The Community Deity Game #15 - American

beetle

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Welcome to the fifteenth installment in the Community Deity Game series!
CDG 15 - Washington’s Memorial Day World Police
We aim to post an interesting challenge at the beginning and middle of each month. We try for a variety of starts and difficulties. There is a suggested Victory Condition and a list of Achievements for each map.

Please see the CDG Series Discussion Thread to express yourself if you have remarks and ideas. Some maps use mods. Please note that maps you wish to share must have the DLC map packs disabled, so those who do not have them can enjoy the challenge. To do this, you go into the DLC option from the Main Menu and untick the options for ‘Explorers Map Pack’, ‘Scrambled Nations’, and ‘Scrambled Continents’. You will need to do this every time you start a new game; or you might just simply delete the map packs from your computer.

When posting about your victory, please begin the post with the turn number, victory condition, and achievement points in bold text, e.g. “T247 DiploV, 10 points”. This is so the kind volunteer who updates the finishers spreadsheet can see it more easily.

Also please provide a screenshot of your victory turn, and maybe more related to the achievements and keys point in the game -- because it’s fun to read for all of us! Restart and reload as you like, but in your write-up (does not have to be long) please describe the challenges you faced.

We welcome all comments and questions, but please use the SPOILER tag if you post a picture, make a comment about which civs are in the game, about natural wonders, locations of ancient ruins, terrain features, luxes, resources, etc. In short, if it’s information you can only know by playing the game, don’t spoil it for others by divulging this information in the open. Thank you for your co-operation, and have fun!

Spoiler UA and UU :
In this game, you will be playing as Washington of America, you possess Manifest Destiny: your land units have the Sentry promotion and you may purchase tiles at a discount.

You can train the Minute Man, which replaces the Musket but has the rough terrain promotion, pays only one move per tile like a Scout, and earns points towards a Golden Age for each kill. It retains its abilities when upgraded.

You can also train the B52, which replaces the Bomber. The B52 starts with City Attack I and Evasion. With just an Armory, you can add City Attack II and Air Repair.

Spoiler map type and settings :
Standard size, standard speed, standard number of civs and CS. Map type is Mesopotamia. Map was not altered.
Spoiler hints about this map type :
Lots of tiles as compared to Pangea. Does not wrap. No Natural Wonders. Terrain features are always the same, but luxes and resources vary. Land is mostly flat.

Spoiler hints about which AIs you might encounter :
Opponents are hand selected and fit the map theme.

Spoiler difficulty :
Medium. Diplo is cheese, right? Good luck!

Spoiler starting location :

Suggested Victory Condition: Diplomacy
Spoiler achievements :
  • Close out Liberty, run Freedom: 1 point each.
  • Broadway, Cristo Redentor, and Atomic+ Era wonders: 1 point each for building (bulbs okay, 0 points for capture).
  • Your World Ideology and World Religion passed: 1 point each.
  • Win International Games and build ISS: 1 point each.
  • Complete Apollo and Manhattan projects: 1 point each.
  • 1 point for winning WL vote (i.e., DiploVC). 1 extra point if it is the first WL vote. 1 additional point if you win WL vote before T300. 3 points available.
  • Penalty: Each civ killed (and not recalled) after WC convenes: minus 1 point each.
Quick combat and movement are off (which is the default, turn them on if you like).
Game Version - 1.0.3.279
Downloadable Content includes: Wonders of the Ancient World DLC. Gods and Kings expansion, Brave New World Expansion. The map packs are intentionally excluded.

Before you download the map, please take a moment to speculate here in this thread on your initials thoughts plans for the game. Will you settle in place? What are your plans for getting the most from the UA and the UU?

Spoiler links to previous games in CDG series :
CDG1: Persia, Oct 31st, 2015, domination, Pangea, hard, map by Consentient
CDG2: Assyria, Nov. 15th, 2015, science, Pangaea, medium, map by Consentient.
CDG3: Ethiopia, Dec. 2nd, 2015, culture, NQ Pangaea, hard, map by Consentient.
CDG4: Spain, Dec. 17th, 2015, domination, NQ Pangaea, medium, map by Consentient.
CDG5: Indonesia, Jan. 2nd, 2016, culture, NQ Continents, hard, map by Consentient.
CDG6: Zulus, Jan. 15th, 2016, domination, Oval, easy, map by Consentient.
CDG7: Shoshone, Feb. 2nd, 2016, culture, Oval, very easy, map Created by Enslingkorp.
CDG8: Austria, Feb. 15th, 2016, science, Pangaea, very easy, map by IronfighterXXX.
CDG9: Brazil, Feb. 28th, 2016, culture, Pangaea, medium, map by Blatc.
CDG10: Denmark, March 14th, 2016, domination, Lakes, hard, map by Beetle.
CDG11: Venice, April 1st, 2016, domination, Archipelago, very easy, map by Wild_Woojsha.
CDG12: Byzantium, April 15th, 2016, domination, Continents, very hard, map by Beetle.
CDG13: Inca, April 30th, 2016, culture, Pangaea, medium, map by Shark Diver.
CDG14: Celts, May 18th, 2015, domination or culture, Oval, hard, map by Consentient.
CDG15: America, May 30th, 2016, diplomacy, Mesopotamia, medium, map by Beetle.
 

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My initial thoughts for the game is to go to war with Cannons and Muskets, as per the war of Independence, and then hopefully, given the size, war all the way through to B29s and Infantry, although it might end with Artillery as it sometimes does.

Sorry, but I don't wanna go Diplo as this civ is built for war :)

But you know I'm not on the leaderboard anyway :D
 
Sorry, but I don't wanna go Diplo as this civ is built for war
Well, it is only a suggestion! The idea from the discussion thread was to play them against type. Agreed, all their uniques are for war. OTOH, the first DiploVC in the series!

Did you finish the Shoshone game?
 
Yeah I do seem to remember this map type is rather stingy on hammers.

Also, there seems to be a bit of backlog in the finishers spreadsheet, I'll sort that out at the first opportunity
 
Well, it is only a suggestion! The idea from the discussion thread was to play them against type. Agreed, all their uniques are for war. OTOH, the first DiploVC in the series!

Did you finish the Shoshone game?

Having played to T80 I might stick with Diplo after all. I've easily allied all the CS I've met by building mainly units and doing all the quests.

Not finished the Shoshone game. Got distracted by others. Might go back to it one day.

Where are the hammers?

Make a Republic. It helps a fair bit. Plus, I don't know how many cities you're planning to settle or how far from the starting location, but I found 3 locations with a fair few hammers, though Nige is right that they don't have as much food.
 
I'm going to assume you'll be going very wide and food is not exactly a priority in that kind of setup?
 
Where are the hammers?

Yeah I do seem to remember this map type is rather stingy on hammers.

I will add that detail to OP. This is the same map type we had in the Assyrian DCL. Starting location is quite similar, which I was sorry about. But it was a much better start than I had with two games I played before going with this one.
 
I'm going to assume you'll be going very wide and food is not exactly a priority in that kind of setup?

I settled 7 cities before a late-ish NC. No worker steals, but plenty of rescues from camps, and I flew through Liberty in record time because of all the cultural CS.

I don't think this map is really set up for Domination. It's just too big to finish it with Muskets and Cannons and I really like to get the job done before Modern wherever possible. The other option is to build a million roads in advance and see if it helps speed up the sweep. Literally spend the whole Medieval and early Renaissance building roads to each AI.
 
Sadly, before even I could reach Gunpowder, the game became unplayable, I think due to the size of the map and the number of units the game had to parse. The error was that I would click on my city...5 secs...then I would click on the citizen to adjust them...5 secs and nothing happened...click again...nothing...nothing...

So although I think I played my very best and could have gotten Gunpowder in pretty decent time, I won't be able to continue this challenge. The map is just too big for my feeble computer.
 
Spoiler :

As noted before, the land either has a lot of food and no hammers, or a lot of hammers and no food, so it's hard to get a good balance. I ended up buying many hill tiles using UA that helped. Washington settled on the coast for possible cargo ships and clearly no wonders in this game. Also I wanted liberty for more hammers, so 6 liberty NC, then total 11 cities due to lots of land. That was interrupted by Babylon who captured Kuala Lumpur then started coveting my land. Eventually he marched army towards Washington and I was able to repel the attack easily due to the terrain. Later I liberated the CS. Meanwhile Assyria captured Monaco and also covet my land, but I was able to bribe them to attack Babylon along with Ottomans and both had the we fought in same war modifier and I will be safe until Ideologies.

Didn't do any renaissance wars with UU, since my cities are way behind in infrastructure and it's better to rush to later era. I took Piety for the faster faith and reformation for buying great people and that provided enough GS/GE to do everything. Meanwhile I converted Persia, Assyria to my religion easily due to their city spam with my extra range. Hammer problem finally fixed after factory + hydro plant. I also won WF easily due to many cities and AI busy fighting.

Eventually Theodora picked Freedom with me, and most others had Order. Eventually their happiness were so bad due to me not trading any lux to non Freedom AI and due to tourism for both of us, so I forced both Persia and Arabia to convert to Freedom. Probably eventually everyone will go Freedom as both Assyria and Ottomans had massive negative happiness after my invasion. I liberated Monaco from Assyria, Ottomans to recapture the citadel bombed tiles and capture Notre Dame. Both wars were trivial due to their non existent tech and my stealth bomber + minuteman upgraded mechanized infantry. It's pretty silly watching Ottoman try to take my coastal city with trieme, privateers and frigates. Later turns were too slow and I had to play in strategic mode.

WC:
WF (pass) + embargo Assyria (fail)
world religion (pass) + wonder culture (pass)
(world enter Atomic era when I bulbed Satellites)
world ideology (pass) + ban pearl (fail)
1st WL vote (fail)
ISS (pass) + IG (pass)
2nd WL vote (won)


A. Close out Liberty, run Freedom: 1 point each.
Done, 2 points, liberty GE used for SoL.

B. Broadway, Cristo Redentor, and Atomic+ Era wonders: 1 point each for building (bulbs okay, 0 points for capture).
Built Broadway, Cristo Redentor, Pentagon, Sydney Opera House, CN Tower, Hubble (GE rushed), Great Firewall (GE rushed) 7 points
Also built every modern+ era wonders except different ideology and Neuschwanstein.

C. Your World Ideology and World Religion passed: 1 point each.
Passed both, 2 points, world religion on the same vote as world wonder culture, so it's easy to pass as AI love the other one and I had converted at least 3 AI. World ideology was more difficult and I had to rush information era through Satellites to get more votes due to only 1 Freedom Theodora.

D. Win International Games and build ISS: 1 point each.
Won both, 2 points. Actually I proposed ISS immediately after rushing info era, Arabia proposed IG, so both happened on the same vote. Passed both and I rush nuclear/solar plants everywhere and pumped out my max hammers. I was able to win both by splitting production and keeping AI in war. In the end I also invaded Ottomans quickly to cut down their hammers but it wasn't really needed, except they were pissing me off my citadel bombing.

E. Complete Apollo and Manhattan projects: 1 point each.
Done, 2 points

F. 1 point for winning WL vote (i.e., DiploVC). 1 extra point if it is the first WL vote. 1 additional point if you win WL vote before T300. 3 points available.
Won WL but on 2nd vote, also won before 300. 2 points
In hindsight I could've delayed Satellites by 1-2 turns and delayed the first WL vote by a cycle since I probably can pass world ideology without entering info era. That would allow me to win on the 1st WL vote.

G. Penalty: Each civ killed (and not recalled) after WC convenes: minus 1 point each.
No points lost. Egypt, Babylon done to 1 city. Babylon is pretty safe since their city is next to mine, but Egypt might fall if their war continues.

17 points total


Spoiler :
 
Spoiler :
I am kind of disappointed in my play for this game. Prior to the game, I tested for a way to pass ISS and get the first WL vote just after. I initially thought that both achievements were mutually exclusive, but I found a way to get both. However, my game didn't go as planned and was not able to put this strategy into practice. In my game, Assyria also researched Printing Press just 2 turns before me and founded the WC. AIs are usually bad at scouting that type of map so I was confident I could found the WC for this game. So I went Printing Press before Banking (FP). I stole Banking from Constantinople and quickly started FP after. However, Arabia also went Patronage and finished FP just a few turns before me. Strangely enough, I however got LToP and many AIs were pissed at me for building it. Egypt eventually became Hostile toward me just for building LToP and stealing CSes from him. In most Diety games, not getting FP and not founding the WC is not that important to still have control of the WC for the second vote, because once the congress reaches the Industrial era, the format changes and CSes are taken into account for delegate votes. However, on this map the AIs were so slow that not enough reached the Industrial era in time for the format to change. The end result was that I lost control of the WC for the 2nd vote which kind of ruined my game. After that, I sort of lost interest in it and went through the motions. Also, with three post-Radio proposals needed for the achievements you either need to reach Radio ultra fast (in time for 2nd proposal) or get lucky and have an AI propose one of them for you (or delay needlessly you game for ~20 turns).

WC
1st: Passed WF
2nd: Lost control, dumb AI proposals
3rd: World Ideology passed
4th: World Religion passed
5th: first WL vote won

I went for Liberty with a 8-city NC. I only settled one other city after to get all workshops in time to get Ironworks before LToP. In most of my recent games, I went Liberty and built workshops before universities and it worked quite well and fast. However, on this terrain with such poor early production, I am quite sure it is strictly a worse choice. I had a really slow beginning, but most AIs were also slower than usual. I was also overrun by barbarians early on (four proxy camps) and diverted one policy to the honor opener. I also rush bought one warrior and went to town against barbarians. This helped me to get allied easily with multiple CSes including multiple cultural ones. However, even with tons of barb kills farming culture and multiple allied cultural CSes, I finished Liberty T89 which is a bit later than usual running only Liberty in a normal game. So even under this near ideal scenario, also opening Honor delayed the Liberty policy tree. I don't think I will consider this option anymore unless raging barb is on and I decide to farm a camp for culture. Getting notification for new barb camps all game was however useful here with lots of empty unoccupied space.

Overall, the whole game was pretty much uneventful. Babylon built the GW and was in a sandwich war with Ottomans and Assyria for a large portion of the game. I don't think Suleiman ever made peace with Neb the whole game. I don't understand how a 30+ city Ottoman empire couldn't take more than 1 or maybe 2 cities from a 4-6 city Babylonian empire in 150+ turns of war. Babylon was never captured, but I noticed at some point in the game that it was down at 6 pop. Maybe it got starved to death, weird. Byzantium DoW'd me late game (backstab) after I proposed Protestantism as World Religion. She was joined not much later by Egypt. Zurich was taken by Assyria, Sofia by the Ottomans and Belgrade by Assyria. Also including liberating CSes (in addition of civs) for the last achievement could maybe have made the end of the game more interesting.

Civ5Screen0004.jpgCiv5Screen0005.jpg

Achievements
  • Close out Liberty, run Freedom (2 points)
  • Broadway, Cristo Redentor, and Atomic+ Era wonders (7 points)
  • Your World Ideology and World Religion passed (2 points)
  • Win International Games and build ISS (0 point)
  • Complete Apollo and Manhattan projects (2 points)
  • 1 point for winning WL vote (i.e., DiploVC). 1 extra point if it is the first WL vote. 1 additional point if you win WL vote before T300 (3 points)
  • Penalty: Each civ killed (and not recalled) after WC convenes (none)
 
FWIW, I am having a fairly miserable time with this map...
Tip if you haven't started this game yet
Prompted by your tip, I took a look at what did with Assyrian DCL game that used this map script.
TLDR: 4 city tradition >> wide liberty

Lots of complaints there that seem applicable to this game!

At least the UA works well for ruins -- and all the space.
 
Only good thing about this map is most AI will ICS, so you can easily get many cities up without the harsh expanding penalty. Although in my game the AI ate up CS and starts to covet my land and eventually DoW anyway.
 
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