The Immortal Challenge Lineup - Game #15 Austria

[Lorgus]

I got a Diplo Victory, turn 347.

The whole game was pretty much a "manage the ai" fest, where I would go after ai's who had more tech than me as I tried to race them to science. First I fought attila, who had destroyed both Siam and Egypt, and took most of his cities, then I went after hiawatha, paying both pacal and ottomans to declare on him (I forgot I had a DoF with him and declared too, ooops). Then, once I had taken his capital I noticed that france had lined up a bunch of units by my borders, including nukes in his border city, so I started gearing up for another war.

At this point, I was swimming in money and CS allies though, so when the first Diplo vote came around, I thought "why not try for it", bought up the rest of the CS'es and voted. With egypt's 4 votes for liberating him, I had juuuust enough to win. I was suprised this was even possible, as CSes were getting killed left and right, and I had annexed 4 of them up to this point in the game. Does annexing them lower the threshold for Diplo win? It sure felt like it, but I forget if it does.

So yeah, pretty cheesy win, but I already had 2 spaceship parts bought with cash, and more being built, still didn't have the techs for the last two, kinda disappointing at my bad science this game (was pretty much tied for 1st with france all game), but there you go.

Spoiler :

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

t309 CV

Spoiler :

This turned out to be kind of fun. I got all Renn and later wonders except Uffizi and Brandenburg and themed all (except GL and Uffizi). I could have bulbed Internet before finish, but was waiting for CN Tower to complete, LOL.

Resources really sucked on this map - no coal or uranium anywhere near the start, and very little iron or oil. Very few antiquity sites - and the hidden sites were mostly awkwardly located.

My expansion city N of Nappy turned out pretty well (2 Landmarks), and I built another E of Brussels that already had a bunch of tiles developed as it was near a site where Askia had a city razed by Attila. Attila was in permanent wars all game - I think I bribed the first one. Nappy only DOW'd me once, and he didn't have a good path to hit anyone else, so he just stagnated.

I went Freedom, and passed Ideology with only Nappy having one (Order). Lots of pressure on everyone else, so it was the rare game where there were 4 Freedom civs. The map must have really sucked for the AI, as only Pacal ever had more than 1k gold. As often is the case, I just quit caring about faith, so had almost 4k in the bank at the end.

I absolutely ripped through policies - even faster than any Poland game I have played. I have never been the wonder whore and had +3 culture/wonder.

Spoiler :

 

[Fluphen Azine]

I knew you had this game in the bag from that last post...Nice Job! Also nice job on the timing of finishing this game at the same time as the new ICL is posted!!

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

Thanks! I am about 100 turns into the new one, pretty wacky already. I hope to post an update tomorrow.

 

[Half Nelson]

Ughh! A very hard slog. I did have a plan, involving a midgame conquest of cultural artifacts with Hussars and Artillery. It sort of worked, but would have finished much too late for my liking. I couldn't face waiting 40-50+ extra turns for my tourism to dominate, so I put this sorry world out of it's misery by turning to Domination victory.

Spoiler :

I learned some valuable lessons from BIG mistakes:-

1. Aesthetics is crucial for CV (Doh!!). I didn't take it.

2. You need to start trimming the culture vultures much earlier than I did, or be prepared to take them out completely. The latter option was just too much effort on this map.

3. Petra may improve a barren desert, but will not necessarily make a great city (I rather wasted a Liberty GE here).

I do like Hussars. I married only 1 City State (as a gateway to land conquest). Coffee houses were not a significant factor.