Immortal Shadow Game: Cyrus

[antimony]

Oh, and if GPP are so important, is it maybe worth picking up the Parthenon? I was building it for the failgold, but I'm 8 turns from accidentally finishing it and none of the AIs even have Aesthetics yet. Even on NTT maps, alphabet does come in handy for keeping an eye on where everyone is tech-wise.

Parthenon is not bad just a bit underwhelming, and usually (though not here) if we don't prioritize it the AI will build it fast on high difficulty. The reason it's underwhelming is that percentages are mostly additive not multiplicative, so if your Civ is in a golden age with pacifism it produces 3 times as many GPP (200% bonus) and Parthenon would bring that to 3.5 times (250% bonus). I think that's why sampsa said it was worth less since he's generating all his great people in such a golden age + Paci situation.

Also you have to make sure to build it in a city that won't produce great people to avoid accidentally getting an artist.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Spoiler Personal Best, I think :

T148 (when I finally finished Taj). I don't think I've ever done better.

 

[antimony]

@Gunboat Diplomat For your next shadow game I highly recommend a map that's new for all of us. If you don't want to waste time on a potentially bad map (though it's also good to learn) I recommend just picking the current or an upcoming Nobles Club game. They should all be winnable on Immortal.

 

[sampsa]

And the thing is that with one dominant -city, the value of Parthenon is not that big. Yes you get some a bit sooner, but they aren't the bottleneck anyway. In my game maybe I'd get one extra GM, but at that point the extra 1700 would not change anything.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Ok. I'm shelving this game for a bit. I just played through and dismally botched my golden ages and attack. I'll probably get back to it later, but for now, I need to move on before I do something permanent to my psyche.

I assume that everyone keeps up to date with the NC games, so it's probably best if I roll a new one. If I get a bad position, so be it - that's Civ.

Any suggestions for a leader? On lower difficulties, I spent a long time playing FIN leaders (Willem and Vicky mostly) and I've dabbled with Hauyna, Zara, and Darius a bit too. Haven't had much to do with the others, tbh.

I've played a couple of games recently with Suryavarman, and I really like him, so that would be my preference. Any thoughts?

 

[antimony]

I think any leader you will be motivated to play through is fine, maybe just not Inca or if you do, don't Quechua rush anyone haha.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Yeah. I only use Capac when I want to lash out at someone early. Not really a good choice for a shadow game at this point. Maybe later when I want to up my economic recovery skills.

 

[sampsa]

Sure, you can come back to this game later. You can investigate my autosaves when you feel like doing so.

Leader for the next game doesn't matter, do whatever you like.

 

[Tecumseh1]

I haven't read spoilers yet but gave this map a try.

1840 BC:

Start I wasn't sure between SIP and 1SE. I liked 1SE because it gives capital more cottages, double food, and the 4h1c plains hill can be mined and help get fast imperialistic settlers. I might ruin fish, but with double sheep it's less devastating. I actually think it's pretty close, and I'm going to replay start trying SIP. and play to same point.

Yay immortals. Second city debated between settling on horse vs 1S of horse. 1S allows getting rice once I kill Gandhi. But settled on the horse because that's atleast 4 turn head start on building units in 2 cities, and the horse tile improved is not a great tile tbh.

Attacked capital at 2000 BC with 7 immortals. Gandhi the chap only had 2 archers in his capital, so 5-6 might have been enough. He did get 3rd archer during war but it was easy to take after killing the 2 fortified archers. Seems he didn't have BW yet because second city only had 1 archer. Finished him at 1840 BC.

Edit: Tech order AH->Mining->Wheel->BW->Pottery->Mist->Archery, then 0 slider until end of war. Went Mining before Wheel because I didn't find the horse until only 3 turns left on mining.

 

[Tecumseh1]

Replayed start with SIP this time:

I tried to make same movements with scout etc and play the map assuming I didn't know anything from the first time. Worker comes 2 turns earlier than AH, but used that to farm. That farm in capital came in handy while whipping the army. Now settling on horse is not viable, and so tech order changed a bit too. AH->Mining->BW->Wheel->Pottery. While SIP is slower to building an army, it gave time to build a 3rd settler which I used to back fill the sheep near capital. This time 3 workers instead of 2, and had to put some extra chops into 4th settler (unfinished) because it took a while to get wheel + hook up capital horse. 2000 BC I had 3 cities but no real army yet. Attack date was 4 turns later than first time, and finished Gandhi by 1600 BC.

While my land is more developed this time, the later attack date and maintenance cost means there's more work to do to rebuild economy and develop all the land. I kinda prefer the first approach and attacking with just 2 cities asap.

Settling 1SE and 2 city attack:
:

SIP and 3 city attack: