glaivemaster
Prince
I just won my first game at Immortal difficulty, but I'm still undecided about how proud I should feel about this fact, given the way in which it was won (and really, it probably should've gone to the Russians)
I started off trying a French ICS, with the possibility of going for science or cultural victories (mainly gunning for culture, as a test of whether it was possible). Started with the Iroquois as my closest neighbour, and not much space between us. Remembering the last Immortal game I tried (basically the same positioning) in which the Iroquois killed me very quickly, I was determined not to let it happen again. I took his two cities, left them as puppets for the rest of the game and continued spamming cities with the help of early Liberty SPs.
Clearly the AI was not fond of my early aggression, or possibly was just opportunistic at the fact that I hadn't really built any military since that first war, because Bismarck, Darius and Nobunaga all declared war on me at roughly the same time. Luckily, a wall of 4 allied city states and mountains quite handily kept the Japanese and Persians out of my territory (despite being at war with one or both of them for most of the game they never managed to get through these buffer states), and Bismarck was separated by lots of flat terrain which allowed archers to pick off any approaching units.
As the game went on other AIs (Catherine, Nebuchadnezzer) also started DOW'ing on me, and while I was never at war with more than 3 people at once (and never more than 1 relevant person at a time) the constant war began to get annoying and so the time of the musketeers arrived, and every city in my not-unsubstantial nation produced one or two of the units. This seemed to deter the AI and after they all eventually went to peace I managed to stay peaceful by maintaining a large army for the rest of the game.
In this time, however, I had not really managed to progress very far towards my goal of culture (going down the wrong side of the tech tree and building too many units), and it was when Catherine reached the Modern era while I was still 5 turns away from Industrial that I realised I might be a little bit behind. Nevertheless, I perservered and tried not to be put off as Catherine started steamrolling the rest of the continent's infantry with her Modern Armor.
Then a wondrous thing happened. Catherine, being so far ahead as she was, randomly built the United Nations (something I was now vaguely aiming for anyway, as the only likely option still open to me). I looked at the state of play in the diplomatic sphere and saw that Catherine only had 5 city states, and I had the remaining 6 (all others having been trampled by Catherine earlier). I looked at my money (a measly 30 gpt, and 200 in the bank), and saw the counter in the corner - 10 turns until a vote. There was no way I could steal 4 allies from Catherine in 10 turns with such a small treasury.
Then an idea struck. For the next 9 turns I would sell every building in my empire (once again, quite a few since I was large, but am still a builder at heart), thus saving money on maintenance and gaining money from sales in the meantime. And so the end of game sale began, an altruistic leader coming to power and wishing to share his nation's wealth with the smaller nations of the world (or something, I dunno). With one turn left to go on the vote I now had 2500 gold, 200 gpt and still 4 allies to buy. Working my way through them, they mostly cost 750 gold each to bribe to my side, leaving me with 3 stolen allies and a pitiable 250 to spend on Edinburgh, who also got my entire army (not sure how many riflemen, possibly 15-20) in order to cover the cost reuired to buy their vote. Next turn comes around and I barely scrape a win in the UN (10 votes, with one city state about to fall out of favour with me)
So what do you think, CFC? Last minute sale of buildings to steal victory from a clearly richer and more superior foe: Cunningly outsmarting the AI with intelligent use of a feature, or exploiting game mechanics for a cheap, undeserved win?
I started off trying a French ICS, with the possibility of going for science or cultural victories (mainly gunning for culture, as a test of whether it was possible). Started with the Iroquois as my closest neighbour, and not much space between us. Remembering the last Immortal game I tried (basically the same positioning) in which the Iroquois killed me very quickly, I was determined not to let it happen again. I took his two cities, left them as puppets for the rest of the game and continued spamming cities with the help of early Liberty SPs.
Clearly the AI was not fond of my early aggression, or possibly was just opportunistic at the fact that I hadn't really built any military since that first war, because Bismarck, Darius and Nobunaga all declared war on me at roughly the same time. Luckily, a wall of 4 allied city states and mountains quite handily kept the Japanese and Persians out of my territory (despite being at war with one or both of them for most of the game they never managed to get through these buffer states), and Bismarck was separated by lots of flat terrain which allowed archers to pick off any approaching units.
As the game went on other AIs (Catherine, Nebuchadnezzer) also started DOW'ing on me, and while I was never at war with more than 3 people at once (and never more than 1 relevant person at a time) the constant war began to get annoying and so the time of the musketeers arrived, and every city in my not-unsubstantial nation produced one or two of the units. This seemed to deter the AI and after they all eventually went to peace I managed to stay peaceful by maintaining a large army for the rest of the game.
In this time, however, I had not really managed to progress very far towards my goal of culture (going down the wrong side of the tech tree and building too many units), and it was when Catherine reached the Modern era while I was still 5 turns away from Industrial that I realised I might be a little bit behind. Nevertheless, I perservered and tried not to be put off as Catherine started steamrolling the rest of the continent's infantry with her Modern Armor.
Then a wondrous thing happened. Catherine, being so far ahead as she was, randomly built the United Nations (something I was now vaguely aiming for anyway, as the only likely option still open to me). I looked at the state of play in the diplomatic sphere and saw that Catherine only had 5 city states, and I had the remaining 6 (all others having been trampled by Catherine earlier). I looked at my money (a measly 30 gpt, and 200 in the bank), and saw the counter in the corner - 10 turns until a vote. There was no way I could steal 4 allies from Catherine in 10 turns with such a small treasury.
Then an idea struck. For the next 9 turns I would sell every building in my empire (once again, quite a few since I was large, but am still a builder at heart), thus saving money on maintenance and gaining money from sales in the meantime. And so the end of game sale began, an altruistic leader coming to power and wishing to share his nation's wealth with the smaller nations of the world (or something, I dunno). With one turn left to go on the vote I now had 2500 gold, 200 gpt and still 4 allies to buy. Working my way through them, they mostly cost 750 gold each to bribe to my side, leaving me with 3 stolen allies and a pitiable 250 to spend on Edinburgh, who also got my entire army (not sure how many riflemen, possibly 15-20) in order to cover the cost reuired to buy their vote. Next turn comes around and I barely scrape a win in the UN (10 votes, with one city state about to fall out of favour with me)
So what do you think, CFC? Last minute sale of buildings to steal victory from a clearly richer and more superior foe: Cunningly outsmarting the AI with intelligent use of a feature, or exploiting game mechanics for a cheap, undeserved win?
