This game was blood, sweat and tears for me, but I fared better than I expected on Immortal (Adventurer)... congratulations guys for these impressive victories
In 25ad I realised I neglected expansion in favour of wonders, realized I was going too wonder-crazy, decided to halt Hagia Sophia in Tiwanaku (horse city) and produce 2 or 3 settlers to quickly colonise the rest of the island.
I did it just in time because when my settler is close to reach the west edge, surprise, Tokugawa is there with a swordsman and settler, ready to settle... they landed in the tundra though and hesitated, which gave me the turn or two to settle 2N of tundra forests... There was still empty room in the middle of the continent where Toku's settler could build their town... I couldn't attack because I still had minimal army of quechuas and didn't really want war... they hanged around for a while and then suddenly Toku spits the dummy... disbanded the settler and DoW on me... with the lonely swordsman in the middle of my island
I waited for galley invasion but never came... Tried peace Toku didn't want... I linked the copper and build 4 ax to make sure the sword (now fortified in hill) was gone for good... job done, after a few turns I paid Toku a bribe (90gp I reckon) to end war...
Even with production halted, managed to finish Hagia Sophia in 560ad... Parthenon in Cuzco in the same turn... the HG was a crazy decision, but was still useful because I needed to pick up on cottage building that I also neglected...
I didnt build any more wonders and focused on money and techs when possible, kept military to a minimum, went too far on that though... missed Islam but soon 3 religions came to the island, I chose to not have official religion but still took Organised Religion in a GA because I wanted to spread the religions so I could build cathedrals later... also because I didn't want diplo penalty for heathen religion...
Later Napoleon DoW but I managed to keep him out of my towns, had to pay for peace though... I got Lib and Rifling and then halted research by the 1500s-1600s, didn't take Astro due to GLH (guess it was a noob decision like many others
)... defense by rifles, was counting on culture defensive bonus to hold out...
Tried to keep balance between bribe money and culture tax, building cathedrals and other culture meanwhile, few GAs because I didn't setup proper GP farms, was wary of substituting villages and towns for farms... nobody seem to care about building Statue of Liberty, so hands-free Cuzco tried... missed it to Alex by 2 turns
needed only another 500gp to hurry it
Then Toku again... declared 2 wars on me, in the first took westernmost town with marines, inf, etc... took it back with rifles only (suicidal of course), held enough to bribe for peace... second war they took that same town + copper town... took the 1st back again, but the island was well guarded with SAM, inf, planes, etc. and would be tough... thanks to Alex's AP I got peace...
In between, 2 tributes demanded by Nappy... first only 300gp the second he took the lot I had, 3500+gp... but that kept him quiet... by this point I was running Pacifism, Free Speech and trying to keep at 90-100% culture tax as often as possible... Alex and Stalin left me alone, but Alex had an agressive game, vassalised Wang Kon, Cyrus and created Byzantine vassal, if the AI was cleverer could have tried Domination...
1910ad was the beginning of the end: Cuzco already legendary (53k
), Tiwanaku and Machu Picchu (20-25k
) about 40-50 turns from Cultural Victory, Alex, Toku and Stalin on the first steps to spaceship... Alex, who was pretty cool to me the entire game, sneak attacks Cuzco, which was very poorly defended (was too worried about Toku in the west)... they took it in the same turn...
I knew it was over but I wanted to fight to the last drop and see what I could do... they tried to take another city near silver with Marine + some 10 cannons (expected better invasion) but after much sweat rifles managed to kill that invasion... then Toku took the opportunity and also DoW me! That was way too much... I didn't really care about the western and other cities, just needed the big 3 intact after war and could still have a chance... managed to take Cuzco back twice with massive suicidal rifles (nothing to lose!) 1926 and 1929ad, and then Nappy decided to play the vulture and also DoW... lost Cuzco again to Greeks, and gave Machu Picchu to Toku, in the last hope that could get all peace, they would Dow on each other and capital Tiwanaku could flip Cuzco and MC back if they happened to change owners (Am I crazy?
), but then Alex's puppet Wang Kon + Nappy came and took Tiwanaku, game over 1934ad... to the last drop...
If you chose to read about my noob game I hope I haven't wasted your time
I would love a red ambulance award for that, c'mon it was a big effort