The Great Lighthouse (Immortal Walkthrough)

[obsolete]

So what was the big diplomacy situation like around 1000BC in you game? Was it like "oh no... I will give you my women so you don't attack and I can build my shinny wonders..."

Just kidding...

Actually, we start off with a penalty. Immortal levels give you -1 with everyone behind the scenes. This you have to over-come. It gets worse, because Brennus always starts with a -1 as well. So that's two for us to climb just to get neutral lol.

Good news is he doesn't just attack out of the gate, gives us time to prepare. While his peace weight is 0, that's actually not as bad as it looks. His pp is 20/70/100/100. So, even with a weight of zero, we can still lock him into being our blood-brother. Opening boarders helps (a little), but the main reason we did that was to get his religion in. This gives us up to max 3+ for same civic (OR) which is cool because this is one way to befriend Brennus early. And sharing same religion will give us double, which puts us at +6 max. And then we have the +4 for trading/gifting, not to mention resources, etc. And with all the random events now, we also kept getting +1 & +3 diplos by sending him our graneries, etc. So.... what I'm saying is, get him to Pleased mode and you're locked in friendship, there is no need for Friendly status. I think the misconception that Brennus is another Monte is due to the fact that he was new (in Warlords) and people weren't that used to so many aggressive style leaders.

It is ironic, but Bismark, who has a much higher base peaceweight, is infact much more risky, because his pp is something like x/x/90/100. So even when his weight is at 6, if you fail the logistics check with him, there is still a 10% chance he will declare war on you... EVERY TURN!

Note: Just don't open borders too early, or they will swarm you with landgrabs.

 

[obsolete]

access to stone in your capital... uh, yeah, really lucky - random luck too. in most of my games I don't find stone anywhere in my territory, period. I guess that was the key to this game it looks like, despite the fact that you are playing an industrious leader. another observation is that you only had 1 industrious opponent, Bismarck. I'm a little surprised he didn't compete better for wonders with you at this level. But I guess the fact that you focus on building them almost exclusively from the get-go helps this.

Yes, Bismark has a big shininess factor. This is why I keep instructing people to be FAST, FAST, FAST. Make every turn count, and then you don't have to rely on luck.

micromanagement is much easier with so few cities, so I would think you should never allow the city governor buttons to control your citizens. It seems you implied that you do use the governor buttons in an earlier post but maybe I misread that? I too was really surprised to see that citizen specialist in an earlier screenshot.

Even if you don't use the governor, it will make a mess of your set-up NO MATTER WHAT. The only thing I ever use is Production emphasis (usually it gets this half-right). It is more of an issue to save me some clicks the times it hits it right.

As for the citizen, that was giving me 1 hammer, whereas the forested hill would give me 3. So there is a difference of 2. So yes that is not a good deal. But your early builds are from forests, not the city itself. To exemplify this...

My wonders completed by 2 workers chopping on the last turn give 20 + 20 hammers (pre mathematics) for 40 hammers.

40 hammers, out of 42 potential in the very early BC era isn't going to make a difference hardly. But if it did, I would always use the whip anyhow, and thus use the over-flow for the next build. So it really is just a tiny little thing, just a bit sloppy. One could argue that it should work a food tile to grow the city more, but since the city was already at the happiness cap, again it wasn't really that big of a deal as we'd just get an unhappy citizen who is consuming food.

 

[cheffster]

Very entertaining (as usual) to read, impressive that you managed so well after a medicore start (but you did have marble + stone).

I'm tempted to do a write-up of my own on Immortal after reading these. My play-style is similar, but does differ significantly on some key points.

I love how Obselete 'times' his wonder-completion turns perfectly, like finishing the oracle the same turn mathematics will become available, or having a terrain improvement finished the same turn the city-population grows to start working on it, or having 3 forests chopped to finish a wonder the same turn a tech is discovered to start the next wonder.
That delicate synchronicity of timing out your every move and having it all work out together to bring the fastest, most efficient game is how its still possible on Immortal difficulty to get:
The Great Wall, Oracle, Great Light House, Temple of Artemis, Pyramids, Great Library, Parthenon, Hanging Gardens, etc.
without hardly breaking a sweat. I love it, I know what it takes to do this, and feeling when you succeed at it.


Maybe I'll find the time during the holidays for my own write-up, I could try a Deity walkthrough but my win% on that level is rather low.

As far as the people saying 'aren't you bored of playing with Ramsess?', Ramssess has traits that are almost perfectly suited towards a non-cottage/wonder-spamming strategy, and on Immortal it sure helps to have the right traits so I'm thinking Obseletel likes playing with Ramssess the most and isn't bored at all with it.

It might be more "impressive" to see a game posted w/out an industrial Civ on Immortal as having that trait makes a hell of a difference when your goal is finish as many wondes as you can before the AI grabs them.

I would rather see a finish date before 1900AD for a domination win or something on Immortal rather then see a different Civ just cause ppl are saying 'can't you do it w/out Ind bonus' etc.

 

[LlamaCat]

Even if you don't use the governor, it will make a mess of your set-up NO MATTER WHAT. The only thing I ever use is Production emphasis (usually it gets this half-right). It is more of an issue to save me some clicks the times it hits it right.

really? I don't ever have this problem so I wonder if maybe it was fixed in the unofficial patch or something. I also noticed you said your spy was ejected when declaring war and I think this was fixed too because it doesn't happen in my games anymore. Anyway, if you leave the city governor buttons alone and unchecked, the citizens will remain where you last put them. The times when I check inside the cities is after anything happens that would automatically assign them (city grows, Statue of Liberty adds a free specialist, captured city comes out of revolt, etc)

 

[Florian]

What percentage of the time does this approach get you killed by a warlike AI before you get out of the BCs?

 

[Cabledawg]

I played out the initial save. I played a hybrid economy specializing cities. I had alot of early wars with Brenus. I may have lost the Liberalism race, but that was all i lost. I started beating up the AI first capitulating Brenus, destroying Mansa, capitulating Charlemagne, capitulating Augustus, capitulating Germany, then capitulating Washington for a Domination win in 1937.

Capitol...Ironworks and natl Epic

Heroic...Moai....Mil Academy + 4 Mil Instructors

Wall Street...not the best spot , but it was crammed between 2 barb cities. I never founded any religions so i didnt get any shrine income till i captured some.

Brenus attacking me was actually a good thing. I barely survived his first SOD. It forced me to build more units. After I had experienced troops...I had to use em.

I noticed your Heliopolis was the same spot as mine. You also had Heroic and Moai. You didnt put a Mil instructor in the city. Was that an oversight or you did that on purpose? You do have about 12 Instructors spread out in captured cities though.

Verlimion is your Wall Street. It looks like a barb city you captured. Why is it only a size 10. Did you get it recently or slave it down?

 

[Lord Chambers]

I played out the initial save. I played a hybrid economy specializing cities.

So you didn't try to build all the wonders for settled great people in one city?

 

[Cabledawg]

Not at all. I did build alot of wonders, but wonders that caused Great Artist were built in secondary cities. I settled, bulbed techs, built more than 1 academy, and started golden ages with my great people depending on the situation.

My Hybrid economy starts off like obsolete in that the first few cities are food, production, and wonders for starting the great people rolling in. I usually dont start building cottages till the AD years and even then, its in specialized cities.

 

[Err0l]

Little correction - there were two industious AIs on the map - Bismarck and Augustus (he's imp/ind)

Anyway, nice walkthrough, as usual, thank you for this nice strategy - I'm using it in every OCC I play and sometimes in my 'normal' games... keep this up!

 

[obsolete]

really? I don't ever have this problem so I wonder if maybe it was fixed in the unofficial patch or something. I also noticed you said your spy was ejected when declaring war and I think this was fixed too because it doesn't happen in my games anymore. Anyway, if you leave the city governor buttons alone and unchecked, the citizens will remain where you last put them. The times when I check inside the cities is after anything happens that would automatically assign them (city grows, Statue of Liberty adds a free specialist, captured city comes out of revolt, etc)

I have been told, that if you snuck spies into a civ during a war, then made peace, then started war again, those spies who traveled into there during the first war stay, but any spies that traveled in during peace-time get ejected.

 

[obsolete]

What percentage of the time does this approach get you killed by a warlike AI before you get out of the BCs?

I don't think I can remember getting killed before the BC's were out, must have been sometime during the vanilla days. Now... getting POUNCED on, is another story.

 

[obsolete]

I noticed your Heliopolis was the same spot as mine. You also had Heroic and Moai. You didnt put a Mil instructor in the city. Was that an oversight or you did that on purpose? You do have about 12 Instructors spread out in captured cities though.

Verlimion is your Wall Street. It looks like a barb city you captured. Why is it only a size 10. Did you get it recently or slave it down?

My military instructers under rep give me 3 pill bottles. So I tend to maximize this by putting it with my academy booster city instead. I never build war academies, I think that's a huge waste.

As for the population of ten, I doubt it was slavery, probably drafting. I just can't remember much, except that I don't think i really cared about wallstreet by the time I built it. I figured I had things wrapped up pretty good at that point anyway.

 

[obsolete]

cheffster, maybe one reason I like Ramesses so much (besides I think he's well rounded) is that when I first used to play with him, people on this forum would tell me I was some sort of amateur, because half his trait(industrious) was obviously useless once you hit Monarch. And who was I to argue against common logic from the pack?

Anyhow, I did recently play one more Ramesses game. I'm weary of posting it because just after my capital popped borders again, I find stone once again. This is getting almost rediculous. But I'm not one who tends to hit regenerate, so I stuck it out and completed that one.

But after that.......I played (well tried to) about 7 other games. All hoping not to get stone near by early, but yet I run into it after x amount of turns every frieken time! And so quit these early and yes... and restarted a new game.

Finally, I played one to completion where I didn't find stone. Oh it had stone, just I didn't get it. I also wasn't industrious, so hopefully the critics can find something new to chew on again. But I'll probably write up the final Ramesses one too just for the archives.

 

[obsolete]

Special Features!


Well, that sucks...

Spoiler :

Contrary to popular belief... the DB REALLY is more expensive than the SS-Engine...

Spoiler :

The ultimate promotion for those early years...

Spoiler :

 

[cripp7]

great game! How long does it take you to finish out that?