The Immortal University II - Suryavarman II of Khmer

[Sleepless]

@silverbullet

Spoiler :

I thought it was very unlikely but just thought I'd check .

I did come across one of the options in my game I'd never noticed before mentioned in my spoiler which quite surprised me.

As for war Boud looks like the best target. If you are going to attack her early I'd use maces rather than wait for muskets. The CR comes in handy later.

 

[silverbullet]

640AD to the end.

Spoiler :

One thing I forgot to do on my last save - trade metal casting for philosophy to Joao.
We discover Paper, bulb education once and discover it a few turns later (780AD).
At this point we are out of cash reserves and cannot perform any more deficit research.
Our tech rate is pretty poor for this stage of the game:

You can notice on the screenshot that Qin is 2 turns away from Nationalism. He doesn't have marble, but he can still beat us to Taj.I am planning to bulb liberalism and pick Nationalism for free.
In 5 turns we get another GS (I hope we won't get the 7% chance of great artist)
2 Turns later, it appears that Qin is willing to trade Nationalism. Apparently he is not planning to build Taj Mahal for now.
At this stage I cannot trade anything useful to him. He doesn't have paper so I cannot give him education, which is the only tech that is worth as much as nationalism.
Also, I need compass before I can bulb so I trade it to Gilgamesh for paper and world map.
At this point I see (because I was lazy to explore before) that Gilgamesh only has 5 cities, so I feel safer trading education to him - he won't be able to build oxford for now.

I stop researching liberalism because I want the scientist to bulb it but not finish it. I start researching nationalism partially so that Qin will be willing to trade it.
880AD - the GS comes and bulbs liberalism (2 turns left after bulbing). In the meantime Qin has researched paper.

Tech status:

I make the following trades:
Education+compass to Qin for Nationalism
Education to Gilgamesh for machinery and music and 40 gold. He was willing to give some cheaper techs as well in addition, but I say no thanks, I don't need an early WFYABTA.

The capital immediately starts working on the Taj. I starve it a little to get it fast and chop 2 forests.
2 turns later we bulb liberalism and take military tradition as a tech.
Next I reasearch gunpowder, helped by a golden age.

At some point Qin requestes me to stop trading with Boudica (I have give her some excess resources for gold). I agree and change her attidute from Annoyed to Furious. And now she refuses to talk.
2 turns later Qin sign a peace treaty with her!!! Now I am guaranteed to be attacked. I better be ready with some army soon.

I make a defensive pact with China to help me in the future war with Boudica. The good side is that I don't need to attack her. She will attack me and Qin will send some troops to help. I should be careful not to let him catpure any cities.

1010AD - golden age begins, taj mahal is complete. Thanks to the mausoleum I have 12 turns. I switch to caste system/philosophy for 5 turns and try to get a great merchant. I starve Hari for maximum GM, and get a great mechant in 3 turns (lucky 37%).
I only get 1300 from the GM. No one of my friends has a really big city.

I trade liberalism for theology with Gilgamesh, hoping he would switch to free religion and become friendly, but it doesn't work. Still he is not at WFYABTA yet.

Some more tech trades:
Gunpowder to Sumeria for guilds.
Gunpowder+guilds to china for printing press.

After 5 turns of caste system I switch to serfdom/theocracy/bearocracy for 5 turns. I also notice that I was too stupid to build only 5 elephants so far.
I upgrade them all to cuirassiers. 2 turns later boudica declares on me with a massive SOD (Qin declares immediately on her due to our pact).

I want to revolt into nationalism, but I have to wait 3 more turns.
I am also not in slavery, so cannot whip.

I manage to build 2 more curassiers and send them to my marble city ankgor thom, but my army is too weak for boudica's SOD. Her stack is mainly horse archers, some knights, some melee units (no pikes or spears luckily), crossbows and catapults.
With such numbers I must have siege. I only have 1 catapult now, so I start building them in a few cities.

I reach the inevitable conclusion that I must retreat from Ankgor Thom and let Boudica capture it. I leave 1 axemen there and she spends 2 turns breaking down the defences.
I trade military tradition to Qin for consitution, and finally switch to slavery/nationalism/consitution and start whipping cats and drafting mustkets. Qin arrives with his SOD. Together we clean up boudica's SOD with hardly any losses (3 catapults, 1 curassier 1 pike).

This is great, most of her offensive army has been lost on our cultural borders - no war weariness.
In addition Toky declares on Qin, which means both of them will be busy and I can take Boudica.

I capture Angkor thom next.
I get a great scientist and start another golden age, my plan is to gear up for the offense quickly and take boudica with curassiers and spies.
I will build/whip some jails so I don't think ammassing EP will be a problem.
The war with Boudica is easy. She has just researched gunpowder, but muskets are not a good counter to cuirassiers. She doesn't have a lot of pikemen either. Most of her army is horse archers that she promotes to knights.




There is one big mistake I made in this game - I was too lazy (again) to send a workboat to map the continent. I didn't realize boudica was so far and just had 2 cities near my borders, and Toku was behind her.
I sign peace, and then make another stupid mistake. I declare war on Toku instead of Joao. Why do I need to take on protective longbows and a huge army in general when I can attack Joao who has great big cities that would bump my economy?
Anyway, I soon realize that Joao beelines rifling, I manage to capitulate Toku and then I immediately declare war on Joao. I capture 1 city and I am forced to sign peace.
Later, the apostolic palace (Gilgamesh) gives him the city back. I don't dare to defy since my economy is in a poor state anyway.
My maintenance is very high, my cities strech too far. I need some infrastructure before the next war.
I switch to organized religion and spreed the AP religion to all my cities. I trigger another 12 turn golden age with 2 great people and switch to free marker, so that I have trade routes with China (I ran merchanalism previously).
I stay at Nationalism for espionage bonus. I whip courthouses and jails in all cities and run espionage slider.
Spies in china brings me a lot of important missing techs: scientific method, biology, communism (whip intelligence agencies everywhere), and finally rifling. The cost is really low, china is close, has our state religion (-25% for our holy city), trade routes (-20%), and we have the highest espionage spending for an additional 20%. The total is that a spy who stays 5 turns in a chinese city gets a mission at less than 1/3 original cost.
During the golden age I build wall street in Paris and Oxford in Hari.
I attack Joao with an enourmous amount of cannots, rifles and cavalry and a lot of losses. The war is very quick and I capture all his cities.
Before the war I switch to AP religion and make sure Toku switches too. In the middle of the war I am elected leader of the AP.
After eliminating Joao I just wait for border pops to win, and china attacks me. They were friendly all the game, and I was too tired to notice that with all the espionage and declaring war on their friends they became annoyed. They have infantry and artillery...
Luckily, the AP resolution comes next, stop the war. The chinese capture one city and then the war stops. I am planning to get it back in the next vote, but I don't get a chance... I win domination before that on 1806. I think it's the latest one amongst the players here but still, a win is a win

Thanks to everyone who helped me win this game. Your feedback helped me a lot.

 

[Sleepless]

@Silverbullet

Spoiler :

on your win.

One big difference in your game from mine and others is that Boud wasn't blocked in, in your game. That made a huge difference. I don't think she went to war at all in mine, where you were unlucky enough to have borders with her and Tok . I could take my time and backstab when I wanted to.

So to sum up another fun game with the right results.

Thankyou

 

[ungy]

150-1635
The breaks go my way:

Spoiler :

after a tough break early on losing the prime city site to Louis and a bloody war I'm regrouping at 150AD.
I debated briefly whether to bulb tao, and I do make the normal play and bulb it and trade it as I desperately need $ and currency. I use the $ to race to lit and chop out the Glib (I also pick up the path!). I just get luckier from here--the buddhist bloc to the E starts fighting amongst themselves while QSH builds the AP (hindu--my holy city). I run some priests and get a shrine.
Rest is pretty routine--QSH goes down with a rifle/cannon war --only amusing piece is he was first to democracy so I detour around the copper city to help him build me the SOL and he obliges.
Don't think I'll play it out as it's a walkover from here.

thanks for the feedback dirk+Olodune--I agree with you both

 

[Dirk1302]

@silverbullet

Spoiler :

Congrats on your win, you used spionage alot, really have to get into these spy features. Are you going to host a third game?

@Ungy

Spoiler :

Also Congrats, nice recovery and good thinking regarding SOL and the copper city.

 

[silverbullet]

Post game discussion (read if you finished your game):

Spoiler :

Do you think rushing Louis was a mistake? I think Dirk is the only one who didn't do it and ended up with a much stronger game with domination at 1595.
We have a creative and expansive leader here, with a lot of good land to claim - that calls for early REX doesn't it?

 

[Sleepless]

Post game discussion (read if you finished your game):

Spoiler :

Do you think rushing Louis was a mistake? I think Dirk is the only one who didn't do it and ended up with a much stronger game with domination at 1595.
We have a creative and expansive leader here, with a lot of good land to claim - that calls for early REX doesn't it?

Spoiler :

Imho I think the right decision was to rush Louis (especially as I didn't last time) . Our capitals were very close and ours wasn't the best I've ever seen . The land to the East was OK but you had a fair way to travel to the decent spots and wasn't Dirk (after looking again it was Johan^^) attacked early on in the East? Have to go back and read his spoilers . Possibly the upkeep would have been crippling without a good commerce capital to help support an early Rex as well.

 

[Dirk1302]

@silverbullet and Sleepless

Spoiler :

Imho I think the right decision was to rush Louis (especially as I didn't last time) . Our capitals were very close and ours wasn't the best I've ever seen . The land to the East was OK but you had a fair way to travel to the decent spots and wasn't Dirk (after looking again it was Johan^^) attacked early on in the East? Have to go back and read his spoilers . Possibly the upkeep would have been crippling without a good commerce capital to help support an early Rex as well.

Spoiler :

I think it depends on what you're trying to achieve. When i saw the land in the east i saw a possibility of copying what U Sun did in his Justinian game blocking very far from home and letting the gold and in my case the cottaged floodplains pay for it. Furthermore it gave me the possibility to try out Snaaty's strat to good effect and demonstrate that it can be done with a beeline to cannons as well as rifling (ok this is well known amongst the participants here anyway).

Rushing Louis gives very good land (i had lots of mediocre space only 3 really good cities) but even against Louis you lose 400 years or about 15 turns of research towards these beeline, making the second rush in the middle ages a bit (or a lot if they make it to Rifling or Steel) tougher. Then again rushing Louis is more save , if successful you're in a won position i think given the opponents we had.

So i was very fast because of not rushing, but not neccessarily stronger, as i said earlier my score was not higher than others, lower than Rusten's. Also the Ai's didn't put any obstacle in my way,they didn't declare on me (a bit lucky i think), traded with me when i needed them and supplied me with gold.

I was not great in danger of being attacked when i settled the spot because there was no AI near at that moment. In the early AD's i had enough axemen to defend there as long as i checked the diplomacy screen regularly.

 

[silverbullet]

@Dirk:

Spoiler :

I use espionage when I have captured a holy city, have that religion and have a neighbour with trade routes (open border+no merchantalism). I just make sure to send a missionary to a nearby city to get the 25% discount.
In my 2 last games on the university threads, I was way behind in techs after liberalism, but I had more land and population than anyone else. At this point espionage has the benefit that even with no commerce the buildings generate EP. Whipping courthouses and jails in not that hard at this stage, and it grants you +9 EP per city without any slider adjustments. Intelligence agency brings it up to +24 EP. Also, when you are in representation, spies are very efficient, giving 4 beakers and 4 EP before modifiers.

When you are the leader of the espionage graph, you get a bonus compared to other civs to every espionage mission (even if you used the EP against someone else - this bonus depends on the total EP spent by you from the begining of the game).
With a proper setup espionage is very very cheap compared to normal teching. Somewhere between 50% to 75% cheaper. Moreover, it is far easier to get 100% multipliers in every city.

I don't think espionage would have been needed in your games, because I don't think you have fallen behind as much as I did. But it is definitely a great way to catch up quickly.

Yes I want to host a third game.
Who is interested to join?

Maybe we should play Louis this time, just to guarantee that he doesn't get killed?
We could also try Alexander, but in any case, I am fine with almost any leader.

 

[Dirk1302]

Great, i'm also fine with any leader.Louis would make the game interesting for me since i don't build much wonders usually. I tend to go only for GL and Parthenon (and then only with marble), sometimes Taj and the audio/video wonders. Industrious i'm forced to change some of my playing style or play effectively with only one trait.

 

[Sleepless]

I'd definitely join in with another game.

A philosophical leader would help me improve my lack lustre war and GP skills

So Alex fits the bill quite nicely but happy with any leader.

 

[Olodune]

Post game discussion (read if you finished your game):

Spoiler :

Do you think rushing Louis was a mistake? I think Dirk is the only one who didn't do it and ended up with a much stronger game with domination at 1595.
We have a creative and expansive leader here, with a lot of good land to claim - that calls for early REX doesn't it?

Spoiler :

While I do think that Dirk's was the strongest game -- earlier victories are not necessarily the "most robust" games. To really push for early victory you have to push the envelope (taking larger risks) while tech trading heavily. When I play I'm more interested in minimizing the chances of loosing -- this is hard to measure unfortunately.

That said, it does look like ReX was the stronger position. Actually, it was Dirk's early scouting that really paid off -- at that time in the game I saw only desert to the east

 

[Olodune]

I would be interested in another as well.

Amazingly we've missed the big two economic traits (Fin/Philo). That said -- lets avoid them some more.

What we have played is {Expansive, Creative, Aggressive, Spiritual}.

Ignoring Fin/Phi that leaves {Imperialistic, Organized, Protective, Industrious, Charismatic}

The leaders that jump out to me as being the most interesting are:

Charlemagne {Pro/Imp, Rauthaus, Lansknecht}
Churchill {Pro/Cha, Stock Ex, Redcoat}
Napoleon {Cha/Org, Salon, Musketeer} <- First Choice

However, I'd happily play any leader

 

[silverbullet]

I would be interested in another as well.

Amazingly we've missed the big two economic traits (Fin/Philo). That said -- lets avoid them some more.

What we have played is {Expansive, Creative, Aggressive, Spiritual}.

Ignoring Fin/Phi that leaves {Imperialistic, Organized, Protective, Industrious, Charismatic}

The leaders that jump out to me as being the most interesting are:

Charlemagne {Pro/Imp, Rauthaus, Lansknecht}
Churchill {Pro/Cha, Stock Ex, Redcoat}
Napoleon {Cha/Org, Salon, Musketeer} <- First Choice

However, I'd happily play any leader

Napoleon is interesting, and it also guarantees that we won't rush Louis again

 

[Dirk1302]

Napoleon is a strong leader, 2 very strong traits. I'd rate these tied second together with philosophical just after financial. For a somewhat more peaceful game industrious might be better though.

Just some thoughts, i'm fine with any leader, maybe just accept the random choice, might even pop Liz .

How about the map?

 

[JBossch]

More post-game: Sorry, finally catching up.

Spoiler :

I got on this one late and didn't have much time to play this week so I was always too far behind everybody to really participate in the discussion. I will just throw out a few highlights/questions. (Sorry, I didn't take any screen shots. I won't be offended if you stop reading here.)

First, the end. I won a domination victory in 1864 for my third official immortal victory with about 85,000 points (also my highest score!) I was excited. Then I read how everybody else finished in 1750 (and Dirk in 1550!?) Though a bit crestfallen, I gotta give it up to the masters.

-I started by building 2 scouts as suggested by Rusten I think. I covered tons of the map and got some good huts but Boudica was blocked by Toku and I -didn't meet her until 1100 AD when he finally warmed up enough to open borders.
-I axe rushed Louis as most did. It drug on a bit as he got iron working with that stupid city built directly over the iron where I couldn't see it. I finished his last two cities in a separate war. I never even thought about peacefully rexing even though I could see all that land. The good stuff just seemed so far away and Louis so close. Plus that city site to the NE was so good and had copper.
-To get it I think I chopped a settler at size 1. My opening builds were so radical. I think scout->scout->Worker->worker->settler, IIRC. That capital site was just so low in food! I definitely would have restarted if not playing on the forum.
-The west went Jewish which I followed for awhile. When Joao asked me to join him and Toku as a Buddhist I acceded to his demands.
-After killing Louis my tech situation was pretty bad but I managed to beeline a few things and bulbed like crazy using the NE city and the southern fish/whale/deer city as GS farms. I switched my capital to Paris and ran bureaucracy, though I'm not convinced this was totally smart as it grew really slowly (I hate cottages).
-I got liberalism about 1100 AD and took nationalism even though Qin already had it. The gamble paid off as I built Taj in about 7 turns in my old capital. PS: once that thing got going it was a hammer producing beast.
-I teched to rifles, built globe in my old GP farm in the NE spot and crushed Qin and Gilgamesh's longbows. Gilgy almost got to rifling before I finished him. Close but no cigar buddy!
I should really work on this cannon beeline. Sounds like it worked well but what are you using to protect from knights and other stuff? I guess jumbos would do but I never even built the UU. I had a bunch of CR3 axes and CR2 swordsman which I upgraded at great cost. Horses seemed dumb as well because of all the veteran melee guys.
-Rifles got me the west but Joao was a different story. I felt like I played the diplo pretty well just by keeping him from attacking my eastern flank (which was guarded by about 4 archers:). I got Japan to fight him a few times but it was not enough to keep him from being a tech beast.
-Japan also kept Boudica in check and had a real high score despite having horrible tech. We never shared a border until the end.
-I teched to infantry and cannons and attacked Joao with two huge stacks of veteran troops. The old capital, now with iron works, heroic epic and levees was spitting out an infantry every turn. After capturing about 4 cities Joao discovered assembly line. An embarrassing counterattack caught me unawares and he retook a city for a couple turns. Annoying sidetrack. I basically turned off tech and poured it into culture. Many of my cities had 40+ war weariness under police state and nationalism. In 1864 I won domination when Joao's last 2 cities vassaled to me.

Perhaps people can help me understand why I finished later.
A few possibilities:
-Should have built more cities to the east. It quickly became barb country and by the time I was ready to attack it (after taking out Louis) most had been captured by Joao.
-I hardly built any wonders despite a hammer heavy capital. I think just Taj and Pentagon. Gilgy hogged em like crazy (helped a bit when I captured his cities.) and I was usually pretty backward in tech.
-Some annoying apostolic palace decisions. Despite switching to Buddhism and then FR i still had judaism in almost every city. I had to defy a couple decisions causing some happiness issues.
-Maybe my ax rush went in a little late or something because Louis got iron online real quick and I bogged down pretty fast. I thought I was moving quickly but apparently not quick enough.
-I have trouble with such low food territory. I prefer SE anyway and this threw me a bit. After capturing the guys in the west I had huge happy caps with all those luxuries but minimal growth.
-I got two Great spies (both a bit flukey) and infiltrated Gilgy and Joao. I think this was smart as it allowed a ton of city revolts to speed up my conquest but I had also intended on catching up a bit by stealing techs but the only ones I could get were crap and not worth the EPs. (Divine right can shove it!) Would you guys have done something different with them?
-I suffered from a lot of WFYABTA. Dumb trading perhaps? Also, what is with Joao saying he wont DoW anybody because they are all his close friends when he is annoyed with half of them!?

Thanks for any comments. Sorry for the long, boring, Screenshot-less summary. It was a fun game and I look forward to the next immortal university.

 

[Nares]

Napoleon or Louis.

I didn't play the first game, but between this and the first Saladin ALC, I don't want to see a froggy for awhile.

 

[Olodune]

@JBossch

Spoiler :

Sounds like you played a solid game, congratulations on the win

I had similar problems with early growth -- its been a while since I had so many cities far under their caps. Building two workers and a settler while still at size one seems a little odd to me, I'm fairly certain its better to grow to at least size two. (Then you could work both ivories or ivory + cows).

Tips for speeding up the endgame:
-At some point you are aware a military victory is imminent, usually this is the time to forgot about teching and hit the troop production hard. IIRC, I shut down research around 120 years before domination -- using all the excess cash to fuel rushbuying. Specialists should be assigned to hammer tiles and idle workers can start workshopping. In this game I'd skip factories too.

Our capital does turn into a nice hammer city, but I prefer commerce heavy starts. Food is nice too

I had so much fun playing a Pangaea map this time around that another might be fun. Big and Small, Hemispheres, Fractal, and Arborea would work too.

 

[JBossch]

@Olodune

Spoiler :

Thanks for the tips. Yeah building settler at size 1 seemed crazy to me as well. Ive almost never done that before but I think that I teched bronze working and was terrified I wouldn't get the NE city spot with bronze. I think that happened to somebody else and they pulled something out of it anyway but I would have seen it as a disaster.
In the end I wasn't rushbuying like I should have and, you're right, I should have turned off tech and quit building improvements earlier than I did (I eventually did this but it is just so hard to overcome my instinct to squeeze every bit of tech out of every situation), I played similarly with workers, realizing too late that they should not be building cottages anymore. Thanks again.

 

[Sleepless]

@JBossch

Spoiler :

I second what Olodune said about a solid game.

I rushed Lou the same as you but for once I made sure I had enough units to carry on the fight. I think that if you get too bogged down a war at this level the AI can run away from you. Although in this game only Joao had any real chance after we knocked out Lou.

After the first war with Lou I left him 2 cities in the North to take later I then went after the barb cities. I kept 1 with the cow/wheat (became my GT city)in the South and razed everything else. Small tip I think from Snaaty with this one. When my 6 axes got to this city there was 4 archers one with CG2 so I let Joao knock the defenders down a bit and took the city with no losses. Obviously not very good if he takes the city though.

Assume from the high culture slider you abused the draft. My GT city had over 300 from drafting, being on Joao's borders also saved a lot of movement time. Most of my far cities were building cav with the ones near to Joao building cannon.

As for WFYBTA always a problem. Helps if you know what level they stop trading at. Apart from Mansa being the highest I haven't a clue on the rest.
I just try to be very careful and not trade for all the little techs. The only one in this game who wouldn't trade with me was Qin so I guess he is pretty low.

Main thing was you enjoyed the game.