The Immortal Challenge Lineup - Game #4 - Arabia

Argh, managed to pull (to me) an amazing start, then my computer died. Went to Best Buy for a gaming laptop as a stop-gap, tried to download Firefox, but ended up with all kinds of malware 10 minutes after turning it on. I hate computers!
Spoiler :
I settled the gold SE and got a second city SE of gems SW of cap and bought Uluru when I could. Had all kinds of good ruins, pop immediately! Got a late ruin 4 tiles from Persia's cap, WTF?

First pantheon Desert Folklore, obviously. First religion, took Tithe and Pagodas, enhanced after 1st spread with Holy Warriors and Itin Preachers. Have sparse experience with HW, faith bought 3-4 Chariot Archers to go with my core 5 CB's, one a Scout upgrade, plus Warrior, Spear, Scout and late Horsey and CB. After building Petra I built the Market building and got more trades. Decided I absolutely had to try to take Zulu down, saw him reach Ren - perfect time to DOW and start NC and a 3rd Settler! :crazyeye:

Had bribed Assyria vs Zulu 1st time, waste of money, no skirmish. Later Shaka came at my CS Ally to the E with a GG, so I bribed him vs Assyria. DOW'd him after I saw his units move somewhere, and planned to try to mow him down as they crossed the river from the NE. Except he took CS in 2-3 turns and went - somewhere. Meanwhile I had inched my way NE and took a sweet satellite with tons of bronze, and 3-4 turns later had his cap, LOL.

Full Tradition and Piety opener... I don't know if I can recreate it - when I thought I would get crushed he was sending Settlers W, and workers into the drink. I captured like 4 workers - he had 3 cities left and 3 Impis visible. I was probably going to make peace then later liberate the CS and take E coastal city leaving him up the creek after I got Camel Archers (have never used them). Now I don't know if I want to replay...
And now my HDMI link to a large monitor quit working - I hate computers!


Can't you just admit you got beat? ;)
 
Spoiler :
Attempting CV, up to turn150 ugh I am having so many problems this game; mostly related to lack or horses, if I had enough horses I'd be in great shape. Settled on the gems for the early growth developed a second city on the horses to the west. I could never get Shaka to a white peace so that has been a slow burning war, and then Darius and Assur Double Dowed me. Regarding policies and religion I hit a culture ruin early so I went straight Piety Desert Folklore, Tithe, Pagodas, Divine Inspiration, Religious Texts and Glory to the gods as a reformation. I've taken cities but can never hold them.
 
Spoiler :

Some thoughts:

I actually did not get Desert Folklore even though i tried for it.

I had a great time taking over the continent with my Camel Archers. After that I settled down and tried for a science win. A cultural might have been faster because at that time the leader was only around 6K. I could have gone to Museums while my Camels swam over to beat down the culture leader. I would have had tons of artifacts.

Instead, I filled my science slots so I would spawn GS which I always bulbed. I had only spawned 1 or 2 great people up to that point, I believe. I took Order with Skyscrapers and rush bought all the science buildings then I rush bought Factories. I used all my Faith (+100 per turn) to stockpile Engineers which I had 4 or 5 by the end. I bulbed a few wonders too like Kremlin and Hubble.

I won Worlds Fair and worked on Rationalism/Order together.

In the end I over shot science and even miss clicked a GE to finish a Stadium with 2 turns left. Doh! A GE will finish the spaceship part but there may be turns left to go depending on how many hammers the city makes.

But the basic strategy of pre-industrial continent clear, then switch gear to all out wide science after ideology looks promising.


Thanks for posting this map. Arabia is in the top 3 civs I think.

 
Going for an OCC culture win with this amazing start.

to t195
Spoiler :

I like Empires! Big ones! But for some Friday evening fun a simple OCC sounds about right.

Rules:
-Culture VC
-No Settlers
-Any cities conquered or acquired in trade must be razed. Capitals must be traded on the turn they are captured.

Hey, I want some camel fun if I'm playing Arabia :lol:

DF (first Pantheon), obviously going for Petra. Added the Hanging Gardens along the way in classic greedy style. Didn't finish until turn 76 which seems late to me, but I usually avoid Petra, so what do I know?

Petra done:



I've been fighting Shaka to keep his cities far away. There will be an Impi pause, I'm sure.

Missed Oracle and Chichen Itza by 2 turns, sadly. Built many more :)

Very slow WC due to Ramses off in a corner.

At t195 I've just used Oxford for Radio (Freedom). Really slow for a standard game - no Idea how it holds up in OCC world.

t195 land (camels are south harassing Darius)



Inside the city. Unseen wonders are Borobudur, HG, Grand Temple, East India, and themed Globe.



I think tech is about to slow down dramatically, but I'll have the New Deal in 4 turns.

Any comments on how to win from here?
 
Olodune, you have already taken Freedom, so I think you would have to spam a bunch of musicians since you cant trade with the civs across the ocean. You don't have much tourism going at the moment. How much culture does the leader have?
 
@budweiser; to t233

Spoiler :

Yeah, I think the biggest challenge is that, because of my camels messing with Shaka and Darius, open borders are a bit of a problem; along with no trade routes. (I avoided the killing blow on both, but no peace prize winner here).

Tourism is beginning to accumulate.

I think I might sink 2.5k Faith into two more academies. Make sense?

Mecca



Eqypt is the current culture leader, but not very scary yet.



I have the global hammer (??) and tech lead.

I might go after Askia.

One more slot for an artifact/artwork - it will be full in a couple turns. 15 slots.
 
Olodune -
Spoiler :
I think you want to spend Faith on Musicians. Its time to bust out the Electric Camel Drums. You should finish up Aesthetics. Do you have World Religion going for you?

Don't forget a Hotel :)

I have my save from t215 and I think tonight I will replay it from there for Culture. T215 was right when the Wrolds' Fair resolution was passed and before my ideology.
 
@budweiser
Spoiler :

I think you want to spend Faith on Musicians. Its time to bust out the Electric Camel Drums. You should finish up Aesthetics. Do you have World Religion going for you?

- I will want musicians, yes. Maybe 3 from faith ... I also want to get to NVC in a somewhat timely fashion. No world religion. Late WC so only passed culture from wonders (since I have plenty and its easy to pass). I want Landmarks, but I didn't propose it since it would anger everyone. World Ideology: Freedom is currently on the table -> hoping that might get a few adopters for tourism modifiers.

- Filled Trad/Rati. 3 in Freedom. Exploration Open (Louvre). 2 Aesthetics - filling this is the next goal. It will be fast.

Don't forget a Hotel

- I wanted Labs first. Soon :) (Edit: Lab, singular).

I have my save from t215 and I think tonight I will replay it from there for Culture. T215 was right when the Wrolds' Fair resolution was passed and before my ideology.

:)


 
So I restarted on my new laptop - hasn't gone nearly as well.
Spoiler :
Missed DF by 1 turn (first time I think I worked gold a few turns to finish Shrine sooner). Missed Petra by 4 turns. Still don't have Education, so terrible science. Darius is a dick, Assyria has been doing nothing, both DOW'd me a while ago, killed some Persian units near Medina. Assyria is now friendly because of mutual Zulu war and even got a DOF, but that will disappear, obviously. Askia lukewarm since I DOW'd Zulu a 2nd time and wiped him out. After the 1st war (t75ish), I had to block 2 settlers trying to expand in my desert for 20 turns. Got Nobamba in 1st peace after taking Umgung_. Now sailing W to see who/what I meet.


So I'm back to Wide Tradition, LOL. Will have 2 deep in Piety soon. Taoism has Tithe, Pagodas, Itin Preachers and Mosques.

I have never played Arabia, I can't believe how strong Camel Archers are - kill Impis in 3 or so shots instead of 5 for XBs it seems...

 

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Camel archers seems ridiculous. You can never take damage from cities, move - shot - move back.

When they get logistic and range ....
 
t293 OCC CV

Spoiler :

No more academies - bulbing is definitely better unless the game lasts well past t300.

Tech was slow looking and then I remembered that policy in Patronage that I generally think is weak ... not so when I only have 1 city. The Scholasticism jump from ~10 allies:



There has been talk of whether this tenant contributes to Scientist bulbs. It does not. I've been plateau'ed for roughly 10 turns here:



Finally made it to Internet. (Also Ashurbanipal finally got around to stealing a tile. I would be annoyed if there was anything left to build.)



Plentiful musicians are ready at t285 - now they just need to take a long swim to Egypt. (I left Egypt intact. A few others may have fallen to camels.)

t293 victory



Thoughts

- Petra is silly. And good.

- I should have gone to Scholasticism immediately after Free Thought. For an OCC that is a very strong tenant. The AI has very willing to help train my spies in Mecca :)

- It was fun to build things I normally avoid: NIA, Hospital, Medical Lab, and the CN Tower. With the NIA even replacement spies are recruited at rank 2! That is actually fairly good.

- Tourism peak of 659 without World Religion, Airport or Int. Games. Plenty high.

 
Why didn't you settle next to mountain for OCC ?

I won a CV T228 on this one, nothing fancy just had to wait longer than necessary due to egypt not wanting borders and not having a coastal city :( And I didn't want to bomb him because I was tired.

Killed two players with camels for fun (assyria and songhai (runaway)). Too lazy to give more details :p

Spoiler :


Good map.
 
I did tried to go for a CV but Egypt sniped all the wonders because i did not build them early enough.

So i did a 268 DV.

Spoiler :
Games was fairly easy. I did settle on spot to get more from the river for the capital. I was able to steal double worker in one turn from shaka...

Spoiler :


I got about 10 ruins (just wtf Immortal scouting) with 3 pop, 3 culture and a faith ruin to get the DF pantheon and i was the firrst to found a religion with this (+ Uluru)

I did build petra as everybody else but i was quite slow and did only build 1 city before building petra. And i did not have a library in my capital so i build a caravan instead of a 2nd settler to spead up Petra beeline.

Spoiler :


Due to not having cities early up i did have a late Education and i did not want to fight a war in this game to make it a bit harder because Camel Archers are just too OP. (Did acheive no DoW throughout whole game.)

After T100 i was tech leader and i was able to redirect the Shaka aggression somewhere else the whole game and i was not paying attention to a very fast finishing time...

Spoiler :


I found egypt very late so the founding of WC was ultra-late too but i could win WF it (basically doing the WF on my own with 1800 hammers) but still tech pathing was slow. Did not hit plastic up to T210. (Only had 3 cities because i was too lazy to found more...)

Spoiler :


After not getting some key wonders for CV i did choose to at least get the "Loosing my Marbles" achievement because Shaka had a big enough territory but it did work... I did excavate 5 Artifacts from his territory (even though not all artifcats were zulu) but nothing -.-.
I even build a 4th city because i had no enough slots for 5 artifacts before...

Then i decided to just end the game and did bulb everything into Globalization and wating for World leader vote.

Spoiler :


Anyway very easy map due to imba start, imba civ and no runaway potential

 
Why didn't you settle next to mountain for OCC ?

Spoiler :

- I didn't see the wheat on turn 1. Putting both Oasis in the 3rd ring is risky, I think - Especially since I can't build a settler early to wait for food tiles.

- I wanted DF and Petra as top priorities. I don't know what the AI Petra timing is like on Immortal. If I can both and the mountain it would be better, agreed.
 
I for example did not short about 5 turns, because i went construction before bee-lining currency.

But what one can do when one planing early conquest?
 
It starts to be a little too many things to get early. It's either Petra or CB in my opinion or you end up with a very late NC.

However, this map had a lot of horses and wheel is a prerequisite for Petra, you could attempt a chariot attack instead of CB. Your units can then transition to camels too.
 
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