The Deity Challenge Line-up #35 - Siam OCC

Hello, first time poster here. I've been a long time lurker and finally decided to share some of the results of my DCL. I'll also post my finish on a few other DCL and I hope I should be on the list soon enough. I've been an immortal player for a while, and hopefully through these DCL I will become better as I learn deity from playing DCL.

This is actually my first ever OCC win, and I'm quite happy to do it on deity.

Sclb said:

Hello, first time poster here. I've been a long time lurker and finally decided to share some of the results of my DCL. I'll also post my finish on a few other DCL and I hope I should be on the list soon enough. I've been an immortal player for a while, and hopefully through these DCL I will become better as I learn deity from playing DCL.

This is actually my first ever OCC win, and I'm quite happy to do it on deity.

Spoiler :

Dirt is quite good for petra, so I decided to go for it. Settled on the hill just south of starting position. Since this is OCC, I also decided to make my capital as strong as possible by spamming wonders. I tried to get a CV, but actually got a DV instead on the very first vote. I would get the CV approximately 10 turns later, mostly because my musicians have to walk all the way across the map to Askia.

SP:
5 tradition (Aristocracy first to help with early wonders)
4 patronage ( Scholasticism pretty much required for science past early game, and Siam goes pretty well with patronage, Cultural diplomacy was good for my culture with Fine arts from Aesthetics when I have triple digit happiness later on)
5 Aesthetics
Exploration opener for Lourve
5 Rationalism
7 Freedom

Stole workers from Hiawatha and Genoa. Didn't bother with religion since I saw DF taken very early. Got faith from ruin later and got Goddess of Festivals pantheon which helped with my early culture. Sent caravan to Dublin for extra science. (I noticed that the same civ forward settled in almost everyone else game)

Early tech path was Pottery, Mining, then beeline currency for petra. (calendar from ruin)
I noticed Ahmed could build petra, and he asked me to DoW on Alex, so I just bribed him to war with Alex to try to slow him down. Meanwhile, Ashur also DoW on Alex, and it's the beginning of Greece's downfall. (I needed Alex to be wiped off if I wanted to control the CS) I considered joining the war, but I had almost no units, and Alex had both CS south of me and I didn't want them to invade my territory. I'm also friends with Morocco and Assyria by this point. I did not become friends with any other civs since the west side of the continent was a mess and a constant war zone with Bismark and Askia around. I would constantly bribe Bismark to war with his neighbors whenever he becomes interested in my territory.

T36 ToA
T57 HG
T68 Petra
NC after Petra.

The caravan from Petra didn't have any place to go, until I complete caravansary. I rarely build that building that early in the game.

Education around T105, immediately bought university with loans from Ashur, signed RA with him a few turns later (he was tech lead for rest of the game and I had to manage my diplo to stay friends with him for his RA)
T86 Oracle
T96 CI
T102 HS
T134 FP

By this point, I can build any wonders I wanted and have adopted Hiawatha's religion which was very strong: DF + DI. Lots of desert and wonders for me means lots of fpt. I was winning every faith quest for CS until late in the game. I also surrounded my city with units to prevent other prophets. Eventually I still had to invest in 2 inquisitors since the Moroccan religious pressure is too strong.

I would eventually build culture wonders to attempt CV:
SC, LtoP, GE for Globe, Uffizi, Taj, PT, Lourve, Broadway, ET, SoL

Athens falls T161 to Ahmed and he'll be wiped off couple turns later by Ash. And after that most of my CS are secure aside from the occasional fight with Askia but he's not the same as Alex. Meanwhile, the west is still constantly in multiple wars between Hiawatha, Bismark, Askia and Ahmed. Somehow the celts survived the wars but they were down 2-3 cities for the rest of the game. Most of the western civs did not like me much, but never DoW on me once. Ahmed and Ashur had a DoF with me that lasted whole game. Since I have the FP + founded/hosted WC, I propose WF, then vote against it to block it from passing. I think that helped the diplo. (impossible to win with OCC anyway) I was able to block passing of any of them until both WF + IG came up and I wasn't able to block both anymore. I had to let IG pass but I wont be winning it anyway, and it's useless to the AI since I have all the wonders.

Oxford to Radio, used every GA,GW,GM for great works so far. Obviously went Freedom for the happiness + growth. At that point, only Ash had autocracy and Askia had Order. I quickly build monuments in Ash + Ahmed's territory to secure their DoF, and I passed world ideology freedom to prevent any other civs from choosing any other ideology. Once that is done, I hope I'm pretty safe from future wars. Side effect of that is Ash had -30 happiness for a while and still no city flipped, maybe OCC prevented that?
After Ahmed went Freedom, he DoW on Ash and would be at war with each other. I'm still surprised that they both remain friends with me.

Near the end, it's clear that my science was slowing down even though I had research labs. I don't have enough for airports until a few turns later. The later techs needed 2 GS to bulb through. Used rationalism finisher on Globalism since it wasn't timed correctly for airports/internet. Bought 1GS, 3GM at the end.

Sent 2 GM to Askia and 2 to Ahmed, but somehow won DV a few turns before my slow GM got to their territories.

In the end, I stayed out of every wars although a few civs (on west) were hostile with me at times, I think a DV is quite fitting.

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Hi, welcome and nice win !

I'm amazed to see that most games so far report being wiped out.

Probably should have paid all i could for that to happend. Even though i tried

great win Gerrard. In my game Petra was gone on turn 53 so I only managed ToA and HG. I completely forgot to plant some academies and go left hand Rationalism first for boosted RAs. They really are underrated in a game like this and I can only assume one might have skipped another round and win around 250ish like you did.

@Sclb: Keep the wins coming, we're always glad to see new faces

@cazaderonus:

stormtrooper412 said:

great win Gerrard. In my game Petra was gone on turn 53 so I only managed ToA and HG. I completely forgot to plant some academies and go left hand Rationalism first for boosted RAs. They really are underrated in a game like this and I can only assume one might have skipped another round and win around 250ish like you did.

@Sclb: Keep the wins coming, we're always glad to see new faces

@cazaderonus:

Spoiler :

Alex was actually in a pretty crap starting location, so I have to wonder how DID he manage anything in your game. IIRC he had a heavy jungle start with no production and water luxes. His cap was at 9pop before (my good buddy) Ashur put him out of his misery. I forgot to mention that him and Germany double DoWed me at one point but never moved in because I had a pretty big buffer of Morocco, Iroq and Assyria surrounding me. In the end after they peaced out I denounced both for being jerks and my friends liked me even more

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Yeah well, i'm very tempted to grab a very early save from my game and see if i can make him go away by bribing assur early along with hamed. With my early wonder spam, if greece had been out of the game, i'm sure i could have reached a T260/70ish win.

But hey, if there 's on AI that can become a beast even with a crap starting location, it's good'old Alex.

Oh btw, thanks for adding me to Da List ?

yes, you are on The List

I am weak at this, but I am giving HCA a try. So, far it seems to be okay, but fast dom wins are in the low 200s and people have XB and then Arty online ~50 turns before I ever manage. Anyway, I thought I would write up how it going so far, while I am still optimistic! I understand that the AIs pull further and further ahead the longer the games goes...

consentient said:

I think that the window for domination on OCC is pretty small. Doable, but difficult. You have only one city to make units in, after all.

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cazaderonus said:

And you re capped on how much units you can build with that one city before getting massive production penalties. Yeah a domination occ must be a nightmare. It s pretty much like it s made to NOT be a conquest type of play.

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I am finding the unit cap to be the real limiter. I keep making buildings instead -- but that only feeds my bad habits!

Since I have played a couple times, I knew growing my cap to important. So my first priority was Petra, so I very quickly started to beeline that tech. Petra went before I even started researching currency! I chopped out NC and Oracle, but NC was not early (since I had tried to first pick up Petra).

Going in, I hope for Desert Folklore and a religion, hopefully Papal Primacy for its synergy with the UA. None of that, even with the wine and a faith ruin. I picked up Morocco's Islam pretty quick, and it had DF, Mosques, and Monastery for buffs to the wine -- so pretty good. I even bought an inquisitor when Hia sent a GPr my way. I did not care to loose DF and Hia's religion has no buildings.

My plan going in was for 3+ archers which would train on barbs and then level up on Marrakech. His terrain is so perfect for that, that I even started on catapults after the archers.

In short order, Hia asks me to DoW Bismarck, and Ash asks me to DoW Greece. Fine, new plan. Three wars would be too much, and Morocco has the only city in trade route range anyway, and I am desperate for gold.

Nothing happened with Bismarck, and I eventually I accept his white peace offer when my 2nd swordsman returning from barb hunting stumbles into three German cannons. Oops. He was immediately friendly, and we signed an RA not many turns after that.

Alex was much more fun. He had a fresh expo between me and Morocco, so easy pickings. I was hitting it with a catapult and my team of CBs. The CBs worked in rotation as that is what the city targeted -- meanwhile the catapult did all the heavy lifting. Original warrior upgraded to swordsman walks into the city.

My assault on the next city (Carthage), the only one between me and Athens, was going to be slow because of the terrain and because I was still xp farming to get range on my units. The cats quickly die to knights, but I keep the CBs alive. Ash had made peace a while ago, but just as the city is getting into the red, he DoWs Alex and snipes Carthage before I could do anything about it. My CBs fall back to upgrade to XB, but I doubt I can move fast enough to take Athens. Morocco has been spamming cities, and I have been taking advantage of this to build free (to me) roads, so my units make the roundtrip pretty quickly.

I get Athens in sight, and as luck has it, Ash has only siege units left. My remaining scout (the other one died without warning when Alex allied a distant CS from under Hia) happens to be there, so he jumps in the water and takes Athens on turn 177. I take the white peace offer, as Alex has nothing left anyway. Ash takes his next to last city and then makes peace. The scout pillages all the tiles that was Athens for like 200 gold. OCC makes some things easy!

Ahmad is staying friendly, despite a citadel bomb taking his wine and horses, and we sign a 2nd RA. I am closely watching already over the unit cap, and I cannot afford to keep a spare GG around. I have burned a GA and two GW (both during golden ages) because I don't have work slots. I have an active RA with everyone else (except Alex of course), so 5 in progress. Ash's will expires first, in about 20 turns, so hopefully that timing will work out okay. I have only one policy left in Commerce, so I will be working on Patronage for quite a bit before Autocracy unlocks. I am tempted to pick up the Tradition opener for the border growth (Hia has 2 cities south of me, and might try to claim a couple of my wet hills), but instead I think I will use a GG to lock those down.

Meanwhile Hia has asked me to DoW Bodiccia, so fine. Aside from Alex, she is the only AI not being friendly with me, and it would be good to knock off the most a distant cap. Two of my three XBs have range, one has double double tap, and the third is close to that key 4th promotion. Also two muskets, one with double cover. I can have 2 one more units, so those will be an Elephants (HE and Armory on line) after the World Fair is done. Last unit is garrisoned trebuchet. I will be using Oxford for Dynamite, but that is still pretty far off.

I am having fun, but my conquests never go fast enough, so I ultimately have doubts about this. Seems okay so far though...

EDIT: I played a 100 turns last night, but still had not taken Edinburgh. 3x double-tap XB do nothing against a strength 70 city. I think only Songhai might be vulnerable to them at this point, so I will try to make that work, especially since he is next door to Boudicca. I am going to reload back to T177 and the World Fair, pay better attention to unit cap, and see if I can't get a 2nd place for the free policy. Then pretty much turtle until Arty (and have three cannons ready to upgrade this time). Hia now has Jesuit education, so I can burn the inquisitor for one more unit.

stormtrooper412 said:

great win Gerrard. In my game Petra was gone on turn 53 so I only managed ToA and HG. I completely forgot to plant some academies and go left hand Rationalism first for boosted RAs. They really are underrated in a game like this and I can only assume one might have skipped another round and win around 250ish like you did.

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Offtopic but I'm looking for an additional playtester of my balance mod. If you're interested please send me a PM (with an email). You will be provided a very easy to install package.

If you want to try something a bit different and get out of your confort zone I'd recommend it. The mod changes are subtle enough that you will feel at ease but will have to compose with different rules. You're not forced to play at Deity and I welcome any level of play. I would even recommend Immortal for veterans because Deity is currently really challenging (and that's without buffing them !). However you will have to do reports of your games to me like you would on the DCL. I will read them carefully and see if things need changes. You may also meet bugs and imbalanced changes

That said the next DCL will be posted by myself on the 20th.

Acken said:

Offtopic but I'm looking for an additional playtester of my balance mod. If you're interested please send me a PM (with an email). You will be provided a very easy to install package.

If you want to try something a bit different and get out of your confort zone I'd recommend it. The mod changes are subtle enough that you will feel at ease but will have to compose with different rules. You're not forced to play at Deity and I welcome any level of play. I would even recommend Immortal for veterans because Deity is currently really challenging (and that's without buffing them !). However you will have to do reports of your games to me like you would on the DCL. I will read them carefully and see if things need changes. You may also meet bugs and imbalanced changes

That said the next DCL will be posted by myself on the 20th.

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Tempting but i'll leave this to players with much more experience. Maybe you should create a thread for this, as that message may remain unseen by many.

Sounds like the right time to create a thread on your mode and mak an official call for beta testers

Yeah I second that. I'd be very much interested but I don't consider myself good enough to be a valid tester. Also, I don't think I could manage, a bit busy these days

@Gerrard - Wow turn 251 is amazing. Congratulations!

By the way I don't think you'd have too much trouble with ideological unhappiness if you did go Freedom. Even if you get Revolutionary wave the penalty is only 1 unhappiness per 3 citizens? Or is it 1 per 4???

Either way with a size 40 city that will only be 10-13 unhappiness which is laughable if you have alliances with all the Mercantile CSs, Monarchy, Universal Healthcare, Aristocracy, Universal Suffrage...

I didn't see the problem as unhappiness (as I had plenty to go around), but rather, diplomatic relations tend to to balls up once ideologies roll out, ancient alliances are broken and long time allies become enemies. Which in an OCC game is very difficult to deal with

Yeah, OCC is like a total happiness no brainer. Especialy on that map where 80% of the CSes were mercantile.

yeah, but the England map where happiness was scarce enough already, there were only a few of them <_<

stormtrooper412 said:

yeah, but the England map where happiness was scarce enough already, there were only a few of them <_<

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Yup, but i lucked out with england map as i had took Mecka and Palenque before T105. And Mecka had Notre Dame and another happiness wonder.

I took them out at 120ish but I believe ND was in the very last cap I took, as per <_<

stormtrooper412 said:

I took them out at 120ish but I believe ND was in the very last cap I took, as per <_<

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bummer.

cazaderonus said:

Tempting but i'll leave this to players with much more experience. Maybe you should create a thread for this, as that message may remain unseen by many.

Sounds like the right time to create a thread on your mode and mak an official call for beta testers

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To be honest I don't need experts I need people to test if there are bugs or big mechanical problems

Well, as long as it works with EUI, that's all I need