The Immortal Challenge Lineup - Game #6 - Denmark

Gustavus Rex

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The Immortal Challenge Lineup - Game #6

Welcome to the Immortal difficulty version of the biweekly The Deity Challenge Lineup-event.

ICL Game #6
You - Denmark
Total Civilizations - 8
Total City States -16
Map – Fractal
Settings – Quick quick combat(turn it back on if you would like). Everything else is set to default.
Game Version -
Downloadable Content – G&K, BNW, Conquest of the New World Deluxe, Genghis Khan's Mongolia, Harold Bluetooth's Denmark, Isabella’s Sapin and Pachacuti's Incan Empire, Kamehameha's Polynesian Empire, Nebruchadnezzar's Babylon, Sejong The Great's Korea, Wonders of the Ancient World. The map pack are intentionally excluded.

Starting location:



Schedule:

Game #1 - July 23th as Japan
Game #2 - August 6th as Poland
Game #3 - August 20th as Ottomans
Game #4 - September 3th as Arabia
Game #5 - September 17th as Brazil
Game #6 - October 1th as Denmark
Game #7

Information & rules cut, pasted and slightly changed from The Deity Challenge Lineup:

Spoiler :
All games in this series will be set to IMMORTAL difficulty. User civilizations, maps, and opponents will change each game, but the pace will always be set at standard and the starting era will always be ancient. We will try for a variety of starts, and not just having a crazy warmonger as your next door neighbor (although there will be that too). This isn't a competition so there will be no predefined victory conditions. New challenges in the series will be posted every other Wednesday.

Who can play?
Anybody can play. The more the merrier. Even if you normally don't play immortal games you are still welcome to try. The games can become great learning resources for the player trying to improve. Even if you don't finish the game, we are still interested to hear about your experience.

Do's and Don'ts
We are going to be using the honor system. Feel free to restart, reload, play the same game multiple times, but don't use the science overflow exploit. Also please don't edit the game in IGE. If you do chose to cheat, please don't share your results in the comments. Also, please use the spoiler tag if you post a picture, comment about neighboring civs, close by wonders, or locations of ancient ruins.

Also, please tell us about your Build Order, Social Policies, Tech Order, and what type of wonders you went after. I know a lot of this stuff seems pretty mundane to the experienced player, but the details are incredibly useful to people trying to learn.

Future Games in the Series
I want users to submit saves from turn 0. Preferably the person submitting the game has played enough turns to know the map is either difficult, fun, or unique in some enjoyable way. Write a short description as to why it is special and email the save to immortalchallengelineup@gmail.com

Important
If you submit a game for the challenge, you must have the DLC map packs disabled. Not everybody has them and they are honestly kind of useless. Having them disabled will allow more participants.
 

Attachments

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Spoiler :

Hah, after my 2nd Keshik try out I thought I'll give this quick go. T3 it looked like I won't like the map and T18 I'm absolutely sure I don't like it so I'll try something with Honor start - a great unknown to me.
 
Spoiler :
I agree... not my favorite type of map either. I played up to turn 225 and was having fun with late era units till I got kinda lazy moving troops across the water so I put this game on the save list incase I feel like finishing but the game is over for the AI. These water maps seem much easier and I had all the time in the world to do whatever I chose on this map.
 
I won.

Spoiler :
Peaceful 3 City Cultural Victory t310.
 
T268 Science, Order

Spoiler :
My game was completely peaceful too.

I moved settler 2 tiles directly south of initial start after scouting with warrior revealed extra goodies. Amazing looking start, and on top of that founding city revealed an extra marble + fish, in addition to the 4 salt, 3 wheat, etc.

Decided to go for GL, despite the lack of hill start, and no worker steals. I was sweating the last few turns but luckily I got it.

Opened Scout > Worker > Granary > Shrine > GL > NC > Settler > Settler > Settler
Copenhagen was 9 pop when I started building settlers. No culture ruin either. That should give you some idea of how strong start was.
Starting Techs were Pottery > Mining > Writing > Calendar > Sailing > (Philosophy from GL) > Sailing > Optics

Quick early-midgame timeline:

T42 GL with 2 chops and 2 salt mines.
T49 Founded Earth Mother pantheon. Also researched Optics this turn.
T52 NC
T107 Education
~T150 Secularism
~T160 Schools
T176 Oxford Radio
T180 World Fair finally started, won it handily and got a ton of policies.

The only military I built the entire game were scout, caravel and 2x gatling guns. Sometime around T180 my scout and caravel team found all CS and all natural wonders, so I deleted them. I built the gatlings after finishing factory in capital because I had nothing else to do there. The purpose of this was to get my military score up so Babylon wouldn't backstab me. They were threatening at my borders all game (I had to pay Askia to war them 2x). I think it worked because they backed off after. A CS also gifted me a 3rd gatling around the same time.

Religion was a wash even though I founded second religion. Babylon founded first and had absolutely ridiculous faith generation with desert folklore and a couple religious CS nearby. Then to top it off they took pilgrimmage and cheaper missionaries. My religion never had a chance to spread to a single city, and my capital got great propheted early. Unfortunately their follower beliefs were completely useless to me (Pagodas + Monasteries), so I may as well have had no religion.

I only signed 2 RAs all game. This was my biggest mistake. I had a chance to sign a bunch of RAs around T210 (was friends with 5 civs, and lots of GPT to sell for it), but for some reason I decided against it. This would have sped up finish considerably without sacrificing much of anything. Bad judgment there.

Freedom may have been a stronger choice. I went Order because my culture was looking grim. No cultural CS on starting continent, and I missed Oracle unfortunately. I also didn't get a chance to settle the 5th city that I wanted for Freedom. Brazil was second to ideology and chose Freedom. This meant lots of unhappiness from ideological pressure, even with me winning World Fair and International Games. I barely managed to stay above 0 happiness all game and had to ally 2 mercantile CS nearby early. Last turn I was sitting at -37.

Built GL, LToP, Taj Mahal, PT, Kremlin, Cristo Redentor (likely a mistake), Hubble. I missed Oracle and Chichen Itza.

I was honestly expecting to finish faster, around T250, especially after I got GL. Arts funding passing on the second vote probably didn't help along my poor RA showing. I guess the rest of the land wasn't that great aside from capital. It was really tempting to attack Babylon early-ish because their start was incredible. No idea if it could have led to a faster finish or not. I decided not to because bowmen and walls of bab are tough to take out fast.


edit to add screenshot:

Spoiler :
 
After initial map scouting decided to do tradition opening into domination. To play Denmark other way is not to have fun with there's abilities.

Spoiler :

This map really force you into X city tradition. I moved capital 2 ties down, after checking up with warrior. Idea was that down there 3 good early ties right next to city, with some chance with more good ties, which there were.

After that 2 city tradition, into 4 city tradition after NC. 4th city went to island.
After getting ideology I started war. Now, at turn 250 I finish carnage and Brasil. Askia consume Holland. He is next target. Every one hate me. MY guess I need to do some liberation. I actually tool last 3 cities with different form of infantry, thought upgrading it was expensive.


Spoiler :
turn 267 Askia fall. What is most interesting that strength 60 cities easy fall to infantry. I practically do not have guns and only 1 arty around, but infantry does the job.
Now other continent, as my neighbor is my only friend. I liberated one of his cities, he adopt order and other positive modifier and he does not seems to pay attention to my warmongering.


Turn 300 domination win.

most cities were taken by 1/3 cover infantry.
 
Turn 293, culture win.

Spoiler :

Moved south 2 tiles and settled... nice salt and wheat start... so need an early worker, ended up building the worker.. then granary, then shrine.
Still got earth mother.
Did a 2 cit NC on turn 72. Settled third city on peninsula by mountain...
Education turn 98.

Founded religion, and still had cathedrals available, took them and tithe. never did enhance.

Started getting denounced at turn 280, and Siam would not trade for open borders.

Peaceful game until very end, when Rammy when not trade for open borders, so had to declare war to concert bomb with 2 musicians, on turn 291... took 2 more turns for Korea...
Spoiler :





Tech tree route:
Pottery, mining, writing, masonry, Philosophy, Optics, Civil Service, Education.
Acoustics next to get entry into renaissances
Astronomy, Architecture, for Uffizi, planned on skipping globe. Brazil built LToP, and globe.
Scientific Theory, Electricity, used oxford build while researching electricity to get radio...
Planned to take freedom and did.
Archeology, (I did not propose worlds fair, Babylon did, and it passed, so I just did the 350 hammers for the social policy)
Refrigeration for Hotels.
Plastics, and then Internet...


 
I've had better. River/coastal/1mountain starts. I have had a couple of starts with 7/8 sea resources too.

Oh yeah, no doubt not the best - no mountain hurts a lot. But if you want to wonder whore, it's hard to top the amount of <turn 100 production this start can churn out.
 
The resources were good, that is indisputable.

But it's on an isolated peninsula with no CS neighbours, no trading partners, no decent expo locations, uncertain iron (a must for Denmark), and no decent sea channels to victims. This was possibly the worst map I've seen submitted to any community Civ 5 game, IMO.
 
So I've been a lurker here for a while and I finally decided to post. These challenge lineups have really helped improve to the point where I can actually win on Deity (sometimes). Hopefully I can continue this improvement.
Anyway I played this map for a turn 303 CV. I'm not that good to begin with but I was a little drunk so mistakes were made :)
Spoiler :

Moved Warrior south and liked what i saw. Moved settler next to deer and settled. This discovered marble :) as well.
Started scouting and it appears we are on a peninsula that is blocked off by mountains. I only built one scout. and prioritized optics so i could get those ruins teasing me from the other side.
Tech: Pottery, Mining, Optics, AH, Writing, Philo
Build: Scout, Worker, Granary, Shrine, Trireme, Settler, Settler
I built a boat to help scout.
Once Optics was done I went to go explore. But i forgot the scout needed to touch my land before it learnt to swim. So this wasted a few turns.
Early on i got a weapon upgrade for my warrior. the scout popped only one ruin (a faith one) T48.

This got me a pantheon. Picked Earth mother (faith from salt). Which led to founding first on T76.
Getting the religion first made me priortise religion tech and buildings a little more.
I had met william and nebby by this stage.
About T50 (or something) i settled my two expos. Land was not really good aside from cap.
One city went on marble to the north for a coastal mountain city.
Second went across the bay next to the cows and bananas for river coastal city.
This would allow me to run food ships all day.
Early on i also had luck with cs quests for barbs. allied HK T67 by popping nearby camp.
And wondering scout was a hero and killed archer camp after 6 turns for worker return and two cs allys (both merc singapore and one other i think.) So happiness was no issue. I considered a fourth by the crab to the west but didn't like the prospect of a city with all water tiles. Maybe a third food ship would have boosted the cap even more?

No civs were really in cargo range early on so this never happened. Not sure if it matters on immortal but it could have slowed down early game. Cargos went to cap for ridiculous early growth.
Given the strong cap and early religion I went Theology and built Borobudur and HS.
This let me spread to every city state to William. Both him and nebby had religion at this point so i didn't spread there. Although the early spread let me dominate nebbys religion and williams cities flipped a bit too.
Later i met Dido, pedro and askia.
I can't remember timings for NC and education but i was rich enough to buy uni in cap and third city (which was struggling prod wise until i got stable and workshop up.)

Went into renaissance with acoustics a few turns after someone else (i assume sejong in hindsight)
Built SC, lost LToP to pedro by a few, lost Uffizi to Sejong (who i had now met.)
Hit sci theory and then checked for coal.
Used oxford to get to radio.
Was second strangely. I think pedro went order first. don't remember.
Went freedom.
Next teched for Louvre.
Built Louvre, PT, rushed ET, broadway, SoL in 3rd city, CR, Neue in 2nd city.
At this point i just teched to Plastics, fertilizer and then internet.

City growth was rediculous. 27pop in cap by T166
Was stringing we love the king days when i remembered.
Had open borders with everyone and trade route+diplomat with culture leaders (Sejong and Pedro)
Used two GM after internet to catch pedro and a third shortly after on nebby for the 20% to everyone. I think rammy was the last to be caught simply because i neglected him.
Most people followed me to freedom idea. Askia went autocracy and pedro and sejong order. They were all in revolutionary wave status for the rest of the game.

This was entirely peacful on my part. Everyone was my friend. I built very few units. like two archers and two triremes. and later a few frigates.
Only bought one war and it was more out of spite. Nebby kept converting my cities late. maybe i neglected diplo a bit. So i paid askia to dow him for cheap.
Sejong was at war with rammy who was city spamming.
carthage did nothing. even getting dowed by pedro and sejong before losing her cap.
pedro nebby and william all dowed askia late. maybe cos he took a few city states.

In the end it was kind of boring game. The mountain range at the start was different but after that it was pretty regular op salt start.Perhaps dom would have been more interesting but i was in no state to do that last night :)

I could have gained control of the world congress to speed up victory. I completely forgot about it. and the ai kept proposing dumb stuff. Arts funding was passed though. I was in control of proposals for one session and put WF in (quite late though) which i won but i perhaps should have gone for Olympics at this point instead. (yes WF didn't get proposed for that long). The timing would have worked out better for late tourism push. My peak was only 500 maybe.

I'll post a pic when I figure out the best way for this site.
Thanks guys for the challenge lineup and i'll post a few maps for your consideration.
especially of my current favourite civs.

Edit: Heres the image

 
So I've been a lurker here for a while and I finally decided to post. These challenge lineups have really helped improve to the point where I can actually win on Deity (sometimes). Hopefully I can continue this improvement.
Anyway I played this map for a turn 303 CV. I'm not that good to begin with but I was a little drunk so mistakes were made :)
Spoiler :

Moved Warrior south and liked what i saw. Moved settler next to deer and settled. This discovered marble :) as well.
Started scouting and it appears we are on a peninsula that is blocked off by mountains. I only built one scout. and prioritized optics so i could get those ruins teasing me from the other side.
Tech: Pottery, Mining, Optics, AH, Writing, Philo
Build: Scout, Worker, Granary, Shrine, Trireme, Settler, Settler
I built a boat to help scout.
Once Optics was done I went to go explore. But i forgot the scout needed to touch my land before it learnt to swim. So this wasted a few turns.
Early on i got a weapon upgrade for my warrior. the scout popped only one ruin (a faith one) T48.

This got me a pantheon. Picked Earth mother (faith from salt). Which led to founding first on T76.
Getting the religion first made me priortise religion tech and buildings a little more.
I had met william and nebby by this stage.
About T50 (or something) i settled my two expos. Land was not really good aside from cap.
One city went on marble to the north for a coastal mountain city.
Second went across the bay next to the cows and bananas for river coastal city.
This would allow me to run food ships all day.
Early on i also had luck with cs quests for barbs. allied HK T67 by popping nearby camp.
And wondering scout was a hero and killed archer camp after 6 turns for worker return and two cs allys (both merc singapore and one other i think.) So happiness was no issue. I considered a fourth by the crab to the west but didn't like the prospect of a city with all water tiles. Maybe a third food ship would have boosted the cap even more?

No civs were really in cargo range early on so this never happened. Not sure if it matters on immortal but it could have slowed down early game. Cargos went to cap for ridiculous early growth.
Given the strong cap and early religion I went Theology and built Borobudur and HS.
This let me spread to every city state to William. Both him and nebby had religion at this point so i didn't spread there. Although the early spread let me dominate nebbys religion and williams cities flipped a bit too.
Later i met Dido, pedro and askia.
I can't remember timings for NC and education but i was rich enough to buy uni in cap and third city (which was struggling prod wise until i got stable and workshop up.)

Went into renaissance with acoustics a few turns after someone else (i assume sejong in hindsight)
Built SC, lost LToP to pedro by a few, lost Uffizi to Sejong (who i had now met.)
Hit sci theory and then checked for coal.
Used oxford to get to radio.
Was second strangely. I think pedro went order first. don't remember.
Went freedom.
Next teched for Louvre.
Built Louvre, PT, rushed ET, broadway, SoL in 3rd city, CR, Neue in 2nd city.
At this point i just teched to Plastics, fertilizer and then internet.

City growth was rediculous. 27pop in cap by T166
Was stringing we love the king days when i remembered.
Had open borders with everyone and trade route+diplomat with culture leaders (Sejong and Pedro)
Used two GM after internet to catch pedro and a third shortly after on nebby for the 20% to everyone. I think rammy was the last to be caught simply because i neglected him.
Most people followed me to freedom idea. Askia went autocracy and pedro and sejong order. They were all in revolutionary wave status for the rest of the game.

This was entirely peacful on my part. Everyone was my friend. I built very few units. like two archers and two triremes. and later a few frigates.
Only bought one war and it was more out of spite. Nebby kept converting my cities late. maybe i neglected diplo a bit. So i paid askia to dow him for cheap.
Sejong was at war with rammy who was city spamming.
carthage did nothing. even getting dowed by pedro and sejong before losing her cap.
pedro nebby and william all dowed askia late. maybe cos he took a few city states.

In the end it was kind of boring game. The mountain range at the start was different but after that it was pretty regular op salt start.Perhaps dom would have been more interesting but i was in no state to do that last night :)

I could have gained control of the world congress to speed up victory. I completely forgot about it. and the ai kept proposing dumb stuff. Arts funding was passed though. I was in control of proposals for one session and put WF in (quite late though) which i won but i perhaps should have gone for Olympics at this point instead. (yes WF didn't get proposed for that long). The timing would have worked out better for late tourism push. My peak was only 500 maybe.

I'll post a pic when I figure out the best way for this site.
Thanks guys for the challenge lineup and i'll post a few maps for your consideration.
especially of my current favourite civs.

Edit: Heres the image


Welcome and GG
 
t282 Diplo victory

Spoiler :

Was going for a Science Victory but I had so much gold I'd allied all city states, so DV was faster. Very easy map imo. Just settle four cities on that little peninsula and the AI can't do a thing. As I'm in between Immortal and Deity I'm hoping for a more difficult setup next time ;-).



 
Try this:

Spoiler :
Optics

Try this, Gustavus Rex

Spoiler :
Optics cannot help caravans swim, or cargo ships reach further. It can't conjure up CS for nearby XP farming, or make it any quicker for embarked units to reach the faraway places you want to conduct battle.

I'm not saying people can't play this game and have fun, but for me there is little point playing as Denmark (a not very good civ) if all the things that make your civ worth playing are nerfed. Might as well play as a completely vanilla civ, and then, with a mountain blocking land access to other civs, and all the problems I mentioned before, it amounts to a very, very tricky Immortal proposition to win by domination.

Your first reply suggested that you didn't want any feedback on the map selection. I hope this isn't the case.
 
Try this, Gustavus Rex

Spoiler :
Optics cannot help caravans swim, or cargo ships reach further. It can't conjure up CS for nearby XP farming, or make it any quicker for embarked units to reach the faraway places you want to conduct battle.

I'm not saying people can't play this game and have fun, but for me there is little point playing as Denmark (a not very good civ) if all the things that make your civ worth playing are nerfed. Might as well play as a completely vanilla civ, and then, with a mountain blocking land access to other civs, and all the problems I mentioned before, it amounts to a very, very tricky Immortal proposition to win by domination.

Your first reply suggested that you didn't want any feedback on the map selection. I hope this isn't the case.

No I want feedback. Sorry for being a bit harsh for no reason. Apologies!

Spoiler :
The issues with beeing isolated and that you might have to adjust the "A-game" a bit was the reason I picked this map. Early optics and take advantage of Denmarks awsome UA to settle and murder through the shores.

I understand that not everybody finds this map type fun to play.
 
I would have attacked, but people in the next room were talking, so I just clicked next, next, next.
 
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