The Immortal Challenge Lineup - Game #13 Egypt

[Acken]

Done.

 

[phillipwyllie]

t291 CV
@Acken thanks for the vid, it made me think about liberty again.

Spoiler :

Basically I did what Acken did by settling where he did, although on reflection I should've settled Heliopolis on the marble so it would've been a coastal observatory city.
There were no wars(with me anyway) and the only units I built were 2 archers and 2 scouts.
I forgot about religion and when I realised I couldn't even fond a pantheon I was contemplating selling my shrines but luckily Heliopolis got HS in 7 turns so my religion consisted of Goddess of Festivals(luckily)->Tithe->Divine Inspiration->Swords into Plowshares->Itinerant Preachers. That inquisitor(bought in the Modern era) in Memphis was because Theodora planted a GP next to Memphis and I has many turns left on a DOF.
I snagged 24 wonders including Manhattan project & Apollo program. All were hard built except for Petra in Heliopolis and Notre Dame in Elephantine. I was only beaten to 1 wonder and that was Taj Mahal by 3turns to Boudicca because I had to switch build order when Pocatello founded the WC whilst I was building it. I didn't get Ufizi as I hadn't even opened Aesthetics when it went. In Acken's game he got MoH but in my game Boudicca built it on turn 60ish. Colossus went fairly early as well.
I had no real victory in mind that's why it took until turn 291, although DV was out of the question as yo can see Pocatello was generating 1051gpt and he used it. Perhaps if I replay I'll go for a SV but still snagging those cultural wonders, just need to work out where to stick a 5th city.

 

[Primacide]

I just completed this map after looking through the immortal challenge series for one that I thought I could handle. I have trouble going for a science or cultural VC - it always degenerates into a Dom fest. I thought this map would be ideal for four city tradition and peaceful.

Man I blew it. I let one early war landslide into a game-long, grinding, attritional raze-and-puppet cataclysm. It was awful. Rush to arty. Rush to flight. Rush to GDR.

I just couldn't help myself. Turn 335 Dom Vic. Love that Hubble for the last military techs. Stealth bomber and "see ya."

 

[stormtrooper412]

Acken, if you won't mind answering, do you think this map is possible to OCC or at least get some wonders like ToA, GL, HG out before branching out

 

[Acken]

Yes you can OCC this map.

 

[i_imperator]

Thanks acken replayed this map and i won a culture victory on turn 309, couldve been faster but considering this is my second immortal game i'm happy with it! I followed your videos but

Spoiler :

i settled a city near the mountains, citrus so i could get more coal for factories.

 

[phillipwyllie]

Acken, if you won't mind answering, do you think this map is possible to OCC or at least get some wonders like ToA, GL, HG out before branching out

When I tired OCCing before branching out this happened:

Spoiler :

Theodora planted a city where I put Memphis and Rammy planted a city south of where I settled Elphantine. I would assume any AI would plant a city where Memphis is so if you OCC first then you will probably loose that spot. War is an option but that wold detract from your wonder whoring.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

t306 accidental DV

Spoiler :

This game was pretty fun for a while, and was probably my best wonder game and near my best bpt at 2217. Doing better with Liberty wide (still not as easy as Tradition wide, IMO). I started with 6 cities pretty quickly, then added 2 islands and a SW expo SE of Ram's capital. I had to build a lot of Zoos mid-game, as all that expansion was tough, and I was pissing several people off.

I crushed WF, which is nice to do, putting about 1,500 hammers into it, so only Spain got silver. Rammed thru my religion (Poc helped cuz I spread hard to him), then pushed thru Order, which pissed him off, but he flipped a few turns later. Ram was a jerk, and once he built SoL I decided that was enough - so I had crazy production, what with 3 Hydroplants and Petra out E as well. I worked engineer slots in expos instead of science to get everything built quicker.

I just derped around, trying to build every wonder I could, and built dozens of Archeologists - for artifacts but also to try to build Landmarks for every civ and CS I could. I was going for a slow-roasted SV, could have easily won that 20-30 turns earlier, but was only building one SS part at a time at the end, plus I quit faith-buying GS's. Was one turn from Big Ben, otherwise I got all available late game wonders. I didn't get Louvre, but I had all the other theming ones, but couldn't theme Uffizi in Ram's cap.

I was given so many units from the Mil CS's, and later they all appeared on my SW expo, so once I had 4 Rocket Artilleries it seemed a waste not to use them, so I attacked Ram. I have no doubt I could have rolled the entire map, but it just gets so boring, slogging everywhere. I could probably have won CV as well in a while, Ram was the biggest obstacle, and Theo finally took him out after I had his last city down to 0 for about 12 turns. Everybody was pissed at everybody (except the original Order bloc of Germany, Theo, and me) once Poc flipped, it was kind of funny.

I guess I ended with 25 wonders, but 7 came from Ram. This was my first game where I took Jesuit Education, which was horribly OP what with all the wine culture/faith and Mosques. Basically an I WIN button when going wide. Left 5k faith on the table, just quit caring.

 

[GerrardCapashen]

Spoiler :

Well, this was fun. I settled Thebes inland since the coast seemed like it was just giving up too many good tiles from the capital. Went monument/worker with pottery into archery for Temple of Artemis. After that it was basically beelines to every wonder tech:

Temple of Artemis
Stonehenge
Mausoleum
Oracle
Borobodur (GE)
Hagia Sophia
Notre Dame
Sistine Chapel
Leaning Tower of Pisa
Uffizi (GE)
Porcelain Tower
Louvre (GE)
Angkor Wat
Eiffel Tower (GE)
Big Ben
Cristo Redentor
CN Tower
Great Firewall
Hubble Space Telescope (GE)

Got a pretty nice religion: wine/incense pantheon, tithe, +15% production, +2 faith per wonder, Religious Texts. Wasn't able to spread it very far because of Siam and Byzantium, but didn't really want them to get the production bonus anyways. Siam sniped Globe Theatre and the Statue of Liberty from me. I was too greedy and didn't want to spend 1500 faith to buy a GE for the Statue. Guess I won't make that mistake again. I ended up with 3000 faith left over so probably should have just spent it.

The tourism game was going well until Germany started taking over a third of the world. With a different ideology and no trade routes available to him I was having trouble catching up to his culture from 17 cities. After getting the Internet, NVC and Radar for airports I faith bought Great Musicians for 1000/15000/2500/4000 faith and culture bombed him and Siam to win.

Looking at the games of others, I think maybe I would have been better off building fewer wonders and more settlers in the ancient era. I had about 30-50 excess happiness for most of the game, so there was no real reason to stay on 3 cities other than that I didn't like the idea of settling cities half in the desert. Burial tombs are amazing for early game happiness, so there's no reason no to go wide.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Spoiler :

Taking a break from Mongolian conquest, here's two screenies of how it's going so far. Not really a fast game by any means but hardly a boring one

More details when I finish

 

[Acken]

Thanks acken replayed this map and i won a culture victory on turn 309, couldve been faster but considering this is my second immortal game i'm happy with it! I followed your videos but

Spoiler :

i settled a city near the mountains, citrus so i could get more coal for factories.

Glad that helped. With the next immortal game I may try to make a guide playthrough and trying to talk more The map would have to be rather standard though. I know sometimes I'm a bit silent as some stuff are evident to me.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Spoiler :

Another misplay on my part apparently. Miscalculated all united nations votes by 1 and nobody wants to take gold to vote for me either. I hoarded 24 wonders total, would probably gotten the 25th by the end. Oh what fun this game was, and I didn't even need to win to make it funny

It was obviously a bit slower due to me playing OCC so it took forever to make United Nations. Oh well...

 

[budweiser]

At 115 downloads, this looks like the most popular ICL yet. We'll see about that!

 

[Lorgus]

So I've been lurking on this forum for a while, and I finally decided to try one of the challenges. I started without having any idea how I wanted to win, except that it would not involve cranking out wonders (A habit it took me some time to break...lol)

So I rolled through the first continent with endless masses of chariot archers (which surprised me by being awesome). Wiped out Siam, then Carthage. Didn't have any real difficulty until I encountered the Celts, because they had forest all around their cities, which was very problematic for my chariot archers. Luckily after some workers got to work chopping, the going got easier, but it still took me way longer to take out Boudicca than the other leaders.

After taking out the Celts and being chain-denounced by most civs, I had no allies but Spain, which is normal considering I had wiped out 3 civs by that point. But as I looked at the ruins of the civilizations around me, I realized I had let the other civs get way ahead in tech.

So I scienced up as much as I could, but I was late to battleships, and I had been declared on a couple times by germany and shoshone. Luckily I had 6-8 range promotion logistics frigates from picking off the shoshone's city state allies ( after he declared I realized they were the only ones weak enough for me to really take with my frigates, and hey, less votes for him in WC ). So when I DID hit electronics, I upgraded the bunch and had an OP fleet that I sailed over and used to take the remaining capitals. Enemy planes made this kinda hard, and I had to rush buy lots of units, luckily AI rammed like 10 bombers into my 2 fighters so I won (I still feel dirty about that though, lol).

Honor gold late game was insane, I discovered. I usually go trad, but this time decided to mix it up in the spirit of domination.

Spoiler :

Btw, does anyone know why the game didn't end when I took berlin? I was the only player in possession of my original capital, as madrid was owned by germany, as seen in this screenshot.

 

[Browd]

You also need to take Madrid. In vanilla and G&K the domination victory condition was just that you be the last civ in control of your original capital. In BNW that was changed to require that you control all original capitals.

Yes, the Civilopedia text has not been updated, but the Victory Progress screen shows the correct requirement.

 

[nickytootricky]

T309 CV. A bit disappointed with the turn time. Nothing really out of the ordinary to report. It'll be back to Deity play next week...

 

[Vo01985]

T288 SV (the only one so far?)

Spoiler :

Obvious wonder whoring. Managed to get:

T32: Temple of Artemis,
T71 HG
T79 Mausoleum of H
T91 Oracle
T95 Pyramids
T101 Petra
T107 Chichen Itza
T131 Notre Dame
T137 Great Wall (because why not?)
T149 Pisa
T155, Porcelain
T158 Forbidden Palace (to pass Science Funding)
T175 Taj Mahal
T204, Statue of Liberty
T233, Eiffel Tower
T233 Broadway
T241 Cristo Redentor
T242 Hubble Space Telescope
T261 CN Tower
T264 Great Firewall
T269 Pentagon

I did manage to get a very late religion (turn 150 or so), so I was only able to buy 1 GS with it. Could have shaved off some turns if I didn't build so many Engineers and Merchants.
All in all fun game, I figured it was going to be a faceroll when I saw the start.
Time spent: 1h55m

 

[consentient]

T163 Domination

Spoiler :

Oh what difference a few months of playing a game makes. I looked back over the thread and saw that I was still looking for Domination advice when this map was released. Now I think I've pretty much got it down. What do I do differently now compared with January? Starting to war with Archers for one thing. Razing nearly all AI cities for another. Using spare money for CS alliances for a third.

This game was really fun because I could build a ton of wonders while my army was in foreign lands destroying all and sundry. When you plunge the world into a new Dark Age the AI doesn't know what to do and diverts its energies away from tech and wonders.

I think it's even possible to win this map much earlier if you concentrate on the chariot rush. I just love XBs though, they are kinda my pet units.

SPs: Tradition, some of Aesthetics, Rationalism, Secularism. Didn't need to get to Ideologies, and although Autocracy would have been nice, razing cities means your production of Oxford University ceases and I thought it would be faster to tech the bottom half of the tree than tech Radio the hard way and go Autocracy.

I really think this should be changed in a patch because it makes no sense to consider razing cities as part of the national wonder requirements.

"Mr. President, I'm afraid we can't complete the new Rockefeller University because the library is on fire in Fallujah."

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Not the most exciting game despite wonderwhoring. I keep reading that people got faith ruins, writing ruins, culture ruins, etc, but all I got was some sh*tty ruins which gave me map, barbarian encampment, archer upgrade. Whatever. I beelined writing and rushed the GL and ToA. Since I had no time for shrine or faith ruins, I yolo'ed the Stonehenge and made Boudicca mad. The Stonehenge made me miss our the Parthenon, but it was totally worth it because I got a fast pantheon and fast religion. Also, Theodora had only one worker who sat in the city because she had not researched Calendar. So my warrior jacked off behind the hill, and I slowly got 2 workers out of Byzantium. I also had to DoW and block Siam's settler+warrior until he finally gave up. There were soome barbarian camps, but I was too busy harassing the AI's and missed all those free workers, got upset, and just purchased one myself.

In the end, the UA is kind of nice, but I feel like in the Poland game (#2) with all the salts and hills, you can achieve the same result without even having any special UA.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

I LOL'd the Warrior comment!