I don’t often play immortal level – usually I consider it far too hard to be worth it. But the unusual theme of this game intrigued me enough. And hey - Space win, 1854 AD.
1AD saw me with 6 cities, including the Indian capital, and dogpiling with Mongolia against Rome. The next 1500 years or so was almost a continual line of wars that eventually saw me with almost the entire starting continent. India was finished off by Arabia soon after 1AD. Mongolia and Greece both made the mistake of declaring war on me later in the game. Greece didn’t come out alive and Mongol only survived as my vassal.
. China, Rome and Japan were reduced to the southern Ice and Tundra, while Arabia was banished to the northern tundra Islands. Of the AI, only Peter of Russia had his original territory largely intact – and he was the only AI that I never went to war with.
As far as I’m aware, none of the AI Humbabas made it to the end of the game. I took out the Indian one in the BC years, and the Roman one with artillery sometime around 1500AD. I’m guessing the others all got killed in various AI-on-AI wars. My Humbaba served with distinction – even on the very turn of my victory, he was busy helping capture a barb city in South America! He had 183 XP, and thanks to CR3 and drill 4 promotions, in the later game his attack odds where invariably 100%, even against riflemen!
The interminable AD wars were quite a slog, but not without some very tense moments.
Towards the end of the mace/treb era, I decided to help myself to some more Roman territory. Caesar subsequently vassaled himself to China, so I found myself in an unexpected war up North. Still, China had some very tasty wonders, so figured I may as well put some effort into taking them. So I captured the first city. Then an Apostolic Palace vote came up. End the war against China. I suspected that vote was very likely to pass, so I immediately sued for peace – just so that China would give me some techs: I’d get nothing if the Apostolic Palace forced peace.
What I hadn’t considered was precisely where my units would teleport to when peace broke out. Yep, you guessed. Almost my entire army, including Humbaba. Straight into the newly captured Chinese city. Completely surrounded by Chinese culture with no way to get out. And the next turn, Tokugawa declared war. As if that wasn’t enough, the apostolic palace vote came in. Resolution rejected. I hadn’t needed to make peace with China at all!
So, with almost my whole army trapped, Tokugawa had free rein in the West. And he had zillions of troops (although luckily, it seemed, no Humbaba). My first city fell. And the second. If it wasn’t for the AI tendency to settle too many units in its captured cities for too long, I’d probably have lost another two cities before I was able to build enough defenders.
Finally my 10 turn peace treaty with China expired and I could free my troops – even though it would mean declaring an unwanted war just so my troops could escape. Oh hang on – China is willing to sign open borders. Of course, he’s still pleased with me because the earlier war wasn’t me declaring on him. Oh why oh why didn’t I think of checking that earlier?
Still, now Humbaba is free, and the tables are turned on the Japanese. I get my cities back and lots more besides … until Tokugawa vassals himself to a very powerful Alexander, who can also boast Saladin as vassal.
It’s a disaster again. Suddenly, I’m fighting on about 5 different fronts
. As I try to finish off Toku, Greek cuirassiers are raging all around the battlefield – and my cannon and macemen cannot defend against them. Yes, I have Humbaba, but he can’t be everywhere at once, and besides I can’t afford to leave in the open anyway. To the North, Saladin starts marching. To the East Saladin has a large stack in the final city he took off India. And – worse – in the South, a huge stack of maces and trebs lead by the Arabian Humbaba appears out of the snowy tundra. God knows what they were doing there. I have no choice but to abandon a city uncomfortably close to the capital to that stack.
The only saving grace is that I’m just a few turns away from artillery. Once that’s in… I will build nothing but artillery everywhere … And that’s when the tide slowly turned - including sacrificing a couple of artillery to get rid of the Arabian Humbaba. And now Greece could pay for declaring war on me…
The only complication was that, once I took the last Greek city (sometime around 1750AD I think), Tokugawa – still alive, thanks to having tundra cities that I had no interest in taking - promptly vassaled himself to China instead, and I had yet another war on my hands.
But it ended well in the end. I’m sure that with better management I could have achieved a lot better than 1854AD space, but hey it’s immortal and a win is a win.
Thanks for the game, kcd_swede. It was definitely a very intriguing scenario. I might have to nick your idea of starting with democracy for another GOTM soon…
map by the 
mapmaker. I think I really should stop even downloading Botms. If it's not an insane difficulty then it's something else guaranteed to cripple a player who doesn't like early wars or having half the planet declaring war with their armies already approaching, without a single warning sign. I'm too 
for this.
