The Deity Challenge Lineup #12 - The Maya

I took a much-needed vacation in Beyond Earth, but the win times are so quick and the victories so mechanical pre-patch, that I got bored pretty quick. I am very late to this DCL, but the Maya are one of my favorite Civilizations, so I decided to give it a try.

Spoiler :
I took the observatory/river tile settle location for Palenque. Early hammers were weaker, but it looked like a better mix of food/production long term, plus the observatory is always a nice boost. Got a culture ruin immediately to the south, opened tradition, and skipped the monument. Early build order was scout X 2, shrine, settler X 3, Granary, Caravan. One scout grabbed two workers from Montezuma on the same turn, thanks to altitude training. Plus, one worker steal from Budapest (+ another later). Grabbed the salt location next to Venice with first expansion (early scouting always useful). As an added bonus, Venice sent early trade routes, despite my salt and truffle land purchases nearby Venice :mischief:.

Early tech order was Pottery, Mining->Masonry, Husbandry -> Trapping, Writing, Sailing, and then Philosophy. The expansion locations did have luxuries, but the food situation was not particularly good, so I decided to tech beeline Civil Service instead of Theology, just to take advantage of the river tiles. National college was somewhere in the turn 80s. Hanging Gardens was still available, so I decided to go for that first over Oracle, but I also managed to get Oracle with my first bonus GP, a great engineer, which I used to open Patronage. Education hit exactly on Turn 100.



As for religion, the early shrine netted desert folklore. Even so, I was still a bit concerned about getting a religion after the recent patch, so I decided to rush buy a shrine in Chichen Itza, and then worked only desert tiles in the capital. Buddhism ended up with Tithe + Asceticism. Pagodas were already taken. One missionary sent to spread, and then I enhanced with religious community and religious texts. Production in the expansions was a little weak, beyond the first hill or two, and I was going Tradition tall, so religious community seemed like a good choice.

City state friendships were a bit weak in the early game, I only managed to ally Zurich pre-100 turns. The major reason for this was that several units were occupied with creating a wall of Montezuma, between Budapest and Almaty :confused:. Dido and Montezuma were in a state of perpetual warfare, but I felt like it would be a net win to filter Montezuma’s settle locations for him, as I hate being attacked while building universities. Dido had terrible land compared to Aztecs, so the eventual victor was obvious. After education, I made city states a higher priority, and concluded that my friendship declaration with Venice were not in my best interest. Venice was also a possible target for “acquisition”, as he was providing no luxuries, and he has a bad habit of trolling my city state alliances, especially if I give him a DOF. After universities, I started building an army to acquire Venice, at least until his knights showed up, at which point I decided to go for mid-game wonders instead. :mischief:

After lining up acoustics with social policy turns to go straight into Rationalism, I did a tech beeline to Astronomy, and then Engineering->Metal Casting->Machinery->Printing Press. I was able to avoid war with Aztecs, and meeting all the civilizations and CSs is a big advantage. About 5 turns into my Learning Tower, Pocatello started building a tower in his Capital, which looked a lot like the Leaning Tower that I was building. There was clearly an anti-Pocatello alliance on the other continent, but I could not bribe anyone to fight him for a distraction. After finishing my leaning tower, I noticed that his was still half complete. Oh, so that is not that Learning Tower he is building? Wait a minute, I know what tower that is! So, I picked GE from Leaning Tower and rushed Porcelain Tower. Missed out on the Sistine Chapel by a couple of turns. The irony is that I am pretty certain that the Leaning Tower made no difference in this game at all, I was not getting another GS for MANY turns before or past the final turn. :blush:



Tech to Scientific Theory, turn 151, and then rush bought a couple of public schools. Social policies were Secularism, Humanism, Free Thought, and Sovereignty. Saved scientific revolution for late game. I was able to Ally Kabul, Ur, and Quebec City during the mid-game. I also realized that the only faith CS, Lhasa, was captured, so I squeezed in some temples in the build orders here and there.

Venice used a merchant on Bucharest, which just bought me more a few more turns before the Aztecs would come knocking at my door. Despite Pocatello looking like the runaway on first contact, Korea and Siam cooperated to turn the tables on him, so I made friendships with both and signed RAs. Could have went fertilizer to help with food, but I decided to go Industrialization -> Electricity -> Radio to get first Ideology, picked Order on turn 172. Siam put in over a 1000 hammers into World’s Fair, so it was a good thing that I did not stop there. I picked Hero of the People and Skyscrapers for early adopter policies. World’s fair ended a few turns later, used the free policy on Worker Facilities, and then rush bought a couple of factories to get the immediate science boost. Used oxford to get plastics, turn 186, then to fertilizer, flight, railroads, and then straight to Rocketry as I did not need archaeology. I already had the social policies I needed, and there was no tourism runaway so no need for more culture. I built Eiffel just in case I ran into ideology/happiness issues. I also parked some useless GMs on the peninsula next to Palenque, to deter AI trolls from forward settling on me after their Ideology hatred built up. :scan:



Late game was science limited, Palenque had massive production by that point in the game. I pretty much felt the borders were pretty secure with 2 XCOMs, a tank, and 2 Mobile Sams. I just looked at the screenshot and noticed the catapult that I kept all game, probably should have gifted that to a CS in need :lol:. I was able to continue RAs with Korea, but Siam decided that it did not like my ideology choice. The end game was simply fill every specialist slot to maximize beakers, wait 8 turns, slowly bulb GSs one turn at a time, hit next turn. Two faith bought, two from Hubble, one from Space Pioneers. I used the rationalism finisher to get Nanotechnology. Last RA from Korea, and then GE from Space pioneers helped pushed the game to sub-250 turns.

 
Nice science win, Tom. I've added you to the list. If you want more of a challenge, try to win DomV on the Poland map! ;)
 
IMPORTANT NOTICE:

Though this map is quite old, it can still be played, so if you play it and complete it, please send me a PM so I can update the finisher's spreadsheet.

Thank you.
 
Spoiler :

I gave this two tries. Both times I went Liberty, got Petra, Oracle, Machu, and things started to crank up but then I got invaded by Monty in both games. Of course he didn't really do anything to me and we made peace not more than 10 turns later but I was like, eh, I don't really know how to churn out a Liberty game, so I scrapped both even though I probably would have won in the end. Or not, I don't know. I replayed two more times, minor things annoyed me and I got fed up :D

Mayans are very fun to play around with


edit

Spoiler :

I am definitely cursed. Three times in a row, someone is sniping Desert Folklore. Screw it
 
T264 DiploV

Spoiler :
A very fun game. I called this 'Small Piety Surprise', since I used Monty to bully everyone else on the continent, gave him my religion, then, upon reaching Plastics, smashed him and liberated everyone else.

Meanwhile, I took a Great Admiral for the 2nd Baktun and met everyone super early. The other continent was completely consumed by war. The Celts disappeared mid-game and Siam just before the final vote.

Screenshots show how quickly Siam disappeared, and how I let Almaty take out Monty.

I could probably have won by any means I liked. Small Piety is definitely a consistent strategy provided you have a pantheon. I settled for Diplo because it was the quickest.

SPs: Full Piety, Full Patronage, Commerce Opener+Road discount, Aesthetics right side, Freedom 5

No Tradition, No Rationalism
 
What was your religion like?

I think I stopped playing the map for some reason. Now I want to try wide Piety. Left side Liberty at least, and then use Baktun GE for Petra, since there is such a sweet spot for Petra city. I still need to finish the Persia game. But I kind of don't want to play the game anymore... again. I don't even want to play other games that I play. Spring to blame?
 
My religion was Desert Folklore, Tithe, Evangelism. The author of the Small Piety guide mentions that Evangelism is under-rated and I can see why. Focusing entirely on religion, building up a decent FPT and spamming faith units is made so much easier when your missionaries erode the other religions. Thankfully Dido was taken out before she could become a menace with Islam, and I made sure that Enrico never had a prophet that lived beyond his 2nd ring, and I worked hard to get my religion cemented into Monty's nascent ICS empire, plus after Astronomy sent a ton over the poison water to teach the Shoshone how to pray to Pachacamac (actually an Incan god but I don't know enough about Mayan religion and I wasn't playing with my usual Historical Religions mod).

Yeah I got Petra with a GE for the first Baktun. You don't need to go GS when you are playing Small Piety. Catching up on tech can happen more slowly.
 
I think I read the small Piety guide, but it just seemed like a "next turn" strategy game. I just feel like going wide is so good with the Maya, and that map offered good expansion spots. I looove Evangelism. It combines amazingly well with Holy Order and mandate of Heaven. You basically get really cheap mini-prophets.

Does Infantry take cities with ease? I actually have no clue.
 
Spoiler :
I went for a diplo victory, as noone else had got it when I started the game (just found out now that consentient beat me to it lol)

Nothing as interesting as consentient's small piety strategy. I couldn't even get a religion. It was full tradition, full rationalism, order after changing from freedom, and patronage of course. Got loads of GEs and all the important wonders, including Petra. It was just a case of diplomacy not to get destroyed by aggresive neighbours.

Probably could have got a nice early culture or science win. Mayas have the potential to be super powerful.
 

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I am watching Acken's replay. Interesting. He went full Liberty and snatched a bunch of workers from everyone, which let him expand and grow quickly. He then entered full-builder mode (like me!) for 100 turns, and none of the AI's even bothered coming after him, but they jointly DoW'ed after t100. He hard-built Petra in the capital and dropped a city to the West very close to the capital. I guess, he wanted to guarantee Petra? Palenque doesn't have that many hills, but a city in the desert could be amazing with Petra. He also used Liberty finisher and first Baktun for Great Scientists.

I personally like mixing opening trees, but I can't help thinking recently if that's ever a good idea. Acken went full Liberty and picked Golden Age policy around Writing (he beelined Currency). It helped him build Libraries and Petra fast, and, subsequently, finish NC rather early. Then he used Great Scientists to accelerate his science and ended up the second civ to enter the Renaissance. Say, I want to do Piety and Liberty. Most likely, I will open Liberty and go left side because Piety opener is hardly worth it for 1 Pyramid in the capital. Piety opener then should come at the time you are ready to build Pyramids in your expos. Ok now, that is already a 4th policy. You can then pick Organized Religion and Mandate of Heaven because they matter quite a bit in the early game. Now, that is pretty much a full policy tree right there. I could go full Liberty and be thriving. I could go full Piety and hit a very early Reformation of my choice. But doing a mix, I am stuck with 2 incomplete trees. Liberty's 2 last policies are amazing, but you will have a difficulty getting to them. Piety finisher is not bad, and gold from temples is nice, but you also need to build temples, and that means your expos might be somewhat behind in building order. Moreover, no happiness from Piety unless you pick a happy religion. Both trees are better off finished asap. I don't even know... mixing the trees might put me further behind. You could eventually catch up from a slow start, but deity games are generally quick, so you don't have much time to slumber.
 
The other risk you face if you don't go full Piety is not getting a religion at all. Tradition or Liberty starts mean that, since you will miss the Piety opener and Organised Religion, you are quite a lot less likely to found. Dido and Monty rarely go Piety compared with other AIs, I've found, but Enrico could easily found and spam a load of prophets before you've founded.
 
Did you DoW Enrico? I remember that map and how I missed religion even with DF. Acken also barely squeezed out a prophet, which spawned pretty much instantly. It's pretty stupid (and random) when you have 270 faith, and your prophet hasn't spawned.
 
But also in general. Liberty has such good finisher, and I also think Piety finisher is not bad either, but just getting two Ancient trees and not falling behind is the issue. And is it even worth it...
 
I DoW'ed Enrico when he tried to take Kabul, which I had worked hard to Ally, and to please Monty, and to train some of my troops.

Later, Dido captured Venice, and when I went to war with her, I liberated him and he loved me forever. By this time, I was strong enough to let Kabul slide the 2nd time. Then he got DoW'ed again and the victor conquered Kabul and razed it.

Pocatello being the ICS spammer that he is built two completely crap cities there.
 
Reading most popular and most current deity tier lists (not that I am a big fan of it) I realise that never played one of the top civs - The Maya.

However I have feeling that it's better on paper than in reality - when first great scientist is nice, other GPs increasing counter not so.

So is Maya really so powerful? - judging by results on this DLC not so, but maybe just map is bad - gonna try it in free time.

EDIT: Forgot about Pyramids - well it's really good building probably giving Maya one level up :)
 
Reading most popular and most current deity tier lists (not that I am a big fan of it) I realise that never played one of the top civs - The Maya.

However I have feeling that it's better on paper than in reality - when first great scientist is nice, other GPs increasing counter not so.

So is Maya really so powerful? - judging by results on this DLC not so, but maybe just map is bad - gonna try it in free time.

EDIT: Forgot about Pyramids - well it's really good building probably giving Maya one level up :)

I don't really know.. I'm guessing that happens because of the same reason Gandhi is good with nukes or gets nuked or whatever. Why do you think pyramids are a good building?
 
2 faith and 2 science from a shrine replacement (1 gpt maintenance). I defy you to find a better 40 hammer building.
 
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