The Immortal Challenge 4: Flight of the Phoenix

[Sisiutil]

A very well-played round, especially the Liberalism sans-Machinery lightbulbing gambit. I think I might have been tempted to take Gunpowder, just to unlock and unleash the UU even earlier. But that's me. Are you going to take a stab at the Taj Mahal?

Vassalizing Genghis would doubtless be faster and easier than destroying him utterly, but you need to ask yourself if it's worthwhile. The main reason I'll keep a vassal is because I can outsource research to them. The two main vassal possibilities on your continent--Shaka and Genghis--are both lousy techers, however. So it's unlikely you'll get any techs from them that you can't research on your own. What you will get is a diplomatic hit with every other civ, unhappiness in several of your conquered cities, and increased maintenance costs. I say kill them both dead. You're about to obtain your UU, after all.

(However, Genghis does have a few techs on you--it may be worthwhile to fight the war with him in stages, taking a tech for peace at each pause. But be careful of the diplomatic hit you might get for a DOW if one of the AIs decided they like him for some strange reason.)

 

[Neato]

Vassalizing Genghis would doubtless be faster and easier than destroying him utterly, but you need to ask yourself if it's worthwhile. The main reason I'll keep a vassal is because I can outsource research to them. The two main vassal possibilities on your continent--Shaka and Genghis--are both lousy techers, however. So it's unlikely you'll get any techs from them that you can't research on your own. What you will get is a diplomatic hit with every other civ, unhappiness in several of your conquered cities, and increased maintenance costs. I say kill them both dead. You're about to obtain your UU, after all.

(However, Genghis does have a few techs on you--it may be worthwhile to fight the war with him in stages, taking a tech for peace at each pause. But be careful of the diplomatic hit you might get for a DOW if one of the AIs decided they like him for some strange reason.)

Again stressing that I haven't played Immortal, taking the whole continent, with the pause or two to take all of Genghis's tech and mobilize forces (maybe getting some cannons too), is exactly what I'd do in a Monarch game. If it can be done here, thereby avoiding the trouble of bad diplomacy, unhappiness, and high maintenance, we'd be so on our way to either diplomacy or space race it wouldn't even be funny.

 

[aelf]

Killing Shaka off completely does look attractive, especially as he will only fall further and further behind. Doing that to Genghis, though, might not be worth it. We'll have to assess the situation later.

Right now, we have to deal with Genghis first, since he is threatening and Shaka is not.

A very well-played round, especially the Liberalism sans-Machinery lightbulbing gambit. I think I might have been tempted to take Gunpowder, just to unlock and unleash the UU even earlier. But that's me. Are you going to take a stab at the Taj Mahal?

Thanks.

Nationalism is for drafting our UU. There is also the side benefit of it being the more beaker-heavy tech. The Taj is probably not within our sights since the war seems more pressing.

 

[aelf]

Hmm... It's not a good thing when TV shows have low ratings. Do the viewers not like something recently? Please, feel free to comment.

EDIT: I should say falling ratings.

It's not that I check, by the way. Sometimes my pointer just happens to point at it and I notice.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Most probably stretching a game over 3 months has dropped the interest level a bit - its hard to remember whats going on. I'm keen to see how it plays out myself. I suspect Ghengis has a surprise in store - I can't believe he will be a pushover and I'm not that sold on Janissaries now he has muskets which start with combat 1. You are essentially planning a war with medieval units, which is something I avoid like the plague. But if you pull it off, I expect to learn something

 

[Neato]

Hmm... It's not a good thing when TV shows have low ratings. Do the viewers not like something recently? Please, feel free to comment.

EDIT: I should say falling ratings.

It's not that I check, by the way. Sometimes my pointer just happens to point at it and I notice.

Haha, I think you're allowed to check. This is kind of your show, you know?

Maybe it's just that I'm new here, but I'm loving this. I've played Civ for a long time, and I'm kicking myself for not coming to this site more earlier. I've looked at a few other threads, stumbled upon this one in your signature, and am extremely excited to see how this is progressing. I also want to read your past threads as soon as I get the time. Being a Prince/Monarch kind of guy, I hope to learn a few things. Also, I heard that you played up the story aspect in the past, I'm curious to see how.

 

[aelf]

Most probably stretching a game over 3 months has dropped the interest level a bit - its hard to remember whats going on.

That's true. But I sort of expected it and warned of it when I started this thread, knowing that university life gets busy.

Low interest level is different from low ratings, though. I think I know why, but I'd want to know if there's any game-related reason. I'm not expecting you to tell me, by the way, just a general question

I suspect Ghengis has a surprise in store - I can't believe he will be a pushover and I'm not that sold on Janissaries now he has muskets which start with combat 1. You are essentially planning a war with medieval units, which is something I avoid like the plague. But if you pull it off, I expect to learn something

I don't think he's going to be a pushover either, but I don't believe the AI is going to go musket-heavy. Besides, we have our HE city (with GMI) to produce pinch Janissaries to help. And remember that this is Warlords, so medieval war isn't that bad. Janissaries are not affected by walls and castles anyway, are they?

We did it with Shaka. He's no pushover. Let's hope we can do the same with Khan.

Haha, I think you're allowed to check. This is kind of your show, you know?

I think the actual comments matter more, honestly. However, I am a bit of a perfectionist And I guess there might actually be good reasons for it after all.

Maybe it's just that I'm new here, but I'm loving this. I've played Civ for a long time, and I'm kicking myself for not coming to this site more earlier. I've looked at a few other threads, stumbled upon this one in your signature, and am extremely excited to see how this is progressing. I also want to read your past threads as soon as I get the time. Being a Prince/Monarch kind of guy, I hope to learn a few things. Also, I heard that you played up the story aspect in the past, I'm curious to see how.

Thanks! I think it was better in the past, though. I feel old and a little tired at Civ4 It could be that I have a lot of other things to do now. But, that doesn't mean I'm a veteran or something I'm far from the best, mind you.

Well, no matter what, this show will go on.

 

[Neato]

Thanks! I think it was better in the past, though. I feel old and a little tired at Civ4 It could be that I have a lot of other things to do now. But, that doesn't mean I'm a veteran or something I'm far from the best, mind you.

Well, no matter what, this show will go on.

I still say keep it up. But perhaps, and maybe this is selfish of me, you should open a new chapter of your series after this game by going beyond the sword, so to speak....

As far as this game goes, just to tie everything back into topic, I'm still with the crowd that says SOD through the holy city and the capital, and maybe another force to the east to grab those cities that really should have been yours in the first place. Ahhh, war...

 

[aelf]

I've started playing the next round and might have finished it. I'm not sure if I'm ending the round at this point. I probably would.

However, I'll be gone for a few days, so the update won't be due till next week. But, just to set expectations, it's an exciting (if scary) round

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

only Oringinal game and beyond the sword.

But for my usual game plan, I'd eliminate both Shaka and Ghengis, to eliminate the homeland , and to gain much greater control over your continetial reseach power.

So your slowed down initially getting the captured cities back up and running, but once you own the continent fully, they rapidly come on line with plenty of workers and the foreign diplomacy, your so good at.

Plus you don't have to support some backwards military liability.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Eliminating your continental rivals seems the best way to go in my opinion, removes the homeland unhappiness as has been stated, also removes any future city revolts that culture might cause, of course you won't lose the city but you'll either have to put up with a useless city for x amount or plop a garrison in there. This is assuming you vassalise, if not then you'd have to watch your back also.

If you did vassalise then you can prop them up with techs and direct their research with intent to trade, but that requires good relations. You may also end up with an intercontinental AI disliking one or both of your vassals affecting you trade-relations as it becomes team based.

Of course you've probably already progressed past this point...

 

[aelf]

If it's easy enough, yes, it will be done.

 

[siggboy]

Or, should we settle him a la Obsolete, keeping the Representation bonus in mind?

I keep reading about "Obsolete Style", but I'm still quite in the dark what this means. I've skipped Warlords and only recently took up Civ again with BtS, so "obsolete" is where I left off . Can somebody explain the concept to me or point me to a thread where this is discussed?

I'd go one step further and say grow into unhappiness. Who cares if you have an angry citizen, he can be whipped for hammers or put to work if you get an extra happy face. You basically threw away 3F/turn.

Another thing that I've never understood. If your city is about to grow into unhappiness, and there is no good alternative to the extra food tile, why not simply let it grow? The extra unhappy person does no harm, since unhappiness is not infectious. You can even starve the city back to happiness if you need, while working an otherwise unsuitable tile (eg. a plains mine). The unhappy citizen is, in a way, a food store.
The only situation where I would avoid growth manually is if I have an attractive alternative to the food-heavy tile (like in this case, the silk instead of the fish).
Darrell is completely correct when he points out that 3F per turn was wasted and nothing gained.

Sorry for digging this out from months ago, but I think it deserved some more attention.

As for the game at hand: I think it's more than slightly inconveniencing that Genghis does have Gunpowder already. This means you lose a significant advantage from your UU if he uses Musketmen for defense (and he will, since the Musketman is the "natural" city defender after the Longbowman; Genghis also seems to have a lot of cash, looking at the tech screen, so it's not unlikely that he will have upgraded quite a few Longbows into Muskets already). Add in the fact that he will have castles, too. Very hard to crack with your catapults (no espionage, so no way around building trebs first).

I think a full out war against Genghis is very risky! Not sure what a good alternative would be, however. The only thing I can think of at the moment is to finish off Shaka (that will be very easy with the Jannissary), then keep on guard against Genghis while consolidating your economy. You have a lot of high potential territory that waits to be improved, and you're sharing a religion with Genghis, so chances are you're not on his red list anymore, now that other civs have made contact.

OTOH, you did a terrific job against Shaka, so why not again?

By the way, if you plan to go on a draft fest, you might consider taking Drama and building the Globe Theatre in one of the food cities, then draft them silly wihout any penalties. Thinking about it, drafting before building the Globe would be quite boneheaded even. Probably the capital would be great for this (plenty of bonus food so at size 5, the minimum size for drafting, it can probably grow back the lost population every turn, making it a perpetual troop generator with no real downside; the lost commerce/production in the capital is easily offset by the benefits). The food:hammer ratio for drafting is excellent on epic speed.

Edit: Thinking about it a little more, I would do the following: get Drama and the GT while finishing off Shaka. Maybe even overgrow the capital in preparation for the drafting. When the GT is done (or close to completion), keep drafting defenses in the capital while improving your empire. Your rapidly increasing power level will keep Genghis from attacking you and having only one city producing troops frees up a lot of hammers everywhere else for infrastructure building.
If you find that Genghis is still vulnerable at the current point in time, go for him instead (taking a few key cities might be enough to hold him at bay).

One last thing: maybe you could toggle the "bare map" view when posting screenshots overviewing the territory. This makes it way easier to evaluate the quality of the terrain.

Edit 2: You've already played out the round, rendering all my suggestions pointless ;-). Anyway, looking forward to see how it turned out.

 

[Mesousa]

I keep reading about "Obsolete Style", but I'm still quite in the dark what this means. I've skipped Warlords and only recently took up Civ again with BtS, so "obsolete" is where I left off . Can somebody explain the concept to me or point me to a thread where this is discussed?

obsolete is a user here. List of his threads, check his "walkthroughs". Basically it's about wonderspamming in the capital and settling many great people there to create a supercity.

 

[Neato]

By the way, if you plan to go on a draft fest, you might consider taking Drama and building the Globe Theatre in one of the food cities, then draft them silly wihout any penalties. Thinking about it, drafting before building the Globe would be quite boneheaded even. Probably the capital would be great for this (plenty of bonus food so at size 5, the minimum size for drafting, it can probably grow back the lost population every turn, making it a perpetual troop generator with no real downside; the lost commerce/production in the capital is easily offset by the benefits). The food:hammer ratio for drafting is excellent on epic speed.

That's fantastic. The thought never occured to me. Thanks for the great idea.

I have a feeling that aelf didn't go this root, but I'm excited to see the next round none the less.

 

[siggboy]

That's fantastic. The thought never occured to me. Thanks for the great idea.

The idea is so obvious that it's easy to miss. I think I read about it very long ago in a basic strategy article, but I really don't remember which one. What I do remember is that the article proposed to build the Globe not in your GP farm (GT+NE) but in your West Point city instead (WP gives +4 bonus XP, Barracks +4, Theocracy +2, for a total of +10 XP which is halved due to drafting, but you still end up with 5 XP on the drafted units, or two promotions; very nice since then you can give them Drill II or Pinch).

However, check this one out: Drafting for Fun and Profit

 

[siggboy]

obsolete is a user here. List of his threads, check his "walkthroughs". Basically it's about wonderspamming in the capital and settling many great people there to create a supercity.

Thank you, I would probably never have figured out that "obsolete" is a user name. I'm going to read through his threads. By the way, you can't link searches directly (the forum search is utterly annoying anyway, but that's a different story).

 

[Neato]

The idea is so obvious that it's easy to miss. I think I read about it very long ago in a basic strategy article, but I really don't remember which one. What I do remember is that the article proposed to build the Globe not in your GP farm (GT+NE) but in your West Point city instead (WP gives +4 bonus XP, Barracks +4, Theocracy +2, for a total of +10 XP which is halved due to drafting, but you still end up with 5 XP on the drafted units, or two promotions; very nice since then you can give them Drill II or Pinch).

However, check this one out: Drafting for Fun and Profit

Excellent. You're right, it's so obvious that I walked right by it. The article is great too. What a concept.

 

[CivSetä]

As for the game at hand: I think it's more than slightly inconveniencing that Genghis does have Gunpowder already. This means you lose a significant advantage from your UU if he uses Musketmen for defense (and he will, since the Musketman is the "natural" city defender after the Longbowman; Genghis also seems to have a lot of cash, looking at the tech screen, so it's not unlikely that he will have upgraded quite a few Longbows into Muskets already).

Longbows don't upgrade to musketmen, fortunately.

 

[siggboy]

Longbows don't upgrade to musketmen, fortunately.

Actually nothing upgrades to Musketmen, as I just realize. Well, that certainly takes off some of the pressure, then.