The ultimate challenge deity part III, Bismarck

[DMOC]

I would love to play but I CAN'T FIND THE TIME to get any serious time done. The most I've done is do the recent Immortal Cookbook up to the 1600s or somethign in the past few months.

That's why I stick to commenting.

 

[Dirk1302]

Thx CellKu, i appreciate that.

It's not that bad with the frustration, just've been wondering. Could well be that people really have played too many open games.To play and report about for example all of the immortal students game (i did) costs loads of time and not everyone has that time.

Regarding formats, i've been reading the immortal cookbook thread which is very interesting. Even played the start but abandoned it because i thought i'd be too easy (hope this doesn't sound too arrogant, almost everyone else in that thread thought so as well).

Imo there's one drawback to this format, it's possible that you have a plan which goes way over the rounds deadline, a good example could be a very aggressive rex leaving a big but very undeveloped empire. I sometimes like to play this way and most of the time i'm able to catch up with good effect.

Most players wouldn't go that far, so this save wouldn't have much chance in the voting. Other players have other gambits which they may not try because (let's face it) they'll want to see their save elected. Reading ABigCivFan's comments there it seems he's thinking along the same lines since he proposed that every player should have the choice between playing the elected save or your own obviously to show the plan you had. This has another drawback though, a lot of players would choose their own save to play on turning it into an open game again. A possible solution could be that you get one chance to play on from your own game but you'll have to return to playing the elected save next if your's still not chosen.

Having said that i'll probably join the next immortal cookbook since i was indeed fascinated by the amount of discussion it generates.

Succession games are always fun to read ,iirc i've read more than one where you, Snaaty and Rusten play. That Toku game was really a nice one, good mop up from Obsolete there iirc.

@Gliese, i know what you mean, civ can be very time consuming and addictive indeed. I have a reasonable amount of time on my hands so i can play fairly often and still do other things as well. Your games are very interesting to read btw since you put alot of detail in it.

 

[Dirk1302]

@DMOC, i know. But you may have some comments on how i should continue. here.I often have played further than i have posted but not this time. So any comment is welcome, put them in spoilers though, it's still an open game after all.

 

[Rusten]

Succession games are always fun to read

They're fun to play as well. You should join/create one some time.

 

[KingMorgan]

I think most people in this forum are here to learn, deity being the hardest setting is not appealling for most people, especillay when they get pwned on Emperor.

I'm greatful for the posts/games you high level players make as it provides pointers and ideas for the rest of us. So keep up the good work.

Maybe i'll play the next game, entertain you all with my capulation.

 

[Gliese 581]

What do you say about this:
We start another immortal cookbook variant (at normal speed pleeease). Pick a really bad leader like Saladin and something that promises to be a crappy start.

Then there's a vote for each round where the 3 best/most popular saves are selected per usual. Then you play the next round from any of those three except you can't choose your own save.
This way there'd hopefully be a few more players (difficult leader and start but still immortal level) and less incentive to go for short-term gains to make your save get more votes since you're not allowed to continue on it in any case. Since players should grow less attachment to their saves knowing ahead of time that they won't continue on it (at least the next round), hopefully each player will look at it objectively and ask themselves how to make the most out of the round for everyone else (short and long term) and the debates would likewise be less polarised.

I think this way a situation would also be avoided where one or a couple of player's saves are continually dominating and having spent more time and thinking on it those players continue to have an advantage moving forward since they know the long-term plan whilst the rest of the players have to try to figure that out whilst at the same time being dissapointed that their own save has never been elected which could affect them to drop out of the game.

 

[Dirk1302]

1020 AD - 1810 AD

Spoiler :

Since Justin and MM both like demo i decide to take a chance and go for replaceables.Indeed i get to trade this for demo to MM after researching 2 further turns into demo. Do the civic switches to US/emancipation. Not Free speech time yet. Go steam power/AL now. Getting there 1250 AD. Idea is to mobilize now and take out Han who's getting behind a bit. Assembly plants and powerplants go up in all cities and i need all the health buildings as well.

Essen gets IW, together with Moai it's a decent production city. Research takes me to artillery first ( i leave one turn since i've gotten an event that promotes cannons to combat 1, i like that, i'll upgrade the cannons later) then after getting electricity in trade from MM for AL to industrialization.

I've built lots of cannons already in HE city but not many infantry yet when i get to tanks, i switch most cities to this. Han's going to get hurt bad.

1565 AD i declare on him, unfortunately he just got infantry so just crashing the tanks into his cities is not going to work, i need the artillery, i've got some 10 upgraded now, cannons are going to do the bombarding, artillery the attacking. I have to work with this.

Actually i didn't have as much panzer's and mmore infantry as i seemed to remember at declaration time but that's about to change.

Han has no answer, he's at war with MM so any stacks he has are probably over there. His border cities have some 3 units in it as listed in the screenshot. Also later on in the war i didn't meet with anything really frightening. Remembering Gliese's game i bribe MM to peace at the moment Han's willing to capitulate. Costs me industrialization for which i could have gotten rocketry, MM had just begun researching it i think since i couldn't get radio, in which i had put one research turn, for it.

Research on to comps,I've copper now so i try for the internet, can get it in 7 turns in a GA but SB has had comps yet for some turns. Win this race receiving lots of techs. I research a few turns into laser then trade with MM for something like refrigeration. Upgrade the artillery to Mobile artillery and wipe MM of the map in 4 turns. 3 Stacks were ready to invade.

Unfortunately he's got one city on island left.

It's 1810 AD now, my power's roughly the same as Justin's but i have much more land than he has. there are several ways to win from here. I think i should build a decent navy from here so i can always take out Justin's and/or SB's capital. If i switch to space race myself there's a decent chance i win this way. Just continuing war against Justin keeping an eye (meaning keeping some ships and troops ready) on SB should also work. I have so many cities now that i can easily out spam Justin and SB.

Justin's 5 techs from launch but will almost certainly also go for robotics/comps/laser. (If he doesn't he's even more dead). SB's 6 techs from launch and will probably research stealth on the way. They'll research 1 tech ~ 4 turns at best i actually think they're slower right now + ~5 turns for launch after last tech + 10 turns the spaceship has to travel so even in the very worst case scenario i'll have > 30 turns to work with, probably closer to 50 turns. Actually looking again at the tech screen i think Justin's going to crumble right away, he's missing all the modern fighting techs. Have to build a few mobile sams to defend against his gunships, for the rest all my units are superior to his atm.

Game's won now, maybe i'll continue just for fun.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

till 410 ad:

Spoiler :

ok, let's try to do a writeup(playin' is easier )

I don't like the leader, I don't like the starting position either. I just settle in place before moving the scout(wasn't any good position to move, I would've love to explore over the gold hill, but that'd mean I'd pop the hut and cancel the chance for tech since no city)

But I like what the good hut gives me

I have: bw. I'm industrious. And expansive. And bored.

I plan: agri(obvious), ah, mysticism, masonry, chop gw for gspy, infiltrate later.

In a very imaginative way, I start with a... worker

The 2nd hut isn't so nice, I get a map. Oh well, all good things have their limits. Map doesn't show bronze either.

I see marble; hmm(that's the best I could come up with)...

And I meet a dubious neighbor

safe at pleased; prone to rush me too.

crap

and not so crap. Due to diff. warmonger, hanni and mansa are annoyed already. Hopefully hanni will cut me some slack and rush this annoying btard instead.

I find stone too; not too well placed.

I find another stone; not better placed either...

After building the farm, at size 2, I start on 2nd worker, postponing the warrior.

bah

3 good techers.

and the zealot

I move the scout like an idiot; I reload.

I do the master plan

obviously, that's why it's a master plan - because it ain't gonna work. Blocking all of them will be impossible, especially an imp. ai.

yep, the masterplan is screwed already

Mind you, went worker, warr part, worker, war war, settler while waiting for masonry. Unless I'd have chopped the settler, no way I could've got the stone.

I go archery next, lacking ideas.

after repelling 2 archers with the lone warrior. Man, I'm outta diety habbits here

I have cheap forges; I'm lacking ideas after blocking plan fell so fast. So... let's block the other guy, since obviously I can't contain hanni now no matter what I do.

woot, out of this dreadful combo, how could we miss the most useless ai?

5 tech limit, doesn't care about religion, comes begging every 20 turns, and it's an even better turtle then wang.

Ok, so...

mansa makes a block with hanni, sally converted the cow, justinian is my neighbor and I'll have to be judaist... Crap.

After archery/wheel, I go on with a secret plan - fishing.

God...

Mind you, I didn't even finish the 2nd settler; because of movement speed doesn't really matter on marathon...

After fishing, out of all things, I go IW.

Munich founded

And after such a nice story, obviously I get tired of writing

So to sum it up:

- I pop. the gspy, I steal mc, currency, priest/med/mono, feud, machinery, lit, music from mansa. I can't adopt any religion:

- sally hindu, just/cow budha, mansa/hani jew, wang confu. Worst of all I'm in between hani and just so really have to sit tight
- I get -4 from spy failures from mansa(apparently the safest way to piss him off, I think I was gaining 1 demerit every 2 fails).
- I get spaya, glib. I chop like mad for spaya since I needed both the culture and FR. I needed FR like air, since I kept eating demerits since everyone kept coming asking me to switch to their religion and not being spiritual, I couldn't.
- due to crappy placement of laodicea, I have problems with justinian, though I should be rather safe given how many folks he hates.

- due to crappy placement of thapus, I have problems with border tension with hanni too, so I pull a stun and bribe him in a war with wang, joining myself since I was running out of cash to bribe him.

- mansa techs in a demoralizing way. He has guilds, divine, theo, banking, nat, consti, econ, corps over me(funny thing he avoids lib. like a pest )
- I finish sistine, mansa spreads islam to me, thapsus/laodicea will flip to me brining me to 9 cities so I'm off for a boring old style cultural with 4 religions and stopping research at constitution for rep.(aka - the lamer's way).

My tiny empire:

Tech situation(funny is that my bet is on wang getting lib., not mansa, though at his current tech speed mansa can get lib. in ~10 turns - 3 turns on normal):

Wang is wheeoohrn, but since both just and sal declared on him and since he doesn't have ob with just(obviously), I'm rather safe. Just is the only problem, since he's still cautious till years of providing kicks in and till hopefully laodicea flips and the whole fuss is over.

I'm still wondering if essen or munich should be the 3rd cultural city(munich with clams/banana/fish, essen with spaya worth 16 culture later and a grassland cow), but since the game will probably rest sine die in tbc folder(yes, cultural on marathon is quite marathonistic)... Plus, playing all in a 6h session, the microing was nowhere to be found, so I doubt I'd get a decent score either.

Notable other things: sally gifted me alpha outta the blue(partially saved my game, since I could get spies rolling earlier), hanni gifted me engineering out of the blue despite having only 3 techs over me... nice chap, though he owned me given how many things I kept on giving him

 

[Dirk1302]

Ah, another taker

Spoiler :

Your ai's have an incredible lot of money, is that normal on marathon?
I'm interested in the culturual vic you're pursuing. Never done it myself, never really read about it even. So i can learn something here.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

Spoiler :

well, the wonder fails are obviously x3(since they require x3 hammers). And no, what mansa has isn't normal

He could've got lib. ~250 ad while self researching everything. And when I say everything, I'm not exagerating. From mc, on which he had monopoly when I stole it(he had machinery too), was 1st to machinery, 1st to lit, 1st to music, 1st to cs, 1st to feud, 1st to... to basically the whole tree except philo(but then wang fired it his way when I bulbed it - he kept the monopoly, but after I got it too he traded inter turn). And anyway, beside wang and hanni, noone liked him, so he had to do them all himself

I kept pushing the pace with what I was stealing, hoping someone will jump on him at tech parity, but he kept good def. - only sally tried to... axe rush when mansa just got lbows

But, on average, I expect for instance, to sell lit. for ~3-400 gold, an outdated cs/philo for around 600-1k(it's 4k beakers afterall ).

Plan here is to - stop research post lib/consitution(what I'll get from the artists will have to do it). Fetch myself somehow economics, to boost hanni and hopefully bump him to friendly for fav. civic after I flip that darn city; this will also keep mansa off my back with some luck. DP hanni.

Probably will have to run theo to keep just of my back since I won't have things to gift him and then waste time pressing end turn and hoping, eventually joining where's the case. Problem will be the no religion theo in which everyone will ask me to convert, but... not much I could've done better given that hanni didn't leave me any chance to block him and mansa running away with the game.

What I see is: rep(obviously)., fs(obviously), fm(for fav. civ. with hanni/mansa), caste(obviously, plus might chill wang abit), theo/fr - here I don't know. And probably crawl with the artists beakers to biology.

p.s. - anyway, I still wonder how I survived for so long given the impossible diplo.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

Spoiler :

and...

obviously, like an idiot, I forget changing the scenario script so the game ends in 70 turns. Bah, really was curious if I could finish this. Probably after revolting hannin to fr and going theo/budha, I could've dp justinian too and finish the crap.

P.S. - Final turn. Was doable imho; had to switch to caste and fire off. The 2 new cities were already with my culture as dominant, and they flip easy on marathon(since chance is/turn, not scaled with speed). DP with just as soon as he'd get mil. trad., wk wasn't after me as far as I could see with caravels.

 

[Dirk1302]

Pity you hit the marathon threshold. Play normal speed , join the DC, Make a good report to 1 AD and join us in the deity cookbook, i'll give you some slack if you don't get a save in next Saturday. Just notify me in the cookbook discussion thread.

 

[obsolete]

Hey guys, I was browsing this thread Sunday night and started playing around on it for old-time's sake. Next thing I knew it was Monday morning and I was finished. Unfortunately the forum was down all last night when I was ready to post some shots so I will get to it now.

Oh, and first, some special notes. I decided to ignore the old SSE/WE since everyone's seen me do that that a hundred times already before. I decided instead to do something totally opposite. I started spamming cottages instead of farms, and I started to ignore every wonder, except... I did complete TGL, and as you will see, a special case came up where I went after the UN, despite I never try to build the UN. I even lightbulbed a few great people can u imagine?

Spoiler :

3920 BC
Popped AH.

2080 BC
I decided to plant a city down here, and use it primarily as a blocker with the terrain. And looks like I Justinian got hit by murphies law on his exploration my way. What a shame.

My other next few cities would focus on blockading the west sections, letting me fill in the good middle parts at my own leisure.

275 BC
I put down 3 more cities, including settling that marble area. I also worked on a few wonders to get the gold bonus. We did have a little accident, I completed the Great Library, but that’s what happens with industrious and marble hooked up.

Naw, it wasn’t so much an accident, more of a... if I build it Great. And if I miss but get lots of gold, still good.

960
I built my ELEPHANT city, and also captured the lower barb city near the fish food.

And now, I won the liberalism race, and I even did a couple lightbulbs (eeeek) at this point.
I decided to take Nationalism so that I could get gold from working on the Taj, just like I did with UoS and the others. But if I do get a GAge by completing it, I won’t mind since I want to do more civic switches.
Note: Notice I haven’t even taken a peek yet at what’s past my Easten blocker city. Ahah!

After Lib...

Not much to say. I noticed that Justinian, Han, and Mansu were using Buddism same as me, so I decided to instead go for an early UN victory instead of the space race. This is a bit strange because I always avoid the UN at all costs, and this time I purposely made it my goal.

So on we went, doing more tech trades, and making alliances to boost relations etc, and furthermore I kept trying to avoid anything that would hurt my relations. Nothing really exciting here, just many years of boring diplo stuff... and ******** cottage spamming.
Oh.. and a few wars did break out, like Han vs Mansu, but he was really stupid in his warfare and couldn’t do a damn thing. Hell, the AI in BTS seems to keep its artillery for defence purposes! Rediculous!


1680
I complete the United Nations. Now I don’t care about anything. I don’t care about teching, or the space race. I just want to protect my votes.

Time to switch to theocracy to please most people’s favourite civics.

1720
I gift “Rice City” to Hannibal.

1750
I gift “Corner Block” City to Hannibal.
In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have done this. But Han was so stupid in his war mongering, I figured he would just die in the process. By gifting cities I would add some strength to him, and help ease his stupidness. If I lost him, then I will lose the votes needed for the diplo-win.
BTW: This whole problem came because Justin had a very strong army and was at war with him...

1780
I plant down what is probably my last JUNKER city for population votes.
These junker cities were just to add a little extra population for me (and dilute that of my opponents).

1822
What the hell, a bunch of weehorns went off, and looks like I am forced into a war here.
It looks like Saladin the IDIOT attacked my friend Sitting Bull, and somehow, Wang Kon declared war on me too in the process. I think he attacked me because I had to in turn attack Saladin by default for him attacking SB. Haha!
In the meantime though, despite my friend SB got the jump on him, it looks like he was no fool. He is nuking Saladin’s ass and seems to be the one in control.

1840
Finally, Wang is willing to be speaking to!
I pay him 250 gold jut to shut him up. I have 4K anyway, it’s nothing. You would think the AI should get smart enough to demand more when it knows I have so much in reserve. Now, lets see if I can make him into a voting ally.

1850
The votes are in, and I just made it, end of story. Unfortunately I couldn’t get Wang to vote to my side after the BS war, but it doesn’t matter, I got enough without him. But to think, I even used spies to change his civics and religion!

Top Cities
What an embarrassment. For the first time in years, I don’t even have my capital on the top 5 city list!

 

[ABigCivFan]

Obsolete,

Looking at your first screen shot, you sent a settler with a single warrior so many tiles away from capital across the jungle to settle the horse/suger city, and beating Justine who is closer to that spot. To me this is a gambit with extreme danger. A lone barb archer can whack your warrior/settler.

Even if you have this city settled successfully, it will have a lone warrior guarding it a long time risking further barb overrun.

Anyway, I would not recommend this kind of risk taking on Deity to anyone, if you absolutely need to do something like this, at least escort with an Archer.

 

[Dirk1302]

@Obsolete, nice job . I explored that spot early but as my first expansion was to the west where it was crowded i wasn't in time. Pity really since with 1 city on that spot Justin is completely blocked forever.

 

[silverbullet]

Hi All,
I tried to played this game and it was really hard for me. Industrious is one of the traits that is most difficult for me to try to utilize.

Spoiler :

I tried early wonder spamming but I missed both the stone/corn to mansa and the gems/cow/elephant/horse to Justinian. I missed oracle and Stonehenge, and then decided to abandon the game because I was too far behind.

Then I looked at some of the spoilers of other games to learn what I did wrong and noticed that a lot of you had more luck with Rexing. ABCF settled the stone around 2000BC, but in my game mansa grabbed it around 2360BC. BurN built the oracle around 1800BC, but it went earlier than that in my game.
Almost everyone managed to settle the gems/phants/cow/horse city, but Justinian just rushed in my direction in my game.

After realizing there was some extreme bad luck involved, I decided to retry the map.
This time it went much better and I think the game has reached a critical decision point. Please advice how to continue.
Played until 425AD

Spoiler :

I decided to go for a quick Rex copying Dirk's game. Basically took almost all the forests down for quick 3 settlers.

I got lucky this time and Han declared on Mansa, and Mansa bribed everyone else to war with Han.
Everyone neighbouring me adopted hinduism, so I did too.
My pleased friends Justin and Wang gifted me Iron Working and Alphabet, and I managed to be the first to Aesthetics and 2nd to CoL (still while WK refused to trade it), so with massive trading I got back to tech parity.

I managed to build the pyramids and the great library and university of Sankore.

Early tech speed of both Mansa and WK was amazing. I never though I would win liberalism this game, especially since I had to self research education (great engineer "polution"), but Mansa decided to go to economics and later to Nationalism, so I am about to do it now:

I am thinking of taking nationalism and building the Taj, but I might choose to delay it, because I have mostly farms and maybe I need more workshops and larger cities to get the most out of the GA.
I have a great engineer stationed in Hamburg to build most of it.
Mansa is willing to trade nationalism, does this mean he is not working on the Taj Mahal at the moment? If so, I could afford to delay finishing it by a few turns to get some more workshops and larger cities.

Long term I am not sure whether I should gear up for reneissance war with Han (I could get some people to join), or try to shoot for a peaceful route with radio wonders and maybe UN. It will be easy to get WK, Justin and Mansa friendly if I adopt free market/caste/theocracy.

I could also go to war after assembly line, but I have never done it and I don't really know if this is the right empire for this.

Please give your suggestions

Land details:

Spoiler :

City details:

Spoiler :

All the cities were temporarily working gold/research and running scientists to make the final push for liberalism.

Diplomacy:

 

[obsolete]

@Obsolete, nice job . I explored that spot early but as my first expansion was to the west where it was crowded i wasn't in time. Pity really since with 1 city on that spot Justin is completely blocked forever.

Had I known there was not one, but two stone resources in the west I would have gone there first. But since my scout started east of my capital, I just kept exploring that way.

 

[Dirk1302]

@silverbullet,
Indeed looks a bit like my game. i managed to snatch jute but didn't get Hamburg in such a good position. There are various modern wars you can go for but Infantry/artillery is a very solid steamroll. Since you build factories first there's a chance that you'll also have some tanks once you're really ready to roll.

I have a feeling from games i played that every 10+ good city empire has good chances to pull of a modern war. Rifling/cannons is also a good shot but i don't like to fight that at tech parity unless it's some one like Pacal since the ai tends to have more units.

After Factories/plants there 's a better chance you'll fight at tech and unit parity.

 

[silverbullet]

Dirk:

Spoiler :

I only have 7 cities in my 425AD save, and room for maybe 2 more medium ones and 2 more crappy ones (coast only).
I think I will be better off trying to take Han's cities. I have built mainly farms so far and I have a lot of hapiness surplus, so I think I can whip a cuirassier/cavalry army and take him.
He is not a good friend of many. This will be a tight schedule. If he beelines rifling I won't be able to make it, but if he chooses a different path I should be able to take his capital before he gets rifling. In that case I will not need steel immediately (but might need it for the cleanup of all his cities).

 

[Dirk1302]

@silverbullet

Spoiler :

Problem with this is, that it is what we were always doing on immortal. And on Immortal it almost always worked fine. On deity it can be the best route too especially when you're boxed in you should probably go this way because your late game expansion's too late. It's a bit of a hazard though. Your position is pretty good and Han doesn't look enormously strong so indeed with some good whipping it'll work.

But it might be interesting to look at ABigCivFan's Mao thread. There a cannon war would have been very hard and while we didn't play the same way we both decided against it. CivFan went with a direct declaration on the top dog fighting a diplomatic defensive Infantry/artillery war taking over later.

I played the game too, had rexed to some good land, turned out later when i read CivFan's description that we were in roughly the same situation all along. Decided against a cannon war.Since i had focused on science i just didn't have the units to take any one on. Didn't go for infantry either, just waited for tanks then took 6 american cities in 8 turns making me almost as big (but not as advanced) as topdog Bismarck. Then i just mixed unit building with teching to war techs (laser with mobile artillery is the best) took down his cap twice after he had launched the ship and ultimately won the game. This one is a lot easier since our own position is better than mine or ABigCivFan's there and the opposition here is no where near as strong. So it might be a good opportunity to go for this war and get some confidence in it.