Immortal Challenge #1 - The Iroquois on Pangaea

[sufficiency]

Well it's almost 2 weeks for this. Can I make the next Immortal Challenge?

 

[Matthew.]

Do it up. Doubt anyone will mind.

 

[sufficiency]

I have something in mind. I'll make it on Thursday.

 

[Fire0rb]

go for it
will have some time at the weekend to do a non-frstrating Challenge (hopefully )

 

[Unresolved]

Go for it. It's been a long time.

 

[Half Nelson]

Thanks for setting these up. Immortal is my favourite level and I am finding the constant change of level at GOTM is not helping to improve my game. Will belatedly try to catch up with these, but little time and slow play may keep me behind forever!

Spoiler :

I tried out Glory7's Deity strategy with Liberty, settling 4 cities fast and using Liberty GE for NC. I like it! Using CB and the magnificent Mohawks I took out Siam and Sweden early, but assumed Germany was W of Sweden and was rather surprised when they DoW and appeared from the Southern fog. Was then in permawar with them until end of game, using them to harden up my fresh troops (esp Navy:- 4 frigates). The crack troops went West for Pacal (Palenque was the jewel on this map, loads of happiness wonders), then South for Aztec. England conquered Austria for me, capturing the GW which slowed my final approach to London, but Arty and Frigates-Battleships wore them down. I rolled into Germany at this stage and captured Berlin with Arty, Cavalry and a couple of new GWBombers the turn after London fell. Great map, despite the oil shortage!

 

[Justice1337]

I decided to take this one after seeing it on the list of challenges. I've been wanting to play an Iroquois game, since they were probably my very favorite civ in Vanilla. I have only a little time to play each session, but I plan on finishing within the week.

Spoiler :

I open up the map and I find a wonderful Iroquois start. Two forested Deer and a mining luxury. Deer starts are the absolute best with any civ imo, and Iroquois just makes them better and more frequent. I move South onto the Copper with the Warrior, and I find no reason not to settle in place. City borders reveal another mining luxury 2 squares to the NE. This start keeps getting better.

My plan with this start is to turn the Cap into a production powerhouse asap, with which I will hard build Settlers after Collective Rule, put out about half a dozen Warriors and Archers, then save traded gold for upgrades into Mohawks and CB's.

My build order in the Capital is Scout, Worker, Granary, then Shrine or Monument. For techs, I start with Pottery and then go Mining. After that I will go Animal Husbandry, hopefully find Horses, then hit Trapping for 1h camps on my Deer tiles. At that point, I am likely to pick up Writing for a Library in the Capital and then go to Construction and Iron Working for my military techs.

Technology will be one of the problems I have to solve as I get to about T100. I want to keep expanding as I clear space with my military, and so building the National College may or may not happen. As an alternative I can probably get a Pantheon by building a Shrine in each city, for which I will pick Messenger of the Gods if I am still expanding. Then I can pick Prophet as the Liberty finisher if needed, otherwise Scientist. Provided that I get to Education before T120 I think I will be fine. As it turns out, a lot of these problems are solved by the map.

Warrior to the south finds a Culture ruin, then Mt. Sinai. What a godsend. My second city location is decided, and since I don't need Shrine I am going Monument fourth in Capital to get the Settler out quickly. I predict that I will found either the first or the second religion just by working that tile. MotG should be available and I can start connecting roads after my luxuries.

I explore to the SW with the Scout and find Sweeden, then Siam. Sweeden seems to have a hard to access Capital and a lot of forested area nearby, so I plan on targeting him first. Scout also finds a pop ruin, which puts me to 3. I lock the unimproved Copper and wait for the Worker. When it's done, I mine it, make a good deal with Sweeden, then I send it up to the Gems. It takes just one turn to get there, thanks to the Great Warpath bridging that river . I am disappointed not to find horses with AH, but I move onto the Deer tiles and build Camps. With the Gems complete, I secure a GPT deal with Siam, and begin working the tile. With two luxes sold and being worked, my Gold is approaching 500, but I opt to save it for upgrades due to being able to hard build settlers so well in Cap. It's now at 4 population with a base Hammer yield of 13(!).

Warrior finds Venice to the South, the Scout pops an upgrade ruin, and I decide to go barb hunting around Venice. After taking down a Barb Warrior near them, Venice gives me the quest to kill the encampment, which I do to put me up to 64 Influence. Capital has finished Granary and Monument at this time, and with all the food in the Cap I get to size 6 before I start building CR-speeded Settlers.

Sweeden and Siam both forward settle on me, but they take subpar locations. With the Collective Rule Settler I settle the hill overlooking the Dyes and I purchase it while finishing Calendar. With my second Settler (4 turns to build), I march East toward the Maya and settle the coastal river with Ivory and Silk. My next Settler comes shortly after, and I settle West on a riverside next to Sweeden, buying the Marble tile. I am quite unhappy while my new luxuries are being connected, but the old ones are coming back T58 and T65, and I may be able to ally Venice soon with its Gold. I have all but run out of good city locations immediately nearby, besides. Meanwhile, I have 6 Warriors and 3 Archers with about 600 gold ready to go as Iron Working finishes (12 turns).

Overall, it's a very promising start.

 

[Justice1337]

I had another session on this map yesterday.

Spoiler :

I start by powering out 3 more Settlers. My empire is unhappy with these luxuries waiting to come on-line, so I might as well build them now while my capital can't grow. If I don't find luxury spots, I can wait. But surprisingly, I find two very good locations with my Scout to the SW - one next to the Mountains by the Citrus, and one further down along the coast within range of a Salt. The last Settler I take to the coast immediately NE of Capital, grabbing the 2x Copper, the Deer and 2x Fish. I settle these sites immediately, build another Scout, then start on a 12 turn Pyramids build. In the meantime, I complete quests to ally Venice and Columbo, returning my empire to happy as the luxuries finish.

My Pantheon popped early in this session, for which I picked Messenger of the Gods. This will be good at allowing my low-pop cities to pretend to be higher pop for purposes of Science. Then while my Settlers are in transit, I pop my Great Prohpet. Without thinking, I immediately found a Religion. In hindsight, I might have waited to make sure the new cities got the Pantheon. Religion spread is going to be slow this game to the far reaches of the empire, and I have little early use for the Follower beliefs I pick.

Concerning those, I go with Ceremonial Burial and Feed the World. What I have in mind is a happiness-focused Religion that is not faith reliant. So instead of the more tradtional Pagodas, I want to go Religious Center and spend the Faith to ensure my Missionary spread. Despite not having Piety, Temples will be worthwhile as a second Colosseum, as I will need the Faith besides. So provided I'm building Temples, Feed the World is not bad. It is better than Guruship here. From experience, Iroquios is a civ with a lot of workable low-food tiles. To make sure that's all upside with no downside, I am prioritizing good ways to get food that don't require working a tile. Since I don't have Philosophy researched at this point, I am taking Feed the World first for the extra food in the Capital. This does open me up to the risk of the AI picking Religious Center, which is does often, but thankfully that does not happen this game. In hindsight though, the small early benefit from FtW first is not worth that risk.

In my secondary cities I build Monument, then Archer, then Granary or Shrine. I am going to need Meritocracy very soon, so I want culture, and military is my second priority.

It's about T70 now, and a very slow-going Iron Working is now finished researching. Upgrading, my army has 5x Mohawks, and 6 turns later when Construction is done, 6x Archers upgrade to CB's. I split this force into two parts aimed at Sweeden's Cap, one going NW around the Mountains on the coast and the other going SW curving north through the other Mountain pass. Mohawks are great on both fronts. A Mohawk in a forested hill can take shot after shot from regular Archers, taking barely any damage beyond the 10hp it heals each turn by fortifying. Doing this, I give no ground, force out into the open where my CB's can surround the city, and Stockholm falls. I then turn to Siam, whose army I catch in the open field trying to get a city settled west of Venice. Currently as of T90, I've destroyed his army and am breaking toward his core empire. The Maya are angry, but apparently they judge me too strong to declare war. Germany and Aztec have remained solid trade partners through both of my DoW's.

My main concern is tech. Messenger of the Gods is only affecting 4 cities, and so my beaker yield was around 40 until I conquered Stockholm. It's starting to pick up now, but Education will still come at around T120 at earliest. Taking Iron Working and Metal Casting first really slowed it down. From now until then, I plan on taking a Scientist from the Liberty finisher and building a Library in my first 4. I've stopped expanding, and so a NC is theoretically possible, but my cities 6-8 do not have Shrines and Granaries and I am too cash poor to rush Libs. So by the time I can start it, Universities will be available instead. All in all however, T120 is not game-breakingly late for Education, and I have 3 Observatory cities ready to go. I will probably plant Academies in my highest production Mountain city, rush Astronomy after Machinery, and then catch up to Dynamite with Spies, RA's and Observatories.

With as much territory as I have conquered pre T100, I am first in production, land, and income. With the conquest train rolling, I doubt very much that I can lose this one.

 

[Justice1337]

Last Update - Domination Victory Turn 243

Spoiler :

When I was done with the Maya, I marched my troops through Open Borders with Montezuma and took Austria's Cap (Vienna?) with 4 Trebuchets, a few X-bows and Melee Units. It was absolutely perfect ground. I put two LSwords upgraded from Mohawks on two hills just over the river to the E and W of the city, set up the Trebuchets in a line to the North, then X-bowed down any units that tried to cross that river. Once taken, the Capital was a great city. It had a Manufactory, a limited use Petra, and several Lumber Mills intact.

Meanwhile, I was starting in on Bismark with the Units freshly built from my empire. It was a bit of a tough fight at the choke leading to his landmass, but it just took a little bit of patience and a few acceptable losses.

England was the real challenge. I pivoted from Austria into English territory, but after taking a few cities I found that London was accessible only through a very narrow choke. I had not Scouted this because I could not sign Open Borders and the Naval scouts I built took a long time around the Continent because of Ice. Consequently, I was dealing with Longbows from across the narrow sea, I couldn't get any units over the choke, and I hadn't prepared enough Navy in that ocean to land on the other side of the landmass like I should have done. On top of that, I had to make do with only the units I'd brought plus those I was building in Vienna, because I hadn't conquered a good land route and I was attacking Bismark besides. So in the end, I ended up needing to wait for Artillery. Actually, I had researched up to Bombers and Rocket Artillery by the time I finally took London, because it was such a chore to get units over there and I didn't have a good enough economy to buy that much in Vienna.

Montezuma was the AI whose capital I took last. He was friendly the whole game and was very behind in tech, so I saved him for last and stormed from Vienna through to his capital with Tanks and Bombers in about 3 turns. In the end, my beaker yield was close to a thousand and I'd been able to Annex most of my puppets through the Police State policy in Autocracy.

All in all, I really like playing with the Iroquois. They lend very easily to the production-rich starts that I love for Domination. Their start bias combines with the fact that I'm building Mills on the Forests instead of chopping, so I have great production even before Longhouses. Those are in an awkward part of the tree, but they are still safe to beeline after Writing in games like these where I expand very wide very early and pick up Messenger of the Gods. The UA really helps with that, and with keeping trade routes cheap through the whole game.

Mohawks are a great unit when built extensively and used properly. Ranged units are what they are, but a melee with such strong terrain bonuses gets to sit beneath archer fire all day and really force the issue. And in the numbers that are possible due to no Iron requirement, they take offensive attack opportunities quite often, and hit over twice as hard as CB's. That's quite a hard hit for their era, and it surprises me when a couple Drill II Mohawks just make a meal out of enemy CB's and Pikes in the Jungle. In the end, I had two or three GWI with Medic II, March and the original Forest/Jungle bonus from their years as Mohawks. Those are the troops I marched through the choke to take London with.

 

[Unresolved]

Nice game Justice, much faster than my domination game. Out of curiosity, who built the GW in your game? Bismarck got it in mine which is what slowed my game down a lot.

 

[Justice1337]

The Maya got it in my game. But they also only had one non-Iceball city in addition to the capital, so I still took them out at around T130, hitting for their Capital first. Then, I had the Great Wall Going through that choke to Germany would have been tough against the Great Wall, certainly.

 

[Unresolved]

From what I remember, getting through the chokepoint was a huge pain, even with bombers. I couldn't get my planes close enough because we kept swapping cities.

 

[Justice1337]

Yeah, it might have had something to do as well with how he and Siam chose to settle in your game. In my game, Bismark's closest city to the choke was about 3 tiles south along the coast, with another about 4 tiles west along that coast. So I could fit about 2-3 units across the isthmus without coming under fire from either city. I can post a screenie as soon as I get back to my home computer.