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The Immortal Challenge 1: Apocalypto

Slightly off topic: I've played a few games with Alexander later, and lightbulbing is indeed very powerful. I could spend GSs left and right as I wished to get to Liberalism well ahead of everybody. But a little after Liberalism it really loses its appeal. You now lightbulb less than half of most techs, it really doesn't feel like you're "advancing" anymore.
 
I'm still wondering how it became like this. Not lightbulbing is the only answer that I can think of. If we had focused on getting GS's and lightbulbing with them, I'm sure it wouldn't be so bad. It would also be pretty generic, though.

I think it would have worked out better from an economic point of view to take over the pirate city and settle/develop all the free space after the first war, then finish off Louis with late medieval or renaissance units.

Land is power - but only if you're actually using it. A settler is a lot cheaper than the military units required to take out longbow defended cities.
 
Round 6: 1140AD - 1370AD

After evaluating the situation for the final time, I decided that continuing the war at this point was not advantageous. Other issues (which are quite subjective) aside, one thing was certain: Augustus was already eyeing the barb city to our north and we needed to expand to that part of the continent asap before someone like him does. With our forces tied down in the south, we could not make a move on the now longbow-defended barb city. And, hence, peace it was. But I listened to the WFYABTA advocates and did not take Archery from Louis:

Immortal91.jpg


I don't know what consequences not ever knowing Archery might have in the future (realistically speaking, it's a bit absurd not to know archery by this age), but I believe, and have been told, that there is none.

With WW weariness lifted, our cities were not at their happiness caps, so we converted to no state religion to improve relations with everyone. It should make us a little safer and the civs from the other continent more willing to trade.

We used the gambit of researching Machinery for one turn (without losing any money) and then checking again if we could get it for Philosophy from Augustus. True enough, it worked:

Immortal93.jpg


Sweet. Now we could go on with our beeline to Democracy, which is, IMO, the best option we have. We would unlock the cottage civics and we might even be able to trade our way up to near parity with those techs. The first tech in that line is Nationalism, so that's where our research took us next.

I also took lilnev's suggestion and sold Philosophy to Shaka at a bargain:

Immortal94.jpg


Indeed, that gave us +4 for 'fair trade' right away and made him Pleased. He was now willing to trade his techs :goodjob:

Then, while looking at the diplomatic advisor, I realised that Augustus had a lot of gpt to give, so I made a deal with him:

Immortal95.jpg


How could I not have noticed earlier? This would really help us research the Democracy line more quickly. Maybe it just wasn't there before.

A little later, we met another civ from the other continent:

Immortal96.jpg


He's not as advanced as Huayna, but still way more advanced than us. The good news is he's willing to trade, so we might be able to get something from him for Nationalism soon.

And, indeed, we could. He wouldn't give us Printing Press, though, so we settled for this (after again taking Archery out of the deal):

Immortal97.jpg


That gave us +4 for 'fair trade' with Mehmed. But why Drama? Because the Zulus did not have it and we could trade it to Shaka, as you shall see:

Immortal98.jpg


:goodjob:

Printing Press gave our economy a little boost, and it's on the way to Democracy. What's not to like?

Constitution was researched next. This is a key tech. Not only does it lead to Democracy, it would give us further trade opportunities and allow us to accumulate shared civic diplomatic bonus with Augustus, who we cannot afford to fight anytime soon.

But look what happened next:

Immortal99.jpg


So the Turks don't like the Romans? Uh oh. We had to decline the request, of course. It would be scuicide. But I wouldn't say I'd take Augustus' side over Mehmed's. We might eventually still go to war with the former after all.

And after the pitiful expedition by the Roman knights have failed, we took the barb city:

Immortal100.jpg


It's surroundings are quite developed (thanks, barbs), and it came with 3 free workers too. Yum.

Then, as if to annoy us, Louis snuck a galley up and planted a city to steal our iron:

Immortal101.jpg


But, then again, he probably did that to annoy us :rolleyes:

That screenshot also shows what Augustus could field by then - cavalry :eek: See, all you warmongers be content. We would've been totally trashed if we went to war against the Romans. I don't think we could get grenadiers or cannons in time, and even they would die, since we probably would not have more than a handful. Macemen vs. cavalry. We're not the AI Monty, you know.

[to be continued in the next post...]
 
I'm still wondering how it became like this. Not lightbulbing is the only answer that I can think of. If we had focused on getting GS's and lightbulbing with them, I'm sure it wouldn't be so bad. It would also be pretty generic, though.

Well, everyone will have an opinion on this I'm sure. My theory is waiting too long to rush France and then doing it with too small of a force. I attacked probably 50 turns earlier with twice as many Chariots and took Paris (not easy with it being on a hill, I did get some luck there). I didn't play it out from that point, but I was in a position to put a big enough dent in Rome to prevent him from getting too far ahead. Once you have hegemony on your own continent I don't care what bonuses the AI gets you will catch up by deep tech beelines and N:1 trades. Since you never really had a trading partner on your home continent you were a long way from the WFYABTA limit. I guess I think that is the biggest difference on Immortal...you can't afford to spend any time putting non-essential infrastructure in place, you need to focus on hitting your neighbors early and hard. A lot of people say that other approaches work, but not for me without an incredible amount of luck. This is also why I mostly play Emperor or Monarch, the games just have more variety and I end up enjoying them more.

FWIW, I don't think the game is over although I would be shocked if you could pull off a military or space race victory. Diplomatic and cultural seem like your best bet, but you haven't done any real groundwork for the latter so I guess focus on the former. I don't have too much experience with the non backdoor variety but I'm sure several people lurking this thread do :cool:.

Darrell
 
FWIW, I don't think the game is over although I would be shocked if you could pull off a military or space race victory. Diplomatic and cultural seem like your best bet, but you haven't done any real groundwork for the latter so I guess focus on the former. I don't have too much experience with the non backdoor variety but I'm sure several people lurking this thread do :cool:.
I don't think aelf needs help for a diplo win ;)
 
[continued from previous post]

Mehmed came to us with another request:

Immortal102.jpg


Being Spiritual, it would not do us any harm to agree, so I did. Mehmed had dropped to Cautious because we refused his earlier request and still traded with Augustus, so this would bring him up to Pleased again.

I stopped playing after Constitution is discovered. We have a settler ready to build a city on one of the spots uberfish recommended earlier in the thread:

Immortal103.jpg


Should we still settle there?

And here are the techs we can get for Consitution:

Immortal104.jpg


By far the best deal possible.

Immortal105.jpg


He says no to giving us Feudalism. Looks like he is almost there himself.

Immortal106.jpg


Probably one turn from getting it or something. I don't know if we would still get the 'fair trade' bonus for this. Should we bother? The little bit of gold would be nice. We got small tributes (only 90 gold in total) from the obliging Shaka and fearful Louis, which helped get a few turns off the techs we researched, so this bit would help too.

Here's the overall tech situation:

Immortal107.jpg


It would certainly look different after we trade Constitution away.

The power graph:

Immortal108.jpg


Looks like everyone got cavalry and rifles already. Look at the jumps in power :eek:

The GNP graph:

Immortal109.jpg


With the cottaging being done, our economy is improving, but still at too slow a pace. We need to do better. Fast.

The map of our continent:

Immortal110.jpg


After fully settling the north (which we must do asap before somebody else gets there), our empire looks big enough to play for a peaceful victory. But take a look at the other continent:

Immortal111.jpg


This is the trouble. The other continent is huge. We would barely be larger than Turkey. How are we going to win by space that way? Even if we conquer Rome later on, it would be too late. That's why I said diplomatic victory is the best option. But it still won't be easy. Mehmed is our rival right now and Shaka loves him. And we can't please both Augustus and Shaka with shared civics because both like different government civics. Unless somehow Huayna becomes our rival. Maybe if he builds the UN and we grow more populous than Mehmed.

Anyway, we need to decide on the next course of action. We can go for Democracy next, but I'm tempted to get Liberalism first. It takes half the number of turns, it unlocks Free Speech (a cottage civic that also helps to push Louis' borders back) and we can probably trade it to almost everybody. The downside is we would probably not be the first to get to Democracy if we do that.

Comments/advice?
 

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Well, everyone will have an opinion on this I'm sure.

True. uberfish and you have fundamentally different ideas on what should have been done. Well, I can't really escape from my own play style, so evaluating from the perspective of how I would have played any game, I think lightbulbing is what would've helped us.

What you said about causing a dent in the Romans is true, though. If you're not going to play a peaceful game, it seems important to weaken everybody around you asap. Unfortunately, the jungles and the fact that the Romans were so far away didn't help. They also had both stone and marble, which explains why they could snag all those wonders, which certainly helped them get to such a strong position.
 
I would take the Education trade, but not Theology. Why do you want that? It's just a WFYABTA demerit. You're never going to run Theocracy, and it doesn't lead anywhere. Don't take Compass either -- it's too cheap to be worth it. My rule of thumb is that if it would take me 3-4 turns or less to self-research, I don't want it in trade for WFY reasons (I wouldn't have taken Lit, for example). But in this game, you're really going to have to ration it: Shaka, Mehmed, and HC are all in the lowest tier of traders. That means you get 6 techs total on Immortal (after they've met you) before they dry up on you. They've seen you get Engineering, Drama, and PP; and HC and Shaka saw you take Lit and Machinery, so they're almost done. Augustus will go up to 18. The exceptions are if both you and an AI are in the bottom half of the scoreboard (currently Shaka) they won't WFY you; and if they're Friendly they're not supposed to. There's also a small chance (5%) each turn that they'll forget a trade you've made, but you're going to lose Mehmed and HC shortly. Make sure what you get in the meantime is worth it.

Stay on target for Democracy. You don't even want to be in Free Speech yet -- not enough towns to make it worth leaving Bureaucracy. Free Religion would be nice, it's true, but it's not as important as Emancipation. Plus Democracy will have better trade value -- probably trade it for Liberalism and Gunpowder. Maybe even good stuff like RP or Chemistry.

peace,
lilnev
 
Just had a look at the save... :eek:

I have no idea how you can pull a victory out of that situation. As you say, the other continent is enormous, and what's more the Egyptians (who we still haven't met) have had a nightmare, allowing Mehmed and Shaka to take nearly 3/4 of the land for themselves. Throw in the fact that those two are best friends and you've got a nightmare scenario.

Under these circumstances, and given that our population (and growth) is looking rather inadequate right now, a diplomatic win is going to be tough even with your superior skills.

Mehmed's got almost twice our population at this point and has farmed most of his land. Unless we do the same in a hurry, I don't think we've got a cat's chance in hell of overtaking him. And since that would kill our economy, we're probably going to have to build the UN ourselves. Which almost certainly means Mehmed as our opponent (though Augustus is an outside chance; if he took Lyon...).

In that case, we're probably going to need Augustus and at least one out of Shaka and HC just to win the SecGen election. The Egyptians are an unknown quantity right now, and there's a chance they'll hate us from day one. If so, we may well need both the Incas and the Zulus.

Good luck.
 
I will be watching your efforts with great interest. I am in a similar situation in the current WOTM. I may wait and see if I can pick up some tips from your skillful diplomatic play.
 
Sorry, this got posted in the wrong forum. I'll add something interesting when I've read this far (I was only on page 7, don't know how this happened)
 
Anything else to add? It seems fairly certain which path we're going to take now. I'm still not so sure about which victory condition, though. Who knows, maybe we can win by space? :p
 
If you go a space race, Internet is your best friend. I just played an Immortal game where I a long way behind in tech. A deep beeline to Radio/Computers and then whatever tech opens up Internet saved me. I had to take the risk defending with rifles when everyone else had tanks. Fortunately I was not attacked (I diverted the AIs into war with Radio).
 
^Indeed, researching for internet is really powerful for space race. Only thing to add is research some turns into assembly line , then trade electricity or radio for AI's assembly line. This gives factories and some extra security with Infantry. Don't trade anything else to AI at this point, you'll get all their techs from internet later.
 
^If the research situation is dire, you may not have time to research the prereqs for Assembly Line. You sometimes have to learn to live with Artillary (which is on the shortest route to Internet). Playing the English (as I was) helps in this situation because of the UU.

If the military situation is dire, as well as the research situation, then maybe the game is already lost.
 
Since there was pretty much no debate about how to proceed next, I've gone on to play the next round. And, really, I think my micromanagement skills are quite inadequate for Immortal. The good news is we have hope. We might even be able to compete decently in the space race without the Internet, although whether we can win is not a question that can be answered yet.

I don't have time to post the update in the next few days, though. Will probably do it on Sunday.
 
Any thought about going for domination victory in your next immortal game, with early monarchy and cottage economy, similar to this one that is ongoing now?

Why repeat the thread?

You can expect to see very different play styles, so I don't think a domination attempt would be similar, in any case.
 
I don't play Immortal level, but I do think you can still reach a space vic, especially if you drive for the Internet. Of course, that would make getting the UN trickier, too, and you might need to build it yourself for the diplo vic. :undecide: Tough call, but I think I'd lean towards space/internet given the tension between Augustus and the other continent. That to me makes Diplo a balancing act that would need a lot of luck to pull off.

Any chance of a little bribery to goad the other continent into fighting each other, or are they all still being happy-happy over there? Shaka's got that huge power rating, maybe you could find a way to get him fighting Huayna and Mehmed. If possible I'd try and goad him into going after Mehmed - he looks to be the stronger of the two opponents and would probably keep Shaka's troops pretty busy. Anything to disrupt the other continent's unity and turn their own strength against them (our Judo Kung-Fu is stronger than theirs. HAH! :lol: :rolleyes: ).

BTW, aelf, totally off-topic but what do you do, work-wise? Just curious, since we find out so much about your schedule, I wondered where it comes from. :)
 
BTW, aelf, totally off-topic but what do you do, work-wise? Just curious, since we find out so much about your schedule, I wondered where it comes from. :)

:confused: What do you mean by finding out about my schedule? I'm waiting to get into university after about two years of compulsory military service. In the meantime, I'm just working part-time. But because I'm in the food and beverage line, I don't have a fixed schedule. And I also go out, go to the gym and fence, so Civ time is really limited :p

Anyway, couldn't you ask in a PM? Now everyone knows what I do :o
 
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