The Immortal Challenge Lineup - Game #23 Assyria

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

t227 DomV

Spoiler :

This game seemed to take forever, as my growth and tech was so horrible from pretty early. The happy issues from taking so many capitals so fast, without enough infrastructure, really bogged me down. My cap and 2 expos were stuck at like 12-6-6 for a loooong time. It wasn't until I took Babylon with ND that I could do more, and soon after I finished Commerce. Then it was grow, baby, grow, so at least I finished with them at pop 18-10-10. Do you folks still send food caravans even when you're at -10 happy? I didn't see the point even at -1, so I did some production ones and plenty of cash TR.

Alex and Heile DOW'd me t147, I took Amsterdam from Alex t169 and soon after got sweet peace deals. I actually took an Ethiopian city in peace as it set me up nicely for Babylon, and Alex gave me 55 gpt, cash, and a lux, so I let that run 30 turns. Heile even gave a DOF, as we both fought Babylon and later Greece together.

The AI went pretty wonder-crazy, even Alex built 9, which I didn't get until late. Nice ones like ToA and SoZ. Corinth with Machu fell t207 and Athens t213, Addis Ababa t227. Neb's new cap kept expanding over my roads to Addis, so I had to citadel the bastage just to keep them open.

WF took 38 turns, wow. I built 3 turns, then saw I had only put in 190 hammers and it was only at 8%, so I just quit, and near the end got to 350 for funsies. Apparently Heile was doing WF instead of building units, he had NONE in his cap. Here I bought a navy that didn't even get 1/4 of the way there, it fell in 2 turns from Gats.

Full Honor, Liberty open, Full Commerce, Exploration open to sail faster to Addis, then 2 in Patronage cuz I thought about allying every CS just because. I quit buying land units 30 turns ago, with traffic jams there was no point. I suppose I could have just captured every city on the map, I now kind of wish I had.

 

[Acken]

Too many questions. I'll just pick a few.

Greece ability is that they recover from negative influence at twice the rate and decay from positive at half the rate.
Accuracy works only on units, not cities.
Borobodur > Hagia Sophia from a pure faith efficiency. But Hagia can give you a Religion to begin with or help enhance faster.
The main purpose of declaration of friendship are the research agreement and being able to get lump sum of gold instead of per turn.
Specialists produce the same unhappiness as a normal citizen.
Air Sweep allows you to make your Fighter fight an anti aircraft unit near the target. If a AA gun or another fighter protects the zone you use a fighter with air sweep first (one for each).
Both parties get the same in a RA before modifiers like Porcelain Tower. RA are usually okay with decently developed AIs.
Manhattan project allows the production of nukes. It often make lesser civs afraid, making them unlikely to DOW you or disagree with you.
If your unit had no room to move out you did not waste a unit, the unit will remain at 100% completion until you choose it again and make room to get it out.

 

[100games100days]

Thanks Acken, much appreciated!

Accuracy works only on units, not cities.

Is the same true for Drill and Shock promotions for Melee units - that it doesn't apply to attacking cities?

 

[Acken]

Yes. Only +% against city promotions count. However for melee units, drill and shock help defending against cities.

 

[Bimblecrumbs]

t135 Domination

After lurking in Strategy & Tips for some time, this is my first comment

Spoiler :

Let me preface this by saying that it was my third attempt, so I already knew the map well. Added to that, I reloaded once after realising that a few of my units didn't have the Kilimanjaro promotion.


First try: I opened honour and regretted it - the start was too slow and the gold/xp bonuses arrived too late to matter. I read Acken's liberty vs. honour comment and decided to try liberty on the second attempt.


Second try: I opened liberty and went 4 city NC. After having built the NC by turn 90 or so, I realised that it was too much of an opportunity cost because Assur couldn't grow large enough to make good use of the library+NC science bonus. Additionally, Assyria's UA and having a workable Krakatoa made me feel more confident about a non-NC game.


Third try: I opened liberty with a scout/monument/shrine/scout/granary/2 settlers build order. A perfect pop ruin from 2 to 3 allowed me to delay the granary and produce settlers at pop 4 once I got the free one. Expansions went monument, granary, shrine, units. Apart from a break for markets all I built was more units, cargo ships and a barracks in the cap. No libraries at all. Krakatoa plus the Assyrian UA were enough to remain the tech leader. As for techs, I went for comp bows ---> 3rd trade route ---> markets ---> xbows ---> pikes.

Social policies: full liberty and commerce until wagon trains.

In hindsight, I could have skipped the religion. I was unhappy for so many turns anyway and only 2 cities had my religion; the shrines could have better served me as early archers or something.

I settled Kilimanjaro (up and right on the desert hill for both incense and citrus), SW of Assur (between sheep and crabs) and finally Krakatoa (right of the gold). My cities were tiny by the end due to being unhappy for so many turns:

That said, had I had larger cities, I would have hit -10 unhappiness much sooner (instead of just after New York). As it turned out, barbs only spawned in my lands on the last turn

I built 2 wonders; the Pyramids and Machu Picchu (with liberty GE). This combo allowed me to build roads both quickly and often. I stole a settler from Washington, 2 workers from Babylon and a worker from Geneva, so I had 6 workers for my 4 cities. I hadn't met all of the AIs yet, so the diplo penalties for all of that stealing were minimal, which surprised me. After finishing every improvement possible by turn 80 or so, I had 4-5 workers accompanying my army to build roads. I didn't find pillage/repair to be all that useful since cities fell fast enough.

My main army was 8 comp bows, 3 siege towers, 2 spears and a horseman. Some of these later split off to help with Babylon/America.

I chose to kill Denmark first because he had a rather large army sitting around Kilimanjaro and looked like he was ready to DOW me. Copenhagen fell on turn 89 and I proceeded to Kyoto, which I took on turn 98. I prebuilt a road to Kyoto for a quick assault. Also, killing Denmark and Japan early avoided encountering any unwanted Berserkers or Samurai.

After Kyoto came Amsterdam on turn 105. I took and razed Aarhus, Tokyo and Rotterdam for the free techs and gold. Whilst killing Denmark, Japan and the Netherlands I had a worker north of Amsterdam building a road to Alex. I continued the road most of the way to Ethiopia whilst attacking Greece; to the south of Harar and then between the city states.

Athens was conquered by my main force on turn 115, and I had built a secondary army (and a road to Babylon, which was prebuilt) by then, which took Babylon on turn 123 just after I hit a rather late xbow tech. In hindsight, I should have sent more units to deal with America instead of to Ethiopia (I sent 2 comp bows back after taking Amsterdam), who had all of 2 combat units and was a compete pushover. My main army was camped outside Addis Ababa for 10+ turns doing basically nothing.

As for Washington, perhaps it was also a mistake to leave him until last. My reasoning was that I wanted him as a cargo ship trade route partner due to my low science strategy. It wasn't worth it, and he should have been the only target of my second army, leaving my main army to head south after Ethiopia and converge on Babylon. That would have probably shaved a few more turns off. Oh well.
Anyway, America built the great wall and I threw unit after unit into the breach. I had saved up enough gold and rush bought pikes to sacrifice. I did have 3 great generals though, so the great wall wasn't too bad. It just hurt to throw units into the water and watch him 2 shot them while others got through. Washington and Addis Ababa both fell on turn 135.

Follow up question: do razed cities count towards the 5% per-city science penalty?

 

[100games100days]

Wow nice work Bimblecrumbs!

Is anyone doing a 'let's play' for this game? Would love to see some of these fast domination wins in action.

 

[Gustavus Rex]

Yea! Very good time Bimblecrumbs!

I replayed the map going liberty instead of honor. Finished in turn 154. Knowing the map off course helped a lot but liberty is indeed a faster way to conquer the map.

For some reason i don't find liberty nearly as fun as honor. Feels less evil.

Picture: My smallest victory-capital ever!

Spoiler :

 

[Bimblecrumbs]

Thanks!

Unfortunately I don't have time for Let's Plays at the moment, but I will try to post more challenge write-ups.