Immortal University 28: Isabella

[TheMeInTeam]

Whoa -- a certain AI who is a fan of Free Religion managed to grab the Mids for very early Representation and aided by a triple gem city succeeded to get Liberalism in 500 AD . That's a first for me @ immortal. Didn't help him much though...

A while back in LHC Louis Pacal got liberalism at 600 AD...on emperor . Of all the things I've seen the AI do above its normal level, that one sticks out the most.600 AD is a deity time! The variance in bonuses is ridiculous! The stars must have aligned for that AI in that game .

I had 3 of them at the end and they could drop cultural defenses of a 60% city without a Castle in a single turn, improving the odds for my march-promoted Cavs significantly so that I hardly lost any (you need 5 GGs or 2 turns of bombardment for Castle cities).

Has anybody else ever tried something like that?

I hadn't even thought of it, but it is interesting! Conventional approaches are: using spies, going cavalry and just muscling it with flanking II leading, or air support (even airships make for good odds against medieval).

Spain is probably the civ to do it with though. I usually attach a GG to unlock WP (and heroic epic if it wasn't yet), which frequently winds up being some half-job medic III troop that was originally just promoted to medic I to heal faster, then settle the rest in said heroic epic city (it will frequently be on CR III siege even w/o spain or if I'm AGG or PRO possibly running drill IV or march type gunpowder with CR/Barrage II siege elsewhere). It's an interesting approach for certain, but it seems a little hard to get 3 GG's before much of 1-2 wars is decided oftentimes. Just another thing I'll bank in my mind and may eventually see an opportunity to use...

 

[Grey Fox]

Yeah I was thinking about how to utilize the GGs in this game. I've already settled one, but I might use the rest for mobile siege.

Anyways here comes my update so far
Normal / Immortal - BtS 3.19 with BUG Mod 3.6

Spoiler up to 175AD :

I chose to settle 1S, I will not rush for a religion, and I prefer riverside. 2 hammers from city tile isn't bad either.
Extra great as an expansionist civ as well, as the worker only takes 10 turns!
Hammurabis scout finds me somewhat early.
Warrior dies to lion on turn 9, SE coast...
Victorias scout finds me, and Huayna Capac finds me.
Seems like my neighbors are all going to be building wonders for me
And here comes Darius, yet another wonder whore

Early Tech order:
Agriculture -> AH (Nice, we got horses close.) -> The Wheel -> Pottery -> Mining - BW (switch to writing) -> BW -> Alphabet -> Aesthetics

Early capital build order:
Worker -> Warrior -> Warrior -> (size 4) Settler. -> Worker -> Warrior -> Warrior -> Settler -> Warrior -> Warrior -> Worker -> Worker

Founded my 2nd city dangerously close to Hammurabi, not on the river, but lots of floodplains. Hammurabi got his 2nd city to it before me, but I'll try and get some culture pressure here. OR maybe I'll just rush him with Chariots.

3rd city near the cow. I found the coastal option to be lacking so I'll grab the wheat and cow with this city.

Met the Arabians to the SE.

China found my warrior near England to the SE in 1680BC, that must have been everyone.

Switched to Buddhism to side with Darius, Saladin, and Victoria. Everyone seem to dislike Huayna who is Hindu, and Hammurabi and Mao are Jews. And Hammurabi is probably my first war target.

First Scientist in 550 BC, Acadamy in Barcelona. Both best sci and need the culture.
Have had my science on 0% for a while, 222 gold now, putting scie to 100%.
Alphabet in 3 turns. Too bad only 2 civs don't have it :/

I'll get what I can from Saladin with Alphabet, just Meditation and Hunting.
I know, crap techs but at least something and I kinda need them anyways.

Iron Working from Mao for Alphabet, I don't care if that pisses of Victoria. (Actually it didn't)

Ooh, I just barely have iron on a tile neibouring Babylon.
Too bad its the only hill I havn't mined

350BC
I have 9 chariots and 3 Axemen, I want 3 spearmen before I invade to send in a axeman+spearmen combo towards Babylon, one combo to protect barcelona, and the other to protect Akkad once I capture it.

Traded Meditation to Babylon for Archery, basically so he has more peaceful stuff to build instead of military.

250BC
Babylon finishes Parthenon, unluckily not in a city close to me. The city that built it however has TWO copper!

I declare war, and move my troops into his lands capturing a worker, which I leave as bait. Not sure if I should attack Akkad on the first turn of the war or wait till the next. First turn I'll have 9 chariots, next I'll have an additional 2 chariots, 2 more axemen and a spearman. I think I'll wait...

I waited and they did NOT get any additional defenders.
I noticed something else however, and that's BRIDGES (not seen on screenshots).
Yep they just got construction.

6 Chariots died, next 3 won. Seems 9 would have been enough
With the gold from conquest I turned my research to 100%, 3 turns to Aesthetics finish.

Worker captured last turn survive so I use him to make a road from Akkad to my empire.


At 175BC I am back up to 12 Chariots, with AxeSpear duos placed where I want to move the chariots, all I need to do now is get them all to the front. Babylon is pretty poorly defended with only 3 defenders, 2 of which are Axemen.

Got Aesthetics in 150BC, trade it to Saladin for Polytheism, Priesthood and 40 gold. Not the best trade in the world, but I need the gold.

Aesthetics to Mao for Math.
Aesthetics to Victoria for Sailing and Masonry.

Going for Compass next since noone has it, and hopefully none will get it before me...

75BC
Attacking Babylon City, lost first, then won two battles around 30%!

50BC
With no losses (one win at 7.x%!) I capture Nippur.
I won't gain much by keeping it so I raze it.

Rushed a Jewish temple and monastery in Akkad to use up the angry population. Went from size 8 to a steady 3.

25BC
Killed a damaged catapult in my territory and got my Heroic unit!
Get 2nd Scientist in Seville.
Not sure if I should use it in capital or in Akkad. Akkad has 8 floodplains, counting 2 shared with Barcelona.
After some thinking I'll use this one in Madrid, and start trying to get another Scientist for Akkad, which will arrive in 49 turns or less.
I got a Great General and I'll probably going to use Babylon as Heroic Epic city so I'm moving him towards the city.
I won't need a super medic atm, and I don't really need the 26 xp unit yet.

50AD
I conquer Dur-Kurigalzu...

...and as you can see it has the Parthenon and double copper!
It's also Confucianism's Holy City, but no shrine.

175AD

Conquered Borsippa, I keep it.

Peace, and I switch to Heridetary Rule and Organized Religion.

Traded compass to Saladin for Calendar and 30 Gold
Compass to Victoria for Construction.
Compass to Darius for Horseback and 60 gold.

 

[tycoonist]

Whoa -- a certain AI who is a fan of Free Religion managed to grab the Mids for very early Representation and aided by a triple gem city succeeded to get Liberalism in 500 AD . That's a first for me @ immortal. Didn't help him much though...

how about fission in 1500 AD? he was insane for sure.

as for the cannon idea, i actually quite like it... the only problem would be getting enough GG - you need 3, and i feel that the speed of assault could equally be improved with a great medic.

 

[Grashopa]

My plan for GGs is leadership + blitz. Also attempt to upgrade as many 4 promotion horse for C3 blitz. It is like having 2 units when you siege their SoD first. And with the GGs it just means faster GG generation.

Tycoonist - Woodsman 3 + medic 1 is the same as a great medic. Though medic 1,3 and W3 all together are the best. However we don't have anarchy - after settling 1 GG you get 9 XP with theo+vassalage so put out 1 swordsman or something and get him to 10 xp after the first siege for W3 is better I think than wasting GG XP.

 

[Grey Fox]

Spoiler Liberalism :

200 AD
Mao declares war on Victoria.

250 AD
Inca finishes Schwedagon Paya and Arabia finishes Pyramids.

350 AD
Darius declared on Mao.

425 AD
Victoria is apparantly Darius vassal. I guess she became one in 350 AD when darius declared on Mao.

520 AD
Finished the Great Library in Akkad.
Wow this is weird, noone got this yet?

540 AD
Hammurabi, which is now Buddhist, also declares on Mao.

580 AD

I get Music and the Great Artist.
Trade Music to Victoria for Drama and 30 Gold.
Seems Darius was close to Music as he is only offering 35 gold for it. Heck, I'll make that trade, heh!
With the great artist I bulb Theology.

620 AD
Finish research on Code of Laws. (2 turns)

680 AD
Aaah, Huyana declares war!

740 AD
Finish research on Feudalism, switch to Theocracy and Vassalage.
Settled Santiago and Salamanca.

760AD
Got my 3rd Scientist
Moving it to Akkad.

860AD
Got another Scientist in Akkad.
Saving it for later. Don't want to bulb Philosophy since I wouldn't be able to trade it anyways.

880AD
Sweet, Arabia built the apostolic palace.
+Hammers for everyone!
And I got Bureaucracy! Switching to it.

Hammurabi wants Theology and will give me Metal Casting for it. Sure why not.

920AD
Captured Machu Picchu.

940AD
Get Paper, use the scientist to bulb 1737 beakers of Education.

1010AD
With about 1/5th beakers invested in Machinery I trade Paper +35 Gold for it from Hammurabi.

1030AD
Traded Machinery to Saladin for Philosophy.

1050AD
I get Education, and I finish the relocation of the palace to Akkad.

1070AD
Crap, Darius is beating me to Liberalism.
Ah well, that doesn't matter much I am right behind him. I have a bit less tech than I should, timing has been bad on getting techs so I havn't had much to get on trades. Heck I don't even have Engineering yet.
But still, I am up there in techs and catching up, and soon I'll have oxford in a sweet city.

1080AD
He took Economics with Liberalism, getting the Free Merchant.

Spoiler up to 1500AD :

1120AD
Saladin wants me to declare war on Mao, and since i am friendly with Saladin and Mao pretty much hates me, I join the war. China have to cross Victorias territory to reach me anyways.

1140AD
During my siege of Cuzco I get a nice choice in the Apostolic Votes

1150AD
Everyone declares war on Huayna

1180AD
Got another Scientist
Going to save it for a nice city Huayna has I think.

1200AD
Everyone got peace with Mao, so I get a cease fire as well.

1260AD
We get Guilds and it's time to put slider at 0% to upgrade all mounted units to Knights.
Trade Guilds to Saladin for Optics and 220 gold.


1330AD
I capture Tiwanaku only losing one catapult in the process.

I used the Scientist for an Acadamy in Tiwanaku just so I won't forget.


1340AD
Forgot to take a picture of the Oxford city earlier, but here it is:

1350AD

Huayna capitulates to me.

Since he only has 4 turns left on Gunpowder I switch to Nationalism.

Hammurabi is my next target. I should have finished him of last time, or at least taken more cities. His stupid culture has ruined the effeciency of my Heroic Epic city .

As you can see, Darius is no longer sharing our religion, with a +4 only as result.
Saladin, Victoria and Darius are all friendly to Hammurabi.

Traded Education for Gunpowder from Huyana.

1430AD
We get Military Tradition.
Crap, I didn't notice this but Hammurabi has become Darius Vassal.

1500AD
I'm about ready to attack Darius and Hammurabi before they get Riflemen. Darius got Cannons, but I think I'll be able to take a few cities at least.

 

[Grashopa]

@ Grey fox

Spoiler :

So what are you thinking at this point? Consolidate or make a quick move after HC? Grabbing Solomon for 13gpt is sweet and the religious situation is great for you.. HR for happiness means Akkad is a monster if you shack up there for a bit..

EDIT What were you thinking at that point then.

 

[Grey Fox]

@Grashopa

Spoiler :

What I was thinking?
I was going to try and get some better economy and then get some more units to finish Hammurabi.
Now that did not happen, and instead I conquered the Incans
Now, from 1500AD an onwards, I tried to make the most out of my UU, and I guess I have.
I'm up against Riflemen now though but I'll leave the details to the next report.
And yeah, I am fighting all my friends except Saladin who I think is gearing up for another war with Mao Zedong
The reason for war versus peaceful co-existance is I believe Darius would have only increased his tech lead and eventually been a too powerful opponent.

 

[Grashopa]

@Grashopa

Spoiler :

What I was thinking?
I was going to try and get some better economy and then get some more units to finish Hammurabi.
Now that did not happen, and instead I conquered the Incans
Now, from 1500AD an onwards, I tried to make the most out of my UU, and I guess I have.
I'm up against Riflemen now though but I'll leave the details to the next report.
And yeah, I am fighting all my friends except Saladin who I think is gearing up for another war with Mao Zedong
The reason for war versus peaceful co-existance is I believe Darius would have only increased his tech lead and eventually been a too powerful opponent.

Spoiler :

I will be going straight after the incans after having peaced hammurabi. In my case they have pyramids and a shrine in the capital.. I feel like I always try to be cute instead of going after my goal which in this case is domination. If I get a shrine as well it won't be strong, but it gives me the option of building myself up at least until macemen if Darius is too far ahead in tech.

 

[pnp_dredd]

Immortal, normal. I went for a Cultural victory:

0 AD

Spoiler :

Goal: Culture.
Settled 1 South. Warrior explored clockwise.
Tec: Ag-Wh-Pot-Wr-Alpha (in 1080bc). Yes, this is a risky beeling - Only had warriors to defend, and lost one city to Barbs because of this. Also, I missed out on using the Pigs for ages. After this I beelined Music.

Build: Worker, warrior (exploration), warrior, worker (started turn 24 @ size 4), settler, warrior, settler, settler!, settler!, warrior, warrior
Worker moves: farm corn, farm FP, build roads, cottage
Worker 2 moves: cottage 2nd FP, road to city2

Without BW I had to build lots of settlers to slow growth past teh happy cap.

3760 meet Hammy with border expansion. hmm, he may be close which makes early expansion a priority.
3400 meet Huyana

city2 will be a GP farm utilising the FPs and wheat near the Babs. Third city will be down South in the jungles for cottaging. I successfully settled city3 with gem,gem,sugar,sugar,corn,river grassland once it's borders had expanded enough. City 4 was a production city grabbing the Stone to the West. Unfortunatly this city was taken by barbs in 1080bc.

City2 build granary-library

Put some fog-busting warriors out to the West. Barb city grew to the south. In 1400BC this barb city was captured by the English, somewhat cutting off my Southern city. Bit of a bugger.

750BC hook up iron and start making axes for defenece. I'm choppig heavily around the capital at this stage.

675BC Barcelona (GP farm) begins Revolting under Bab cultural pressure. It already has a Library and is building a monument. (originally this flipped in 450bc. I reloaded to see how to stop it). Put some more MPs in there and let it grow a bit (unhappy though). Built a Monastary ASAP also. By 375 BC the population is >50% Spanish again and the crisis is over. I guess I shoulda built Library -> Granary?


Around 500BC I opened borders with everyone to try and attract religions.

450bc completed Aesthetics, began Parthenon. Trade Aesthetics with Huyana for med, poly, masonry. Also trade wine -> corn with Huyana.

275bc Parthenon built in faraway land. oh well, the cash is useful to get Literature faster. Wouldn't have made it to Parthenon even with marble.

75bc trade for monotheism and switch to Org Rel. Choose Confucianism as state religion (both Hammy and Darius were Confucian.)

1AD have 6 cities. Have 3 religions. Beginning to tech Music.
Religions check:
Buddhism - Stupa requires copper for fast build.
Confucianism - Academy requires copper.
Hinduism - Mandir requires marble (boo)

The ADs

Spoiler :

375ad completed music. Someone must have beaten me, so no great artist I did successfully build Sistine in 800AD.

600ad Darius discovers Liberalism. I'm still completing Civil Service. Damn. I head for Nationalism and then to Liberalism.

1010ad Nationalism. Just need to get to Liberalism now and that's it. I get Liberalism about 20 turns after this, and switch off research.

1625AD and just 23 turns from Cultural victory. Mao vassalises Vikky which turns the tide of the finely-balanced diplomacy. Mao and Vikky both declare on me and it's all over.

 

[Grey Fox]

Yey, I won in 1919AD diplomatic victory (on my way to conq/domi)

Spoiler to Victory! :

1510AD
As they have Rifling now I have to try and take the opportunity before they start upgrading to take a few cities.

I declare on Darius and move my troops in.
Almost take the old Incan city.

1515AD
We take the old Incan city, Corihuayrachina.
We conquer Ecbatana, it has the Notre Dame.

1530AD
At least Hammurabi isn't Darius vassal anymore.

1535AD
Babylon recaptured Mari...
and crap, England captured Cordoba.
I recapture Mari again.

1540AD
We get peace with Darius.
I think we have gotten as much as we can from him now.
He is starting to get lots of Cavalry and Riflmen, so it's time to back of.

1570AD
I take Kassite, then I get peace with Babylon.
I would prefer capitulation, but that will have to wait till a future war. Atm I need to focus on consolidating my southern fronts and get England of my back.

1575AD
Saladin wants me to join against China, and sure, I'll join. At least Saladin is still my friend

1585AD
Of course, Babylon are now vassals to Arabia...


Lots of Unit building, drafting, and upgrading...


1824AD
Mao capitulated to Salading a while ago, and now Victoria is his vassal as well.
After I conquer Darius in a while, there will be 2 factions.


1832AD
I declare war on Darius, and move in my troops.

1834AD
My 2nd stack gets all of the Persian counterattack, takes some casualities, and withdraws to heal up.


1836AD
We capture Pasargadae!
And sweet it got the Cristo Redentor

1842AD
We capture Persepolis!

Nice amount of wonders.


1844AD
We conquer Sardis.


1846AD
We capture Tarsus.

1850AD
we Capture Susa.


1854AD
And we capture Bactra, the last Persian city on this continent.

1864AD
I declare war on Saladin.
The world is now at war.
It's the final battle Isabella vs Saladin!
First thing we do is recapture Mari, a Babylonian city we captured in the last war, which later flipped back through culture.

Then we finally take back Cordoba which we lost to England in the previous war.

Then we capture Warwick. Small town, now only 1 pop, but it has all the espionage buildings so we keep it.

1870AD
What seems to be the bulk of Saladins army attacks Sardis and takes out all my troops there. Capturing the city.
I capture York from the English and Sippur from the Babylonians


1878AD
After a gruesome 2 turn battle, we retake Sardis.
That must have put a real dent in Saladins power graph.
I also capture Opis from the Babylonians, now they only got one city left.


1880AD
I capture Anasazi, and that's finally the end of Hammurabi. Now I can concentrate on one front.

Babylon is also the only civilization to have been totally destroyed in this game. Leaving it to 3 vs 3 civs.


1888AD
Saladin does a sorta sneaky attack on one of the old Incan cities, but I retake it.


1890AD
We capture the Northernmost english city, Canterbury.
And Saladin seems to have Mobile Artillery.


1894AD
. .. .. .. ., he has Modern Armor too. Crap. He captures Warwick from me.
Now it's time to get peace, I will get slaughtered if I continue like this. But before that I capture London.
I give him Medicine for the peace.
It's too bad I didn't have time to finish of Victoria, she only had 2 cities left.


1915AD
Eeek, Saladin declares war. I got Mech infantry now, but not the cash to upgrade all my infantry.
I manage to destroy one stack of units, and raze Warwick


1919AD
W00t LoL I won!
Diplomatic Victory baby!

My first victory on Immortal, and with Spain

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Congrats! 1st wins on new difficulties feel pretty good.

 

[Grey Fox]

Congrats! 1st wins on new difficulties feel pretty good.

Thanks. I almost gave up on this game a while there. But looking back at how I played this game I must say I underestimated the power of the Spiritual trait AND maybe especially the Draft before.
I never really managed to maximize the spanish uniques though. I didn't build the Citadel in many places (I think 2 or 3, Heroic Epic city and somewhere else), and the window of opportunity to use the Conquistador was very small for me. Though that might have been enough, I did build lots of siege in the HE city. My great general use wasn't working for me, I never got the time to use my [mobile] artillery.

I've felt too comfortable with Emperor for a while, Immortal is where I feel challenged now.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Hi Immortal students!

I was thinking of moving to Immortal. Is there any edition of the IU that you can recommend as good for a first Immortal game? Thanks in advance.

 

[shyuhe]

This is a relatively easy map. No crazy nutjob neighbors and lots of land to expand into.

 

[Grey Fox]

This is a relatively easy map. No crazy nutjob neighbors and lots of land to expand into.

It was kinda easy but I don't remember there being lots of land. Most of the land was pretty crappy and your peaceful expansion gets stopped right at the floodplains early on. Then it's only crappy tundra/plains to the nortwest left.

 

[GenerallyGreat]

Hi Immortal students!

I was thinking of moving to Immortal. Is there any edition of the IU that you can recommend as good for a first Immortal game? Thanks in advance.

The JC game is pretty nice if you get the blocking cities in. Sury has heaps of room to grow, I don't remember the specifics of the Hammy one but I do remember killing it. They are the best recent ones I can think of.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Thank you all for the answers. I'll wait a little longer to go to Immortal, though. I've had some defeats on Emperor recently, which means I still have some work to do on that level.

 

[Irgy]

Hi guys. Long time lurker here making my first post, to say:

Immortal, normal, 1850 Cultural Victory:

Spoiler :

My first win on immortal. A basically entirely peaceful game won on the back of good early expansion to get just enough land for an optimal 9 cities. Didn't even think of horse archer rushing like everyone else seems to have done, although it's probably the better option.

Settled 1s on the plains hill, which turned out to be a much better position the way the land lay. Thought about going for buddhism early, and would have got it as the AIs doubled up on Polytheism, but no matter.

Went to settle the flood plains, but Hammurabi beat me to it and I took the horses instead. Settled nearby later on to try and culture them back, but I'd left it too late and I lost the city to his culture before I'd even finished whipping out a library.

Settled cities to block Darius, taking the three elephants with one and pigs and wine with the other. Grabbed wheat and fur to the east - would have grabbed stone but didn't explore well enough and simply didn't see it. My original warrior was killed early on a hill by lions, and I was too busy rexing to explore properly after that.

Marked out two more cities to the south (one near incense, one on the coast near the wheat) and two more to the north (to grab the fish) but filled them in later to give the economy a chance to recover first.

Once I got to alphabet I had a look at the tech situation, and I was way behind everyone. However, I picked the right techs for trading and caught up to everyone but Darius, who was a long way ahead the whole game. The capital became the research centre with cottages everywhere, an academy and eventually Oxford.

Hammurabi filled my cities with Buddism, and we ended up good buddies religeon the whole game. Daruis was pleased with me as well once he switched to free religeon, so between the two of them most of my border was safe from attack the whole game. Darius had even settled a city next to the pigs leaving me with no border contact with Saladin or Mao. The AIs all took different religeons and fought a lot. Saladin and Mao in particular kept each other busy. I generally tried to keep everyone content but no-one pleased except Darius and Hammurabi.

Techwise, I went to Aesthetics for trade, then construction with big plans to build elephants and catapults and take some land. Beelined engineering next for citadels and trebuchets. Production was too poor however and the war effort never really got off the ground. I realised however that the AI had given me four religeons and I had exactly 9 cities, so culture started looking like a great option.

The capital, the horse city and the elephant city (my first three cities built in fact) were chosen as the three culture cities, mostly for their good cottages. Daruis was by far the biggest threat, and I put all my espionage points (which wasn't many) towards him.

I got very lucky as Hammurabi built a Buddhist AP, giving me a huge production boost and nearly half the votes.

I saw that Divine Right was free, so I grabbed it as quick as I could. I eventually built the Moai Statues and Wall Street in the Islam holy city. I didn't trade it to anyone so that I could build the Spiral Minaret, which I eventually got and was my only wonder of the game. Between that and spamming Islam everywhere I could run the slider at 100% and still make a profit.

Victoria, by far the weakest civ with only three cities, DOWed me and sent a fairly pathetic stack towards the elephant city. I bribed Saladin into war with her using Divine Right (I'd also recently temporarily switched to his religeon on request - yay for spiritual - so I was in his good books). I sold Divine Right to everyone who'd buy it, getting me some cash to quickly upgrade my warrior defenders to something else. If she'd taken a couple of losses instead of waiting to pillage and siege she'd have grabbed it, but in the end the war was stopped by an AP resolution from Hammurabi, and my only loss was three workers who were chopping next to Hammurabi's borders the turn she DOWed. I didn't need too many workers by this stage anyway. The AP resolution didn't stop her war with Saladin and he took London. She spent most of the rest of the game switching around as a vassal.

I went back to spamming missionaries with organised religeon, then switched to pacifism for GPPs. I waited until consitution to move the slider from science to culture, so that representation would give me at least a tiny bit of research. I replaced all the cottages outside the three culture cities to workshops and farms. Built some conquistadors just in case (everyone else had infantry mind you),

In the end, Darius had just finished some Thrusters when I bombed my GAs and won.

I'm excited to get my first immortal win, and excited as well to do it a different way to everyone else.

 

[GenerallyGreat]

Hi guys. Long time lurker here making my first post, to say:

Immortal, normal, 1850 Cultural Victory:

Spoiler :

My first win on immortal. A basically entirely peaceful game won on the back of good early expansion to get just enough land for an optimal 9 cities. Didn't even think of horse archer rushing like everyone else seems to have done, although it's probably the better option.

Settled 1s on the plains hill, which turned out to be a much better position the way the land lay. Thought about going for buddhism early, and would have got it as the AIs doubled up on Polytheism, but no matter.

Went to settle the flood plains, but Hammurabi beat me to it and I took the horses instead. Settled nearby later on to try and culture them back, but I'd left it too late and I lost the city to his culture before I'd even finished whipping out a library.

Settled cities to block Darius, taking the three elephants with one and pigs and wine with the other. Grabbed wheat and fur to the east - would have grabbed stone but didn't explore well enough and simply didn't see it. My original warrior was killed early on a hill by lions, and I was too busy rexing to explore properly after that.

Marked out two more cities to the south (one near incense, one on the coast near the wheat) and two more to the north (to grab the fish) but filled them in later to give the economy a chance to recover first.

Once I got to alphabet I had a look at the tech situation, and I was way behind everyone. However, I picked the right techs for trading and caught up to everyone but Darius, who was a long way ahead the whole game. The capital became the research centre with cottages everywhere, an academy and eventually Oxford.

Hammurabi filled my cities with Buddism, and we ended up good buddies religeon the whole game. Daruis was pleased with me as well once he switched to free religeon, so between the two of them most of my border was safe from attack the whole game. Darius had even settled a city next to the pigs leaving me with no border contact with Saladin or Mao. The AIs all took different religeons and fought a lot. Saladin and Mao in particular kept each other busy. I generally tried to keep everyone content but no-one pleased except Darius and Hammurabi.

Techwise, I went to Aesthetics for trade, then construction with big plans to build elephants and catapults and take some land. Beelined engineering next for citadels and trebuchets. Production was too poor however and the war effort never really got off the ground. I realised however that the AI had given me four religeons and I had exactly 9 cities, so culture started looking like a great option.

The capital, the horse city and the elephant city (my first three cities built in fact) were chosen as the three culture cities, mostly for their good cottages. Daruis was by far the biggest threat, and I put all my espionage points (which wasn't many) towards him.

I got very lucky as Hammurabi built a Buddhist AP, giving me a huge production boost and nearly half the votes.

I saw that Divine Right was free, so I grabbed it as quick as I could. I eventually built the Moai Statues and Wall Street in the Islam holy city. I didn't trade it to anyone so that I could build the Spiral Minaret, which I eventually got and was my only wonder of the game. Between that and spamming Islam everywhere I could run the slider at 100% and still make a profit.

Victoria, by far the weakest civ with only three cities, DOWed me and sent a fairly pathetic stack towards the elephant city. I bribed Saladin into war with her using Divine Right (I'd also recently temporarily switched to his religeon on request - yay for spiritual - so I was in his good books). I sold Divine Right to everyone who'd buy it, getting me some cash to quickly upgrade my warrior defenders to something else. If she'd taken a couple of losses instead of waiting to pillage and siege she'd have grabbed it, but in the end the war was stopped by an AP resolution from Hammurabi, and my only loss was three workers who were chopping next to Hammurabi's borders the turn she DOWed. I didn't need too many workers by this stage anyway. The AP resolution didn't stop her war with Saladin and he took London. She spent most of the rest of the game switching around as a vassal.

I went back to spamming missionaries with organised religeon, then switched to pacifism for GPPs. I waited until consitution to move the slider from science to culture, so that representation would give me at least a tiny bit of research. I replaced all the cottages outside the three culture cities to workshops and farms. Built some conquistadors just in case (everyone else had infantry mind you),

In the end, Darius had just finished some Thrusters when I bombed my GAs and won.

I'm excited to get my first immortal win, and excited as well to do it a different way to everyone else.

Congrats! Nothing better than the first win on a new level. Got any screenshots?

 

[tehfreak]

Immortal domination, 1876 AD

Spoiler :

I went for a peaceful start. I built a 100% specialist economy and I could tech really fast even without the mids. The AIs were really peaceful as IIRC there as been no war until I began the conquest.

I think large room for expansion and the jungle surrounding Darius makes that map pretty easy since no one is teching too quickly.

I'm ready for war and I pick Hammurabi as a target because his culture is killing me. I would have been better beginning my war with Darius though because he was big and by the time I got to him he was advanced enough to be pretty annoying.
Conquistators for the win!

He capitulates quickly, next is Huayna.

Next is Darius. I am semi-confident with my newly upgraded cavalry:

I take 2 cities and then my units are badly injured as I am facing tanks, infantry and machine guns with cavalry, canons and riflemen! I take 10 turns of peace so I can build infantries, artilleries and anti-tanks. Ready for the next step:

He caps after 1 or 2 more cities. I then kill all of Victoria's cities on the old continent but she still won't cap =( This delays the domination quite a bit as I will have to take both Saladin and Mao to win.

Declaring on Saladin, then Mao: