The Immortal Alphabetical Game #14 - Venice

[budweiser]

Welcome to The Immortal Alphabetical Game #14 - Venice!

In this game you will capture key cultural wonders from the AI which your CS puppets cannot build. You will combine those regions to form the country of Italy.

Map type & settings

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This is a pangea, standard/standard. The opponents are picked.

Achievements

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50 points total for a game of Renaisance/Industrial war to create unify the country of Italy. Picked opponents, including Roma.

5 – Capture Pisa
5 – Capture Sistine
5 – Capture Uffizi
5 – Capture Rome itself
5 – Rome Gone
5 – Capture OR create Holy City for Catholicism
5 – Republic social policy
5/10/15 – 1/2/3 Factories built/bought

Optional rule. A city without a factory may only build/buy ships, the archer line and Landesknechts.

The final victory condition is open.

Starting location

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Good luck!

 

[stormtrooper412]

oh goody, this is gonna be super fun

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

t7

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Found an interesting feature E! Wondering if those are the Alps up N...

I assume we can build Scouts as part of the optional rule?

 

[budweiser]

t7

Spoiler :

Found an interesting feature E! Wondering if those are the Alps up N...

I assume we can build Scouts as part of the optional rule?

Yes, that allowed.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Well I don't seem to be following the optional rule but oh well.

So far:

Spoiler :

I bought 2 city states, I'm growing my cap and once that's done, I'll start plowing down my enemies. Only Pisa has been built so far, which is in a coastal which I can take out with Frigates hopefully. I did found Catholicism using Hagia Sophia and I have Republic on. I don't know if Cannons will be enough or I will have to use Artillery

also

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waaaaaaaaaaay too late for the surprise and free 500

ooow what a proper disaster

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Mecca is inaccessible by sea so I can only take it by land. I assembled a really potent fleet of Frigates all for nothing

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

t148

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I feel like I've screwed the pooch on this game. Started out pretty well, ruins gave pop, camps, Writing on t12, and Scarcher. I debated going for GLib, maybe could have nabbed it as Sul got it t34, but who knows what the RNG/cheating AI would have done...

I had very little faith for a long time (2 Shrines). I was going to take God-King, but decided to try to wonder-whore early, with a strong eye at GW (I have no idea why I keep adding my own stupid approaches to many challenges!). So I took Monument to the Gods and took Aristocracy 4th (very silly - esp with Gandhi in the game). ToA 48, HG 66, MoH 78, and Borobudur 125. I built HS t116 and founded Catholicism 5th. No buildings left, so took Tithe and Divine Inspiration (so decent faith from 6 wonders), Enhanced with 2 happy Temples and Itin Preachers.

Very strange playing Tradition and focusing so much on the lower tree - I detoured to BW and Calendar to get the Spices online and Optics for MoV, and so Gandhi beat me to the GW. Big regret there. Sul beat me to GLH too (and I wonder why I am always so behind on buildings and TRs in Venice!!!).

Sul could have stomped me the whole game, he got one of Wu's cities after a long war. I'm bringing half my army back from the E as he can't be bribed against Arabia. Tempted to take Bejing with SoZ as then I can liberate a city Sul took... Hard to get at him with the mtn and KSM. Darius is often a pain as he rarely accepts war bribes, but he asked me to join vs Rome and I said yes though woefully unprepared as I'd like to stay on his good side. You know he probably hit a GAge right then.

I miraculously stole an early Worker from Nappy at the E side of Paris, he had already claimed El Dorado... So Orleans was my going to be my prize, but Rome started steamrolling him. I was able to put 2 Scouts E of Lyons and with just one CB took Lyons as he pounded it. In retrospect Lyons should have been my resurrection city. If Rome could have swept him I could have taken Orleans and Rome, sigh. So now my roads go thru Orleans, I know OB will close at some point.

So when the Dow offer came I had maybe two more units there (terrible terrain to get E!). Managed to get Paris and soon Troyes - would have liberated Troyes but it had Cocoa. So Arabia has been uppity all game, lux are 1.5 usual cost. DOFs with Gandhi and Darius, and have gifted Sul Spices.

I kept considering peace with Rome as he was offering huge deals - I finally agreed getting Neapolis (Wine), Wine, 69g, and 45 gpt. Happy hit 1. He will buy me a nice military. I will likely play peaceful for 30 turns then take Rome with Cannons.

I MoV'd Bratislava t81 from Optics and Hanoi t120 from Brats MoV. Gold and happy were low much of the game - not able to feed Venice much. Real late to Education and NC. Venice is only pop 20, Brat 15 and Hanoi 10.

2 in Liberty (Republic) and Commerce opener, but will likely save Collective Rule MoV for later. Likely to fill Commerce ASAP, likely to skip Rat as I don't think I'll be happy soon, and unless I can get a two-fer there it will be a waste to open. Maybe I should have proposed WF, as I was surprised to see I have the most production (really focused on mines most of the game), did culture for wonders instead, which may not pass. Rome founded WC and proposed Scholars, can't see that passing.

Man, Venice and Rome's colors are almost the same!

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[stormtrooper412]

heh

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China stomped Ottomans very early in my game, while Caesar and Nappy took out India and split them apart. The road to Rome contains at least 6-7 Franco-Roman cities but a really painful blow was the realization that Mecca can't be assaulted with Frigates, as I banked on

 

[budweiser]

heh

Spoiler :

China stomped Ottomans very early in my game, while Caesar and Nappy took out India and split them apart. The road to Rome contains at least 6-7 Franco-Roman cities but a really painful blow was the realization that Mecca can't be assaulted with Frigates, as I banked on

Mwuhaha! Maybe its really hard to get all the points.

 

[DanQuayle]

Finished the Liz map early, so I thought why not try out the CDG Byzantium map...
I guess it will take a bit of time before I get to this game.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

t195

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Map Spoiler:

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No coal! Well, I will get some in a while. Venice grabbed a jungle coal tile, so 15 or whatever turns. I'm going to try to coup Sofia, but who knows if any is hooked up. I can Citadel some near Paris, but I would rather keep Nappy happy for now, so it will be in my own borders.

I just took Rome (Pyramids and LToP, nice). Just popped a GW to get Entrepreneurship, so slightly quicker MoVs, and only 13t from Commerce finisher.

I actually lost several units against Rome, even a Canon - that usually doesn't happen. It was really hard to get into position from the W. The second we made peace earlier he cranked up a full army in not very many turns. Not sure what to do next - I don't want to elimate him yet, but I want Arretium for a forward base on Gandhi (GW) or just to deny it from him or Darius. Ideally I will take Antium for a developed Harbor city so I don't have to worry about Nappy OB roads.

Only a matter of time before Sul eliminates Wu, and I have always expected to take Beijing and resurrect Wu, then smack Sul. Harun has been allying CS like mad, and has FP and Petra in an expo (drool). But also largest Army all game, what with never fighting anybody (and CA's, yikes). Darius has some nice wonders in an expo too. Gandhi has Uffizi and Sistine, so if I take him with Arty I should get all the wonder points.

Darius has pissed me off the whole game spamming Missionaries (full Piety), so my religion hasn't engulfed things the way I expected. Plus I lost several units due to his Missionaries parking next to cities, often 2 at a time, or on important hills. So tempted to DOW him just to remove the nuisance. There really is no reason not to kill everybody, but I am very tempted to just ease back, as everyone but Harun and Rome are very Friendly. I should be able to puppet like 5 more CS if I want. It will be impossible to CV without eliminating Gandhi, maybe just go SV?

I should get all the points pretty easily, I have followed the optional rule regarding units, except I gapped out and bought one Knight, but he died without really doing much. Lots of CS melee gifts, so the rule isn't hard if you ally some Mil CS.

I made the mistake of selling Nappy Cumae - it just gave Darius one more city to convert, ugh. Razed two Roman cities since.

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[Fydor]

what a slug fest this turned into, nukes all over the place... game was going really good until Rome decided to take over the entire east side of the map and pretty much blew those achievements out the door.

Great map though and fun concept with the achievements!

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

t245 resign

Spoiler :

That's what I get for not making up my mind! I don't recall ever being so confused on which way to go in a game - change, change, change. I ended up being not so peaceful, so soon was denounced all around. No more lux trades. Took 2 of Harun's 4 cities with Canons, took 2 from Darius with Arty (nice wonders), but still had Gandhi to deal with who has often been tech leader and is killing me with pressure. I will go like -30 happy if I take Mumbai and Delhi. Then if I still want DomV I need 3 more capitals, and it will be Sul as the last one who has ND, and Wu with Soz second to last.

The governor has been driving me crazy. -6 happy? Let's build a 12th Caravansary instead of a Colosseum! My early expos built all the culture buildings, and some earlier than I expected. I went Order (I never play Venice except in the challenges) so I thought I'd get very early Monuments in my captured cities - nope! Not a one for like 30 turns, had to buy them all. None built Factories either, but they will build Workshops, WTH? I suppose to not eat up the Coal for units.

So Order sucks. I also MoV'd more cities, big mistake happy/science-wise. Good strategic locations though. I could switch to Freedom (kind of wanted it for the FL anyway - Gandhi apparently hasn't chosen that tenet yet) but the warfare is already feeling incredibly tedious.

No idea how Sul has never wiped out Wu, at war all game and has had her down to Bejing forever and not even hitting it. I can barely recall a game where he has made a good show. He is the only civ I have been able to bribe (other than Rome), which is also part of what has made this game frustrating.

I could have left Darius alone and taken the Achi wonders in Delhi, but he started sending his 4th wave of Missionaries and I had had enough.

Decent map, just tough with the 3 N civs completely resistant to warring.

 

[Sclb]

This game took a while due to the science disadvantage of Venice until I can get enough of a military to take large AI cities and science improved significantly afterwards, and it snowballs once culture capitals are taken.

Spoiler :

Decided to do a single city tradition start, optic MoV takes Hanoi, and first spawned MoV takes Bratislava as Panama city's dirt has no food. Turns out that Bratislava is the only culture CS which might have been problem, but as I pumped out wonders and later passed all the culture increasing stuff it isn't a big deal.
Capital had lower than expected production due to jungle, so I decided to skip GL and HG in favor of more infrastructure. Built MoH, GLH, Colossus so they gave me a MoV from GMer points before markets.

Founded Catholicism (5 points) as 5th religion from the single quarry pantheon and CS faith. Took title, faith from wonders, Enhanced with HS prophet but don't have good beliefs, so took culture from temples to help improve puppet culture so that they would claim tiles faster.

Science wise was still behind at Renaissance which is unusual for immortal. Managed to grab FP as no other AI went patronage, so it's also pretty easy to maintain CS ally. Arabia got most of the happiness wonders as well as Sistine Chapel in Mecca, so he'll be dealt with. Unexpectedly China got LToP built in the expo with KSM, so she's an even better target as I need to kill Chinese expos to get to Mecca. I decide to leave the rest of the world until later, and meanwhile get France to attack neighbors including Rome to limit them. Meanwhile built/rushed Globe, Big Ben, Louvre, PT.

Followed optimal rule so only built scouts and 1 trireme upgraded to Caraval. Military CS provided the rest. In fact I didn't buy/build any units until getting Brandenburg's Gate which is a huge benefit for late game war due to 3 promotions. Bought all 3 factories for early Freedom. (15 points)

After getting key culture techs in Modern era, it's time to start warring. Capital managed to build/rush every Modern and later era wonders except for Neuschwanstein. Not sure why CS asks me to build it even though I couldn't. Took Pisa expo (5 points) from China in a city with KSM. Took peace deal for another city, then focused on Arabia while he's in a war with Ottoman and Persia. Eventually took Mecca with Sistine Chapel (5 points) after burning down several crap cities since Arabia decided to spam SS cities.

Uffizi is in a Persian expo for some odd reason. And after losing WF despite having #1 hammers (no expos worked on WF), invaded Persia by first taking cities he took from Arabia. Most of the big Arabian cities contained large number of GW. Took all except 1 of Persian city, including Uffizi in Pasargadae (5 points) I left that city due to wanting to delay winning CV until after I can kill Rome off. I also didn't build hotel/airport in Venice until later. Expos governor would build them anyways but it's better to delay capital.

Near the end, I need more happiness sources, and have huge amount of culture due to many cities having huge culture and only 1 annexed capital, so I was able to take all liberty at that point (5 points), plus all Aesthetics as well as getting 8 in freedom. As well as having Exploration opener, 3 Commerce, 3 Rationalism.

Meanwhile France continue to do their thing, killed off India, took half of Rome. Now it's time to kill Rome. Took a long time to march through French territory, took city of Rome (5 points), revived India, and sold every other captured Roman cities to India. Rome got some 1 tile islands as well as an expo all the way to the north in snow, so it took a while to get all of those. It is easy as I got Satellite for Hubble. After eliminating Rome (5 points), bombed the remaining city of Persia with 2 GM to win the game. 1502 tourism at the end without IG.

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