Immortal Challenge #15 Arabia

As noone seems to want to post a new challenge, I decided to put one up (dunno if there are any requirements for that )

Settings:

Pangea
Everything Standart
Barbs - ON
Immortal
Arabia

Quick combat and movement are not on, but you can adjust that in your settings.

While the starting screen might lead to wrong conclusions, I will spoil that there is a bit crowded and not very friendly neighbourhood (no Zulu tho).

Enjoy!

Should be a lot of fun bulbing Chivalry with liberty GS and flooding the map with camels . Holy warriors could help there, if some faith CS/natural wonders are around.

Moriarte said:

Should be a lot of fun bulbing Chivalry with liberty GS and flooding the map with camels . Holy warriors could help there, if some faith CS/natural wonders are around.

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Chop Stone Henge. I've been wanting to try a game where the player takes all the + faith wonders.

Monument to the Gods > Divine Inspiration > Holy Warriors. Spam wonders. Win.

Ima try this tonight (I'm sick of AIs getting an extra settler as of late ) Immortal would be a nice change of pace.

Gonna try this one, since I'm only a Immortal player

Any time limit to post the outcome in this thread?

Nah, no time limit Have fun!
Got a question about the Camel Archers :

As its my first time playing these guys, I am entering Renaissance trough Astronomy on t131 and still don't have Chivalry but everything else ready. Is it too late to do these Camel Archers at that point ?

I had a 20-25 turn war starting on turn 70 that delayed things a bit but I am good at that point I think. Still DV seems to be the only real option here (and after watching all these Moriarte LPs, I don't feel like doing another CV lol).

So, should I go with the camels at that point and wipe out Askia or I should wait for some dynamite? I only have 2 horses tho, and I am not sure that I can get more at all, unless I take Tambuktu somehow.

Suggestions?

Do they need horses? You could take Tomboctu and Gao if you had maybe 6 of them right now. How long until chivalry? Can you produce 6 chariot archers in that time?

I saved mine on t126 275AD. I went straight Piety and have my Camel Archers unlocked. 3 cities so far, Divine Inspiration, Tithe, Holy Warriors, reformation Jesuits. So, I can make an attack to grab more cities then turtle for science I guess. Monty attacked me so I can take most of his lands. Askia should be pretty easy also.

Magma_Dragoon said:

Do they need horses? You could take Tomboctu and Gao if you had maybe 6 of them right now. How long until chivalry? Can you produce 6 chariot archers in that time?

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1 Turn Astronomy, and if I push some more science slots, probably rest will be 5 or 6 to Chivalry. At that time I can definitely produce 4 chariot archers, but I think Camel Archers actually need horses and thats a problem ...

Camel Archers do need horses, but they are very much worth it.

Looks like you have a horse tile outside Damascus, but it doesn't look like it's improved (at least it's not clear from the screenshot). Also Monty has some horses outside Teotihuacan -- perhaps he'll agree to a trade. Ragusa has horses, so perhaps ally them up (they may also distract Askia when you DOW him) and you'll get more horses when you take Tombouctu.

Thanks so much for the map. It was a blast! Reminds me how easy immortal is opposed to deity...
Relocation of the capitol was key... then a great wall rush, then turtling up and wonderhogging...

Just to give you an idea:

This is where your capitol should be relocated (impossible if it were diety as Askia'd grabbed it) 30 pop in no time. GL, HG, Parthenon, GW missed out on Oracle regrettably as was busy teching GW just so I could turtle the rest of the game.


Wanted to make the game last as long as possible, so didn't do any concert bombs... still... victory was inevitable.


Ahahahahaha impossible on deity, possible on immortal.


For the record, spent the game without giving a single unit and maybe gave gold twice to CS. Didn't even bother with WC control... 986 tourism no IG no world religion not even historical landmarks.

Playing these kind of maps will develop a lot of bad habits for deity

Looks like a great map. I went 3 cities Trad food strat. Secured horses around, built NC around the turn 70 which is quite good. Cash is flooding around and later in the game i decided to do a late CB rush because capitals aren't too strong yet and some AIs are fighting each others, i even bribed Askia to DoW Hiawatha in exchange of 2 luxs. That way the forested road to the north west will be more easily to travel through(and catch Onondaga).

So i made an army of 6 chariots and made a group of 6 CBs after that. Now heading to Tenochtitlan with the CBs. Will go east right after to get Honolulu and finally Constantinople. Meanwhile i'm waiting for Chivalry that i will get around the turn 100. Then the army of Camels will (rapidly)clear the west side. Hopefully the 2 armies will clear the last capitals simultaneously.

All units needed are built so i will build wonders and happiness stuff in capital until the end. I didn't care about religion at all. I catched a faith ruin later and took +1 culture from pastures pantheon.

Browd said:

Camel Archers do need horses, but they are very much worth it.

Looks like you have a horse tile outside Damascus, but it doesn't look like it's improved (at least it's not clear from the screenshot). Also Monty has some horses outside Teotihuacan -- perhaps he'll agree to a trade. Ragusa has horses, so perhaps ally them up (they may also distract Askia when you DOW him) and you'll get more horses when you take Tombouctu.

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That unimproved tile outside Damascus is the 2 Horses I have
I like the plan with Ragusa, I had not notice they have the horses It looks like that the second war with Askia is inevitable, so I guess I have to prepare for it soon. I cleared all of his units last time, but it seems like he has rebuilt.

kb27787 - would you move to that cap spot if you did not know whats there actually ? If I had moved there I probably could have avoided pissing Askia off with my expo too, as I'd have that gold already. But my cap location seemed optimal without the extra info.

dragonxxx said:

That unimproved tile outside Damascus is the 2 Horses I have
I like the plan with Ragusa, I had not notice they have the horses It looks like that the second war with Askia is inevitable, so I guess I have to prepare for it soon. I cleared all of his units last time, but it seems like he has rebuilt.

kb27787 - would you move to that cap spot if you did not know whats there actually ? If I had moved there I probably could have avoided pissing Askia off with my expo too, as I'd have that gold already. But my cap location seemed optimal without the extra info.

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Actually I didn't bother to look into the screenshots in detail when I started, but I saw gold after moving my settler one turn, then I decided to move up (I like my capitols huge and tundra tiles are a waste of space...) I figured it's not deity so I can probably grab the AI's "natural expansion" (for all you starcraft/warcraft players) so to speak, then expand back to my starting location if needed (my fave strat). Ended up stealing Askia's gold tiles. Turns out I hit the jackpot as a 40+ size capitol with 30+ river tiles becomes scary with hydro plant.

Strangely no one was inclined to go for religion and the "religious idols" I picked up just from my starting shrine eventually gave me the 2nd religion after Neb got Stonehenge...

Had to buy the 2nd gold tile up north before Askia snatched it when he forward settled me though... he wasn't too happy, and I knew it. He attacked me t80+ or so when my GW was almost done... but because I headed for engineering all my 3 archers were now CB and I rush bought some chariots... attack was decisively repelled and a serving of salt to both Monty and Hiawatha saw the end of his empire.

Of course I can't have a military, expand AND build early wonders; you can only do 2 of the 3, and I opted out of fast expansion (simply because the terrain/mountain allowed my scouts to block any settlers from the east so I could grab those salt tiles near the coast). Settled both cities late t90s almost t100 mind you; NC was done loooong ago but the war pretty much distracted me from expanding... don't want to invite more enemies/give them more targets.

But of course, for CV and wonders all that matters is the capitol, not the satellites... I got beaten to Notre Dame and Oracle but after my capitol grew big it was able to work 6 mines... Ironworks went up pretty fast after rush bought workshops (I actually beelined to workshops and ironworks after education instead of going for Sistine). Afterwards I grabbed pretty much every wonder after that except Red Fort and Himeji and the different ideology wonders. (oh yeah of course I didn't get any of the theology wonders or Chichen Itza... completely forgot about them... but I was cranking 11 fpt early already and so could not be bothered... Chichen was gone before I even got the tech)

Btw my religion (eastern orthodoxy) was idols, tithe, divine inspiration (by the time I found religion I already had 4 wonders), SWORDS TO OP PLOWSHARES combined with HG and grassland river this was crazy. Religious texts to synergize with my caravan bonus. Once capitol workshop was done infrastructure was easy with production caravans to my other two cities.

Turn 111 update :

The army of CBs encountered much higher resistance than i thought so i lost a couple of units and been reduced to 3 CBs when i got the capital. I immediately reenforced the army to go for Honolulu when ready.

Got Chivalry turn 99. The Camels are...the Camels. Just too strong. Gao felt easily so will be Onondaga soon. Machinery turn 110. The CBs are transformed into something better. Great, now i very feel confident!

Oracled Honor with a great writer. Got 50% faster XP.

Mecca is a beast.

Tabarnak - when did you settle Medina? It was my plan to settle there as well, but Askia picked it up very early (t30 or something).

dragonxxx said:

Tabarnak - when did you settle Medina? It was my plan to settle there as well, but Askia picked it up very early (t30 or something).

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For some reason he beelined the GL and went for Tradition. He didn't build a single city. Medina has been founded around that turn.

I see, he is full liberty in my game. It was very scary here, as when he surrounded Mecca,
Hiawatha had around 10 units around Medina too, so I thought I am doomed I paid him to go visit the Aztecs and we are friends with him now. Maybe we can destroy Askia together.

Got to 145, heading for conquest VC

KingMorgan said:

Got to 145, heading for conquest VC

Spoiler :

Settled on the SW hill, couple of scouts. Met Askia on turn 5, he later generously donated a worker, kept him at war till construction, didn't want him settling nearby. 3 cities for me, took Gao with CB, a few too many losses, hence decided to get the NC up before heading to Chiv, (after EDU) bribed Monty on Hia, then later Hia onto Ass. Lazy AI did not scout, hence took 80+ turns for Hi to meet Askia, even though they had borders 2 tiles away. Ass still only knows Hiw and Babs. Very difficult to bribe people who never met. Did well on the barb camps, happiness is not an issue. Kammy is friend along with Hia, @145 i have RAs with both - just in case. 3 AI capitals in hand, Babs are next then kammy, then Theo, i'll kill Hiwa last. Conquest was preferred from the start due to the misleading OP advice that it was crowded.
Screenshots seem to crash my game, so use your imagination!

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Well, it was crowded in my game, but if the AI choose a different path, things change.