The Immortal Challenge Lineup - Game #19 - Greece

I think the map is really nice and you can yolo expand with Liberty, since there is plenty of space, but it's hardly going to be peaceful considering every civ on this map has CS-related UA, and some prefer to simply conquer and annex your allies. I did not appreciate that.

I actually really loved playing a fast domination with pre-Renaissance units and Honor/Commerce. Domination is definitely a lot more fun that I previously thought, and I will give it more attention in the future.
 
I am curious as to why people other people chose to go after Venice first. You are eliminating an entire civ and getting massive hate while accomplishing very little. The most annoying thing Enrico can do is puppet a CS, but that is really minor, and most of the game he has negligible military and is easily killed. I took him out 4th with new unpromoted units and without breaking a sweat.


In my case, pure RPG - the sob stole my world wonder! Winning the game is secondary, I want to have fun.






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Ditto on the W neighbor's wonders - I got 4. :) I got double DOW'd by the 2 big shots, so brought my army that way, and am going to take the GW cap and 13 other wonders soon, way before Arty, I guess.

I actually thought the "dirt" was horrible - great for food, sure, and Petra if you could get it, but only 4 unique lux in a 12 hex radius. I just wish I'd made better use of the UUs, and hadn't lost so many early range. I just now have my 2nd Log/Range XB (t199). Went Log first and they have just been camping.
 
I always kill Venice ASAP. I like my CS thank you very much. No way am I gonna let them be nabbed by The Nipple-Headed One!!!
 
I always kill Venice ASAP. I like my CS thank you very much. No way am I gonna let them be nabbed by The Nipple-Headed One!!!

I agree completely. I love playing Venice but when I see them in a game, I immediately start plotting the best way to whack them. They are surprisingly hard to get others to denounce though. All those trade routes seem to engender quite a bit of goodwill. I find that when I try to get the chain denounce going, the other leaders come at me with, "I'll have you know that Venice and I have worked together in the past."

Yeah yeah. Bring on the hate cause enrico has got to go. A good takeaway from this game is to go ahead and let Venice pump some wonders rather than compete for them. Every wonder he builds... Well, he's really building it for you, isn't he?
 
Pretty much how the historical Republic of Venice sustained themselves for that long :)
 
If you don't go for Dom-V, you can make sure that Venice stays what it was supposed to be : a City State with an elaborated diplo screen ;)

Just make sure you never DoF him. When you see starting MoV move towards a CS DoW him and kill MoV. Try to kill a few units for XP and pillage for gold then make peace or stay at war and train on his units like you would on a CS. When MoV from Optics shows up, kill him. You should be safe for a long time now before a natural MoV appears. Try to avoid DoF so you can just kill his MoV each time they are appear. Diplomatic hit for DoW without taking a city is small enough that it stays manageable with most leaders.
 
Stopping MoVs is done easily like that because the scouts and the usual melee units are good at taking not only MoVs but missionaries too particularly when they're trying to convert your cities. Leaving a scout or any quick moving unit will not only allow to take away MoVs but missionaries too.
 
Taking our city-states is hardly game-changing for me. Venice can never be a real threat regardless of what victory you are looking for. He won't generate too much culture and will probably the first one to get influenced by tourism. He cannot sustain a big military and quite often lacks any at all. He doesn't really ally city-states because he doesn't get anything from it, and he can hardly pull off science with that one city. All in all, Venice AI never feels like a threat, especially when you look at Alex, Pocatello, or Shaka.
 
T244 Peaceful CV

Spoiler :
I deviated from the KB method only to bulb GS. But no bribes, no DoWs, and I made peace when the AI wanted. Actually, the only AI to DoW me was Maria the Mad. She was the main (maybe only) baddie in the game.

Gustav seemed stuck on pause like a character on Morrowind walking into a wall for three hours whose controlling algorithm hasn't reset - he went Honor and made a lot of units that just clogged up his empire and never moved anywhere.

Maria Theresa had some wars with her namesake, but she only married 2 CS, and then only in my last 10 turns. I don't know why she doesn't spend her gold in the early game to do it before others can ally. But she completely failed at it. Genghis kept trading cities with Ramkhamhaeng but neither had any room to expand once Maria had ICS-ed. So they never took ANY allies at ANY point, nor captured any CS, I think.

I made sure I nerfed Venice by filling in the gap between his capital and his only expo, and denying him OB the whole time and keeping his neighbouring CS allied, ready to join me in war should he overstep the mark. He built a colossal army at one point so I moved some troops down there, and he asked for DoF. Kinda weird.

I didn't have to strategise much because the dirt was so good and I had a strong start. I would have finished a bit earlier if I'd captured Venice in the Industrial but I wasn't sure how much that would wreck relations with the others. So I needed Internet in the end, but only just.

A really fun map with lots of room to do whatever I wanted, so I took a break from warmongering and wonderwhored up the wazoo.
 
t264 slow-roasted DomV
Spoiler :
So I spent like 30 turns on the seige of Vienna (14 wonders, including GW, Red Fort, Himeji - about 84 strength). I only had 3 range/log XB for most of it, and spent a lot of time trying to pillage and stay alive. She started fielding Hussars near the end, that sucked. Arties didn't come until I went after Sweden, and I didn't appreciate all the forest. In hindsight, I should have just crushed the invading double DOW from Aus and Sweden, and ran right back to finish Khan and Siam and wait for Arties. There was a great killing floor W of Venice - lots of marshes, and I had 2 Galleases with bombardment promos that creamed Sweden's expeditionary force.

Left Aus and Sweden with 2 cities, took out Khan in no time as he had sent most of his troops into Siamese lands, then took out Siam promptly. I ended up with way too many units, I suppose. I teched for Flight, forgetting I needed oil for Bombers. :crazyeye: I kept building units and buildings, rather than sell all my science buildings - like I said, I had too many units anyway. I hadn't played Alex for a long time - it was quite pleasant to kepp CS allies so easily with no Patronage! Went full Honor, 2 in Liberty, full Commerce, 2 in Rat (my limit on Immortal and not until Industrial), 6 in Order. Won WF 5:1. :D
 

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^ I learned to unit-spam from the AI, so I came to Vienna with ten knights and fifteen XB's or something like that. I didn't even care if units would have been lost. :lol:
 
Sometimes I still struggle on Emperor, so this game has been hard for me. These are the results of my fourth attempt. I should be glad that I am not the last one in everything.....:lol:

Spoiler :

This is one turn after I got a peace from Venice. My first real war of the game. I did declare against Gengis Kan but sent no unit. Venice was far too strong for me to take her down, but I thought that I could weaken her.


 
Hey Leila. Some constructive criticism for you:

1. Have you tried settling more than 2 cities?

2. You have farmland improved, but since you are unhappy your cities have not grown. Hence, your science output is woeful and a fraction of what it should be.

3. Why do you have so few troops?

4. What victory condition were you aiming for?

If you would like some help to improve your play, you're in the right place. There are lots of good tips to be garnered in this forum :)
 
I thought Gustavus Rex was going to take over hosting the series. But maybe it wasnt clear. If we dont hear or if one doesnt get posted soon, I will post number 20 as soon as I find a good one.
 
I thought Gustavus Rex was going to take over hosting the series. But maybe it wasnt clear. If we dont hear or if one doesnt get posted soon, I will post number 20 as soon as I find a good one.

I thought you were rotating them?
 
I've got an Immortal England Continents game ready that I tested a few times (ran Firetuner). The other continent is verrry interesting. The AI never did crap with England (it doesn't get the AI bonuses), so even with trying to give it free banks and happy bldgs it came in last all the time. It probably has the worst start on the map, even though there is plenty of food and some luxes. Would be a challenge for DomV for several reasons, one of which is there are quite a few non-coastal caps... I've played peaceful for 145 turns and am near the bottom in demos - but part of that is I made a big gambit that should pay off over time.
 
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