Immortal Challenge

[amanbe]

Alright here is a very interesting and fun map I've rolled, and I wanted to see how you guys would play it.

Settings are immortal, random leader (Darius), fractal, standard, no huts/events....
SIP looks like a no-brainer, and 2 golds and all those FPs and the riverside grasslands with a FIN leader like Darius says insta-win... but is it???

Spoiler :

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I played a few turns on this map. 2 times.

Spoiler :

1st time I settled 2 cities to the east to block off Rome and called it game over.
2nd time Rome's settled its own 2nd city west of the isthmus. So I captured it with a blend of Horse Archers and Immortals...

What caused you trouble ? Did Caesar invade you ? Or maybe I didn't play enough turns and the map has some other surprises. What I know is there's room for 20+ cities or so on the landmass and 4/5 to 5/5 of them can easily be Persian.
The capital is a research monster. So... focus on food and expansion, I would say.
If Caesar slips through the isthmus, either invade asap or head towards maces. It shouldn't take too long to get there.

 

[amanbe]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

So I captured it with a blend of Horse Archers and Immortals

How did you manage to rush him fast? By the time I got my 2nd settler out he already had 5 cities and praetzels everywhere What was your build/research order? Did you chop everything right away?

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@ Amanbe :

Spoiler :

It is often hard to produce enough early hammers with a seafood start. And it is just the same for a 2x gold mine start.
Here, getting a 2nd city that can produce settlers/workers seems essential.

Bear in mind I do not know the exact way to go
I'll try to mention it when I can see alternatives that are equal or superior to what I'm doing.
Follows a sample openning for roughly the 1st 50 turns. It turned out peaceful. Tech selection would change if you wanted to get to a military tech asap. The build orders could but... not so much. I guess. Anticipating on the Barracks would be important. And maybe building only 1 or 2 workboats would be better (farming floodplains instead) to get a faster land development.

T0 :
SIP is fine (awesome, I guess).
2 techs are needed : Fishing and Mining. We can research both of them while training a worker.

Spoiler :

T14 :
Fishing and Mining are done. We start Bronze Working. There are many forests. We need 90 hammers for the 3 workboats. Gold mines mean we won't whip much : we need to chop !
With 1 Fish + 3 floodplains, we can produce 6 food surplus : that's enough to work both gold mines (just noticed ^^ I built the 3 workboats in my 2 previous runs).

In any case : after the Worker, we start on a Workboat.
We will work a floodplains until a gold mine is improved. When we will get the fish online, Persepolis will grow to size 2 in only 2 turns.

Spoiler :

T20 :
We're at the Roman border. Caesar has a marble quarry : we can guess he'll go Polytheism and slow down his own expansion.
It also appears his capital is coastal. Caesar being Industrious, it makes it dangerous to aim for the Great Lighthouse. Otherwise, that wonder would be great, with all the land there is to settle.

Spoiler :

T25 :
We have explored a good chunk of land. How does it go ?
We have a very good blocking site in the east. Maintenance is of absolutely no issue.
In the North, there may be a way for Caesar to settle towards the jungle. Will need further scouting.

Spoiler :

At this point, Bronze Working is done. We start on Sailing.
Sailing will make it easier to connect the 2nd city to the trade network. It also gets us a cheap lighthouse in Persepolis (+3food).
A Pottery beeline would be tempting as well.
Animal Husbandry would be another possibility : reveals horses for the UU.

Spoiler :

T26 :
1st workboat is out and sent to the fish.
We take the opportunity to revolt into Slavery (could be later on, such as after the 1st settler is complete).

Spoiler :

T29 :
Capital is size 2 and works a gold mine again.

Spoiler :

T31 :
2nd workboat is out. Now we work 2 seafood resources to grow to size 3 asap. We can consider building a settler at size 4 or 5. Closing in. Caesar still has only 1 city.

Spoiler :

T33 :
At this point, we send the scout towards the settling area. No point in losing him to a barbarian warrior/archer. Better have him fogbust.

T34 :
Persepolis is size 3.

Spoiler :

T35 :
Sailing is done, we start on The Wheel. We will have chopped 4 forests when the tech is complete. That's a lot and I'm reluctant to chop MUCH more right now.
Rome appears to have settled its 2nd city. Not sure where, can't see any borders.

T36 :
3rd workboat is out. We start on a Lighthouse : thanks to a chop, it will very little time.

Spoiler :

T37 :
Emphasizing food. With a Lighthouse, we want to build the settler at size 5.

Spoiler :

T38 :
The Wheel is due in 2 turns. We won't have a warrior for garrison when Persepolis reaches size 5. So the worker chops and cancels.

Spoiler :

T39 :
Lighthouse is complete. We start on a warrior. Persepolis will grow to size 5 in 2 turns.

T40 :
The Wheel is done. We start on Pottery. It could be Mysticism or Animal Husbandry. We're going to sift through techs from now on so... It doesn't matter much. We want to reach Writing soon (reason is : Persepolis' bpt at size 5).

Meanwhile, in the East a barbarian archer wanders around. Hopefully, Caesar will take it out.

Spoiler :

T41 :
Persepolis is size 5 ! We switch from Warrior to Settler. The extra defense from the warrior would be nice but Rome just sent an Archer near our scout. We will see if the barb archer is killed.
Finishing the warrior would delay the settler by a turn and I start being anxious about the blocking spot : don't want to lose it !!

Spoiler :

T45 :
Rome just walked past the barb archer. We will build our warrior, after all.
Mysticism is done. We start on Animal Husbandry + Writing.

Spoiler :

T46 :
Caesar completes the Great Wall. Good news ! That means we will settle in time !

T48 :
The settler is sent out. The worker is sent along. A border pop is needed fast in the 2nd city.
We have plenty of overflow (12), so we start building another warrior. Next is a worker.

Spoiler :

T51 :
We're ready to settle.

Spoiler :

T53 :
Barbarians are gone. Caesar is ready to slip a settler through our borders.
We're getting in position to fogbust the southern part of our landmass (scout + 1 warrior).
Writing is done in 1 turn.
Persepolis will be size 6 in 2 turns (time to build another warrior).

Spoiler :

Maybe Pasargades will suffer from Rome's culture. Monument + Library are needed asap. That is the worst point I can think about in this position.
I won't get into too many details from now on. Actually, I'll end this post here
Judaism isn't founded yet but may be so in short order. Maybe a Code of Laws beeline is a good idea to pump culture in Pasargades.
Regarding wonders, only the Great Wall has been built for now.

Depending on where Caesar's settler heads, a DoW may be in order (I guess it will go to the pigs south of Pasargadae ; 1W of the pigs would be a very nice site for our 3rd city... If Caesar settles the clams, then : great !).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I recorded my playthrough of this game and will upload the first episode tomorrow. Basically just pounded my way to #1 land with catapults though.

 

[amanbe]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

The trouble seems to start for me right around the time you've stopped . Barbs come from the north and pillage everything in sight basically, and if I try to build enough warriors to spawnbust, it slows down my expansion and AC rexes like a madman.
Also in my game he put his 2nd city right where you had your blocker way earlier
Thx for the detailed write-up btw

 

[amanbe]

@TheMeInTeam

Spoiler :

Can't wait to watch it. I am guessing you had to build a sizable army first to take out AC. Otherwise, I don't see how you can rush him really early unless you block him on that peninsula. Did you self-tech IW early and settle iron?

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@ Amanbe :

Spoiler :

I'll play some 50 more turns, then
Indeed, barbarians should start entering borders soon. I never paid attention to the exact date but I guess that is "around" 1600 B.C.
Researching Archery may be needed, right. I was hoping to get Horses online soon enough but I guess Caesar won't let me. Settling the copper to the NW is another option but I didn't scout it thoroughly yet

@ TMIT :
Nice to hear that ! I'll be very interested in seeing how your game goes.
I watched the 1st part of your TMFTP Bismark yesterday and was amazed - once again - by the relevance of your play at such high speed.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@ Amanbe :

Here's a less detailed report for the "fend off the barbs" part to 1000 B.C.

Spoiler :

After completing Writing, I stood by the plan to beeline Code of Laws. However, I inserted Archery first.

T56 : Archery is complete. The scout and the warrior are headed south to fogbust.

Spoiler :

T60 : we risk an Archer (2x win) before retreating to the gold mine :

Spoiler :

T64 : After one loss on the hill. As you can see, forests keep disappearing. Production is needed badly.Danger is repelled for the moment. We still need 2 cities at least to block Caesar completely so Rome starts on a settler :

Spoiler :

T65 : Settler whip :

Spoiler :

T74 : We settled south by the irrigated corn to secure the area and whipped a monument in Susa. Archers go deeper in the jungle :

Spoiler :

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T76 : Largest non-capital city without religion founds Confucianism. Now we wont need to worry about culture fight. Pasargadae will produce a settler at size 4, by the way :

Spoiler :

We will try to get as many cities as we can from Persepolis as well.
Next tech is Monarchy to raise the happy cap in Persepolis. There are many excellent tiles to work.
Susa will focus on production. It will spam warriors to feed Persepolis. Then train stuff to capture the barb cities that are popping in the north.
Some stats and plan for expansion :

Spoiler :

And I've played a bit further. Here's the situation at 1A.D.

Spoiler :

@ TMIT :

Spoiler :

I watched the 1st part of your take : you had an incredibly bad luck losing Pasargadae.
And... maybe it's a pity you didn't scout closer to the capital. Spotting Rome early is huge, here.
You manage to get in good position, though, and to play an interesting game.

 

[dualmaster]

I had read a few spoilers before deciding to play, which probably made things easy for me:

To 1800AD:

Spoiler :

I knew that Rome was somewhere east and blockable. I settled two cities quickly to close off the peninsula and keep Rome to 4 cities. We got same religion so no wars. I just managed to get archery and whip archers in with the barbarian swarm at the gates. Eventually got Immortals up and got control of the barbs shortly before they settled down. It did delay me a bit though.

With a massive research capital, I invested heavily in workers/settlers and filled out the continent. I think I had 15 *good* cities (superb land on this map). Tech pace was slow because I was leading tech on our continent and ended up self teching almost everything. Still managed to Lib astronomy before other continent.

It's 1800 AD, I'm on the verge of tanks+nukes, other continent doesn't have infantry yet. No one close to culture. I did kill Caesar with cannon+rifle to get his wonders. I could easily win space or dom, but I don't feel like grinding through it at this point.

Basically, blocking AC makes this a piece of cake. Not sure if I would have known to do that (or done it fast enough) if I hadn't read the spoilers though.

 

[cbucks]

TMIT:

Spoiler :

lulz, that was horrible. I was raging watching that at the odds 96% and 92%? Thanks for playing that out though. When is part 2 going to be uploaded? You are obviously in great position with all the land blocked off. Are you going to finish settling it or take AC's land first?

Why the early feudalism?

 

[cbucks]

I gave it a shot

Spoiler :

This has been an annoying game. No religion, thus could not get AC or Stalin to trade ANY TECHS WHATSOEVER. I have literally had to research every single tech myself. I just met some members of the other continent so I was able to trade some techs. I'm interested to see who the english leader is and I'm worried that since they have every religion, someone over there may be getting close to cultural win.

Once I'm finished with AC and Stalin, I'll head over there and disrupt it as much as possible.

Stalin settled his city on our continent very early so I had no access to Iron so I couldn't build currasiers and had to wait till rifling to get a decent attack force out.

Currently drafting and whipping my cities to death, just destroyed AC's SOD and took Rome. My tech is starting to drag due to the unhappy faces.

Stalin got the short end of the stick in terms of land, obviously.

 

[Noogai]

I recorded my playthrough of this game and will upload the first episode tomorrow. Basically just pounded my way to #1 land with catapults though.

Can I have a link to your videos pls?

Spoiler :

Anyway I made an immortal rush on AC and it worked out pretty well. I had some troubles with GG prearetorian and spearman, which made it take longer to capture Rome. AC made a boat and settled city somewhere (back then) in unknown location, so I made peace with with him after capturing all his known cities. I'm going to conquer rest of Rome later.

EDIT: Same problem, they didn't trade any techs even when I had Stalin pleased. Hannibal was a good trade mate though.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

900 A.D. :

Spoiler :

I played this a few days ago. 900 A.D. is NOT the Liberalism date
That is the end of the expansion phase. This map is soooo juicy

Here's a look of the land :

Spoiler :

Cities aren't very well developped (trying to go heavy on infra) but the capital is pulling its weight.
I need to quickly build missionaries (Organized Religion) + whip infrastructure before growing those cities (switch to Caste System + Pacifism). Some workers are still needed, too (about 1 per city right now).

Spoiler :

There were very few trades. I stole some techs from Augustus, though (Feudalism this turn, Horseback Riding is possible any time, Construction before). The good thing is that I traded Aesthetics early to Augustus (and Stalin had it in turn), see paragraph below.
The land is that good that, despite expanding a lot, we kept up with the tech pace :

Spoiler :

The Liberalism path is stalled at Education (lacks Philosophy but Elizabeth will trade it ; she doesn't have Paper for early Liberalism... I'll monitor her progress but Liberalism isn't my primary concern, here).
Next tech is Guilds to get Knights from my Heroic Epic city + 4-6 other cities (Heroic Epic : courtesy of 2 barb cities). Rome and Moscow are nesting a lot of wonders, maybe half of them (a LOT !!), so I'd like to get those 2 cities + vassal the leaders.

Spoiler :

Then I'll head for Banking. We work 93 tiles for now but that amount can easily double. The return from Banks is expected to be huge. It also opens Economics as an alternative to Liberalism.
Then Astronomy + turn the slider off + bulb Education + Liberalism if it's still there.
Astronomy will greatly increase the trade income + allow for intercontinental invasions.
Regarding the Education bulb, I've only had 1 GP for now (Academy in Persepolis) and I'll be getting the 2nd one in 13 turns. That GP will be used for a Golden Age (civic switch) so I also want some GP farms to be set up for this. Assyrian (NE near Stalin), Ergili and Ghularnan (SW) are those I have in mind.

 

[NihilZero]

Spoiler :

Played a little bit, expecting something nasty like no strategic resources on the entire landmass, a horrible Shaka-Monty-Genghis sandwich, or some other sinister trick. Instead I found...nothing problematic at all. Seems crazily easy, unless I'm missing something. The only possible problem I can see is that there is a lot of empty land and barbs might be a little irksome, but horses and copper (which is obviously overkill with Persia) are readily available.

Unless Augustus goes settler spam crazy (which is well within his capabilities) I see no difficulties here.

 

[Noogai]

Report 1500AD

Spoiler :

Not going too well, I'm not sure if I will continue this. If I will, I'll finish of Rome and then go for Stalin. That would put me even more back in tech I guess, so think I'm too late (Immortal rush against Rome took too long, and that was because he got pretoarians and spear + settled GG in rome.)

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[huerfanista]

1906 Diplomation:

Spoiler :

Disclaimer: I'd already watched TMIT's Let's Play, so I knew the map and neighbors. Since I abhor seafood starts, I settled 1S to grab the corn. In retrospect, this was probably a bad move - in place would have given much better production and (I only had 1 gold after the move). Anyway, I did the standard Persian opening: AH> wheel> mining> BW. I built a settler at size 3 and settled with the pig and horse in the small cross. After that it was *immortals. I declared on AC around 1400BC, right in the midst of the barb onslaught. :/ I was forced to hold back so immortals to defend my cities, but I still managed to take out the Romans by 800BC (he had iron hooked up but no praets). He had founded hinduism and built 'henge, so this was a great start. Hinduism spread to Stalin as well, and after chopping a library in Rome and running 2 scientists I got a prophet for the hindu shrine.

After that it was just expand to all the juicy spots while teching like a fiend from cottage spam. I built no wonders until the Taj, ignoring aesth/lit until late since I had no chance at the GLib (I went for alpha, math, currency, calendar, and CoL to fuel the expansion). I took astro from lib and got the circumnav bonus, then headed for democracy and rifling.

When I was just 2 turns from rifling I was the bebficiary of some AI stupidity: Stalin (pleased) and Hannibal (annoyed) declared on me - probably Han bribed Stalin in, since he was not plotting war. Stalin had founded 6 cities along the northern coast and liberated them to a colony (Ragnar). So I helped myself to those nicely developed cities (Ragnar had maces/knights/lbows and Stalin only had the ramains of his former garrison - axes and archers ). Hannibal landed a small stack near Rome, but I fired a GA and switched to nationhood, drafting some rifles to pwn his pathetic stack - I never saw anything more from him. After wiping out Ragnar, Stalin happily capitulated to me, despite my not taking any cities on his continent. So now I had a really good tech buddy who I put to work for me.

I headed for industrialism/flight/radio to take out Hatty, who was a major culture threat. On the turn that I finished the Cristo Redentor, I traded Stalin for SP and theocracy, and switched civics to PS, Nat, SP, Theo. Hattie had around 24 turns left on her 3rd city when I declared - taking her pathetic garrison of 1 gren and 2 lbows with marines and razing the city. I landed my big stack farther west and proceeded to take her wonder-laden cities with bombers/tanks. Se wouldn't cap until she was down to her last city, along with her vassal Charlemagne (I left him with one city as well). That gave me enough votes for the UN win, although dom/conquest was trivial at that point: only Han had infantry, Liz had redcoats/SAM infantry.

 

[billnineo]

The attached link to the starting file no longer seems to be up, does anyone have it that they could reply and attach it?

 

[Fish Man]

The attached link to the starting file no longer seems to be up, does anyone have it that they could reply and attach it?

Bump...anyone here have it?

 

[krikav]

I would put hopes only in borncantalopue (which is missing in action for at least half a year I think?) and possibly @TheMeInTeam but hoping that games like this is archived on their computers after all this time is a long shot.