiler :

The start.

Spoiler :

Links

I. Exploration
Round 1 4000 BC - 3480 BC

II. Hooking up horses
Round 2 3480 BC - 2400 BC
Round 3 2400 BC - 1760 BC

III. War chariot rush
Round 4 1760 BC - 950 BC

IV. Recovering the economy
Round 5 950 BC - 250 BC
Round 6 250 BC - 250 AD
Round 7 250 BC - 600 AD

V. Conquering my continent
Round 8 600 AD - 1100 AD

VI. Liberalism and Constitution
Round 9 800 AD - 1400 AD

VII. Meeting the other continent
Round 10 1400 AD - 1665 AD

VIII. Space race
Round 11 1665 - 1914 AD (victory)

 

[michmbk]

Looks like a wonderspamming capital to me with all those trees & hills, which works well with Ramesses. Or maybe a war chariot spamming capital if we find horses nearby...

Wouldn't think there'd be much debate about how to start - SIP while going AH-Mining-BW. At least your worker can road a bit while waiting for BW to come out, and hopefully there's something else worthwhile in the fog.

Guess someone could argue settling 1W on the PH, but I wouldn't give up fresh water and a levee for the extra hammer.

 

[GGracchus]

I agree with the above. I bet there's a food resource 1S1SW of the settler. Warrior 1NW or 1SW.

 

[vranasm]

nice exactly as I was thinking if the Keilah's strategy would work better with Ramesses then Ghandhi...

too bad the GH is not switched with PH

 

[Deity player]

4000 BC - 3480 BC

Spoiler :

I settled in place for a nice surprise of corn and gems and researched AH. I also met two AIs.

Screenshots.

Spoiler :

The plan.

Spoiler :

I am really tempted to settle very fast second city in the fish + pig + horse spot and kill Alexander BEFORE he has any phalanxes. Do you think it is possible? If not, we have more nice spots for new cities of course.

 

[King Pluto]

The kill Alex plan sounds good to me with all those forests and War Chariots.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Nice that you were actually able to see horses before the scouting unit got killed....

Edit: If there's one thing that really grates on me in civ iv, it's that units will suicide without being given orders to do so; players should NOT be punished for using in-game features like waypoints and worker automation by having those things DELIBERATELY MOVE UNITS ADJACENT TO ENEMY UNITS IN PLAIN SIGHT.

Ever.

Edit2:

Spoiler :

Ick to the second on this map. Very painful. Getting my exploring unit killed, never saw horse. Axe rushed alex but it seems like his build order was something like CITY ----> CITY ----> CITY ----> CITY ----> CITY ----> CITY ----> CITY ----> CITY ----> go! I eventually kicked him into the tundra and skirting strike took techs for peace.

Then mao declared on me. I was ready, even used a FORT on him. Paid me for peace.

Then he declares again.

And again.

And another time.

Only hope here was spy spam. Stole from china + traded stolen when I could. This actually vaulted me ahead of him and #2 tech power in the world with around #1 land! Slogging through a cannon + rifle vs cannon + musket (he has muskets) war now, should be able to win the map, possibly even with diplo since ham, gandhi, etc like me. Culture is a danger but I can't see losing despite ham being handed a stupid amount of land (he captured 2 cities and had 20% land pre-shaka vassaling to him :/).

Edit again: Yeah, swept China away. Ham had ~24% land with shaka capped, but I had about 38%. Gandhi was going culture but didn't even break 30k on city #3 when I got industrialism/combustion. Had to transition over to traditional research but with factories/power and that much land wasn't hard to do. If gandhi wasn't pushing culture I'd have probably played out space; as it stands I don't really feel like slogging a bajillion tanks over there to take down his rifles, because by then hammurabi will be near launch and i'll have to either nuke him to death or just cap toku + take UN. Either way, this one's over.

 

[Keilah]

nice exactly as I was thinking if the Keilah's strategy would work better with Ramesses then Ghandhi...

too bad the GH is not switched with PH

I think it does, being IND gives you a chance to get another tech and worker/settler before starting work on the Oracle.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I think it does, being IND gives you a chance to get another tech and worker/settler before starting work on the Oracle.

If you can't survive being hit by a couple phalanx + archers around the 1600 to 1200 BC mark any strategy near warmongers like shaka, alex, gk, monty, etc are no-gos. You risk losing outright, which really puts the damper on such things considering you don't NEED them to win...however you do need to survive to win.

 

[Keilah]

I wasn't specifically suggesting it for this game but I'm pretty sure you could build Oracle and still hold that pretty easily as long as horse/copper was hooked up by the time you finish Oracle (1880BC or so)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I wasn't specifically suggesting it for this game but I'm pretty sure you could build Oracle and still hold that pretty easily as long as horse/copper was hooked up by the time you finish Oracle (1880BC or so)

Having it just hooked up is no good; you need a few units. Not many (3 on a hill will almost always cut it), but some. Unless you have BFC strat resource it's not super easy to get axes pre-2000 BC. I guess you could just go straight archery but that slows you down too. Basically, you pull early oracle gambit near a warmonger, you tend to either risk losing the wonder or risk losing the game. The latter isn't that high though, and I suppose you could always cancel wonder plans if they go WHEOOHRN on you and start making units; DoW that early aren't very strong numerically.

 

[vranasm]

@Deity

phalanxes don't get bonus against HA's with BFC gems should be something worth the thought imo (but war chariots are OP ).
Stay small and burst out.
If you go with WC's you need to place city 2 with horses 1st ring and that could mean killing the fish, something like 1NE from the horses?

clearly not good map to test different bulb paths offered by Keilah in another thread.

 

[soundjata]

or settle on the horse maybe?

 

[Deity player]

Is the +1 strenght from horse archer compared to war chariot worth teching HBR? I doubt it. The only problem are the phalanxes.

Why would settling the horse city kill the fish? I can settle 1N or 1S of the horse and have fish and pig in the second ring.

And settling on the horse is also interesting. It would save me six turns (pasture + road) compared to settling 1S of horse but only 4 turns (pasture) compared to settling 1N of horse. And the horse itself is a nice tile to work before the first border pop. What do you think?

 

[vranasm]

if you want to be quick you won't have time to get up monument so would be stuck without food.
as for the fish... you don't have fishing anyway.

the advantage here is the speed that Egypt offers (you already have TW, agri, AH) so just improve connect and good to go

everything as always is "imo".

The difference here is if Alex gets phalanx WC's will be a bit worse then usually. HA's don't suffer the bonus of phalanxes, the bonus is specifically aimed at chariots.

you could build 5 exp HA's with stables meaning shock HA's against those phalanxes.

 

[Deity player]

I agree that the speed is essential if I decide to attack with WC. And that is why I don't need to have pigs or fish in the first ring, I only need to work the horse tile and build more WCs in time. The food can wait until the end of the war . Is that a stupidity?

Against phalanxes, HAs are definitely better. But if Alex doesn't have copper in his BFC, how quickly is he able to connect the copper? If I grow to pop 3, build a settler and settle 1N or 1S of the horse, what chances do I have to be faster than him?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If greece has phalanxes, they have spears. War chariots vs less spears seems better considering you're also fighting against the aggressive trait, although phalanxes don't exactly make things nice.

 

[Deity player]

3480 BC - 2400 BC

Spoiler :

Research went mining -> bronze working -> mysticism -> fishing (not finished yet).

I started second worker at pop 3, followed by settler. The first worker improved the pig, the corn and then roaded to the horse, chopped the forest 1N of the horse (for only 6 hammers) and preroaded the horse tile. The second worker mined the gems.

Spoiler :

A new nice surprice: we have copper in the BFC!

Spoiler :

I settled the horse city (didn't need it since I have copper but the settler was already almost done) and started pasturing the horse on the same turn.

Spoiler :

My cities and the land.

Spoiler :

My plan.

Spoiler :

I intend to attack Alex very quickly. However, I have to decide whether to attack with war chariots or with axemen. Or maybe start with a few axemen and then use war chariots as reinforcements.

Another question is whether I should build monument in the second city or baracks and units and only work the horse tile there. I slightly prefer the latter, the monument can wait.

 

[vranasm]

war chariots should be much better. Same str, ignore FS, bigger speed. Can't get CR though.

looking what you did, I wonder if building 2 workers (having 3 overall) wouldn't be better before settler.

 

[Knightly_]

Heyho,
mhh nobody played the no-rush road except me?

Spoiler :

I settled 6 ok-ish cities and founded confucianism. With both Alex and Mao converting and a srhine + great lib i got a decent research rate. I made my way to cuirassiers whipping away my cottages and invaded Alex. In retrospect i did a horrible job in specializing my cities but the research of my two fellows were so bad i had no doubt they would be backwards when my horse army is there. Mao happily settled the nothern island and i planned to get every of his cities on my island and then cap him. However a very funny event occured. When Mao had ONE city left on my island with 15 cuirassiers in front he assigned his island independence and Ragnar made it into the game. What the... next turn i got Maos last city and he was dead... pretty smart way to lead your civilization into extinction . Anyway i capped Ragnar soon after and this is where i stand now:

Hammu is the only one with a decent techrate. He has the buddism shrine and colossus but only 6 cities. Shaka (13 cities) + vassal Ghandi (8 cities) are so backwards they wont be a threat. I consider the game won, i just have to decide how to mop up the rest. Never tried a carrier/fighter/marine naval invasion so i think this is what i do.

Greetings Knightly_