The Immortal Challenge Lineup - Game #4 - Arabia

Killed my continent to turn 210, got bored)

I very rarely go domination and this is actually my 1st domination win on Immortal or Deity (7+ civs) Pretty fun map, godlike spot for capital. Managed to get petra and a few other important wonders. Started by killing Shaka, then Assyria and Persia. Moved on to Egypt as they had many wonders and seemed like they could runaway. After that pretty straightforward - Askia and then finish Babylon and Carthage with nukes already.


Wonders in the capital:
petra, pichu, pisa, eiffel, kremlin, forbidden palace, hubble, neuschwanstein, pentagon

Policies: Tradition, Full rationalism, patronage opener and Order up to 3rd level. I probably had to take some policies from Honor but I didn't. Had some minor happiness problems when Egypt and babylon adopted policies but later on Order passed the vote.


Religion: Got one early (thanks desert folklore) , bought mosques in 4 major cities and after that I think 3GE and 2GS.

I'm going to be honest, I had to restart my first game. I underestimated how aggressive Shaka would be. The first game I got DoW'd at turn 60 when I only had 2 Archers and a Spearman. He never captured any cities but it was a long war and he just razed all my land and I couldn't improve anything so I gave up at turn 100.

Now, the second play-through is going a whole lot better. I settled on the Gold next to the mountain and went the Tradition Tree. I was able to snag 2 workers from City States and got 1 from a Barbarian encampment. This made everybody mad at me and I got double DoW'd on turn 45 by Shaka and Darius. Darius was to far away to do anything and I had built a couple of Archers so I dispatched of Shaka's troops quickly. I did not manage to snag Desert Folklore (missed it by 2 turns, I guess it's retribution for restarting because in the first game I did get Desert Folklore), but I did manage to get Petra around turn 85. Assyria also DoW'd me around turn 80 but I had plenty of Archers and a Chariot Archer to back me up, and he could only come in through a small choke-point so he couldn't do much. Around turn 100 I got some GPT from Shaka and Darius for peace, and a White Peace with Assyria. I got Education very late (turn 125), I don't understand how you guys get it so fast. Assyria and Shaka have been at war for about 30 turns and have been hacking away at each other. Just finished building up some Camel Archers and I'm ready to take over somebody soon. Stopped at turn 150 for now. Pretty fun game. How am I doing so far?

Not much of a plan at first but something less exhaustive than the Byzantium would be preferrable. Liberty as I still try to avoid Tradition and Petra try out with DF & then we'll cook something. If Petra misses at least there'll be early bazaars. Hammer Rabbi once suggested a wonder free challenge but with Petra it doesn't quite work out so avoiding NC should work and Tabarnak back in time fiddled a game without Writing which didn't seem plausible on Continents but one could surely do without science buildings of anysort. We also keep away from Workshops, Gardens and National Wonders apart from Guilds. As long as there're Camels the world will kneel but let's not build Chariots.

Settled on site as Observatory was a no go and didn't want to go any further from the Oases. T2 Culture ruin & T6 Pottery so scout-shrine BO which delayed the free settler somewhat.
T19 stole Shaka's worker despite of planning to keep trading partners but a war with neighbouring Shaka is inevitable so why not take another one few turns later but he managed to settle few cities so I made T42 peace with him to keep my frontline city safe for few turns. There'll be plenty of time to war but CSs were left in peace.
Ruins map revelealed Vatican City early but when Askia said hello ~T55 I made rech detour for sailing & bought a trireme in hope of meeting others.

Also since I did miss the SS play with Japan earlier I decided to go for it now but without declaring wars or capturing a city and remove Musician's Guild from the list as Tradition, Honor, Patronage, Rationalism & Aesthetics from available policy trees - hopefully the game will be over before Ideologies and no Indys will be used. I hope that I can avoid the WC resolutions' help, too.

T59 first religion, T68 Currency, T77 Enhancing so I got Mosques & Pagodas which should be sufficient. Liberty left at filling the left side & heading for Piety.




T82 Petra ready. I had no clue at which point it'd go as I never try to hard build it, sadly the last Civ was still hiding somewhere.




T94 Pyramids in Medina, T96 Oracle, T114 HS and T116 SS still available, goodie - let the tourism roll.
T124 exceptionally late Civil S and missed Borobudur to Darius - not that I needed it but I'd prefer that he did have it either as he's annoying enough already. I've paid Shaka 3 times against Hammu and once against Darius but that doesn't prevent Persian prophets and missionaries to keep on converting Shaka's cities & nearby CSs.
My caravans are going to Shaka as I want him not to DoW me and I really need those cities converted.

T133 Darius went Renaissance and I sent the spy to Carthage in hope of Astronomy (-line techs). I'm not too far off the general pace but that's nothing to celebrate - still 11 turns away from Camels when the World could already be mine.
T139 G Admiral for Liberty finisher as I need to find the last culprit. T141 somebody started stealing from me while I still have 11 turns of waiting ahead of me. Needless to say but Carthage is producing more than twice the beakers of Mecca by a hefty margin.

T150 found the very lazy Egyptians as a turn later I was the 1st to discover Mogadishu on same land mass 11 tiles from the capital.

At this point it seems that I'll be bending my rules a bit by doing some conquering but I'll start that after only after one civ is influential which should be in 10-20 turns. Without any wars this will take ages and I'm not too keen on with a 100 turn clickfest.

I choose to settle on the gold hill next to the mountain. Inspired from recent LP from Acken http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=13432796#post13432796 I decided to try and get Petra, which I did successfully by turn 84 or 85. NC was built after it and I lost Oracle by 2 turns. I only built a second city as I believed I would get a couple more from inevitable war with Shaka and Assyria.



I bribed Shaka in a war versus Valletta to so the others would start dislike him and then bribed him in wars versus Assyria and Persia. I also bribed Persia in a war versus Assyria, thus Assyria had to be friendly with me else he would face a war from three sides. Shaka slowly become friendlier and after a turn in mid game I had constant DoF with him even though we had different Ideologies. Expect a 10 turn fake war versus Assyria to please Zulu I was in peace all game.

Income gold was more than abundant. I bought many buildings and key city states. Production was focused on wonders and some army units or buildings. Happiness also was plenty. I also managed to get Desert Folklore and a good religion that covered most of the continent. Science was a bit limited with two cities and was the key factor for that late turn win. I used Oxford for Radio and Rationalism finisher for Internet (needed 15 turns for it).

Culture also was abundant in this game so I got a lot of social policies. Started with full Tradition and then I got full Aesthetics, full Rationalism, almost full order and a dip in Mercantilism.

Screenshot just before National Visitor Center is constructed

Persia had the highest culture from the AI. He also had a lot of happiness and I never managed to get more than him. Zulus were totally useless and could not capture his last city (capital) so at the end I remembered to buy two Musicians to bomb Persia and not wait even more.


Persepolis and totally useless Zulu army. You can also see the musician getting ready for the final event and some of his colleagues walking to Persepolis if i need it more.


Demographics

T152 stole Education from Dido which must be some sort of personal record and opened Exploration.
T159 first influential civ is slightly beaten down Assyria even though Shaka's war effort is half-hearted at best. Darius sends his new hybrid unit Immortal Missionaries everywhere with far too much success; not that I'm short of faith but it's still annoying.





Western part of the invasion 'force' waiting Astronomy to sail, settle & convert Egypt. The Eastern group is even smaller but essentially for the same purpose. Most of my time went dodging the freakin' Persians.




T168 settled Aden and Rammy really wasn't keen on exploration. Clearing a camp and returning a worker made me insta ally with Mogadishu and the island ruins gave a warmly welcomed lancer as I only had one horseman for capturing after an accidental upgrade. Rammy also was guarded from the start so war looked like the easiest solution.





T173 influental with Shaka, T176 Askia & T177 Dido and things looked fine. T175 Acoustics but missed Sistine to Egyptian engineer so I justifiably stole Banking from him T178. Shaka was rolling on the floor laughing at my military so I paid him to DoW Darius instead and DoWed Rammy T180. Bought Kabul away from him but couldn't afford Byblos so obviously Kabul's whales got pillaged by Byblos caravel 2 turns into the war. Rammy's small army was hugging Heliopolis and navy ice locked near Memphis which I had to capture twice to keep it and get the Sistine.




The Babs weren't easy to influence even with few extra cities. I really wasn't anybody's bff but I didn't want wars but I prepared for capturing Babylon. 3 luxes & 250 gpt wasn't enough for OB so I had to keep on converting his cities which wasn't as straight forward as one expects.
I bribed Dido ages ago to attack Babylon but more soldiers died of old age than in battle. I kept on converting Akkad & Babylon but he then swapped one of them back to Catholicism until he run out of units so then came the Songhai Islamists to help so T207 I bribed Askia to DoW Nebby and occupied bordering tiles to prevent easy crossing. Akkad still turned few times to Islam without visible units like did Babylon until I converted Dur-Kurigalzu from Islam for good, too.
The Babylonian prophet in the pic is an Islamic one as it kept Islam the major religion but the next one was Catholic again. Much easier just to kill everyone than to mess with these but I wanted at least nearly peaceful solution.






T195 Darius founded WC, T201 influential with Persia, T216 Shaka was 1st to hit Industrial, T217 wiped off Rammy and T219 influential with Babylon.
All the dmg to Babylon was done in last two turns when Dido finally realised that when in attack mode moving troops beyond own borders is good. Shaka apparently wiped Hammu off the map too but I didn't even notice it.


I kept the original rules apart from wiping out Egypt - wasn't DoWed once. Later in the game I ran out of buildings to build so my Army was more than capable of destroying Shaka with ease even when it was spread out on three continents. 3 GGs were spawn and none of them anywhere near where the action was.

Left side of Liberty, Piety to SS, Liberty filled, 3 in Exploration, Piety filled and the last in Exploration. GWs were bulbed, 3 GAs created but all left as spectators until the end and one accidental GE planted near Medina. Annexed Thebes & Memphis to sell workshops & Unis and to buy Pagodas & Mosques. Allied with most of the CSs but more early culture would've been nice.
Not the proper way to do SS by far but still demonstrates the power of it - it's practically a VC on it's own.

Tech rate was understandably slower than ever before but it also kept the faith buy prices cheap. The early settlement didn't cater true ICS as it was an afterthought but I could've still settled few more cities but I also wanted to stay in peace as much as possible and I spawned few extra prophets to keep on converting Babylonian cities. I ended up with 26 cities and apart from two, I think, all had both Pagoda & Mosque.

Incredibly stupid map. And easy for victory though beside the map that has something to do with being Harun. Egypt really didn't have much of chance to begin with, 2nd continent isn't large enough while the Arab start was excellent for everything.
Askia visited me ~T55, Babs never did as they didn't have an early coastal city so my trireme missed them on first sail-by and Dido wasn't anxious going abroad on sea or on land and left several excellent city spots unused.

For a good thing the game was much shorter than the other challenges.

After taking out Shaka in view of Askia, he stayed really nasty all game, even after he followed me into Order. Plus he took out a CS ally of mine late game, huh? Mega Denouncements. 3 wars with Persia, never lost a unit - at one point I had a CA upgrade a late ruin to Cavalry, so I brought him across the ocean back to the front and he barely got a scratch fighting every turn. Took a southern city in peace, but it was very food poor - in retrospect I should have razed and resettled the coast, but it was so full of buildings I didn't. I don't recall Assyria ever DOWing me - he went full Liberty and didn't get his 2nd city up for like 130 turns. Didn't build any wonders. Probably never engaged Shaka even with 2 wars. Then he went Freedom, which for some reason seems funny to me.

I did contemplate a CV once I diverged from strict SV path for Navigation and Archeology - I had 10 Landmarks, and passed Historical Landmarks. With Hotels/Airports it would have been strong. I had burned all my GW and GA, and never built any Amphi-line bldgs until like t270.

I proposed WF first, which is pretty standard. I got Ideology the same turn as the next vote, proposed World Ideology-Order, and passed it with help by buying votes from Egypt (Autocracy, only other civ with an Ideology) and Persia. It's pretty OP when you get your Ideology passed, and so with crap for tourism you apply pressure.

The AI teched horribly - past t150 or so I only saw one DOF and 0 RA's. I never got a Friendly out of Dido or Neb who both went Order, although both suggested DOF's.

I was super-late with free techs, Oxforded Adv Ballistics t270 and Rat finished Nanotechnology t275. Burned all my faith GEs on wonders, saved Hubble GE for what should have been last part, but realized I forgot I could faith buy GS's because of late Rat finisher - doh! So had to wait 6 turns for the last part to finish in an expo.

Finished with 2,123 bpt which is probably my highest ever. Good ol' wide Tradition! I can't even imagine if I hadn't lost my first game with the computer dying and had Petra. Had Mosques and Pagodas, so SS would have been interesting.

For a starting location, I chose the mountain observatory location. The initial game plan was either domination, or possibly diplomatic victory, because of the Bazaar. This was an obvious Petra location, so the initial tech plan was pottery, mining, animal husbandry, and then straight up to currency.

After discovering both Assyria and Shaka, I decided to settle away from Assyria and toward Shaka, although Uluru was tempting. The reason was to take out Shake early, but also to avoid Siege towers. I got Petra somewhere in the 70s, and then conquered Ulundi on Turn 80 with Chariot Archers. This produced some diplomatic hate from Assyria, which eventually faded, but a long-term issue with Persia. Fortunately, the other AIs were unmet, so no diplomatic penalties there. Initial social policies were Tradition.

Education was T115, so my tech rate was a little bit slow.



At Education, I decided it had been a LONG time since I went diplomatic victory, to the point where I was not even sure what the game mechanics were any longer. At first, I could not remember if you had to hard-build the UN in BNW or not. So, I needed to consult the Civilopedia. I also wanted to try out the mechanics of the Arsenal of Democracy social policy. The mid-game was mainly wonder building, to boost culture, so Sistine, Pisa, Forbidden Palace, Big Ben, Porcelain, and Eiffel. Gold was pretty high, so I purchased most of my science buildings. Mid-game social policies were Secularism, Philanthropy, Consulates, and Scholasticism. Used Oxford to bulb Plastics.

The game was an obvious victory after Shaka was de-fanged, so it was a wait until the real fun, Arsenal of Democracy. Ideology choice was freedom, all the way down to Treaty organization. A large Petra city with Statue of Liberty can build a lot of units, and the plan was to pump them out, gaining influence with city states in the process. Fortunately, Shaka re-built from the ashes and became all buddy-buddy with Darius. They both DOWed me around T200. The perfect opportunity, as I was just getting into the fun part of the Tech Tree, Rifles through Infantry. I gifted all the obsolete units I had in favor of the foreign legion via Volunteer Army.



The obsolete, but experienced units, produced minor results in the hands of city states (I had to assist them a bit), but rifles started to make a difference, and then full WWII Infantry propelled the city states into super power status. Like the AI, they are not particularly smart with units, but if you gave them melee units, they sort of knew what to do. The initial gifted units indicated that for whatever reason Kathmandu and Samarkand were truly aggressive, going way outside their borders to seek out Shaka, whereas Kuala Lumpur was a bit more cautious. So, it was decided, more gifts to Kathmandu and Samarkand !



First Nobomba was conquered, and then Nongoma, Bulawayo, and finally Kwadukuza. Pretty good for a pair of city states. I was hoping one of them would actually keep these conquered cities as puppets, but they were all burned. Oh poor, poor Shaka…ultimately destroyed by the city states that he once pushed around. I was cheerleading the whole time. There did not seem to be a diplomatic penalty for an allied city state conquering a city. After all, I might be laughing my ass off in Mecca while enjoying the show, but it wasn’t me actually conquering the cities, or razing them to the ground. Or was it?



Next, it was time to have a little fun with Persia, while I waited for the World Leader vote. Sure, a de-fanged Shaka is one thing, but the 60-70 defense cities of points-leader Persia? That is asking a lot of a city state. To my surprise, Kathmandu and Samarkand tag-teamed Assur, which Persia had previously captured from Assyria (I might have played a small, indirect part in that). Since this was a former capital, Samarkand could not burn it down and made a puppet instead, giving me the luxury resources. Oddly, when I checked the victory progress screen, it reported that Assyria had not built a Capital city. Huh? By this point, I was gifting land ships, artillery, and bombers. As the game ended, both city states were aggressively seeking out more conquest and glory, in the rich lands of Persia. These two were kicking butt. Points leader, huh? Then how come Persia was offering me crazy peace deals to get Samarkand back on its leash?



I got a religion at some point and picked Tithe, but for some unknown reason, I never actually enhanced it. The Arsenal policy was a lot of fun, in a spectator mode sort of way. I had scouts in the vicinity to see all the action, so that I could see all the blunders and triumphs of my city states. The units would have done a lot better in human hands, but that would have created diplomatic penalties and associated maintenance costs. Plus, not nearly as fun.

Alright, that was a lot harder than Emperor. I don't know if it was just because I'm new to Immortal, or if I just zoned out past turn 200, but either way my finish time was incredibly slow, way worse than a lot of my Emperor games. But I pulled through and won an Science Victory. I managed to take Nineveh and Assur from Assyria. I also pinned Shaka and Darius with war at with each other for the rest of the game to prevent them from killing me. I went Freedom, which I regret because everybody else went Order except for Shaka who went Autocracy, and got a ton of unhappiness and it really hurt me. Pretty much in eternal unhappiness despite being allied with all Mercantile city states. I almost lost to Egypt, they had all but the S.S. Engine complete, so a couple more turns and I would have lost. Overall, it was pretty fun, but the eternal unhappiness really screwed me, not to mention that I couldn't get any Research Agreements because everybody hated me. Oh well, at least I won my first Immortal game .

Had to rush a Settler and go to settle near Ulurru -- seems like that was the only way to get a fast religion and enhance for Pagodas and Mosques. Because I bought those tiles, I did not have money for CB's, so I just went for Petra. But Petra into CB's is a little bit too much when Shaka rushes into Medieval...

Speaking of which. I stole a worker from Shaka and we never made peace until my Camel Archers started taking his cities. I made peace with him 3 times for favorable deals, but eliminated him at the end. Looks like Shaka needs to be CB rushed asap, or else he is going to have Impis and eat your units like there is not tomorrow. Thankfully, Camel Archers are so op that they were able to deal with Impis easily.

Persia was running away, and I bribed him to DoW Assyria, which he eliminated, so my job was not too difficult, but I did need Artillery to take Persepolis behind a mountain and hill range. After taking out Persia, I was still nowhere close to reaching a CV, so I had to band up with Dido and kill Egypt -- keeping juicy Thebes and Memphis to myself. Then Dido coveted my lands, and we had a 7-turn war, which ended in her taking one crappy Egpytian city from me (I kept it only for Great Barrier Reef -- which, apparently, was not even in its border range, as it still belonged to me after she captured the city) and a plain peace deal. Then I just won International Games and sat there waiting for her to give in, but she used writers or something, and her culture was always jumping up. Besides, there were all those culture resolutions she passed with her Patronage approach.

All in all, a pretty long game. Most of it was played suboptimally, and if I didn't have camel archers, I would have probably failed.

I also had so much faith that I had over 12 holy sites.