Two tough immortal maps (and an easy one)

[Sidney Magal]

Hi folks!

I've begun to play a series with all the leaders and two of the maps I started were very difficult. I'd like to see what you guys can do with these starts.

The first one is a Fractal map with Saladin. It's not properly hard, but I still couldn't find the way to play it in an effective way.

Spoiler :

The second one is a Continents map with Isabella. This one is very difficult IMO. Apart from AP cheese and culture, I don't see a way to beat it. Of course, I'm not one of the best players on these boards so I might be dead wrong.

Spoiler :

And there's an easy Fractal map as Joao where you get to be the runaway if you play the start right. If you played the last two, you'll love this one. Sit back and relax.

Spoiler :

All the saves are on Immortal difficulty and normal speed. Huts and events are on, I usually play with Play Now.

 

[LL_LordOmega]

Assuming its standard map size, I'm going to give the second one a whirl.

 

[Sidney Magal]

They are all standard size.

 

[vicawoo]

Unless you are isolated or have no horses, starting with fishing, multiple 2 food base 2 commerce tiles, and a pastureable tile means you can horse archer rush your continent.

 

[Sidney Magal]

If you manage to find a solution for the Isabella map, please share it because I couldn't.

 

[pollock]

I had a look at the isabella one in WB. Seems like the strategy would be to expand west fast get 4/5 cities and then go for swordsmen and catapults or macemen and catapults war to take out persia.
Your one on one above the jungle and they dont have a particular better start than you apart from can go south easier. But will smash them before that

 

[itg]

I've played the Isabella game up to 75 AD:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Not a great city, but I got horse. Planning to HA rush, of course.

Spoiler :

Ready to attack. Darius has iron (which I can't see yet), but hopefully he won't have time to whip many spears.

Spoiler :

Took the capital first, then razed a city

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Captured our holy city

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I probably should've taken iron working instead of math, but I wasn't really paying attention. Oh well, I'll get currency sooner this way.

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Split my stack to take the last three cities.

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And Darius is dead. I guess it's just Julius and me now? I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Another observation about the start:

Spoiler :

Founding buddhism/hinduism is actually possible on this map. I'd love to see someone give that a try

 

[vicawoo]

Most of my early warriors died horribly early, so I didn't get to scout for resources as well as above.

Played the boring marble way, and am in position to win using the followup to the boring marble way. The most interesting thing I did was gifting a city, which later won me

Spoiler :

AP leader over Darius. I also got great lighthouse, at the cost of parthenon

.

 

[Sidney Magal]

Hmm... So that means I am the problem in those maps? Back to school, Sidney!

 

[NihilZero]

If there's one thing I have learned from playing forum games, it's that the same map can be easy or hard for different people depending on 1) wildly varying RNG behaviour and 2) the individual skillsets and playstyles of different players. Something as simple as the distribution of religions (which can differ quite markedly in each run of a single map) can utterly change the flow of the game and the sequence of events.

Then of course, some people are just good at civ.

 

[vicawoo]

Hmm... So that means I am the problem in those maps? Back to school, Sidney!

More land would be give you a better position, but in lieu of that, there's a pretty straightforward template for getting enough of a tech lead with marble to fight a gunpowder war.

 

[pollock]

Less land just means earlier war hehe

 

[JammerUno]

More land would be give you a better position, but in lieu of that, there's a pretty straightforward template for getting enough of a tech lead with marble to fight a gunpowder war.

Agreed, every marble start where you can get decent prod gives you the option of a bulbrush to lib/nat and the following draftwar. This one does not look particularly hard since the persians are usually easy to get along with and the distance between the capitals gives you space to settle enough cities for oxford/GT.

 

[r_rolo1]

Given than Darius is normally a pushover ( who modeled his XML should be thinking in other Darius, the one that Alexander tacked off ), probably it would be a good idea to settle the best spots without war ( ok, not much of that around ) and then either rifle war with draft or lib steel and roll out CR III cannons ( courtesy of the spanish UB ) on top of him. by that time he will have the land cleaned out and all that jungle replaced by cottages ....