Community Deity Game #14 - The Celts

consentient · May 24, 2016

beetle said:
Are mounted units counted as melee for buffing the melee:range ratio (Melee Archipelago) or as enemy melee killed (Whirling Skirmish)?

No. I've updated the OP so people know what melee units are.

Wait, if you are doing CV, why would you not try and fill out Aesthetics?

Because there isn't going to be any immediate gain from the opener, which is the weakest part of the tree. If he's finished Liberty, chances are he has no Guilds, and therefore no GWAM at all, so faster production of nothing is a wasted policy. The time to open Aesthetics is much later.

Is Sacred Sites not worth the bother?

Sacred Sites is not going to make a faster CV unless you get the early cheese. With a normal finish time (T200-300), you just want to reach the techs faster. So that's why Piety is a poor tree for fast (efficient) CV. But if you want to make use of Holy Sites, etc, it's a better idea to go into Piety earlier, either after Collective Rule, or when playing Trad, after the opener, like MadDjinn did with India. But let's remember that it was a T300+ finish, IIRC. Much better to concentrate on tech and get to T250 with enough tourism to quickly influence everyone.

Shark Diver · May 24, 2016

consentient said:
Sacred Sites is not going to make a faster CV unless you get the early cheese. With a normal finish time (T200-300), you just want to reach the techs faster. So that's why Piety is a poor tree for fast (efficient) CV. But if you want to make use of Holy Sites, etc, it's a better idea to go into Piety earlier, either after Collective Rule, or when playing Trad, after the opener, like MadDjinn did with India. But let's remember that it was a T300+ finish, IIRC. Much better to concentrate on tech and get to T250 with enough tourism to quickly influence everyone.

Going the fast tech route to CV probably isn't going to happen given the rapid expansion by Max. Since that's gone, building an overwhelming culture Civ is not a bad choice, and Sacred Sites will help with that, particularly with the 10+ Mosques he's going to have.

It sounds like there's enough natural violence in his game that there won't be any runaway tech leader.

Browd · May 24, 2016

consentient said:
No. I've updated the OP so people know what melee units are.

For purposes of this challenge and its achievements, melee units are what the OP says they are -- it appears the OP intends to include essentially any land unit that does not have a ranged attack (that is, to attack another unit a "melee" unit must move into the tile occupied by that unit, instead of using some type of ranged weapon to attack that unit from another tile).

But to nip any potential confusion in the bud, everyone should be aware that, where the game talks about "melee" units, the technical definition is much narrower, as it is excludes "recon" units (scouts), "mounted" units, "gunpowder" units and "armored" units, all of which engage in "melee-like" combat. So, in-game bonuses that apply by their terms to "melee units" only apply to that narrow class of "melee units" that includes warriors, swordsmen, longswords, spearmen, pikemen and landsknechts (and the various related UUs).

If you have a question about what class a particular unit falls in for purposes of the game in general, just consult the Civilopedia, but if you have a question about the status of a particular unit for purposes of this challenge, you should continue to ask the OP.

tarafran · May 24, 2016

Looks like a great game, I tried sorting out the mods for 2 hours and I'am giving up.

beetle · May 24, 2016

tarafran said:
I tried sorting out the mods for 2 hours and I'am giving up.

I am sorry you are having trouble tarafran. I feel like that if I can get it working, then everyone should be able to. Between CDG1 and this map, it seems to me that I have had every permutation of problems possible!

1) Did you catch that the file in OP was replaced after a few days? The very first version was corrupted or something. If you are still working with that one, it may well be hopeless.

2) Have you used mods before?

tarafran · May 25, 2016

i'm using the newest file and tried it with the religion mod v32 and both the v1 and v2 of the other one.
I use mods before with no issues
Could it be a mac problem?
my system has been pretty solid with CIV so far
I have a 12 core ,3.46 Mac Pro with 64 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 2048 MB .

consentient · May 25, 2016

Browd said:
For purposes of this challenge and its achievements, melee units are what the OP says they are -- it appears the OP intends to include essentially any land unit that does not have a ranged attack (that is, to attack another unit a "melee" unit must move into the tile occupied by that unit, instead of using some type of ranged weapon to attack that unit from another tile).

Err...no. Melee units in this challenge do NOT include mounted.

I guess I need to be clearer.

Warriors
Spearmen
Swordsmen
Pikemen
Musketmen
Riflemen
GWI
Infantry

These are the only units you should be using for this challenge to maintain the greatest ratio.

Maxattack · May 25, 2016

consentient said:
Planes do not count as ranged units, but they are not melee either. Remember the achievements (if you care about them) are about having melee units.

So if we build one pict and 0 ranged, our ratio is infinite, right ?

Doesn't help for the other achievements though...

consentient said:
As far as guides, Acken's Liberty guide helps get the economy going strong, and with more cities, you want to spam more archaeologists, so perhaps worth beelining so you can grab lots of antiquity sites - park your units on them if need be.

Yeah I already read that amazing guide a couple of times and I'm slowly getting the hang of it. Ar some point Acken says growth isn't that important when playing wide but I guess this doesn't mean I should totally neglect it...

consentient said:
I'd recommend taking the Tradition opener as the spare policy before Rationalism if you're planning on CV. The border growth is sizeable. Commerce isn't really worth it if you don't plan on conquest. Piety is a poor second tree because it has so little Culture in it. Tradition and Patronage are better places for spare policies.

I had considered opening Tradition too and now that I'm thinking about it it probably makes much sense ! It is amazing how a simple 25% border growth makes the difference in the shape of an empire at some point ^^ And the +3 culture at this point would still represent a 10% increase in my current output. I could even get Aristocracy for at least +10 happiness later in the game and to build things like Ironworks faster !
As for Patronage, I think I won't be able to get and keep lots of CS allies anyway because I'll probably need my gold to upgrade my 15-20 picts all the way to Infantry...
It sorts of makes me sad I have to go Rationalism almost every single game, whatever the VC I'm pursuing but I guess I can't go around it in the base game...

consentient said:
If you're going for Culture, growth is much more important than anything else. Acken's guide will help you grow your empire nicely.

Ok, so the next step is probably something like Colosseums, Granaries, Workshops, Unis. Thanks for the advice.

consentient said:
Nice long writeup The only thing I'd add next time would be paragraph breaks

Here you go ^^

Shark Diver said:
That was one of my initial thoughts as well. Given the need to buy 10+ Mosques, Piety isn't a bad tree at all.

Organised Religion with 9 shrines and temples sounds so strong... but having to invest 4 policies to get a reformation belief is actually a strong deterent... Maybe I'll get those a little bit later when I need to buy GMus. We'll see

Shark Diver said:
The guides Consentient suggests are good ones with some good ideas for many scenarios. In your particular situation, here's a few things I would focus on:

Delay Renaiisance. Focus on the faith buildings after enhancing. They'll take care of the happiness (Pagodas are a better choice most of the time IMHO).

Workshops and Unis are both very important and you are behind in both production and science. Because of the # of cities, you'll find it easier to catch up in production, so I'd prioritize the Unis.

It's probably time to turtle up for a bit, but that doesn't mean you can't let unfriendly neighbors ram themselves into a wall of your upgraded Picts. Successful war doesn't have to gain territory (I think Tsun Tzu said something vaguley resembling that once).

Speaking of enhancing : should I take Itinerant Preachers or Religious Texts ? The latter sounds stronger with a large empire but I didn't see any maths about that (didn't really search frankly).
So Unis before Workshops even though I can't fill the slots ? I have to say it bugs me when my slowest cities need 20 turns to get a University...
Haha, that's probably why I'm so bad at domination : I always get impatient, start pushing forward too early, get half my units killed and cry ^^ But maybe by turtling I'll get at least a part of the points for the upgrade achievement

Shark Diver said:
With the amount of cities you have, if you can get the economy/science/hammers up to speed, you are set up well for a very good late/really late game. You should be able to outproduce anyone after t150 if you can focus on your cities for the next 70 turns.

Yeah, WF should be a formality

Shark Diver said:
PS. Screenshots please.

Hadn't time to boot the game yesterday but I'll definitely post some tonight !

consentient said:
Sacred Sites is not going to make a faster CV unless you get the early cheese. With a normal finish time (T200-300), you just want to reach the techs faster. So that's why Piety is a poor tree for fast (efficient) CV. But if you want to make use of Holy Sites, etc, it's a better idea to go into Piety earlier, either after Collective Rule, or when playing Trad, after the opener, like MadDjinn did with India. But let's remember that it was a T300+ finish, IIRC. Much better to concentrate on tech and get to T250 with enough tourism to quickly influence everyone.

Well, I'm not aiming at a fast victory anyways if I can avoid it. I like messing with the Atomic and Info era buildings and units ^^ But indeed, Sacred Sites would come late and peak at 18 tourism at this point, not exactly overwhelming for the investment...
This MadDjinn LP, together with Acken's China domination one are definitely my favorite ones. Winning a Culture Victory with three cities, three War Elephants and Shaka as neighbour really left me speechless

Anyways, thanks for all the advice ! I'll decide what I do exactly when I've opened the game again and checked what my oponents are doing exactly because I don't even know who went what policy-wise (I only know someone went Liberty and got the Pyramids very early...).

beetle · May 25, 2016

tarafran said:
Could it be a mac problem?

No, I am on a Mac myself. But YIKES that is an OP machine!

I installed v33 of the religious mod through Steam. After I realized the version miss-match and downloaded the v32 .modinfo file, I found the v33 version in Finder. Then I unsubscribed from the mod and quit Civ5.

Next I manually unpacked v32 files and put those where the v33 ones had been. When I started up Civ5 and went into the MODS screen, sure enough the v32 version was an option there.

I did not got through with the same hijinks for the pikes->muskets mods. They have slightly different names, in addition to the different version numbers. I have not tried running them both at the same time, but I have not had to delete one or the other.

The only two mods I have enabled are the v32 religion and v1 muskets. You have to load the initial file from the MODS screen, but that is probably the same as you have done before.

Are you getting any kind of error messages?

Redaxe · May 25, 2016

beetle said:
Is Sacred Sites not worth the bother? (Again, my CV was not close at all. But if the faraway runaway had launched at more typical T350, I think I would have been okay.)

I tend to think you'd be better of with To the Glory of God.
The bonus comes much later then most of the other reformations but you can speed this up by beelining to Scientific Theory and bulb Scientists/steal technology to get there.

If you have the faith then Glory of God gives you a lot more flexibility.
Free Engineers for Wonders
Free Scientists for more bulbing
Free Writers more Social Policies/Artists for Golden Ages
Free Merchants for CityStates or for a quick sum of gold for military or other expenses.

Also the AIs don't get benefit of this belief as I understand it

beetle · May 25, 2016

Redaxe said:
I tend to think you'd be better of with To the Glory of God.

TtGoG is my favorite and default Reformation belief, for all the reasons you mention. I tried SS this game because it is so rare that I have so many SP so early. So my Reformation belief came early. Usually, if I get TtGoG, I am picking it up quite late, after three in Rationalism, but (as you point out) that late timing is fine. In most CV games, I will have filled out Tradition, Aesthetics, and Rationalism -- so I was expecting TtGoG to be useless for this game. As it was, this game, I never did get around to Rationalism. So maybe TtGoG would have been better -- but I think mostly skipping Piety is better yet. So that is what I am trying with my replay.

But I have not been able to do a thing to slow down the faraway runaway. And my warmongering is tardy as ever. I will probably try this map again running four city Tradition, see where I am with that at T100. I really don’t want to give up on my early wide play though. Maybe I should do Mosques and Holy Warriors instead of Pagodas and Mosques? This map seems like it should be ideal for a violent CV, but I cannot figure out how to get started really.

consentient · May 25, 2016

Maxattack said:
It sorts of makes me sad I have to go Rationalism almost every single game, whatever the VC I'm pursuing but I guess I can't go around it in the base game...

Just wanted to say one more thing, which is that the 'Rationalism = best' maxim is one of several deeply-ingrained BNW myths.

I mean, if you want the fastest possible SV then sure, you need to go Rationalism, but it's more or less take it or leave it otherwise. The opener and Secularism can give you a boost to research, but not one that's gonna make a huge difference if you're going for CV, DiploV and especially Domination.

I've chalked up lots of CVs where I didn't even open it. Getting the world ready to receive your tourism by starting wars and manipulating the WC are both way more important than raw beakers. Some people think that using the finisher to get a high-cost tech like Internet is the best way, but frankly, I've gotten so used to winning before Internet that I would see it as a bit of a failure to have to wait until the Information Era. Plus, who wants to sink 5 policies into a tree just to get a free tech. The opportunity cost of this complete outstrips the benefits.

stormtrooper412 · May 25, 2016

I agree mostly. I usually go Rationalism + Secularism in Culture games and it works for the most part. But I suppose violent culture works just as well (as shown in a certain modded game I played a bit ago

)

consentient · May 25, 2016

Even without violence, Rationalism can be skipped and sub T250 CVs can still be had.

beetle · May 25, 2016

Maxattack said:
So if we build one pict and 0 ranged, our ratio is infinite, right ?

I read the ratio as also setting the minimum number needed to claim the achievement points.

Speaking of enhancing : should I take Itinerant Preachers or Religious Texts ?

Well, (1.3)^2 = 1.69 and 1.69 > 1.5. Both are great though. I usually like RT more though because it also buffs Trade Routes. For wide (or four cities more spread out), IP would be stronger. I picked RT this time, but mostly because I was feeling lazy. That part went well. I have been steadily picking up CS conversion quests without making any effort at all.

So Unis before Workshops even though I can't fill the slots ? I have to say it bugs me when my slowest cities need 20 turns to get a University...

I thought the conventional wisdom for wide play is Workshops first? My Universities are only taking about 10 turns with that BO.

consentient said:
Even without violence, Rationalism can be skipped and sub T250 CVs can still be had.

I would love it if someone can demonstrate that with some detail for this map! I am getting my hat handed to me.

consentient · May 25, 2016

beetle said:
I would love it if someone can demonstrate that with some detail for this map! I am getting my hat handed to me.

I am sure someone will. 8 massive Liberty cities make a LOT of science. I've committed all-in to the Domination attempt, but someone else will produce a decent CV I'm sure. Not sure you'll be able to talk them into skipping Rationalism, though.

When I'm finally able to make LPs without hiccup, I'll make one of a Rationalism-less CV.

Maxattack · May 26, 2016

First of all, here's a pic of my empire at turn 80 :

Spoiler :

Also one of the northern invasion...

Spoiler :

From there on I have to say that not many things went as planned...

Spoiler :

The war with Pedro and Harald went pretty bad overall but I've been extremely lucky in the end. First of, Harald made peace with Nappy pretty early and started to attack Truro opening a second front which I could barely defend. It appears that Pictish Warrior do extremely poorly against Berserkers, especially in friendly territory... Meanwhile, Pedro continued to push, easily killed most of my army and started to do damage to Dublin. The situation became extremely critical but I was able to make peace one turn before he would have taken it ! With this problem out of the way, I started to move my weakened troops to the southern front to help the two poor guys holding it. When I rush bought a wall in Truro the vikings changed their target and sent their troups to the poor citiy of Nantes. Again, things got pretty close and, again, I made peace on the turn before they would have taken the city... Fortunately, a few turns after this, all my neighbours became friendly again because the agressive settler modifier had disappeared and Pedro even asked for a DoF which I accepted. Meanwhile, Gus had become fed up with Hiawatha settling a bunch of cities towards him and he naturally declared war on him. He took 3 or 4 cities before making peace and is now ruling the biggest empire and has the strongest army...

On the religious side of things, the french Catholicism spread like wildfire through my tiny cities and I now have only two of my cities following my own religion... I enhanced around turn 125 waiting ages for that prophet to appear and I took Religious Texts and Pagodas (still available, lol). This was probably a stupid move because my FPT is ridiculously low and I'm already in the Renaissance so I will probably never get mosques AND pagodas up... At least not if I want to buy GMus and GPs to convert my cities back... So at this point my religion is basically useless and France's is extremely powerful... I think I'll just let it be on that front and concentrate on my growth and economy more, I don't think I can afford to build 9 shrines and temples without going broke.

Tech-wise, I was surprised that at some point I was actually catching up on the AI thanks to only growth and a lone trade route. I was also very surprised when Sweden happily entered the Renaissance on turn 86... But this allowed me to steal Theology from Hiawatha and to get Education on turn 118. At that point most of my Workshops were up and my cities had enough production to finish the unis within 10 to 15 turns. The problem is : I am working none of those specialist slots, even in Edimburgh where I decided that the Writer's Guild was more important. I was able to close the gap up to a 6% litteracy difference before Education but now America is starting to run away and this is definitely worrying me... He went Liberty and straight into Rationalism and doesn't accept any bribes to war even the weakest of his neighbours... At some point I decided to send the swedish troops against him but they don't seem to be making any progress... I hope I won't fall too far behind until I can work the slots because otherwise this game might very well end in an early fiasco...

On the cultural side of things, I'm still around 40 CPT and I was able to get 2 SPs before the Renaissance (I missed the Oracle by 6 turns out of 9 by the way...). Seeing the disastrous religious situation I went the safe side and opened Tradition and got Aristocracy. My borders are growing fast and I didn't have to buy any more tiles since then. Fun fact, the Hanging Gardens went on turn 104, if I had noticed that I may have gone for it myself... The Ottomans, while being extremely discrete the entire game, already peak at 12 tourism and are already Exotic over half of the map. I don't think they're a real threat for now but I still asked Sweden to check out how they're doing as the bribe was dirt cheap. I only hope I'm not creating a monster that way...

So now it's turn 130, I just entered the Renaissance through Acoustics and I am building Sistine Chapel in Edimburgh as apparently no one has started to work on that one and the only civs not at war at this moment are the Iroquois and me (bribes ftw !). I should get that just before the WC vote with WF kicks in. The sad thing is, the 500 Golden Age points won't be enough to trigger a GA once I win that (should be easy).

Once again, I'm a few turns from picking a policy and I'm facing tough choices... I think I'll go Aesthetics down to Cultural Centers because I need to grow now and the faster I get those Ceilidh Halls, the better. I could go Rationalism but as my happiness is low and I am constantly trying to stay at -1 to have the highest possible pop, the bonus won't apply 24/7 and Secularism is useless if I don't work any specialists. And I don't want to go Rationalism anyway ^^

I'm really enjoying that game for now, thanks for that amazing map

Here's a screenshot at turn 130 :

Spoiler :

beetle · May 26, 2016

consentient said:
Err...no. Melee units in this challenge do NOT include mounted.
I guess I need to be clearer.

What about AA, Mobile SAM, and MI?

I also think the achievement points assigned to The Melee Archipelago, Quad Pike, and Whirling Skirmish are not well balanced. That is, getting 4 points from Whirling Skirmish is easy. Getting even a single point from Melee Archipelago is hard and really skews your game. A single point from Quad Pike is probably as challenging as the 4 point achievement in Whirling Skirmish, and the three and four point Quad Pike achievements seem mathematically impossible.

DanQuayle · May 26, 2016

consentient said:
Warriors
Spearmen
Swordsmen
Pikemen
Musketmen
Riflemen
GWI
Infantry

These are the only units you should be using for this challenge to maintain the greatest ratio.

Not that I plan to get any of them, but shouldn't these also be included?

Longswordsmen
Marines
Mechanized Infantry
Landsknechts
Foreign Legion

consentient · May 26, 2016

With respect, I've tried to make it clear that I don't give a monkey's about achievements and am really tired of trying to please the different personalities that play these games, and that I'd much sooner play either with non-numerical ones, or without them.

I also said that it was up to the rest of you to come up with these if you wanted to play with them. DanQuayle chose this current set, and they were viewable for a while before the map was actually posted.

So again, with respect, please accept what is set by the OP (or whomever they elect to make the achievements in their stead).

Trying to make what everyone agrees are balanced achievements, on top of the task of making a challenging and fun map, is just impossible.

FYI, I'm on course to get maximum points for all of them except the promotions. I'm having to spam and suicide units, because I really want to clear the map without any non-melee.

Community Deity Game #14 - The Celts

Domination!

King

Dilettante

Warlord

Deity

Warlord

Domination!

Chieftain

Deity

Emperor

Deity

Domination!

Peacemongering Turtlesaur

Domination!

Deity

Domination!

Chieftain

Deity

Prince

Domination!

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