[BNW] Shared Immortal Game Series #1

[raider980]

Hi all, I mentioned starting a new shared game series in another thread so figured I would go ahead and do it. This is for fun and maybe a little friendly competition; because shared games allow us to compare our games to others that play Civ 5; its the most fun Civ experience for me personally. The level will be Immortal - plus or minus. I consider Immortal (or slightly between Immortal and Deity) to be the sweet spot of Civ 5 difficulty. It gives enough of a challenge that I cannot win every Immortal game but its not like Deity where I can rarely win or know (or at least know there's no chance of a victory quite early). I say plus or minus because some games may be easier, some harder. Some games might be Deity but the player will have extra bonuses to even the playing field a little.

Given the popularity of series like Game of the Month, Enjoyable Deity Games, Fastest Science Victory, etc. hopefully others will find this a good endeavor. For those who usually play lower levels, this would be a good way to try a challenge. For those who win every Deity game, this could be a nice relaxing romp in the park, or a test to see who can finish the fastest, or who can come up with the most innovative victory. Hopefully others will contribute games also, all are welcome to contribute as long as it falls in the Immortal range mentioned.

So without further ado, here's the first game in the series. We play as Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I figured I'd make the first game in the series a little easier so I picked Babylon, one of the strongest science civs in the game; but then I met the neighbors... There is some nice land and a good amount of space, but scout well and don't dawdle in settling those expos. There's also the opportunity to get a religion that is fairly rare, but potentially awesome. Have fun and hope to see others contributing screenshots and game reports! I'm on about T100 now and its been very fun and interesting so I'll be posting my updates too.

Games are made with BNW Complete Addition so will contain all the normal DLC's but no mods or anything special.

Edit. Doh, I forgot to mention. I think I'll include a suggested victory condition (sometimes two) for these games for fun comparison of games. For this first game, since we're Babylon of course Science Victory is the goal but I'll also include Domination if you want to gain the science lead and then smite all the inferior enemies.

Spoiler Starting screenshot :

 

[qontroL]

I'm down to play, I downloaded the map.

 

[Megalou]

I'm on! Map type secret? Fun.

 

[raider980]

I'm on! Map type secret? Fun.

Ah yes. That would be something to include in future games. For this one it’ll be a mystery! (Although I think you’ll find out pretty quickly).

 

[Axolaan]

I finished the game in one day, games as Babylon are always a treat. But those neighbors were a pain!

Spoiler My result :

I won a science victory on turn 241! I think this might be my fastest one on immortal/deity. I'll post a more detailed write-up later as it's kinda late.

 

[raider980]

@Axolaan Glad you liked it! Its a really fun one. That's a good finish time, I'm not going to match it for sure unless things pick up a lot. Like you said, those neighbors are a pain. Here's my review through T173.

Spoiler :

I settled in place, hill/river/next to a mountain is perfect for a science game. The wine and incense gave me hope for a religion based on Goddess of Festivals and Monasteries. Then when I explored a little and saw all the wine in the area I knew it was a pretty good shot to get. And when I found the two faith NW, I rushed out two settlers to grab them and the religion was almost guaranteed. GoF is a great pantheon when you have that much Wine and/or Incense; better than DF in this case I think because of the culture. Especially since I got Monasteries and Mosques too.

As mentioned, there are the neighbors to even out the great land. First I met Atilla and I was like oh great, I'm glad this isn't Deity or I'd be insta-dead. But then here comes Napoleon, then Alex! And next was Sejong, while not a danger to attack you, he's a danger to win the game. To round it all out we have Ashurbanipal, Augustus and Liz! There will definitely be some wars this game. Sure enough, Atilla attacked around T80. Luckily I was prepared and was able to fight him off. He did manage to sneak a settler by me in the middle of the war and found a city on my side of the mountains. So I took that city even though it wasn't where I planned on settling, it was within range of the Wine and Silver I had my eye on.

Spoiler T109 :

After peacing out with Atilla, I focused on improving my land and building enough units to take on Napoleon when he got Musketeers and came calling. Sure enough, like clockwork, a large French army attacked my northernmost city of Dur-Kurigalzu. He had his Musketeers but he didn't have X-bows yet, and I did - I also luckily stole Gunpowder from Assyria the turn after the French attack. So I was able to fight him off and now I'm debating whether I should take Lyon or just stay at war for the experience, I have several XB that almost have logistics. I really want Marseille though, its a better city and its next to the Assyrian capital, which I would like to capture later since Ashur has been wonder spamming all game. Its in a good defensive location though and would be too hard to take; maybe I'll see if he'll give it to me in a peace deal. That's where we stand at T173.

Spoiler Napoleonic War :

 

[sebtanic]

Thanks for making this! I started yesterday night, and played the first 98 turns so far. Really nice neighbours hehe

 

[Bol]

T229 Science Victory, I quite enjoyed this map; very powerful start.
I might post some screenshot of the final turn later.

 

[raider980]

T229 Science Victory, I quite enjoyed this map; very powerful start.
I might post some screenshot of the final turn later.

Great time. Screenshots would be awesome. That’s the best part of the shared games is comparing maps to see how similar or different players were. I especially like looking at where everyone settled cities.

I encourage everyone to post screenshots!

 

[Axolaan]

I won a science victory on t241, as mentioned before. Some highlights:
I got a spear ruin and a pop ruin early, those were both useful as the barbarians were quite an issue early. I had to clear a camp in order to settle my Uluru city. I also got an 80 gold ruin on t16.
I had to pay Attila to leave me alone very early on, as I would have probably lost my nearest city to him.
I got 1st religion on turn 74, the classic tithe pagodas since I had enough faith to make them work.
I got Petra on t84. This delayed my national college a bit, I got it somewhere between t100 and 110.
Oracle on t107 in my Petra city. Maybe I could have even waited to use it on Rationalism, but Piety ended up being valuable as well.
My rationalism timing was awkward, since I was gonna get a policy 1 turn before renaissance. I fixed this by setting a city that was building a university to science focus, so it would immediately work the scientist slots. Since science comes after production in the turn order, this was just enough to get acoustics in time for my policy.
I ended up bribing people to attack Attila 2 times, since now and then he would park an army on my border that was about to invade. I could have easily killed him, but I didn't think his 2 cities were worth it.
I bought my first lab on t207 in my cap. and built the last one on t216. I bulbed a scientist to get plastics: in hindsight, it may have been worth bulbing 2 since Babylon gets so many of them early. I had so many scientists that they were obstructing my workers from building railroads.
Satellites on t229 with the Ratio finisher, bought 3 scientists using faith.
I used Oxford for the second to last space ship part; it was pointless to use it for Radio since I was so far ahead, so I just hard teched it.
I bought my last spaceship part on t240. I bought most of the others as well, which usually happens when I pick Freedom.

I am happy with the result, though I ended up with more scientists than I needed at the end. This means I could have won earlier, had I spent some earlier on labs.

Spoiler Screenshots :

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Science victory turn 214. I don't want to sound like a terrible braggart, but the game felt like it was going quite well, so I had hoped for something a bit closer to 200.

Spoiler :

I played the early game quite aggressive. I was a bit wary of stealing from Attila, but I stole workers from France, Korea, and Tyre. I also settled Kailash; on a hill, but still quite close to France and not too far from Huns. However, the early war slowed France down, and when I had some bowmen to spare I pre-emptively declared on Attila, whittling down his army, so I was never under threat from any of my neighbours.

I settled my four tradition cities, with the placement of Akkad adjacent to Uluru, somewhat unusually off fresh water, but I prioritized Hanging Gardens and was not unfortunate to get it. Another big break was Nippur getting Petra. I did briefly consider settling Babylon on the wine (and allow Petra in the cap), but I did not want to spend a turn and move off a hill. My religion was One with Nature, tithe, pagodas, religious community, and reliquary (50 faith per great person). I picked up the idea of reiquary from this community some time ago (I used to either do messiah, on higher difficulties, to prophet-spread my religion, or itinerant preachers on lower difficulties). Sometimes it's enough for an extra scientist, otherwise at least a bonus engineer. Btw, I never do the wine-and incense pantheon. I need to grow my cities, so I can barely afford to work those tiles, unless maybe when I'm Aztec (which admittedly is half the time). After fertilizer the tiles become a little more palatable (kind of literally), but that's incredibly late.

The screenshots: the first is the traditional GotM T100 overview. Not much going on yet, although the Petra city is already proving its worth getting me Chichen. The second screen shot is when I reach Scientific Theory. It looks as if my game is going fantastic: I've already gotten three factories up, I built Big Ben and have mercantilism, and have more gold than ever before on reaching this tech. One problem: it's a bit late for a turn ~200 victory. In recent games where I did get close to turn 200, I was usually at Scientific Theory around turn 155. In this game, I probably dithered too long in Medieval. I thought I would just continue in Commerce up to Mercantilism and then work hard on culture when I hit Renaissance. However, my culture was too low and it took forever to get Secularism (let alone Free Thought).

The final screenshot shows the victory screen. Not in the screenshot are London (Temple of Artemis, Mausoleum of Halicarnassus) and Attila's Court. I had decided early to convert my bowmen army into crossbows, and they took capitals without too much issue. I could have kept going too, into Greece for example, but at some point there is just not enough time to turn the cities around. Even Seoul, which I took last, was a little borderline.

 

[Axolaan]

Science victory turn 214. I don't want to sound like a terrible braggart, but the game felt like it was going quite well, so I had hoped for something a bit closer to 200.

Spoiler :

I played the early game quite aggressive. I was a bit wary of stealing from Attila, but I stole workers from France, Korea, and Tyre. I also settled Kailash; on a hill, but still quite close to France and not too far from Huns. However, the early war slowed France down, and when I had some bowmen to spare I pre-emptively declared on Attila, whittling down his army, so I was never under threat from any of my neighbours.

I settled my four tradition cities, with the placement of Akkad adjacent to Uluru, somewhat unusually off fresh water, but I prioritized Hanging Gardens and was not unfortunate to get it. Another big break was Nippur getting Petra. I did briefly consider settling Babylon on the wine (and allow Petra in the cap), but I did not want to spend a turn and move off a hill. My religion was One with Nature, tithe, pagodas, religious community, and reliquary (50 faith per great person). I picked up the idea of reiquary from this community some time ago (I used to either do messiah, on higher difficulties, to prophet-spread my religion, or itinerant preachers on lower difficulties). Sometimes it's enough for an extra scientist, otherwise at least a bonus engineer. Btw, I never do the wine-and incense pantheon. I need to grow my cities, so I can barely afford to work those tiles, unless maybe when I'm Aztec (which admittedly is half the time). After fertilizer the tiles become a little more palatable (kind of literally), but that's incredibly late.

The screenshots: the first is the traditional GotM T100 overview. Not much going on yet, although the Petra city is already proving its worth getting me Chichen. The second screen shot is when I reach Scientific Theory. It looks as if my game is going fantastic: I've already gotten three factories up, I built Big Ben and have mercantilism, and have more gold than ever before on reaching this tech. One problem: it's a bit late for a turn ~200 victory. In recent games where I did get close to turn 200, I was usually at Scientific Theory around turn 155. In this game, I probably dithered too long in Medieval. I thought I would just continue in Commerce up to Mercantilism and then work hard on culture when I hit Renaissance. However, my culture was too low and it took forever to get Secularism (let alone Free Thought).

The final screenshot shows the victory screen. Not in the screenshot are London (Temple of Artemis, Mausoleum of Halicarnassus) and Attila's Court. I had decided early to convert my bowmen army into crossbows, and they took capitals without too much issue. I could have kept going too, into Greece for example, but at some point there is just not enough time to turn the cities around. Even Seoul, which I took last, was a little borderline.
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Great result, I need to start warmongering early so I can get closer to t200. I agree that the wine and incense pantheon isn't worth it. I've never considered picking reliquary, but considering how many great people you get as Babylon you can easily get the 20 great people for a free engineer.

 

[Bol]

T229 Science Victory, I quite enjoyed this map; very powerful start.
I might post some screenshot of the final turn later.

I played a very conservative game, not settling Kailash out of fear of being DoWed by both Huns and France (which I constantly brided to war each other instead).
Akkad had Petra so it was great; Nippur was meh, but ok.

Spoiler Final turn screenshot :

Btw I still don't understand how to get closer to T200 (even sub220 would be insane for me).

 

[qontroL]

I went for 3 city Tradition game. My strategy and gameplan got completely ruined. At first I wanted to rush an Ideology through Indus, my 3 cities were massive so I was feeling pretty good about my odds for coal... but no coal x)
After that I wanted to pivot into tanks and have some fun with that, so I researched Biology... no oil -_- So I ended up conquering the map with Arti/Cav, the tanks weren't really gna be needed anyway, none of the AI ever got anything better than Knights/Cannons.
It was a T212 Domination Victory (you did give us the option xd I will never go Science if I get to choose).

The game surprised me a little, I think the AI was at war a lot with each other, they were so underdeveloped.

It was a really fun start! Pangaea is generally my go-to just because I like playing around with land-units.

 

[Megalou]

Thanks for a very good map! However, I abandoned the game on turn 230, unable to reach a good finish date. Trading blows with Attila made the game drag on too much in medieval/rennaissance.

 

[raider980]

I am continually amazed at how fast some players can win. I won a SV on T337, some hundred turns after several others! I can't fathom finishing a game in even 250 turns. But it was a fun one. After the wars with Atilla and Napoleon, Liz came a knocking. So I had to make peace with France to move my troops south to deal with England. Honestly surprised she attacked - she only had Longswords vs. my Musketmen. She stood no chance and then I took the fight to London. But then she got Muskets and killed a couple of my highly promoted XB so I backed off and peaced out. (She would later decimate Atilla). Finished up the game at peace the rest of the way and launched the spaceship on T337.

Thanks for playing, I've got another on coming in probably a couple days! But keep posting if you're still playing.

Spoiler T337 SV :

 

[basior]

T 141 Dom Victory

Hi everyone Finally found some time to play a game or two.

Really fun map with one of the best civ for early rushing Babylon gives such a great edge tech wise its hard to resist an early war.

Went Bowman training with Attila and captured. Then first army wnet Paris - Assyria - Rome - London while 2nd Xbow army got Sending and Alex.

After some thought I could be a better idea do go Paris straight away while training and defending from Attila with other troops.

 

[Rhodro]

Hi, thanks for starting a new shared game. It's indeed more fun if you know others are also exploring the map. I'm picking this one up now.

 

[raider980]

T 141 Dom Victory

Hi everyone Finally found some time to play a game or two.

Really fun map with one of the best civ for early rushing Babylon gives such a great edge tech wise its hard to resist an early war.

Went Bowman training with Attila and captured. Then first army wnet Paris - Assyria - Rome - London while 2nd Xbow army got Sending and Alex.

After some thought I could be a better idea do go Paris straight away while training and defending from Attila with other troops.

Holy Moly! T141! I was just finishing up my first war with Atilla then and still had almost 200 turns left. Glad you liked it, that's amazing.

 

[Rhodro]

Domination victory at turn 228. Evidently I'm not as smart as the others yet with routing my units so that they go faster around the world. I think I should also start or split off 2nd earlier.

Spoiler :

I got attacked but repelled succesfully quite a bit. The huns attacked me very early, the babylonian bowmen + walls was very useful at that time. When I got his capital I immediatly got attacked by france and korea at the same time. France already had his unique unit which annoyingly killed some of my high promoted archers. That definetly slowed my game.