Immortal Challenge 7: Ottomans, small continents

[Herfelt]

There seem to have been some confusion about the immortal challenges, so I decided to create immortal challenge 7.

You will be playing as the Ottomans:

• UA: Your melee ships comes with the "Prize Ships" promition, which allows you to capture enemy ships. You only pay 1/3 maintenance for naval units.
• UU: The Janissary: Replaces the musketman, comes with 25% combat bonus when attacking and defeating another unit gives a 50 HP heal.
• UU: The Sipahi: Replaces the lancer. The sipahi got an extra movement point, no movement cost to pillage and 1 extra sight.

I've chosen small continents due to the unique ability of the Ottomans. There will be plenty of oppotunities for naval combat.

• Standard map size.
• Standard speed.
• Small continents.
• 16 city states.
• 7 opponents.

Starting location:

Spoiler :

Good luck and have fun

 

[EEE_BOY]

Ottoman's UA does not mean the civ is naval based, a continent map should be better to balance this civ.

That being said, recently I was trying to play Ottoman and make spearman for defence instead of Composite bowman, these spearmen will be upgraded to Sipahi later so the early game was entirely defensive with 4 cities iunder Tradition and teching up to Education, again pikemen are great defenders as well. After that rush build a few warriors before Metal Casting and then go to war mode by building seiges and upgrade these units. A good civ to try if bored with ranged units.

 

[digrosz]

I find naval combat too easy, just a few of Frigates bombing away at a city, then a provateer comes in from miles away and captures it. On top of that, this civilizations uniques are both land units, really no use for them on a small continents map

 

[EEE_BOY]

I find naval combat too easy, just a few of Frigates bombing away at a city, then a provateer comes in from miles away and captures it. On top of that, this civilizations uniques are both land units, really no use for them on a small continents map

Indeed. too much naval challenges these days.

 

[nanomage]

I'm 160 turns into it and

Spoiler :

I never had a single naval combat. And I doubt I will, because no iron in my half of the continent.

I'll write a report later.
EDIT: played until turn 177

Spoiler :

So I met Bismark on turn 3. I hate this guy he spams landsknechts and doesn't afraid of anything so I instantly knew I must kill him fast. I went liberty to not waste any hammers on settlers/workers, stole a CS worker, hammered 4 archers and DoW'd Bismark on turn 45. He already had 2 cities and GL (must've been beelining Civil Service, hehe). His second city was situated extremely badly, so I razed it. Then Bismark drove me back with a host of suiciding warriors, and I had to regroup for some time and then pushed to Berlin. Archers are lame, they die like flies and hardly put a dent on anything, but I feared that by the time I get CB he'll be fielding his Spamknechts. Besides, you really feel like a tyrant when your troops die Captured Berlin on turn 67 with 3 archers left.
After that, William decided to do me a favor, attacked Bismark and kindly bombarded his Uluru city so that I could capture it. Then he decided he'd played fool and attacked me, but I planted a GG to claim Uluru and stop his armies. He never made peace since then and just keeps feeding me some units here and there, and beeing a spy training dummy.

Policy-wise, I went settler(whatever it's called) -> meritocracy -> representation. Meritocracy first because I already had cities connected (for the MoG pantheon). Settled finisher GS near the cap.
Very late NC, turn 138, although MoG helped to stay afloat.
Settled 4 cities and annexed 2 German ones.

Built a second scout because I wanted to steal Bismark's worker, but he was guarding them well.
Completely missed a religion and had to adopt William's one. Luckily it has Pagodas and Temple +2
I was really struggling with happiness issues but then guys from other continents came and I could trade with them.
I have no iron so I think I'll try to build a nice spaceship, surely complete with Prize Spaceships promotion.

 

[Herfelt]

Ottoman's UA does not mean the civ is naval based, a continent map should be better to balance this civ.

That being said, recently I was trying to play Ottoman and make spearman for defence instead of Composite bowman, these spearmen will be upgraded to Sipahi later so the early game was entirely defensive with 4 cities iunder Tradition and teching up to Education, again pikemen are great defenders as well. After that rush build a few warriors before Metal Casting and then go to war mode by building seiges and upgrade these units. A good civ to try if bored with ranged units.

Even though it is a small continent map, you are by no means forced to do naval combat to keep up with the AI.

Spoiler :

You start on a fairly large continent (for small continents) with two other civs. Being so close to Germany means you have to build an army early on. I found the map quite interesting and challenging, since you are pretty much guaranteed an early war and some of the opponents on other continents can become a runaway.

If you can take out William and Bismarch fast you have a continent for yourself, and you can leave the rest of the world alone if you want

 

[nanomage]

lost t 252

Spoiler :

lost to Caesar - he DoW'd with tons of planes and started capturing my cities. I should've prioritized fighters andflaks more and tried to bribe somone to go to war with him.

 

[erkanus]

Hi guys, any other people who tried this challange?
Could you please share your experiences with us?
I wish to hear about it very much in detail. Even if you lost badly or win easily, does not matter

 

[sufficiency]

I am gonna try to break free of my MMO addiction by playing some BNW once it comes out. With the river tile nerfs, I suspect Deity to be a lot harder.... so I think for BNW I will start on Immortal. Anyone interested in a BNW Immortal Challenge early next week?

 

[nanomage]

I would be much interested to follow, but not sure if I'll play because I doubt I'll be allowed to buy BNW

 

[Herfelt]

I am gonna try to break free of my MMO addiction by playing some BNW once it comes out. With the river tile nerfs, I suspect Deity to be a lot harder.... so I think for BNW I will start on Immortal. Anyone interested in a BNW Immortal Challenge early next week?

Feel free to create the next challenge. A BNW would be interesting to follow, however I won't be buying BNW until I've handed in my master theses (three weeks from now).

 

[Unresolved]

Hmm, I'll try this out since the Ottomans are one of the two civs I have left to play before BNW. Never played small continents before, is it closer to archipelago or continents?

 

[sufficiency]

Never mind. BNW is going out on July, not June? I just read the first letter and assumed it was June, lol.

Oh well. I guess I'll wait for another month....

 

[nanomage]

Hmm, I'll try this out since the Ottomans are one of the two civs I have left to play before BNW. Never played small continents before, is it closer to archipelago or continents?

It depends on exactly how small your continent rolls.
On this particular map

Spoiler :

it's more like continents because you have 2 neighbours on your landmass

 

[erkanus]

It depends on exactly how small your continent rolls.
On this particular map

Spoiler :

it's more like continents because you have 2 neighbours on your landmass

A large continent then. If you eliminate one of them early it would be an advantage. But two rivals (enemies) at the gates throughout the game would be a pita

 

[erkanus]

I have just tried this one but it says that it requires some DLC's are not available.
How can I find which dlc's are required and where to find them? Please advise.

 

[Browd]

If you go to the Load screen, and select the save file, on the left side of the screen there should be a DLC hotlink that, when clicked, will tell you what DLCs are required to complete the loading of that save file.

 

[erkanus]

If you go to the Load screen, and select the save file, on the left side of the screen there should be a DLC hotlink that, when clicked, will tell you what DLCs are required to complete the loading of that save file.

Thanks Browd. I've found out that Babylons DLC is missing. They do not exist in the game
So where can I find this DLC? is it custom DLC which I can find it at the forums?
And how can I install it?

Sorry for all these questions. I am completely new to this DLC stuff .
Thanks in advanse...

 

[Browd]

You can buy missing DLCs from Steam. Depending on what else you are missing, you might want to buy the "Gold" edition (all DLCs plus G&K) the next time it's on sale.

 

[erkanus]

I have tried this one 4 times. The first two times I started peacefully as normal and begun with building and exploring. Those two times the germans dowed with a massive army larger than mine may be 2-3 times
So I abandoned those games. I understood that there is no way to play peacefully even for the ancient era and the only way to survive is to kill the germans as soon as possibe. So I did the same thing as nanomage did: hammered 4 archers and dowed bismarc. But it took me ages to defeat him that by that time william, my second neigbour, was dominating the rest of the continent. he was advanced and has a very good military. After 5-10 turns from finishing bismarc, william dowed. at the beginning I defended against his attacks but eventually he started sending better units and I could not replace those who have been killed during this defence because my production was so slow.
After he took one of my cities I abandoned this one too.

My last attemp was the best. Luckily I managed to defeat bismarc very quicly that I could not believe it myself. So I managed to build many cities before william attacked. This war turned to a constant war for hundereds of years. But he did not succeed. After I managed to explore the world I found out that even if I do every thing I can there is no chance to beat the leader. Hyawatha was spmming cities in every little space they can find in the world.
By turn 161, their science per turn was 2.5 times of mine (my science production was 105 an his 245). And every civ in the game was agressive towards me if not hostile. hyawatha had 16 cities and england had 15. I had only 8. This was mainly because my happiness issues. while hyawatha had over 40 excess happines (mine was just 8).

Shortly this start place in the map is very very bad there is not enough food to grow, not enough resorces for happiness, also effects growth and city count. everywhere in the continent is plains, production is so slow. Simply I think this can not be done. May be only some pro guys who play deity games confidently can do it.

I suggest you to try this and I wonder if anybody can win. Please try and if you win, tell us how could you succeed.