The Immortal Challenge Lineup - Game #22 Ethipoia

Phew. I gave up the idea of a time-victory. Austria was running to good for my taste so I had to stop her. On the way I happened to stumble on "the others"

Slow game since I kept changing plans over and over. Had fun though. Oh! And I got away with murdering my continent!

Nobody on the other side seemed to care for Williams warnings when there was gold to get from my glorious kingdom. So I think I could easily win peacefully with little interference.



I got really, really unhappy at then end when I kept burnings cities causing revolt in my home lands. Venice even shifted side so I had to take it back.

Suleiman

Jakarta, Venice and Rio

Early game was a XB rush with Tradition so I could tech well beyond clearing my continent. I took out Venice first before he ruined the culture bonuses I'd worked hard for from the CS. Then I got Brazil to DoW Indonesia, denounced him and annihilated him really quickly because he had only warriors and had gone full Piety (this latest patch nerfs the AI defences so much). Then I went down to Indonesia and slowly took their capital. When I was half-way done, Suleiman showed up so I couldn't wiped Indonesia out completely and still have the same ease of OB later.

The plan was always to wipe the continent and then switch to CV, and I could have gotten a fast time too if I had chosen International Games instead of World's Fair by mistake!

In the end, the wonder-spamming Maria did early-game (she pipped me to 5 wonders by 1-3 turns) delayed things a bit, but World Church + Divine Inspiration + War is an unbeatable combination. I bought 4 GEs with faith in the industrial and modern eras and still had a chunk left at the end. Probably the strongest position I've ever assembled on Immortal.

Fun to play as always, and I appreciated the sparse resources

Screenshot says it all... settling here I got every darned wonder I wanted. ToA first (no GL), Stonehenge, HG after NC, etc.
Also got some I don't usually get like Chichen, Notre Dame and Red Fort.

Why did I not settle on coast? Well these starts I call one-lux-starts. Going coastal means you want to get early cargo ships to compensate for the fact that your capitol will have useless water tiles and less good workable tiles. But then there's this problem... you only have one lux, and on immortal continents chances are AIs will not have extra copies to trade you. Meaning expanding early is a good way to sink into unhappiness. With lots of salt your capitol is going to grow big so tradition is a no-brainer (but liberty is really better IF you are desperate to expand fast since two workers from pyras would be crucial to get those luxes up). So correct was to get two more salts and a bunch of river tiles more by moving inland. Worker first, then Stele (God-King we want our wonders! not Earth Mother), Granary, ToA, Stonehenge, etc.


Immortal AI at its finest... ACOUSTICS STOLEN at t200...


Oops I won... (notice the faith pile-up... and the tourism without airports is higher than my max tourism in 99% of my deity games) what happened to Brazil you ask? Well, after I was always a good friend to him, gave him salt when he asked, having common friends, he decided to pick Order, and then backstab-denounced me despite having lots of common friends. Indonesia soon backstabbed me too... but anyway, that was not yet the breaking point; I simply ignored him... then after I suggested World Ideology: Freedom (you know, just to be a jerk because I can) He DoW'd me much unlike his flavor! So I fought off maybe 8 rifles, on caravel which plundered two of my internal routes and maybe 2 gattlings with my battleships and foreign infantry... I gave him a chance to repent. Seriously, I gave him a chance, but all he did was ask me if I had come to beg him for mercy, even when his last city had no HP and I would kill him in one click... So I did, for once. His friend Indonesia DoW'd me THEN backstabbed DoW'd HIM once he had no military left... how pathetic.


Maybe then you should've played nice Pedro... Where did that DoW come from?


Didn't really get anything out of the war except a stinking great lighthouse and maybe 3great works I didn't really need.


Capitol looked something like this... I guess I could've bought some more tourism with my faith but I completely forgot due to being in shock (not really... since I was being a jerk throughout WC history and with archeologists, but I didn't expect they had the guts) that my friends betrayed me. No, I did not steal any prophets, those were all self-generated with the Messiah enhancer.


Probably could get to 1500 tpt if I spent all my faith. This is after airports and I played on just until Gajah would admit defeat and hand over a city... just to feel a bit vindicated. (I promptly sold it for all of Venice's Per Capita income)

I settled inland to get more river tiles and to get the other salts in the capital. I was intrigued by kb's build order, so I went worker/stele/granary then something like ToA/settler x2/HG/Oracle/NC/Borobodur. I'm not sure exactly when I built the settlers, probably before the Hanging Gardens. Normally I try to steal workers rather than build them, but I guess a good argument could be made that worker steals from CSes are too late to really make good use of the salt and wheat, thus justifying worker first. There didn't seem to be many runes around, so I guess I wasn't missing out on too much by not building a scout. I might try worker first if there is a lot of salt or wheat around on future starts, but I think other than that the luxes/bonus tiles aren't that essential to get online early.

I was friends with both Brazil and Venice early so it was easy to buy the library in my third city to accelerate the NC. Stonehenge, the Parthenon, and Chichen Itza went pretty early so I didn't get those, but I did pick up Notre Dame and Pisa/Sistine/Globe/Uffizi/Porcelain Tower/Louvre. I only had two archeological sites, so I couldn't make any landmarks as I had to use the artifacts for the Louvre. I also built Eiffel/SoL/Neuschwanstein/Sydney Opera House/CN Tower/Pentagon/Great Firewall.

Late in the game, Arabia, Indonesia, and Brazil spent at least 15 great prophets total converting Harar back and forth to their various religions. It was completely ridiculous. My city had 3 GPs adjacent to it and I was getting multiple notifications per turn that my city had been converted.

My religion was decent (Earth Mother/Tithe/15% peaceful growth/+2 temple happiness/Messiah) but I only managed to keep it in my capital. At the time I really needed the happiness, but Notre Dame soon banished my happiness problems forever. I think +2 happiness per temple is pretty bad if you are going tall. I wish I had taken +15% production or +2 faith per world wonder instead.

Indonesia DOWed me with spearmen when I had just hit crossbows, so I beat him back and took 40 gpt and three luxes for peace. I would have taken his capital if he actually built any wonders worth stealing, but the good ones were all either mine or on the other continent. 5 turns later Brazil backstabs me (we had been friends), so I send my army north and shoot his pikemen to death. I get 25 gpt from him for peace, again no wonders worth stealing. Just sat back on 3 cities and clicked next turn a lot. Brazil decided to try his luck again in the Modern era, but I just popped a great writer to get 6 Foreign Legions from the Freedom tenet, upgraded them to infantry, and destroyed his riflemen. I received another 30 gpt for peace this time.

Other than that I just built wonders and pushed trade routes and diplomats for tourism. Unfortunately Arabia didn't have any cities that would have been valid trade route targets so that was slowed down a little bit. My first musician reached his borders 2 turns before I became influential so the musicians didn't make much of a difference. I won the World's Fair in the Industrial era, but lost the International Games in the information era since the Ottomans took over most of the other continent, completely wiping out Austria and the Netherlands. I managed to make the Ottomans switch to freedom from order, which has only happened a few times for me because of the AI's ridiculous happiness bonuses.