The Deity Challenge Line-up #35 - Siam OCC

A really, really close victory as the Iroqueses where just 2-3 turns from a cultural victory.
I got DF as a Pantheon and managed to get Petra, HG, Oracle, TP and Forbbiden City.
I wanted to make use of the UA and also take advantage of the DF pantheon, so after opening Tradition I went to Piety and Patronage. I also took all the Rationalism tree. When Ideology came the three big ones (Germany, Iroqueses and Assyria) had already gone Order, so I followed them. I remained friends with all the three of them and bribed them many times to keep the others under control (specially Greece, who was the most dangerous for a Diplo Victory). I was DoWed once by the Celts, who settled their second city right close to my Capital and really far away from theirs (weird), but my XB got them under control until I bribed Bismarck and he took their city. I got World Ideology and World Religion, a Diplomat on every Capital with Globalitation and got all the CS (for the last three I sold all my GPT and bought them in the last turn)

I decided that I wanted to go for a cultural victory as I saw that no one else had done it, and that everyone else pretty much won a diplomatic victory. I don't care about turn times and screwed around for the last twenty or so turns, wanting to build nukes for fun. However, I passively won, without using the extra GMs that I had. To start off, I actually went to a hill to the north, rather than the one next to the mountain. This allowed for a lot more food, as well as both providing more wine and more forests to chop. The food allowed me to hit 46 population and still be growing quickly (6-8 turns after a new citizen was born). In terms of social policies, I opened Tradition and went the whole way through. I then took the opener for Aesthetics and the first two policies in that. Then I went into Commerce to grab the Wagon Trains policy, as I desperately needed help with my land trade routes. Then I finished Aesthetics, an then opened Exploration for the Louvre. After that I went into Rationalism, stopping at Sovereignty, and then took a bunch of policies in Order. I then went back and finished Rationalism, using the free tech for the Internet. I chose Order because everyone else did. The only two who didn't, Germany and Greece, didn't live to see the end game. Early on, the Celts did that stupid forward-settle that happened to some other people, but they then founded two other cities there too. One of them eventually became their capital when it became their last city. Assyria took over Greece, and the Songhai and the Iroquois jointly took over Germany. Morocco was taken over by the Iroquois (but their lands would eventually go to the Assyrians), but this wasn't until the last 10 turns. They would have died earlier, but I bribed the Iroquois to make peace with them. The entire game saw me continually bribe every other civ in the game so that everyone stayed focused on war and not on wonders. I effectively used spies, not only for stealing techs and later as diplomats, but to see when other civs (mainly the Iroquois) were building wonders. This allowed me to wonder-spam like I was playing Prince. I also used diplomats to get everyone to vote their core votes in favor of making my religion the World Religion, which was huge. I seriously spent over 120 gpt to do this. I was able to stay peaceful the entire game, and I never built a single military unit, besides two scouts. When I won, I had four units protecting my capital; A lancer (originally my starting warrior), a Gatling gun (originally a scout), an artillery piece (originally a catapult gifted to me by a city-state), and an anti-aircraft gun (gifted to me by a city-state). In terms of religion I was able to grab Desert Folklore, which helped me greatly throughout the entire game. My religion also had World Church, Divine Inspiration (my main source of faith), Religious Art, and Religious Texts. I took Religious Texts because neither Assyria nor Greece founded a religion, which opened up a whole portion of the continent for my religion to passively spread. I actively tried to spread my religion up to the Industrial, but post-Industrial I just saved up my faith since Morocco was putting up too much of a fight for me to want to try. This saved up faith eventually allowed me to purchase a Great Engineer for the Eiffel Tower and a bunch of Great Musicians. I also bought a Great Writer for a political treatise at the end because why not. Wonder Spamming however is where I shined. I started off by building the Temple of Artemis. I then began to build the Hanging Gardens, but stopped to build Petra. I then finished the Hanging Gardens. The reason I stopped was because I got lucky and was the only one to go Tradition in my game. The combined engineer points from the wonders allowed me an early Great Engineer. I could have used this on faith wonder but decided to save it for the Renaissance. After grabbing Education, I bee-lined Printing Press. I used the Great Engineer on the Leaning Tower of Pisa, took another Great Engineer, and used the second one on the Globe Theater. I then built the Sistine Chapel and the Uffizi (only by spending a lot of gold for bribes to go to war. I then built the Big Ben, since I needed to purchase buildings in my capital while I continued to wonder-spam. I also built the Louvre. I rushed to Radio to get the Eiffel Tower (which I used a faith-bought Great Engineer on), and the Broadway. I wanted to get the Cristo Redentor (for the culture), but I didn't even unlock being able to build it by the time it was built. I later built the CN Tower too for no real reason. I was able to get the World Congress proposal for +3 culture from wonders early, and this combined with Divine Inspiration made it great to wonder-spam that much. It was good win for me not only because of the amount of wonders I built, but because I effectively used diplomacy with the AI to allow me to win.

Had an insanely lucky start here. So many awesome ruins...including Writing on T14, so thought I'd go for GL just for giggles. Got it T32, DOWed Morocco to steal two of their workers and prevent them from getting HG and Petra, got both these wonders and the NC by about T75 if I remember rightly. Got the Parthenon as well which I have never built before on Deity.

But from there it was a bit of a slog as it dawned on me that I only had one city...it is so much harder to get up to t'Internet with only one city's (albeit very strong) science. Went Patronage down to the one which gives you science, then a mix of Aesthetics, Rationalism, and Order. Soo much culture it was unreal. Kept everyone fighting each other the whole time, which they were generally happy to do. Possibly the most rewarding part was taking about 50 turns to clear a far away barb camp using just a scout and a missionary. They could have made a movie about it.

I'm pretty sure just about everyone grabbed the same starting location, yes? I'm half-tempted to replay and go settle next to Lake Victoria (interesting that one of the planet's most famous lakes is named after a monarch who never set foot on the continent....but I digress....).

I immediately knew I wanted a DF, HG, Petra start to this game. Ruins everywhere and I managed to upgrade the starting Warrior and both Scouts. I also stepped on a faith hut t21 so I got DF. When I saw Morocco, I knew I who my Petra competition would be so I DoW'd them and harassed the living #$^@&^ out of them. I think I stole 5 workers (deleted 3) and plundered his Salt and Marble.

I reasearched Pottery > Writing > Beeline Currency. BO was Scout > Scout > Monument > Shrine > Library > Artemis > Granary > HG > Caravan > Petra. No chopping needed.

This start was WONDER-ful for me. I built an early Artemis, HG (t62), Petra (t70), NC (t75) and Oracle (t80-ish). Then I got greedy and built Borobudur and HS and started converting Assyrian and Greek cities (I bypassed religious buildings and went for FTW and the +1 construction thing).

Then I got REALLY greedy and built SC and used a GE on FP. (That's 8 Wonders, I think). I was thinking of going Diplo from the get-go so FP seemed kinda important. Greece is in the game, so I've tried to get them wiped out. I bribed Assyria to DoW them, but he did nothing and made peace in 10 turns. He wanted too much when that peace treaty expired, so I bribed Alex to DoW him. Same result......I may have to take matters into my own hands regarding Alex.

All other nations are very friendly (I have 3 RA's going) and nobody is spamming in my face......yet. With this strong start, all VC's are still on the table and I'm still thinking Diplo if I can get rid of Alex.

I am at around turn 90 now (not sure exactly, I am at work right now and can't check). I have ToA, HG, Petra, Oracle and NC (built in that order). I am currently researching Education. Policies so far are full Tradition and one point in Patronage. I have not decided on a win type yet (but am thinking for science seeing how awesomely ).

I am selling all of my wines for good money. I have one trade route with Greece and one with Marocco. They both give me good science and to maroco I give some sciene back as well.

My army is 4 archers and one spearman, who are having a hard time fending off barbarians and protecting my workers and caravan routes.

Alex seems to be the strongest AI so far. I got them to make early wars with Maroco and Asyria, but seems like those wars only made em stronger. He has the strongest army by a good margin, I think he is #2 in techs and has 3 CS allies already. Currently I have a DoF with him.

Questions:
- How do I make sure that Alex doesn't go ahead too much ? Is going to war with him my only option ? (would be very hard considering I have not even researched CompBows yet). Bribing Asyria/Maroco to go war again with him does not seem to be working this time, and they are his only real neighbours apart from myself.
- Alex wants RA. He is the only one with Education so far ( I think he just researched it a turn ago). Shall I take it? It would be a good boost to me. But I am worried about heling him go even further....
- I have an Engineer sleeping in my city. What wonder would you use him for ?

1. If Alex snowballs out of control, there's very little you can do about it. I was lucky to see Assyria wiping him out fairly quickly.

2. Always accept RAs, it's one of the key points in science as OCC

3. That really depends on what you need. Pisa is always a good plan, but you might consider saving him for Statue of Liberty if you go Freedom

I was at -70% production for the last 50 turns of the game. I couldn't see any way around this and lots of unit purchasing was necessary. Luckily the capital was badass and I still hit 75 Production/turn for cav +30% for stables/religious community) whilst focusing on buying artis.

Insane pop ruins gave me 7 pop by turn 30. I first went for HG, then Petra, and got my NC on turn 77 [Picture 1]. A caravansary followed and I bought the caravans immediately to maximise science. Morocco went tradition and when I saw him building HG I warred him, pillaging his marble with a spear.

I actually planted my first GS in this game because of low science worries but the cap was so good that I should have kept him for bulbing into Military Science. I was briefly the tech leader near the end from about 50-52% science.

The ridiculously-placed Dublin provided some much needed early trade route science and xbow xp. I took it on turn 138 [Picture 2], right before a DOW from Assyria for more gold/xp [Picture 3]. The Naresuan's Elephants were excellent here and don't require horses (that'd be weird); they're basically lancers with 3 less combat strength and 1 less movement point. Awesome so early on. At this point I used my 3 great generals to grab 6 horses, salt and marble north of my cap, though I forgot to improve and sell the marble.

Throughout the game I got the AIs to war each other for next to nothing, as they already hated each other. I made peace with Assyria after taking his nearest city and warred the Iroquois, oxfording artis on turn 177 after taking their first city [Picture 4]. This army then pushed westward into the Iroquois and Songhai. Progress was slow here due to a choke point [Picture 5] but Gao eventually fell on turn 198 [Picture 6].

The Celts had been week all game as a result of their late/distant second city and warring the Songhai. Just 2 cav/artis were needed to take them out, with the rest heading north from Gao in a long sweep north and east around Almaty to Berlin. This also had the advantage of farming extra gold, which I certainly needed vs. Morocco/Assyria. I had originally planned to head back west along my road, but the Iroquois took the closest German city to it and I would have had to war them again to access Berlin from the south. So from the west it was.

I lost quite a few units vs Germany's great war infantry and closely-packed cities, but Berlin succumbed to my assault by the end [Picture 7].

At about the time that Gao fell, Morocco DOW'd me with pikes/crossbows/muskets. Silly really. I pushed north and assaulted Marrakesh with about 1/2 of my troops, with the other half beginning to deal with Assyria who had the 2nd largest army score [Picture 8]. I had built a road from my cap to his territory near Assur. After Marrakesh came a final push east to take Assyrian-controlled Athens [Picture 9].

The game ended with a satisfyingly empty minimap. Completely clearing it of everything was tempting but I barely have the patience to complete these, let alone going further

I did restart the map a couple of times after 50-60 turns; once I remember losing HG and deciding to try again as it's so important for OCC.
For once I didn't reload though; this was probably because I was extra careful in this game, especially with unit positioning. Also the tech path/social policies I chose had been certain since the start. My units started to slowly die off when I increased the pace at around turn 200 but the win was certain by that time. Losing a highly-promoted cav due to having no gold in the treasury was a surprise.

Religion: Desert Folklore, Tithe, Religious Community, Messiah.

I really failed religion-wise and had infected all of 4 cities by the end. My aim was to convert Assyrian cities but he warred me before I could get to him. It was also a flawed plan due to auto razing upon capture...

Techs: Philosophy ---> Engineering ---> Education ---> Metal Casting ---> Machinery ---> Astronomy ---> Dynamite ---> Industrialisation ---> (Electricity).

Social Policies:
Tradition 1
Honour 6
Patronage 3 (to Scholasticism)
Commerce 4 (to Mercantilism then Wagon Trains)
Patronage 5

Tradition 1 for the auto growth to the desert hills and HG.
Honour 6 because Dom.
Patronage 3 for CS allies, gifted horses and CS science; +20-30 science helped a lot.
Commerce 4 for dolla.
Patronage 5 for double strategic resources (+ bonus influence).

I guess I find it easier to finish OCC games...

Although I had a few tense wonder races in the beginning (declared on Assyria to delay Petra, and I was competing on a couple other wonders) and I bribed Germany, Morocco, and Assyria to make sure they were in continuous warfare, it never really got tense. After ideologies (I took freedom, Germany Autocracy) Germany got more aggressive, but by keeping him busy I managed to avoid a DOW (I even stole one of Germany's artifacts to fill the Louvre, I was surprised that I didn't get a diplo hit - the first one is free?).

I think I built something like 2 archers all game, and some units in the end when I ran out of stuff to build... Si vis pacem, para pacem?

Capital:


All the real opponents were more or less in the same ballpark in terms of culture, although I did us 4 musicians on Germany (2 early ones, and two late ones after he opened the borders again - no idea why?)

Great works:



In the end the only thing tense was the space race, no idea how much time I had:

Space race:

I was trying to go for a Science victory but all the major AI were also going for it.Got an early religion got second pick on Freedom .No DOW as I bought a few wars.My first spy did pretty good in Marrakech.smooth ride