Immortal Challenge #2 - India on Pangaea

[kirbdog]

Spoiler :

Turn 330, the stack of 20 stealth bombers has toppled the capitals of Hiawatha and the Dutch. They were the only real threats, as they were building ship parts. Only the Hun's and the Mongol's capitals need to be taken yet. And yes, I am a bit envious of Moriarte's finish time!

 

[Novalia]

Spoiler :

turn 137 and the great wall is mine.. i thought attila was going to try to flank me but hiawatha declared war on him just as his troops got halfway thru the jungle mire.. i watched him turn around and began my elephant trek across the map to take out oda and snag his great wall..

the mongols were very friendly and allowed me open borders for some nice healing refuge while swapping out elephants.. only lost one elephant to a samurai he must have rush bought..

gonna heal up, get happiness in order.. i was forced to settle a city to the west of delhi as the dutch are encroaching on my turf.. plus i need the silvers to pick up some AI cash.. happiness is pretty decent despite annexing america's cities.. my religion is everywhere as i picked up hagia sophia and great mosque.. and been cranking out missionaries.. about to finish angkor wat to keep my great wall borders growing.. production in delhi is strong.

the mongols army is huge.. nearly 3x mine at 150k.. i need to trim that down.. and build mine up.. he was about to attack oda but i bribed him to declare on attila.. i would have asked him to fight the dutch but they're still sporting archers.. it would be a rout.. then he'd be on my borders..

hiawatha, the dutch, and theodora are my allies.. attila is keeping hiawatha in check.. now i need to keep mongolia in check..

1 turn from renaissance.. 2 turns to rationalism..
economy is fairly crappy.. but oda built colossus as well so that should help a little bit.

Spoiler :

 

[Matthew.]

Spoiler :

Finished the map. Washington went down easy once artillery unlocked. Rest of the map was easy. Didn't need any air--double attack rocket artillery was enough

Wasn't paying attention and Genghis re-captured his capital right before I took the Hun's capital. Unfortunately for Genghis, GDR > Lancer spam.

Here is a good example of how the AI doesn't think. He is busy sweeping back across all the cities I previously conquered. I march four GDR's straight to his capital, rolling over anything that gets in my way. He completely ignores them even though his capital is the last one up.

Not like he could have stopped them anyway... newb didn't even have a single XCom squad.

View attachment 347922


BTW, nice finish time Moriarte.

 

[Moriarte]

47 happiness is crazy though. Did you get to pick some nice religious perk for that?

 

[Tabarnak]

Nice one Moriarte!

Are you ready for some mp games?

 

[Moriarte]

Nice one Moriarte!

Are you ready for some mp games?

Yeah, i think it's time . Where do i start?

 

[sufficiency]

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.

Holy

 

[TastyMushrooms]

Giving this a try!

 

[Matthew.]

47 happiness is crazy though. Did you get to pick some nice religious perk for that?

Nah, just had most of the wonders in the game by that point (Forbidden, Notre). Happiness was only at ~15 for most of the game. Pop. was really low across the map, too. I'm kind of surprised that I kept pace with science. Reaching the end of the tech tree around low 300's is pretty standard for me, but where I was getting that science I have no idea. Delayed NC until ~T200, too. Maybe India has some hidden science bonus I don't know about

 

[RedRover57]

Turn 310 cultural victory

Spoiler :

One city. No DoWs on my part (one short war with Washington when he DoWed me early in the game); therefore, no puppets. It was a nail biter as the Iroquois were at 95% tech completion and one spaceship part to go. I only peaked at around 735 culture/turn in a GA (with 10 landmarks and 2 cultural CS - the other 2 cultural CS were conquered). I had to constantly bribe the AI to war with each other and to make peace with my CS allies. I'm pretty happy with this time considering only one city, no river (growth was ok but not great - 32 pop at the end) and the fact that half my CS allies were conquered.

 

[kirbdog]

Turn 340 domination victory. Took full Honor, then Aesthetics, then the Rationalism opener and the 2 on the left, then full Order. The UU is very strong early on! The happiness problems were solved for me after Neuschwenstein (that and Honor and India makes "Castles" interesting). But it was very painful early on, and I did have a fun moment of -60 happiness after a peace deal with a bunch of cities in it. I earned at least 10,000 gold from the honor finisher, and I got plane promos so fast that Brandenburg looks like a ripoff (I just did barracks + armory), so it's definitely worth considering when doing domination on immortal or higher, but maybe not as the first 6 policies. In fact full honor was the most fun part of the game, hands down.

(If 10,000 gold sounds exaggerated, it isn't; it's roughly 200 modern era units at 50 gold each. It kept me going through some rough patches of -200 gold per turn and let me rush buy several nukes.)

 

[TastyMushrooms]

Oh god standard speed is so different than marathon XD

 

[Yngve]

I do not know why people find India bad for domination, I love India for domination! Anyway going to try this one see how many turns I will manage to press out a victory in.

 

[sufficiency]

Turn 340 domination victory. Took full Honor, then Aesthetics, then the Rationalism opener and the 2 on the left, then full Order. The UU is very strong early on! The happiness problems were solved for me after Neuschwenstein (that and Honor and India makes "Castles" interesting). But it was very painful early on, and I did have a fun moment of -60 happiness after a peace deal with a bunch of cities in it. I earned at least 10,000 gold from the honor finisher, and I got plane promos so fast that Brandenburg looks like a ripoff (I just did barracks + armory), so it's definitely worth considering when doing domination on immortal or higher, but maybe not as the first 6 policies. In fact full honor was the most fun part of the game, hands down.

(If 10,000 gold sounds exaggerated, it isn't; it's roughly 200 modern era units at 50 gold each. It kept me going through some rough patches of -200 gold per turn and let me rush buy several nukes.)

That's pretty much what I got in terms of number of turns. Hiawatha was a hard nut to crack =\

 

[kirbdog]

I do not know why people find India bad for domination

Early on, when cities are less than size 6, India has to support more unhappiness. That's the idea anyway.

 

[Yngve]

Early on, when cities are less than size 6, India has to support more unhappiness. That's the idea anyway.

Yeah, well.. you do not have to support the unhappiness for long, since it doesnt take many turns before the UA generate more happiness than the extra you get from cities especially in a domination game where the cities you take usually have some population allready. I guess in the start it might be a hindrance if you want to expand your own cities but if you want to conquer you also have a pretty neat UU so your not that bad off in the start either.

I know in my game at the moment at turn 180 I got 13 more happiness than if I didnt have the UA, had I been a little more selective this could have been higher to, and I have gotten advantage of the UA from around round 50.

 

[Unresolved]

Yeah, well.. you do not have to support the unhappiness for long, since it doesnt take many turns before the UA generate more happiness than the extra you get from cities especially in a domination game where the cities you take usually have some population allready. I guess in the start it might be a hindrance if you want to expand your own cities but if you want to conquer you also have a pretty neat UU so your not that bad off in the start either.

I know in my game at the moment at turn 180 I got 13 more happiness than if I didnt have the UA, had I been a little more selective this could have been higher to, and I have gotten advantage of the UA from around round 50.

It's because happiness is harder to maintain early in the game, rather than late in the game. It's pretty easy to keep up your happiness in a late domination game since you'll probably capture the Forbidden Palace and Notre Dame. Unlike Mongolia, India simply doesn't have a UU or a UB that blows away all of it's deficiencies. Instead, it has a crummy UA that impedes growth in the most essential section of the game.

 

[EEE_BOY]

I do not know why people find India bad for domination, I love India for domination! Anyway going to try this one see how many turns I will manage to press out a victory in.

Early on, when cities are less than size 6, India has to support more unhappiness. That's the idea anyway.

India is great for late game domination as the survived happiness buildings in the puppets and the UA can keep the happiness easily managed.

Never go tradition with India (similar as never go Autocarcy with Japan). Also early domination for India seems suboptimal but it's immortal so anything is fine

 

[kirbdog]

Never go tradition with India

Unless, of course, tradition is still your best option, even with monarchy "nerfed" by India's UA.

 

[Fire0rb]

i just tried the early domination and everything went fine for some time
took Washington turn 65 and marched towards Constantinople when i got DoW'ed by the Dutch Turn 68 . He came with a ton of units so i was forced to stay back with my newly produced elephants and defend it, so no fast supply anymore.
Took Constantinople Turn 82, but had no chance to get to Karakorum because 4 japanese cities blocked the path and no open borders possible.
So i ran myself 10 turn around the moutain and took Kyoto turn 92 and headed to Karakorum when Oda finally gave me a city towards Mongolia.
By then i already pushed back the Dutch but when my 2nd army arrived at the borders of attila, he had cramped his complete territory full with units. I could not even reach his capital with open borders. there was no way to get him into a war with the aztecs and i had no chance in fighting in that massive jungle territory.
So i took Karakorum and the aztec capital but miserably failed at attila court and when my first army came back to the dutch he had so many pikeman i could not even cross the borders :S

Well but for my first try in this kind of domination i was kinda suprised i got 5/7 capitals with relative ease. But it a hard race against the time, which i lost poorly in the end :S