The Immortal Alphabetical Game #7 - Bismarck

no I dont think that was turned off.

Surprising game so far - I once again have bungled so much! I went 4 cities Honor (1 in Patronage and 3 in Commerce so far), but have not been in perma-wars, as my military has been smallish at times, and I've had to focus on buildings as happiness and gold were terrible until recently (yay Wagon Trains). I only have 5 XBs!!! I spaced out, thinking CS battles were like Barbs (I almost never boot camp for long), so I wasted scores of turns where I could have been gaining XP on Ife, who I DOW'd early for Workers. Terrible terrain with protective hills, so it would have been hard to do anyway.

Early DOWS on Mor and Oda - Oda finally gave me a 2 city peace deal which I sold to Attila for razing. I decided to cripple him instead of take gold. He is stuck inland, will likely save him for last.

Curb stomped Mor, citadeled to get his Gems and whacked anything that came near, got 22 gpt for entire peace length, then took Marrakech easily t110 (no wonders) but then he proceeded to get HG and Petra in his new cap, and is actually a pretty big threat again. I should probably have taken Rabat when I was there, I may have to do that now, but I just took Carthage a few turns ago (Ahlambra, ChItza, HS, and SH), and Attila has the largest army and GW, so can't spare many units. He's been reasonably friendly and bribeable. I hope he can swim to finish off Carthage so I can reanimate her, he razed her other cities, but did keep one CS on my route E.

T115 NC and 130s Education, yet I hit an early tech lead, but am slipping. Industrialization in 8 turns, WF starts in 4, but for the first time ever I won't have Ironworks ready. My cap quit growing a while ago, as all TR are going to my only ally Vancouver. Built an early Oracle and just got FP, Munich built Machu. Big mistake to not go hard on range units, but do/will have Hanse everywhere.

I got only 2 Brutes from camps, but did get a Scarcher and for once he is still alive, not stuck on some hostile peninsula (I have quit scouting with them as they tend to get stuck). He's my only Range/Log XB, gulp. Have spent a fortune on tiles, Berlin in particular has been awful, taking 3rd ring plains over 2nd ring river plains and hills.

Found 2 Rel CS immediately, so went DF on t8! Tithe, Pagodas (buying several at 300f), Rel Comm and Itin Preach. Very slow passive spread. Temples were slow to get up, so faith game has been very poor.

Settled Cologne as a defensive city once I met AI, it pretty much sucks. Scouting was horrible with the early wars, so figured I needed a strong perimeter from Oda/Dido, but haven't.

The E fellows have been bickering all game, I have been denounced by all but Attila for a long time, especially once I took Ife, who I recently annexed. I would like to leave Attila for Arties, and hit Indo next, not sure what to do. 3 fronts are calling, not nearly enough units for even 2.

Taken Morocco cap on turn 140, just as I enter Renaissance. I kind of don't want to detour towards capturing a city state now :/

Having Attila take one and then capturing it. The warmonger hate has been incessant from taking Ife. I finally liberated Wittenburg on like t230 - I could likely have done it long, long ago had I planned for it.

Took out Japan on turn 179. Lots of goodies inside however I won't be getting the Ironclads and the city state achievements because I don't want to shoot myself in the foot and all coastal cities by AI are kind of bad. I kept a Japanese expo between Morocco cap and their cap for strategic purposes.

Berlin is a massive city with a great production output, once I get Big Ben and Mercantilism (my next SP) I would easily finish the Mobilization achievement. After that I get Panzers and stomp the map

took a coastal city, will try to stack up some Clads. With a price of $290, I managed to buy 10 Rifles in 2 turns

I forgot I need 6 Clads before Modern. I skipped to Modern, oops

During the First or Second Age
1. The Spear Men: Kill any unit with a Spear man - yes, easy enough

First Reich, during Age 3 or 4
2. Holy Roman Empire: Annex an enemy capital - yes, captured Morocco
3. Teutonic Knights: Annex a City State - opted not, city states were more valuable as allies

Second Reich: before the Modern era begins
4. Mobilization: Rush buy 10 riflemen -yes, easy enough
5. Schlieffen Plan: Connect all your cities by rail. <-- This is not possible, so cross to Modern with Rail Road - ok
6. Risk Fleet: Buy or build 6 Ironclads - no, managed 4 when I bulbed Modern, I plain forgot

Third Reich: during the Modern & beyond
7. Operation Mercury: Capture an enemy capital with a paratrooper - yes, captured Istanbul
8. Operation Sea Lion: Capture an enemy capital with an amphibious promo unit - no, didn't have enough caps left
9. Case White: Capture an enemy capital with a Panzer - yes
10. Case Yellow: Capture the last enemy capital with a Panzer - yes

Opened with a 2 city Tradition, trying to get the production and economy up. Missed Petra by a few turns, missed HG, got ToA and Oracle, then Machu, ND and everything else. Weird because ND is usually impossible on Immortal. Once I capped Morocco, which conveniently had Chichen Itza and Alhambra, I let Japan kill them off to draw attention and then liberated them. It kind of backfired since he kept sending his prophets. And this is where AI obviously cheats, my religion was dominant in all of their cities and yet the prophets of his religion kept converting my cities. I burned a lot of Inquisitors because I didn't know the AI cheats. Still, never had to worry about happiness since I finished Commerce and had 3 Factories for Autocracy. I moved out to Japan and then Huns, liberating Carthage in the process. I then prepared Panzers to deal with the far east guys, it was a cakewalk with super Panzers on Blitzkrieg steroids

1. spearman- got it killing a vancouver archer
2. annex enemy capital
3. annex cs- took vancouver right at the start of age 3. I wanted one of the cs with a religious NW, but vancouver was most convenient.
4. rifleman- no problem
5. I used oxford to get combustion to open modern era
6. ironclads- no problem, and I even used them to kill some japanese and ottoman wooden ships
7. Mercury:
8. Sea Lion: amphibious rifleman!
9. White:
10. Yellow:

That was my first time playing Germany, and I'd say it went very well. It was different than my normal games because I went for radar, combined arms, and rocketry all before plastics, so I did not max out science early with labs.

I just did a 2 city tradition start, taking Vancouver and Marrakesh fairly early. Once I got Marrakesh it was easy.

During the First or Second Age
1. The Spear Men: Kill any unit with a Spear man


First Reich, during Age 3 or 4
2. Holy Roman Empire: Annex an enemy capital

3. Teutonic Knights: Annex a City State


Second Reich: before the Modern era begins
4. Mobilization: Rush buy 10 riflemen. (Big Ben + Mercantilism + Mobilization = 290 gold per Rifleman)
5. Schlieffen Plan: Connect all your cities by rail. (Reached Modern Era with Railroad)
6. Risk Fleet: Buy or build 6 Ironclads.


Third Reich: during the Modern & beyond
7. Operation Mercury: Capture an enemy capital with a paratrooper.

8. Operation Sea Lion: Capture an enemy capital with an amphibious promo unit.

9. Case White: Capture an enemy capital with a Panzer.

10. Case Yellow: Capture the last enemy capital with a Panzer.

Opened 2-city Tradition
Morocco hated me early game for stealing a worker and forward settling him. He built a lot of units. Morocco and Japan looked like they were about to attack me, but they never did. I fortified a few swordsmen at choke points to block their troops. After sending one Caravan to one of his cities, Ahmad instantly became friendly and asked for A DoF. I accepted. Since I knew everyone would hate me for annexing a CS later on, I backstabbed him. (I guess I should have went for an allied CS to a DoW'd civ like someone suggested here.)

In my game, everyone hated pretty much everyone and everyone had multiple duplicate luxuries available. I think I saw only one DoF (except mine) the whole game. Pretty much all AIs went for Liberty, making a lot of cities to go past to reach the capitals and had large armies. I stayed a very long time in the Industrialization era to be sure to complete all Ironclads in time. I had 1 turn left to Electricity, 1 turn left to Railroad and a few turns left to Flight. I also had to unstaff some science specialists. Coal was also hard to come by, making it necessary to ally Budapest thus reducing my bank and my ability to rush buy Ironclads.

First time using Panzers in a game. I really underestimated them at first, going with a slow artillery + infantry push. I could have most certainly improved my turn to victory, by not upgrading the riflemen and simply going mass Panzers. Lightning Warfare Panzers with Clausewitz are unstoppable with pillage-healing. A few can easily take down a 100 def city in a few turns all alone without support. My game had one surprise moment when Indonesia who had went Freedom and was left with only its capital and 0 army spawned Foreign Legions at the last moment. I had already moved my main army elsewhere. They almost killed one of my artillery. (I don't understand why you able to attack in the same turn you adopt the policy. In my opinion, it should be the same as rush bought units: one turn of inactivity.) After taking Jakarta, I DoW'd Denmark on the same turn and crushed all his units, haha.

3 city liberty start, soon conquer neighbors to get 7 cities, turtle afterwards until industrial era and started conquest of remaining civs. Near total conquest as only 2 ai cities survived. No AI is even close to my tech rate after Renaissance. No sign of AI aircraft even after they entered modern era, which was odd since warmonger AI usually beeline flight.

1. The Spear Men: Kill any unit with a Spear man:
Killed barb hand-axe in classical era. Donated spearman and most other converted barb units.

2. Holy Roman Empire: Annex an enemy capital:
Annex Marrakech during Medieval, T137, with XB army

3. Teutonic Knights: Annex a City State:
Annex Budapest for extra NW during Renaissance, T159
Donated most XB afterwards except for a few range upgraded.

4. Mobilization: Rush buy 10 riflemen: Done

5. Schlieffen Plan: Cross to Modern with Rail Road: Done

6. Risk Fleet: Buy or build 6 Ironclads: Done

These are extremely easy with a huge conquered empire with full commerce + Big Ben + autocracy. Donated most riflemens after getting tanks, and upgraded ironclads to destroyers to capture coastal cities. No need for battleships.

7. Operation Mercury: Capture an enemy capital with a paratrooper:
T303 Atomic Capture Istanbul with paratrooper

8. Operation Sea Lion: Capture an enemy capital with an amphibious promo unit:
T259 Modern Capture Kyoto with amphibious rifleman

9. Case White: Capture an enemy capital with a Panzer:
T269 Atomic Capture Carthage with panzer

10. Case Yellow: Capture the last enemy capital with a Panzer:
T304 Atomic Capture Copenhagen with panzer

Need of paratrooper delayed victory by a lot due to having to get some of the upper tech, thus having to build labs. Obviously can be done quicker by using only panzer army and GWB for support. None of the AI managed to build any form of air defense, possibly due to lack of oil as I controlled most of the oil near the end.

In my game, Morocco were weak and pious and had almost no military and only had one expo which was NW of their cap, making conquest really easy. I was even a chum and liberated them for points. I think it's a waste to not get a religion on this map since there's 3 religious city states around which means a really quick and guaranteed DF. That with Tithe and Pagodas can get a really strong religion that makes your economy and happiness really good throughout