DMOC's DEITY Game #1 - Gandhi

After Egypt was defeated (see last round), I continued my warring ways and declared war on Korea. Wonsan, a nice floodplain city, was the first settlement to fall.



While this was going on, I was able to found Mining Incorporated in Memphis, my Wall Street city. (Yes, it's only 1505 AD ...) This is what happens when deity forces the technology rate to increase.



Pretty soon, I got the Great Person necessary for my other favorite corporation. Time for a Mining Inc. + Sid's Sushi combination!



To increase the output of Mining Inc., I made a trade with Cyrus.



Meanwhile, while my homeland modernized itself, the army continued to meet success. The combination of cannons and riflemen is a very effective one in the Renaissance on epic speed. On normal speed, cavalry are probably better, although they're best paired with planes (if possible) which take a while to research.



I attacked first with a suicide cannon aimed to weaken the stack. To my surprise (and delight!), the first cannon won at 2 percent odds!



Honestly, because of how long it's been since I played, I didn't even know I was about to get Broadway. With the Broadway wonder in my hands, I was able to make more lucrative trades with the overseas civilizations in order to strengthen Mining Inc. and Sid's Sushi. Initially, Sid's Sushi only yielded 1 food for the city it was in; by the time the game ended, Sid's Sushi was providing 5-6 food per city.



My army continued to advance in the heart of Korea. I decided that, in order to finish the war in the most timely manner possible, it would be prudent to split my stack. One stack would go and capture P'yongyang, while the second would go south to capture Namp'o.



A couple of turns later, my stacks were at their respective cities ... and they attacked ... and ...





Namp'o barely survived with one grenadier at 0.2 health! At least I would take the city the following turn ...

Thankfully, the conquest of P'yongyang succeeded as expected (and I got my second religious shrine!). I attacked with my cannons first (all promoted to City Raider as usual) followed by my rifles. This resulted in a serious cannon shortage later on, which forced me to wait until more reached the battle front.







Further scouting by my airship revealed that Korea was running out of gas.



While this was happening, I noticed something weird. Does the AI take into account corporations when trading resources? Because I have almost never seen an AI refuse a trade like this. It's as if Saladin knows that crabs will strengthen Sid's Sushi.



Anyway, my stack was about to capture Pusan, a nice prize. It's value is mostly that it releives cultural pressur over several cities.



So ... Korea was about to be eradicated by the Indians. But was India falling too far behind??? Keep reading the next post to find out what happened!

[To be continued in the next post]

As I mentioned before, I had a little shortage of siege weapons, so my army rested in P'yongyang (which had the dual effect of reducing the revolt percentage as well!) while cannons arrived through Cyrus' territory. Persia had more railroads than India.

Here is the rest of Korea. It's not much, but I do NOT want to keep Wang alive.



I finished Fission, hoping to use it as trade bait. Only Wang Kon (go figure) finished Fission before me. Unfortunately, trade opportunities were a bit lacking. Honestly, it probably would have been better if I had just researched straight to Industrialism rather than Fusion.



At least I was able to a Fission - Artillery trade with Salain (who, by the way, is an absolute beast this game). I decided that if I had a shortage of siege, I would just have more powerful siege instead. Artilleries are a nice jump from cannons.



On the other continent, Ethiopia was finally turning the tide of the war. This was the second war between Ethiopia and Zululand, the first of which was instigated before I made contact with them.



Here is a classic case of an AI overvaluing a resource. Thank you Zara for helping me increase the size of my cities!



Suddenly, out of nowhere, this appeared:



Okay, so I'm going to have to do something about Saladin. He could easily get a diplomatic victory since Zara and Shaka were both friendly at him at some point (and probably are). Even Cyrus is pleased with him!

As time went on, Saladin added more wonders to his arsenal. The Three Gorges Dam (a truly dangerous wonder if a powerful AI gets it in his hands) was built in Arabia, as well as Hollywood.



Seeing Saladin's huge advances, I hastily finished up my war.



I also finished Indistrialism. Unfortunately, it was a bit too late for tanks to help me out. I ended up building one tank (from Delhi, my Ironworks city), and that's it. Industrialism also revealed that I had a secure source of aluminum, so that was nothing to worry about.

http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj197/DMOC_album/Civ4ScreenShot0134-4.jpg?t=1265499134

With Industrialism "cleared," it was now time for Rocketry, which would enable me to build the Apollo Program.



Wang Kon's second-to-last city falls to India. The end is nearing for Korea. And if you've noticed, I upgraded some old cannons to artillery and riflemen to infantry.



I attempted to use this trade to get Flight in my hands, as well as have Zara incur a -1 diplomacy with Saladin, because Saladin happens to like Wang Kon.



Meanwhile, Rocketry was finished before 1700 AD (very similar to real life, right?) and I soon began the Apollo Program in Delhi. In all seriousness, though, I was quite proud at the date, as this is easily the earliest I've been able to start Apollo Program on a standard map.



Wang Kon's last city.





As Sisiutil would say, someone stick a fork in 'im becuase Wang Kon is done!

Unfortunately ...



Shaka vassaled to Saladin! Saldin's just getting bigger and nastier with every turn. Will there be a way for India to stop him???

Stay tuned!

[To be continued in the next post]

After Rocketry and Refrigeration, I researched Superconductors. This would let me get laboratories all over my empire.

For reference, my tech path was: Fission -> Assembly Line -> Industrialism -> Rocketry -> Refrigeration -> Superconductors -> Plastics (partly by trade) -> Radio -> Satellites -> Computers -> Fiber Optics -> Fusion -> Genetics -> Ecology -> Bunch of random stuff.



After the war with Korea was over, I signed a Defensive Pact with Cyrus. It's really nice how Cyrus signs them at pleased. Unfortunately, he's at WFYABTA so I can't trade techs with him until he's friendly. I was hoping that the diplomatic points from the defensive pact, along with this demand, would bump him to friendly. Unfortunately, I fell short, as Cyrus remained pleased even after I acquiesced to his demand.



As I mentioned before, after Superconductors, I researched Plastics because I wanted to get access to more modern techs (that, and also that Saladin hadn't build the internet yet). I researched part of the technology, then did a trade with Saladin since the AI devaluates techs if you partially research them. Yeah yeah you can tell me not to trade with the most powerful AI (and giving him a space race tech!) but I had my reasons. At least, I hope it works out.



After I finished Radio and began researching Satellites, I got two different Great People. It was time for a Golden Age! This is why I like to save Golden Ages until the late game, because you get so much more out of them than earlier in the game. (And as you can see, Memphis was busy with executives spreading around its two corporations - by the end of the game, every city of mine had Sid's Sushi and about half had Mining Inc.)



As I blazed through the tech tree, I noticed something that I thought was unthinkable earlier in the game. Look at the tech I chose to research:



And take a look at the technology that Saladin's researching in the bottom right corner. That's right - he's researching Fiber Optics! What's not included in this screenshot is that Saladin knows every single technology other than Fiber Optics and Fusion! (And, of course, he completed the Internet, so there was no chance for me to catch up to him any time soon.) His failure to beeline to Fusion means that I will get the free Great Engineer! To compare my technology situation to Saladin's, look at all the possible techs I can research in the top of the screen in the last shot.

I got my prize soon:



At the same time ... my network of spies arrived at Arabia:



So it was this... The exciting and climatic space race would soon come to an end. Who would emerge out as the victor - Arabia, or India? Would Arabia win as expected, or did India have some tricks up its sleeves?



[To be continued in the next post]

After I researched Fusion, I scrambled to get the rest of my techs done: Genetics and Ecology (the final space race technology). I was aided by my second late-game golden age with a Great Spy, a Great Scientist, and a Great Engineer from Fusion. The funny thing is, for every space race that I've done in my history of Civ4, I think Ecology has always been my final tech needed. I guess my style of rushing to Fusion leaves Ecology by itself for the end.



Saladin, meanwhile, was light-years (well, almost ) ahead of me in space race parts. In order to cut him back a bit, I had to resort to some espionage. I had been keeping my espionage on Saladin since the 1500s in order to do so. Still, I only had enough points to destroy 1 part, maybe 2 if I was lucky. For some reason, Saladin put an INCREDIBLE amount of points on me for the duration of the game.

An interesting fact about this game is that Saladin completed the Apollo Program in 1500 AD. I assume for Beyond the Sword, that is very early.

The SS Docking Bay is the most expensive Space Race part requried, so I opted to have my spies destroy it. One nice thing I like in Beyond the Sword is that spies can destroy COMPLETED space parts!



Success! I succeeded in destroying his Docking Bay! Not only that, but I was ALSO able to destroy one of Saladin's Space Engines a few turns later! But I had to hurry, because it was only a matter of time before Saladin would complete the last few parts before launching. It's a deity AI after all.



2-3 parts left for Saladin ... so tense ....

...

I quickly got my last few space race parts together. I had every single part required, so I would have 15 turns left to win. Delhi had the biggest task, which was to build 2 straight Space Engines. Thankfully, my 400-ish hammer-per-turn IronWorks city handled the task remarkably well. Due to this, and Seoul (the captured Korean city which was a very nice production city), I launched in 1794 AD.



But ... it was for naught.

The turn before that, Saladin launched. In 1792 AD. (I remember back when I was playing Noble difficulty, how I would discover Liberalism by 1800 AD. )



The spies performed their task in vain. Saladin rebuilt his docking bay and two engines and launched. After all this effort, after nearly five thousand, eight hundred years of effort ... and all that money and production put in spies ... Arabia had gotten the better of India ... Saladin had beat me ....

[To be continued in the next post.]

Before Saladin launched, he went into WHEOOHRN mode. He was cautious towards me. Shaka was his vassal, and Saladin was friendly with both Zara Yaqob and Cyrus. Time for me to defend myself.



It's kind of ironic how this city that flipped to me used to culturally pressure my own cities. It looks like deity AI's run out of steam in the late game.



Then ... the inevitable happened.



Saladin's ships appeared here:



But then suprised me as he landed his troops here!



To be fair, that was probably a smart move on his part. Move to one city to attract my defenses there, and then go and attack a northern city. Unfortunately, Saladin neglected to realize that this was the age of railroads, where distance means almost nothing to us.

Saladin's stack wasn't bad, but I had 38 mechanized infantry in the city to defend by then.



Thank God that my capital is being defended by the trusty warrior that I began the game with!

And then ... the time had come for Arabia's victory. I waited ... and waited ... and ...





WE WON!!! But ... how?

Let's look a few turns back:



Yes! Saladin neglected to rebuild one of his engines! Honestly, I had forgotten to check the space race screen so this came as a near surprise to me. His failure to do so meant that his ship would arrive in 18 turns, while mine arrived in 15 turns!

So the climatic space race is now finished. India wins a space race victory in 1824 AD. I hope you enjoyed reading this game. An "Aftermath" round will appear with various graphs and such in the next post.

Needless to say, this was the closest and most exciting space race I've ever had in Civ4. But in the end, India got the prize.



The original 4000 BC start:



GNP:



Production:



Power:



Demographics:



Top 5 Cities & Wonders



Final score:



My current hall of fame (missing my old Darius and Boudica games that I posted up here before, as well as many others due to my moving computers, etc.)



Any final thoughts are welcome.