The University of Immortals

[Olodune]

I agree with everything that Dirk just said, though I have a couple more lessons learned:

Spoiler :

-Pointy sword research is *very* effective before your opponents have feudalism. Knowing that you can re-declare after 10 turns, without risking vassalization is very powerful. Dirk1302 pulled this off excellently

-Stealing workers on Immortal doesn't look like a very good plan. Getting a quick peace is tough, and the DoW means unit spam (rather than wonders ). Lesson learned.

-Of those who killed off Hannibal I did so last -- earlier war was a stronger plan. Perhaps Gliese 581 went a bit too far in the other direction. Perhaps not.

A game on a Pangaea map sounds like fun. Pangaea-like maps (Arborea, Lakes) would be fine with me too. For Pangaea I put a high value on the creative trait. Of the creative leaders that come to mind (@ work atm) {Gilgamesh, Catherine, Willem, Pericles, Kublai, Suryavarman, Louis} I think Cathy or Surya would be the most interesting.

I'd play with any leader however

 

[Dirk1302]

You're quite right on the creative trait for Pangae It let's you block off land far more easy,
making settling faraway from the capital less of a risk. i also suspect that the ai's are a bit more cautious settling near to you.I have been playing with Pericles lately and as far as i've seen you can get 6+ good cities more often than not. Agressive and charismatic are also very good traits on this map especially if you border Ghenghis or Shaka.

 

[BurN]

I have bad memories on pang maps, mostly due homeyg's games. Pang map on deity is boxed in asap with those free settlers. But I haven't played pang on immortal yet.

To Rusten: How many trebs did you use with your muskets? I did a quick test game with mehmed. Was playing a FE so I had 30+ janissaries in no time. But I made a mistake thinking they actually had a chance w/o trebs. Rushing with janissaries vs Saladin's CGIII/drill longbows proved to be an utter disaster. Maybe I should have just rerolled the start after seeing I had 2 protective leaders next to me since it was just a quick test game anyways.

I think I'll do another testgame but with Zara this time. I'll use more trebs+no protective leader. Though rushing with riffles or grens seems much safer. CR riffles/grens perform very well even when in tech parity. Also if its riffles/grens vs longbows, you don't need siege.


To Dirk: I don't know if the currency route is "better". I usually always go medi->priest->writing->col if I do early war. You can easily trade col for alph or maths which lets you research currency anyways. I've done both routes in the past and I don't see that much difference between them really. The upside of col route is that you get more EP and more gold per turn. The upside of currency is gold trough trades and a free trade route which basically means free commerce without building anything.

That's how I see it at least, feel free to disagree.

 

[silverbullet]

@Dirk,

Can you please post some saved games post the war with Han?
I am curious about the route you chose to take (genetics before everything else) and how it worked.

@BurN
I agree about CoL, especially with a spiritual leader and lots of food. You can switch to a few turns of merchants/scientists, whip a little, move back to caste, etc.
And something specific to this game in a spoiler, in case someone is still playing:

Spoiler :

Han was jewish in my game, and with open borders, trade routes and holy city 25% discount, I had a lot of cheap espionage missions against him. The extra EP and spy specialists let me steal a tech like civil service from him without even turning the espionage slider on!!

 

[Dirk1302]

@silverbullet

Spoiler :

I'm afraid the only save i have apart from the end is a save from 1640 AD the turn i declared on Han again, next turn he was dead. I was playing rather quickly at that time not saving anything since i had autosaves. Then i started a new game yesterday ....In the save i post here i'm researching fission for the plants and iirc i went Refrigeration - Superconductors - Medicine - Genetics from there, then back to Industrialisation.Superconductors - Medicine could be the other way around but knowing the emphasis i put on research generally probably not. Since i had plants online in most of the big cities i could build Supermarket, Hospital etc in 3-4 turns each. When Genetics came in most of my health problems were over.

I wouldn't normally do this in a game where the Ai's are closer because you can't afford to be beaten to the internet in those games ( i take the industrialisation plastics route in those games fitting in radio if i am lacking for resources/happiness). This game where'll be the first to comps anyway the health route seemed superior.Since relations were good and i had quite some power left from the rush on Han i gathered i didn't need tanks right away and the Industrialisation route has not much else to offer (i reckoned i'd have aluminium somewhere in my lands).

Actually the only wasted tech to space here is Refrigeration, you'll need the rest anyway and early superconductors with the labs more than makes up
for the wasted tech.I could have build the Apollo program earlier going the other way but it turned out that i had enough production to launch pretty close after the last tech Ecology had been researched anyway

I have used this beeline to Genetics once before in Rolo's isolated thread playing as Darius i believe on Warlords.I was on a very good island so i went through SM-Physics-Electricity-Refrigeration-Genetics i believe it was in Warlords, when i was done i had this whole line on the Ai's in other respects i had tech parity so backfilled trading SM and Physics for the techs i was missing. That was really a fun game.

 

[Dirk1302]

@BurN, i also research COL first after war, this is often neccessary because you've got neither Alpha nor Math. In this case however i had Alpha, it seems to me that Currency kicks in immediately with the extra trade route so i could have continued to COL at a faster pace.With COL it's always an extra 10-15 turns before you've got all the houses setup.I could also have used production to wealth instead of production to research, this would have been a bit more efficient. In this particular game i couldn't trade COL for anything worthwhile, i lacked Math so i had to build the courts with mines. But i chopped the Markets.

 

[Olodune]

@Dirk

Spoiler :

Do you often get Fission for non-polluting plants? Do you build coal fired plants first or just skip them?

Does this mean that you often go down the SciMeth->Phys->Elec->Fission line relatively early? On this map that was a smart move since oil based navies had to wait until plastics. Do you use any of the other features unlocked by this route (attack subs, nukes)?

Intriguing alternatives to my standard industrial tech path

I've learned a great deal from your game, thanks for posting

 

[Rusten]

To Rusten: How many trebs did you use with your muskets? I did a quick test game with mehmed. Was playing a FE so I had 30+ janissaries in no time. But I made a mistake thinking they actually had a chance w/o trebs. Rushing with janissaries vs Saladin's CGIII/drill longbows proved to be an utter disaster. Maybe I should have just rerolled the start after seeing I had 2 protective leaders next to me since it was just a quick test game anyways.

This game; zero. I used spies and cuirassiers - power through numbers. You have to expect some losses, but that's what the numbers are for. If I was facing CG3 longbowmen on a hill I'd probably get some siege for collateral.

 

[Dirk1302]

@Olodune

Spoiler :

Yes i like Nuclear plants alot only once had a meltdown when i was some 15 turns from victory. Even if it happens you break even with heavily polluting Coal plants (which i never build), you get global warming for sure but by the time meltdown occurs there are simply not that many turns to play on immortal (win or lose).

As for the Sci meth - physics path, no i often delay that path as long as possible especially if i have great lib. I have often teched to steel and replaceable parts for renaissance war, so i usually go for Assembly line, i often get Scientific method and Physics from the Ai in trades. If i have a very
large empire i make trading for SM a priority because i need communism bad in this case. Physics is relatively useless and expensive i feel.

Once i have Physics however Electricity and Fission are very much on the cards. I have never used Fission for anything else than plants though, i seldom play modern wars and if i do i lean heavily on bombers, tanks and pillaging gunships (so the Ai artillery can't reach you).

There is one exception, if i go to space with relatively few cities than i usely lack some resources, in this case i might go for the electricity research line immediately to get the audio and video resources and trading them around. Warlords game on isolated start i described was an extreme example of this.

 

[silverbullet]

Thanks everyone for playing this game. I learnt a lot from this thread by comparing my game to others.
I finally finished my game, in a win!!!
However, as a result of many mistakes, it was a hard and bloody win.
Please read and critic my game

Up to 1545 AD

Spoiler :

575 BC
After signing peace with Louis, we are 4 turns away from code of laws, and also from a GS. Frederick is already Confuciousist, and Han is the only guy with Alpha.
I have enough espionage points to see that Han is researching Monarchy which is great. After CoL I research 2 turns into alpha and trade it for CoL.

I trade Col for Alpha with Han.
I use my first GS for an academy in Paris, since I still don't have maths for philosophy.



Louis switches to Hinduism, as he has no jewish cities left.
I switch to hinduism for 5 turns so he is willing to trade.
I trade alphabet for iron working to Frederick.

I am planning to spend a turn in monarchy so I can get it from Louis. I trade CoL+Alpha+meditation for Horseback riding+Monarchy.
I don't really need horseback riding, but this is the most expensive tech I could get.

I research sailing next.
400 BC switch to caste system and run many scientist in tenoctitlan.

325 BC paris completes the palace with some heavy chopping. I don't have math yet unfortunately.

At some point I see that I traded for archery. I think it was because Frederick offered it, and I read somewhere that tech trades offered by the AI don't count towards your WFYABTA. Is that true?

I self research mathematics followed by currency.

50 AD a great scientist is born and bulbs philosophy. Tenoctitlan is the taoist holy city.
Unfortunately, I don't know enough civs to trade with.

I made a stupid mistake with Louis. I opened borders with him, enabling Judaism to spread into France. As a result I get antoher -1 with Han for "You declared war on our friend" and he is back to cautious.

I kill off the french completely, leaving me with a smallish empire and a huge carthage.




I was thinking to build ankgor in Tenochtitlan to run 5 priests and get a GP for a shrine, but then changed my mind and decided to focus on liberalism bulb.
Research goes on to civil service.
About 1/3 on my way into civil service, (14 turns left), I notice that Sabartha is the ideal tech stealing city from Han.
I whip a few spies and leave them there for 5 turns.



Wow, with a holy city and trade routes I get a 75% discount for the tech base cost. Too bad I didn't think about it before spending 600 beakers on the tech that will now go to waste.
In any case, Civil Service now is better than civil service in 12 turns, so I steal it.

I am running caste and pacifism, and many scientists in my old capital. With a lighthouse I get 3 tiles to support 6 specialists.

I bulb paper as my research is still not great and it will take 12 turns at this point.

I research metal casting and start a 10% espionage slider for massive tech fill from Han. I run a spy specialist in most cities.

580 AD
Overview of my lousy empire choked by Han:
research is only 96 per turn , but we will get fast GPs.


Orleans - our merchant town. I am not planning to get the GM yet. I will delay it until after bulbing education.
Han researched music and culture bobmed his junk city to the south to steal the cows from the holy city!!!



Lyons


Rheims - our garbage elephant town.


Tours - our garbage gold town with no food


Our old capital - a science town


Still no contact with the other continent. I had a problem that Frederick didn't open borders for a long time so I could not explore.


680 AD - GS born in Tenochtitlan. Bulbing education
In the mean time, stealing aesthetics, literature and drama from Han, trading Theology and construction from Frederick.

800 AD finally meet the dutch and the byzantine and the Sumerians. Doing some tech trades.

With stealing and trading, we are now in a tech lead.


900AD - education complete. liberalism in 8 turns.
920AD - Hanibal declares on Frederick. Great... take some forces away from this continent.

1030 - great spy is born. I send him to Carthage for additional 3000 points, which will give me guilds, banking and engineering and more from han.
1050 - now the stage of stupid mistakes starts
None of the civs have paper, but I rush to get nationalism out of liberalism. I could have had steel or rifling instead

I trade stone from Willem to complete oxford faster in paris.
1160 AD - printing press done, next is gunpowder (I plan to steal banking)
I get a GS and burn it for a golden age for fast rifling.
I detour economics for the GM.

1240 AD - Han and Fred sign peace.
Hanibal is teching ahead and already has chemistry at 1320AD. I steal it as I learn rep. parts.
I send the GM to a trading mission in Sumeria for 1900 gold, but unfortunately my research is too slow. I have to burn all this gold for faster rifling, and end up with no cash for upgrades.



This is going to be a rifle vs. grenadiers war, meaning more losses, and Han has Statue of Zeus, meaning high culture slider for insane unhappiness.
At 0 science I am only doing 111 per turn, which isn't a lot for upgrades.
My current army, 11 trebs, 6 catapults 6 rifles, 6 macemen, and a few woodsman 3 jaguars for healing.
I need to build more knights with pinch as stack defenders against grenadiers.
At 1430 I attack with an army of 20 rifles.

Unfortunately, Carthagian culture is surrounding us from all directions. This is going to be a difficult war. On the positive side, most of Han's army is still longbows, swords, catapults and elephants. That means I can do a quick strike on the first cities, but he has a good economy for quick cash for upgrades.

1450 I manage to trade constitution from Justinian and whip some jails to reduce war weariness.

I use massive drafting combined with whipping to reduce the unhappy population from the draft.

At 1545, Hannibal finally agrees to become my vassal. I keep him around because I am way behind in tech and want someone to give me some missing techs.

The current tech situation:

Willem has run ahead in techs. Catching up will be difficult.

After all the whipping and drafting, this is my empire's economy:


My immediate priorities are forbidden palace and wall street.
On the positive side, Justinian and Frederick are involved in a holy war that will keep them busy for ages.

Lesson learnt: when you face an opponent with status of Zeus, mounted units like cuirassars are better than rifles. Faster war means less time at 40% culture.

 

[silverbullet]

1545 to the end

Spoiler :

One turn later, Hannibal calms down. He is not so angry on the war anymore and does the following trade:


I tech biology since no one has it, and I am trying to get a GM for sushi.

A lucky event happens:
A GE is born in Tenochtitlan. I have 13 mining inc resources. I don't have railroad, and everybody else does.
I trade rifling to Frederick for 2400 gold which I use for deficit research.
Railroad will be completed quickly with 1003 beakers per turn at 100%. Carthage and Utica came out of revolt and are full of cottages. Carthage also has an academy and a settled GS.

Mining inc is founded in orleans, and +13 hammers will speed up wall street. I start spreading the corporation internally while teching biology.

Next I tech assembly line and trade communism with Frederick for Biology.
I am planning to fill most of my missing techs by stealing them from Willem.
He has free religion and free trade, which means a good bonus to stealing for me. However, he is far (+30% distance) and has a security bureau.
I spread Judaism to one of his cities and send galleons full of spies. Since I have many cities, and each one of them will have good production with mining inc, I get a huge amount of espionage points per turn. I run espionage specialists wherever possible.

The game is a bit long to detail from this point, but basically I build up my empire, put the espionage slider to maximum and turn of research. I am running representation with free speech and free trade. I run free religion when I don't steal a tech, and switch to organized religion or theocracy when I do steal a tech from Willem.

My espionage city in the Netherlands:


After stealing plastics and radio I switch to research and go for computers.
I complete the internet in my ironworks city in 9 turns, while researching robotics. I still don't have oil of fission. After Robotics I turn research off and use the money for mass upgrades (galleons to transports, rifles and infantry to mechs, cannons to artillery).
I start gifting techs to Hanibal so he can get plastics and oil, but he is not hurry to build a workboat.

Germany builds the UN and I get a strange event. It says that I am the leading candidate, but I didn't get the required number of votes because everybody abstained. So no UN decisions for a while.


I build a fleet of galleons and amass insane amounts of artillery and mechanized infantry.
I switch to police state and as soon as I get fission (by stealing from Willem) I mass upgrade my navy and go to kill Justinian.
The dutch slowly tech to space, and I occasionally get a tech that Justinian also has via the internet.
I use artillery for amphibious attacks on Justinian's coastal city that is close to the capital.
I unload my SOD into that city and march with mech. inf and artillery. Justinian kills my main SOD with his gunships and artillery, but his losses are severe and my empire in an unstopable war production machine, with most cities building either a mech or artillery in 1~3 turns.
Managing this war is a big mess, and I wish civ had a better interface for that.

Eventually Justinian capitulates and Sumeria breaks free of him. Sumeria is still at war with the germans, and they capitulate to Germany.

Germany is next. By that time I have oil and modern armour, as well as jet fighters. They fall down pretty quickly and both them and the Sumerians capitulate.

I am waiting for the revolting cities to pop culture so I can get the domination land mass (I am at 55%), and then a UN vote comes -diplomatic victory. Willem is the only civ that is not my Vassal, and Frederick is my rival, but has only a few cities left.

And so, in a very diplomatic way, in 1905 Montezuma is democratically elected world leader.



I think the GE for mining inc was a really lucky event for me. Without this insane production boost to all my small cities, I wonder what I could have done to catch up.

 

[silverbullet]

I think there are 2 or 3 players still playing this game so I will put my thoughts in spoilers. This mainly outlines what I think were my biggest mistakes in the game or what I learnt from the other games. Please feel free to continue this discussion.

Spoiler :

Some of the things I have learned:
* An early workboat to scout is crucial.
* When you can fogbust everything between your capital and the rival, stop building warriors and start an immediate settler.
* During an early rush, it may be wise to have a settler near your SOD. I lost 2 city sites to Han after rushing Louis.
* Don't always go for rifling. Muskets, cannons and cuirassiers are much earlier and can do a decent job. I would have had no problem in my game to have a cuirassiers longbow war, but my economy was too slow for rifling in a timely manner, ending up in a rifle-gren war.
* If you know that no one can research liberalism, delay it to get a better tech. I was so eager for liberalism and I didn't even think I would be so far ahead on immortal.
* Holy cities are great for espionage.
* whipping is fun

The next semester of the university will start soon. Please vote for your preferred leader and map type.
My vote - hatty, fractal.

 

[Olodune]

@silverbullet

Spoiler :

First of all congratulations on a nice win

I opened your 1545 and 1790 saves:

Your science rate is quite low but you compensated very well using espionage and superior production (first FE based, and later mining inc). Taking the espionage to Hanny/Willem looked like it worked well.

You put Justinian in his place too

Some of your cities were managed differently than I would. Especially the farm based ones: you have several mostly farmed cities that were significantly unhealthy in both saves. This makes sense for votes but (imho) is a little inefficient for production/commerce. Generally I find it's better to reduce the population and work more hammer/commerce tiles. Better players than myself may disagree though

Overall I think your game was stronger than mine.

 

[Olodune]

If you want a single vote:

Suryavarman/Pangaea

Edit: I'm not a huge fan of the super early UUs as gameplay is very different. Hatty's war chariots add a lot of volatility into the early game. Still, her traits are great.

 

[Dirk1302]

@silverbullet

Spoiler :

Congrats on your win, a fine game imo and a great writeup. I was especially interested in your spy efforts, i still tend to play the game in Warlords fashion using spies only for bringing down cultural defence and usually going state property asap instead of meddling with corps (well that's because i'm lazy). Seems there are powerful alternatives for spying if the circumstances are right.

Your comment that opening borders was a mistake because Judaism could spread to France and you'd gain negative modifiers was also enlighteining, i could easily have made the same mistake, i think having an eye or details like is what makes the deity players.

I vote for a Pangae map and since we're students and Pangae is tricky i'd suggest a strong creative leader. I think Pericles (Creative philosophical with a Phalanx as UU so you don't have to build spears and Odeon as UB extra happy and culture also dead cheap since we're creative) and Zara Yacob
(Creative Organized UU Oromo warriors UB stele iirc giving extra culture) are great if we're going for a REX.

If we want to fight ourselves out of trouble than Boudica (Aggressive charismatic UU Gallic Warrior UB Dun both fairly useless unless there's lots of hills) could be considered. Wars go well with her obvously. In peaceful times she's quite useless though and recovering from war is a pain.

 

[silverbullet]

@Dirk

Spoiler :

Your comment that opening borders was a mistake because Judaism could spread to France and you'd gain negative modifiers was also enlighteining, i could easily have made the same mistake, i think having an eye or details like is what makes the deity players.

Thanks,
Actually, I found that I learnt a lot by writing the report. All this time I was thinking, what's wrong with my game, and while writing the report I am looking at what I did and say "why did I do that? stupid me "

Another important thing I learnt from your game vs. mine (and please don't start a FE vs SE thread out of that). Farm economy main strength is to create a short term advantage by strategic bulbing, whipping, drafting etc. When you have the advantage, grab it.
In your cottage game I see you getting into a comfortable economy in the 500~1000 years and basically consider the game won at 500, while I was still struggling at 1545, because I failed to take the short term windows of opportunity that my farm economy provided.

 

[Rusten]

@silverbullet

Spoiler :

Congrats on your win, well played! Using espionage is great when you've got the religion bonus. I'm in a SG using an espionage variant right now as well, and I can agree that it's a great alternative to self-researching.

As to the next game; I'm fine with most leaders, but I don't like playing financial civs (industrious is a little boring as well). I think we should also avoid early UUs (at least the really powerful ones) if we're playing Pangea. I'm fine with any map, but as I haven't played Pangea in a long time that could be interesting. Creative is my favourite trait so that's got my vote as well. Zara/Pericles/Suryavarman are all good but my vote goes to the Khmer.

 

[Dirk1302]

@silverbullet
Well i've played FE/SE also especially on warlords into the late game, with the unhealthiness caused by factories this has become a tad less attractive i feel. Actually i try to mix farms with cottages because i think both are good. This is not totally optimal once i face the Representation/Universal suffrage choice but at the time the outcome of the game is often largely decided and i can always transfrom to the economy i want from that point.

I feel the map often decides though, i don't want to let good grassland tiles unimproved for long so they automatically get a cottage if i can't farm them pre CS.Rivers are also great for cottages obviously but i always farm tiles near lakes. This means that i tend to go for more cottages when i do an early war because CS is roughly 500 years later, also because cottages help with recovery albeit in a very minor way.

@Rusten
Khmer is creative, what is his other trait, UU and UB?.

 

[Rusten]

Expansive, it's a really fun combo.

The UU is the Ballista Elephant and the UB is the Baray (an aqueduct with +1 food).

The combination of a free border pop, half price library and half price granary is awesome in the early game. The Khmer civ is really underrated, it might not look very good piece by piece, but its synergy is amazing.

 

[Dirk1302]

Expansive gives a discount on workers, good for an early REX but also early chopping. It seems this guy is perfect for the early game good choice as far as i'm concerned.