Immortal Challenge: "So Be It"

Civahaulic

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This morning, I rolled a random fractal map, random leader, no lucky huts, barbs on Game (BTS).

The Start looks nice:



We got one of the strongest leaders: Mansa Musa.

But things take an interesting turn, that I think will make for an excellent example game.

The gauntlet is thus thrown: my fellow immortals. Earn your glory by documenting your triumph in this Immortal Challenge entitled: So be it.

We're gonna take it a little slowly, posting saves, reports and Screenshots every 50 turns.

First of all: who's in?

We'll figure out a schedule together based on interest level and participation.
 

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might try if i have enough free time

50turns

Spoiler :
might fine neighbours i must say....

Julius mining his copper so i will have to solve this shortly [can be mined few turns i gyuess since city is not roaded to rest of his empire.]



Well idea is get few core cities from Rome tech HBR and fix kubla's attitude. Won't be easy...

 

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Why not play the immortal cookbook if you want 50 turn reports.

Sure - sounds good to me. But I'm sure some of the people will want to play through their own game. If we want to have one main game that we carry through on a cookbook style, that would work.
 
I have no interest in this. After seeing our neighbors, proximity, and map setting, I promptly opened up the world builder.

If this trash is the product of an actual RNG fractal map, I'm going to play starcraft II for a few days and pretend I didn't see it.

PS - It's winnable, but I have no interest in garbage.
 
I have no interest in this. After seeing our neighbors, proximity, and map setting, I promptly opened up the world builder.

If this trash is the product of an actual RNG fractal map, I'm going to play starcraft II for a few days and pretend I didn't see it.

PS - It's winnable, but I have no interest in garbage.

You realize Terran is garbage, being completely unbalanced with no overkill siege tank splash damage. All player communities are aware of this, and of the top ranked players, over 40% are terran. And Blizzard has refused to fix it since the second release of beta, showing their lack of interest in fixing the game when it doesn't directly increase their profits. And no chat channels. And the half the maps are incredibly small garbage rush fests, and blizzard refuses to fix that, too. And the achievements are broken. I forgot to say garbage in that last sentence. Garbage.
 
Gack... I pulled off the unlikely, but don't think this is the sort of game I'd bother continuing with...

Spoiler :
With a little luck (luring archers out of cities w. warriors), I managed to get Rome + Antium by turn 51, but only have 2 chariots left, and capturing Cumae (with unimproved copper) seems tough. Simply by declaring war I suffered diplomatic hits with Kublai and Shaka, so I can probably reasonably expect hordes of Impshiks to descend upon me soon. I'd be proud if I won this, but am not sure it's worth the pain. I'm curious, but am not sure I have the skills for this one, so I'm not bothering with the save.
 

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You realize Terran is garbage, being completely unbalanced with no overkill siege tank splash damage. All player communities are aware of this, and of the top ranked players, over 40% are terran. And Blizzard has refused to fix it since the second release of beta, showing their lack of interest in fixing the game when it doesn't directly increase their profits. And no chat channels. And the half the maps are incredibly small garbage rush fests, and blizzard refuses to fix that, too. And the achievements are broken. I forgot to say garbage in that last sentence. Garbage.

All games are garbage XD. Not really.

Well, it's a different animal on that side though, because MP is balanced insofar as it's actually possible to have a reasonable chance of player skill determining outcome in MP (the prime anti-draw in say random game spy games). However, they announced they're restoring chat rooms.

People always claimed imba in RTS. It goes back to even warcraft 1 and before! I've watched some elite games between races as well as played games between races myself. IMO it's far from determined that terran (or any other race) carries a material advantage in the matchups. I watched a pro match between zerg/terran the other day, and the terran did not win that game. People complained about night elf and orc heavily in WC3 too...I'm not sure the statistical outcomes supported those positions either. You say that 40% of top players are terran, but mind you that 1) the game is very young and 2) terran is the only race with which people have had extensive campaign experience.

If terran is winning a disproportionate amount of games, my bet is on balance changes. Unlike fireaxis/2k, Blizzard actually has a history of making balance changes without a whole new expansion. The best we've had from fireaxis/2k over the past 3 patches is the introduction of multiple bugs and a quad galley spawn rate (which is hard to argue was good for the game, given BTS moving triremes to MC).

Back to the point - THIS map. You will never, ever see THIS in any game that has a pretense of balance. You put this on deity, and you can't win at all. 0 chance from turn 0 short of cheating, incredible abuse of "features" like the AP, or a heaping helping of luck. Fun! But even on immortal, I doubt elite players will win their first attempt without considerable amounts of luck. If you know the map ahead of time, one can do some interesting type super chokes/etc, but that's it.

No matter how much you claim other games are garbage also, in a given game the outcome *is* reasonably determined by player skill and it *is* possible to win, at least for GOOD games. Civ IV is the best game I've ever seen that somehow still botches balance to hell and has controls that don't function properly. To its credit, that the depth it carries overwhelms some of the most basic and textbook horrible game flaws is impressive, and the fan base is rabid. However, none of that gives them a pass for this kind of trash IMO. Nobody playing on a difficulty they can ordinarily win will survive starts like this...it's completely broken.
 
I haven't opened WB yet - so I don't know who / where the other 3 are, I posted this after seeing the neighbor to the north thinking it would be an interesting example game.
 
I haven't opened WB yet - so I don't know who / where the other 3 are, I posted this after seeing the neighbor to the north thinking it would be an interesting example game.

Hey, it's not your fault the RNG map generation blows :p.
 
Any naturally generated map of immortal game is easily winnable. This map is far from evil, the chance of winning it is very high even at deity in the 1st try. The reason is simple, you play as a strong leader with the best UU to survive deity DOW plus you are given a very strong capital.:D

Spoiler :

Tech:

Agri->Hunting->AH->BW->Pottery->Mys->Archery->Writing->Aes

Settling in place.

Capital
Worker->Barrack->Chariots(with 1 warrior and 1 settler in the middle)

DOWed GK 1st to grab his worker, then I I turned to JC since he connected his copper, grab one of his border city even with a very bad luck and lost 2 chariots to a single archer, did not see a chance to take his capital since JC had 4~5 archers in his capital all the time. Therefore I turned my forces back to GK as he pulled most of his forces to the city near my capital and even sent 3 archers toward Timbuku. This lead to:

Lost 4 chariots and his capital is mine.



1000BC -- Completed Aes and traded Alpha from William. GK can be wiped out in the next couple turns and JC will never get metals.

 

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Actually on deity there's a good chance you'd be in a 3rd war by now too and there'd be a ton of pressure given the size a certain someone might grow.

But I stand(sit) corrected. I've learned something from this game, that when you have early Ahole warmongers near you, the MP concept of chokes/harass is valid. Duckweed spared himself some 20+ AGG metal units and praetorians via a combination of worker steal, pillage, and choke.

But what's up with Djenne? I'm curious why you settled it given the (lack of) resources.

Also, what is your suggestion for dealing with AI archer spam when you worker steal?
 
But what's up with Djenne? I'm curious why you settled it given the (lack of) resources.

Multiple reasons i guess -- happy cap, research boost and blocking close idiots from settling northwards.

back to my game
Spoiler :

chariot raped julius into oblivion...

than HA fixed kubla's metal position... guess could have waited till elepult since it will be tough fight to finish him off. Worst i only met shaka, so would think i need some work to drag economy into good shape still doable...







since i read spoilers anyway it is not much point of going on. Nice game. duck:)
 
Every 50 huh, i'll try to remember.

Set your turn timer for 50 in ini file... done.. go back to each save point later and make screenies and such

Would this not work or am I missin somethin?:)

DD
 
All I did was turtle and I never lost a unit in my cap, even against praets. Even though, KK and then JC attacked, I actually was able to counter attack and take cities away from them each of them.
 
My first 50:

Spoiler :
Agg->Hun->Ah-> BW -> Myst -> Pot ->Writing
Worker, Barracks, Chariot, Settler, Chariots with chopping

Gank Roman Worker turn 7, peace turn 16.

About to attack rome in like 2 turns:



A little worried about Khan, so I'm thinking Archery will be next to be able hold off assault.
 

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2nd 50

Spoiler :
Took out Rome.

Built the Mids in Rome. Became worst enemy of Shaka on turn 98 or so and he went into WHEOOH: so I'm probably the target. Researched Aest, but only got iron working for it so far as Kahn doesn't have Alphabet and Shaka wouldn't trade with me. Cesar founded Judism - so that's a plus.

Going for Construction - 1 turn away.

The Empire:


 

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Actually on deity there's a good chance you'd be in a 3rd war by now too and there'd be a ton of pressure given the size a certain someone might grow.

But I stand(sit) corrected. I've learned something from this game, that when you have early Ahole warmongers near you, the MP concept of chokes/harass is valid. Duckweed spared himself some 20+ AGG metal units and praetorians via a combination of worker steal, pillage, and choke.

But what's up with Djenne? I'm curious why you settled it given the (lack of) resources.

Also, what is your suggestion for dealing with AI archer spam when you worker steal?

For a true deity game (AI with 2 settlers) in this map, it's much harder, but still very winnable. Because we have skirmishers, with ~5 of them in a city, no deity AI can scratch you before construction. The overall strategy is a little different, you are only capable of DOW and going offense on 1 AI and have to defend against others. By the time AIs have cats, you should be able to claim the extra land from 1 AI and be strong enough to defend yourself.

How successful of early rush not only depends on how fast that you can take away 1 AI, but also how well you can catch up with the tech race during the war. This somewhat answers your question about why I settled a second city to claim the gold. The 2nd city contributed half of the commerce as capital and also enabled 1 extra happiness across the empire.

The way of dealing AI's spamming archers is routinary, let the AI spam more cities, try to kill archers in the field but not in the cities. AI's archers will go offensive when they gather enough of them and that's usually the time for you to take their cities.
 
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