The Immortal Challenge Lineup - Game #20 Persia

Tried something new - Full Honor. While I do like bonuses that Honor tree provides the game and tech progress went way too slow. But it was enough for Immortal. Started taking capitals in a circular motion:
Thebes, Assur, Athens, Mecca.

Meanwhile building the 2nd army and after taking Mecca and Delhi 2 armies attacked Romans and took Rome and Babylon. Game over Sadly I had only one golden age. Persia's UB somewhat helped with happiness though.

I went for Egypt first and then dragged my feet forever until I decided to go up north rather than attack Ghandi because I had a DoF running still. Now I don't know whether to take on Alex or wipe out Caesar as he will backstab me. I have to have my armies split into so I don't get steamrolled. Nebby is quite ahead in tech so I need to act fast. Made few mistakes such as accidentally razing Kar-Tuk..-Ninurta so I annexed the most useless city and puppeted the better ones.. still haven't gotten universities up. Oh my, so nervous. Sleep now, war later.

This game seems to be going extremely well. I didn't settle until t11, just wandered around SW then E, snatching huts, looking for mtn/hill/river spots with lux. Kept bumping into CS and wanted room. I finally decided to settle a river/hill with cotton and a few hills nearby, and as luck would have it, was 5 tiles from Delhi! I stole at least 2 Workers from them and a Settler, a Worker from Neb, and one from Vancouver. I generally don't steal Workers, and whaddya know - it makes the game a lot easier!


I had India boxed in pretty well, in retrospect I should have let him settle a 2nd city to get some TRs the rest of the game. Anyway, just as my 1st GAge is kicking in and I get my first Immortals, Rome DOWs India. His carpet of doom was more of a berber than a shag - so we both whacked Delhi a while, and just as I could take it I DOW'd Rome (if I waited until after taking the city his units would have ejected away).


It was a tense turn or two, but he started retreating. My 3 move units caught a lot of them. He headed for the hills... At this point I had no desire for rough terrain vs city Ballistas, and I realized with the extra movement I could reach Babylon and have a turn or two against the GW. He also had TArmy, so I wasn't sure what was in store. As I passed his SW city there didn't appear to be any units inside. I marched on, and Rome kept offering less for peace, so I took 3gpt, and bribed him against Neb for 5h and 2gpt.


When I found a wounded Warrior 4 tiles SW of Babylon I figured, good a time as any... I approached the city, and... NO UNITS. 2 Warriors and a Cat came from Akkad, and later a Scout from the E. He did not show up last in Mil, WTF? I wonder if he even doubled the Cat with TArmy. Here I thought I might lose half my units, and I barely got a scratch.

So now I have the GW and SH, and SoZ finishes next turn - none of these psychos has opened Honor. 16 turns to finish Honor, no Guilds, CivServ in 3. Did a 2 city NC t88 which is very early for me. I started watching peddroelm's USA LP - so I took R side of Honor first. Not sure it has helped much, as I often haven't had units in cities, although I guess the cheaper CB upgrades were in effect by then. The LP is really slow (but entertaining) so I zone out a lot, going to try the H-C-A method.

BO: Scout, Scout, Shrine, Monument, Archer, Settler. Bought a lot of tiles and several units, the barb hunting was good, 2nd city has lots of gold tiles. Luckily (?) Arabia took Earth Mother, so I got DF. Founded with Tithe and Rel Comm, no bldgs left. Alex has both Mosques and Pagodas, he only has 2 cities that I can see. Arabia and Assyria both went Tradition.

I plan to take Akkad to cut off Rome, then probably head W for Thebes, might wait for XB. I figure I can keep Rome at bay for a long time with GW, and he is Friendly, what could possibly go wrong??? I hope to keep the 3 N powerhouses busy with each other, then go counter-clockwise, leaving Rome for last.

So after my last update and the capture of Thebes I hung back and tech'd to XBs. Then my next target was Assyria. That was probably the toughest fight I had the whole game and lost a couple of units trying to trudge through the jungle, after Assur fell though it all became rather straight forward.

I turned my army back east and took Delhi next before Babylon wiped India out of the game. Rome then, for some inexplicable reason, decided to DoW. Needless to say my XBs happily picked off his troops before taking Cumae. I'd bribed Babylon into war with Rome at this point and they proceeded to wipe Rome off the map.

I opted to Oxford into dynamite to speed up my artillery charge. With some banked gold, and the Commerce % decrease for city purchases, managed to quickly get out an artillery army and marched for Babylon. Their army seemed to have been split between the war with Rome and India, plus I'd bribed Arabia to DoW, and my march on Babylon was relatively serene. The Golden Age extra movement is fantastic in countering the Great Wall. Babylon was a great capture with 11 wonders!

With Babylon down I moved to march on Rome. Unfortunately just as I was about to grab it the Arabians stepped in and took the city. I immediately opted not to raise Antium so I could keep a good position close for a future attack. By this point I knew Arabia would be my final target.

So with Rome out of my grasp for the timing being I moved my army back west and prepared to attack Greece. I'd already built roads up to their borders in preparation. Just in time for the war I spawned another Great Artist for a timely Golden Age and would also go on to complete Taj Mahal a few turns later, which gave me an overall 26 turn Golden Age that would carry me to the end of the game. I was also approached by Alexander to declare war on Arabia as my armies drew near, sensing the chance I bribed him into war with Arabia and then set-up my forces to attack his western edge.

Greece proved another easy opponent, the only danger I faced was trying to keep some of my borders safe against any rampaging City States allies, but again with the Commercialism boost, and the massive gold I had, I was easily buying new units every turn to counter any threats. Only hiccup was when Alexander used his frigates to help recapture Athens after I'd taken it first time. However, I took it the second time and quickly bombarded his frigates out of the water with my artillery. I then proceeded to take Argos with a single artillery and cavalry to take Greece out of the game completely.

With Greece gone my last target was my best friend Arabia. Again it proved to be rather anti-climatic, given their strong tech performance I expected a tougher battle, but I can only assume their army was heavily damaged fighting Greece or that their military power was being overrated because of City State allies? In any case I made pretty short work of their cities and finally completed my domination on turn 231.

Social policies were full Liberty, full Commerce, opened Patronage, Rationalism into Secularism and then Autocracy. The Commerce finisher felt extremely powerful at the time I got it as it immediately bumped me up to 40+ happiness, giving me leeway to annex some cities at the fringes of the battle to help rush buy units.

Overall pretty pleased with this game. Its the first time I've actually followed through on finally completing a domination victory. I often start them and capture a few capitals but then the thought of the later wars and the carpets of doom just put me off slogging to the finish. However, in this game that never really materialised and my enemies were actually rather (somewhat disappointingly) weak. Maybe in future I will try more often to finish what I start as I rather enjoyed this domination game.