I tried to play the full Willem Experience on Immortal. It went great.
By “Full Willem Experience,” I mean not researching Rifling. My variant was that I could only research rifling when it was the last thing I could possibly research -- so sometime after Genetics and Fiber Optics.
I measured up against a murderer’s row of AIs to pad my chances: Hatshepsut, Frederick, Sitting Bull, Roosevelt -- but to keep it interesting: Ragnar and Montezuma.
Ragnar helped me out a bunch in the early game -- he declared on Freddie and ate his armies, which allowed me to roll up most of Fred with catapults. Trebuchets and Elephants helped with Monty, who had declared on Sitting Bull. Sitting Bull then bribed Ragnar into the war and then Ragnar bribed me in.
That left me a weird enclave with former Freddie and Aztec cities pressuring Ragnar’s decent German conquests. Honestly, I should have declared on Ragnar but it was nice to have a friend, you know?
Trebuchets and knights allowed me to take out Hatshepsut, who declared on my after my friend Ragnar declared on Roosevelt and asked me to pile on. That was where I started to feel the pain in my variant: I could have and would have beelined rifles to a quick victory but instead I was trying to get my way to steel and military science.
I made a bit of an error after conquering Roosevelt: he wasn’t contiguous to my territory -- I should have conquered Ragnar and then taken a bite out of Sitting Bull to win the game.
As it happened, either Sitting Bull declared on Ragnar or Ragnar declared on Sitting Bull. Either way, I was prepared for the attack to be against me and so was preparing to rope-a-dope the AI: pull them into my territory, shred them with collateral then march.
But a strange thing happened: Sitting Bull declared on me, out of the blue, while he was at war with Ragnar. I spent a few minutes looking for the peace declaration and didn’t see it.
Fortunately, all I lost was some tile improvements -- although I did have some frantic unit shuffling and purchasing. Railroad really helped too. I managed to take Tenochtitlan, the Hindu holy city, on the last turn of the game, connecting my territory with Egypt.
Next up, I think I’ll try for a legitimate Deity win against some terrible AIs with no restrictions -- and no tech trading.
Screenshots will come later today as will a starting save.
By “Full Willem Experience,” I mean not researching Rifling. My variant was that I could only research rifling when it was the last thing I could possibly research -- so sometime after Genetics and Fiber Optics.
I measured up against a murderer’s row of AIs to pad my chances: Hatshepsut, Frederick, Sitting Bull, Roosevelt -- but to keep it interesting: Ragnar and Montezuma.
Ragnar helped me out a bunch in the early game -- he declared on Freddie and ate his armies, which allowed me to roll up most of Fred with catapults. Trebuchets and Elephants helped with Monty, who had declared on Sitting Bull. Sitting Bull then bribed Ragnar into the war and then Ragnar bribed me in.
That left me a weird enclave with former Freddie and Aztec cities pressuring Ragnar’s decent German conquests. Honestly, I should have declared on Ragnar but it was nice to have a friend, you know?
Trebuchets and knights allowed me to take out Hatshepsut, who declared on my after my friend Ragnar declared on Roosevelt and asked me to pile on. That was where I started to feel the pain in my variant: I could have and would have beelined rifles to a quick victory but instead I was trying to get my way to steel and military science.
I made a bit of an error after conquering Roosevelt: he wasn’t contiguous to my territory -- I should have conquered Ragnar and then taken a bite out of Sitting Bull to win the game.
As it happened, either Sitting Bull declared on Ragnar or Ragnar declared on Sitting Bull. Either way, I was prepared for the attack to be against me and so was preparing to rope-a-dope the AI: pull them into my territory, shred them with collateral then march.
But a strange thing happened: Sitting Bull declared on me, out of the blue, while he was at war with Ragnar. I spent a few minutes looking for the peace declaration and didn’t see it.
Fortunately, all I lost was some tile improvements -- although I did have some frantic unit shuffling and purchasing. Railroad really helped too. I managed to take Tenochtitlan, the Hindu holy city, on the last turn of the game, connecting my territory with Egypt.
Next up, I think I’ll try for a legitimate Deity win against some terrible AIs with no restrictions -- and no tech trading.
Screenshots will come later today as will a starting save.