The Deity Challenge Line-up #37 - France

I love the terrain. So many horses that every city had a circus. I was going four city tradition, but ended up grabbing a fifth city near the ruins of one of Indo's expos. Suleiman was a real Istan-bull. First Gajah got Sulei-stomped. Then Maria was Otto-slapped. Finally, it was my turn.

Have been at war with Indonesia ever since Suleiman asked me to go to war with him and I wanted him to be my friend for a lux sale. When I get musketeers and maybe trebuchets, I will try to take Jakarta. I may well stop there and try to win CV/SV but domination is always on the cards.

I delayed NC so I could build Petra, as my scouting showed no skeletons. Was surprised that Monty wasn't building it but I guess he was making units to go after Darius.

Interesting map. I broke the habit of a lifetime by not taking Gandhi out with CBs but wanted to play a bit more peacefully than normal, and try out Tradition.

Taking Jakarta was tough due to its high defence and the Ottomans getting in the way. I'm not sure if it was even worth it. I might be too far off the peaceful tech path, but either way I'm bored of war in this game and am gonna push for SV/Diplo.

Settle Paris to the SW of start next to the mountain to try for petra but India beat me to it. Got DF for pantheon, founded Catholic church with tithe, +growth if peace, +culture to temples.

Stole workers from India and Valletta. Later when Ottomans attacked Indonesia, DoW Indonesia and stole a few more workers while he's busy fighting.
4 city NC, settle 3 more cities to fill the void left by the now eliminated Indonesia, grabbing salt in the process.

Ottomans weren't happy about me grabbing land, so I bribed him to go after Portugal, then Shoshone when Maria was eliminated. Signed DoF with India and Persia. Wonders were gone sooner than usual so I aimed for modern era asap after getting archaeology. The world was hostile to each other so combined with arts funding, their science was very slow.

Oxford Radio rather late for ideology as I didn't want to deal with pressure from autocracy/order which were both gone very early. India went freedom even later than me so it was fine and I still got 2 free tenets. Used a GE to rush Eiffel mainly for the happy boost then worked on Broadway and Louvre. Didn't bother with SoL since India usually beeline for it and he did. Since I have negligible early tourism until my museums / Louvre comes on line, exchanged OB with India to help me with pressure.

Lost IG to ottoman by about 400 hammers, his empire was simply too large despite he's at war with at least 2 civs (his giant empire was partly my fault). Proposed world religion to help speed it up but next vote was too late.

Enough faith to buy 3 GM and with 1 natural GM for concert tour. But only 3 were needed for Persia, India and Aztecs. Ottoman has poor culture despite a massive empire, and Shoshone was eliminated a few turns prior.

One interesting thing is Ottomans actually eliminated Indonesia who has founded a religion. And they probably captured one of their GPr and founded their own religion also in Jakarta. The passive pressure from many cities caused some problem as my frontier cities were very close to Jakarta.

This is second attempt(without reload) on this DCL as the first attempt lose 1 turn Oracle and ragequit.

But second attempt is even worst, the Tourism wonder I secure is Lourve and CN Tower only.

Anyway, still able win with freedom SV(buy all the part)
This game will be a lot harder without Ottoman and Aztec create chaos(cheap bribe - with only 1 luxury or few horse).

few mistake I conclude,
1. should realise early I can't win CV as lose too many tourism world wonder and 6 of 7 AI take Aesthetics (except Ottoman)
2. should bult scientist early as i still not tech leader where near end game.
3. not handle relationship well with AI
4. not use Spy efficiency
5. still not clear about how tech and build to win CV (most previous low diff win is DomV or DiploV)

For picture I attached, taking Jakarta as Ottoman declare war on me and I just take from me where he busy attacking those pity city state ally

Sorry if you can't understand what I wrote as English is not my native language.

Decided to go 3 cities liberty, haven't play in this way for ages; maybe I forget how to play, but liberty seems so weak -
I could have my second settler earlier if I hard build it; built first anyway before discount.

Funny thing -if I was with my spearman one turn earlier near Indonesia cap I could capture it with only spearman (reduced almost to zero health by Ottomans).

Anyway I plan similar to Manpanze to capture Indonesia and Ottomans caps with CBs and rest with XBs, maybe with help of musketeers

I had a lot of difficulty getting anywhere against Indonesia, which is extremely discouraging when you've totally neglected NC in order to spam CompBows. Fortunately-ish, Suleiman eventually decided to DOW Indonesia, and things suddenly became very easy. The bad part is that I wasn't able to get a city capture unit to Jakarta in time, and the Ottomans took it first. I immediately made peace with Indonesia and DOWed Suleiman before the city could bombard/recover its health. Taking the city was pretty easy at that point, but the double capture razed it thoroughly and there aren't as many buildings left as I'd like. Still annexed, though.

Science is slow, as expected. I will get Machinery around T110, which is acceptable. I think I made a mistake with my settling. Should've planted a fourth city somewhere near India in order to unlock some +science trade routes. In any case, I do have a ton of units and enough gold to upgrade double-digit Crossbows. I'm starting to get some level 3 guys, and I think these armies should be enough to take down the east side of the map. War with Gandhi and progress to the west will have to wait 30 turns for a DoF to end.

Another discouraging thing that happened was Shoshone building the Great Wall. With their huge borders, plowing through that is going to be very tough. This probably necessitates a change in plan. I considered biting the bullet and slow-teching all the way to Artillery, which would probably work but would be no fun. However, I think I figured out a better way. The Shoshone capital is on the coast, which means I could potentially disregard Great Wall and take their cap from the sea. This option is helped out by the fact that Portugal is in the game -- they seem to always beeline Navigation, so I should be able to steal that in reasonable time. I think ending with Frigates will be the way to go, but I'll need to get at least one more coastal city in order to make that a viable plan.

So far everything went according to plan - conquered Jakarta and Istanbul with CBs.

Now I'm gathering cash for upgrade two armies to XBs; first will take Portugal and Shoshone; second India and Persia; hopefully both will merge destroying Montezuma

I must say that inland sea map, otherwise than I thought before, is not really much more domination friendly than standard pangea.

Anyway I just conquered Delhi and Lisbon and now it's time for Persia and Shoshone.

However Shoshone has tradition, big land, great wall and already gunpowder, so
gonna wait ~10 turns for my gunpowder.

Also I have to conquer Braga now, to get better access to Shoshone land.