For Phil, Evana, and Other Interested Players: Try this Game! ^_^

[Gwaja]

This map is dedicated to Phil, Evana, and many other fellow friends of mine here at Civ Fanatics forum. At first, I thought I rolled a great start after regenerating the map a couple of times... only to realize that the starting position isn't as great as it appears to look.

Now I meant to provide a really hateful map to provide as much challenge as possible on Immortal for these uber awesomely skilled friends of mine, but decided that this map would be kinda annoying enough to provide some challenge.

Besides, I wouldn't want to inflict any possibility of a loss on an Immortal map.... that would be too disgraceful for my friends of such awesome Civ 4 knowledge and skillz! ^_^

You are Roosevelt of America... or good ol Rosy... but I prefer Frankie. ^_^

Map Settings: Nothing fancy, pretty standard on a pangaea map.

Starting Position:

OMG! We have gold, stone, marble, cow, and fish! Not to mention we start coastal and on plains hill with fresh water bonus! Is this too good to be true or what? ^_^ Uber start you say? But how about if your surrounding land sucks... or how about if you don't have enough good surrounding land to expand?

But surely... this game can't be that bad right? I mean... I created it for god's sakes. My maps are all easy! This should be piece of cake! (I am looking at you Evana and Phil. ^_^)

Oh, and you will love the neighbors on this map. ^_^ They are so loveable... all of them!

***runs and hides before someone starts throwing something my way***

 

[CaF]

the question now is: should i get stoned or marbled?

 

[Gwaja]

the question now is: should i get stoned or marbled?

Stone + Marble + Industrious = Automatic win right? ^_^

You might as well just spam wonders. There really is no incentive to build cities on this map. ^_^

 

[NihilZero]

Nice enough start, but it could use more food for starters. it will be a very slow-growing cap. Plus I sometimes find it a little bit sad to start with all visibile resources because then you know there is nothing nice hidden.*

I'll give it a go after I finish the Louis game.

*unless...is that an unforested tile to the east? I find these funky graphics hard to read.

 

[Gwaja]

Please do not hate me for providing this kind of map. ^_^

My aforementioned friends will take all responsibility for existence of this map, if this turns out to be a hateful map. ^_^

 

[NihilZero]

I find it's quite common for a spectacular starting spot to be surrounded by nothing but junk, so I won't be too surprised. It's a pangaea so land will be at a premium in any case. Food it the big concern. You need good food when there is an early rush for land.

 

[Gwaja]

I find it's quite common for a spectacular starting spot to be surrounded by nothing but junk, so I won't be too surprised. It's a pangaea so land will be at a premium in any case. Food it the big concern. You need good food when there is an early rush for land.

Oh you shall find out soon enough... Evana and Phil will love this. I mean.. they asked for it... so they shall receive! ^_^

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You are so tempting me to APcheese it.

 

[Gwaja]

You are so tempting me to APcheese it.

Special rule just for my honorary friend that this game is dedicated to:

You are forbidden to do Culture or Diplomatic Victory in this game! ^_^

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Ewwwww wonder resources. I'd rather build the 10 Axe/Chariot wonder.

 

[Gwaja]

Ewwwww wonder resources. I'd rather build the 10 Axe/Chariot wonder.

LOL... good luck building axes and chariots. ^_^

 

[Infrared]

Spent half an hour plotting my triumphant rush on

Spoiler :

Shaka

only to fail.

I got nothing.

I await AbsoluteZero's inevitable bribe victory.

 

[vicawoo]

I'm assuming the game will be warmonger heavy, in which case a gold start is good incentive to try to bribe a lot of people to war and take advantage of diplomacy.

 

[NihilZero]

Okay, Louis is finished so I loaded this up, and here's what I learned from this map:

Spoiler :

It would seem that starting eight tiles from Ragnar and six tiles from Shaka, with no copper or horse and nothing but tundra to expand into makes for a hard map. Who knew?

There is one piece of good news - at least we have iron.

 

[Loz]

Well i'm not Phil or Evana but here is my attempt.

150 AD

Spoiler :

Bad news: I only have two cities. Good news: I have almost every wonder available to this point and Washington is starting to build up the settled specialists.

Just when I thought it was going to be a longbow war iron turned up. I'm the only one with civil service or machinery. I befriended ragnar early so that I wouldn't have to worry about that side. Shaka didn't declare in the BCs, but I don't think it would have done him much good even if he did. I had a large stack of axes and spears in washington(which also has walls and a hill) and he still doesn't have catapults.



Exploration not great but I needed all the troops I had nearby incase Shaka declared.

Shaka is in war mode and I think it's me - he must have more than that pitiful stack on my borders. I was planning to attack him in a few turns anyway so no problem. He is also way back on techs. Construction is in next turn and this leaves me with the two decisions to make.

1) Do I tech trebs before starting to bank money - or do I try and do it with catapults. He is a long way from castles but he might get longbows soon. All in all I think trebs is a good idea. Pikes could also help if he is lucky and has ivory - also judging by his border stack his army may be horse heavy.

2) Shaka's power is pretty high. His troops are backwards but he must have alot of them. I can bribe Genghis in on him, but i'm not sure I want to. He already has 12 cities so I don't want to help him get more - or give him a bunch of techs to catch up(he wants alot).

 

[vicawoo]

Seriously, since the "standard" settings have evolved into no events/no tribals, why don't you guys just ban diplomatic victories? Solves so many complaints and avoids unearned wins.

 

[CaF]

Obviously doctored aprils fools game was easy until certain someone for no apparent reason dropped from friendly to pleased, and THEN rolled a dogpile in this exact turn before I could react via 10 turn peace + massive resource gifting. THEN AP stopped war on the only person who was willing to take the suicide bribe!
I had 2 bribe victims at furious and 4 people to friendly via shared wars. Such a pity. Should not try a culture win on monkey island.

2 defensive pacts were not enough and i lost my capital with longbows/pikes/muskets against cannon/cav/infantry after around 10 turns. I did not have enough workers and missionaries or I could have made his stacks dance around until he was willing to talk. I think I was about 3-4 turns before willingness to talk and I could have bought out

 

[NihilZero]

It would be hard to win anything other than diplo or culture here. Not impossible, but seems a lot like hard work and not so much like fun...

Spoiler :

I'm at 820AD and still alive. I settled four cities in total, the other three each picked up resources but are obviously pretty terrible. I could in theory even put down another two truly awful ones in order to unlock national wonders, but they would have no food and be unalbe to build anything, so it would be effectively impossible to get libraries and universities in them to unlock Oxford within any kind of decent timeframe.

It's basically a one-city challenge with a few satellite cities. Washington has got a few wonders, of course - Pyramids, Great Library, SP, Sankore and the NE so it is filling up with settled specialists.

I gifted a city to Ragnar to get him to pleased and am sharing his religion. Shaka went WHEOOHRN before I could gift him a city but my hilled and walled cities had enough troops to fend him off until Aesthetics came in, which I used to get a half-dozen techs and peace from Shak.

I'm feeling kind of apathetic, but it's probably winnable if I can motivate myself. Everybody else is warring non-stop, the only DoW on me was the inevitable Shaka one. I since got him to pleased with a gift city and other pleasantries. Nobody is at friendly yet, but my border cities are on hills and I have a moderate sized standing army.

 

[Mylene]

Ugh this is too easy!

Spoiler :

You can oracle Alpha, bribe these guys in on each other, and the awesome capital makes sure you have the tech lead.

Btw there is space for 3-4 cities, can use the sheep for one close to the capital, and the 2 seafood site. If desired you can also use the Deer for a semi-crappy 4th city.

I stopped when i could pick who to kill while they are busy, give us a bad capital Gwaja!

 

[ahcos]

Where is obsolete when you need him... will try this one asap

Spoiler :

You should've picked at least one wonderwhore, otherwise it's too easy to do funky things with the oracle. Oracled Feud 1520 BC, now suck on that you warmongers, lol. Great Wall, Stonehenge and Oracle in, 'mids incoming and then i guess i'll smack shaka around with my LBs a little. Lacking AH, Hunting+Archery, Pottery, BW and all that stuff ofc, but that should be no problem unless shaka decided to dagger me just in that turn, otherwise i'll have LBs in ~ 6 turns which makes me save. No red fist until now, though... strange. Guess i'll beeline Alpha after Archery, and then start some wars while kicking Shaka.

Spoiler :

Well, almost first to Alpha, Ghengis beelined it (WTH he usually is the very LAST person i see with alpha... but whatever.). Ghengis is in warmode, after he declares i should be able to start a nice worldwar with my techlead Will even tech towards cats now, just because i can, and then will beat Shaka. ToA is the first wonder i didn't get, would've been great with a coastal cap. Maybe i'll even go after Ragnar, he has 0,8 my Powerrating which means that i could invade him right now, lol... i'm save for the next 1200 years with 2 promo LBs, can squeeze in 4 more or less useful cities, can attack anyone i please and am in rep/vassalage/slavery... seems like a nice position to win this.

edit2: @Mylene just what u said about the cities is my thought too. They're not great, but they'll do their job until you can get better land.