The Immortal University II - Suryavarman II of Khmer

[Olodune]

@Rusten

Spoiler :

I wouldn't be surprised if people thought I was cheating, because at 2400 BC we discover copper (!!) in our BFC, you're just going to have to take my word for it; I had no idea.

Its too bad we all know how you dominate Immortal games -- we know you have no reason to cheat

Very nice peace treaty loot

 

[Rusten]

Spoiler :

[......]nonetheless Louis always has to die in the Immortal University threads.

Spoiler :

He must be having a mental breakdown at this point - never making it into the ADs with all of his cities intact. This time around he's beelining Feudalism, but still getting owned

 

[shyuhe]

I've started this one as well. Played up to 1 AD.

Spoiler :

I settled in place, gambling on the map generator. I was sorely disappointed But on the upside, I got some ridiculous hut luck. I popped archery, then agriculture, then IW I also got the cover event for melee units to boot. Poor Louis didn't stand a chance, especialy since he iddn't have access to copper/iron/horses...

I took Paris, razed one city, and also grabbed Orleans by the shore (which I kept because it had access to gold).

I had leftover swords so I sent my troops north to go harass Qin. His capital was lightly defended and the axes that I built after the swords caught up with my stack. I managed to take a coastal city and his capital before I ran out of steam and had to take peace. I figured I had crippled Qin at this point so mission accomplished there too.

Qin then proceeded to settle eastwards, blocking off the land from Gilgamesh. So now that the northern border has been secured, my goal is to settle to the south and east towards Joao. Unfortunately Joao has grown very large... I think there's going to be a big showdown later on in the game unless I can bribe him into some bad wars. We'll see how it goes...

Here's my 1 AD tech screen:

and VC:

 

[Sleepless]

Up to 625BC

Spoiler :

The aim in this section was war with Lou. I let him off early on last time, he wasn't going to be so lucky this time. Paris was to be the first target but being a holy city and creative I was expecting the cultural defence to be at 60% and with axes this was going to hurt. So the plan was to have 15 axes before I declared. Might have been overkill but when my army reached Paris the first axes were at 8% to win. Forgot to take a screenshot but overall I lost 5 or 6 axes and Paris was mine.

Next target Orleans the pig/gold city.

My first 2 axes won at 20% odds, nice RNG and Orleans was mine.

Kept this city. Next Rheims which was going to be razed.

Mmm warrior partisans. I don't usually raze cities so does it mean the partisan event will happen on every city we raze? I was going to take peace after this but had to kill the warriors for cheap xp first .

A very awkward diplo moment.

Decided to convert as Tok/Boud are a fare distance away and it will help keep Qin and Gil happy with me. Especially when I attack there friend again . Good or bad move?

I'm wondering whether peace with Lou was a good idea. I was suffering a little bit from WW but as he didn't have alpha I couldn't get any pointy stick research techs. I know he has calender as he's built some plantations. Plus side he might build the MoM for me. Any thoughts on that especially as everyone else has alpha?

Final scores:

Lost 9 Axes

Killed 4 Axes
4 Swords
8 Archers
3 Warriors
1 Chariot (why I'm building some spears)

Tech situation:

Should have Aesthetics very soon so I'll put a turn in Alpha and should be able to pick up a few techs there fingers crossed.

Demographics looking ok.

Plan now is a bit of a peaceful rex. Take Lou's last 2 cities. I'll let him clear all the jungle first though. There are some barb cities to the East which I will take/raze to stop the AI getting them plus more xp for my cr axes.

Last thoughts on the capital. Just wondering what everbody else (except Rusten) will do with it. Pre CS its at + 4 food (UB will be needed here I think ) so a prod monster but needs bio to be seen at its best. I'm tempted to move to Paris (I've done that before recently as well ) anyone else planning the same?

 

[Treso]

When I back from college I will try some turns too. I usually play in Noble/Prince/Monarch, that will be a big jump to immortal

 

[theKurgen]

When I back from college I will try some turns too. I usually play in Noble/Prince/Monarch, that will be a big jump to immortal

The worst jump for me is from Marathon to Normal. Everything just seems to blaze by at an utterly stupid rate

 

[Dirk1302]

Looks like the capital will be moved again this game . I'd say this is a bad start but it is redeemed somewhat by the 25% hammer bonus on workers so we'll be able to put the forests to good use. I really hope for another bonus in the fog though. I always settle in place and i'll do so now.

I'll start tonight.

 

[Diamondeye]

I am not going to play this as Immortal is killing me, and the start seems tough; anyway, here are some thoughts:
1: Settling 1W is bad - the only clear tile (resource, probably!), is lost.
2: Settling 1NE might be good for coastal access, but loses lots of potential.
3: Suryavarman is so ugly without his Bluemarble makeover.

 

[Sleepless]

625BC -325AD

Spoiler :

Well a quiet little session with the aim of consolidating my land and stabilising my economy. First off I've just read Olodune's spoiler regarding the tech situation. In mine Gil researched civil service in 585BC . Don't know if that is early or not but it seems it is to me. Managed to get Alpha/Math/IW and Masonry from Aesthetics. Current tech situation.

Not looking too bad. Joao just came and asked me for Lit, Boud has had it for some time so I will sell it to Qin and Gil, the cash will help me to CS quicker. The capital could certainly do with some irrigation. . Hopefully one of those 2 will build the GLib for me. I was going to try but decided HE should go in the capital. Nearly time to put Lou out of his misery. He has even built the Mids as well. I did build the Shewdagon (spelling) and used it to go in FR so no religious negatives with anyone. Current Relations.

Good all except Lou and he doesn't matter.

Qin founded Tao and Christianity, also built the AP with Tao as the religion. Reminds me must spread it around my cities.

Not a totally peaceful round I took 2 barb cities, kept 1, the other I decided it wasn't worth the maintenance so razed it. Wouldn't say Joao is programmed to settle quickly but he was there straight away with a settler.


A view of our lands.

Plan for next session is to settle the fish/deer and crab sites and most importantly put Lou out of his misery.

I think I'm looking good at the moment , both Gil and Qin are squashed in to the North. Qin 5 cities, Gil 4 so hopefully if and when I decide to attack them they will fall quickly.

One last thought does selling techs count towards WFYBTA? On to next session.

 

[Johan^^]

Played abit more today on my game and decided to go down a different path than the one I had planed for yesterdag. A good night sleep can set your mind straigh

1080BC-100BC

Spoiler :

So my economy was in a pretty bad shape where i left off last time. About 15 and minus 15. Time to make use of all those cheap library´s from creative trait and put some scientists to work. This is way i "beelined" writing so fast to secure a way out of my dead eco after my envasion of louis

I decided not to for go with the warmonger plans and decided to REX to the east in order for Joao not to grab too much land. My scouting tells my, that even though i REX toward him, he will properbly be nr. 1 in landmass unless the Celts/Japan somehow surprise me. Those to always seems to be the worst AI´s in the game.

Well my tech path this round was :

Pottery (only a few turns missing) Spammed some cottages to recover even more
Alphabet even though i was allready know by a few. Another VERY important tech for me to recover my eco. With Alphabet in I put almost every city to "work" science to research Currency.
At this point my science had gone from 15 with negative gold per round to ~85 and breaking even in gold per turn.

Traded alphabet for Math + some cheat techs.

Ill let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Tech situation after i traded currency around for as many techs as possible.

Discovered CoL and did a trade

I traded with the evil female warmonger machine because she is not on my maps --> far away from me + she never seems to be a problem late game. So if i can delay the other guys by not trading with them, thats fine

Seeing as no one has gone for the Great library route yet i decide to go for it as i just got acces to marble . Think ill try to build it in my newly found city at the borders to Joao. That city might be the only one with enough food potential to become my GP farm. (overview of the empire will follow)

I like the tech situation so far. I have tried to tech-trade the least with Qin(China) in order to have a backwards neighbour.

An interesting game development is :
Qin and Gilgames have different religions and close borders... Really hope they go to war with eachother soon. Then ill come at a later stage in the game and clean up the mess.


State of the empire in the following pictures :

A post with empire overview will follow.

 

[Johan^^]

1080BC-100BC continued. Empire overview + future gameplan

Spoiler :

Overview of the Immortal student empire

Game plan:
Well i like my land and have plenty of new cities to backfill south/east of my capital. That should be done in the next turnset. Getting the great library and setting up my gp farm has top priority. With CoL and Currency in the bag the eco will only grow stronger

I plan to aim for the Lib race once i get Literature with a slingshot towards Riffling/Riflemen ... to grab the lands of China and Gilgames.

A very important development is the Religius... With Boudica, Tokugawa and Joao all buddist ill have to either hope Joao founds a religion soon and converts or spamm missionaries in order to create some tension in that region. If not ill have to rely on buddisme spreading to me so I can join the club


Overview of my borders :

 

[Sleepless]

@ Johan^^

Spoiler :

Looking good . Nice settling of Angkor Wat (I think) on the Gold/Flood Plains site, by the time I realised it was FP and not desert Joao had settled there .

You said you traded for a lot of cheap techs are you concerned about the WFYBTA limit? Not that it matters too much when you are the tech leader .

 

[Olodune]

@Johan^^

Spoiler :

You look to be in great shape -- nice job getting the Angkor Thom city

You have a similar "Buddhist block" as me, it will be interesting to see how that plays out -- I have a Buddhist city (IIRC), so I may swap soon.

 

[shyuhe]

I played ahead quite a bit I definitely got into "one more turn" mode as I was having fun warring. I definitely have new found respect for creative as a warring trait.
I'm up to 1500 AD.

Spoiler :

I picked up from my last game by consolidating my gains and sending out some settlers to the east. Unfortunately Joao had REX'ed pretty far west so I was only able to squeeze in another 2-3 cities before I ran up against his borders. I then hunkered down and decided to commit to a medieval war. Qin was tiny and Gilgamesh didn't have much production either. I figured if I struck swiftly, I'd be able to take them out before they would become too problematic. Also, the eastern region of Joao/Toku/Boudica were Buddhist buddies so there wasn't much point in trying to stir up action over there.

So I teched CS, then went towards machinery followed by engineering -- guilds. I then went gunpowder in case I needed it before I went back to paper -- education. Joao by this time had been caught up in an unfortunate war so he was teching military techs.

On the war front during this time, I thought no wars would happen to the east but Boudica declared on Joao, then bribed Toku to join in. That war went on for a while. After that, Toku declared on Boudica. Joao also dogpiled against Boudica, ultimately vassalizing her towards the end of this set.

To the west (my area), I declared on Qin once I had enough trebs to tear down castles in 3-4 turns.

He only had two cities left so it didn't take too long to take him out, but he did build one on a hill with CG2 LB which wasn't very fun to dislodge. However I did pick up Chichen Itza and the GLighthouse for my troubles:

I then healed my troops and headed north, invading yet another protective civ. Gilgamesh had quite a lot of troops as he's a warmonger by nature but he didn't have anywhere to burn his excess troops on. As a result, I had to take out lots of units to take his cities. He also had the SoZ in Uruk, which caused some serious problems. After I had taken 2 cities, WW had shot up to around 600, and it was well over 1000 when I finally took Uruk. This is when creative helped - I built theaters and colosseums in all of my unhappy cities and pushed the slider to 20%. This generated 5, which helped to offset the 12 that some of my cities were seeing. I also resigned myself to losing some pop - I just needed to hurry along and capture Uruk to quell the WW.

By the time I took Gilgamesh's capital, Toku was at peace with Boudica. As a result, he decided to take Gilgamesh as his vassal, even though he doesn't have astronomy and doesn't have OB with Joao (This is also the reason that boudica stayed independent for so long - Joao couldn't send his troops to attack her core). Anyways, Gilgamesh didn't put up much of a fight after I captured Uruk as his remaining cities were very production poor.

I played on a few more turns after that so that I could tech up to rifling before I decide what to do next. Boudica built the AP in one of her cities but Toku managed to capture that city. As a result, the most recent AP voting was between Toku (who's hated by everyone for being Hindu at this point) and me. Since Joao and Boudica were both pleased/friendly with me, I handily won the voting. So I could definitely take an AP victory at this point. Or I could continue massing my army and just declare on Joao and drive eastward. Toku can't reach me so I'm not too worried that I'm still at war with him.

Here's my tech screen:

And the VC:

This map reminds me of why I love pangaea wars

 

[Rusten]

Add which year you're up to outside the spoiler shyuhe
That goes for your previous round as well.

Creative is great indeed, not only for the border pops, but also half-price war buildings (theatre and colosseum).

 

[Johan^^]

@ Johan^^

Spoiler :

Looking good . Nice settling of Ankor Wat on the Gold/Flood Plains site, by the time I realised it was FP and not desert Joao had settled there .

You said you traded for a lot of cheap techs are you concerned about the WFYBTA limit? Not that it matters too much when you are the tech leader .

Spoiler :

Well i needed techs like Masonry, Poly ... in order to go for the Lit route asap. But the WFYBTA could certainly become a problem. None of the leaders are super techtrade buddies. Will have to work on one or more of them and possible get them to friendly Dammit i really need buddisme

 

[Rusten]

@Sleepless

Spoiler :

One last thought does selling techs count towards WFYBTA? On to next session.

Spoiler :

No, only recieved techs count. That's why it's great to sell techs for gold whenever possible.

 

[Rusten]

@Rusten

Spoiler :

Why not 1W of the position you settled in? AI suggested, and cuts down on the number of water tiles, while still grabbing all the good stuff.

Didn't notice this one earlier, sorry (maybe because it was edited in?). Spoiler is regarding settling, feel free to read as long as you've played 5 turns or more.

Spoiler :

I wanted the riverside Ivory, it's a very good tile early on. I didn't have much faith in what the AI suggested after that starting location - clams+cows+flood plains+river ivory enables high commerce and speedy settlers/workers. Further it would mean another wasted turn before being able to settle (I'd have to move on top of the forest). Another thing would be that when moving capitals the number 1 problem is too few hills/hammers. By settling where I did I got the plains hill and ivory, it has much more production.

 

[Olodune]

Suryavarman the Martian, Chapter 3

250-1050ad

Spoiler :

While I'm waiting for the enforced peace to expire, the AP (Jewish, Gilgamesh) starts getting nasty:

I see no option but to defy (I actually have the cap space but a second defy will be painful -- Gilgamesh has been sending missionaries to my core). To pacify the warmongers in the east I switch to Buddhism.

Finally we are ready to finish off Louis:

Annoyingly, he brings Gilgamesh into the war. Louis is dispatched, I have a short skirmish with Gilgamesh, and then the AP comes and gives peace to all. Fine by me. I manage to get the Music GA first.

Techs are being traded very quickly among the Buddhist block. Toku is willing to go to war with Boudica, but I don't have the techs to bribe him I can force their trade relations to stop:

Joao beats me to the last city site by a few turns:

Despite the fact that all the AI's (besides Toku) get education within about a 3 turn lag of myself sad switching briefly to building wealth in all my cities enables Surya to get liberalism first:

A big weakness in my game is a lack of a GP farm, the two cities with sufficient food are much needed commerce cities, so I have no NE and am only running a few scientists in a couple cities for GPPs -- this needs to change as I'm now in the prime time for GPs. The only tech I was able to bulb was Philosophy.

Switching to Buddhism and a wedding event mean that I'm at Friendly with Joao. Boudica and Toku are pleased -- should be ok . The eastern front:

To the north Qin and Gilgamesh are both weak, but advanced. Gilgamesh has spread the AP religion to all players -- a Diplomatic win vote came up, which he lost badly *phew*. Northern border:

The tight tech screen:

And demographics:

The game is going reasonably well -- slow GP production has hurt a bit.

From here, I'll rebuild the economy a bit more (going for the Taj atm), then take down Qin->Gilgamesh, assuming the AP isn't too much of a pain. Maybe with rifles, maybe before.

 

[Rusten]

475 BC -> 1100 AD

Spoiler :

It becomes apparent that QSH has an even greater capital than Louis (gems and several dyes). I expect him to tech fast. I take out Louis last 2 cities after 10 turns. Poor guy, wiped out in the ADs again.

I finish currency and then go for the cheap religious techs. They’ll give a discount for CoL but additionally I’ll need to run a priest somewhere in order to get a religious shrine. This slowed down my GP rate a lot as I had to wait getting scientists until I got my prophet (I even had to pause my NE 1 turn before completion). I stopped after 1 scientist which bulbed philosophy for pacifism. Still, I wasn’t scared of losing liberalism so I accepted my fate.



I create the Temple of Salomon:



15 gpt already - not too shabby. As you can see we've got the AP now for extra hammers (thanks Gilgamesh).

800 AD: Gold!!!! While the game has seen a fair bit of turns it’s still an awesome event. It's been such a long time since this happened to me, many many many games, very appreciated. I was actually starting to think someone tinkered with my Civ version and removed the event.



Regret not moving my capital now, it would've payed off. As we aren't spiritual I expect to stay in Nationhood most of the time, but 2 gold and all that silk would've been a huge boost right away before changing.

Gilgamesh has been massing wonders with his tiny empire. So far he’s gotten at least SM, UoS and the AP, but those are just off the top of my head (having stone in your capital helps I guess ). I’m looking forward to the day that they’ll all be mine, and it’s not too long before that will happen (hopefully). I’ve befriended Joao so the east is safe thus the plan is to invade QSH and Gilgamesh soon with our UU (anti-knight), cuirassiers and possibly muskets/cannons. That UU is really good when you’re the aggressor, I’ll obliterate his stack of knights even if they’re guarded by pikemen.

I’ve been having bad luck with my great people. Spawned a GM instead of a GS at a bad time with really low odds and just recently the same happened except this time I got an artist………. Oh well, a future golden age I guess.

I could’ve culture bombed QSH in order to get these horses:



But I didn’t know I was going to get a GA so I already settled a horsehockey city to the east claiming them unfortunately. This map is low on food, but I've got lots of production, so I'll be getting a ton of B. Elephants and cuirassiers. My force won't have as many muskets this time for this reason but also the fact that QSH seems to be getting a lot of knights.

Decided to stop there as I need some sleep. The next set will be dedicated to war, stay tuned.