Washington (IC) Immortal Cookbook

[Fierabras]

My vote:

1. Dhoomstriker: agressive opening with Sumeria
2. Quaren: a bit dodgy approach, but I want your dotmap
3. Gkey: TGL, are you crazy?

About my own save:

The plan is to get sailing after 5 turns and then settle 5th city between hill and rice. The chariot needs to go north to counter some more barb activity. A cap library can be whipped soon. The gold will be connected and then a farmland to grow city back to 2 and work gold. The workboat is heading towards Sumeria for trade routes.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Slavery is in use

dhoomstriker - 5 cities ... All this and without slavery too.

Not quite. I am using Slavery. I used it quite liberally, actually. That fact goes hand-in-hand with the Granaries that I spammed everywhere. It also means that we won't have to spend 1 turn of Anarchy in order to get into Slavery--that turn was already spent.

This way, Commerce Cities with low production can whip their Libraries and then regrow quickly, while Production Cities can grow while working their Hammer-based squares and can perhaps a whip the last few units right before starting a war.


Angry Gilgamesh

Not sure if the city gifting was really a great idea at this point, but kudos for even being able to do that.

I have bought you 10 turns of Peace. Use them wisely. After that point, who knows what Gilgamesh will do! I guess that this situation will be part of the fun!


Sailing is Good

drlake - Not sure if Sailing is the best option at this point. Writing is in...

It is my belief that Sailing is a good choice. On this map, Writing + Sailing lets us get Foreign, Intercontinental Trade Routes. What you need is a path scouted to Montezuma's Cities, Open Borders with Montezuma, and Sailing. Having those things should net you +1 to +2 Commerce per City of his that you are connected to, up to a maximum of one such Commerce bonus for every City that you own.

If you instead shoot for Aesthetics before Sailing, I think that you will be missing out too much. While Aesthetics is great to get for its possibility to trade for Alphabet (with perhaps some partial Research put into Alphabet, as well), and it is nice to get a head-start on building The Great Library, it would suck to have to wait that long to trade for Alphabet and then trade for Sailing, in order to finally get this relatively-free bonus Commerce.


Procedure for Giving Suggestions for Future Rounds
So, what's the procedure for the next round? Specifically, are we allowed to discuss our possible strategies for approaching the next round and give suggestions to others of how they might play things out? I've sort of already been doing so, but I also have some more ideas that I'd like to share. That said, I don't want to wreck the procedure or ruffle any feathers if sharing these thoughts before the round is played is against the spirit of the game. Would an appropriately-titled spoiler tag be the way to go for giving such suggestions?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Speaking of Monty, the more I think about it (mathematically... I'm convinced that he's coming for us

You're quite likely right. Sharing his Religion can help a lot, but in my game, he was the founder of a Religion, meaning that since its Holy City is so isolated, it will eventually become a marginalized Religion in the international theatre.

So, the question becomes... be Monte's friend and anger others or else plan for Monte to declare and thus be willing to switch to someone else's Religion and thus not worry about how much Monte will hate us for doing so.

I really don't see how invading his continent could possibly be profitable

I suppose that it depends upon the situation. In my game, Montezuma built The Great Lighthouse. Capturing it would be worthwhile.

Chariots + Axemen (assuming that we can get a source of metal) could take him on in massive amounts of numbers, but a safer play would be to wait until Catapults and Macemen before invading.

Both Axemen and Macemen eat Jaguars alive, but you also need to think about how you're going to get sufficient units to be able to capture and hold his Cities (or even just his Great Lighthouse City).

A later war would be a lot easier to execute, while an earlier one could be more profitable, assuming that the earlier war isn't a total failure.

Gilgamesh isn't exactly a fuzzy bunny either... Monarchy

One downside to my game is that Gilgamesh knows Monarchy, since he took it with The Oracle. That fact puts him only 1 tech away from Longbowmen. Fortunately, he's unlikely to research that tech (Feudalism) until after he's learned a lot of the cheaper techs that are available to him to research.

 

[Bibor]

If you and Monty don't share a religion, I bet a 100 you'll be his first target.

 

[kossin]

If you and Monty isdon't share a religion, I bet a 100 you'll be his first target.

Fixed that for you

If there are no civs neighboring an AI, he will look at best possible victims after going through the valid victims. In that step the AI considers Capital distance so the closest civ is more likely to be targeted, all other things being equal (assuming the other values are all the same between valid targets, which they rarely are).

Anyway, if you look closely at DanF's Declaration Mechanics you can see that PASS 1 in the D) step considers weLH, meaning if the AI is a Lonely Heart (alone, no neighbors), he uses the NEAR power ratio for instead (130 instead of 80) and multiplies it by 3/2... all that to say pretty much everyone is a valid target as Monty has a 0 MinAdjacentLandPercent for valid targets.

Yea, he's that crazy.

Expect a knock on the door sometime in the next round I'd say

 

[GKey]

Why do I have a feeling that these 2 islands connecting us to Monty were not originally on the map?

 

[Gumbolt]

These are the final votes for the round. I think everyone has voted. Wow. There has been a lot of good debate here and some sleepy debates. Fantastic to see so much involvement.

Dhoom striker 20
Fierabras 11
Quaren 10
Bobbyboy29 6
Gkey 6
Gumbolt 4
Moroktonos 2
Lymond 1

10 votes in total. So my vote does not really matter as it is already decided. I was hedging towards Dhooms's save anyway to prove a point.

I will make the usual post in a bit.

 

[drlake]

Why do I have a feeling that these 2 islands connecting us to Monty were not originally on the map?

Hmm, that is suspicious, isn't it?

 

[Gumbolt]

Round Two Commences

Congratulations to Dhoomstriker for winning the vote in the first round!

Below you will find the save that will be used for Round 2:

Dhoomstrikers save


Round 2 lasts from 1500 BC - 400 AD (100 turns - I think) and will tentatively end at Midnight EST on Sunday, September 19th, with voting to occur the subsequent couple of days.


This round is also open to players that have not previously submitted games and have not played/shadowed past the date of 1500BC. Players that feel their overall game is too strong for the IC may submit shadow games, and this is actually welcome as it can prove educational for less experienced players.

Overall lets have some fun this round. I would like to see more people think outside the box so we get some real choices come voting. I would be interested to see if anyone can take out Gilga mainland cities before 400ad.

 

[lymond]

Are we dhoomed?

 

[drlake]

I'll be even more impressed if anyone takes out Monty...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Are we dhoomed?

See below for some suggestions for how to pick up where I left off with my save
I think that it's fair to give some initial suggestions for first few actions, since you weren't the ones playing the last few turns. Note that I will spoiler these suggestions, in case you'd rather just play the save out blindly.

Workers:

Spoiler :

We have 3 Workers that are near our capitol.
Here are some possible suggestions of what to do with them:
1. Build a Road to the south. Many other games have more Roads than I did, so now might be a time to rectify this situation.
2. Change the Flood Plains Farms into Flood Plains Cottages around Washington. Some people prefer Cottages. I planned to stick with Flood Plains Farms until after I'd built some more Settlers, whipped the Library and regrown, but you do what you feel is best.
3. Build other Cottages, like Plains Cottages for Boston or Grassland Cottages for Washington to grow into.
4. Go help out other Cities, perhaps even new ones that you will settle.

Additional Cities:

Spoiler :

- Gilgamesh was low on Cities when I declared Peace with him, but he'll likely start settling now that the war is (temporarily?) over. There's a chance that you can beeline a Settler further south than in any of the other games.
- You could also aim to set up Cities in the Jungle and by the Gold.
- You could also aim to put a City by Montezuma on the Fur by the 2 Fish.

Tech:

Spoiler :

- Finish off Writing for Open Borders with Montezuma, possibly with anyone else that we meet, and for Libraries.
- After that, it's your choice. I'm considering Iron Working, but the exact tech order will depend upon where I settle further Cities (I might delay Iron Working if Gilgamesh beats me to settling in the Jungle, for example).
- Aesthetics would also be a popular choice, with possibly a turn or two spent on Alphabet so that you can trade it for Alphabet. Or else just hog the tech and build a Wonder, probably by continuing on to Literature and getting the Great Library (which would require researching or trading for Polytheism). Whatever you want, basically.
- You could also beeline Alphabet or Math, so that you can get Currency.
- Or go for Math so that you can grab Construction.
- With just Sugar, I'm not sure that beelining Calendar is of any use.

Infrastructure:

Spoiler :

- I was planning to put a Barracks in both New York and Boston.
- I was also planning to put a Library in Washington, Philadelphia, and Atlanta.
- But do whatever you want, since none of the Cities are REALLY specialized yet, other than New York looking like our best Production City.

Diplomacy:

Spoiler :

- Either meet and greet the neighbours or don't.
- Not meeting them can be a strategic choice. The more AIs that you know when you get Archery in trade, the less techs that those same AIs will want to trade to you in the future. Also, with conflicting Religions (Buddhism and Hinduism were founded by AIs that we have yet to meet), and us being Jewish, it might just anger other AIs if we go and meet them, or they could get all whiny, asking you to cancel deals with the Jewish brothers and sisters of the faith.
- Meeting the neighbours opens up tech trading and tech piggybacking possibilities.
- Note that if you haven't met an AI, they can't declare war on you.
- No matter who you meet, you'll likely have some tech trading to do in this next round, so good luck with that aspect of the game! Remember, do not expect to see a "fair" trade deal at Immortal level (or at just about any level, for that matter).

Strategic Resources:

Spoiler :

- We're working on Pasturing the Horse, and if you put a Road on it, we'll have Horse connected to all of our Cities before the Peace deal with Gilgamesh ends.
- Time will tell if we have Iron.

Espionage:
I won't spoiler this bit of info:
- Just so that you know, I set 100% of our Espionage Points on Gilgamesh.

Spoiler :

- I was hoping to get a view of what Gilgamesh's tech rate would be like, so that I could see when he'd start researching Feudalism for Longbowmen.
- However, Gilgamesh also gets early Courthouses, as he can build them as soon as he learns Priesthood and they are cheaper than regular Courthouses, so trying to overwhelm his Espionage Points might be a lost cause.

 

[Kadazzle]

I think this is a commerce-based map where early commerce will help a lot. In my attempt (which I won't post as we're passe the first round) I went Mining -> BW -> AH -> Mysticism -> Writing while Settling 1N. Getting Libraries and Specialists up quick made it so that I had 3 awesome-potential cities (1N of Starting Location, Fish/Clam/Corn/Pig/Oasis site, FPs + 2 Oasis/Corn site) whilst having all first level techs except for Sailing and Pottery (but we have a good techrate..).

I would have voted Dhoomstrikers save #1, and it looks like it's going to be an interesting scenario to play through.

 

[Fierabras]

Are we dhoomed?

I only just played 13 turns and I'm way out of my comfort zone already. It's getting scarier each turn.

 

[GKey]

^^^^
Same here.

 

[Quaren]

Should be interesting to try it out then. If its really hard it might be an idea to have a more in depth review of what everyone did during their turns to see what worked and what didn't.

 

[Bibor]

I'm really interested how this will play out on Immortal. I played round 2 on Monarch and I can tell you right now - it's not going to be pretty.

To the South - Gilgamesh with a marble-pig-plains hills city checking if your borders are okay.
To the Southwest - Gilgamesh's BFF.
To the West - Hello, these are my two triremes and three galleys full of Jaguars, Cats and Archers. Wanna play?
To the far East - New tech? Plop! Wonder complete! Neext!

While you have: 50% of tiles are non-commerical sea (hey, at least there's seafood!). One not too long river (granted, could've been shorter). No copper for Collossus, god forbid marble, and room for 2 production cities (i managed to squeeze in 9 cities total), one of which has to be moai. The land is so production poor that you need to stick to the whip (GP farm spot is perfect and would benefit greatly from Caste).

Thanks Kossin <3

 

[Lithuanian!]

Early rush was impossible?

 

[GKey]

Early rush with horses not connected yet, while Gilg got metal units? Everything is possible though, just hard.

 

[drlake]

Early rush was impossible?

Pretty far to go, plus no intel on his capital site, against a protective civ, on immortal. I'm sure it was possible, but it wasn't an attractive option.