Challenger. 12 Cities. 35 Citizens. 3 Religions. 1 turn to Music. 1 Academy.
I have a State Religion in 11 of those Cities and Courthouses are being built.
In comparison, I have mapped out Monte's lands, and he has 47 Citizens. He also fields roughly 20 Jaguars, Axemen, and Spearmen, in addition to his Archers. Interestingly, I haven't spotted a single Chariot from him, even though he has at least one Horse Resource connected.
Boudica built a City by 2 Ivory Resources, beating Monte to what looked to be the same location by 1 turn. This stroke of luck is likely to be quite helpful, meaning that neither of them are likely to be able to build War Elephants, if I have my way.
Gilgamesh already has Feudalism and thus Boudica will be the most likely first target. I have only just started to create an "army," with 5 non-City-garrison Military Units in hand. It's rather slow for me to go to war, but with most of the recent Challenger games which I had tried being on Deity Difficulty Level, there was a different option available of peaceful expansion in this Immortal game.
Most of the AIs love each other, meaning that any warring is going to take a heavy diplomatic penalty. The map appears to have a well-distributed amount of Strategic Resources, meaning that there are unlikely to be easy targets. All of the AIs also appear to have early-game or mid-game Unique Units that will probably all see the fields of battle due to the positioning of the AIs (but perhaps not for the Noble Difficulty Level with a beeline of militaristic rushing).
The AIs have spread the Wonders amongst themselves, leaving none for me, yet.
I might have a chance at the Aesthetics-and-beyond Wonders, since my tech beeline has given me a timing advantage, but with a lack of Marble, they will be expensive.
There do not appear to have been any wars as of yet, but Zara's and Monte's mutual hatred looks like it will spark tensions. Monte's Spy was caught by Zara, further deepening the distrust.
I expect that any warring will be at tech-parity, meaning that I'll have to rely on tactics instead of a technological advantage. No "Knights pwn Archers" chance for me. More like "Axes and Horse Archers take on Gaellic Warriors and Catapults," then later likely "War Elephants, Catapults, and surviving Horse Archers versus War Elephants, Longbowmen, and Vultures," if I can secure Boudica's Ivory.
Any Victory Condition is still open, but I will likely be faced with a Time Loss--running out of real-life time to complete the game. It has been a fun blast, though, so, thanks for the game!
A new record for wasted opportunities. Lost Oracle CS slingshot by about 2 turns. Ultra low expansion.
No worries. It is Noble. You obviously already have Code of Laws and Mathematics, meaning that Catapults are at most 1 tech away.
Copper and Horse are near enough that you probably already have at least one of them, and a City in the far south-east will net you Iron if you haven't already secured it. Build Courthouses and then build up a stack of Catapults and supporting Units and take on Boudica. Go to war once you have 30 attacking Military Units, with about half of them being Catapults. Target her Iron with a Pillaging party or with Spy Sabotage at the start of the war.
You are Spiritual so you can give in to AI Demands to switch Religions or Civics to keep them off of your back.
In my game, I appear to have even Given Tribute and Given Help to Boudica, which keeps her pacified, giving us the time to build up a force to take her on.
With that much land in hand, spread the Apostolic Palace's Religion around in your own Cities and see if you can please enough of the AIs to land a Religious Victory.
Just be prepared to ask an AI who knows Feudalism and who is Pleased or Friendly toward you to give you 1 Gold (you can type in a value lower than 10 Gold by deleting the zero) as a Gift when Boudica's empire has lost about 3 Cities, since there is no diplomatic penalty for asking for for a Gift from a Pleased or Friendly AI, and doing so can prevent Boudica from Peace Vassalling to one of them and thereby landing you in a war which you had not planned to fight.
Just realise that there's a random amount of time before you can ask for a second Gift without receiving an automatic refusal, with an incremental counter increase of automatic refusals that would need to each randomly wear off before you can successfully ask again. Usually, you can ask for a second Gift roughly 50 turns later.
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