I lost my first attempt at a DCL game, on the Spain map, which was my first Deity attempt. So I decided I would try the previous Aztec map. I’d read the thread a while ago, which theoretically would give me an unfair advantage, but the reality is I don’t remember a thing, so I am going in pretty much blind. I will try and turtle for a science victory.
I settle in place. Like the mountain and river, less thrilled about jungle. Its theoretically powerful, so maybe I’ll actually be able to utilize it.
Build Jags instead of scouts. We’ll see where that takes us.
Pop a few ruins. I love culture ruins, maybe only second to faith ruins. I think its because I have a hard time multiplying faith and culture. Gold I get loads of, pop I can grow.
Meet Wu. I suspect I will be fighting her at some point in the future. That future is now, as I grab a worker from Shanghai (shanghaied!). Peace comes soon, though.
Old faithful is like my least favorite natural wonder. Its… yawn inducing (in the game. I rather like Yellowstone, in real life. I think I ate bison for a whole week. I like bison.) Get me a faith wonder, I resent building faith buildings.
Barbarians are everywhere. I want to settle Southeast on a hill in range of truffles (popular among pigs and French people) and dye and cotton, but there is a camp that keeps building stuff. The Jags are not quite up to going toe to toe with the axe throwers. I’ll need to kill them. The culture for kills is pretty helpful. I rather like the Aztec abilities.
Instead of tussling with the barbarians in the southeast, I am going to settle in the desert to the South. I’ll try and get Petra there, maybe.
I settle in the desert on turn 35. Problem, a barb camp spawned nearby guarded by axe guy, and I am having a devil of a time repelling them, and I have to get the area ready for wonder production by mining everywhere. Need archers to deal with this situation.
Turn 46 I settle my third city on the truffles/cotton site. Probably will be the front line for a future war with China. I’ll get around to fortifying some time.
I’ve only managed to steal one worker from my worker farm. I am going to have to build workers. I was trying to grab stuff from Antwerp, but honestly all the places look kind of iffy in terms of terrain. I might not have an eye for this yet.
Lose Petra on turn 84, with three turns left. I’m not surprised, I know Indonesia has a desert start, and get desert folklore. Oh well, the city should be fine.
I hit education at 116, so I am lagging here.
Turn 133, I built my HC in my desert expo. About three turns later I realize that the observatory mountains and the jungle is in my capital. Its like I don’t know how to play at all. Following the loss of Petra and this giant error, I contemplate quitting. This type of failure is aesthetically displeasing. I resign myself to having lost another game, but I play on.
I Dof William, and he seems friendly enough. He then settles a bunch of cities right next to mine, but its all on crappy land. Still, if he attacks I am in trouble. Everyone is taking turns attacking Poland. I decide to bandwagon in spirit, and denounce him. He declares war on me two turns later, along with the Maya. That was unexpected. Hopefully my mouth isn’t writing checks that my body can’t cash. Still, he is fighting everyone, so I am not that worried. China is still my primary concern.
The mayans settle a city to the south of the desert. Uh oh. Still, they are fighting the Netherlands, so I give the open borders to William, and he sends an army through my lands and takes the city. The Poland Maya war against me simply won’t end, but there isn’t much too it. A musketman appears, pillages my cotton, and then decides the best way to continue the attack is to take a boat. An ancient caravel that I had lying around sends him to the bottom. A polish fleet shows up, and it could be trouble. I think some ships can capture cities. Battleship bombards my swordsman, killing him. I pay China to attack Poland. Two turns later, Poland offers peace, and the fleet sails away. Fine.
Netherlands are fighting China, which is ideal. They are generally the front runners, and I try to keep that going.
Ideologies appear. I’m the third to ideologies (no coal), and for a science victory that isn’t good. Still, I’m encouraged by Netherlands taking Freedom. I decide I will take that, and try and get culturally dominated by him. I open borders. My culture is always weak, and I end up with negative from China, who went order. I am the first influenced culture, by China. Great. Things are not looking up in the tech race at this time.
I pop my scientists for satellite, and complete Apollo and Hubble on turn 266. I have built big ben, and plan on space procurement. My culture is weak, and won’t have that for a while. That doesn’t matter, because my science is weak, too, and its going to take a while to get the necessary techs. I plan on a mix of hard building a few and buying a few. Every hard built part is on a railway leading to my capital, under heavy guard by military units. I am paranoid that the computer will sense I am about to win if I actually attach the units, so they idle outside. Hopefully, they aren’t killed by a sudden attack.
Poland and Maya declare war again. A few turns later, Poland dies as Arabia takes all his cities.
The sciencing and building take forever. It will be turn 313 before I finally get particle physics. I only have faith to purchase one GS. My science is stuck around 760, so each bulb is pretty weak. Williams has built all the parts except one. There is definitely room for failure, but it doesn’t look like he quite has the tech for that last piece.
I finally get particle physics, with all my cities building science. ISS is proposed, but too late, suckers! I launch on 314. Flawless strategy, indeed.
Deity seems pretty forgiving for science victories. I played MUCH worse then my first attempt, on a harder map, and still got the win. I’m still bad at culture and science simultaneously, and faith generation was abysmal. Lots of stuff to work on. My cities are only in the low thirties and high twenties, after 300+ turns. I think in general I have happiness problems from around turn 100 to 250. There are way too many times I am preventing growth because my happiness is at 0. I need to figure that out so I can keep the growth up.
Other points, looking at my notes: I like Aztecs. The lake thing seems somewhat useful (I feel I often run into lakes, and if I don't, fine) and the culture for killing units is nice. If I hadn't focused on a science victory, honor seems like it would be really cool.
In general, I was terrified of combat at Deity level, but I've managed to stay out of wars to a greater extent than I though possible. I love bribing civs to attack each other, and I think that may be helping. The enemies that leak through I've been able to deal with. I also put a huge emphasis on building gold buildings, so I generally have upgraded units, though only a handful. I think that helps. Anyway, I'm curious as to what would happen if I was in a real throwdown. I imagine it wouldn't look pretty for me.
Had one Solar Plant.
) would have saved maybe a dozen turns or so but even this way i couldn't hope to go below T260ish
. This time a little bit better then the last and on the first try as well.
