The Immortal Challenge Lineup - Game #18

I might bail on this one too. I decided to go Liberty, because isn't that what Iroq always does? Anyway, just so few useful sites to settle. I put my cap 1 NW of start, to get whales and cocoa - in hindsight start would have been better to keep one more forest and have more irrigated lake tiles. My 2nd city 4 SE of start will have tons of food... 3rd city is 1 SE of dyes up N.

I would likely still have interest in this game if I had gone Tradition, and also if I had been able to snag a religion. I did, strangely, get GrLh. Pantheon is the fishing boats, I guess the pearls one would have been better, it didn't even occur to me. I met the E neighbors quite a while ago with an early Trireme, and at t100 have finally just now got my first lux from them. Seems pretty bad that way. Doesn't seem to be much point in settling a bunch of repeat whales/pearls.

I appreciate the various "design" ideas for the challenges - at heart though I am an empire builder and explorer, and so this game just doesn't have "it" for me. I guess I got spoiled by the Spain game.

So I decided to keep going, just to punish myself, apparently. I have 9 cities, I kept adding them, a couple in the last 20-30 turns even as I needed the aluminum. I have the island W with marble and I settled 3 E/SE of Mt Sinai quite a while ago. Not much expansion on that continent. Meanwhile Shaka and Cas pounded Oda down and now Cas has nearly eliminated Shaka. Cas has full Liberty, Piety, and Patronage, 4 Tradition and 5 in Freedom. I couldn't believe he went Freedom as he had 10 cities at that point.

I was first, went Order, Korea went Autocracy (?). He hasn't gone into Rat (nobody appears to have yet) and so I may actually launch before him. I sunk 3 in Exploration to get production and happy, 2 in Rat, 5 in Order, 2 more in Rat now. I would typically only take 2 Rat on Immortal but this game is actually challenging. I am spending way too much time in the upper and lower trees as the only oil is offshore, and I really need Neusch as I am getting some pretty heavy pressure which may only get worse...

I am 1st in production, what with 5 year plan - am currently building all the wonders I can as my RLabs are up in my earlier cities. I haven't been working all scientists as I have been trying to keep up with buildings. I have a large army and navy for an SV, but not much is upgraded. Grand River has built Eiffel, Machu, PT, and Broadway, and should get Neuschwanstein.

So only kb and I finished, eh?

This game became mildly entertaining due to some pretty aggressive AI action working it's way towards me. I never did fight any wars, but Poland and Korea became juggernauts with plenty of uranium in their back pockets. I bribed them 2x to war, but not much happened, other than some naval and CS potshots - I don't know if route finding was bad, or if they both decided that keeping the troops home was the way to go. Pacal had a small expeditionary force swimming 1/3 of the map heading for who knows where - Greece's lone city on my island? Those 6 Privateers and 3 GWI weren't going to cause much trouble!

Once again, full Rat seems like overkill on Immortal. The 3 faith-bought GS really blew the game open near the end (as usual, I did no RA's). I actually way overshot tech as I burned the Spaceflight GE on Hubble just to make sure I got it. Had Korea gone Rat, and not done the usual Arts Funding route I quite easily could have lost. As it was he didn't finish Apollo until 5 turns before my launch.

I probably lost a GS due to not working enough scientists mid-game, I wanted food and production so much more in my expos. Crushed WF 5:1 and Intl Games 2:1. I did have great production mid-game.

And once again, Neuschwanstein comes through, solving gold, happy, and culture woes! I also had GrLh, Hubble, Kremlin, Broadway, Eiffel, Machu, and PT. Nearly finished Pentagon and Firewall.

Low-grade leader, large but barren nearby terrain and runaway AI. Problems with cash and happiness. I had envisaged a Science victory when I started, but by turn 150 Greece was rampant on all fronts and owned every CS. When they turned hostile, I thought the game was up. I used my stored GS to rush Biology and then Electronics. I DOW on Greece and captured a couple of nearby CS (unusual for me) to gain land-based oil. Once I had teched Refrigeration (for oil-rigs and subs) things began to turn around but capturing Athens and Sparta required range battleships (GW bombers were largely ineffective due to strong defences). Victory was assured after Greece was eliminated, but it was still a hard slog across two large land masses:- diplo victory was a possibility but my large military made Domination the speedier option (in terms of finish turn time). Glad to sneak a win with this one:- not overly impressed with Iroquios and this map didn't offer much for their already underwhelming unique attributes. It played out more like a Deity game and reminded me why I generally prefer Immortal level!