The Immortal Alphabetical Game #16 - Gajah Mada

A map that encompasses modern day Indonesia, and then some, slightly taller than Standard size, 8 civs, 16 CS. Many civs and CS are in their historical locations. Some were included due to likely religious or military influence...

All players start with a first policy, either Piety or Honor (you get Honor). This was to force some historical religious influence. I customized the map fairly heavily - it is not exactly a Legendary Start, but there will not be a lack of strategics for most players. Oh, and Raging Barbs is on.

Religious
1 pt for every religion in Jakarta
1 pt for every expo that has at least 3 religions
1 pt for every 50 fpt (rounded down)

(If you found a religion)
2 pts for building Borobudur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur

(If you don't found)
3 pts if Islam is the majority religion in Jakarta
2 pts if either Buddhism or Hinduism is the majority religion in Jakarta

Kris Swordsmen
1 pt for every 3 who reveal their special ability (must enter a battle to reveal)
1 pt for every negative ability revealed (I HATE that!)

Territory
1 pt for every major non-starting island with an Indonesian expo (or conquered city) on it that is now part of modern Indonesia. (I count six major islands - with 10 or more tiles - so up to 5 pts available. Each major island will be marked with a city ruin on a tile near a corner facing your start.)

Diplomacy/Roleplaying
Attempts should be made to play out some of Indonesia's history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia

2 pts for switching Ideology
1 pt if the switch is to or from Order (Communist influence)

2 pts for dealing with Western powers (3 civs) and Japan in certain ways. The civ to your North should eventually become your enemy (claim your independence?). They likely will either become hostile or piss you off anyway! The 2 civs to the E and SE should likely be relatively friendly and you should keep good relations unless you go DomV.

There are 4 civs on the mainland - do with 3 of them what you will. That leaves:

Japan - as they often become an aggressor, you cannot bribe them into war, and if they DOW you, you cannot ask for peace (but can accept peace if offered). You are defending your homeland! Gaja doesn't take any crap, if you hadn't noticed while playing against him. You can bribe other players to DOW Japan (good luck).

Victory Type
4 pts for Cultural
3 pts for Domination
2 Pts for Science
1 pt for Diplomatic

I really appreciate the realistic map and historical achievements. Very glad I tried this with NQ mod. I started by completing piety, which I pretty much never do, and things are going pretty well. I probably should have gotten the second policy in honor sooner to get gold from barb kills, but I got it eventually. I am using a barb camp on eastern Java as a culture and gold farm. Love it.

I got the improved God of the Sea Pantheon, which rocks with the capitol, though I was hoping for a few more sea resources in other spots. Got the fourth religion, and took mosques and feed the world, with jesuit education at reformation. Just got the +3 hammers policy in exploration. It's fun to try out different policy approaches with this mod.

So far I built Borobudur and got 3 kris swordsmen their special upgrades. No shortage of barbs in the eastern islands. Japan just took out Arabia and is now working on Siam. At first my science was slow- I got a very, very late NC- but I went from 8th to 2nd in science in a very short time thanks in part to the jesuits.

As of T168, I have 8 cities, and could easily build a few more, but I'm not sure if it's worth it at this point. Am shooting for a CV. So far, so good.

This is my 3rd or 4th time getting this far as the map has developed. By far my slowest game - I put 4 into Piety before opening Exploration, and only had 2 expos before getting colonialism, so my next 4 cities were very late. I'm not even in Industrial yet!

I think I only got Borobudur once, and didn't this game. I only have Sistine and LToP - saving the GE for either Taj Mahal or Eiffel. Maria built HS and Gr Mosque of D without getting a religion.

For the first time I got the improved God of the Sea pantheon (1h 1faith from boats), my best game I actually ended up with the 1food 1c boat pantheon, plus I think I had food from rel bldgs...

This game I Reformed with Heathen Conversion. I think I built one Warrior the whole early game, but was still near the top in military. I am finally building a few Galleases to fill in some holes, and did build some XB. Gifting Barb ships, esp to CS needing units, is like it's own sub-game. With all the islands though, it has been tough to get any Archers, as they can't swim!

I must have run about 20 Firetuner simulations - it is crazy how much randomness can creep in. If Gandhi goes Tradition, forget about any wonders. If Bill-O settles certain ways he can be very strong, other ways pretty wimpy. If any one of the mainland civs hits critical mass they are capable of dominating. The only one who never got very strong was Arabia - yet in my current game he's doing pretty well.

Since I was given Honor opener, I figured I might use it all the way and yet, it didn't offer much due to map itself. On a Pangaea with an early neighbor to pick on using CBs, it would have worked like a charm, because that's how I usually play with NQ Honor.

Anyway, 2 city NC at 100-ish (terrible!) and then added more. I sent a hammer cargo ship to my 3rd expo and waited until Colonialism to plant my 4th and 5th. Exploration isn't really all that good in NQ, I figured I'd take Aesthetics because it gives better culture and use it to pick up the spare policies on the way. A really strong play in NQ is Patronage + Scholasticism + Merchant Confederacy because it *really* buffs your relations with city states. In fact, I think Honor + Patronage is better than Liberty + Commerce for Domination sweeps in this mod. Yet I didn't use either. I tried to take advantage of the fact that Siam were quite weak and attacked by both India and Japan so I made some frigates which the city one shot killed! Ouch. I really would have used a big city like that and one NQ buffed Courthouse would be nice to have around.

In other news, I am friends with Japan, Portugal and India. Japan are for some reason *always* nice to me, I have seen Oda backstab me once in 1600 hours of this game

Bad news is, I am still not in the lead but with Communist powered Factories and some more science boosts, I hope I can finish a CV under 350. Wow!

Religious - 3 points
1 pt for every religion in Jakarta - 2
1 pt for every expo that has at least 3 religions - 0
1 pt for every 50 fpt (rounded down) - 1

(If you found a religion)
2 pts for building Borobudur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur - 0

(If you don't found) - N/A
3 pts if Islam is the majority religion in Jakarta
2 pts if either Buddhism or Hinduism is the majority religion in Jakarta

Kris Swordsmen
1 pt for every 3 who reveal their special ability (must enter a battle to reveal) - 1
1 pt for every negative ability revealed (I HATE that!) - 0

Territory
1 pt for every major non-starting island with an Indonesian expo - 3

Diplomacy/Roleplaying

2 pts for switching Ideology - 0
1 pt if the switch is to or from Order (Communist influence)

2 pts for dealing with Western powers (3 civs) and Japan in certain ways. - 2 (?)

Victory Type
4 pts for Cultural OK
3 pts for Domination
2 Pts for Science
1 pt for Diplomatic

This was an attempt without Rationalism. With it, it would have been much faster but I wanted to see if things can go without it. Tough. So anyway, with most of my science coming from Communism boosts and Scholasticism, it was a very late Internet but I did get A LOT of musicians to the party. Towards the very end, I was attacked by Netherlands, Jakarta was on the ropes and I was very lucky I didn't lose the city outright, so I managed to hold them off until the peace treaty between Japan and Netherlands expired so Oda, my long time friend and ally saved my ass big time

I saved up a bit of money to buy Krakatoa as early as possible, since it was a kind of a bad start without many juicy tiles. Opened Monument Worker Shrine Settler Granary because without Optics and Sailing (which I got from a ruin IIRC) I wouldn't really be able to do anything else. I swam my units to map the islands. After I finished ToA and NC, I made 3 settlers and sent them to Sumatra, Sulawesi and Timor because other locations were either poor or crowded.

I tried to get ahead on culture and food while pushing science later without using Rationalism. Exploration is mighty terrible but I did get to finish Aesthetics early. I may have needed Scholasticism earlier but either way Aesthetics is really good in NQ, it made my tourism spike much higher and I could spam Archaeologists all around the islands. I used one GE on Sistine, one on Uffizi and one on Eiffel. Since NQ uses separate counters, it didn't delay any scientists and I could also use a lot of trade missions for city state influence. I made a mistake of proposing World Fair when I really wanted World Religion, and I did lose it to India by 40 hammers

I picked Order for a bit of roleplaying and also to see how it fares in NQ. It doesn't, it's easily the worst ideology of the three and you really shouldn't pick it under any circumstances. I was lucky to swim in happiness so others got their +50% tourism but you can't count on it tbqh. At one point I had 4 DoFs going, Japan, India, America and Portugal and after ideologies kicked in, I had to pick my friends carefully. Like I said, Japan ended up being my most trusted ally and once they followed me into Order, I knew there would be no way anything could go wrong. I did break the rules a bit (I didn't know at the time) by bribing Japan to be at war with everyone else at all times, but that was mostly to keep everyone in check. I used the final GE to rush NVC and my tourism was around 1000 at that point. I then got attacked by Netherlands, but Japan were right there to save the day. I faith bought 3 musicians and made one naturally, so Japan got 2, India and Netherlands one each to end it.

Religious: 8 points (2 religions in Jakarta, over 200 ftp, built Borobudur
Kris Swordsmen: 1 point for 3 revealed abilities
Territory: 4 points I think- not certain, I think I settled Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, and Timor
Roleplaying: 0 points - I tried! I picked Freedom first, hoping to switch to Order later, but my people were too content. I also didn't wipe out the Dutch, and I once initiated a peace deal with Japan to save my city in Timor
Victory: 4 points for CV
Total points: 17

Early game: I settled a second city on Java quickly, then built ToA, and went full Piety. Piety may not be the best play, but it is so much better in NQ, I enjoy it. Got the god of the sea, which, when combined with an early lighthouse, made Jakarta fantastic. I even managed to build Colossus, which I never do. Then I settled aggressively- first Sumatra, then the spot on Borneo to grab marble and dye, then Timor, and finally Sulawesi. My NC was very late, like T130 I think. That was when I feared this would be a super slow game, but only the start was really slow. The pace picked up later.

Mid game: The action started when the Dutch DOWd me about 4 turns before I got frigates. I had plenty of cash, so I bought several galleass and upgraded once I got Navigation. The frigates stopped William cold, and I was just about to counter attack, when I got word from my spy in Kyoto that Oda, having freshly steamrolled Arabia and Siam, was on his way to Jakarta. I figured I didn't have enough of a navy to fight two wars at the same time, so I let William off the hook and prepared for Oda. Glad I did, because he brought the house. I wiped out his first wave, then a second fleet appeared around my undefended Timor city, and a third, much larger fleet, started bearing down on Jakarta. I was going to lose Timor, so I broke the roleplaying rules and asked for peace, which he accepted.

Lat game: Not long after that peace, Oda DOWd me again! I was much more ready this time. Before long, I had submarines, which had fun one-shotting is navy. Then I got battleships, and the rate of carnage increased. Oda was doing some unbelievable unit spamming- I don't know where they all came from. Finally he started hitting my battleships with bombers, and I didn't have carriers with air defense in place, so I asked for peace, got open borders, and finished the game with a great musician. I am sure I could have won more quickly if I sent musicians in earlier, but after 2 DOWs I was in the mood to smash.

Policy wise, I went full Piety, then Honor for the gold for kills, then full Exploration, then open Aesthics for Uffizi, open Patronage for FP, then open Freedom, then full Aesthics, 3-2-1 in Freedom, Full Honor, and then a couple in Patronage as time was running out. For culture wonders, I got Sistine, LToP, Uffizi, Louvre, Effiel Tour, Sydney OH. I like how freedom rewards you more for great works in NQ.

All in all, a very fun game roleplaying as Indonesia on a great map against the the infinite hordes of autocratic Japanese military.

Kuddos for trying Order! I have always gone Freedom on this map with 7 cities, and picked up two of Bill-O's. He settled the poor way in my game again (second expo inland rather than N of Amsterdam). Funny how that makes such a big difference. Wasn't sure when I'd attack this game, as he never took a CS this time (I protected Vatican City and gifted a billion ships at 10 influence). I have farmed/converted near a Camp on an island W of Malacca forever, 20 ships including maybe 5 Privateers now, and got lots of ships including some Galleases and Gats from an island Camp S of the Phillipines. That has dried up, as even though I bribed Bill-O vs Maria, she only had one naval battle with him, preferring to have a dozen ships surrounding the island, so I can't get my Missionary close enough. Plus it's only doing land units now, which get blasted by Frigates. No new Camps are spawning - I wish one would spawn in the NE islands.

After I DOW'd I realized he had Refrigeration (gulp) but I never saw a sub, whew. I was able to pillage his Oil quickly, in case he got Flight. I have had to scramble to get some Subs and Canons/Arty to take his center city, which has his coal and some Gems I need. This meant NOT building RLabs ASAP in expos, which is of course stoopid! But from a flow point of view, teching "too fast" bothers me as I get way behind in buildings. Plus there are so many mid-late wonders to go for.

I have always settled the 3 islands you mentioned, always in the same spots, 3 expos on Sumatra (2 on W coast next to mountains). Timor is a great city, and Sulaweise picks up 4 lux, 3 unique!

Maybe it's all in my head, but NQ Exploration just feels really great. Getting 5 yield bare water tiles (6 with GAge) just seems insane. I've filled that and Piety, 3 in Patronage (Scholasticism), soon 2 in Commerce (Silk Road) and 7 in Freedom so far, t251.

I actually think Ocean's Bounty might be better than God of Sea in the long run (culture instead of faith), but I should easily get over 200 fpt with GoSea, already 192.

This is the only run-through where I did not bribe Oda. He seems to be quite willing to war constantly, and both Gandhi and Harun have wailed on Siam, who is down to one city. Oda is finally going to take Harun's isolated N city, I had parked a Spear there early to make all his attacks go over a river.

Gandhi has gone full Rat, and I am wondering if he might become trouble late, as I am likely to try SV. I added some Salt and Pearls to entice him to get a coastal city, this game he didn't take the spot, nobody has. In hindsight, keeping Mecca inland has made getting Islam much harder... I didn't want him coastal as Oda would have crushed him early. My only regret this game is wishing I had NOT nabbed a religion and maybe gone Tradition. I did that my first attempt and it was so OP. It would have been entertaining as hell to see what religions come to me. Bill-O has spammed like crazy.

Oda is finally starting to settle some islands - once he starts getting more oil he might be tough. I denounced him for the first time this game, to get in good with the cool kids. It would be fun to liberate some CS from him and a stupid Siam expo near Hong Kong, maybe take Sukhothai from Harun, but not sure I want to get too pushy.

Oda was really scary every game - at some point he always brought navy near Singapore and often around Java to try to get at India. What has kept me safer this game is the lack of an Indian coastal city, and a pretty long period of peace with pathetic Siam. Also, Bill-O never Denounced nor DOW'd after my mass expansion and Pledges to CS this time.

me accepting to go to war with Siam when Japan asked me. The "we fought a common enemy" diplo modifier is probably the best one in the game

2 city NC due to the start on small island of Java. Did not priortize naval tech due to wanting to get early ToA before NC. There's nowhere to steal workers so had to build them. Got ToA, HG for free UB, lost Borobodur on 124, didn't bother with others until Renaissance. Some of the AI were definitely spamming wonders. Start was hammer poor, required clearing jungles, and I even planted a GE to help.

Got the 5th religion, pantheon was OWN, since I hate the fishing boat one, since I don't have hammers to build them until late anyway. Tithe, RC, faith from WW, that guarantees a huge fpt once I can spam more wonders. I didn't bother spreading religion, and delayed UB in later expos since I didn't want to spawn more prophets.

Settled expos on Sumatra, Timor, Sulawesi. The latter 2 expos were settled very late in the 100s due to multiple barb camps that needs to be clear along the way and I didn't have enough navy. All the non Javan expos had food cargo ships feeding them to speed up their growth due to late start. Things pick up once universities online on T116. I had a lot of gold and that enabled me to rush buy key buildings to help, especially some of my expos which had serious lack of hammer, some of them were only fixed after discovering coal/oil.

Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan were actually on the correct islands, close to their actual positions, except Medan were more south.

Entered Renaissance via Acoustics due to wanting head start on Sistine, which was easy build as always. Also able to get every tourism wonders afterwards, except Globe. Went Aesthetics to get Uffizi, then Exploration for Louvre. NQ Aesthetic gives pretty strong early tourism compared to base game. What really was amazing was Treasure Fleets from Exploration when I get to it, it's like getting Petra in every city. The happiness from it is also pretty crazy. First WC was WF as usual, and easily won with 5 cities, I also detoured chemistry and factory to help with spamming stuff afterwards anyway. Decided to save Oxford for Internet, so just teched Radio normally for ideology. Got Freedom, and I was far ahead of the AI anyway, and decided to try to get SoL with GE along with GS to increase production, then hard build Eiffel Tower, and GE rush Broadway. At this point no other AI can seriously cause discontent with my ideology, so I will have to use the trick of proposing world ideology order later in order to enable change of ideology.

Later worked on getting more CS with patronage and couping so that I can propose. Usual Freedom 6, there isn't much difference with NQ. I was also able to get WW culture passed, and got every modern and later wonders on the tech path to Internet. At this rate I probably don't even need to faith buy any GM, so I spend them on GE due to having to wait for the change into Order anyway.

At the end, I used a single GM for concert tour of India and won the game, and have 5k faith left over for 3 more bombs that weren't used. Also never bothered with IG or Airports. So I still think that the Immortal AI is still pretty bad at culture even with NQ. Probably could be won without Internet for sure.

AI were mostly peaceful in my game, except for Japan who took some CS up at the north. Japan was in some pretty uneventful war with neighbors. Siam were also battling with Arabia or India. Eventually Japan gets a huge number of ships and DoW Netherlands, and at that point I knew problem was coming. If they destroy Netherlands, then I'll be next, so I parked units in front of Amsterdam to at least save that city and it worked. I was able to delay them until the rest of the world DoW Japan for his war crimes. Netherlands weren't too much of a problem in my game, even though my city on Sulawesi was settled right next to his expo. He's pretty friendly and easy to please, and DoF all the time until the end when Japan was trying to kill him, I denounced him to at least please Japan and it worked, as he still trades full value. Thought about sniping Amsterdam but didn't bothered as it's just faster to settle a city on Borneo with Conquistador, and he'll really be pissed at me. I also settled on New Guinea with Conquistador. With the exception of Japan or Netherlands, everyone else were either friendly or had DoF, it isn't that hard to play the diplo game. Also I never bribed a single war since I wanted to impose another self rule.

After the change into Order, it's amazing that Japan immediately switched ideology as my happiness was over 100 at that point and pretty much had the modifier on every civ, and world ideology passed.

Also my spy in Jakarta wasn't able to level up for some reason. Also CS having quest for petra which wasn't available was very annoying.


Achievement: