Immortal Challenge #2 - India on Pangaea

[sufficiency]

Welcome to Immortal Challenge #2. I am your host, and for this challenge we will be playing as India.



Map Setting: India, Pangaea, standard for everything else. No DLCs required except G&K, Mongolia, and "Update Data 1".

Unique Ability: Population Growth
2x unhappiness from the number of cities, half the unhappiness from total population.

Unique Unit: War Elephant (11 ranged strength, 9 combat strength, 3 move, does not require Horses, but also 24 hammers more expensive).

Unique Building: Mughal Fort (10 hammers cheaper, +2 Culture, +3 Gold after researching Flight).

If the starting point seems daunting - don't be. The map is easier than it seems. You also get bonus points for going Honor and win by Domination.

Previous Immortal Challenges:

Immortal Challenge 1 - the Iroquois

 

[sufficiency]

Some additional information:


How Population Growth works:

Spoiler :

On standard maps, each non-Indian city costs 3 happiness, plus 1 more happiness per citizen. As India, your cities cost 6 happiness, plus 0.5 more happiness per citizen. Consequently, Indian cities cost 6.5 happiness to settle, while non-Indian cities only cost 4. Furthermore, India has a penalty to happiness for every city that is below 6 citizens. Once your city is beyond 6 citizens, you (roughly) get a happiness bonus of 0.5 per citizen.

Note that the Indian bonus multiplies to any other % happiness bonuses, such as Monarchy (Monarchy makes your Capital's population to cost only 50% of happiness; with India and Monarchy, your Capital costs 25% of happiness, or -1 happiness per 4 citizens) and Meritocracy.

Also note that since local city happiness only works up to a cap of the amount of unhappiness caused by the citizens of a city, a Coliseum (+2 local happiness) is 100% effective for an Indian city if it has at least 4 citizens.

A very strange consequence of the Indian UA is that an occupied city costs 10 happiness (non-Indian occupied cities cost only 6), while each citizen in an occupied city costs 1.34 happiness regardless if it's Indian or not. As a result, you probably need to have the Gold ready to rush a Courthouse if you want to annex a city.

Overall, the Indian UA makes expansion more costly and growth cheaper.

War Elephants:

Spoiler :

War Elephants have 2 higher combat strength and 5 hammers cheaper to build than a Composite Bowman. Therefore, while playing as India you should consider skipping Construction and use War Elephants as substitutes for Composite Bowmen.

General Tips:

Spoiler :

Try to prioritize a Shrine and Masonry so you can get Stone Circle as your Pantheon (+2 Faith per Quarry). Since the starting point isn't too great, you should consider expanding or attacking your neighbours -- particularly if your neigbhour just declared war on someone else. With War Elephants, you don't need to wait until Construction to go aggressive.

Since as India you have a happiness penalty for every city below 6 pop, and when you take over a city the population of the city halves, you need to think of which cities you want to take in case you are in a war. Taking over too many "junk" cities will be extremely detrimental to your growth.

Remember that you can sell your luxury resources to other AI players for 240 Gold each provided the said AI does not hate you. Pillaging tiles and capturing cities will also provide you with Gold, which you will need to wage early wars when your Capital does not have river tiles.

 

[Unresolved]

This afternoon, I had a bad feeling that India would be your choice to go along with domination. Seems like I was right, unfortunately . I'll give this a go tomorrow.

 

[sufficiency]

This afternoon, I had a bad feeling that India would be your choice to go along with domination. Seems like I was right, unfortunately . I'll give this a go tomorrow.

You don't have to go for domination. All victory conditions are allowed.

 

[Matthew.]

I will play this map. With all the talk of India recently, I've been meaning to try them out again. The UA does indeed suck, but they can be made to work and somehow it is more satisfying to pull out a win as India than say, Babylon.

 

[Unresolved]

You don't have to go for domination. All victory conditions are allowed.

I can't resist 'bonus points' . And domination will make it harder, so I'll give that a go. I'll probably do some honor instead of rationalism because I don't think I'm going to be when I'm conquering the world with India.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

honestly im only going to play this so i can rage quit at t12 when the first pantheon taken is Stone Circles. it's a guarantee in my games.

 

[RedRover57]

I haven't played India since G&K so I may give this a shot. I would likely move my warrior to the NE and if there is nothing but bare plains to the east I would probably gamble and settle NE of the mountain in the lower left corner. It just seems like there might be better tiles to the west than the east.

 

[Fire0rb]

Do we need to start with Honor or just get it into the mix of Policies for the Bonus points

 

[Matthew.]

Spoiler :

Started the map. It is quite easy for Immortal. Got religion from stone circles. Toughest part about the UA was getting the gold to secure a mercantile city-state; after that, no happiness issues at all.

Settling was staggered but by T115 I had six cities with the sixth one right on the Netherlands doorstep. Took out Netherlands at ~150 or so. Burned one trash city, but kept the rest as puppets.

At turn 198 NC is finished. Yes, I skipped Philosophy all together. Figured trying to force NC with the staggered city settling would be too much, so just ignored it.

Here is the frustrating part: I declare war on Washington shortly after William, because Huns/Iroquois are too far off for my liking, as far as domination. And I need Washington's cities before I think about taking on Khan's ~20 cities in the west. Problem is this: Washington is spamming minutemen like crazy and has Great Wall. A complete stale-mate. Can't get a good concave on his cities, nothing.

Currently signed peace while focusing on infrastructure. Hiawatha just entered the modern era, but it was a bee-line, because he, Khan, and myself all have the same exact science per turn. May try finishing it tomorrow, but if Hiawatha hits up research labs right away, the game could turn ugly.

Washington really killed my motivation to finish the game today. At the very least I should continue the game so I can raze every one of his cities to the ground.

 

[sufficiency]

Spoiler :

Started the map. It is quite easy for Immortal. Got religion from stone circles. Toughest part about the UA was getting the gold to secure a mercantile city-state; after that, no happiness issues at all.

Settling was staggered but by T115 I had six cities with the sixth one right on the Netherlands doorstep. Took out Netherlands at ~150 or so. Burned one trash city, but kept the rest as puppets.

At turn 198 NC is finished. Yes, I skipped Philosophy all together. Figured trying to force NC with the staggered city settling would be too much, so just ignored it.

Here is the frustrating part: I declare war on Washington shortly after William, because Huns/Iroquois are too far off for my liking, as far as domination. And I need Washington's cities before I think about taking on Khan's ~20 cities in the west. Problem is this: Washington is spamming minutemen like crazy and has Great Wall. A complete stale-mate. Can't get a good concave on his cities, nothing.

Currently signed peace while focusing on infrastructure. Hiawatha just entered the modern era, but it was a bee-line, because he, Khan, and myself all have the same exact science per turn. May try finishing it tomorrow, but if Hiawatha hits up research labs right away, the game could turn ugly.

Washington really killed my motivation to finish the game today. At the very least I should continue the game so I can raze every one of his cities to the ground.

Spoiler :

interesting, because in my game I took over most of Washington first, then the Dutch. Theodora was the one managing to get the great wall, only to fall to the Mongols.

 

[Fire0rb]

Played the first 100 Turns

Spoiler :

i hate the UA
i only settled 1 city, pumped out some units and killed the Dutch taking over 2 of his cities and burning the rest.
now i am trying to get back on my feet tech wise, finished NC sub 100 and trying to get Education asap due to massive Jungle
I need to kill Washington next where i have the same problem as Matthew, he has Great wall and a ing lot of army.
And hiwwatua already killed the Huns (didnt scout them but you spoiled they are in the game ) and he seems to get a major runaway, lets see how this progresses and if i can crack the USA fast enouhg to get hold on the rest of them

 

[Novalia]

Spoiler :

my game's been fairly straightforward. Washington wanted to be friends but I declined. I built about five elephants and an early archer. He attacked me pretty quickly around turn 50 or 60. I kicked his ass pretty good and took New York and Washington and two of his settlers. Left him Boston. In hindsight I should have let him settle some crap city and taken Boston.

NC around turn 75. Hanging gardens right after that. Oracle as well. Scouted the map pretty completely. Japan and Mongolia swallowed 2 CS Attila got another one.

Religion is up due to sending a scout one way and the warrior the other. Pantheon without a shrine. Stone circles. Hiawatha still beat me to first religion somehow and took my pagodas. Ceremonial burial, production, religious texts, and something else.

One of my early elephants was stuck behind Attila for so many turns because his borders closed up while I was half scouting.. Bumped into a CS they told me to kill a camp.. Well it's right here why not... Next thing I'm stuck there for 20 turns. It's quite fortunate in reality as I am watching Attila try to slog through the jungle on his way to my capital. Perfect timing as I was planning to take out Japan next who everybody hates. He has the Great Wall in my game. Would have been quite the surprise if I was on the other side of the map.

Tradition is finished took patronage opener. I've got some CS allies. Most importantly the two on my flank and another religious one. Starting to spread the religion. Need the happy.

Mongolia seems to be taking over in the west. Hiawatha doesn't want to fight Attila even with decent bribe. So I'm gonna fight that war in the next few turns.

 

[RedRover57]

Spoiler :

I decided to try a one city cultural VC. Turn 180 and my culture rate is decent , but my science rate is bad even with an observatory and running 2 university specialists. Trying to get to Industrial by T200 (will bulb into it with Oxford). So far I have completed Tradition, Piety, Honor opener (didn't help much), and 2 in Patronage (I have 5 CS allies). Religion has Stone Circles, Tithe (without it I would have no gold), Cathedrals, %prod increase and IP. Built a number of wonders including HG, CI, Oracle, HS, GMoD, AW (CS quest), Sistine, missed Alhambra. Planted 3 Artists and 2 Prophets so far. No AI civ is a total runaway yet.

 

[kirbdog]

Spoiler :

The UU proved quite capable. Used it and a single warrior to take out the Americans, Byzantines, and Japanese. Now it's nearing turn 300, I have quite a lot of bombers, and I've been battling the Dutch, who were the runaway. Hiawatha has passed him, however, while he's been busy, and has completed 2 ship parts. I plan to load up 3 atomic bombs on a carrier from Kyoto and pull a pearl harbor on him.

Yes, I took on the challenge of FULL HONOR and domination victory.

 

[Andra Bullar]

Domination game with India, now that's just cruel...

 

[Moriarte]

Spoiler :

I decided to give this a go. When will i play India again? Probably never.. Anyway. I decided to try sweeping the map with mighty elephants!

We settled in place and started with scout, monument, (culture ruin!), scout, granary, 2x warriors, war elephants.. (about 18 of them by the endgame). Liberty's settler and Military Tradition were chosen.

Spoiler :

Stone circles were chosen after two religious CS kindly provided us with a pantheon. Religion was created in the 50'ies and we chose Ceremonial burial and holy warriors. 3 elephants were bought with faith.

We decided to start with Washington, since he was the closest.

Spoiler :

Washington fell, and gave us Philadelphia as settlement, which we immediately sold to Oda. So, after some healing, the force of 8 elephants ambushed Constantinople, which was easy prey. Problems started when Indian elephants reached lands of Mongolia. As usual, Genghis wasn't chasing wonders, like some lesser leaders, he was actually preparing for our visit.

Spoiler :

Meanwhile, a second army was being assembled. They followed a narrow path in the jungle towards Attila and Hiawatha.

Spoiler :

After dancing around with elephants for a bit we killed most of Mongolia's army, but Genghis kept conjuring up more units, so we took our chances and surrounded Karakorum. After 3 turns of siege we lost 3 elephants but captured Mongolia's capital. He sued for peace and gave us a city as a settlement. City was razed on our way to Kyoto.

Spoiler :

While army #1 was trying to kill Genghis's troops, army #2 took Attila's court without trouble and surrounded Onondaga. Now Mohawks are real trouble makers. We lost half of army there (4 elephants), but gods were kind that day and Onondaga fell too.

Spoiler :

Lastly, both armies joined for a final push at the gates of Amsterdam. Elephant force was overwhelming and Amsterdam fell after 3 turns after declaration of war was announced.

Spoiler :

Despot Gandhi announced a year of celebrations and captives of war were released home, because Indian people are kindhearted and spiritual.

Hope you enjoyed this little write - up.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

That's kind of infuriating, Moriarte. Well done.

also, i REALLY wish this had WotAW for Halicarnassus. It's rare to get a good stone start and not try for it, haha.

 

[Moriarte]

Thanks! Yeah, i would accept a later finish date just to try this wonder for once .

 

[Fire0rb]

wow nice finishing time :O
need to train some early domination skills when i see this