The Immortal Alphabetical Game #20 - Harald Bluetooth

Continents. Lots of beach-front property for Berserkers to dip in and out of!

The Achievements focus on military conquest, or by acting as world policeman. They raise the difficulty level, as several "exploits" are not allowed:

50 points - No War Bribes - you cannot deflect trouble by directing it somewhere else. There is plenty of animosity on the map anyway.

50 points - No bizarre trade deals before DOW - You know what this means! You can only make trades you would do were they to be lasting, no trading for gold then DOWing, etc.

5 points - Genocide - Remove any civ from the game (once per civ only).

2 points - UU city capture - Any city you capture with either a Longship or Berserker earns points (one time per city only - UU must not be upgraded).

3 points - Non-Genocide Liberation - Any AI city or CS (once per city/CS), must not have eliminated any civs yourself. Can Liberate through peace deals. Stacks with UU city capture if you do not keep any capitals!

5 points - Diplomatic Doctor Frankenstein - Recall to Life any civ (once per civ) and win without keeping any capitals on the other continent (makes Dom-assisted CV harder).

50 - No war bribes
50 - No weird deals
T108- killed Morroco. +5. Took city with berserker +2
t130ish - killed polynesia. +5. took 2 cities, +4
t180 - killed japan. +5, 2 cities, +4
t215- killed monty. +5, 2 cities, +4
t 253- killed sejong. +5, 7 cities +14
t254- killed shaka. +5, 13 cities, +26
t259-killed songhai. +5, 2 cities, +4

Forgot, I also took 2 city-states. +4

total
197

I never play domination, too long, but this was easy enough. I was wondering all game long why the hell everyone was so far behind and I find the other continent with shaka and montezuma lol. That explains that, while I was busy cleaning my continent, they were busy going irrelevant on theirs.
I did take a lot of cities in peace deals so that deflated my score. I was just getting too damn tired lol. I had to wait 3 turns extra at the end for my peace deal to end with Songhai. I took every city with berserkers, it was good times.

go two city Tradition or two city Honor

Opened a two city Tradition, settled the LV spot to the NE of start, as seen in pic 1. I wanted my capital to be a bit potent to be able to kick out Berserks in 3-4 turns so I kind of ignored military and built stuff up. Managed to land Oracle which I used to finish Tradition and then had HC around T85-90 something like that. By then I have had about 6-7 CBs, a few Cats and around half a dozen Berserks, some were upgraded Warriors, some upgraded Swords. I hit MC around T100 which meant a rather late Education.

Using Longboats, I was able to move my units from start to Japan fairly easily, I used the UA to my advantage a fair bit since the shores were undefended, Japanese cap was easily taken which was the ONLY unhappiness moment in the entire game. Towards the end, Kyoto had insane production. At the same time, I was developing Patronage and money was starting to pile up so I started seizing city states, the ones in strategic locations were the priority while Berserks would take down Monty's cap in a full out Berserk attack. CBs/XBs would have worked much better but I didn't have enough of them to be super effective so I used them as support. I had XBs around T125 and by then I cleared out Monty. The city shuffled ownership a few times so I got it at 1 pop in the end. I decided to make one final use of Berserks to finish off Japan because Korea, the last guy on the continent, started pulling away and I wouldn't be able to get to them with my current roster.

The longboat bug hasn't been fixed yet, so it was a bit of a faff to work around it. To clarify, In NQ mod, all melee boats get to move after attacking, but that doesn't work with the Longboat and since it was rather weak against cities, I used them for transport purposes.

Korea and Songhai (who seized the other continent, wiping off Morocco and Hawaii) double DoWed me around turn 180, which was before I had Dynamite since I prioritized Schools and World Fair (which I won y a landslide). All the spare gold was sunk in city state alliance and in NQ mod, they are WELL WORTH it. In fact, Patronage is the strongest tree in NQ, like I said multiple times. The war with Korea was a stalemate until I got the Cavalry and Dynamites rolling, but he got Dynamite as well so technically he could pick off my Artillery which he did. However, Cavalry are quite good in the Industrial era conquest so with the aid of gold bought Cavs and Songhai spreading their faith-for-units religion to my expo, I was able to get reinforcements quickly. Once I captured (and razed) the port of Daegu, Korea fell like a house of cards.

Realizing there were only 3 major civs left, me, Songhai and Zulu, I could jump straight ahead to Radar and trigger United Nations. But I would need more votes, so I moved my Battleships out and liberated Hawaii and a city state to the SW of the other continent. I wanted to liberate Morocco but there wasn't enough time. I secured all city states and won with 49 votes while only needing 39, thanks to World Religion, World Ideology, Consulates and Hawaii voting for me

50 points - No War Bribes - I was at one point close to doing it because I forgot, but thankfully I remembered and saved face

50 points - No bizarre trade deals before DOW - No man, Harry has honour

5 points - Genocide - Remove any civ from the game (once per civ only). - Removed Japan, Aztecs and Korea, so 15

2 points - UU city capture - Any city you capture with either a Longship or Berserker earns points (one time per city only - UU must not be upgraded). - I managed to cap 6 cities before going obsolete, 12

3 points - Non-Genocide Liberation - nope

5 points - Diplomatic Doctor Frankenstein - Liberated Hawaii and one city state from Songhai, is that 10?

Total tally: 137 or if city state liberation doesn't count 132

I'm playing the NQ game on my tower, so I fired up the unmodded game on my laptop. What a difference! (Worse) Korea started on the other continent, and appears to have been peaceful with Askia all game, so he was 10-15% ahead on science for a long time. Once I finished punishing Oda with Frigates, Korea had BBs, yikes! Monte and Shaka appeared to have perpetual war, but Monte kept his 2 cities, but was going to lose them once Korea finally jumped in. Korea even gave me the Backed By Nuclear Weapons speech, which I haven't seen in years.

On my continent, Oda had the GW and had no problem at all just steamrolling Captain Underpants and Mor. I bid my time with a Tradition start, got a Worker and Settler from Mor, then Oda DOW'd with Samurai and it was a pretty long war. I didn't keep close track of UU captures as I didn't think I'd finish this version. I Liberated 3/5 Mor and Poly cities except let Oda have Honolulu, kept Marrakech, Kyoto, and Tokyo (S port city). Big mistake leaving Oda with 5 cities, but I was trying to not trigger warmonger hate. He slowly built up and eliminated Underpants and Mor again and I just didn't feel like another long war. I maintained pretty good relations overseas until Ideologies really kicked in, even with 2 enemy capitals.

I considered following Korea into Order, for the production boosts, etc, and to keep the long DOF going. I went Freedom, and it got pretty ugly near the end. I overshot tech a bit - could have had a DV quite a bit earlier, and a CV was inevitable.

Kind of fun to play my old Wide Tradition style again with 9 cities. I never fell below 20 happy mid-game and 40 late game, I just pounded out wonders like crazy throughout the game (18, plus 4 captured). I even got Notre Dame, which I never get, as I am always on the top tiers more.

I must admit, I rather enjoy playing with the first two rules - definitely makes dealing with warmongers and runaways much more difficult! Letting Oda off easy made me have 5 fronts to defend - not exactly smooth play.

Achievements:

No War Bribes or Trade Crapola - 100 pts

UU city capture - 4 pts?

Non-Genocide Liberation - 9 pts (2 Poly and 1 Mor city)

Diplomatic Doctor Frankenstein - 10 pts (Underpants and Mor)

Hawaii are on the other continent and will find you after 50 turns no matter what

Theyre on the starting continent on the normal map so first priority is to kill them. Its lucky that the others want to make friends!