Immortal Earth18 challenge: single city isolated start

[WFU03]

Yet another take, this time I think I stand a better chance of success.

It's just after 1100AD and I have 8 cities (Atlantis, 2 on Great Britain, 1 in Ireland, Madrid, Paris, and Bergen/Trondheim and just southeast of Oslo (for the real life locales).

After deliberately avoiding Meditation (to block the philosophy bulb) and Civil Service (to block the paper bulb), I used two Great Scientists in a row and I got astronomy around 250AD. I then set sail with some catapults, swordsmen, and phalanxes toward Europe.

When I reached France/UK area, neither country had longbows yet and France was in the middle of a war with Germany. Thus, I decided to attack Paris, which I took fairly easily. From there, I took peace with Louis (who has a city near Rome and another in Sicily). I then promptly attacked London to ease the culture creep. It also wasn't that hard to take, but I had virtually no troops left. It's tough to keep producing only one each turn. I then took peace with Liz, leaving her Dublin, Bergen, and Edinburgh and rallied my troops for a quick attack on Isabella's only city. It was a race between Cathy and me, as Cathy had been at war with Isa for the entirety of my knowledge of them. I ended up taking Madrid one turn before Cathy would have.

The biggest downside? Isa capitulated to Frederick the turn before I took Madrid. At this point, Paris had one unit defending it, so I was praying that Cathy would hit Frederick on his eastern front. Surprisingly enough, JC took Berlin almost immediately and there was never a threat to Paris.

Seeing as how I was still at war with Frederick, I decided to take a city of his before Cathy and JC gobbled them all. I ended up getting the city east of Oslo and JC got a coastal city in the Baltics just before Frederick capitulated to Cathy.

By this point, Louis had vasalled to Cyrus (current city and score leader), so I declared on Elizabeth again to finish her off.

This is basically how the world stand right now. I think I'm in an OK position, but I need to get more land soon and I'm going to need some oil in the not too distant future. I've attached the save.

Anyone have any advice? Should I take out Louis' two cities and hope I can sue for peace before Cyrus' stack arrives? Should I attack JC and carve out some more of southern Europe? Should I swing to north Africa and secure some oil?

 

[zizzeus]

I played this map a few weeks ago and it was tons of fun. I'll try to think what I did:

Immortal, with the challenge. I stole the worker and went for a few early wonders, leaving some for cash for the galley upgrade. Decided bureaucracy was too valuable to miss so I took astro with lib instead. I detoured for the music GA too, which I used for a golden age to do most of my civic switching. Also, this blocks a few civs from researching it, which means far fewer curaissers in the future in Europe. I think I picked up judaism, confu and Tao but did not build any of the religious wonders. I spread judaism to the America's as they had nothing, getting all three civs to my religion and opening up trades with Roosevelt. Hinduism never spread out of England, while buddhism was later overtaken by Islam. The AP was built in Islam. I tried to build as few archery troops as possible since you don't get your combat bonus with them. For wonders, I know I got ToA and pyramids, probably gardens as well and AWat, GLib of course.

In my first invasion I went for Spain, but they vassalized to JC before I could take Madrid and I did not fancy a war with Julius, so I reloaded and went for Paris first. Took peace with Louis after taking Paris (he had a city in Ireland on a hill) and I went for Liz since everyone hated her. Paris had Islam so I converted and started to spread the AP religion. Took both England cities but she escaped to Iceland. I took peace, assuming she would vassal to someone else but she didn't and I was able to take that city later. I then turned on Spain with a much larger force than the first time, and captured it before anyone else could join in. Around this time Cathy and JC has taken most of Frederick's cities, and he vassaled to her. Then I think I went after JC, as by this time his praets were worthless. I took everything, including a few nice wonders. I was taking care to keep Monty and Roosevelt balanced, so now I invaded Monty, taking a city on the Isthmus on a hill which was easy to defend, and far enough away not to be culture swamped. This cost some in maintenance, but gave me a foothold that he could throw troops to their death and give me generals. Later, with bombers, this made conquest very easy.

By the end of the game, I had Monty, Roosevelt, Capac, Cathy, Hatty, Mansa and Cyrus on my side. Qin had become big on the other side, picking up India, Mongol, Japan, Saladin and Frederick. I probably could have broken this up, but I was looking forward to a massive world war. Too bad my computer took 5 mins between turns to load! I played a few turns of the war, but when it was clear I would win, I gave up the game since it was late.

Paris became my HE and West Point city, Oxford in Thebes, IW in Madrid which was probably not ideal, but I wanted Wall St. build quickly and Madrid had the Christian shrine. I settled a few Merchants here to add food and coinage, and later founded Mining Inc. here too. I stayed in Free Market, since I think I had 4 or 5 well spread shrines and I wanted the nice production from the corporation. Civics by the end were US, Nationhood, Eman, FM, Theo. Most of Europe was building troops non-stop.