SSE / WEe Walkthrough -- Insane Series (Ghandi)

SSE / WE Walkthrough -- Insane Series (Ghandi)


Leader:: Ghandi
Level:: Immortal



Looking back now at the past, I see I didn’t quite do an Insane walkthrough yet for Ghandi, so now that I have some little time during the holidays I decided to give him a chance. I still haven’t had time to tinker with all the new features in BtS, and at the start of this game I had just installed the newest patch for it, and as you’ll see it also gave me a few surprises. This all leads me to concluded that I’m still not yet ready to do a Deity walkthrough until I get all these quirks figured out one way or another.

And now…. Let’s get down to business!


I am liking Ghandi more and more all the time, though I used to hate him in Vanilla. His starting techs are one of the best out there, and his other traits make a strong combo for these tuff levels.

But keep in mind…



Disclaimer: This strategy is for experts only!

That means…

If you need to lightbulb…
If you need to cottage spam…
If you don’t know what SE means…
If you can’t handle a 2-continents map…
Etc… etc… etc…

Then this strategy is not for you.







Some Past Walkthroughs indexed here::

BtS
The Insane Walkthrough (HC)

WarLords
The Insane Walkthrough (Ramesses)
The Unreal Walkthrough (Ramesses)
The Unreal Walkthrough (Part II Ghandi)
The Impossible Walkthrough (Ramesses)
The Impossible Walkthrough (Part II Ghandi)

…

4000 BC

Our starting spot doesn’t look too bad. Grass/hills are great, as can be improved as soon as a worker is built, which should take me about 15 turns (less when settled on hills/plains) and then I’m off. Unfortunately, it seems the river is cut off on the exact same tile my settler is. But if I move my settler off, I will probably end up messing my starting point even worse and also lose vital time, so I don’t want to risk it (but that can be arguable). And the floodplains I don’t like, they add unhealthiness and do not contribute to production. Also they simply can not be improved early so all in all, I’d replace those tiles if I could. Of course, a lot of newbs think the world of floodplains but we know better.

3800 BC

We met Saladin. He’s not a guy I trust that much.
-ni

3360 BC

We met Hannibal. Another guy I don’t trust at all. Oh boy who rigged this game?
-ni

2920 BC
When our culture expanded, we had a very nice gift. A stone resource was right inside our radius. Usually I have to make an early settler and move out to grab that early (usually settling on the stone and/or river to connect cities quick), but in this case I get to save some important turns, so I will be free-rolling a bit in the early years here. That is, assuming I change my normal order of teching, etc.

In order to take advantage of the stone, I decided to delay bronzeworking, and instead go first for my Quarry tech, then I could get the 2x bonus for Stone-Fence and apply it to some others. The extra hammers from the Quarry is also nice here.

Note: When mining grassland/hills, always try to choose the one on the river first. It’s 1 extra commerce only, but every bit helps in the tuffer games.

2600 BC
After our great run with the Stone-Fence, we now have the Great-Hall ready for completion. The screenshot may look a bit weird because I am not actively working any hammers except for the free 2 from the city. This is fine because right now we really want to grow up population. The production is coming from chopping, which is why we went after BronzeWorking ASAP. And now, we are after Polytheism to make a run for the Orca. It’s a small gambit risk as we may NOT get it, but you will make it often enough to make the run worth a gamble. I plan to get Polytheism anyhow, so we might as well do it while the payoff is big.

2240 BC
GreatProphet pops (Meditation?) No thanks, put him to work inside the capital.
-ni

2160 BC
We met a female leader from Egypt. She’s not one I ever worry about.
-ni

2000 BC
I also chopped a bit to rush out a settler. I did this because settlers really suck resources out from your production. Not only do they take hammer production, but they prevent growth at the same time. So it was better to use forests to hurry them up and get them along. Normally I hate to waste precious trees, especially before mathematics comes along, but on Immortal we have to be QUICK. We need to get our expansion out too, and speed of everything is important. The faster the settler is out, the faster we can get to our wonders, etc.

I’m going to settle that city here, it is at the optimum distance from our capital, and has some pigs, etc near it. I could have lowered it one tile, to grab sheep as well, but then I end up having two desert tiles in the radius, which isn’t good. I’d rather settle another city near that sheep later.

As soon as priest hood is done in 2 turns, we’ll work on the Orca.

1480 BC
Oh, and did I forget to mention that Indian workers own at these levels? Every bit helps!

And thanks to our help, our Orca shot worked. At this year we have our choice of some nice goodies. CoL is needed, and comes with a religion, but Monarchy gives the most biggest bang for the buck research wise.

But to be honest, I’m going to take mathematics instead. It not only opens up a 50% boost to my chopping, but allows me to get extra health in my city, as well as the Hanging Gardens. With a stone resource already, this is the most optimal choice.

Note: Ignore the fact it shows me actively researching hunting, I just had to click on something random because we timed the Orca completion date to co-incide with researching writing. I’m going to right now put it on Aethetics next, and skip the damn Alphabet.

1320
A great Spy arrives. You know what to do with him… I’m not going to tell you any more for these great people.
-ni

1160 BC
Phew, one of my favourites early, the Ding-Mids.

What this will do is give us a free grainery in each of our cities. Oh wait… that’s another game.

As soon as this turn is over we will switch to representation IMMEDIATELY. I want to get that population up high, and get our extra scientist boost. Did I forget to mention that this is where spiritual OWNS weak financial traits?

Note:: We are running into pollution problems already. A combination of cutting down our trees, and having floodplains near by is stacking against us (including extra poison modifiers on Immortal levels). Well, most things come with a sacrifice, and some things just have to be sacrificed.

800 BC
Hinduism spreads to us. Do we want to convert to it?

Saladin founded it, and as he is our closest neighbour, I’m in favour of this as we want to keep friendly with him. It is just a matter of time before he get into a war with someone else, and better him with them than him and us.

P.S. And again Spiritual owns weak financial.
Muahaha….

-ni

750 BC
The Flying Gardens is ready! Also looks like we are just about to pop out another great person.

That Aqueduct +2h seems to have fixed our heath problems, and the gardens will give us another point next turn. And now, we are off researching literature, even though, we still don’t know alphabet! How does that work? Our grammarian’s won’t know how to spell yet, but will be able to compose messages?

725 BC
A GE arrives.
-ni

575 BC
After some more scouting (Oh yea, I think I also lost one warrior to a lion or something), we found another resource far off to the East. It’s actually at the edge of the world there, but it’s a Marble resource, SO I WANT IT! I am actually whipping my settler in my second city in order to rush over to create the third. Yeah, did I mention spiritual rocks over financial here, being able to swap to slavery without problems?

-ni

450 BC
And here we are, city #3 ready for settling. Perhaps I should have also mentioned, having a bronze resource as well, and another food tile also had me wanting to rush to this spot ASAP.

Note: CoL being researched, we need this for many reasons. And since Literature is done, I can only assume my capital is off in the west already working on TGL. My sister city is working on another worker (yes these guys are powerful). Actually, I’m wanting that extra worker ASAP so I can get that marble hooked up ASAP. I need those roads connected, and then when my 3’rd city border pops, it takes 1 worker a few turns to get a quarry up, so I am going to stack workers. Make every turn count to maximize your gains.

225 BC
GE arrives (IW?)
-ni

125 BC
The Terrible-Library is ready for completion! And the other reason for getting more workers out, is for faster chopping, as you can see. We’re getting 100% marble bonus + 50% mathematics bonus, and the speed of Indian choppers at work.

Most tiles being worked are the floodplains at the end of this run here. Not much production value, but at least they will grow our city larger. Again, most our hammers at this stage are coming from our forests. And in fact, after losing all the forests inside our culture borders, we even will out-step to chop the ones that are outside (just be careful of barbs!).

Note: Researching Philosophy, this will give us our philosophical option, and also allow us to get the AW, which allows us to run priests.

Yeah, yeah, I know I’m a ****** for TRYING to get priests, but this is what I do.

25 BC
We meet Willem. He’s pretty dossile, cause he’s a culture freak.
-ni


25
The ParaOne is ready for completion Sir! And note we are STILL finding tress somewhere in the world still available for chopping.

And our GP pool keeps cranking along. The artist pollution from the ParaOne is well worth it at this point. The wonder was a little cheap, and we will have it greatly diluted by the other points.

150
Gained a great spy.
-ni

200
Chicken Pizza is ready for completion! Yeah, yeah, I know it’s a waste of resources to 99% of the experts, and only 1% to the newbs. But in this case, I have my reasons.

At least I switched to OR for a cheaper discount!



225
Founded Taoism
-ni

400
Now this time I may be over-doing it! Statue of Obsolete? Yuk. I didn’t even have a resource available for this to get an overlay. However, since no one else had taken it (no one has the resource to double its timing speed?) I figured I’ll do it just to give me a little boost in waring later on (if I have to go to war). Though I have been warned the effects of this on the AI is very poor.

Note: You may wonder why I didn’t go after making the Anger-What? First. Well, the fact that I KNOW I was first to Taoism, means I can afford to slow down there, as even if an AI catches up to me on that branch, it simply won’t match my wonder production for that item. This gives me time to take a break and catch something else before an AI snatches it up. This Zeus won’t be around forever, though one can argue if the artist pollution is worth it.

We are off to research civil service too. Bureaucracy really is an important civic to me.

420
Great scientist arrives (alphabet?)
Instead of absorbing him, this ONE TIME I will run an academy instead.
-ni’

600
Anger-What? is ready for completion, Sir! Let the priest economy reign!

Again, we switch civics thanks to spiritual and now we rush through Paper in order to get the University of Stinker.

620
City #4 has been built. Ummm, errrr, I mean captured. Oh well, stupid barbarians, should have defended it more.

2 More cities to go before I feel safe.

660
Pop Great Prophet (theology?)
-ni

680
Population is officially half a million
-ni


740
City #5 is founded! Ummm, errrrrr, no it’s just another captured barbarian city.

One more left to feel secure!

780
University-of-Stinker is ready for completion, Commander!

Note: After education is fully researched, we are on our last tech for liberalism race. And we’ll be able to plant down some really stinky universities in each city.



P.S. We bribed at least one AI to make peace vs Egypt. It seems, she got into a religious war and was getting her ass kicked. We don’t want her to get crushed too bad right now.
-ni

900
GS arrives (education?)
-ni

940
Alright! I feel officially safe now. City #6 is captured. Ummm, errrrrr…. No I am actually settling this one. Now we are set for 6 forges & 6 universities giving us IW & Ox for the capital down the road.

We can simply ride this one out now with ease.

1080
We declared war on Hatshepat and captured her pesky city near us. She is going to get obliterated by the ongoing religious wars anyhow, so best we knock that city out NOW before she vassals and causes us real trouble. Already her city was giving me problems where it was.

As much as I am against razing cities, I am going to razz it here. Then I will plant a new city 2 tiles down below it to grab the iron still and a sea-resource.

GS pops (alphabet?)
-ni

1100
Liberalism race is here! Oh wait, we’re already at the finish line.

Note: We have enough spy points now that we can see inside Saladin’s cities. Also, despite his capital is so close to us, it looks as though we may eventually flip Khurasan to us. That’s the culture power of our heavy wonders at work.

If it flips, I will probably stockpile military units inside it and use it as my main base.

Note: For our free-tech, we chose to take Nationalism. This allows us to get a big start on the Taj. The value of golden ages actually has gone up in BtS.

1130
Here is where I am going to put city #7. It’s not that I need more than 6 cities, but right now I can potentially push for 8 and that unlocks the forbidden palace for me.