Immortal Mongolia (play this for the most insane start ever)

Attila had eliminated Boudicca, so once I took Attila down (he had the Great Wall in my game), Edinburgh was easy pickings, leaving just Paris for my frigate/keshik pincer attack.

I haven't played higher on King before (except for a few scenarios) so I wonder if I will win this.

If you are a king player who knows how to wage war, you should be ok with this. That said, even if you are comfortable in going tall, you might still be ok. There are so many horses and you have such an OP start with an awesome site for a second city its hard to see you not getting at least 3 excellent cities. Its certainly like playing on a lower difficulty so worth a shot IMO.

Totally dflattened the other continent. Atilla fell first in the space of about 5/6 turns. Then It was Napoleons turn:



And this resulted in:



That was a fun game. On to the next one now i guess

sherbz said:

If you are a king player who knows how to wage war, you should be ok with this. That said, even if you are comfortable in going tall, you might still be ok. There are so many horses and you have such an OP start with an awesome site for a second city its hard to see you not getting at least 3 excellent cities. Its certainly like playing on a lower difficulty so worth a shot IMO.

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My main problem is that I play quick speed and since the game is standard speed my sense of timing is all screwed up. By what turn should I have Keshiks?

SULOMON said:

My main problem is that I play quick speed and since the game is standard speed my sense of timing is all screwed up. By what turn should I have Keshiks?

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Standard speed = Quick speed*1.5

Fast Chivalry date is approximatively 105-110.

I find it interesting how different the units and eras are in my game compared to Sherbz's game. Only 32 turn difference and he is throwing nukes and using tanks with rocket arts and a huge fleet of battleships. As many flaws as this game has, it is still fun to see the many different ways people play and how the game ends up. His 1800 science to my 780, his double culture ( about 300 to my 150 ) but I love that I ended with 0 GPT to his 197!!

I finished off my continent around turn 160ish then brought all the horses overseas to repair happiness. Sweden built Great Wall and they fell quickly. Attila just finished up himeji castle and I just finished them off. Just Paris and Edinburgh left on turn 185ish. Celts have larger army than me but not for much longer.... They'll probably all jump in the water to go fight one of the CS allies on MY continent while I destroy their cap... The AI is horrible.

I find it interesting how backwards all civs become when I warmonger. Machu pichu was still avail at turn 160 and I just finished Notre dame around turn 175.

Fluphen Azine said:

I find it interesting how different the units and eras are in my game compared to Sherbz's game. Only 32 turn difference and he is throwing nukes and using tanks with rocket arts and a huge fleet of battleships. As many flaws as this game has, it is still fun to see the many different ways people play and how the game ends up. His 1800 science to my 780, his double culture ( about 300 to my 150 ) but I love that I ended with 0 GPT to his 197!!

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I think you would benefit from making sure that you have every tile in all of your cities improved in some way. It looks as though you have improved the main ones and left the rest. Do you use automated workers? Every tile can be improved in some way, not just the special ones. Roguhly this should go:

Grassland - Farm/trade post
Riverside grass or plain - Farm
Riverside hill - Farm
Hill - Mine
Jungle - Trade post
Forest thats not riverside - lumber mill
Plains - Farm
Tundra - Trade post (use these for your great person tile improvements)

193 victory.. owning great wall helped me not waste unit turns having to protect edinburgh before they sued for peace.. just left a skeleton crew back there while the rest of army marched thru the open borders i got from liberating orleans.. finished off paris in 2 turns.

3 city NC.. finished tradition.. left side honor.. one in patronage.. one in rationalism.

love mongolia.

sherbz said:

I think you would benefit from making sure that you have every tile in all of your cities improved in some way. It looks as though you have improved the main ones and left the rest. Do you use automated workers? Every tile can be improved in some way, not just the special ones.

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Ofcourse your right your always going to benefit from improved hexes, however in my case I had a large army to maintain very early. I seen your turn 86 compared to mine where my science was about 3 times the amount you had and also I was already in control of two caps moving to the third and taking the 4th out by turn 170. I went full liberty and I built my cap away from the xtra resources compared to yours as well. I was maxed out of growth around 10 pop and never optimized it. I was mainly working the production tiles and not growing. I wanted to beat the game around turn 200-230 but I made some mistakes in my tech order and started very late into navigation. I had 6 or 7 workers and could of done as you suggest but my gpt was an issue early so I deleted alot of them to be able to pay for the early war, where as you played for a late war. I do not use automated workers, I do get lazy sometimes with hex improvement but in all honestly this game was over on turn 15.

Fluphen Azine said:

Ofcourse your right your always going to benefit from improved hexes, however in my case I had a large army to maintain very early. I seen your turn 86 compared to mine where my science was about 3 times the amount you had and also I was already in control of two caps moving to the third and taking the 4th out by turn 170. I went full liberty and I built my cap away from the xtra resources compared to yours as well. I was maxed out of growth around 10 pop and never optimized it. I was mainly working the production tiles and not growing. I wanted to beat the game around turn 200-230 but I made some mistakes in my tech order and started very late into navigation. I had 6 or 7 workers and could of done as you suggest but my gpt was an issue early so I deleted alot of them to be able to pay for the early war, where as you played for a late war. I do not use automated workers, I do get lazy sometimes with hex improvement but in all honestly this game was over on turn 15.

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Yea as i didnt immediately realise how over powered the start was, i was pushing expansion before war. I also suffered in the scouting department. Once i had realised how good war would be, it was time to just wait for Keshiks and then go from there. Then once i had conquered the continent, Keshiks were almost obsolete, so i waited for the next opportunity, which meant i felt i also had to have an airforce. To be fair though, i could probably have done it a lot earlier.

I decided to give it a shot. I had a map knowledge but im an aggressive scouter in heart so it probably wouldn't changed anything.

I started with a religion in mind since that multiple salt tiles where around. Some early faith cs helped to get a pantheon faster. I worked my way around a 3 cities Tradition opening. I missed the spot wanted near Stockholm so i had to settle a bit more inland for my 3rd city. I settled FoY first.

I'm full friendly with Russians(liberated 2 workers for her!) and no war yet. I did steal a worker to Sweeden in the early turns but it was a short war overall.

NC finished at turn 74. I'm going to attack soon now. Build some HAs and CBs, teching for Chivalry. I started Oracle in capital for one reason : to get a gs ASAP when i will tech for Education later. I will rush buy a university to get out that gs early for Navigation.

I think that i can get Chivalry around the turn 110. Mongols already dominate the most important demographic stats so it's only about speed from here.

Tabarnak said:

I will rush buy a university to get out that gs early for Navigation Astronomy.

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I meant Astro sorry.

The plan slightly changed when i captured Venice and Stockholm earlier. Since that i had quite a large number of units i decided to take a sea road connecting the south part of the continent, west of Spain, to reach Moscow first. The idea was to tech Education before Chivalry and get Moscow with still HAs and horses even if i crossed the psychologic bar of 100 turns.

So i got Education on turn 112, then Chivalry on turn 118(had previously teched Guilds a bit when i decided to go for Edu...captured Moscow turn 116). Spain was the next target. But with only 5 UUs and 1 horse. The rest of the upgraded army went into the sea to reach other civs(Astro turn 123 with a gs).

Some turns later i landed into Attila and immediately exchanged ambassies. Attila's Court was already close so he became my first target. Then i went for France with the rest of the army from Spain.

After getting Paris i wondered why i didn't get a win...well, Attila previously captured Edinburgh...by chance the peace treaty expired soon enough. I picked the peaceful turns to prepare for the final battle. Finally finished on turn 150.

I've got over 20 keshiks at a certain point. I think i have finished with 17. Honor was completely useless. I didn't get a single keshiks with 4 promos even if no one died until the turn 130. Probably because the wars didn't last long enough, XPs splitted through a lot of units roo. Commerce would have been better with landsneckt meatshields.

Tabarnak said:

I meant Astro sorry.

The plan slightly changed when i captured Venice and Stockholm earlier. Since that i had quite a large number of units i decided to take a sea road connecting the south part of the continent, west of Spain, to reach Moscow first.

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Very nice execution! This is the way I wanted to play my games, but like usual I got stuck in builder mode and teching the wrong way leaving the top of the tree untouched. I do this alot actually it's like after taking a few cities or caps I get hypnotized or just plain lazy. Im actually in the middle of the deity France challenge and instead of pushing through Im sitting around with my thumb up you know where. Basically letting the AI get stronger and stronger, this is why my games go over 300 turns so many times.

Fluphen Azine said:

Very nice execution! This is the way I wanted to play my games, but like usual I got stuck in builder mode and teching the wrong way leaving the top of the tree untouched. I do this alot actually it's like after taking a few cities or caps I get hypnotized or just plain lazy. Im actually in the middle of the deity France challenge and instead of pushing through Im sitting around with my thumb up you know where. Basically letting the AI get stronger and stronger, this is why my games go over 300 turns so many times.

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I also play like this. I wouldnt worry too much. It just means you are a more cautious player. Im a bit hungover from Civ 4 whereby if you werent careful in warfare, it could easily go wrong, so i make utterly sure im prepared and have back up plans if things go wrong.

I just finished on turn 250.
Sweden DoWed me several turns after I got Keshiks. I took down Sweden fairly easily (their army wasn't much of a threat). After I took Sweden's capital I then took Venice down fairly easily. Spain was much harder considering their capital had hills and a couple mountains and camel archers from the nearby Militaristic city state. I actually lost a keshik. Regardless I took their capital and then crushed Russia with ease (The Great Wall didn't make much of a difference) and getting some of my Keshiks up to 6 promotions (terrain, logistics, range and march).
I discovered the other continents and Attila had already took the Celts out of the game. I sent over my army of Keshiks to attack Edinburgh which had 60 defence! I managed to take the city but I almost stopped playing since the Hunnic cavalry could oneshot my Keshiks and I could barely stand seeing a Keshik with 6 promotions die. I took another large Hunnic city and finally the capital. During this time I had been building an army of frigates which I used to take France's capital and victory.
This is my first Immortal game that isn't a scenario and the highest I had played before was King!

Wow that was the most crazy domination win I've ever undertaken. I think I'll rate Keshik's as the best UU in the game.

And seriously 4 religious citystates within close proximity of your start! I've never seen that before.

I was able to get a Pantheon just from the faith earned on discovering 2 religious citystates so I picked Earth Mother for the bonus faith from Iron, Copper & Salt. And killing some barb camps to gain some early alliances & friendships with these religious citystates meant I was able to guarantee a religion without ever needing to put one hammer towards a shrine or temple!
(That said I did build a shrine in my capital but it was a quite a low priority and I slipped in in when it took about 4 turns to build instead of the painful 10 turns it often takes when your city has 1 or 2 population).
Honestly this is a crazy game for religion and I honestly think you could play this start anyway you like.
Religion - tick, War - tick, Peaceful Science, Culture or Diplomacy - tick (you're start is so strong that you have the flexibility to play any way you like as your start has no weaknesses at all- this is quite rare at immortal level).

I opened tradition and settled 3 cities obviously to get as much resources for Earth Mother and to get the Fountain of Youth. As I was going military I also put a policy in Honor so I could get the Statue of Zeus (I figured if I was going to roll over the world with the Golden Horde of Keshiks then that extra promotion will help keep them valuable even if they become obsolete. Of course every military unit was given the double healing promotion as soon as it was produced.

Sweden aggresively forward settled me and soon declared war but I had an army at that point so I just waited on defence and they lost their army trying to take my 2nd city near the copper to the South. Then I had Terracotta Army produced in the capital so that instantly doubled my army so once they drank from the fountain they destroyed Sweden.

In that time I also saw the opportunity to build Great Wall and Oracle. Great Wall was useful as it denied any other Civ from getting it (a bit of an irony there the Mongol building the wall I know!)

At this point I beelined Chivalry and built many Chariot archers and horsemen. I should point out that if your playing Mongols it is well worth producing some early horsemen and holding on to them (i.e. not promoting them). They do get an extra movement point which means they can cross 3 rough terrain tiles per turn and this is very helpful for maneuvering your army in difficult rough terrain. Even if they become obsolete it doesn't matter as they can be used to sneak in from out of a defending cities attack range and capture a city in one turn. Also they are good for sneaking around and pillaging tiles. Pillaging farms using horsemen & keshiks is actually highly recommeded. It will net you some gold as well as slow down the growth of the city when you capture it.
The double healing promotion with the Khans is great as even if your horsemen get badly hurt they can very quickly be up and going again.

I should mention for religion I took Tithe, Pagodas and Holy Warriors - I had so much faith generation and since I was mainly puppeting other civs cities which already had their religions up it seemed a bit pointless to try and spend a huge amount of gold annexing cities to build courthouses then wasting faith on coverting these cities to my religion just to build pagodas.

After this I declared war on Venice which hardly put up a struggle. This also made it much easier to take Spain as they were surrounded by Jungles and mountains and the terrain was too difficult to easily access from the North. Now I could fan out from the side and take them more easily.

After that it was just a matter of time before Russia fell, I had some happiness issues at this point with lots of barb rebels so I focused on improving happiness and teching up to Navigation. This is where Tradition falls down and Liberty would be better as the bonuses from Tradition really start to run out once you have captured several cities. And my policy growth was too slow to quickly reach the Commerce finisher.
Then it was a simple matter of sending the Golden Horde over the oceans to take the other 3 Civs.

Also my best Keshik had 340 experience - Range, Logistics, March promotions!
The only thing I'm not quite sure about is the healing times seemed a bit odd. A Keshik with Fountain of Youth in friendly territory with Khan should heal +20 (friendly territory), +15 (khan) + 35 (double heal) for 70 hp per turn. I don't think the amount healed was that high so I'm not quite sure how that works. Khan's don't seem to heal if your unit has been active for that turn also.

FoY's double heal is arguably mislabeled. It just provides +10 HP healing (doubling the base healing rate of 10 HP). Friendly territory also just provides an additional +10 HP. So, ignoring the Kahn effect, that's 30 HP per turn.