Immortal Challenge #2 - India on Pangaea

[sufficiency]

It's been a while. Anyone wanna make IC3?

 

[zxcvbob]

I just tried this one. Settled 2 cities both on hills next to mountains. Took a mix of Tradition and Honor, intending to finish both eventually. My plan was to build lots of archers and elephants and a few spears, avoiding Construction so I could build more archers. Mass upgrades when I unlock Professional Army. I'm friends with everybody. I stole one worker from a CS and I build one in my expo after getting walls and a library and a granary up (the monument was free) I did build Hanging Gardens, maybe that was a mistake.

Spoiler :

Washington was going to be my first target, but I have a DoF with him... gotta wait for that to expire. Meanwhile he settles 10 cities. He's also staying ahead of me in tech even tho' I got my national college up early and he has all those crappy little cities.

About turn 120 Washington backstabs me; he and Hiawatha declare war. I paid Mongolia to declare war on him, cheap. (Genghis also has a larger army than Washington) But then he doesn't do anything, just took my silver and wished me good luck.

Knights kill elephants and archers in one punch. He also has about a dozen catapults, and I can only kill one per turn. I've almost finished researching Civil Service. My cities are on hills and Mumbai has walls, but there's no way I can hold them off so I quit. I didn't have any gold for upgrading my archers and spears anyway.

(BTW, I got my pantheon fairly quick but Stone Circles was gone already. So I took the extra hammers one)

Not sure what to try differently. I think negative GPT for a while is what was holding me back the most. I sold some luxes to reverse that, but I had no reserves, and not enough to keep paying my army if I built more units. I can build a replacement elephant or spear in 2 turns, it dies in one.

I may try it again. Build nothing but scouts and elephants and expect most of them to die, but attack Washington *early*. I can build crossbows later to replace the elephants, since they upgrade awkwardly anyway. Any elephants that survive can stay as city garrisons.

I'm not sure where gold comes from in G&K without caravans. I don't have many fresh water tiles.

ETA: Maybe because of the elephants, I should be rushing to Construction because I won't need as many composite bows, and a coliseum might be handy.

 

[zxcvbob]

I tried it again, this time building scout, monument, then units. Archers until I could build elephants, then those. Stole a worker from a CS. I looked for a chance to steal a settler from America but he escorted them with spears. I did stop to build a settler, and that city built walls and then an archer. I was running slightly negative GPT from the unit maintenance. I did get to Stone Circles first this time.

Washington declared war on me on turn 70 and attacked Mumbai (sp?) with about 20 assorted swords, composite bows, and catapults. He destroyed my whole army in 3 turns and then took the city and I quit.

I know I really suck at this, but I don't see how this one is even possible. I may try one more time going Liberty instead of Honor.