Arabia/Immortal - Conquest Victory at turn 206
This game was basically divided into two parts. Part one was settling cities / ICS. And part two was a big military campaign.
Science and culture were absolutely terrifying for most of the time. However I've had never any happiness or gold problems!
Religion: desert folklore - ceremonial burial - ascesticism - mosques (pagodas were already taken) - religious texts
Policies: full liberty - right side of commerce - autocracy opener (to purchase a great general; it didn't matter anyway at that point)
I prioritized shrines in every city (ascesticism!) and ignored libraries and monuments for quite a while in most of my cities. I kept most of my cities at size one or two to have enough happiness for settling and to allow my cities to convert. Therefore I had science and SP problems in the beginning.
Aside from two Archer/CB I built several chariot archers and one horseman for my military. Horses were scarce which was quite a problem.
Scouting was very difficult. Have met Siam and America only, for quite a while. Later I sent my scout through American territory and two triremes to meet other civs. However, even with just two trading partners I could make some very good money.
Science wise I headed for shrines - luxuries - horses (chariot archers) and trade routes - bazaars - Camel Archers. Not really a beeline, but I ignored a lot of other techs. Late libraries (didn't matter for size two cities in my books), very late civil service (one or two maritime CSs give enough food), and iron working (who needs iron when you got 'early' Camel Archers?) or construction (lots of shrines, ciruses and stoneworks > collosseum) after chivalry for example.
No civ ever declared on me. I DOWed every civ only once - and for all
Was it an ICS-game like demanded? I would say so. At one point you have to decide what VC you want to go for. And ICS emphasizes conquests, especially as it allows you to puppet or annex a lot cities, since your policy and religion is set up to negate unhappiness per city. And Arabia gives you the right tools for that: Camel Archer and bazaars for any kind of gold fuel.
The first part of the game was just settling and developing. Get cites, get basic infrastructure (shrines) and get religion. Settler, worker and chariot archer. That is what you want as Arabia. This all went on till turn 118 in my game.
Siam is running around with military. OK, we got open borders, but still nothing I want to see! I am 8 turns away from chivalry AND I recently got my great scientist from the liberty finisher. So I used him to bulb. I know, with 47 beakers (and less the turns before) it feels like a total waste. But I wanted to have my camel archers rather sooner than later. After that I was down just one turn till chivalry – with a lot of money left to upgrade. Sweet – DOW. I allied Quebec before, of course. For the reason to not get any nasty surprises and to have a clear path to America after Siam. 6 chariots / 1 Horseman at this point.
Turn 146: I make peace with Washington, leaving him to the same fate like Ramkhamhaeng, which means: have fun with one city left
I like to leave the AI at least one city. Not just to avoid the diplomatic hit for killing an AI, but to have future trading partners. 3-4 gpt for one luxury is better than nothing, especially if you have so many of these.
Allying Prague for a clear path to Russia (some culture cannot hurt as well...).
13 Camel Archer, 1 Horseman and 2 Great General at this point. Say hello to my main army
Turn 174:
I make peace with Catherine. In hindsight I was fighting her for too long. For some reason I thought she was the major problem (for a fast conquest victory it were the Incans, but I will come to that later). I should have made peace with her earlier, especially since I really didn't need her northern cities for my later conquest. Moscow an her core cites fell quite fast, that would have been absolutely enough. By conquering her northern cities I wasted a few turns in regard to the overall conquest performance. What I did right was to leave the Celts aside. I left them for a secondary military force, which I started to train during my Russian campaign.
At this point I started to wonder how I could defeat the Incans. They were in an increadibly good defense position, completely surrounded by a really huge mountain range... In addition to that, Pachacuti was THE wonder whore. Mountains, hills, the great wall, the Kremlin, the second tech leader (after me) and now and then the pointiest sticks. Not so nice. I was really unsure how to proceed and I even wanted to DOW him before the Dutch. For gods sake Moscow constructed Himeji the turn before I declared. So this was mine at least
Plus: Moscow had the Statue of Zeus; cannot hurt either
In the end I left him as my last victim and declared on William and Boudicca both on turn 174, and used Manila (Dutch) and Prague (the Celts) as my entry to their lands and as an early military buffer till my army is positioned – both of the enemy armies were at the doorsteps of my CS-allies
(see previous picture for the dutch example)
Both wars were a little bit tougher than the previous ones (surprisingly especial against the Celts, with their land bottleneck and a mountain blockade in the middle of it and several galleasses from the eastern seas). But nothing an overall army of 20 Camel Archers (+ more freshly produced and bought in my capital) couldn't handle in the end
Turn 191: I made peace with both, the Dutch and the Celts. Now it's me against the Incans. Not an easy target, that is for sure. I came up with a plan to get a good entry to their capital's land to crush them straight and hard. It just took FOREVER to set it up, with all the rough terrain, mountain ranges and unit shuffling. I wanted to have a < turn 200 victory, but it was just not enough time to set all up in this time frame. The battle for the capital itself didn't take too long though, after all was settled
I allied Zürich during my dutch war, so they would lose all or most of their units, allowing me later to move my units 'easier' through its territory. Then I settled a city (Muscat) 3 tiles north of Zürich and south of Cusco. I had to hurry, so that the Incans' borders didn't occupy the free hill tiles south of Cusco... Then I shuffled my units through Dutch und Zürich's territory and the single tile between the mountain range and citadelled my way up to Cusco. There were quite some additional units and Generals in the back, who didn't come into play, just because it was not so easy to get them up front through all this mountain bottleneck and the hills/river/units mixture.
Turn 206: Victory
but it did really help on beakers as I had 2 academies (12 beakers base for each by that point, plus the university, lab, Rationalism and Factory boosts).
