Immortal challenge #6

The Dromons are range and 1 dromon + Archer + City destroys 1 unit per round which is ridicolous
Will maybe try it again later but really annyoing start position, was not able to found a city, got a city of Theodora AND Polynesia on my little small peninsula

Starting position is very odd, in the 2nd try i succesfully stopped Theodora from settling a city in my direction (warrior blocked the 1tile chokepoint). With that i could found a 2nd city SE of the mountain.

The next goal was to capture Theodora and get things rollin...
Was a big effort to not loose the fight with my 5 CBs and some melee units (mixed normal and water) because the freaking Dromons which made it a PITA
After that you got 4 cities in nice places with decent production and growth possibilites and you can go from there whereever you want.

I chose to beeline Frigates (because you have so freaking much iron)

I did churn out some Galleasses and steamrolled Kamehameha.

While building up a Frigate Army i got DoW'ed by Dido and lost some of my Galleasses but after 20-30 Turns i could hold off her 20 caravels and captured some of their cities (sold most of them to other AIs and razed some others) and captured her capital with 1 adjacent city.

While fighting with Dido i got backstabbed by Suleiman (which i met only 20 Turns before (Turn 180 )) but he failed miserably and just tried to run cross the lands i captured off Kame and get slaughtered while doing it.
After i finished business with Dido i killed some cities of suleiman includiing his capital, upgraded everything to battleships (was the only problem in this game GETTING OIL) and having fun with the rest of the AIs while being techleader since turn 160.

The map is a disaster. Settled in place and got boxed completely on 28 when Byzantines dropped their city within 4 tiles, so went CB's right after writing. Attacked with CB's on turn 72, I had to wait extra couple of turns for a DoF to expire (they seem to last much longer than 30 turns). By turn 92 captured Adrianople (Crabs and whales and mountain) and Constantinople (Dyes and Horses). NC will be complete turn 96.
Dromons are nasty man. She stacks them in cities with archers and then combined firepower is enough to 1-shot CB's. Lost two of them that way.
I managed to snatch God of Fish or whatever pantheon for hammers on fishing boats, but other than that my religious advances are meh. 1 fpt and AI's keep founding and enhancing their religions.
Theodora didn't build wonders or found a religion for me so I don't feel very victorious.
Also I spammed DoF's to evade being backstabbed so I don't really feel like it's safe to continue warmongering.

I settled in place. I went tradition and dropped Århus by the mountain towards Constantinoble and Kaupang on the small island by Copenhagen. Things went extremely slow. I got a ~t105 NC. I had one war in the semi-early game with Theodora, which ended with her giving me all her stuff, however I dont think I would have been able to take Constantinoble without naval support.

About turn 165 i hit navigation (extremely slow), however apparently it was fast enought to be the first one with frigates and privateers. I took down Constantinoble shortly after and then Dido and Carthage. The whole world hated me by then: Lizzy DOW'ed me, Kamehameha DOW'ed me too, and Sejong, Isabella and Suleiman turned hostile.
Holding off the british attacks wasn't that hard. For some reason does the AI only bring a small portion of their fleet, which made it really easy to defend against. I took a couple of cities from Polynesia (not their capital since it is well protected from naval assault with frigates due to the land and natural harbour). England gave me a nice peace deal with a lot of gold. I took down Suleiman with frigates and privateers as well. I liberated Venice and took the three cities on his main island.

By turn ~255 I hit battleships and then I sailed towards Spain. England, Carthage, Spain and Korea had declared war, but I reflected the attacks without any problems. Spain managed to capture one of my puppets, but I took it back a couple of turns later. I took down Madrid and made peace with Spain and Korea. Battleships with logistics and 4 range was too much for the spanish frigates I guess.
After dealing with Spain I sailed towards England. I took down a small island-city to be able to make my way towards London safely. London fell after a few turns of bombardments from my battleships. Kamehameha and Honolulu was next in line. With the heavily upgraded battleships Honolulu was captured without any trouble.

Seoul was the only capital left to capture. Sejong had been playing a quite passive game. He lost his three expansions early on (2 to Spain and one later to England), but Seoul had been building wonders non-stop (12 total) and generated a lot of culture (~250/turn just beforer it was captured). Seoul fell without much resistance. Turtleships simply doesn't cut it against battleships and destroyers.



Overall a fairly challenging map. It is too bad that the AI suck at naval warfare. Isabella and Lizzy started quite nice, and England was ahead in tech until about 50%.

Byzantines went one-city wonder "spamming" (managed to build three wonders before I captured Constantinoble). I was so happy, when she built the great lighthouse (for me)!

after i finished of Theddy, my best buddies Izzy and Kamy both backstabbed me and invaded with a whopping force of a swordsman and two CB's. I teched galeasses, then universities. Galeasses were sufficient to defend myself but I had a hard time figuring out how was I supposed to conquer with this marvel of ancient technology. Still, captured a Kamy's sity to the easr of me, lost to Izzy and recaptured. It's on incense, so I didn't burn it. Then captured Cahokia to make a passage from the northern sea to the east. Only mych later I found out that you could take range as the 3rd promotion on ships - that explains much.

Frigates allowed me to go on offensive finally, I pushed toward Izzy, captured crappy Madrid and burned Seville. Now I have GW, completely useless on this map.
Deflected some attacks from Suleiman then turned back to Kamy and burned three of his cities. Honolulu was nicely protected against sea bombardment, so I left a range frigate and a logistics frigate to slowly pound on it while the others were deployed against Dido - she had attacked me right before I sailed back from Spain.

I'm a bit on the dim side tech-wise, with only Copenhagen and annexed Constantinople for real cities. I'm also struggling with financial problems (because of a huge navy) and happiness problems (because there're always two or three cities being burned down)

Managed to wonder-whore a bit before starting pumping out frigates, so I have viable culture due to TA and Oracle and a religion thanks to HS. Tithe helps a bit with money, I'd have gone bankrupt long ago without it.
Lizzy is ahead in tech a bit, but all the others are lagging behind me. I thinks I'll have time to finish off Dido and Kamy and maybe Sully before battleships and then we'll see who's next.

Frigates finally kicked in (Note to self: Frigates are unlocked by Navigation, NOT Astronomy). Smashed Dido's army into pieces.... things are looking pretty good now.

i'm on turn 130 now and it's been a slog so far... After taking out Byz I was approached by Carthage to DOW Polynesia.. Good timing as that was my plan.. I took the 10 turn option to build some galleas.. It took a long time cuz of all the galleas spam but finally took the city on my island..

I have 9 galleas a couple of archers and a trireme.. I'm hemorrhaging GPT and barely happy.. I won't get a religion.. Almost to frigates.. I'm gonna have to do some nasty dealings to get my fleet upgraded..

Dido is my supposed ally but her whole fleet and attack force keep hovering south of me keeping me from fully committing to Honolulu.. The backstab is imminent.

oh the pain of how long this is taking to do so little.. turn 181 and i've finally taken honolulu.. and while i'm simultaneously working on taking out the city next to it dido swoops in and caps it.. blessing in disguise i figure as my happiness would have taken a hit.. every other turn kam would pop another galleas out and i'd keep having to swap frigates in and out after getting pounded by the city, 2 galleas and a treb... sloooow..

my tech is very slow.. only just getting up a uni in Constantinople even tho i've had education for for like 80 turns.. at least i'm two deep in rationalism.. that timed out well..

gonna take one more city to the north from kam and move on to whoknowswho.. nobody has any gold.. nobody has any surplus luxuries to trade.. i'm sitting on so much silk and whales..

only thing keeping me happy atm is my coup in cahokia and rigged election in singapore..

the next half of this should go much faster..
dido, sejong, and izabella are my friends (for now).. liz has been hostile from jump.. ofc she's the only one with gold and extra lux...

dido always lurking...

still havent explored this map lol

Finished off Dido, capturing carthage (GLH ) and burning 3 or 4 cities. Then made friends with Sully and fed him Honolulu. Lizzy denounced me soon after but who cares.

Sailed toward her and killed Seoul en route, only captured 1 turtle ship
Lizzy has Gatlings and Electricity already but no ironclads or sotL's to be seen, just hordes of privateers. I guess I'll try to lure them into the Korean-Spanish straits where their numbers won't be an advantage and my turtle ship+range frigates will. Sully is behind in tech so I hope after taking hold of london I'll just cheese the win by putting myhands on his cap.