NEW Deity Challenge II - The Maya

consentient said:

Funnily enough, I've been experimenting with Acken Mod today and found the exact same thing. Maybe there is some AI behaviour line of code that works the same in both mods that causes it.

It's a shame if the mods don't actually reward, or at least not overly punish, settling more than 6 cities. Cuz 4 cities is almost default and boring.

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There is a chance that you will get Dowed in my mod for being next to an AI more than because you settled 6. I have reduced the impact of having too many cities by a ton but increased the AI desire for land. I find that there is more consistency this way for both playstyles. Yung carl can probably put his testimony here that playing 4 cities is far from safe.

The AI just attack its neighbours in my mod. It doesn't care as much about how many cities that guy have.

OK thanks for explaining.

Right now the problem I'm facing is that level 5 is too easy, and feels like Emperor or Immortal Minus, but 6 (your Immortal) has a point where the AI have pulled too far ahead no matter what I do. They have Muskets when I have Crossbows in good time (e.g. T103).

It seems set up for late game conquest, no? Or are there examples of game-long domination using your Mod?

I don't know about game long above immortal but early conquest into economy into another war is very much viable. The most common tactic I use if I want to go domination is to attack civs that are already engaged in a war. While the AI is more agressive it is also more reckless and will leave its back exposed pretty often. And it is even often needed, the reason being that you can hardly turtle to plan a late game conquest. Doing that can mean you won't have the production necessary to go on a domination if you stay tiny.

Also Crossbows vs Musket is normal. Crossbow is the range unit in Musket era (17 vs 26). Machinery is even a prerequisite to gunpowder in the mod.
Similar to Composite vs swordmen (10 vs 15)
The ratios are almost the same. What you need and didn't mention is what melee (or cavalry) you have. If you don't have at least Longswords (23) or Knights (20) against muskets (26), yeah you will suffer. The role of ranged units is to mostly stay behind finishing off units through focus fire. The blockers and main bulk of your army are melee units. They are really good in the mod and can take cities.

If what you mean is whether or not you can do a crossbow domination then yes you probably cannot do that on a high enough difficulty. And without a doubt domination is hard due to AI ability to tech decently and melee units being good. That being said I have already diminished the AI unit prod bonus to compensate but dependings on more testing it can go further if it seems the AI just floods too many units the player cant get through. Also note v6 is still in-testing due to whether or not the change in how the growth bonus affect the AI is too much of a buff or not.

Next game try a swordman rush instead (or a good early UU like Immortal or Hoplite or Legion). You'll see what I mean. My armies are usually 2:1 melee/range ratio. You need less range because they don't get hit as often while the melee rotate back and force to take shots and make kills. Denmark berserkers are also really strong.

My game for this challenge on turn 106:

Acken said:

Crossbows vs Musket is normal.

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Yes, but if you play well, you usually get 10-20 turns with XBs before many AIs will have Muskets, esp for the civs who enter Renaissance by Acoustics or Banking.

Then Muskets come along and XBs become reduced in overall effectiveness at the same time your units have 3/4 promotions so compensate a bit until you can get Cannons and Cavalry.

What you need and didn't mention is what melee (or cavalry) you have.

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I had Longswords and they weren't doing well. I found it very hard to get to Gunpowder in good enough time.

The role of ranged units is to mostly stay behind finishing off units through focus fire. The blockers and main bulk of your army are melee units. They are really good in the mod and can take cities.

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I should adapt my play a bit, I guess. Next time I will beeline Steel a bit more.

yung.carl.jung said:

sadly the spot near the cap with the triple fish just blows. only one mine, no source of hammers whatsoever.

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I settled a city there and sent a production cargo ship from Western city on incense, while sending a food ship to the Western city on incense.

glory7 said:

I wanted to try out liberty+piety(+aesthetics?) culture victory, probably without rationalism.

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I can't believe all the empty spaces between your cities haven't been filled with Lampang, Kampang Phet, Pataliputra, Vijanigara, Agra, and others.

well, i'll probably win my game, but the nerf to jesuits makes me too sad, i got borobudur and great mosqué, but AI is getting 2 prophets and 2 missionaries/turn that even with a big faith output a good spread and a good religion i cant handle it and he'll probably convert my cities one day or another.

i'll quit and play acken mod map and celts one, then maybe i'll try this map again, but i feel that this mod allmost removed science victory, diplo looks really easy compared to science.

Well, wont pick jesuit anymore in this mod.

I was inspired by Glory7 and tried to step up my Worker stealing game. This time I really did it. I ended up with 11 Workers, 8 stolen, 2 from Pyramids and 1 from Liberty. It made all the difference. I got 5 from western neighbor, two Workers and three Settlers and three from southern neighbor, three Workers. Completely stopped any of their advancements, actually settled LV this time so I got both NW on this map, allied 2 CS with quests but I'm still suffering from no happiness

I suppose that's what 8 cities does to you. I got Theology a single turn too late and had to wait forever for my GP to come, that really hurt. I warred both neighbors forever and didn't make peace until I got a good deal. Ended up getting ~150 gold from each for peace. Not bad for having the lowest mil. score. Anyway, I think I really can get something going with this start. We'll see.

Phenril said:

i feel that this mod allmost removed science victory

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Don't despair! An upcoming map with this mod is intended for OCC Science. Not every map is enjoyable for every player, it's true, but you're more than welcome to submit maps that you think are cool. There are very few things that put me off a map, so if it's rolled using HB Maps and doesn't have an isolated start, I'll probably be more than up for using it

well i don't care about sience victory being nerf to the ground.

what made me leave is the nerf to jesuit that is way too big, it's double the cost wtf! so i feel like i wasted 3 policies, i wish i took the growth reformation.

but the map is nice and if i have time i'll replay it but without the piety tree this time.

I welcome the nerf to Jesuits because it was way too strong. If you've got a sick FPT, you can still abuse Jesuits, just not as much.

Yeah I get that, even if you *only* have around 100 FPT, which is more than likely if you go full Piety with 5-6 cities, you can get a lot out of Jesuits

I'm about 160 turns in, 7 cities, have been warring India and Siam constantly and always got good peace deals, had to reload the game about 5 times already just because I always get caught out of position, spending ~70gpt just on bribes.. About to get Plastics and I'm already close to 700 beakers. Lategame science is going to be incredible. This game is extremely taxing, having 7 cities constantly growing takes so much micro, I have to build units every other turn just because if my military score drops just a little I'll get DOWed from three sides. Pretty much feels like Acken DemiGod to me, just with an AI that is worse at playing peaceful/deploying troops.

I went full Lib, full Piety into Freedom (planned on going Order, Freedom's probably going to be better for a fast finish tho. got Ideo @T150 iirc). After 3 in Freedom I'll fill out Rat now. All my cities are pretty small because I was happiness capped until I met the other AIs which was around T120 or T130. After that I never once had smile problems.

I'm already thinking completing Piety as a mistake. I went DF/Tithe/Temple happy/Religious Comm/Messiah. Planted 4 Prophets in total, 1 stolen. Planted 2 Academies (Maya UA & Lib finisher), only used 2 bulbs so far. I had decent timing on NC for 7 cities, I think I got it exactly T87. Investing so many hammers into units really slowed me down and is hurting my GPT, but alas what can you do..

Sweden continuously #1 in army score, constantly bribed into three or more wars, but because the AI is incompetent they rarely kill each others troops and usually just clumsily move around for 20 turns and then peace out.

After Plastics I'll spend all my money buying mountains and then I'll just stop growing and go for game. There are easily like 10-15 mountains in all my cities combined, I think I might push 2000 beakers lategame. Bulbs will be strong but few sadly :/

I gotta say I really cannot play NQ. Every single time I forget that this isn't Acken Mod, that I can't actually build TOA, that Observatories now have a completely diff effect, that I can't just buy 3 factories (this one had me reload like 20 turns.. garbage) and get ideology..

Playing those 2 mods that are so similiar but still different really is a hassle. I constantly switch things up. I could've easily just gone 2 or 3 in Piety and then Rat, but I forgot that Rat was available in Ren, not in Indu like it is the case w/ Acken Mod.

I will still finish this game, I've spent pretty much a week of my Civ time on this after all

Lategame micro will be so taxing, my turns are already taking 5 minutes each..

I had a lot of fun warring the 2 weaker neighbours though. I ended up with 13 Workers before T100, 10 were stolen, 2 from Pyra, 1 from Lib, zero from Barb camps or something like that.

Didn't get any good wonders this game. LToP was gone way early even though I beelined it after Astro, pretty sure China used a GE, it was impossible to get..

For everyone still wanting to try the game: If I could change one thing out of all the mistakes I made, it would be this: Get a Great Admiral as my first GP at T86. It took me 40 more turns to discover the first AI, I could've grown excessively in all those 40 turns had I had lux trades.

I finished my game with a culture victory on turn 207



There is a bit too much tourism in the mod. +1100 with no airport and no wonder and the AI doesn't seem to accumulate much faster.
I guess this is where there should be a difference between single and multiplayer.

Total playtime was 4hours

Yeah that's well known. Try France and their crazy reworked UA, now *that* is a load of tourism

What do you mean by no wonder, Acken? No Uffizi, Eiffel, etc.? Or no wonders at all?

No world wonder

Wowsers. So all GW were housed in ordinary buildings? How many did you have?

The usual 2 artifact per cities on 7 cities, 3 or 4 gwriting 3 for the hermitage and 3 musics. And 4 or 5 landmarks

consentient said:

I welcome the nerf to Jesuits because it was way too strong. If you've got a sick FPT, you can still abuse Jesuits, just not as much.

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You know, I used to think that too, but the problem is that you can really do everything you could do with Jesuit with gold instead. Plus using jesuit for your schools and labs means less faith for GS's on the end game, so I think it balances out.

Order + commerce + big ben = you really shouldn't have any problem just spending gold on your labs, so really we're squabbling about a couple of public schools and a university or 2? (no way your FPT is high enough and your prophet count low enough to buy all uni's as early as you hit education).