The Deity Challenge Line-up #14 - The Netherlands

Your recent write-ups, with the emphasis on warmongering, have been more than interesting (and fun). Your setback on your last update brings me back to a point I seem to keep bringing up: Optimization.

You've been working on a strategy that "optimizes" Domination Victory. In this game, the neglect of other areas (tech order), may provide some issues. (Yeah, I know you went Liberty instead of Honor, but you still set out to "avoid" science).

In other write-ups, people discuss super-fast CV and SV….but neglect to discuss the times their neglect of military or other items screwed their games.

I guess my point is that a beeline, or "optimized" strategy, for any VC, only works until it doesn't. Meaning, the AI can throw a wrench into many of the best laid plans, especially if one only focuses on one thing.

You'll see in my next update of this Dutch game how my neglect for some areas is going to make a victory a bit of a challenge, but I guess I just wanted to say that you've done a great job of illustrating my longstanding point about a balanced approach.

As always, hope you win.

T309 SV.
I decided to go SV or DV, depending on what happens later.
Thanks to UA, I was able to sell basically all my luxuries for money. I managed to ally Zurich early which was very OP in this game (3 lux + extra happiness from allying), which helped a lot in early expansion. I stole one worker from england and luckily saved two from barb camps.

I kept England and Carthage at war, but Dido attacked me anyway around t110. I barely managed to defend my city (had ~5 composites at that time). Later (in industrial era) she attacked me again and after my feigned counterattack (with GG citadel by her city) she offered me peace+Utique (petra city with more pop than my cap).
I also managed to keep Ottomans and Portugal at war for nearly all the game and fortunately none of them destroyed another.

I was first to ideologies and got freedom. In the end Suleiman went autocracy, me and Venice freedom and everyone else went order. I had a lot of culture but still I was getting -12 from ideologies (up to -39 after Venice was destroyed near the end of game).
I was the last buffer against Portugal's tourism (thanks to great firewall I had more cpt than incoming tourism), but nobody else was close to any victory.

In the late game I was joint-attacked by England and Denmark, but thanks to my science lead I was able to defend quite easily. I feigned attack on England for ~250gpt peace. Then I took a city from Denmark and went for peace + reselling them this city for another 200gpt (not sure exactly). With this gpt I would be able to win DV at the next congress, but apparently SV was already closer and I had most parts bought.

I was a little confused about what your trying to say. It doen't take much these days to confuse me though. I agree that optimal play is faster, stronger, and better! However, my play is never optimal. Im sure you realize that by now after reading alot of my games/write ups. I usually do whatever I want to do no matter the consequences. I also have a bad habit thinking I can win every game not matter what. 20% behind in tech with only pulling 500spt, no problem I can win that lol! Sometimes the game shows me that I can not do whatever I want and I find it fun for me.

I stopped playing water maps a few years ago. Why? Well, they were just too easy! You could really do anything and everything. I could take down multiple Navys with only 2 submarines! I would go to war with the AI just because I knew they could not really attack and damage any of my cities. I would do this because I could instantly find all CS's without scouting. Also after so many turns the AI would give me a peace deal for a pretty good amount of gpt. So I guess it was a huge exploit lol!

The last two water maps... Rome and this one have caused me problems. It is not because they were not easy to win. It is more so my neglect to change my game for the current map. On this map I should of had a very easy win. I had something like 4-5k in gold from pulling over 100gpt and loans. All that was needed was to research Navigation instead of going for Arc/Physics after I researched Education. Instead of using my gold for buildings I would of just bought a cheap Navy and defended very easily. Heck with no Navy at all I beat back most of these Naval units. Now that I have a Navy it is getting easier. I'll use Denmark for TRs and hope they don't go to war with me as well. Later Ill take back Carthage.

You can see that most of my games I go against the grain. I do not follow the usual Large Pop Cities and trying to get 1200-1800 bpt and get so far ahead of the AI you win around turn 250-275. That kind of game can be fun but gets boring real quick for me.

My case in point. On this map I could of let England live and Carthage live as well only taking Capitals or even taking the awesome peace deals they were giving me. I may have been a little warmonger crazy since the last game with Poland lol! In that game I had to keep taking cities and that thinking may have carried over onto this one.

The real problem for me in this game was that I went over 10 turns with not much hate for killing two Civs. It was a trap that I kinda fell for. My plan the whole time was to get Navigation and kill Portugal because she has all the Wonders. I changed that plan because everything was green and I was getting 18 TRs from all Civs lol! I was thinking maybe the world doesn't care if I wiped two Civs out. I have seen the AI behave like that before since I had alot of Civs at war with them anyway.

I got denounced by everyone except Venice. I was thinking it is not a problem if they denounce me. As long as Venice is still trading at full capacity with me Im ok. Even when Venice denounced me I was like... so what!? You all are still sending me massive TRs and Im not scared! Perhaps I was a little delusional. Ok alot delusional! Anyway I play aggressive and Im not going to play the way the programmers want us to play lol! I also try to play a game that is going to get me in trouble for my own personal fun!

I would not say that my games are good for learing or trying to be optimal. Most people who try to play my style will get overwhelmed with the problems that arise and pretty much just give up. I think Im around turn 185 on my Netherlands game and Portugal just got Submarines up. Im about 15-20 turns away from getting those! Most players would just resign but Im thinking how can I use a Sea Begger to capture some of those Subs lol!

I play my games more for entertainment instead of trying to teach someone how to play and never lose! I don't mind losing! I like to showcase my games that I lose and win. One thing I think I may have shown over the years is that you can still win doing many things wrong and doing whatever you want to do. Two things I do not do that are considered Optimal. I do not scout very well which you should do to make your game easier. The other thing is I do not worry about having workers. Half the time I don't even worry about improving my hexes lol! This is not smart and will cause your game to be harder and longer. I get a bit too lazy to keep telling my workers what to improve next. Heck, in this Netherlands game I stopped improving my hexes and using all my workers for lookouts!

I am starting to ramble so I have to stop typing. Anyway I was just suprised that you think my warmonging games are showing some sort of optimal play because they do not feel optimal to me. They feel like I am just winging it like most things in my life. Reacting to situations instead of planning for them.

The last thing is that I do not think the AI cheats us. I have watched some videos about how the AI actually works inside the game. The way I understand it is that they do not just instantly create things out of thin air. They have huge bonuses that get exponential with time. If you leave them alone, they will grow like super weeds. They need to be hindered either by you or by another AI to help slow them down. I have seen many AIs have over 40k in gold and not using it. If they wanted to they could outbuy all the CS's and buy even more units doubling Navy/Army in a blink. I could be wrong on this though, perhaps the AI does create things instantly but it still is not enough for them to win.

I think my point was that you seem to be trying to "optimize" a specific strategy….namely the Honor/Commerce/Auto war strategy. I've seen some of the videos, or parts of them, that you refer to (they are pretty long). I enjoy the strategy and it is very similar to how I played on Marathon games (much easier in Marathon due to the extra turns for warring), so it is nice to see that the strategy I developed on my own (before ever discovering Civfanatics) is still playable on Deity.

What I try to do, and enjoy doing, is to take each individual civ and it's abilities and strive for their ideal VC. I love using uniques. But I always try to have a balanced approach, not neglecting any particular aspect, hence "non-optimal" play or finishing times. I do this because quite often the AI stifles my plans and I like having the ability to switch VC's and still pull out a win.

Neither is a better approach, just different.

PS. If you manage to take a sub with a Sea Beggar, please take a screen shot. That would be an awesome accomplishment.

As usual the AI isn't very good with Naval Warfare. I managed to double my Navy with the UU but now Portugal has an Air Force so I wasn't going to try to rush in and take any cities with Frigates lol! The odd thing is that the tech lead is close with her at 63% and my 58%.

I ended up capturing Jerusalem to get FOY. Venice wanted to give me peace before but I wanted that city first. Before this I did get some peace deals with Turkey and Morocco! They both gave me a small gpt deal which was nice. The worst thing was the Navy of Turkey was horrid! I mean the worst I have ever seen an AI Navy. They had 3 turns to take down some of my ships but never took one shot. It seemed they were trying to escort some Jans and other troops to my borders. So I sunk all of his units in my area lol with ease and got a few ships to join my Navy as well. After that happened they gave me peace and Morocco followed the next turn.

I was going to bulb Refridgeration but felt I did not really need Subs so I used 3 GS's to get Radio and went Order since Portugal was the only one into Ideology and chose Order. I wanted Autocracy for Industrial Espionage but since Im not far behind in tech I guess I don't need it and going Order might make the World a happy place once again.

A few turns later and that is what happened. It seems it is going to be an Order Party this game since Turkey joined in and after that Portugal gave me peace for 20gpt! Im ok with that!

Im still upset I had to give Denmark 3 of my cities and I actually want them back! I think Denmark is in trouble and Turkey is going to capture the Vikings Capital. I really do not know what I am going to do from here. I guess I could try to tech up and blast off but I really want Portugals capital with like 20 Wonders!

With peace now my main objective is to not let Venice convert Zurich!

I understand now. I wasn't really trying to show that strategy in an Optimal way but I was trying to show that it can be done and just because the AI has Bombers up doesn't mean you can't out spam them and take them over. In Ped's strategy he shows how to do it before Modern Era but that seems out of my reach. So in that I suppose I pretty much failed at trying to show how to do it but I think I showed that going Full Honor First into Commerce and not worrying about Rationalism is yet another way to win the game. Ofcourse others have showed this doing a much better job!

It is still a mess. However I did recapture my Small Cont just becaue I wanted it! I Dowed Denmark and took 3 cities and had to sell York to Turkey who is burning it to the ground. Turkey gave me a DOF which I gladly accepted. All was going great and ofcourse Venice got me Embargoed which took my gpt from 175gpt to -20ish since I got a loan for 2k for 80gpt lol! I knew that would bite me in the backside. I was ok with Venice untill I missed a GM sneak over to Zurich and I could not allow them to convert it so I Declared War and killed it and now have more trouble with these Venetians! I did get Battleships now but not much gold to upgrade. I am just going to try to get some Nukes now and we all know what I like to do with Nukes!

An alright game. Plenty of marsh to build polders on, so after pottery (picked up Religious Festivals as my pantheon because there's a bunch of wine around) I rushed to those. I have yet to actually build one.

Zone of control and me being an idiot means I had to declare war on a city state twice to steal a worker, leading both Carthage and England to declare war on me. That didn't actually result in much, mostly be shooting boats and attacking scouts. The war ended in white peace pretty quickly. Later on I bribed Carthage to attack England, since the later had some tradition policies and I wanted to distract them so I could build the hanging gardens, which I did.

My seconds city was settled on a hill to the west: It's surround by wine. My third was settled adjacent to a lake and is quite close to England and Carthage, so I'm buffering my defenses there compared to my other cities. My fourth was settled between and to the north of my first two cities...I don't remember any specific landmarks of it.

England and Carthage both still hate me, but thankfully I ran into Venice and the Ottomans around the time I got a lot of wine hooked up, so I still have full price buyers.

I...have no actual memory of what I did for tech, or even if I've finished Tradition...but I remember adopting it, for what it's worth...sorry, I was kind of in a rush to catch up on games since I've been away and currently have four ongoing, then more to do later...

At the start of game I was so busy with an English settler (that eventually became my second worker), that I forgot to notice that dido was also close and she'd built a city right on my doorstep (which I believed happened to a number of people). That of course is unacceptable, so after building a second city, I took her city with 5 composites, 2 spears, and a scout...and admittedly a lot of luck: A number of elephant were coming to battle scene just one turn too late ;-). Anyway, with three cities I started do some sensible things, like growing them, selling luxes, and getting Zurich to ally me. Then Dido came back with a vengeance and a carpet of death. Fortunately, the city (located to the west of amsterdam on the coast) was difficult to attack and her attack failed, thanks to my composites and my emergency bought castle. A bit later in the game I relatively simple took Cartage with frigates and sea beggers. From the point of capturing Cartage I eventually replayed some 50 turns or so: the first time I took the remaining cities of Dido, just to create a quiet backyard...within 10-20 turns everybody except Venice declared war and attacked me. Let's just say I forgot how big a penalty you get for kicking someone out of game. I was able to hold of but pfff every turn it a lot of time to kill all those units, also I was not able to sea trade routes anymore and no trading partners. Well, all of this is fine you intend to go for domination: I however did not want to go that route. So I reloaded and let dido life. The remaining of the game then became quite easy, sea trade routes and lots luxes sold all the time, basically lots money. I went freedom, as did Venice, and maneged to the freedom ideology passed in the world congress (good thing, because I had spent no effort on getting tourism). After the ideologies where picked a number of civs declared war but that was manageable. Funny thing, towards the end England attack (finally--what took her so long..), and I captured London about 7 turns before I was expecting the game to finish. I wondered what venice would offer for London...and bagged something like 20k and 200gpt in cash!!! Considering I was intending to buy some space parts anyway, the game ended 7 turns earlier.