The Community Deity Game #12 - Byzantium

Achievements
Spoiler :
  • Clear your continent with mostly only the UU (3 points)
  • Each cap conquered before Compass (3 points)
    Carthage
  • Each cap conquered before Navigation (2 points)
    Copenhagen
  • Each cap conquered before Electronics (5 points)
    Never researched Electronics
    London, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Kyoto, Gao
  • One point each for Reformation belief, completing Piety, and ending the game with your as World Religion in WC (3 points)
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  • One point for each rival Holy City converted at the end of the game (4 points)
    Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Kyoto, Gao
    (I had a little scare at the end when Askia moved an inquisitor out of nowhere 1 tile away from Gao)
  • End the game with your religion (by city count) as the plurality (1 point) or majority (2 points).
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Summary
Spoiler :
It took me a more than a week, but I did it! Just after playing my longest game in the Venice CDG, I beat this "personal record" again with an even longer game. As I mentioned before this was my third attempt at the map. That particular attempt started out pretty much half-assed as I didn't even steal a single worker. I was merely trying to go for more cities and see how it would go. As this game was stretched over a long period of time (1+ week) due to more limited playtime on my part, I don't remember everything. However, I clearly remember 4 "walls of resistance" that I had to break through to complete the game.

The first wall of resistance was obviously Dido. She offered DoF early on and when she refuse to renew it, it was obvious what she was planning. She wasn't even discreet about it showing multiple units. Reading other people summaries, it seems that blocking settlers from settling up North would have greatly helped. I will keep this in mind for future games. Dido DoW'd me T96. She was the military leader and I was 8th then, however I was on the verge of mass producing Dromons. With 1-2 Cataphracts and 3-4 Dromons with Bombardment promotions I was able to hold Constantinople. Dido even had an early knight which I presumed was obtained from an ancient ruin. Dido and me each had 5 cities.

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After crushing her land army from my defensive position, I quickly gained naval superiority with all my Dromons. There were some neat coastal chokepoints where you could park one Dromon (thus could only be attacked by one Quinquereme) and park two other Dromons behind it. Since three Dromons could one-shot a Quiquereme, rotating units at chokepoints was highly efficient and good for leveling up. I quickly took Gades after taking Carthage, thus eliminating Dido before meeting the Civs on the other side of the world.

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Thanks to Initiation Rites and Church Property, I was able to upgrade my 10 Dromons which had acquired Range to Galleass and went to town against Denmark which ended up being a push-over.

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The second wall of resistance was England. Liz was a MAJOR runaway in my game. She was first in every category (except maybe approval). Obviously, she also had by far the largest army before I DoW'd her. She also had 14 allied CS VERY early in the game and she wasn't allied with Sidon, only because I focused on its quests and gifted some money to 'steal' it from her. I had to send all my Trade Routes to Sidon. (I would also learn later that the other CS she wasn't allied with was Jerusalem which was allied with Songhai, more on that later). She sat on 10 cities with a mix of Tradition, Liberty and Patronage policies. London had 37 pop very early and she was 14 techs ahead of me before I engaged her. The only reason I crushed her was because the AI can't move and shoot on the same turn. SotL are very good, but what if you don't get to fire a single shot? since all my frigates had range. Again 3 was the magical number: 3 frigates to kill a SotL.

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By then my science was really lacking behind. I originally planned to tech to Frigates only, because after finishing the Venice CDG I wrongly assumed for some reason that all capitals would be coastal again. Anyway, what saved me was Jesuit Education, Secularism and that for some reason AIs seem to tech slower on water maps. I stole Scientific Theory and faith bought 6-8 Public Schools right away with my faith stockpile.

Next was Netherlands. William had a handful of Sea Beggars, but virtually no land units. Maybe the fact that he was all alone on his own continent gave him a false sense of security. My frigates crushed his naval army and artilleries took care of his cities. I offered peace just after he researched flight and one Great War Bomber showed up (which was just after I took Amsterdam).

Now comes the third wall of resistance which presents itself in a different form. In my game: Denmark, Netherlands, Songhai, Japan and myself founded a religion. I eradicated Danish Catholicism and all the cities on my half on the world followed my religion. However, Japan only had its Holy city following his religion and Askia converted his whole continent to his religion, had Pilgrimage as Founding Belief, was allied to Jerusalem and was even converting Netherlands' cities to his religion with mass Great Prophets. He had at least 35-40 cities following his religion by then (which was much more than mine). How did I overcome this? I first set foot on the last continent. Songhai (which was my buddy for a long time), Japan and me all had chosen Order and Ottoman Freedom. So I set a 3-front war against him. Suleiman had a lot of cities (mostly crappy ones) and his tech was behind (no Flight yet). My frigates took care of all his coastal cities which I razed since they where following the HERETIC religion of Islam. When I set foot with my ground units, he almost had none to fight with. I eliminated him completely thus eliminating any Ideology pressure I had. After razing Islamic cities, allying Jerusalem, pushing my now World Religion of Eastern Orthodoxy to the Netherlands (without opposition), capturing Islamic GP and keeping a lot of cities which generated faith, I eventually supplanted Islam which relied on the number of its following cities to generate faith through Pilgrimage.

The fourth wall of resistance was Japan which was now the tech leader. Oda had Flight, Electronics, Refrigeration and Plastics and thus Submarines, Battleships, Carriers and lots of Infantries. He sat on 3 tall Tradition cities most of the game and expanded through conquests. I had by then Ballistics and Combustion. I decided to wait for Combined Arms and Tanks which were 10 turns away since my land army was mainly consisting of Cavalries (some of which were early Cataphracts!). So it was for me one of the rare games where Tanks made a logical and strategical option since I wanted something with enough kick to take care of those Infantries. I also rush bought a lot of Anti Air Guns. I sent Japan on a wild goose chase and bribed him to DoW Songhai and England (which had settled the continent). To my surprise, he went 100% for it sending his Carriers, GWB, and Subs far away despite being Guarded. He took some cities and when I DoW'd him, he went into sub -20 happiness after loosing happiness from my luxuries. My tanks crushed his units easily.

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Songhai was lagging in tech and not a threat so I saved him for last. My policies were exactly those of glory7 except that I went Order to avoid Ideological pressure. Also my culture was a bit lackluster due to not getting Monasteries and delaying the Guilds a bit. I didn't use a single food trade route the whole game since early on I was cash and happiness strapped and later on my empire was too wide for it to be even worthwhile which might explain why I was so behind in science. I ended with 30 cities despite razing quite a lot of them. Overall, it was a challenging game for many reasons: poor dirt, some AIs getting really good starts, having to fight some UUs from other civs, etc. but it ended being a fun and unique game.

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Wow! Terrific job DanQ!

You exceeded the achievement points I thought available! I have adjusted OP.

By the way, did you hand-pick CS types? I haven't seen a game without any culture CS - and that made this map even more difficult.
Sorry for missing this question earlier. No, I did not pick the CS, and map was not altered in any way.

I think the theoretical max is actually 29 btw.
I love it that when I posted the map, I figured the feasible realistic maximum to be 17 points!

Does any the nearby CS need to be taken too then?
No, “clear the continent” only refers to any AI that had the impertinence to spawn in your land. I have added clarification to the OP.
 
During my game, I encountered two singular situations that I hope you will help me understand.

Spoiler :
The first one was meeting a Catholic GP from Denmark about 30 turns after I had completely wiped out Catholicism from the map. How can an AI spawn a GP of x religion when no cities are following x religion? Is "religion cheating" for AIs coded in the game? Unless Bluetooth walked his GP half way across the world and then decided to "come back home" for some reason, I don't see how it is possible.
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PS Could it be that Denmark spawned a natural GP near the founding city of Catholicism (Copenhagen) even if that city was under my control and converted to my religion? I don't think Denmark even had reached the Industrialization era at that point in my game.

Anyway, I decided to capture the GP to avoid the spread of Catholicism and get a free holy site. However, I got a nice surprise after DoWing.
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I rush bought a GW Bomber just in case for precautionary measures, but Bluetooth didn't even scratch any of my cities. He just walked his units around in my territory aimlessly. (But I did one-shot all his Trebuchets with my GWB).

The second situation was when I was considering attempting a coup in Almaty with my special agent spy. I was stupefied to find out that the coup probability was at 0% with only a 73 influence point gap. Are there factors outside of spy level and influence point gap that influence the success probability of a coup?
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All you or the AI needs to generate a GP is a source of faith. There don't have to be any cities following that religion. And if a civ has founded a religion (even if its holy city has been captured and purged with an inquisitor and no other cities follow its religion), any GP it spawns will always be of its religion.
 
As I posted earlier, after 3 failed attempts on this map, I was much more concerned with just posting a win than in trying to work the achievements or even the designated VC. I did want to go Domination, it just wasn't in the cards.

Storyline:
Spoiler :

Since I last left this story, my plan was to tech up and try for a later game DomV. I ended up 2nd to Ideologies and did go Freedom. Strangely, several of the AI's also went Freedom this game, so the Ideological issues I had in previous attempts weren't an issue. The biggest Ideological problem was Lizzy went Autocracy. Several other strong civs went Freedom (including Sully and Bill), and I was very relieved when I hard built SoL.

Dido had been sniffing my borders for awhile with GWI's and Privateers. I was beelining for Labs, so I made every trade I could (money was still a bit of an issue) and upgraded my FLeas to Infantry DOW'd her while beelining for Arties and Battleships. By the time I got Battleships, I only had the gold to upgrade 2 and it seemed I'd upgrade another about once every 5 turns. It took awhile to kill off all of Dido's troops, and I was only able to capture a few of her Privateers and nothing else. England and Songhai had also DoW'd her and Lizzy sent over quite a few planes and Carriers. Lizzy had settled a few cities in that scattered southern island chain. The biggest challenge in taking Dido's cities was to time it so I got the kill shot in instead of Lizzy. I did this successfully and soon had razed 2 of her cities and pupated 4 leaving her with just a couple of island cities before giving her an expensive peace (30 GPT and a pop 11 city which I immediately sold to Sully).

I now had enough gold to upgrade all of my units, especially all of the Frigates, and it was time to plan my next victim. The problem was, Lizzy had several fleets surrounding all of my territory and I wasn't sure I could beat her on one front, much less 3. She was also barking at me every few turns and there were a lot of negative indicators. With an upcoming vote where I was going to vote against her proposal to ban Cotton (which I had been trading for 240 gold because I had a CS with another source), I needed to get her in a war ASAP. Sully stepped up and accepted a decent bribe and I now had another 10+ turns, hopefully, of peace. I needed peace because without my Cargo Ships, I'd go back to being broke.

Since I couldn't take on Lizzy, and I couldn't send my troops/navy to invade another continent with backstabbing b*tch Liz camped out on my front, back, AND side door, there was no way I could continue down the Dom path. I had no Uranium and Lizzy was already up to 30 cities and was matching me in tech. So....with a bunch of GS coming up, I switched gear, turtled up, and just tech'd to a SV.

My culture with a lot of cities wasn't very good. I barely got both Rationalism and my 6th tenet in Freedom done in time and I never made it back to the Piety tree. I guess maybe I shouldn't have done the Exploration diversion, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Oddly, Louvre was still available when the game ended.
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IG was completed on t262 and I did enough to get Silver, but it was pretty obvious that there were some very strong AI's this game. Sully and Bill were going to be battling it out for Culture, with Bill having the cultural advantage but Sully's huge empire was catching up and producing a ton of hammers. The Silver was very important as that 30 bump with CS got me a few alliances in short order and I then got control of WC.
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England eventually switched to Freedom and then her antics ceased and she became a good trade partner. When she gave me a fair deal for Truffles, 7 of my cities got WLTK at once. Although Sully kept feuding with Songhai and Japan was wiped out, the game ended pretty peacefully.

I should have started bulbing GS earlier, but I wasn't sure I'd get Hubble and needed to save the GS just in case. I did get Hubble and the bulb-fest commenced. I ended up with way more science than I needed. I did stop production of the Spaceship to try to get something out of ISS, but just got stomped in 2 turns:
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I built 3 parts in the Capital and then, just to get the game over with sold off 200 GPT for 5000 gold and bought the last 2. I could have waited and converted some more cities to get some more achievement points, but I really just wanted to get the game over with at this point.
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Very challenging game with a tough bit of dirt to get a good start with. It's a winnable game, obviously, but definitely one of the harder ones I've played in awhile. If I had to do it again, I'd opt for settling to set up early war with Dido and hopefully engaging Lizzy before she snowballs. The other continents would have been takable if it weren't for England. If you're going to war on this map, I think you need to do it early.


Achievements
Spoiler :

A. Clear your starting continent with mostly† only the UU, 3 points. ZERO. I never even got it totally cleared because war was so late 4 different civs had cities. I didn't take Carthage until Battleships.
B. Each cap conquered before Compass, 3 points each. ‡Zero
C. Each cap conquered before Navigation, 2 points each. ‡Nada
D. Each cap conquered before Electronics, 1 point each. ‡*Goose egg
E. One point each for Reformation belief, completing Piety, and ending the game with your as World Religion in WC, 3 points available. Zero. I opened Piety early but didn't have the culture to get back to complete it. The tenets I took at the time were necessary for survival. I forgot about the World Religion point, but may have been able to get it passed on the final voting.
F. One point for each rival Holy City converted at the end of the game, 4 points available. 1 point, Carthage. I should have sent my GP to London at the end instead of Copenhagen and then I'd have gotten a 2nd point. I had enough faith to buy 1 more GP the turn the game ended and could have delayed the ending and gotten more, I guess.
G. End the game with your religion (by city count) as the plurality (1 point) or majority (2 points). Zero. Again, I could have done this as I had the faith, but I just wanted to end the game.
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Spoiler :

I read some of the posts and knew it was difficult map, so I played with partial map knowledge and knew where some of the things are.
A. Clear your starting continent with mostly† only the UU, 3 points.
Done, Carthage was taken with only Dromons. Lack of naval melee unit made capturing it problematic as I forgot to get Optics to embark units such as scouts for capturing. I had to wait many turns to clear her UU and cities so it wasn't big deal. It was taken finally with Cataphract. Got compass immediately afterwards to clear the final city on the continent with galleass, since that city allowed me to loop my continent. (3 points)

B. Each cap conquered before Compass, 3 points each. ‡
1 total, Carthage see above. (3 points)

C. Each cap conquered before Navigation, 2 points each. ‡
Only Copenhagen. It required getting open borders with England and sailing up the western coast, and took a while to sail due to only 3 movements and various choke points. Had to take Vibork as a base for healing and it also allowed my ships a shortcut. Around this time I start to get logistics so it is easy to take Copenhagen slowly, only problem is having to block England from taking it since she had been in war already. Got Navigation immediately after Copenhagen as I needed it to hold the city from reinforcements. (2 points)

D. Each cap conquered before Electronics, 1 point each. ‡*
4 total including London, Kyoto, Istanbul, Gao. War with England was difficult due to many trade routes that went to or through her and immediately caused gold problem. I had many privateers that captured her SotL for my use. The next capitals are all inland for some reason and I didn't have much of land army, so artillery was required. While I waited for the tech, I took most of the coastal cities as it allowed me to land units and also was easier to convert religion. Warred with Japan, then Ottomans and Songhai. Ottomans and Songhai had horrible tech and was easy. The final Dutch capital was technically possible without electronics but I took it anyways due to him having significant air force, had 100+ defense and it's dangerous to leave frigates that close. Plus they would only do 8 damage per attack. (4 points)

E. One point each for Reformation belief, completing Piety, and ending the game with your as World Religion in WC, 3 points available.
Religion had RC, Initiation Rites due to massive gold required at the start to fund navy. Pantheon was DF. Later took extra belief as another pantheon that added to NW due to having Uluru. I was lucky to be able to get enough faith to get Pagoda before anyone else. Reformation took Evangelism which probably saved me some faith since now missionary can convert smaller cities. Piety completed for the extra GP. World religion was passed after passing world ideology since I had problem from going autocracy, but autocracy was required due to the massive conquered empire and prora. (3 points)

F. One point for each rival Holy City converted at the end of the game, 4 points available.
Copenhagen, Istanbul, Goa, Amsterdam were holy cities. Even used inquisitor on the first 2 and after eliminated the first 3 religion from the game, no cities follow those religion. However Dutch Protestantism spread through his continent and I only had time to convert 2 cities on that continent. Most of the other continent and all of mine follows my Eastern Orthodoxy. (4 points)

G. End the game with your religion (by city count) as the plurality (1 point) or majority (2 points).
50 cities follows mine, 13 follows Dutch and none follows other religions. (2 points)

Total 21 points


Spoiler :






 
Well I ended up giving up on this map. A decent start but ended up in a disaster. I would have been able to win but it probably would be something like turn 350-400 dv.

I went wide with Liberty (wiped Carthage out) but I just could not earn enough gold to be able to upgrade a fleet of dromons to frigates. I got a few upgraded enough to take England's capital but I did not have enough happiness to keep expanding. I had to eventually sell the captured cities off and hope I could dig my way out of unhappiness and bankruptcy.

Then it got worse. The other civs didn't like my actions so I had to deal with both pearls and incense being banned by the world council :(
So I had to maintain peace for ages, and trade or give those luxuries away. No gold to upgrade more ships, no spare happiness to conquer and the whole world pissed at me. Then I took Autocracy and no-one else did so I ended up being hit with -30 unhappiness.

By turn 300 or so I was well and truly recovering and close to the lead in science (thankyou industrial esiponage) but the Ottomons & Netherlands had enormous empires and I really lost interest in having to fight through an endless loop of AI carpets. To take Netherlands it would take a fleet of aircraft carriers, battleships, nukes, rocket artillery... everything...

I'd say my game went south from overexpansion - Not enough gold tiles to work on the map (a big problem since BNW) and not enough sources of global happiness.

My religion was the wrong choice too. I went for Jesuit Eduacation which considering my faith output was clearly inferior compared to the Glory of God. For instance I had tonnes of excess faith and Piety would have worked better with Glory of God.

Sure I could faith buy some universities and public schools and that saves some hammers and boosts science but if I had Glory of God I could have had the following
- got the techs i needed from bulbing Great Scientists
- buying 3 great merchants could give me enough gold to keep an entire fleet upgraded
- buying artists could keep me an almost perpetual golden age so I would have the gold income and production bonus to compensate for not having Jesuit Education
- buying Engineers could give me a few free wonders & save more hammers that way (more than Jesuit Education would save my capital anyway).
- Great Writers well that would be at least one free social policy there....

Not to mention that other AIs don't benefit from Glory of God but they do with Jesuit Education so I was reluctant to spread my religion too far.

So yea a bit of a poorly executed game.
 
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