The Deity Challenge Line-up #41 - Shoshone

Update

Bad news: Muskets mean XBs will struggle to clear the map now. And your army is tiny.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

I figured as much.. Which is why I'm working on Unis now and hopefully will make good timing on Dynamite since at this point it appears inevitable. Who do you advise taking out with XBs while they're still relevant?

Answer: whoever you can. Probably the ones you mentioned, but sometimes Underpants techs well and might defend his self a tad better than Nipple or Headscarf.

Turn 150 resign as I made a mistake which snowballed into a major collapse



Weird part was the fact that I didn't find the all out war as atrociously arduous as it usually is for me, perhaps it will grow into an acquired taste, and I'll have a certain Blood Thirsty person to thank for that

stormtrooper412 said:

if you eradicate them then everyone will dislike you even more and stop paying you money for stuff.

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This is inevitable at a certain point when playing Domination. The longest I've held a DoF was on that Korea DCL where the student of Aristotle loved me right until the last few turns where I backstabbed him viciously.

I've discussed with Cromagnus whether it's possible to go below being offered 2GPT for a lux, and he said that he has, once or twice, gotten such a nasty rep that people only offered 1 GPT!!!

But once you have the edge, it really doesn't matter if you are hater, they WON'T DoW. If you piss them off and they will DoW, it means your troop strength is too low and they think they have a chance.

I know this because I played that game where I tried to win a DomV with no DoWs (man, what was I thinking?) and after I had taken most of the power, it doesn't matter what I did, they were too scared.

On a cramped map like this one, it's inevitable that you will be forced to take moves which annoys everyone. I can see that a lot of people had this from the first attack of NW neighbour, but I think they must have really screwed up the diplo for that to happen. In my game, I think when I took SW capital (having taken NW and S), then everyone denounced. So I made short work of the Underdressed chap and the Slavic neighbour to the E, but the remaining 2 AIs were NEVER going to DoW because I had more troops than both of them combined.

Bottomline my friend, you don't build enough troops. The first army should be built before T60 and should be 6-8 Archers and 3 Melee. The 2nd army should be built after Machinery and should be of a similar size, maybe larger (more horses), but staggered (not built all at once). On this map, they will probably meet for the last capital or two.

Don't worry about trades to keep the economy going. Use caravans to friendly CS, and pillage, and city capture, should keep you going. When you only have the far eastern ladies to deal with, sell all your buildings and workers if you need to. It doesn't matter how appalling a state your Empire is in if you've already won!

My economy was actually quite good at that point. There's lots of not so obvious ins and ends that I need to look after, but let's se if I'll have enough spare time for it in the next few days.

I figured my army got thinned out a bit in the last war. I was building Unis and then right back to Trebs/Cannons. I guess it was just inopportune for me

Turn 153 resign

Hey

I'm tentative on how my game is going. Turn 146. It's all running quite late - I've only disposed of the Huns. I pushed comp bowmen at them early - I got stalled because I had to take their (forward settled) expo's out and by the time I was ready to hit their capital they had pikemen and I deemed it too risky.
Instead I decided to sit back and started accruing experience until I got to Machinery. So the good news is that many Crossbowmen have range and logistics so if I move quickly now I can take a few more AIs out before I get to artillery. Also I prioritized Heroic Epic early so most units have +30% base strength (with general) so that has made a noticeable difference.

The downside is that Venice DoWed me so I now I have 2 fronts to fight on.

But it's hard to judge these things. Yes I'm a little late in the scheme of things but you can kill a few AIs early and in the process lose your army just getting to an objective. Sometimes the more prudent approach is to train your Crossbow's up to the range bonus then you can essentially take cities without much risk. Poland's Hussars are a pain but 2 Accuracy III Crossbows with range + logistics (General + Heroic Epic) can kill them in 1 turn.

Oh and did I mention gold - yeah I think Domination is best with Tradition. Liberty does make this a challenge.

Well now its about turn 250. The worst is over (phew)
No joke that was brutal - I get the whole Great Plains theme now - every horse civ on the map (well except Mongolia)...
Getting through those Winged Hussars was awful. Seems like a lot of people bailed out at that point. I guess I was a bit luckier because I was able to bribe
Luckily I was able to get a 10 turn peace treaty with Poland to reorganise my military again.

I was able to get

So at this point it's just mopping up the stragglers. Interesting I had a late start but I think the key in that situation (if you're too late to make good use of composite bowmen) is to focus on training them up to range and logistics (especially if you have the left side of Honor). So that way once you get to Crossbows you can just rip through the map.
In hindsight I'd say Tradition is definitely better here. So thumbs down for the Liberty strategy.

Liberty is only good if you aim to CB rush effectively

Not rushing this map is like handing another advantage to the AI. If you rush you can be the most powerful civ on the map by the time they are even getting started.

Liberty is the fastest and most effective way to do it. I had settled both my expos by T27ish if I remember on this map. You can't get close to that with Tradition, nor can you have 10 CBs by T50.

The other good thing on this map is using the Liberty finisher for something other than a GS or GE. I think I went for a GG, IIRC

yeah, using it for an Academy is a no brainer definitely

consentient said:

Not rushing this map is like handing another advantage to the AI. If you rush you can be the most powerful civ on the map by the time they are even getting started.

Liberty is the fastest and most effective way to do it. I had settled both my expos by T27ish if I remember on this map. You can't get close to that with Tradition, nor can you have 10 CBs by T50.

The other good thing on this map is using the Liberty finisher for something other than a GS or GE. I think I went for a GG, IIRC

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Hmmm I see your point - I guess that many players (myself especially) aren't always using Liberty optimally.
But when you say you had both expo's by turn 27. That would be too early for the Liberty settler bonus right? So how what difference would it really make if you went Tradition or Liberty. You'd get republic sure but that doesn't really save you that much time. The free monuments from Tradition would be worth more.

But when you say you had both expo's by turn 27. That would be too early for the Liberty settler bonus right?

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Good question

Getting to the free settler costs 25 + 45 + 90 = 155 culture. You can probably pop two culture ruins with your pathfinders for 40 culture. Let's assume (unrealistically) you have a monument and the first liberty policy at turn 5, so you have 5 cpt from turns 1-5 and 4 cpt after. So, to get the remaining 115 culture would take 5+110/4=5+27=32 turns. So, you need to either pop a third culture ruin, or ally a culture cs extremely early, or get culture via another way, e.g. a culture pantheon.

consentient said:

Good question blatc. I prioritised pop and when possible, a pantheon. \n\n I had a decent number of pop ruins, and got a pantheon from another, giving me Sun God, which made the wheat very quickly OP. The capital then grew and was quickly able to pump out Archers in 2 turns. So many of my archers were built much later and I could concentrate on other things

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So, it seems that consentient didn't prioritise culture and got a non-culture pantheon, so it is unclear to me how he leveraged liberty to get settlers by t27?

Redaxe said:

But when you say you had both expo's by turn 27. That would be too early for the Liberty settler bonus right?

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vanatteveldt said:

So, you need to either pop a third culture ruin...So, it seems that consentient didn't prioritise culture and got a non-culture pantheon, so it is unclear to me how he leveraged liberty to get settlers by t27?

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First of all, T27 was a figure I pulled from memory, it's not exact. It could be T32, or whatever. It was very early, much earlier than you could have 2 expos on Tradition, because of the Republic hammers, and the Free settler. I hard built one settler to pop at the same time as the free one, because my capital was already huge due to the early food pantheon and pop ruins. But I also hit 3 or maybe more culture ruins. The pathfinders went through a cycle of: Pop, Culture, CB, except for the faith ones. I don't remember exactly where they came. But I found a load of ruins, esp around the

I wish I had a save or an LP or had notes, but I don't, sorry. I'd like to make some more LPs, esp. of Domination on Deity, esp. on maps like this, but my MacBook is dying. Maybe if I find a suitcase full of money and buy an iMac.

Well I won - Turn 245 Domination.

It would have been a few turns earlier but Polynesia's capital (which I had from earlier) flipped away from me due to unhappiness and pressure from Order.
I saw a victory coming quite fast so I ignored happiness policies...

Not the most fun experience - I think I prefer turtling.

consentient said:

I wish I had a save or an LP or had notes, but I don't, sorry. I'd like to make some more LPs, esp. of Domination on Deity, esp. on maps like this, but my MacBook is dying. Maybe if I find a suitcase full of money and buy an iMac.

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I'm sure there must be youtube videos - I see your point if you pop 2 ruins for population early it shouldn't be too hard to get some extra cities out early.

The only thing is by turn 35 I think you'll really struggle with gold and happiness to be able to fund an army.

On this particular map I had no issues with happiness. Early mining/masonry luxuries and a nearby mercantile CS with barb problems... The gold problem is made easier with more cities, not more difficult, and you can use the gold from meeting CS and clearing barbs to fund yourself until the first conquests, which can then fund the next conquest etc.

(That said I screwed up my middle game economy by building too few markets and too many other buildings...)