The Immortal Challenge Lineup - Game #11 - Germany

Its not raging barbs, that was left over form a previous post. Its normal barbs.

Oops...might mean a reload :nuke:

Spoiler :
Again I haven't really been able to make early honor work very well. (Swede game was a disaster..Russian game wasn't so good, although I may win it later.)
 
neilkaz - I didnt go straight Honor. I opened Trad, then opened Honor, then finished Tradition.
 
Been taking a break from Civ to play Far Cry 4, decided I would give this a shot the start intrigued me and haven't played Germany since G&K
Spoiler :
Found the two religious city states first for easy Desert Folklore. Easy first religion and tons of faith.
Settled on the Gold hill for the production start and discovered tons of flood plains and oasis means easy gold to buy hills and chop forests to get Petra. Second city on the river hill next to the natural wonder. 130 turns in it was eerily peaceful so I bribe Monty to fight Siam Harold to fight Pacal and Maria to fight Sejong all on the same turn. Will target Monty and then Sejong before he gets out of hand. From there I'm not sure.
 
neilkaz - I didnt go straight Honor. I opened Trad, then opened Honor, then finished Tradition.

I was in position to quickly kill 3 barbs when I hit a culture ruin midway into building my monument after making my usual two scouts on Pangaea (one of which quickly became a much desired archer). Therefore, think that it was raging and noting that being near Tundra can often allow me to farm at least one camp for a long time, I opened Honor first, since I was pretty sure that I'd be able to open Tradition and then have both open a turn or two earlier than opening Tradition and letting those barbs run off likely to die to someone else during the several turns (not monument wasn't done yet) it would take to get Honor open.

I saw so many early barbs I thought it was raging. In the Russia game that was raging I saw fewer early barbs than here!

I will probably replay from some point.

Opening Tradition and then Honor playing raging if able to farm barbs and then finishing tradition is pretty good. It certainly provided me a better mid game in the Russian ICL game, than just going Tradition (no barbs yet) and then full honor did. Then again, my style in this game has been peaceful and usually CV.

When I lose on Immortal, it is usually due to getting defeated by enemy military. Or it is bcuz I am so slowed by military actions that I then cannot prevent a run away from winning.
 
Some comments and experiences on post patch war monger hate. All this is Immortal level and I am trying to get more used to early war and aggression. This is relevant here in this Germany game and relevant to those moving up to try Immortal.

I've rolled and played quite a few games as my beloved Babylon and tried early war mongering. Their early acadamy means that your early science doesn't suck. Their Bowmen are about half way between an archer and compie and can do more damage and roll early cities easier than archers.

1) One game some AI built in my face. I took their two expos, but when I eliminated them (Pangaea 8 player) I was denounced like crazy and soon at war with every other AI!

2) Another game on a Fractal 8 player map, I spawned on a crowded 5 player continent. War is the only way here to get some space and dirt. Rome had to be stopped. I killed his warrior and enslaved his settler and soon surrounded Rome. Another settler was captured trying to sneak out the other direction. I then stopped training my units and took Rome as a city shot hurt to much. Romans had only Rome so I expected huge war monger issues. I got issues, but nothing like what happened when I eliminated a civ after taking two expos first. So, killing a civ quickly by taking their capital when it is their only city didn't put me into WM hell.

3) It seems that an AI needs to now take 3 CS before most hate him, but in my game here as Germany, Samarkand became allied with Korea during our war and it is in the way to Korea so I captured it (wanting a city anyhow) and have all sorts of war monger issues? I thought WM penalties for taking a CS and esp. early were reduced? Perhaps there's a bug where this is still as severe as pre-patch when the CS has DOWed the player?
 
3) It seems that an AI needs to now take 3 CS before most hate him, but in my game here as Germany, Samarkand became allied with Korea during our war and it is in the way to Korea so I captured it (wanting a city anyhow) and have all sorts of war monger issues? I thought WM penalties for taking a CS and esp. early were reduced? Perhaps there's a bug where this is still as severe as pre-patch when the CS has DOWed the player?
I only took out Korean 2 cities, but the hate was real for the rest of the game.
 
T245 SV

Spoiler :

Decided to go peaceful with such crazy capital growth :) So many maritime CS allies helped a lot. I don't think I have ever seen 40 pop before T200. That is how fast it was growing.

From the start settled 4 cities, then Petra and NC before T100. A bit later captured Teotihuacan with the help of CBs and pikes from Samarakand who I allied. I also stole some land from Aztecs to get extra luxuries. Happiness and money was more than usual with all these horses and iron resources. I was the first one to pick Freedom and a few turns later WF was won. Too bad there was only 1 culture CS. Reached plastics around T197 I think. Bought 4 labs the same turn. Probably I could have finished even faster. In any case this was a very strong map, thank you.

Policies: Full Tradition, full rationalism, a few in patronage, commerce right hand tree.
Ideology: Freedom up to 3rd level to buy cheaper space parts.
Religion: Pantheon +1 from desert; +1 gold for every 4 followers, pogodas; 15% growth. Bought 3GS and 1 GE.


 

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t110 - Haven't played Germany in years!
Spoiler :
I am being tempted into DomV, LOL. Early ruins were crap, other than Scout upgrade. Settled W of gold, I hate not getting a hill start, but 3 lux in view from there. Was going to expo hill NE of Sinai, but Monte plopped his stupid city near there - war it is then! Built 1 Scout, bought 2 Archers, I think, very early built a Worker because I decided I was not going to steal them. Very classy of me, I should be wearing a monocle.

Lots of barbs, I also assumed raging barbs was on. I got a ton of units, I have never used a Hand Axe, pretty cool unit! Took Tlatelolco with a small force, then moved onto his cap, and started pounding. It took maybe 3 turns to get Teotihuacan in peace, 6 E of his cap. Happy has been great with perma-alliances with Samarkand and Jerusalem.

Settled in for some wonder-spam... Got Petra t90 and saw Terracotta Army was still open, got that for the first time ever on t99 - 6 units! It could have been 8 if I had planned better, I forgot about a Brute scouting, so upgraded a Warrior to Sword to save money. Also, leaving one Archer would have been awesome. Then built HG. 3 wonders w/o Aristocracy - not optimal play.

So I'm sitting with #1 military, which never happens, and meanwhile Korea is building all these juicy wonders... So I march on over and help myself - Chichen Itza, Colossus, GL, and ... SOZ!!! He went full Honor, but one expo is E across the bay, and the one closer to me had almost no units. 2 turns.

So now I am torn, I am not entirely hated, and could just turtle up with a crazy big Tradition capital (Trad open, Honor open, 3t to finish Trad). My 2 desert expos kind of suck, but one has some river tiles at least. But I am only 2 away from Mil Tradition, and Vienna is ripe. She has swords, using my iron, LOL. 50% penalty, sweet! I know it's Poland who I need to worry about most, but I can't get there in time, and I don't like the route. Ram is my buddy, I bribed him vs Monte when I attacked, I hope to get him against Poland soon. Weird thing, he is 2 (3) into Piety and 2 (3) into Patronage. Pretty weak.

All the religions are near me, plus Pacal, so peaceful spread would be so easy E of me. I went DF, Tithe, Pagodas, Mosques, Itin Preachers (love this combo).

Science sucks, but what else is new - just now finished Lib and started NC in cap. :rolleyes: Sooo, what should I do???
 

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t111-137 Hee-yah! :D
Spoiler :
I couldn't help myself, I kept attacking. Took Vienna t118, got Graz in a peace deal (wanted whales). Copenhagen was looking pretty small with defense in the 20s, took it t136 with only 4 CB and a Sword. With my better units out E I still took Tenochtitlan the next turn as Ram had been pounding it for a while.

It's going to take me a while to get my better units back and replace them with green range units. Everyone hates me, of course. I am trying to get some Caravans ready to take advantage of the UB. I may actually follow the Markets line ahead of Unis in my expos. Happy has been pretty bad for a while.

My plan is to get Mil Trad and either plow thru the gap into Ram (his N city has Machu), or start picking at Cas. Cas has the GW, so I had planned to wait until Artillery, but I can bribe him vs Ram now -- might be worth it to hit him if he gets a lot of units towards Ram. I only have 1 Log range so far. I have 3 GGs, so if I use 1 Citadel for each of Cas' cities I might be OK.
 

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Nigel:
Spoiler :

Remeber that Lhasa has FoY and Ivory - very decent CS. It is very tempting to capture them :)
 
I'll give this one a go. I think the Autocracy Panzers are calling to me.
 
t138-187
Spoiler :
I don't think I've ever had so much fun going for a DomV. Germany on this map is crazy. I have 7 TR with CS for 35% production bonus. The few cities I left puppeted have done a pretty good job of building Hanses (I have been annexing a lot, to buy Pagodas and Mosques, and to get walls up). WF is coming in 10 turns and my goal is not to let anyone get silver.

Since I went full Trad into Honor, it took a long time to get Professional Army (t176). But man is it paying big with kills. Hoping to get 2 into Commerce with WF. Happy was an issue quite a while, but once I started mowing down Cas I got some new lux, and Warsaw had Notre Dame, along with GW, Alhambra, Himeji, and Pyramids - sweet! Cas did me a huge favor settling an expo 6 W of Warsaw - rather than having to slog through 2 mature cities with the GW I was able to DOW, then hide behind the river a few turns to weaken him. Then in for the city, and 3 citadels later I was knocking on his door. I almost lost the last GG, but I absolutely had to remove the forest on the deer to get all my range XB to hit the city. I just took Lodz for ocean access. I am likely to keep heading E towards Pacal, and leave Ram for last. I have bribed him 3x against Cas, he never does much, but he has been losing some units. He currently has 7 units enjoying the FoY it appears!

I still don't have Navigation, I headed for Chemistry to keep the production powerhouse cranking, and am getting Metallurgy to build Red Fort and get Lancers to fight the Winged Hussars, I was surprised they haven't arrived yet. I plan to kill as many of his cities as I can, I'd much rather take pot shots at 2-3 units at a time than make peace and face a wall of units when he chooses. I'm probably not going to go for Dynamite as I want to keep the GW for if anybody gets any ideas in remote areas. I was vulnerable for quite a while in the hinterlands, but am now getting beefed up. Berlin is producing a unit every 2 turns, LOL. I will probably go Econ to Ind for Factories and eventually get to Autocracy, but I may win before then...
 

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Turn 295 domination.

Spoiler :


Thought I was going to have more room to settle so I went liberty. Only settled 2 cities. Built Petra in my capitol and went straight for crossbows. Took out monty with crossbows. Then moved on to Korea. I hit industrialization just in time to take down Koreas capitol, which was nice since it was at 50 strength.

Once I had all that consolidated I teched hard for panzers and went to town. I had autocracy with most of it filled out (won worlds fair by miles), so the panzers were 7 move and ignoring ZOC.

I had a tithe/pagoda religion. Every city state was my ally (I exterminated Siam as soon as I had Panzers). Tons of gold from city state trade routes.

Policy wise I went liberty, took a GS from the finisher and settles since I didn't need the engineer for Petra. Next went down to mercantialism in Commerce. Then opened rationalism and took secularism. I got wagon trains before I got my 3 factories. Once I had autocracy I got mostly everything in there except for the city state bonuses and the tourism stuff. I finished Mercantalism in the middle of filling out Autocracy and I finished the game one policy shy of finishing rationalism.

It seems like games where you can grab city states early are a lot easier to snowball. I did bribe Siam and Poland into war a couple times when I was busy elsewhere and saw troops building up on my borders. Siam was the only one who liked me after I DoWed Aztec's, but then he denounced once I declared on Korea.

Spoiler :


 
I haven't had alot of Civ time the past week or so. I wasn't going to even try this map since I find Immortal a bit too easy. I changed my mind since I knew I could play this out pretty fast and wanted to practice a Sacred Sites Strategy that I have seen others use and win very early.

Turns 0-181

Spoiler :
I settled on the gold and found Mt. Sinai pretty fast with my warrior. I never built a scout which is very rare for my games. I went Monument first and after that started to pump out settlers. I set my city down 1 turn before the Aztecs and got Sinai first. However that city blocked me from expanding.

I missed out on DF but fpt was not a problem and I chose god king over +4fpt from Nat Wonders. I did get a religion up fast and chose Tithe, Pagodas, Monastaries, Rel Texts and Sacred Sites.

I opened Tradition and after that went Full Piety. Im not sure is this is correct or not. I need to go back and read up on this strategy. It may be better to just go straight into Piety. Anyway long story short... I was trying to play friendly with everyone and that seemed to be working. I put the Aztecs at war with 2 Civs and 1 CS and they had 2 caravans into me and I had 3 into them. They coveted my lands for awhile but it wasn't long and all the modifiers were green with them.

So the Aztecs have a pretty large army that is bouncing around my borders but I figure they will not attack. I was wrong they decided to attack killing all of our caravans. I was really surprised at this but ok. His army should of rolled me but for some reason they never used the Cats and hardly attacked my cities. I had a few troops but nothing to combat this so I built a Comp Bow and rushed 2-3 others. I killed his army with ease and started to take his cities.

Perhaps I should of gave him peace but I was pretty upset with his attack since it really made little sense to me. My CS ally took and razed one of his cities and I took his expo and Capital forgetting that this will cause a problem wiping a Civ off the map.

The AI was building wonders pretty fast. I was planning on Terr Army but it went off on turn 59 and the others went pretty quick compared to all of my other Imm games. I decided to resign the game since I really did not make this SS strategy work. I most likely still can win this game but it isn't how I wanted to win. Im pretty far behind on tech and other things.

If anyone can give me some do's and dont's of the SS strategy I will be checking back to read up!

 

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t209 DomV
Spoiler :
As I thought, I never even got a Factory built before I won. I barely even had any Gats, took Palenque with mostly XB and a Cannon and Lancer, although I did have 3 Gats who arrived late. Cas did start fielding WHussars, but I never saw more than 3 at once, and he was mostly busy with my CS allies (the river between us was awesome). Ram's cap fell pretty easily too, but I did lose one unit. I really wanted to take his N city with Machu, but access was horrible from both directions - too many hills/mtns, no LOS. So I made peace.

I decided to get Frigates after Chemistry, because I had no idea what was beyond Palenque, and I figured some off-shore bombardment might help. I lucked out in that I swam about 5 units before his Caravels arrived! I never got to upgrade my Galleasses. :( He also had most of his army pounding away on Riga - stupid AI.

I put in almost 1,900 into WF, and as I hoped nobody got Silver. :D My tech rate was horrible, I built Hanses before Unis, and I only ran 1 food Caravan to Berlin for about 20 turns. I just focused on production a lot, and only worked specialists in the cap or in expos if I had unimproved tiles or was near happy cap. Full Tradition, full Honor, Commerce open and Wagon Trains.

I thought this game was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed both Germany and Russia's production bonuses. This was the only game I've had in the ICL/DCL series where I could keep up with buildings in my cap, and that was even with pumping out a lot of troops. This is how it should be, IMO - with my tendency for food/science focus in cap I never get a really good capital until Chemistry/ 5 Year Plan/ Hydro Plants. I was surprised at how well I did militarily considering the late Honor and taking a long time to get Range/Log.
 

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This is a fun little map. I played pretty poorly and likely won't finish, played mostly for a lark to try Germany. Most fun to me was the exclamation point indicating a captured barbarian. That was actually very cool, and more effective than I expected. After getting a scout->scarcher upgrade I was tooling around with something like 4 archers at turn 30, which was new and different.
 
Probably the easiest Immortal game I've ever played. Try this if you are looking to step up from Emperor.
 
I played this one quite a while ago but forgot to post the results.
Won domination at t252.

Spoiler :
I decided to win by domination, without really caring about warmongering.

Killed aztecs early with ~4 composites and ~2 swordsmen (I decided to wait with killing korea, because they got great wall early + had ~25 defense in cap already. Then Korea right after I teched xbows (they had a lot of wonders in cap), this took a long time due to the great wall. After that I split my army to kill Siam and Austria (who decided to joint-attack me few turns before I got Korea cap). I got their capitols surprisingly easily; Poland joined the war in the mean time and they had hussars which really slowed me down. I was just defending against them for now, waiting for artillery. Meanwhile, my second army rushed to Maya -- they were very low on soldiers so I managed to kill them pretty fast, especially that I discovered artillery after taking their first city. After getting artillery and slowly destroying most of polish troops, I got to their cap and immediately after that I got Denmark with my second army (which I skipped because they were so bad that I didn't expect any resistance).

Basically nobody liked me from the reneissance onwards, so I had some troubles with happiness (there were times I was briefly at -10 after taking cities). I was allied with ~half of CS which helped a lot.

I went liberty (full tree), honor (left side + first one on the right), patronage (first one on the right), ratio (full except the last one), autocracy. Sooo I had nothing to do with my 6k faith. ;)
Main techs I targeted were composites, education, xbows, banking, dynamite (oxforded).

Fun fact: Denmark was basically broken in my game -- as far as I know they were never at war with anyone (until I killed them), but they had only one city and never expanded.

Spoiler image :
icl11end.jpg
 
Despite the great spot and what I thought was a decent game by yours truly...

Spoiler :
Poland was such a monster, that I am in a hopeless spot. Their cap is surrounded by some huge expos/puppets. They are very far ahead (at least 5 techs) and have just entered Atomic Age. I am battling crippling unhappiness and have had to give some of my captured civs away. How did all of you deal with Poland? They were the beast from the beginning....the wars I was able to get started via bribery only made him stronger....
 
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