The Immortal Challenge Lineup - Game #1

Fluphen Azine said:

I played this game up to turn 80. I took out Songhai around turn 65 and did not seem to get as much warmonger hate as expected. After the war I explored the map and noticed it was going to be a bit of a slog to go domination. Im 1st in Manf Goods and GNP and 5% behind in tech. All the civs that I met have no gold. I went straight honor this time and will finish it with my next SP. My SPT was +19 at turn 80 but on Immortal this is not a problem. I may finish it later.

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RedRover57 said:

In order to beat T300 with only 4 cities you usually need the following or a combination thereof:

Multiple rounds of RA's with PT and Rationalism policy
Lots of faith for purchasing GS's
Good GS generation throughout the game (policies and buildings that enhance GP rate)
Hubble

It's hard to come in much below T300 without these. It also helps greatly to have gold to rush buy science buildings (in your capital at least) as soon as you research the tech, and to have cities next to mountain tiles for the observatory (particularly your capital).

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Fluphen Azine said:

Spoiler :

I played this game just to kinda relax and for some fun. Sometimes it boggles me that anyone can struggle with Imm Level on Civ V (BNW or not). You really can just do whatever you want and win on this map. I've had some Imm games seem like Imm but this game feels like Emp or below. I understand we all play different ways and for different reasons but (IMO) if anyone has any experience with Civ at all this map is very easy. Even if your new all you need to do is learn some basic things and this should be a breeze. I am up to turn 190 in my game not even trying or caring about anything. I think Im 7% behind in tech but it appears the AI is not able to expand or build any army whatsoever. Yes it will take me some time to destroy the Inca and Venice since my tech rate is in the cellar but I really see no way the AI can come close to winning this game. I will most likely finish it since I like to finish my games out but this one is testing my patience. Im kinda just waiting for the AI to do something but all the Civs seem to be blocked or do not have good terrain to mount any kind of attack on me. I did get double dowed by Inca and Venice but they really never showed up and I think they sorta just wanted Kabul. Also I guess they were mad I took out 2 civs for the most part leaving Assyria only 1 city left. I play alot of my games with no intention of being optimal in hopes the AI can destroy me but even when I let the AI have a hudge edge they just never seem to take advantage of it no matter if it is Deity or Immortal. Anyway, it is still fun to post and read all your posts and see how everyone plays it out. I like how you optimal players got your CV victories by turn 140-180. That is pretty funny. I just feel that we should not be allowed to push the game to turn 400 on Imm and still win although I did not create this game and if that is how they want it I guess that is how it is going to be.

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Uzael36 said:

Spoiler :

You seem to be taking some aspects used on a couple really fast CV wins, but not the critical part. I have a feeling you will be in trouble, as you do not appear to be in good position for any victory condition.

They built tons of cities to take advantage of a faith belief that gives 2-4 tourism a turn (sacred sites reformation). You did not get such a belief, so those cities are not helping you towards a culture victory. And since the game is getting late, it'll take a lot more tourism to win now.

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Spoiler :

I have played 100s and 100s of games like this and never have a problem winning. It takes longer but trust me I am in no jeopardy of a loss. If you ever look at any of my games posted on Deity or Imm you will find I have a knack of making the game go very long and still win with no real trouble. I will finish this game just to show you that this game is truly over. I really do not know what the AI is doing but I am #2 in Army and #1 in GNP along with #3 in Manf Goods and really not very far behind. Atilla is fighting Ethiopia and Venice is no threat. Yes maybe the Inca could do something but they have no army and are running around with swords and Comp bows still. I had an Imm game awhile back that went to like turn 375 as Austria. Alex was a bit of a threat and I think he was only 1 or 2 turns away from SV but I beat him to that as well. I have never lost an Immortal game so I would have to disagree with your comment. I have lost Deity games but only because I mess around a bit too much. Those losses were very close and if I decided to play a bit more serious I would have not even come close to them as well. I think it has been proven many times over that it is basically impossible to lose at this game on any level if you are slightly serious. I win all the time and I basically waste 100s of turns doing whatever I want. I played a Deity Challenge awhile back as Alex and won via DV with a worse position than this and that was on Deity and I gave away 2 out of my 4 cities at the end to get peace to take control of the CS's that I was blocked from war. Take a look back a few pages at Greece Deity Challenge. Anyway like I said you have given me a reason to finish and post a pic of the end of this game and I really hope I do get defeated

Fluphen Azine said:

Spoiler :

I have played 100s and 100s of games like this and never have a problem winning. It takes longer but trust me I am in no jeopardy of a loss. If you ever look at any of my games posted on Deity or Imm you will find I have a knack of making the game go very long and still win with no real trouble. I will finish this game just to show you that this game is truly over. I really do not know what the AI is doing but I am #2 in Army and #1 in GNP along with #3 in Manf Goods and really not very far behind. Atilla is fighting Ethiopia and Venice is no threat. Yes maybe the Inca could do something but they have no army and are running around with swords and Comp bows still. I had an Imm game awhile back that went to like turn 375 as Austria. Alex was a bit of a threat and I think he was only 1 or 2 turns away from SV but I beat him to that as well. I have never lost an Immortal game so I would have to disagree with your comment. I have lost Deity games but only because I mess around a bit too much. Those losses were very close and if I decided to play a bit more serious I would have not even come close to them as well. I think it has been proven many times over that it is basically impossible to lose at this game on any level if you are slightly serious. I win all the time and I basically waste 100s of turns doing whatever I want. I played a Deity Challenge awhile back as Alex and won via DV with a worse position than this and that was on Deity and I gave away 2 out of my 4 cities at the end to get peace to take control of the CS's that I was blocked from war. Take a look back a few pages at Greece Deity Challenge. Anyway like I said you have given me a reason to finish and post a pic of the end of this game and I really hope I do get defeated

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Uzael36 said:

Spoiler :

You have no need to be so defensive. I said it " I have a feeling you will be in trouble", not that you definitely are. The pace of your game, by your science and what not, is for a minimum of a turn 350 victory, which definitely is slow enough to lose. Most people at your pace would lose, but I did not know that you are purposefully playing around for a late game comeback.

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Fluphen Azine said:

Spoiler :

I played this game just to kinda relax and for some fun. Sometimes it boggles me that anyone can struggle with Imm Level on Civ V (BNW or not). You really can just do whatever you want and win on this map. I've had some Imm games seem like Imm but this game feels like Emp or below.

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Spoiler :

I hear you - this game feels just like my old games on Emperor a year or two ago. I would just do almost whatever I wanted. It is much more fun for me, from the immersive aspect, more of a sense of really building a civilization, rather than trying to optimize every single thing. Sure, I still micromanage workers, tiles, and slots, but it is much more like play than a grueling endurance battle, which is what the deity games have been feeling like.

T185 - I have had the tech lead forever, and am 1st except military and happy. I am playing a wide Tradition game by accident, LOL. (Trying to keep sats at pop 12 or so, my cap is food poor.) Venice hadn't even met anyone the first 140 turns or so! Pacal and Assyria DOW'd me, and Pacal just ran into my Antwerp buzzsaw, losing a GP and 3 Missionaries trying to reconvert it while at war (huh?). Venice puppeted Kabul, so I lost that allied flank, but who cares? Attila apparently killed Persia, and Heile is obviously going to lose 2 of his 4 cities to him. Assyria seemed to pose a bit of a threat - a much earlier DOW would have been tough, but I didn't even need to defend my western city - I just fought it out near his border because I could. He just gave me his second city for peace - huh? I could never have taken his cap without Artillery. My only real risk is if Attila starts to covet my new land, but I have so much tithe and trade cash that I should be able to own most of the CS's before long, without any Patronage...

OK, so the biggest threat is that I grow bored and quit early Modern Era, because that's what I almost always did in the past.

Spoiler :

I went liberty wide. Started by wandering north; starting location looks like a good spot for an eventual expo, but not so much for a capital. Turn 1 culture hut; turn 2 upgrade hut; turn 3 found Gao. Settled on the riverside grassland hill. Askia was generous enough to move his worker within range of my spear, so turn 5 DOW.

Build order went something like Scout->Monument->Shrine->Scout->Archers->Settlers->Archers->Settlers->Archers->Pyramids

Tech order was fairly meandering. Most of my gold went towards buying tiles.

Settled six additional cities by ~105; one north of Sofia; one north of Gao (E-SE of the marble; I didn't discover Krakatoa until the border there expanded to the marble); one east of Gao (1W of the deer); one for the truffles (1 SW of the truffles); one for the old capital site (on the hill between the two cows); and a final one south east of Zurich, on the coastal hill 1W of the lone mountain, with enough gold on hand to buy the sheep/horses.

My biggest mistake in this game was choosing an inferior pantheon. I had no real intention of pursuing religion hard; towards that end, I chose fishing boat pantheon. While I did eventually grab a religion, it was only shortly before Dondaldo began mass converting my region, and I was too poorly positioned to stop him.

I should have taken sacred path (+culture from jungle); with no intention of pushing a religion, a delayed benefit such as the pantheon I chose, or +culture from plantations, was a waste. I only got something like three fishing boats up by the time Dondaldo came around. Meanwhile, I worked several jungle tiles across my three jungle cities, especially in the two jungle expos. Tons of culture lost for not nearly enough hammers gained.

Below is the only screencap I have from the game. Looks like Askia wanted to go settler v. settler. I'm happy to take a free worker for my new expo. A close look will show that I also have a settler north of Gao; the worker NW of Kyoto is headed there, and Askia's sacrificial settler couldn't have come at a better time.

Nigel_Tufnel said:

OK, so the biggest threat is that I grow bored and quit early Modern Era, because that's what I almost always did in the past.

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Grendeldef said:

Haven't tried Immortal since the first week of G&K but saw that Glory's SS145 headline and as I've never tried SS I thought I might try that and failed miserably so I ended up with T206 domination.

Pics added.

Spoiler :

My origal thought was that there's a nearby faith NW so I started SH way too late and missed it and since I didn't have a plan B I was like Cartman, Screw this, I'm going home but ultimately decided to just kill stuff instead. Plan C was to follow the original Total Domination Challenges but as I already messed up the start I though some bonus rules would make things more lively.

optional extras:

-no peace deals
-no annexing
-no puppets apart from capitals, other cities razed immediately
-allied with all CSs
-no Nationals apart from NC
-no Education
-no tech stealing
-no Workshops (none built)
-all own cities starved to 1 pop or as close as possible (at the end I had 4,2,2,1.1.1)

Stole a worker from Askia on T11 and from Assur few turns later. Early ruins were pop,spearman, cult, map & money. Since I was looking for the NW I messed the start badly and ~T50 decided what to do with the game.
Left side of Liberty for starters with 4 cities & then full Honor starting with left side.
T79 DoF with Venice, T90 DoF with Ethiopia to get some badly needed cash before properly starting the wars as first city I took was Gao T97.
NC T97 & CS T108 so I was fairly late by any standard and Honor finished T119.

Askia RIP T139 for which I got quite a few honorary mentions by others. T140 DoW Persia while I was finishing Assyria off hoping that Florence would take their last city but no such luck.
T142 the Inca after settling a platform city near Kilimanjaro. T145 Venice went Renaissance so I put my spy on Kyoto but he never caught anyone in the act.
T148 got bored with Florentine inefficiency and wiped Assyria out most of my Western troops banging on Persian doors.
T159 RIP Persia and Attila was getting annoyed with me so I DoWed him on T161 by which point he supposedly had the largest army though he had been constantly at war with either Darius or Haile for most of the game.
T163 RIP the Inca while half of Eastern army was already heading for Venice.

T165 I had most of CSs by Haile's border allied so I DoWed him & Venice hoping that CSs would do something useful but no, the lazy cretins were totally uninterested in wars. The same turn I planted a troll city 4 tiles away from Venice just get past his GW by GG bombing which worked nicely but taking the city down took a while.
T187 RIP Venice & T199 RIP Ethiopia both without any trouble nor did I expect any.
By this time I was slowly recovering from double digit negative happiness, still losing money & looking for the last 2 CSs while waiting my cities to starve. I didn't much think of the starvation process so I took ages for my capital to empty it's surplus bucket which slowed the process down for some 10 turns.
T206 my cities were as small as they'd get so I allied the maritime CSs and took Attila's court.

Hardly a tough game by any means but interesting middle part as I was constantly over the unit limit which meant crappy production and huge upkeep cost which isn't a desirable combo.
The original plan of overwhelming religion got suffocated but I managed finally a pantheon T52 and religion around T100 which I spread for my own cities for production bonus and eventually spawned a couple of prophets to do some CSs quests. Didn't even check what other religions were about. Venice, the Inca & Persia went Piety from the start while Songhai & Assyria Honor possibly due to my early DoW.

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Fluphen Azine said:

Spoiler :

Pic below of capture of most of Inca. I wish I could actually build a real empire like you Nigel but I just basically build some units and buildings and see what happens.

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