The Immortal Challenge Lineup - Game #15 Austria

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The Immortal Challenge Lineup - Game #15

Welcome to the Immortal difficulty version of the biweekly The Deity Challenge Lineup-event.

ICL Game #15
You - Austria
Total Civilizations - 8
Total City States -16
Map – Pangea
Settings – Quick quick combat(turn it back on if you would like). Raging barbarians is turned OFF. Everything else is set to default.
Game Version -
Downloadable Content – G&K, BNW, Conquest of the New World Deluxe, Genghis Khan's Mongolia, Harold Bluetooth's Denmark, Isabella’s Sapin and Pachacuti's Incan Empire, Kamehameha's Polynesian Empire, Nebruchadnezzar's Babylon, Sejong The Great's Korea, Wonders of the Ancient World. The map pack are intentionally excluded.

Starting location:
Spoiler :


Schedule:

Game #1 - July 23th as Japan
Game #2 - August 6th as Poland
Game #3 - August 20th as Ottomans
Game #4 - September 3th as Arabia
Game #5 - September 17th as Brazil
Game #6 - October 1th as Denmark
Game #7 October 15th as Songhai
Game #8 October 29th as Sweden
Game #9 November 13th as India
Game #10 November 26th as Russia
Game #11 December 10th as Germany
Game #12 December 24th as Aztecs
Game #13 January 7th as Egypt
Game #14
Game #15 January 25th as Austria

Information & rules cut, pasted and slightly changed from The Deity Challenge Lineup:
Spoiler :
All games in this series will be set to IMMORTAL difficulty. User civilizations, maps, and opponents will change each game, but the pace will always be set at standard and the starting era will always be ancient. We will try for a variety of starts, and not just having a crazy warmonger as your next door neighbor (although there will be that too). This isn't a competition so there will be no predefined victory conditions. New challenges in the series will be posted every other Wednesday.

Who can play?
Anybody can play. The more the merrier. Even if you normally don't play immortal games you are still welcome to try. The games can become great learning resources for the player trying to improve. Even if you don't finish the game, we are still interested to hear about your experience.

Do's and Don'ts
We are going to be using the honor system. Feel free to restart, reload, play the same game multiple times, but don't use the science overflow exploit. Also please don't edit the game in IGE. If you do chose to cheat, please don't share your results in the comments. Also, please use the spoiler tag if you post a picture, comment about neighboring civs, close by wonders, or locations of ancient ruins.

Also, please tell us about your Build Order, Social Policies, Tech Order, and what type of wonders you went after. I know a lot of this stuff seems pretty mundane to the experienced player, but the details are incredibly useful to people trying to learn.

Future Games in the Series
I want users to submit saves from turn 0. Preferably the person submitting the game has played enough turns to know the map is either difficult, fun, or unique in some enjoyable way. Write a short description as to why it is special and email the save to immortalchallengelineup@gmail.com

Important
If you submit a game for the challenge, you must have the DLC map packs disabled. Not everybody has them and they are honestly kind of useless. Having them disabled will allow more participants.
 

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I'm giving out Salt because they have a city called Salzburg which means Salt Fortress. Yes its pangea, but as you can see we are on the coast. I have only played about 10 turns, I have no idea what is out there.

CV is desired. I hope you can find a good use for the Marriage ability. You need lots of happiness to make it work. Personally I never do it unless I have +15 to 20 happiness. YMMV. Good luck!
 
ca. T150 Retire

Spoiler :
Sorry, budweiser, I played this until T150 or so but the starting dirt is way too lousy even to keep up with Immortal AIs. There is no decent location for an expo, and it would be seriously suboptimal to buy any of the crappy CS. Regardless of what time you decided to buy them, whatever you could achieve would be less than if you'd founded it yourself. They're really badly located. In my game I bought Ur as I noticed that, since it was Immortal, it was T120 and there was a religion still up for grabs, and buying it gave me a religion. But I ended up having to build Wealth in my capital and click Next Turn because there was really nothing I could do, and my BPT and CPT both sucked.

I clicked Retire, I'm afraid.
 
Petra Complete Turn 67, also built GL & Oracle to finish Liberty Turn 64

Spoiler :
I respect Consentient's reason for not wanting to play on with this ICL. Although I do not see how 3 Salt, 1 Marble, 1 Farm, 1 Stone & a nice amount of hills for production is lousy starting dirt. I think Austria is now my least fav Civ to play but I do like how you can instantly move an army over to CS's by gifting unit after unit and when your ready you just marry the CS. Of course on Immortal some of the CS's already build large armies anyway. As you may have guessed I am going for Domination this game from the get go and hope to use the marriage to create a monster army to dominate the world.

I decided to build the GL since you can pretty much always get it on Immortal and you never get it on Deity. Perhaps it isn't the most optimal play since it takes away turns from building other things but it did get me to Philo faster to be able to finish Liberty with Oracle. I wanted DF for the Panth but I figured that Earth Mother is better in the short run since it will be some time before population is a factor in my Petra City.

 
Spoiler :
The start itself isn't too bad, it's the surroundings that are awful. The south desert area almost beg for a liberty Petra GE finisher strategy to get a strong second city. The rest is just poor. I'm going for a coastal wide empire. Not sure what VC.
 
Never played as Austria before, when you do the marriage thing do you need to build a courthouse in the newly acquired city-state or is there no resistance?
 
No need to build a courthouse. The CS agrees to the marriage...even if the bride isn't exactly overjoyed ;)

To be clear, when I say 'starting dirt' I don't just mean the starting screen. I mean this...

Spoiler :
you're on a peninsula. the rest of the land between the start and the mainland is the worst kind of land. Even if you build Petra in the desert strip, there's nothing else there to justify settling it. It would be like settling on bare plains.

There is not enough food in the start, no sites for decent expos, and none of the CS are worth buying. I'm sorry but I just don't play maps that are really not to my liking. The last ICL was great. I was hoping for more of the same, I guess.


Maybe I should take a break from Civ for a while...?
 
Spoiler :
As usual I play with my rules, which prohibit the 3 B's...
No bulbs (GS or GW not allowed), No bombs (GM or Atomic or nuclear), No Bribes (if an army comes for you, block it, if you can't, fight it!)


When will ppl learn that ToA + HG is more powerful than GL or Stonehenge will ever be?
(got Petra afterwards too; actually this map DEMANDS Petra no matter what cost, fail to get it, and you're screwed... I wonder how many suckers fell for the marble+tundra trap... if you settle marble your capitol will be REALLY bad)


After Petra, NC then Hagia, Oracle, Borobudur.... desert folklore and stone circles got taken; heck even fertility rites got taken... so had to settle for a mere +1 food here (and my expansion has 2 bananas but otherwise a useless pantheon)


Creating a channel so that food ships may reach the capitol...


Ummm my capitol can build Louvre in 4 turns, is that bad???



Never needed a military... yoinked two CSs at the turn they were at 60 influence, and sold them for profit $$$.


Running out of useful stuff to build... this is the first time I've built recycle centers and military bases. :lol:


Oops... I won... played on a few more turns (wanted to get all the wonders possible; plant everything)


My capitol is working every tile! Wonders too many to count; got all theming wonders except GL, filled all slots. First time I've ever gone for World Religion (I was able to spread to France, Huns, and Songhai as well as CSs... in the end tithe was making me ~100 gold; they were happy to help vote my religion up)

Edit: Oops indeed I forgot to show where I had planted my cities: here's from the last autosave. I had a war with France sometime around renaissance (it was my Xbows and galleases VS his musketeers); but look at my 2nd city's location! Completely safe and immune to any threats!

 
No need to build a courthouse. The CS agrees to the marriage...even if the bride isn't exactly overjoyed ;)

To be clear, when I say 'starting dirt' I don't just mean the starting screen. I mean this...

Spoiler :
you're on a peninsula. the rest of the land between the start and the mainland is the worst kind of land. Even if you build Petra in the desert strip, there's nothing else there to justify settling it. It would be like settling on bare plains.

There is not enough food in the start, no sites for decent expos, and none of the CS are worth buying. I'm sorry but I just don't play maps that are really not to my liking. The last ICL was great. I was hoping for more of the same, I guess.


Maybe I should take a break from Civ for a while...?

@consentient
When dirt is bad (look at my expos for crying out loud... not a single freshwater farm), make a coastal empire; cargo ships solve everything!
 
Up to Turn 250

Spoiler :
I know that a coastal empire would of been better but I decided to settle in place and put my expo on the salt and stay inside the coast. I am not able to grow or do anything really. I am able to be ahead in tech and pretty much ally any CS I choose that I have found. I do this with hardly any population and only two cities.

I even put my church into the two strongest warmonger civs on the map. They both did not get a religion and have both adopted mine. So now I just sit back and play the bribe game which is fun for me. My game might go to 400 turns but I think I am still going to go with a late Domination game here, perhaps Diplo if I get lazy.


 
Ah man this game is brutal, I agree with consentient about the starting location.

Spoiler :

Moved to the coast, happy cause those 2 fish tiles is all that's keeping Vienna growing. Settled my 2nd city way down south on the coast next to mountain. 3rd city in the desert on west coast(in range of both fish east and west). Super late NC(turn 115ish) as I delayed 3rd city library going for Petra only to waste 20 turns of production getting beat by 5 turns. Also missed HG by 2 turns in the capital, Oracle by 1 turn and MoH by 3 turns. Took +2 faith from wonders thinking I'd get all those wonders too... Also wasted 10 turns building 2 triremes in Vienna only to realize that I'm locked in.

France declared war on me unexpectedly but I have a ridiculous choke point and have my desert city with amazing production but no food spewing out galleas to upgrade to frigates. Attila joined in with France but he's confused and spent 20 turns with his army looking at mountain range trying to decide what to do. However all my cargoships keep getting pillaged by France making my desert city starve and losing gold. Took 2 frigates with range and a privateer to Paris and after 14 turns of slow siege I took his capital(turn 220ish, ToA).

My science is meh but I'm tied for the lead, I have no barely any GPT as other than France and 2 city-states there aren't any descent trade routes, no gold in the bank and still trying to upgrade 3 galleas to frigates. Happiness is also a huge problem as all I have is 3 salt and 1 marble, actually had to build circus maximus early and freaking zoos... Also city-state quest have been really bad, have only been an ally with one for 3 turns... Just founded a 4th city up north to get the 2 salt, work the marble and 2 fish, better be freaking oil up there.

I'm thinking of going for a domination victory at this point, I hardly ever do and I think it will be faster than SV. Ottomans and Iroquois are coastal and I have 3-4 frigates with range so no problem there, I'll just D-day the rest with artillery and hussars.
 
Ah man this game is brutal, I agree with consentient about the starting location.

Spoiler :

Moved to the coast, happy cause those 2 fish tiles is all that's keeping Vienna growing. Settled my 2nd city way down south on the coast next to mountain. 3rd city in the desert on west coast(in range of both fish east and west). Super late NC(turn 115ish) as I delayed 3rd city library going for Petra only to waste 20 turns of production getting beat by 5 turns. Also missed HG by 2 turns in the capital, Oracle by 1 turn and MoH by 3 turns. Took +2 faith from wonders thinking I'd get all those wonders too... Also wasted 10 turns building 2 triremes in Vienna only to realize that I'm locked in.

France declared war on me unexpectedly but I have a ridiculous choke point and have my desert city with amazing production but no food spewing out galleas to upgrade to frigates. Attila joined in with France but he's confused and spent 20 turns with his army looking at mountain range trying to decide what to do. However all my cargoships keep getting pillaged by France making my desert city starve and losing gold. Took 2 frigates with range and a privateer to Paris and after 14 turns of slow siege I took his capital(turn 220ish, ToA).

My science is meh but I'm tied for the lead, I have no barely any GPT as other than France and 2 city-states there aren't any descent trade routes, no gold in the bank and still trying to upgrade 3 galleas to frigates. Happiness is also a huge problem as all I have is 3 salt and 1 marble, actually had to build circus maximus early and freaking zoos... Also city-state quest have been really bad, have only been an ally with one for 3 turns... Just founded a 4th city up north to get the 2 salt, work the marble and 2 fish, better be freaking oil up there.

I'm thinking of going for a domination victory at this point, I hardly ever do and I think it will be faster than SV. Ottomans and Iroquois are coastal and I have 3-4 frigates with range so no problem there, I'll just D-day the rest with artillery and hussars.

Spoiler :
Why you would expand early when there are crucial wonders (i.e. Petra) at stake is beyond me...
It's fine to win with OCC (esp Petra + HG) on immortal, but it's quite vexing to win with a crappy cap :lol:
Starting location is not so bad if you tell yourself "I'll be fine OCC as long as I get Petra"

btw... no oil :lol:
 
Finished a cultural victory in 252 turns.
Spoiler :
Could have been a few turns faster but wanted my extra wonders and didn't want to sell my big cities :) Got 19 Wonders total (mostly renaissance and above):
-GL
-Pyramids
-Petra (rush)
-NotreDame
-Sistine Chapel
-Forbidden Palace
-Leaning tower of Pisa
-Globe Theatre
-Porcelain TOwer
-Taj Mahal (rush)
-Broadway
-EiffelTower
-Louvre
-Redfort
-Statue of Liberty
-CN Tower(rush)
-Cristo Redentor
-Sydney Opera House
-Brandenburg Gate (rush)

Went GL + NC (with citizenship for fast worker) then added 4 cities and bought Kyzyk midgame. All cities had great production but low food. Internet was reached around T235.
Liberty 6 Exploration 2 Aesthetics 6 Rationalism 6 Freedom
Spoiler :
 
Well if selling crappy CS for that much isn't cheese, then I don't know what is! :D

Don't get me wrong, KB, you're a superb player and you can always make situations work for you. I just don't have your patience, I guess :D
 
Well if selling crappy CS for that much isn't cheese, then I don't know what is! :D

Don't get me wrong, KB, you're a superb player and you can always make situations work for you. I just don't have your patience, I guess :D

:lol: that's the only reason I say Austria is good (if it's just to get more cities, albeit rather crappy ones since CS only have on lux usually, then the UA is, well, crap.)
Although neglecting military only to get it from a CS is also nice.
 
But could you have neglected military for so long if you were in a similar starting position to say, DCL #1, and not out on some unreachable peninsula, for long enough to be able to buy any of the CS? ;)

Occasionally CS are settled in a position that is good enough, and if you Annex it early and it's nearish your capital, and you get workers to improve it and so on, then Austria would be decent. But it's seldom the case.

On this map, even less so because the nearest CS is still like 20 hexes from your capital or whatever.
 
Diplo Victory Turn 339

I was having fun with this map. Buying out the CS's when they have 7-10 advanced units is pretty nice!! I was going to just clear the map and win via Culture but once I realized I could do that with no problem I settled for Diplo. At this point I could of won any VC I wanted but Diplo ended the game now. Fun map though and I liked this start compared to something easier. As I think I have shown you can pretty much make the game go over 400 turns on Immortal and still win. I could of bought out all the CS's and had a huge army crushing all the Civs at this point! Oh and I am number 1 in almost all demos, I had the largest military but sold a bunch of units at the end for more gold since I decided to end the game now.

Spoiler :

 
DV t406

Spoiler :
After doing pretty well for my level in the Deity Challenge, barely managed to survive the start and some poor play to grind out a diplomatic victory. Didn't use the UA because I needed the money and the CS alliances for votes as France kept declaring on me and then annexing a distant ally.

Thankfully the narrow ocean passes and rough terrain on the southwest of the peninsula created a real charnel ground for anyone dumb enough to float an army under my guns, so towards the end I just stayed at war with Napoleon to slow down his space program until I could garner enough votes to win. Ugly, but it worked! Eventually. :goodjob:


Not sure what I'm supposed to do with my save files--maybe just add as an attachment along with the screencap? Anyway, while this wasn't a great performance, still had fun, thanks again for putting these challenges together.
 

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