The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game # 5 - The Inca

Turn 223 Domination

Spoiler :
Social Policies
Tradition to Monarchy
Honor to military tradition
All Commerce
Rationalism opener
A few in the Order ideology

Wonders
Big Ben
Machu
Brandenburg
Porcelain Tower (built late because nobody went ratio, not even Sejong)


I hard built three cities and placed them all next to mountains for observatories. Hiawatha was a saint in this game for letting me steal tech after tech after tech. Although I was always trailing in technology, I always had research agreements active with Korea, Brazil, and for the most part Rome. Pedro also was trying to play the role of warmonger in this one, so he never seemed to care that I was capturing every city. Together we fought the Iroquois, Rome, Assyria, and Korea. Our declaration of friendship was going strong up until I took his capital by surprise at the end.

The scariest part in this one was when I was taking Sejongs capital. He had the great wall built and had great war bombers destroying my units. I had his city down to no health and with only one unit left that could capture cities, but he was two tiles away and Korea had yet to discover dynamite. I was convinced he would kill my last gwi and I would have needed to march another unit across the map in order to capture Seoul, but instead Sejong discovered dynamite on that turn which allowed me to move in for the kill. That near disaster would have cost me another 10-15 turns. Good timing.. We agreed on peace and the next turn I attacked Rio. Pedro was off fighting in other places so he didn't even get the chance to put up a fight.

I should also say that the Inca are probably my favorite civ in this game, and this was a great start for them. The slingers withdraw from melee attacks cost me two great generals this game. It's easy to forget that promotion stays with them throughout the game.

 
Turn 254 SV. First Deity win.

Spoiler :


Policies: Full Tradition, two in Patronage, Full Rationalism, 6 Freedom tenets and 3 Commerce.

Hard build 4 cities then NC, rushed a library and 2 workers for forest chops. Education at 111t, Plastics at 201t.

Spoiler :


I managed to build Oracle and Forbidden Palace (helped a lot), after i got all wonders i want (all :D)

After i choose freedom happiness was a problem till i won Worlds Flair. All civs went order or autocracy. Luckily that didn't stop them fighting each other and leave me in peace.

Spoiler :




It could be faster, made some mistakes, learned some things.
 
So, recap from T160-278.

Spoiler :



Got a nice start from the last session as Sejong DoWed Augustus out of the blue while I continued my pathetic shooting range activity though a couple Xbows finally with range made a difference so I took Akwesasme with totally pointless Petra T168.

Sejong also went into military lead and I didn't him wasting those units in a pathetic single war I bribed him to DoW Pedro on T169. T171 with WF starting I took opened Order with happiness policies to hurry a GA before WF is ready; managed that but it wasted for that purpose but invaluable when others picked Freedom or Autocracy few turns later. -37 from ideology didn't make me especially happy. Onondaga fell T181 and Grand River few turns later but it wasn't keen on working Uluru but me & Hiawatha thought that we should continue swapping arrows for a while.



T184 Cathy built PT which was a bit of a surprise though I wasn't in the competition so it wasn't disappointment like the next turn when she built Brandenburg. I was building cannons and heading for Dynamite. I wasn't in too much of hurry as OB from Pedro was about to end T195 and before renewing that I dared not to start the march towards Korea. T201 Cathy suggested a Korean co-venture which I gladly took after a preparing period - it gave me a surprise ally but postponed the start for several turns.
Sadly, though, Sejong asked The Question on T207 at which point none of my units were closer to his borders than 3 tiles besides what hostile intentions could these happy ravers possibly have - probably on their way to Glastonbury or Roskilde.



Arties work, no question about that and manoeuvering on hills is way easier with the Inca. Annexed Kaesong as soon as possible T219 to buy two tiles to be able to plant some GGs. It totally screwed Korean comeback with land units and the road abled me to shoot Daegu down quickly. Tons of Korean units in the seas but way less on dry land and luckily his air force probably relied on foreign oil so the pilots were mainly having a smoke behind the hangars. GWI vs artie isn't a 50-50 fight but I lost only few; much less than in my worst case scenario. Cathy was doing a fair job killing his naval units. Seoul down T226 and Korea off the map T229.
Bulbed flight T226 as I stole RR form Sejong earlier and managed Kremlin T228. Neuschwanstein with GE on T223 gave few much needed happiness points. Meanwhile Assyria had built only units so I bribed him to attack Cathy and even Pedro started showing some genocidal tendencies so I paid him, a lot still, to attack Rome. I don't know if it resulted any casualties but at least it broke their friendship, much like the earlier Korea vs Brazil match.



Augustus probably wasted his units while defending from Korea so I had a nice walk through his lands - wasted few turns waiting pop drops and/or CSs taking his cities until it seemed unlikely so I took Rome T236 and his last city T242.



T239 got Bombers like Pedro & Cathy and Oxforded Rocketry unlike them. Also bribed Pedro to wipe Hiawatha off and was more than slightly surprised when the cities fell the other way round. Pedro probably didn't realize that a superior army is only useful when it's on the battlefield - not on a beach light year away sipping breezers.

T242 DoWed Cathy and she acted like it was a surprise. I also annexed Seoul as I needed a navy for the newly born Russian one-tile-island cities near the coast. She managed to start 4 cities in formerly Korean lands in few turns. Had to build two RAs for the Eastern front as well as Cathy liked AA Guns - too risky for the bombers especially after the incident in last DCL. Moscow down on T252 but her wonders were spread out in several cities so I kept them and burned the rest.

After finishing Rome with my lands units I started a long and slow march to tempting Brazilian cities; the pathway surely wasn't waxed but I had high hopes for cities. Attacking on 4 fronts sort of caught him off guard so I took the first cities with ease while I lost Kaesong for a moment. The damn inland-viking had a dozen battleships in the lake but apparently so was his oil and after pillaging the wells the air force concentrated on spreading DDT on corn fields rather than attacking me. Rio was mine on T259 and Brazil wasn't Pedro's on T266.



This somehow made Hammu a bit angry and he called me all sorts of names - a man can only take so much so I DoWed him and since my army in Brazil was becoming very casual I DoWed Hiawatha on T267.
T270 I took Assur for the 2nd time to keep it. The main obstacle were the 3 more one-tile cities I found in the seas - the continental advance had to be slowed.



T271 I saw a lone Russian worker to my surprise - I thought I already wiped her off so I had to buy a destroyer, carrier & 3 bombers in Seoul to head into the clouds. I also made all my free melee units to hop into their canoes and looking for the last Russian city. Assyria was down to 2 troll cities. Found Magadan T277 and no wonder Cathy colonized the icy island - clearly an epic spot for a city.



T278 Russia off the map and Karakorum as the last city so task completed.



With a start like that my approach doesn't make any sense but the Inca rule - they did in vanilla and nothing has changed but the benefits are more subtle than with the other top tier civs. Thw movement bonus is awesome and cash savings can be huge wide empire.

Early on I was struggling with happiness so I didn't make very good use of terrace farms. Another thing that didn't go well was the Mongols and their bad performance and them so far away from Mombasa that I couldn't risk of prolonging war with them or settling a fifth city between Mombasa and Karakorum, eventually Cathy planted 4 cities in that space.

Religion was a major failure, too. I did get a decent pantheon with ease but I didn't expect Genghis running for Pope so my faith in the game was wasted apart from 2 Pagodas - other buildings I couldn't buy since no one picked the perks. Later in the game I could've done quite a few CSs quests with prophets and/or even convert for some gpt the cities that were left but in terms of effort/benefit it didn't seem worth it. I could've spent faith on generals as well but since the first I had more than I needed anyway.

Policywise I wanted to avoid the usual stuff so Rationalism, Patronage & Commerce were no-go areas. Liberty followed by left side of Honor and Trad opener for border expansion, then all the happiness from Order and Honor filled which I wasn't planning but I had to dump the culture somewhere.
I had a timing issue on T171-T177 when the WF was built. At the start I was ~120 GA points short a GA so I allied a Mercantile CS and with that I managed a natural GA 2 turns before WF and I though I could the natural one before multiple wars and some serious city razing. Spawned GAs were also to be saved for that. But ideologies hit hard, Pedro & Hiawatha went Freedom and others Autocracy so depending on whether my allied luxes were pillaged or not my happiness was flipping like Romney on both sides of 0. In the end I used 3 GAs for a 36 turns GA and never got the next natural GA.

Avoiding Rationalism is an oddity for me and after T150 things really feel slow but Observatories do compensate that nicely. Stole twice of Hiawatha before my stepped on a mine but luckily the 2nd one managed to steal 3 times from Sejong before he joined the astral researchers at which point my spies were defending or eyes for arties.
Amongst other things I avoided teching for uranium as I didn't want to use nukes. As far as I could see apart from Pedro no one built Manhattan.

The Total Domination part adds some happiness management and quite a bit time but is an interesting option for a usual dom game. I pretty much razed every captured city without a WW which delayed my Oxford a bit. At worst I had 6 cities burning and happiness somewhere -25 but this time the barbs popped in a nice location so I even got some CS repu for killing them.

 
i finally got around to finishing my game. i had 3 days of work in a row and dont like playing for brief sessions. i took some notes because this one was very confusing to me. yes, it is a giant wall of text but there are pics.

SV 276
Spoiler :
of course the terrain is gorgeous. lots of perfect terrace spots. i had a good start (for me anyways) for the first 150 turns with only a few irritations. you'll see my city placements on the map pics. Oracle was stolen on t84 5 turns ahead of me i think. No biggie, kept going. Everyone hated Genghis and I was offered repeatedly to join in a war with him. After I got 4 xbows, 4 compbows and 2 horses I agreed to with Hiawatha. I dont remember how it works when you accept 2 different "In 10 turns" agreements to DoW so I only accepted the one from Hiawatha. of course, a few more joined at different times and he ended up getting completely wiped out by me by a couple turns because when I took Karakorum it made Hanoi his capital (out of Turfan 7pop, Beshbalik 11pop, and Hanoi 6pop). Im guessing he took Hanoi before settling them but otherwise I was really irritated. Not just for the cap being Hanoi but for Cathy taking Beshbalik 1 turn before I took Hanoi. I was worried about some warmonger penalty but I liberated Hanoi and didnt get the mass denounce following it. On the way there I kept Monaco because it was on a mtn and Id later annex for observatory. That was a bigger pain because Assyria was flooding units in the same war but doing little until I got it to less than half. I reloaded because he sniped it from me after doing nothing for 5 turns when my Knight was just a hair from taking it even though the matchup graphic said he would. This is why im bad at warfare, haha.

I was hoping for good luck with WLTKD but this game just plainly conspired to prevent such things. 2 of my cities wanted Crab from roughly turn 100 on. 2 wanted Sugar. No one had dupes and no CS had it til after t200. I did get WLTDK with one city repeatedly from Wine, Ivory, and later on Truffles. The same for CS quests for luxes. Pearls werent hooked up til after 180, Crabs and Whales after 200, Truffles after 200, Salt after 250. 4 CSs requested Truffles but all of them let it expire. the very next turn Sejong came to me and offered it to me for iron, gpt and OB. Its like he knew it would no longer be worth it now that the CSs dont want it anymore.

I spent 100+ turns unhappy due to the huge growth and no one having dupes to trade with and not meeting enough Merc CSs to help. I had Zurich allied for a while but Cathy kept buying it from me until Sejong said 'Screw it' and captured it. I was terrible about finding the last 4 CSs behind other civs. (Not to mention Genghis taking 3 of the CSs anyway.) It wasnt until after t200 that I found more Faith and Merc CSs with a ton of OBs with a Knight.

Happiness was the worst thing this whole game. It got worse in the late game from Ideology conflicts. I wasnt the first to Ideology, Sejong was and Assyria shortly after that. They both went Order. When I got there I took Order. Cathy, Rome, and Hiawatha took Autocracy and Brazil took Freedom. When I took my first Order policy I needed some happiness pretty bad. I had just traded to get above water and took the +2 happy per Monument. It put me at +13 happiness. 5 turns later I was -6. Didnt lose any trades, didn't lose any CS allies, no Generals stealing luxes (although that happened 3 times before t100, haha).

When I checked the Happy chart it said I was -18 from Public Opinion. Basically, this is the first time I actually changed Ideologies (t216). Because this happens so infrequently I had to look what the mechanic was. I still wasnt confident it was a good idea. It only got me to -1 happy (lost +10 from Monuments but gained +16 from Public Opinon) and I spent 2 turns in limbo producing nothing. I found out it was from Hiawatha's tourism Influence. We kept OB for a long time and he ended up gaining the first Influential of the game with me. At the time I was 1 turn from something important and decided to reload. I didnt know about the 2 turns of NOTHING. It worked a little but I also didnt know that it subtracts the previous 2 ideology policies. Since I only had taken 1 (serious cpt woes after Monaco was conquered byt Genghis), it took it away and all excess over it. It even reset my policy costs to the lower level. It obviously kept me from Order factory bonus as well as completing Rat. I did, but it was too late for the free tech. I got it the turn I unlocked the last SS part tech. Total waste. After switching Ideo's I didnt put any points into Auto. Just tried to get more Rat.

In the end I was 1 GS short of my intended timing. Had 7 turns after building last SS part before starting the last SS part. I had the time to switch 4 caravans to hammers to Cusco, pre-build for 3 turns plus settled the GE and converted as many mines as I could to get the last part to 6 turns. I completely forgot about Karakorum's Uranium tile and couldnt improve it to buy Nuclear Plant in time without reloading again. I was just flustered enough not to care.

Some benchmarks:
*Education t115
*settled Ollantaytambo t118 (for one more Observatory)
*Lost Porcelain Tower t178 to Cathy on the turn I was to get it. I had a Spy in Koreas Cap and I beat him by 1 turn, haha. Didnt have 2 spies at the time. Oh well. Cathy is a real pain in this.
*Radio - t184 with Oxford
*Enhanced Religion t183 - spent 200f on a Pagoda before missionary. was a mistake, sort of. Hiawatha had 20 cities and I only ever got 2 of mine converted to my religion. Only my cap lasted the whole game unconverted. Earth Mother, Tithe, Feed the World, 1% production bonus, and Reliquary. Popping great people (10 GS, 2 GGs, 3 GW, 2 GArtist, 1 GMus, 1 GE) funded the 2nd GE for 1500. the first one was paid for from being allies w/Ife. It rushed Hubble (t248). The 2nd one was settled for bonus on the last SS part.
*Signed 2 RAs the whole game. One in anticipation of PT (bummer), the other because I knew I'd be short 1 GS since I didnt get PT. I was still short 1 GS anyway.
-Plastics t208. Only had gold to rush buy 1 labs on t216, when I changed Ideologies.
-Only went to war with Genghis early. After that it was staying friends. The 'runaway' civ changed hands quite a bit that game.

the win screen
276 SV.jpg
demopraphics
demographics.jpg
i thought this was funny since Rome, home of the original Senate and later one of the reasons it fell (petty politics) came to me with this one
rome petty politics.jpg
 
I've finished that game at T216 with 5 cities tradition into Freedom.

Spoiler :


This playthrough was recorded and will be available as soon as segments are uploaded. Like I said I miss the first 50turns on video but I made a 2min summary of it in part 1.

I.....tried to comment it. So if you can go over me trying to pronounce correctly the words while playing at the same time and with a crappy mic... you're welcome :D This was far from an easy exercise.

Notes:
-I would have liked a 6th city but all the good spots were taken
-I fight 2 wars in this game, one against an angry Russia and one to Liberate Monaco
-I push culture a lot to get the policies I want
-The AI fortress bombed me like crazy, my 5th city was... you'll see
-Arts funding is passed and then repealed !
-We get almost zero we love the king day due to cusco asking for.... whales.
 
Long-time Immortal getting bored, so I decided to try a step up to Deity. Even if I blew it, I figured the forums would be a good tool for learning Deity. To my great surprise, I ended up with a turn 248 SV, although it was really close to a CV loss.

Spoiler :
Early worker steal from Cathy, and then another from Ragusa before I met any of the other AIs. Early tech was pottery, animal husbandry, mining, writing, archery, masonry (marble), calendar, philosophy. I briefly contemplated Great Library (pottery ruin), but decided to pump out settlers instead (noticed lots of mountains for observatories). As for policies, I went full tradition.



Too many barbs near old faithful, so I decided to settle the 3rd city in a location that I could get to, but was also apparently too close to Assyria. Built a settler in 2nd city at the same time as I was building NC (turn 70). There was a lot of coveting of my lands going on at this point, and I got DOWed by Assyria (swords, spearman, composites) for about 30-40 turns. Nothing too serious, I was surprised no pikes or siege towers showed up. Snuck a 4th settler into position near old faithful during the melee and also grabbed the Oracle.



I researched construction for defense, and then bee-lined Education (turn 99), and promptly rush bought a University in the capital. At this point, it was big decision time, what victory condition should I go for? I chose science because of the observatory locations. So, I started pumping out a lot of workers for Terrace farms and buying land near water. I also decided at this point to not compete for Leaning Tower and go straight for Astronomy after Acoustics. Why? Pedro was in the game, and on Immortal he is the AI most capable of beating me to Leaning Tower. It went around 300-400 AD, I don't know if that is normal on deity or not (not familiar with Deity timings), but I think it was a good decision. Instead, I chose Porcelain Tower as a target, which I got and then scientific theory on turn 153. Allied several Maritime CS and pushed RAs, including lots of lending money to filthy rich AIs.

Also noticed that there were more settle spots south, so I settled a 5th city after Education, still not sure if that was a good idea or not. Avoided 6th city because I lacked a religion and no missionaries were showing up, which seemed odd. Not enough happiness to go around.

Diplomacy between AIs started breaking down, and I noticed an enormous army with good composition heading out of Moscow. Lots of plotting against me (Cathy, Hiawatha, etc.) I started offering very friendly trade deals to Catherine to try and point that giant death machine at someone else. Made friends with Brazil and Korea. I was pretty relieved when a friendship offer finally came in from Cathy. At this point, I noticed my culture was in shambles, and Pedro was out of control, as far as CV goes. This was a HUGE problem. I looked around, and there was no cultural city state I could bribe, as Monaco was recently captured by Genghis. Thankfully though, this drew Cathy’s gaze toward Genghis, and he was promptly annihilated. Pedro even joined in to liberate Monaco, but it was his ally now.



What to do? I started stockpiling happiness as best I could, and noticed that I was NOT breaking away from the pack in science, so I moved a counter-spy into capital and discovered my mountain fortress was littered with listening devices. I went straight to Radio, first Ideology, picked Order and hoped that Pedro would follow, but he chose Freedom instead. At this point, I noticed that I could still build Forbidden Palace, apparently no AI went Patronage. I also went straight to Plastics (turn 179 with Oxford). Fertilizer kicked in and population started skyrocketing. From here on, it was a huge struggle with happiness. I started dipping into Rebel territory, and was forced to buy luxuries off the AIs with cash, despite a FP followed up by a Neushwanstein. Cathy went order, yes! But she was struggling badly with unhappiness. She put a scary number of hammers into International games, but not long afterward she was crippled by revolutionary waves (I saw -38 happiness, probably got worse). Cathy converted to Freedom, and I promptly built an airforce because of her hammers. Then things went from bad to worse when Korea adopted Autocracy and started devouring Rome, which had the largest culture pool at the time. For some unknown reason, Rome was left to twist in the wind with only one city. I barely kept my head above water by winning the World’s fair. I never got the +25% science from factories due to ideology pressure. I was forced to go for the happiness tenets. But, I did get the five-year plan in time to help speed up the spaceship parts a little.



I totally screwed up the end-game, happiness distractions became such an issue that I did not realize when I had more than enough bulbs to win. This was a near-fatal mistake, as I could have easily won 10 or more turns earlier if I had actually done the math, or simply started the bulbs at max beaker output and then seen where I ended up. Pedro got within 3-4 turns of Influential over Rome and myself, having bulldozed everyone else with Carnivals. Don’t give him open borders!





Hopefully the pics work.
 
What ? Everybody covets my lands in this game ^^ I'm at turn 125ish and had to fight 2 wars and did many bribe to get AI off me.

Great, now you jinxed it...

Spoiler :
Ashurbanipal started to amass troops near my borders. I set up a defensive pact with both Pedro and Genghis Khan, and lo and behold, he invades me the following turn. What's perplexing is, he had two trade routes with me, and I had none with him, so he has more to lose from this than I do.

So, currently trying to repeal him with a handful of units. Thankfully, I have a good defensive spot.

Inca DCL - Tiwanaku.jpg
 
I've finished that game at T216 with 5 cities tradition into Freedom.

Nice Acken. That's how it is done :goodjob: Without wars I bet you could dip under 210.

I'm very curious about how you pushed culture so successfully and where your extra beakers came from. Earlier labs or more Great Scientists ...

In my game I had labs at 175.

GP totals:

9 Natural GS
2 GS from Hubble
1 GS from SF Pioneers
1 GS Faith

1 GE from SF Pioneers
1 GE from Faith

I'll be watching your videos :)

Edit: I see no Academy, while I foolishly built one. Smart move. Ok, no more comments until I watch :)
 
An interesting map! I haven't played the Incas in a long time, this is my first Deity Challenge where I actually had some early production.

Spoiler :
Settled 2 tiles SE/E for river/mtn/hill since it looked like the mtns stretched further S. Culture ruin right away, later Archery ruin, map, camps. Did a 3 city NC setup (W on coast NW of mtn, and SW - in gap), BO Scout x2, Shrine, Granary, Worker, pretty early Library, 2 Slinger escorts, 2 Settlers, 3 more Slingers. Late-ish on Caravans, sent to Kathy and Assyria.



Was able to steal 2 Khan workers on one turn with a Scout waaaay S and actually had no trouble walking them all the way home with Warrior. White peace quick, and Khan is my buddy all game (but he and Kathy only giving 6 gpt for lux). No wars for me yet, spent a small fortune bribing Assyria the first 130 turns or so, so my cash was poor. Early cheap bribe for Khan vs Kathy made her lose 3rd city, and she would be toast except she got Itinerant Preachers ahead of me and my poor Tithe is only giving 9 gpt, ugh. Settled my 4th city with no lux but mega mtns and pastures W side of lake tile. I have bought so damn many tiles this game for terrace farms!

Teched AH and BW pretty early to see resources and to get to Construction early. My tech benchmarks are better than any DCL yet, but still slow compared to others here - NC t83, Education t104, Radio t 167. Stole 2 techs from Rome and he killed my lvl3 Spy, second lvl3 Spy killed on a coup. New spies are killing Kathy's spies as fast as she can make them, even after her promise not to spy.

Rome had all the food wonders and had about 3x pop of avg. Other wonders are pretty well spread out, and went EARLY! I only have Forbidden Palace (wacky) and PT next turn. Faith buying a GE for Eiffel in 1 turn too. I have only had Mombassa as ally this game, a few Friendly CS. Quests have been absolutely horrific, only 1 trade route, no roads, only 1 lux and it was banned. Most of my cash went for war bribes and tiles. Almost forgot to go Astronomy - derp! So 4 Observatories. 658 bpt with only 2 Factories, none in cap yet. Finally in 2nd place science, it seems to me the AI is teching like crazy.

Full Tradition and Patronage opener. Burned a GA for Golden Age when WF started (won by 150 hammers) and burned 2 during the bonus culture time, so was able to get 3 policies after Rat open and still get 4 into Order pretty quickly, but now it's a slow grind.

 

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Nice Acken. That's how it is done :goodjob: Without wars I bet you could dip under 210.

I'm very curious about how you pushed culture so successfully and where your extra beakers came from. Earlier labs or more Great Scientists ...

In my game I had labs at 175.

GP totals:

9 Natural GS
2 GS from Hubble
1 GS from SF Pioneers
1 GS Faith

1 GE from SF Pioneers
1 GE from Faith

I'll be watching your videos :)

Edit: I see no Academy, while I foolishly built one. Smart move. Ok, no more comments until I watch :)

I think I got 8 natural 2 hubble 1 Porcelain 2 Faith. No GE.

Labs were all bought at turn 173.

For culture I got both CS allied, one with money and I liberated the other one. Then I took culture pantheon (pastures) and made quick guilds. Later in the game I made some archeologists. And of course win world fair, burn GA + 2 GW.
 
t299 SV

Spoiler :

Every time I tried a 4 city approach Assyria would engage in a 100 turn war, sometimes with Genghis as his ally. I tried what I know best a 3 city Tradition opening. Only 2 wars, one early with Assyria DOWing me and the second just a few turns from Plastics(silly Assyria). Korea was the first to build the Apollo Program and he happily sold me all his aluminum....
Of course Hiya-I'm-ICS-watha ICSed like mad and was the tourism leader, had it not been for Cathy I would have lost by 2 turns.

Just goes to show on the right map with the right civ you don't need to be afraid of Deity.
 

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I watched part 1. Your English is excellent so I don't know what you were worried about ;)

I learned a few helpful things:

- I really like the delayed double shrine. I usually either prioritize faith early (rare) or ignore religion until too late. This way you get God of the Open sky early enough that it makes a solid difference.

- Your first caravan is used internally for food; mine was used to placate Cathy. Yes, she declared on you, but that war didn't actually cost you anything. Combined with the pasture culture (GotOS) yielding a faster Tradition finisher you've pulled ahead in population considerably. Any extra science I had from that caravan is already overcome by Education. (~t106).

- You let gold build up much more than I would (>500 around turn 60-70, IIRC). Its used to buy tiles (which I think is the correct approach for terrace farming Incans), but I wonder why I used mine earlier ...

I'll keep watching, good work.
 
Those people talking about the random algorithm are spot on - my game seemed to be one of the more insane I have ever played. Caesar and Cathy went full piety! Sejong went straight honour and had a never-ending war with Caesar that saw 6 or 7 CS fall to the wayside. Pedro and Hiawatha were playing one-upmanship wonder spam contests, in between fighting each other at my request. Ashurbanipal tried stupidly to come through the mountain pass and attack me. I could have taken his city but took his lux and money instead to make peace. The minute I made peace with him Genghis decides to attack, and I tech'ed to artillery to make him rue the day and gain brownie points for liberating Monaco. Cathy was probably plotting against me the whole game but I let her religion enter my mountain region and gave her 5 GPT for most of the time.

ANYONE who got a domination victory on this deserves a big round of applause. Cathy, Caesar and Ash are not easy to mash up!

More details to follow...
 
Blast-off! I learned something new, if you nuke your own cities, you lose housed nukes and SS Parts! Kids, don't try this at home!
Spoiler :



T180-260 were a bit of a snooze-fest. I built every modern wonder but Sydney, Firewall and CN Tower, mainly because I forgot they were available. I could have had a DV in about 8 turns too, if I had wanted more of a challenge I suppose I could have liberated some of Khan's CS puppets. He really swamped the SE 1/4 of the map, taking out Cathy completely late, and eating up 1/2 of Assryia. Pedro had the GW, and was beating up Iroq and Rome at will. Mid/late-game Korea was the military leader, but when he started fighting Rome's GWBs he sailed a convoy of Turtle Ships. :lol:

I was able to push thru Order as World Ideology, even though only Korea and I took it (Cathy very late too). Pedro and Assyria went Freedom, the 3 spammers went Autocracy. I was able to get No Nukes just after I built 4 A-Bombs, and within a few turns everybody offered a DOF, which I declined. I did no RA's this game (often don't). I seem to usually be short of funds until near the end, and by that time they won't give me much.

The only war was when Rome and Cathy DOW'd me t208 = zzzzzz. Cathy got a whole 2 units in my eastern no-man's land which were quickly dispatched. I camped out a bit to help Mombasa, but by that time Khan was in his 4th war with her, so nothing was at risk. I was kind of surprised Khan never DOW'd me, I didn't always have him warring. I was kind of looking forward to seeing him come up to my 4th city with the lake, and send one unit a turn into the water.

I think I could have finished faster if I had been on food focus in my cap, but I was very worried about my faith generation and gold, so almost always worked the Earth Mother tiles. I didn't even fill the entire city window tiles at the end, one tundra bare. Cathy's religion swamped me with Itin Preachers, so by the end my cap was only 1 pop ahead on my religion!

 

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T236 SV - my 1st game in "Deity Challenge Lineup". I think it is actually fun to play the same map and see how others are doing ;)

Anyway some details below:
Spoiler :

Love the map :D As usual went 4 city Tradition/Rationalism + Order. NC up around T90 after 4 cities were settled. Had 2 mercantile allies, no problem with happiness. Only in late game stage Mongols and Romans started hating me, so I could not trade lux. Gold was no problem, AI had many routes towards my cities.

Wars:
Stole 2 workers from Iroquois and 4 from Ragusa. I was expecting wars since Assyria and Mongols were my neighbors. Built city walls in border cities. To my surprise I had only one early war against Assyria and he didn't even attack my city. That's it. Didn't bribe anyone and didn't even built any unit except from 3 or 4 initial stingers.
AI had wars pretty much all the time between each other. Everyone hated mongols because he captured city states I guess :)

Policies:
Full Tradition/Rationalism, Patronage opener.
Order
1st level: 25% GP generation, 33% discount, +1:c5happy: from workshop/factory...
2nd level: 25% factory bonus, 5 year plan
3rd level: buy spaceship parts

Wonders:
Sistine, Kremlin, Hubble, Hermitage, Eiffel, Broadway
Oxford, Maximus, Ironworks, East India, NC, NE - These are always built.
Missed Pisa by ~5 turns or so. Didn't even have a chance to build PT since it went away during WF.

WF: Won buy a huge margin, had like 1600 and 2nd place only ~600. Burned 3 GWs after 8 turns.

Rush buy:
1 university in capital, then almost 3 Public schools (in a few turns) and 4 research labs.

RA:
Only after 50% bonus from Ratio. Initially 2RA, later had even 4.

WLTKD:
Wales and salt were a problem but it was possible to get them. Overall had WLTKD pretty often.

Faith:
Had some AI religion in Cusco for faith from tundra. Bought 1 GS and 1GE.

Ideology:
No pressure really despite Brazil who had the biggest influence and didn't choose order. Russians, Korea, Assyria did choose order.


Not much to add, great map :)



 

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Not much to add, great map

This was the best starting location of the games so far because I wanted one that was tailored to The Inca's UA and tile improvements. Because of that there have been some very impressive finish times in this one. I'm glad you enjoyed the map.

I've been meaning to ask the community if I should continue on with the spreadsheet documenting finishers? I'm more than happy to continue logging the data if there is interest. Also, I added second page a while back that has a breakdown of each game in the lineup. It also sorts finishers based on games instead of by player.
 
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