The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game # 3 - Persia

+12 faith and +15 culture just for having those in your borders.

wow what an easy game this is going to be... (I am never one to settle in place anyway... and Petra was calling me)


Ulp... did I just forward settle someone on the other side of the mountain? (either Japan or Korea... I hope it's Korea...) but no worries... I'm sure I can block whatever mountain passes there may be with my units. btw I didn't go for observatory because I didn't want to lose some food tiles (and chances are, it's a mountain range, hence depriving my capitol of 10+ workable tiles maybe... for CV if your hammers don't catch up to your research, then science is pointless)


Holy Moly... I was debating between desert folklore or one with nature, but this seals the deal. Just when I'm about to get enough gold to buy Uluru too. Maybe this will be a very easy game. I just have to block settlers south and east and the whole corner of the continent should be mine to settle. Easy. WHY AM I NOT SPAIN THOUGH???


Oh look and Japan sent me a caravan! (due to that I did not steal workers from him but poor Samarkand was my victim instead) Perhaps Oda's not so bad after all...


Nonetheless... high deception... low loyalty... Swords to Plowshares probably not good here. I'm preparing for the crusade that might be coming in the future. Japan does not look like he's bribable against anyone else (since I'm his only neighbor and his empire is pinned to the mountains... another reason to hate continents...)


That bastard... and right after I sent him a caravan too! (he didn't even care if his own caravan to me got plundered!) t51 early war is upon us. This is the so-called Terra Cotta rush I guess (he finished Terra Cotta and then marched his army to me right away in a handful of turns) Man... I miss the days where that wonder is +6 culture.


ahh... ahh... AHHHH... (to master warmongers out there... would you take the risk and keep the chariot in the city?...)


Not gonna risk it... I didn't have walls, and I had faith to buy an archer anyway. I love the nonchalance of my citizens... who are working towards a t60 OCC NC.


Long story short, pathetic AI aside, I walked right in after he lost all his CB and my golden age chariots pillaged the living daylights out of his empire. In time, the first Japanese war is over with a slight victory for us! Yay! He wasn't building workers, or caravans and I pillaged everything already so I'll take the gpt.


Building wonders while at war is possible because of holy warriors. Oracle and Borobodur also followed eventually.


Oh dear... is Korea in the game? Renaissance sub t-100 from whoever is on the other side of the ocean... I hope they don't run away too much before I can get the war bribes rolling against them.


Should've enhanced way earlier but my faith was being spent on units... No swords to plowshares this game... (not when Japan, Ottomans and Carthage are on your continent! I have DoF with Suleiman though)


Somewhere around this time the 2nd Japanese war started... with my first GG I sealed off his mountain pass and if he decides he doesn't want to make peace I'm going to citadel my way into the heart of his capitol.


A little late to education thanks to Japan btw... Borobodur finished at t110. Pretty annoyed actually since Carthage managed to spread her religion quite far while I was occupied with units... I swear I am going to nuke Japan at the end of the game for this.


Dido founded WC, and here we have our runaway... incredible size... If there's a civ that's a worse threat to CV than science-runaway Korea, it's Poland. Greece. France. Polynesia. I swear, whoever submitted the save makes it such that the AI civs make CV as hard as possible. Culture powerhouses across the sea, and backstabbing warmongers at home... At least no Brazil..., or Maya... or India... (actually who do I WANT? lol Vikings probably, then maybe Theodora, William, the weak AIs who are friendly basically but then again this is supposed to be a "challenge") btw the second Japanese war ended with me getting 10gpt, gems and pearls. I bribed Sully against Oda to keep him on his toes and focused on building up my delayed infrastructure.


t150 decided to call it a night. To be continued.
Wonders so far: Petra, Oracle, Borobudur, Sistine Chapel. No guilds up yet though, didn't have the time or the pop in my capitol, which was stuck on production focus for a good portion of the early game thanks to Japan. Things don't look so bad though as my faith income is pretty OK and I'll get grand temple up shortly after ironworks.

Things really didn't turn out as expected and due to mainly watching TdF and fiddling with a couple of other comps at the same time one could argue that my playing wasn't exactly the epicentre of coherence.

Japan really didn't want to make peace at all but didn't send troops either so it was highly boring & ineffective war nor didn't any other early wars break, sadly.
4 cities in decent places but I was lacking money, happiness, workable tiles & CSs quests so the boring life in the realm was going in sleep mode. The only thing I wasn't lacking were workers - few from CSs and two wandering pioneers from some unmet CSs.
Around T60 Suleiman offered DoF which took and sent a caravan to him which was quickly destroyed by wandering Japanese scout which was mildly annoying but Suleiman was even more so and compensated it with denouncing me, cool. This bad mood of his turned into war few turns later which a scary sight of endless spearmen & quite a few catas. The situation wasn't helped by minor army hugging the Japanese borders on the other side of the continent in hope of getting some pot shots here & there. Frontal city with defense of 9 really wasn't encouraging either. Luckily he decided to camp over night hugging my borders instead of the city so my troops arrived eventually just in time and Oda finally settled for white peace.
Killed pretty much all of his troops, took one city & sold it to the weathiest of piss poor dictators, Dido, for a couple gpt and started sieging Istanbul which fell T96 and obviously Kame popped to say hi a turn before that. Last Ottoman city was razed few turns later which didn't do much good for my popularity but apparently Kame amongst others hated me long before I was born.

Apparently others went for the lower side of tech tree as samurais appreared ~T80, Carthagian knights few turns later and T91 Suleiman had trebuchets - not a healthy environment for my cbs & immortals but my tech rate was pretty much non-existent due to lack of caravan. Cities having population having population roughly equal to that of Chernobyl didn't help either.

One with nature pantheon soon after I finally had money to buy Uluru but sadly I had even money to buy GBRs so it took ages to get religion going. Had the lazy hippie prophet bothered to show up a turn earlier I could've chose Pagodas which will be now badly missed.

Somebody went rennaissance T94 which is quite normal but I'm so late that this might get interesting. CS few turns after that and Edu just before T120. I was suppose to go for XBows first without money for upgrades there wasn't much point otherwise I would've DoWed Dido right after Suleiman was finished and by now, T120, it seems I don't have to bother as Dido's troops are suddenly hugging my borders. The bad thing is that her CSs allies are hugging my borders as well. I have few allies but I doubt they will actively join in this forthcoming exchange of views by physical manners.

Oda is probably building an army for a visit and Kame has been hostile for a while. Whether this will be dom game or not I think I'll just wipe my continent from foreign influence just for the fun ot it. This has already gone bad enough so I might as well keep on doing stupid things.

The first hint that this game will be more challenging that the last two was when Alex built the Forbidden Palace one turn before the WC was founded by Dido. That means no WF, which greatly slows down mid-game tech pace.

Still, I was having reasonable success in building a solid core. 300 beakers by t150 is the Moriarte target, IIRC.



I probably started to relax a little too much here: I have a solid tech pace. Japan is relatively weak and would be easily repulsed + he is fighting Carthage. Soon I could have bombers or artillery, so what is the worry?

Suleiman.

This is not part of the plan



This is bad. The only reason I have a chance to hold here is that I had ~1500 cash in reserve. That means I could upgrade all my CBs to XBs, buy Walls, and buy a Castle the turn after the initial DoW ...

It was really, really close ... and I had to sacrifice several units, but the Ottaman's are repulsed.



In the above screenshot you can see a Carthaginian prophet sneaking in the convert my capital, successfully. Bad Dido

I think the plan from here is to put some Gatling pressure back towards Suleiman, while teching for Bombers. The lack of WF + massive war costs are going to slow this game down. Alex, Napolean, and Dido are intimidating, hairy beasts this game. Should be fun.

The first WF vote (heavily controlled by Dido + Alex) tried to ban two of my Luxes (Furs & Citrus). Happiness troubles are looming too.

I really wanted this to be a peaceful game with preferred victory conditions being culture or science, but when I saw who the other civs were I quickly realized this would be very difficult.

I settled on silver and went full tradition with 4 cities. I didn't intend to steal workers but Oda was determined to settle on my side of the mountain range so I had to keep capturing his settlers and workers. I had more workers than I knew what to do with them so I probably deleted 10 of them before turn 100.
I kept the war with Oda opened for a long time, and when we finally made peace I got a nice deal with luxes and gpt. Japan was to far behind at this point and was no longer a threat.
On turn 120, my "friend" Suleiman dow'ed me but he couldn't do much because I bribed Dido to fight him.

I founded my religion with culture from silver pantheon but I never managed to spread. Dido's religion was spreading like wildfire so I just rolled with it. She also founded the world congres, built Forbidden Palace and allied most of the city states. Her first or second proposal was to make her religion the world religion which was passed thanks to my votes.

I built oxford to get dynamite and then I went on a military campaign to conquer my continent. When the war was over, on turn ~240, I concentrated on my gpt and city state quests.

In the mean time, on the other continent, Alex was eliminated by France while Kamehameha lost his capital to Poland.

France built most of the wonders and was pumping a lot of tourism, so for a moment it looked like I was going to lose the game! The time needed for world leader vote and time until France achieved influential status with Poland and me was very close. But thanks to my 60 turns golden age and archeologist spam I survived.

I settled the first Silver hill - it had river protection on 3 hexes, of course, later found no danger from NW! Culture and map ruins, good rivers, I decided full Tradition. Later, with map revealed, I had regretted not going Liberty - I saw 5-6 good spots, with Dido and Sul far away. Took Religious idols with 7 silver in view, and had 2nd religion - I had decided to go at least 2 in Patronage to Consulates, so chose Papal Primacy (with an eye towards Itin Preachers later, and took Mosques). I usually go Tithe for big bucks, but figured going tall I would want lux and the 2 Merc happy buddies more easily with +35 resting influence (had not met Alex yet).

2nd city would have gone on river hill by Uluru, but I knew I wanted to buy tiles in the mtn pass to block Oda for the wars that will surely follow, using Samarkand for traffic jams. 4 pasture/2deer mtn city on river, yes, please, and thank you! Before I got my 3rd city, Liberty Sul plopped his 3rd city Ankara 11 freaking tiles from his cap, ugh. Messed up all my expansion, he was even able to absorb my fish and cows, grrr. So I am stuck with 3 cities. I knew he would go for my 3rd ring truffles, so I had to camp a Scout 4 tiles out from GBR until I absorbed them, bastage!

Reformation I got Papal, and debated follower - most would help my wider neighbors more, so took Fertility Rights to get taller. I should be a faith powerhouse before long, fighting Dido's Islam - she got Rel Unity, so a fight for CS influence on this side of the world. I should Ally the mercs very soon.

Captain Underpants swam over pretty early, and somehow I met Alex - I don't see a coastal route. Trades have been crap - both Oda and Sul only giving 6 gpt, and I have had extra horsies forever. I bribed Sul vs Dido for like 8 gpt and nothing happened, later paying through the nose 22 gpt for Oda to DOW Dido and I scouted but he didn't move a single unit South, what a waste. Once Oda DOW I needed to produce more units, because he threatened to swarm, so now I have too many units with not much to do. As expected, my defenses are great. He has smashed like 6-7 triremes against my GBR city, LOL. I stole a worker from Monaco early, which put me in bad with Dido for a while. I didn't want bad relations with the mercs.

I got Civ Serv first, Education comes next turn, late NC at 108. Another meh start for me. Spying on Underpants, so I assume that will go poorly. I don't foresee a very peaceful game. Map shows my planned expansion and current game. Looks like a SV.

Going to the other continent was a pain in the ass. The only spot I could land my units was in Greece/city states territory. Alex was already at war with Casmir so I couldn't position my units in the right spot anyway. I was way behind at picking up Artillery so I basically just sat my units in the new land and watched everything unfold. Eventually I got three artillery into the new land and placed them outside Poland's borders. The first Polish city I attacked was already kind of beat down and I was able to take it the same turn I declared war. I planted a citadel in front of Warsaw. He sent a ton of units at me, but eventually the city was drained enough where I took it with a rifle. The only wonder was Leaning Tower, which meant that he had built his other four wonders in a different city. Casmir could have easily taken his capital back on the next turn, but instead offered Krakow for peace. I accepted his deal and in return I got a city with Petra, Forbidden palace, Globe, and one other that I cannot remember. Those were his last wonders. I don't know why that wasn't the new capital because it was a much better city than the one he kept.

The turn after the peace deal Napoleon declared war on me. Taking his cities was actually pretty damn difficult. He had a lot of great war bombers and killed off all but one of my original gatling guns. I pillaged all of his oil reserves and he had none coming from city states, but he somehow kept using them to destroy my units(maybe he settled on oil?). I started the war with gwi, gatling guns, frigates, artillery, and finished him off with battleships, infantry, bombers, land-ships, and rocket artillery. He would never accept peace and eventually was captured entirely by Greece.

After finishing off Paris I sat around and waited to research atomic theory then to Advanced ballistics. Alex had a gigantic army and I knew I would have to nuke my way to the finish. Before I researched atomic theory, I was informed that Alex had no more techs for me to steal. I moved my spy into a city state. Like three turns later I got a notification saying he built the Manhattan Project. Wtf? So his city was producing like 300-400 hammers per turn?

After our last research agreement finished, I burned a couple great scientists and bought some nukes for less than 1k gold a piece because of big ben, an autocracy policy, and commerce policy. I had also purchased all of Alex's uranium so he couldn't do anything with it. Right before I attacked I did something a little cheesy. I paid Alex 440 a turn in exchange for 11k. I made all the purchases I needed and attacked him on the next turn. Honolulu (alex captured early) was taken with battleships, and RA's in one turn. I nuked the living daylights of anything around and on my way to Athens. It took me two turns to move my lone land-ship into position to grab his capital.

Game notes
-Ended with two(maybe three)research agreements from Alex and one from my short friendship with Napoleon.
-Stole a ton of techs in this game but the notable ones were public schools from Alex, then later stole radio from him. Flight from Napoleon. Oxford into plastics, and science finisher to rocket artillery.
-I pumped out nearly 2k hammers into the world fair and lost to Alex.
-Alex was surprisingly not locked down with many city states in this game. He was allies with severak, but usually only like 80-100 influence.

I'm thinking about giving this game another go and messing around with a piety opening. I've never tried one, but if there was a map to do it on, I would probably say this is it. I'm hoping someone else posts a game where they try it out.

I don't have pics right now. I thought I loaded them onto my imgur account, but I apparently have not. Next time I am on my desktop I will upload them.

Edit to add pic

I swear that was the most # of wars I got myself in since GnK. 4 with Japan, 2 with Polynesia, 1 with France, and 2 with CS, including the worker steal.

Anyway from last time... After Sistine I completed Uffizi in my cap and PT in Pasargardae (which would grow to be very much a 2nd capitol later in the game)
I grew and grew and consolidated my position. Went into radio and picked Freedom (of course! turned out I was the lone Freedom again I swear something weird is in the code if an AI with a skeleton empire of 2 cities left still wants to go for Order the devs really need to look at it) took tech lead and a good share of wonders. I see Poland picked exploration so I did not go for Louvre (and with Uffizi, you don't need Louvre anyway) but I got pretty much every other wonder after modern except Broadway and Brandenburg.
Japan and me became mortal enemies, and I decided I could ignore befriending him because he is completely crippled, having adopted pure honor his cities were not growing, and his culture was pitiful. Unluckily for me Kamehameha DoF'd him out of the blue! That led to denouncement, which I reciprocated with one of my own, seeing as how he had bad relations with those on his continent. I got Poland and Sully as my friends.





Things pretty much looked like the pictures above. I made Poland WC host after Carthage founded WC (I had a choice between Greece and Poland but chose Poland because I know Casey is sometimes loyal but Alex remains a douche in any game) also because of his wonderwhoring I expected great things from him. He didn't disappoint. Historical Landmarks, and then Cultural Heritage sites were his proposals. I got both proposals passed without suffering any diplomatic penalty.


Sometime close to industrial era I had seen a Japanese great general heading for my borders (but they were weak from fighting Sully) and thus the 3rd Japanese war happened with a DoW from me. At the end of it when I decided to let Sully finish the job (which he didn't... and that would come to haunt me later) so the Japanese empire looked like this with my citadel sitting very comfortably near Kyoto. The 3rd Japanese war also coincided with the first Polynesian war after somehow Kame decided he wanted to help his friend out... but his empire is literally an ocean away and I made white peace with him eventually without any issues.

Anyway, things were going along beautifully (was late to archaeology but no one on my continent had it so I built Dido a landmark; that landmark I built for her probably won me the game). Then boom! my wonderwhoring got Alex's attention and then a denouncement from him... and then he had the nerve to DoF Japan! (sucks that he had DoF with Sully and once my own DoF expired, Sully denounced me... and accepting DoF from Dido didn't help either as she denounced Sully the turn right after the DoF! I swear she's so evil sometimes without even meaning to be... in short, Sully became my enemy.)

Well, I did what every good enemy should do: bribe Dido to clean his clock, and she did, reducing him to a pitiful state. Meanwhile I sent Poland and France at Greece. Things were going beautifully! Napoleon was not a friend but he was friendly, after Poland got flight tech he wiped Greece out (I had struggled to get CS allies all game because my first lvl 3 spy died on his very first coup at 66%... and then WC was founded and Alex was dumping loads and loads of gold into them) and globalization gave me WC control after Greece was eliminated. France, Poland and Carthage loved my proposals, but the smaller, weaker civs hated it. Kame somehow self-imploded after Alex got him embargoed (earlier Dido had passed embargo CS) and Honolulu was stuck at size 18 for a looooong time for some reason, and he became a non-factor. So my friends are strong, and my enemies are weak. Nonetheless I usually don't have enemies in my CV games but the war with Japan and the citadel snowballed into something I never imagined. Well, OK, I thought, who cares about them... their culture is pitiful.


This game did not have the best international relations... lots of red from everyone and very little green. I had my mini-coalition with Poland and Carthage (by coalition I meant no one has denounced the other yet...) Diplo was VERY tricky this game and I had to walk through several minefields.


20 turns away from winning just by passive pressure, only France left to be influenced and I was simply waiting for the moment to buy GMs, then, this weird thing happened... huh... Sully... what are you thinking... he didn't accept a "shall we declare war on" invitation either because he Dow'd alone on the turn.


Even my advisor thinks you're nuts...

Well, 2-3 turns afterwards... Japan and Polynesia Dow'd me (as a rule, AIs much more likely to DoW you if you are already in a war.) No problem... I kicked Japan's ass again and my wolfpack nuclear subs eviscerated Polynesian subs, battleships, and carriers and plundered cargo ships. However I did not have battleships or missile cruisers so I couldn't launch any serious threat against them...

Then the worst thing that could happen, happened. Napoleon Dow'd me out of the blue despite the two green buffs I had with him and the fact that our borders are not even the least bit close! We are half a world away! Anyhow, after losing OB, routes, and diplomat I would've needed 400+ turns to win by passive pressure. Ouch. Also, did you know that if you escort a GM with a submarine unit in the ocean, a battleship attack will kill the GM, but leave the submarine untouched. I lost a GM this way. All because of that bastard Sully who is rotting in the bowels of hell after I pummeled his last city with rocket artillery and let Dido finish the job. (precisely because, you know, I still wanted to have SOME friends and the warmonger penalty is working against me here). I was praying Dido would not betray me (at least, not before I win) with +3 green modifiers and thankfully she didn't.


Well eventually I mustered up enough GM again and sent them on their merry way, this time securing perimeter with my subs such that nothing could touch them and then this... the stupid CS wouldn't budge its ships despite the fact that the French city it apparently is trying to attack is not coastal! Well... anyway the game has been a mess, so what's one more DoW? Sunk the CSs ships (wasting my influence with it completely) with my subs and finished the game.


During all this time... my empire was beautiful as always though... see how gorgeous my cities are? With WC proposal a good chunk of my tourists are apparently exchange students who come to study at my numerous academies.


Beautiful right? And 160 hammers on food focus (with mines worked I can go even higher). Pentagon in 8 turns. Who needs observatories when you can simply have more space for academies? Btw, I recall another poster saying the GBR spot is bad... well... I grew a size 30 there with just one land route so maybe it's not as bad as you think!?