Immortal - no conquering, no RAs, No GS science victory

Well I finally managed it. Inspired by some "no RA science victory" threads a couple months ago, I wanted to see if I could win with some harsher conditions.

1) no great scientists
2) no RAs
3) no capturing enemy cities. Only retaking your own previously captured cities, and liberating CS is allowed.
4) map - continents or pangea, standard speed, immortal diff.

I have attached the start & end saves if anyone is curious. Basically, it was all about securing as many cities as possible (i got 9) and holding on to them. I was first in population for most of the game thanks to heavy focus on happiness, along with some nice terrace farms. I only bulbed 1 tech all game, the last tech via Oxford. Otherwise it's all population.

Germany & France were pretty strong in this game, especially Germany. We were neck & neck in tech for the most part. They attacked me a couple times, as did France, but I was able to use CS buffers and ranged units on hills to keep them at bay. I lost a city early to France but took it back before too long.

Surprisingly, Germany built up a HUGE military in the mid to late game, but didn't ever attack me with it. I'm still trying to figure out exactly why they never attacked me again, since they were quite willing earlier in the game. They definitely had me outgunned for a good while in the industrial & early modern.

For policies went liberty (used GE for Chitchen Itza and HS-->ND) then piety for 2 happy per city, then on to patronage. Later Order.

Tried to build all the happiness wonders - missed FP of course though. Got the rest including Taj Mahal. Midgame had a massive golden age probably lasting 60 turns or so...that's when I bought off most of the CS. Patronage was a decent boost to science and I was getting other useful stuff from them as well, so that was a win-win.

At the end I detoured to plastics and I think it was worth it. Had rivers & aluminum, so hydro power plus science labs provided a good boost. Population growth had kinda stalled out by that time, so the boost from science labs was pretty important to keep up with the escalating tech costs. All my cities were set to produce research as well so the extra prod didn't hurt. I believe the last tech only took me 6 turns or so.

The end game wasn't quite as exciting as it could have been. Germany finished Apollo way, way before me, but didn't get around to building any parts. Everyone except me had nukes, but no one used them.

Really fun game overall though. The rules made me play a lot differently from normal. I probably wouldn't have taken the risk of founding those 2 cities in the far north-east for one. I think those extra food-rich cities put me over the edge though - I might not have been able to keep pace techwise with ze germanz without them.

When the AI wants a research agreement and they are doing Future Tech, does that mean they want you to loose your money, or oblivious to the fact they really do not need the RA, or just some random act of friendship, since I would not give them open borders?

I will only do an RA, if I have the money to burn, and that is seldom in a "catch up" game.

I also rarely get a science victory either, because the AI build the UN too soon.

good question. My guess is oblivious, but I don't think I've been in that situation before. The AI tends to blast off their space ship shortly after entering the future age, or like you said, build the UN.

Im long time Immortal player. Im amazed if you can pull this off.

did already

It was pretty late, around turn 330, but yeah I pulled it off.

Good job chazzycat! Did you try the VEM mod? You should try that if you prefer these kind of games.

Does your "no GS" constraint mean you just plant them, or GA? You did run science specialists right?

I did run some science specialists, but never focused very heavily on them. During the early/midgame I was mostly working land to keep growing my pop. Towards the end I worked more specialists, but mostly engineers to get more wonders. I think there was 1 artist/merchant each that were just used for golden ages. Never did pop a single GS in this game. The intent behind my rule was more for bulbing, so this wasn't really by design. I would have been ok with settling or using them for GAs.

I should mention 6 or 7 of my 9 cities had observatories, which definitely helped.

@tabarnak thanks, I keep hearing about that mod....should probably check it out at some point.

chazzycat said:

Surprisingly, Germany built up a HUGE military in the mid to late game, but didn't ever attack me with it. I'm still trying to figure out exactly why they never attacked me again, since they were quite willing earlier in the game. They definitely had me outgunned for a good while in the industrial & early modern.

Click to expand...

This seems to happen when the AI "switches gears" mid-game from aggressive warmongering to science victory. It looks like that was the case in your game since Germany eventually built the Apollo Program. They really need to fix this as the AI will just sit back with a massive army and a boatload of cash and allow you to win.

that makes sense, thanks. I wonder what makes them change their mind...

chazzycat said:

that makes sense, thanks. I wonder what makes them change their mind...

Click to expand...

AI gets bored, probably

interesting approach.
i suspect you'd save time by going through rationalism even without RAs, the boosts to science and scientific revolution should shave a good number of turns.
i'd also still prefer the right 3 in freedom to hitting up order, though producing more scientists isn't as critical as a normal game.

I don't think this approach would have worked without piety. The +18 happiness that early was pretty huge, enabling me to keep growing at a strong pace and keep up with the AI in tech. I think if I had waited for rationalism, Germany would have killed me before my science could catch up. I didn't do the PT-->astronomy sling in this game, and so was pretty slow in getting to the renaissance.

Freedom would have worked well with rationalism, but I think with liberty--piety--patronage, order is a better choice. The +9 happy is huge under this approach, as well as the big boost to science via factories. I had a minimal focus on specialists for the most part, and with the "no GS" rule, wouldn't have gained much from faster GP production.

7 cities with rationalism will put out significantly more beakers than 9 with piety. obviously you have to survive to that point, but it should be doable. even if i were playing a no bulbing game, i'd still run scientist specialists and plant academies... the jump in beakers from filling universities with scientists is huge. a 10 pop city with library and university is 20 beakers, 2 scientists bump it to 28.

the right 3 policies in freedom should give at minimum +2 happiness and +3 food per city.