The Immortal Challenge Line-up Game #41 Morocco

[consentient]

You want to buy the units for as little faith as possible then upgrade them. So a Piety-Honor mix might be good

 

[Phenril]

i'll probably look acken's celt LP before playing this one.
if i grab DF, are piety polocies really Worth it? its like 1/2faith/cities. i guess you say honor right tree for the upgrade reduced cost right?
Is it possible to go standart liberty CB rush with just 1 shrine and DF with holy warriors?
The starting SS made me think of this cause there is a lot of good workable desert tiles.

 

[BlackWizard]

Rich in culture.

Spoiler :

What is happening with casablanca? Its shamefully small

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

t294 CV, no Aesthetics, GM Bombs, SS...

Spoiler :

This sure seemed like the easiest game ever. My religion spread well, ending with what must be my record 262 fpt, 141 gpt from Tithe. Spain took Jesuit Edu, and since I was thinking SV from the start, I took Glory of God so I could get faith GEs. I did use a few, but mid-game used faith to buy 2 GAs and 3 GWs just to pop for GAges and culture. My playstyle lately is just to DOW irritants - so I took Rome which had C Itza, and once I got Freedom's Universal Suffrage I just strung a bunch of GAges with GW pops.

Full Liberty, Piety, Commerce, 4 in Patronage, 2 in Rat (typical Immortal handicap), and 9 in Freedom. I just quit caring about much of anything... Built almost every wonder except a few themed ones. Passed up a DV a few turns earlier, and probably could have shaved a lot of turns off by going for CV from the start.

I got a lot of entertainment from being a war spectator. Sul was in a continuous war with Askia and Maria almost the whole game. I DOW'd Spain late because she kept pumping GPr's, and let Askia take Madrid - Colombo razed her expo on the isthmus, so very late I finally got an outlet there with a new city. Spent lots of turns protecting Madrid and Askia. Spent most of the game as an arms dealer selling iron to all involved. France killed Rome late.

Diplomatically I just gave everyone Incense for free, and built Landmarks for many. Nap became a good buddy after I took his second city, Bismarck DOF all game.

Spoiler :

 

[sopper]

T233 CV

Spoiler :

Cap location is OP. Beelined currency for Petra. After that, production in cap meant I got any wonder I wanted. Realized I could end the game on T230 with GM bombs, so I gave a Casablanca to Portugal and rocked the Kasbah for the win.

Spoiler :

 

[BlackWizard]

T233 CV

Spoiler :

Cap location is OP. Beelined currency for Petra. After that, production in cap meant I got any wonder I wanted. Realized I could end the game on T230 with GM bombs, so I gave a Casablanca to Portugal and rocked the Kasbah for the win.

Spoiler :

View attachment 399867

Casablanca was quite pathetic size. Did you plant it on turn 200 or something?

 

[Sclb]

Well consider the amount of food available there, I would never found a city there in the first place. Full of desert and hills, only 1 whale. Usually a city that requires external food source to grow isn't a good idea.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

Nice game, Sopper!

 

[sopper]

Thanks Nigel!

Re: Casablanca
It was founded around T100 after NC was completed. I thought I would need a coastal city to get the trade route tourism modifier with the far civs. In retrospect, a coastal wasn't needed this particular game, and to make matters worse, I let my whales get banned trying to pass my world religion.

 

[DanQuayle]

Spoiler :

I tried for the first time a "Small-Piety" approach by opening Piety. I had first choice of pantheon and picked Desert Folklore. I was second to found and picked Tithe. By T45, I had already met all civilizations in the game. Petra was built on T85 and I missed it by a few turns. I had not realized at first that pretty much all capitals in the game had access to desert titles so I underestimated the competition for this wonder. The Great Mosque of Djenne was the only wonder I built all game. I stayed in Middle Age for a long time to spam missionaries and only finished NC T163.

Songhai annexed Hong Kong early and pretty much all other civilizations were mad at him. In the mid game, I was friends with all civilizations except Songhai (and maybe Spain) and signed Research Agreements with all of them. I bribed other civilizations to go to war with Askia to occupy both their armies. Songhai was eventually wiped out and I converted all its former cities.

Germany was my best buddy all game after I converted all his cities to my religion. After Germany picked Order, I did the same to keep that valuable relationship. By the end of the game, Germany had the biggest army and while mine was the smallest I was able to sign a Defensive pact with them.

After finishing to research Atomic Theory and building Research Labs, my natural and faith-bought GS brought me all the way to globalization for the win. With Order and science from factories, I had 225% science efficiency in my capital.

Religion:
Desert Folklore, Tithe, Monasteries, Liturgical Drama, Religious Texts, Evangelism

Policies:
Full Piety, 2 in Patronage, Full Rationalism, a few in Order

At the end of the game, I had converted all but 5 cities in the whole world and ended up with 175 GPT from tithe. It helped that the 3 civilizations that didn't found a religion were also the widest (Germany, Rome, Ottoman).

 

[Grendeldef]

Not exactly sure why I started this but as I had sort of fun with it I even finished it - it's been a while since my last ICL. T212 total Domination including religion and not a surprise that conversion took longer than the warpath; much easier to pull it off here than on a DCL though.

Spoiler :

Settled on site without much of a plan, DoWed Germany ~T14 for a worker and managed a 2nd one 20 turns later but had to make white peace to not lose it right away.
DoWed Rome ~T25 as he was about to settled near Kailash which seemed much better suited for my needs than his so Liberty settler went this way. 3rd city in front of Nappy, 4th towards Germany and the 5th between cap & 3rd.

T36 Desert Folklore at which point I decided to go for religious dom as well only real twist/self set rule that capital will not build a single unit after settling the 2nd city. Not a biggie but I ran into some serious barb troubles early on and had to buy few archers.
Another thing I wanted to do was to build all nationals which is tricky while constantly razing cities. This fell a bit short as Oxford was still 3 turns away when the game ended but I didn't want to wait for those turns just for that; other nationals were done.

T58 2nd religion and peace with Rome and I also paid him to attack Nappy before legoes come into play. T80 Petra at which point Marrakech started looking a decent city after all. T82 Liberty -> GS planted, T86 Stonehenge, T90 enhanced, T102 Oracle.

After shortish friendly phase with Nappy he teamed up with Isa & I got a double DoW without much units - awesome. The city got down to zero hp but I managed to kill the melee units and when T94 I had Pikes the tide quickly turned and took Paris T103. Isa didn't even send troops.

T107 Machinery and after some recuperating DoWed Rome again. T111 Chichen I, T120 Borobudur and Rome fell T131 and the city few turns later. Apart from my bff Bism others were not pleased but due to the map my caravans were going to CSs/Germany anyway and allying CSs is much easier so not much lost.

Just to get an easier access to T148 Madrid I DoWed sully and razed his closest city. Askia was still not hostile so I bought OB and went for Maria to get rid of her religion. While slowly dodging her navy and taking & retaking the coastal cities Lissabon ~T185. I was in no real hurry as Sully was much bigger problem with endless Galleasses and I forgot to move my prophets towards him. I other issue was that I wanted to stay away from all sorts of navy so I didn't tech Optics hence I only had a 1 hex passage to anywhere near his lands and to the last CS. Also my armies were quite small in numbers mainly relying the logistics/range XBows which are not immortal against the Sipahis.

Meanwhile I had ND, Alhambra, LToP, F Palace & Sistine in Marrakech and 3rd fresh Army starting to work on Germany which was easy due to few GG bombs and his cities already had my religion and for once I was happy that GGs spawn far away from the actual battlefields. The rest was just waiting for the lazy Prophets to do their stuff and cap the rest of the cities. Askia was already fairly beaten down so Gao was obvious choice for the last cap.

Full Liberty, left side of Patronage to be different & Ratio opener.
Allying all the CSs was also a target so before starting the last razing spree I peaked at 60 happiness which isn't that common for Liberty.

 

[Daedal]

Haven't played on Immortal since vanilla and this looked like a really strong start so I thought I'd take a stab at it. Got a very messy T320 domination win.

Spoiler :

Missed desert folklore by a couple turns. Thought maybe I could use Holy Warriors to my advantage so took that, but only got a couple units out of it. Petra went at T75. In retrospect I may have had a shot at it if I'd beelined for it rather than going for NC first. DOWed Spain soon after that and easily took Madrid with composite bows.

Askia DOWed Isabella and then the Ottomans jumped in and attacked Askia. Barcelona fell to Askia without much trouble. I had XBows nearby and thought I'd liberate the place for some anti-warmonger bonus, but the Ottomans swept through one turn too quick for me. Grr.... well, I was at war with Askia at this point anyway so I finished him off. Nappy had taken one of his cities earlier so there wasn't much to do.

So my troops are chilling after a couple good battles when what do I see coming my way but a giant stack of muskets and crossbows from Rome. Stupid AI spreads his units thin going for my capital instead of attacking my more exposed city on the river west of Marrakech so I pick them off and end up building enough units to take everything down to Rome.

It's about T150 at this point. Bismark has been my friend from nearly the moment we met and doesn't seem to be upset about my warmongering. The French and Ottomans are also happy with me. Big decision point here. I own 4 capitols, but France, Germany and the Ottomans are all happy with me, are all at tech parity with me, and have rather large armies. Well, I've already been at war for nearly 60 straight turns and I'm on a pangea...

The Ottomans are the weakest of the bunch so they get DOWed first. One strategically placed citadel is enough to hold off the stream of units thrown my way. I take Istanbul and a couple more cities to make sure they stay defeated also liberating Belgrade to keep public opinion good.

Germany vs France is a toss-up. France has 4 puppets and I have units well placed on both sides, but Germany already has great war infantry to my brand new rifles. I go for France and it is a bloodbath. Should've been more careful with troop movement. France takes and then loses Wittenberg. I let Ur take and burn France's northern puppet, originally founded by Rome. Liberate Arretium for public opinion. Keep the eastern puppet, Jenne, because I need some continuity with the rest of my empire. Paris' strength is ridiculous and I lose all my upgraded gatling guns. Silly mistakes, but I get artillery so all is well. Denounced by everyone except Bismark at this point so I go ahead and take the rest of the French cities for good measure.

Portugal vs Germany. Portugal is so nicely tucked away that I don't even have the place explored, which sucks for troop movement. OTOH they are weak and I know Germany is going to be a tough battle. As I start moving my troops toward Portugal my good friend Bismark denounces me out of the blue. WTF? I drop a citadel 2 spaces from his nearest city to me just in case and expect to be DOWed next turn. Nope. That was odd. Instead he wants open borders. Out of curiosity I agree. He begins to slowly, painfully move a large chunk of great war infantry, machine guns and artillery across my empire. I follow him with my units, making sure that I end each turn in such a way that I'm defended if he DOWs me.

10 turns or so later I lose my patience and DOW my good buddy Bismark. Most of my troops are situated next to his nearest city, Cologne, which falls that turn. The AI gets all confused and wastes its mass of troops that it was moving across my empire. I was hoping Bismark would put up a bit of a better fight considering how scary his army looked early on. He takes back Cologne a few times, which helps me out with happiness and squanders more of his units. Berlin is 5 spaces from Cologne. I plop a citadel between the two and Berlin falls soon after without much fanfare. When making peace I demand that Germany go to war with the Ottomans. That should keep them busy for the rest of the game. On to Portugal, the unknown country beyond the hills.

Mind you, I have pretty much zero navy. I built 4 frigates for giggles and lost 2 in some random skirmish with a CS. There are exactly 4 mountain passes into Portugal. One is too far south to be of much use. I basically have an infantry lead the way in front of a couple artillery with workers and generals tagging along where appropriate. Taking Porto, the western city, is toughest. 3 citadels are required to make any sort of progress and my workers build a railroad as I go. Portuguese battleships take potshots at my units and Byblos gets taken at least 4 times before Porto is mine. Then there is the capitol.

Braga is situated southwest of the capital. Inside it is an artillery, a battleship, and a full complement of airplanes. The little bay between Porto and the capitol is full of battleships. It's almost as if the AI knows what its doing to keep me from its last capitol. However, the end is in sight. I bombard the bay for a few turns, destroying the battleships. The surviving artillery swim across and set up northwest of Lisbon while others make a mad dash through the gauntlet to set up southwest of the city. And as luck would have it I had just gotten tanks a few turns earlier. 5 artillery volleys and 6 tank assaults end the game.

All in all lots of fun! Interesting to see how others beat it and hoping I can do a bit better next time.

 

[vadalaz]

T138 CV

Spoiler :

Been a while since I played a Sacred Sites game, and this map seemed perfect for it. Non-Deity Pangaea with a desert-heavy start is great for SS. Furthermore, this start features several Incense tiles, making Monasteries very good for the faith snowball. And the capital has several hills in the first two rings, allowing for some very quick Settler spam.

Delayed my expansion a bit after getting the first two settlers out, as I wanted to grow the capital a bit and get some archers for defense and quests. Speaking of defense, I really overestimated the AIs, they weren't a threat at any point of this game. I built way too many Archers/CBs and Walls in my cities. Still, better safe than sorry. I did get a double DoW at one point... Bismarck suicided two swordsmen into me and Askia didn't send a single unit in my direction. Classic AI.

The game went very smoothly. T51 religion, enhanced T78 after buying a Monastery in the capital. Oracle to finish Piety around T82, then got some policies in Aesthetics for the free Great Artist. Never had any happiness problems, so I could get Monasteries up in all of my cities first rather than Pagodas.

Overall a fun and quick game. Thanks for the map.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[stormtrooper412]

T253 Culture win. Not too bad, not too good either. Once I got Petra and HG, everything took off. Managed to bulb internet with a Rationalism finisher, ended up influencing everyone in one turn, I made one musician too many even

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Decided to go for 5-city Liberty, since the neighbors did not look too trustworthy. Lo and behold: Napoleon jointly DoW'ed me with Isabella very early, but they did not send any units and soon signed peace. Then Napoleon bribed Caesar to go after me, and soon after that Askia and Bismark jointly DoW'ed me. Thankfully, my Liberty GE rushed Pera, and I was popping units out of my capital every turn. After that, it became pretty clear to me that the only way to play this map is to purify it of all evil. This is when I decided to not even sign peace and go after Askia and Bismark first. Since Suleiman had DoW'ed Askia, he did most of the work and in fact razed one city and dropped Askia's capital to 0, which my knight used to his advantage. After Askia, my army went north just in time to deal with Janissaries, but thankfully he did not have that many of them. Meanwhile, I killed Bismark completely and prepared to go after Rome. After liberating Ur and taking one city, I signed peace deal, where he gave me 2 cities to raze. That dropped me to -35 happiness, so I signed peace for a while and waited out for razed cities and Commerce finisher. Bombed Napoleon with the Great Wall and quickly killed Maria. After all cities had been razed, captured Rome. Now the world can sleep in peace.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

T138 CV

Spoiler :

Been a while since I played a Sacred Sites game, and this map seemed perfect for it. Non-Deity Pangaea with a desert-heavy start is great for SS. Furthermore, this start features several Incense tiles, making Monasteries very good for the faith snowball. And the capital has several hills in the first two rings, allowing for some very quick Settler spam.

Delayed my expansion a bit after getting the first two settlers out, as I wanted to grow the capital a bit and get some archers for defense and quests. Speaking of defense, I really overestimated the AIs, they weren't a threat at any point of this game. I built way too many Archers/CBs and Walls in my cities. Still, better safe than sorry. I did get a double DoW at one point... Bismarck suicided two swordsmen into me and Askia didn't send a single unit in my direction. Classic AI.

The game went very smoothly. T51 religion, enhanced T78 after buying a Monastery in the capital. Oracle to finish Piety around T82, then got some policies in Aesthetics for the free Great Artist. Never had any happiness problems, so I could get Monasteries up in all of my cities first rather than Pagodas.

Overall a fun and quick game. Thanks for the map.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

I tried to replicate your result, but I think it's safe to say that my attempt failed. I went left side Liberty into Piety -> discount on buildings and then into Reformation. I think I should have gone straight to Reformation because the earlier you start getting the tourism going, the better. ICS SS doesn't really have a huge window of opportunity, since it is static tourism, and you want to accumulate as much as possible as soon as possible.