When is WF proposed in your games? If WF is the first resolution, it is 100% possible to win for the human player. I don't even remember if I ever lost WF with a 4-city Tradition peaceful game. Just go full production and put all cities to WF, and it is a guaranteed win. You can even stop at 1000 hammers because AI's won't beat that.
This is simply not my experience. Many times I've proposed WF at the first WC to gain diplo, and despite good play and an above average start, many times the runaway has 5 or more times the manufactured goods rating as me. In so many situations, I've thought, 'OK, I'll give it a shot', bribe the top 2 or 3 manufacturers to go to war, and go full production, even starving the cities, and using a great artist to maximise.
And, sadly, many times I am beaten to it.
I wish my experience were as comfortable as what you're describing
Won the Huns game on turn 193, HOF rules. Very fast game turn-wise, but really slow in terms of actual time played. 11 cities require a lot of micromanagement, so does war on Deity. It was tons of fun though. This might've been the first time I actually built a Zoo in an SV.
I think 11 is too wide for a Standard map. It worked much better on Chieftain because I could grow non-stop without any happiness issues, plus I had ToA and constant WLTKDs after I had secured every luxury on the map. But in this Deity game I got a bit unlucky with the luxuries, because there was only one Pearls tile on the map and I couldn't afford to plant a city there anymore. I could've gifted a city to an AI and bought Pearls from them but I didn't think it was worth the 5% science penalty, plus at the time I wasn't certain anyone would even be willing to trade with me. I liberated Harun which scored me some good guy points though. Had DoFs with Indonesia and Arabia until they denounced me around T185.Spoiler :
ToA would've been great after Universal Suffrage, but the best early wonder to capture is Stonehenge, I think. Religion played a huge part in this game, but it took a while to get things going, I think I got 3rd or 4th religion around T75-80. I planned to get 3500 faith for 2 GS + 1 GE, and it was too late when I remembered you can't do that when you play Liberty. I'm pretty sure I could've gotten 5000 faith for 3 GSs if I built Temples, that's an extra 22 fpt right there. Big mistake, because in the end I only needed one scientist from Hubble.
The wonders I did get were Pyramids, Petra (Marrakech, captured), Hanging Gardens (Persepolis, captured), Borobudur, Oracle (T105!), Machu Picchu, LToP, Sistine, SoL, Big Ben, PT and Hubble. Missed Globe Theatre by 2 turns - I went for it because I thought 2 cultural CSs might not be enough to get all the policies in time with 11 cities. I had all the policies by turn 183 though.
Happiness was the main issue. I ran out of global happiness very quickly and I had to avoid growth for many turns. That's why I didn't take the food from specialists tenet at first and chose Mint/Bank happiness instead. To get a food boost I went Fertilizer and got it around the same time as Universal Suffrage, which ended all the happiness troubles at once.
Gold was pretty low at first, but in the end I was actually making more than in the Chieftain game, ~300 gpt was from peace deals which can get pretty juicy near the end. Having a mix of peacemongers and moderate warmongers was perfect to keep the world fighting. No stupid chain-denouncements and 6-7x DoWs.
The game would've ended faster if I could build Hubble and Apollo quicker, but with city sizes that low I couldn't find any more production for it. Tradition's faith-bought GEs are just unfair.
Some timings:
T83 10-city NC
T97 Education
T111 Secularism
T139 Sci Theory
T154 Fertilizer (1 bulb for Radio)
T166 Plastics (2 bulbs)
T193 victory
.I love to go Fertilizer first when I'm playing wide. It's a significant boost to growth that comes after you get a boost to happiness from ideology, so to me it just feels natural to take it. I think a wide empire allows you to bulb more GSs pre-Plastics than a tall one. A double bulb into Plastics makes sure you get your labs up quickly enough despite the detour.
Won the Huns game on turn 193, HOF rules. Very fast game turn-wise, but really slow in terms of actual time played. 11 cities require a lot of micromanagement, so does war on Deity. It was tons of fun though. This might've been the first time I actually built a Zoo in an SV.
I think 11 is too wide for a Standard map. It worked much better on Chieftain because I could grow non-stop without any happiness issues, plus I had ToA and constant WLTKDs after I had secured every luxury on the map. But in this Deity game I got a bit unlucky with the luxuries, because there was only one Pearls tile on the map and I couldn't afford to plant a city there anymore. I could've gifted a city to an AI and bought Pearls from them but I didn't think it was worth the 5% science penalty, plus at the time I wasn't certain anyone would even be willing to trade with me. I liberated Harun which scored me some good guy points though. Had DoFs with Indonesia and Arabia until they denounced me around T185.Spoiler :
ToA would've been great after Universal Suffrage, but the best early wonder to capture is Stonehenge, I think. Religion played a huge part in this game, but it took a while to get things going, I think I got 3rd or 4th religion around T75-80. I planned to get 3500 faith for 2 GS + 1 GE, and it was too late when I remembered you can't do that when you play Liberty. I'm pretty sure I could've gotten 5000 faith for 3 GSs if I built Temples, that's an extra 22 fpt right there. Big mistake, because in the end I only needed one scientist from Hubble.
The wonders I did get were Pyramids, Petra (Marrakech, captured), Hanging Gardens (Persepolis, captured), Borobudur, Oracle (T105!), Machu Picchu, LToP, Sistine, SoL, Big Ben, PT and Hubble. Missed Globe Theatre by 2 turns - I went for it because I thought 2 cultural CSs might not be enough to get all the policies in time with 11 cities. I had all the policies by turn 183 though.
Happiness was the main issue. I ran out of global happiness very quickly and I had to avoid growth for many turns. That's why I didn't take the food from specialists tenet at first and chose Mint/Bank happiness instead. To get a food boost I went Fertilizer and got it around the same time as Universal Suffrage, which ended all the happiness troubles at once.
Gold was pretty low at first, but in the end I was actually making more than in the Chieftain game, ~300 gpt was from peace deals which can get pretty juicy near the end. Having a mix of peacemongers and moderate warmongers was perfect to keep the world fighting. No stupid chain-denouncements and 6-7x DoWs.
The game would've ended faster if I could build Hubble and Apollo quicker, but with city sizes that low I couldn't find any more production for it. Tradition's faith-bought GEs are just unfair.
Some timings:
T83 10-city NC
T97 Education
T111 Secularism
T139 Sci Theory
T154 Fertilizer (1 bulb for Radio)
T166 Plastics (2 bulbs)
T193 victory
@belligerent
239 is absolutely amazing for first time Deity SV. you can pat yourself on the back for that! my first SV was around T300
I didn't sign any RAs this game. My post-Plastics game was pretty straightforward:
