The Immortal University II - Suryavarman II of Khmer

[JBossch]

@sleepless

Spoiler :

You are totally right to focus on my rush of Louis. I wish I could remember exactly when it went in and compare with others. I totally bogged down after taking Paris. Louis's iron came online then and he rushed a surprising amount of axes of his own. A couple flukey combats during the assault on Paris and my offensive fell apart. Plus I was waiting to discover IW to figure out where his iron was!
I left him the two western cities as well. I think the initial attack was the problem however. By the time the dust had settled, most of the barb country had been gobbled up by Joao. The marble city was my westernmost settlement. I didn't get to the cow/plains spot until infantry!

 

[BurN]

Gratz to all people winning and bashing Louis . (again )

I was playing this game but I abandoned it around 1000something AD. Had the whole western part of the continent for myself by liberalism. But my economy was in ruins and so was the economy of the remaining AI's.

Joao didn't expand so there was a huge land gap between me and the next AI's, I really didn't feel like running all my units over there. Outteching the AI wouldn't be hard due a superior landmass and them being backwards. I was teching democracy when they didn't even have phil, go figure.

 

[JBossch]

I was teching democracy when they didn't even have phil, go figure.

This is what I don't get. You also say your economy was in ruins but so was that of the AIs. I can see how capturing the west earlier than me pays off once you recover the econ but why was Joao (in my game) a tech beast and (apparently in your game) ruining his economy? I can see how not taking any of the east land from the barbs would leave him weak but why didn't he expand? A fluke? Or did you manage to REX to the east and still rush Louis?

 

[BurN]

This is what I don't get. You also say your economy was in ruins but so was that of the AIs. I can see how capturing the west earlier than me pays off once you recover the econ but why was Joao (in my game) a tech beast and (apparently in your game) ruining his economy? I can see how not taking any of the east land from the barbs would leave him weak but why didn't he expand? A fluke? Or did you manage to REX to the east and still rush Louis?

Well my econ was in ruins, I had to delete units because I was running negative at 0% science at one point.

I bribed Joao into war with Toku very early, with the idea of crippling his expansion. A bit later Boudica dow'ed joao too and they were all in a stalemate war the whole game.

 

[JBossch]

I bribed Joao into war with Toku very early

That was probably crucial. In my game Toku founded Buddhism and quickly converted Joao. I couldn't get them to fight at all until after liberalism when Joao switched to FR and Toku finally warmed up to me a bit. In fact, I never could bribe Joao as he claimed to be unwilling to betray his "friends." He was annoyed with half of them yet still wouldn't betray a single AI, all due to WCBOCF. Anybody know why the AI sometimes does this? Is Joao just a super-friend or what?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You see, when immortal university came out, I wanted to play it. I got flattened. Again and again. Of course, I was at monarch in april, and somewhat shaky there. After immortal U one I stopped playing many of them.

As I get more comfortable with the difficulty, my reports will get more detailed.

After playing then reading stuff from guys like burn, I can see I still have a long way to go. However, I can at least compete at immortal now.

To 1917 AD. Victory condition? More UN abuse.

Spoiler :

I settled in place. This start was painful. I kind of remember when the thread was fresh everyone saying how food poor it is.

We get a plains cow, minimal green anything, and forests. Yikes.

Opening techs were AH, masonry (seriously). I put up great wall while teching BW. Also noticed that 1) creative louis was in my face (nightmares from IU I all over again!) and 2) I had copper .

The axe rush sent me spiraling backwards in tech, and with only the great wall it took me a long time to recover any semblance of tech relevance. However, I captured or blocked land for over 12 cities. If you don't die, that's a winning position.

Joao to the east doesn't declare at pleased. Due to having gold/aesthetics and the major religious differences on this map, I put up Paya and went FR/HR/bureaucracy when I could get there. That gave the immediate 3 neighbors favorite civics and in FR they won't request religion changes (only time they'll bump you from FR is if they like OR/theo). I kept spamming axes for a bit on my western border because you can't trust those two. Of course, they might attack each other at pleased too. Still, no pants down scenarios for me!

It took a long time before I could trade ANYTHING. I stole currency and sailing using my settled spy. Eventually I was like the 3rd person to philosophy while still spamming cities and backfilled.

In the late 100's AD I realized that nobody had education yet, and I was nearing CS and just popped a scientist. Obviously I blasted through paper, bulbed education, finished it, and was going to start on oxford but noticed china got edu a few turns later. I set all cities to wealth and raced him:

Narrow victory. The prize is the Taj with marble and a ton of trade bait (edu to many, lib to all, nationalism to many).

I turned the slider off to accumulate gold while building oxford (i moved capitol to paris). Once I had it I went 100% for state property and biology. Somehow I got beat to the kremlin ----> pretty sure someone engineer rushed it. That ruined my idea of $$$ buy hell on the AI so I just traded for a few pre-reqs like rifling, stole corp off gilgamesh, and pounded out assembly line/arty.

I really like infantry/arty because it's one of the strongest points when you attack with a lead, but also because it's very sound even at parity, and parity lasts a long, long time.

China/Sumeria signed a DP so I figured I could win UN by getting Joao to vote for me after taking down the two western backstabbers. I only get -1 for dowing with joao because technically sumeria declared on me.

Stack incomming!

Obviously the AI didn't want to do that. It got arty'd to hell and shredded with minimal losses for me. Fighting these two sucked because they're PRO, but with collateral the job gets done:

Then the other:

Build wealth and beeline Mass Media HARD. Joao left HR but he chose to dow boudica so I just declared on her too for the diplo. Joao's vassal, toku, was gifted mass media. I had more raw pop than joao, and enough diplo with him to win his vote:

Maybe not as impressive as some of the forum legends, but at least I'm not getting flattened at immortal. Deity is going to be reeeeeeeeeeeal fun to learn . But I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

 

[Dirk1302]

Wasn't this the start where i won domination 1595 AD? .

Spoiler :

I was the only one who didn't axe rush Louis iirc expanding as quickly as possible to the east.

 

[shyuhe]

I think I sword rushed Louis in this game because of some crazy hut luck.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well...

Spoiler :

In hindsight I'd have deemed not axe rushing louis optimal. I didn't realize how far away Joao was aka plenty of room to settle first, kill later.

In my game contact with Joao from the east was pretty quick, lending me to believe I had serious box-in risk.

Expanding east would definitely cut down on Joao's size, and would probably have prevented things like him vassaling toku and boudica as ultimately happened in my game.

That's why I frequently DON'T early rush. It gives remaining AIs more land and that can be really annoying. I'd usually only attack if I believe it's my only path to sufficient land.