The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game #7 - Ethiopia

Early Game: I moved my Worker east and, miracle of miracles, found Rome's 2nd settler wandering undefended. Thanks for that. Changed the whole game. Not only was I able to get a really early worker, but it meant that Rome were effectively out of the game. I opened Archery early and used my first 3 archers to kill Rome's warriors, who had been investigating a barb camp when they left the settler unguarded. I took both their workers with my 3rd scout, before they returned.

Early game policies were designed to get 4 cities up fast, use luxes to buy workers and chop for early libraries. 4 city NC, then 1 city added after, for Cargo Ships for gold/tourism.

Capital took ToA after building settlers because no one had gone for it. Pantheon was Stone Circles. Religion came around T50-ish, with help from a ruin. I chose World Church because I've had devastating effects with it in a culture game before. I pushed religion hard to get the surrounding CS, Rome and Greece all worshipping the Eastern Orthodoxy.

2nd miracle was that Jesuit Education was still available as no one had gone Piety for a change, and so when I reformed, I knew that this would likely be much easier than other times. Just had to make sure I didn't mess it up.

Middle game I played a lot better than in previous attempts. I really pushed science and growth, and although I stuck to KB's 'no bribes' doctrine, I don't agree with making peace when the AI wants to, after THEY'VE DoW'd you. So I kept killing Poland's units from the mountain overlook spot north of my 2nd city until he gave me a bit chunk of gold. Meanwhile, I bought all science buildings for cheap using faith, and accelerated towards a T182 Plastics. The pros can tell me how to shave more time off my win by speeding up the time between Labs and Internet.

Late game was a breeze since I had a huge tech lead and although I didn't win IG or WF, Pocatello still only had 20k culture. Had I managed to win WF and IG, then I probably would have won much earlier.

SO I guess the big question is how do you make sure you can definitely win? Please see screenshots for the results of these projects.

All-in-all a great game and learning experience for me in a peaceful style, but I think that this map was perhaps too easy for a real challenge, given the combination of:-

- 2nd playthrough
- early luck with Roman settler
- Jesuit Education

and...once Rome has been 'dealt with', and city placement ensures no surprise attacks from Hiawatha or Casimir or Alex can be very deadly, then most of the challenge is over if one wants to turtle. Gold was sometimes a problem, but once I was best buddies with Harun that was solved PDQ, and eventually, Freedom is mad for gold.

This was a bit of personal challenge, because back when I was still learning how to play this game, I played maybe dozen or so games with Haile but never won any. Many times I came really really close but in the end my diplomacy wouldn't be good enough and I'd get overrun by whoever wanted me out of the game, which is about the time I started hating Askia

Realizing Poland would be the craziest as usual, I had him pincered by Iroq on one side and Japan on the other. I was now free to denounce him and everyone would love me for it. Did the same on the other side of the continent, everyone hated Arabia so I joined in. Eventually Iroq would clear out Poland and Poca would clear out Arabs and I remained cool with both. I had to denounce Japan at one point so that Rome and Iroq would keep loving me. Honorable as always, Nobunaga waited out the denounce to end and offered DoF on the next turn. I had to decline.

Now on the more technical stuff: After moving east and gimping Rome from the start, I set myself up quite well by getting HG and Education at reasonable enough time. Delayed NC a bit but that proved unimportant due to Rome sending me all of his trade routes.

Going Order was I think a mistake because there was lots of money around but then again, my culture was a bit crap so I missed out on Mercantilism. However, I made a pair of miscalls, finishing Hubble when a GS was right around the corner, thinking he'd be free as it said on the label, and getting order lv3 with another GS right around the corner. That one though, I couldn't really do anything about it but in total, I missed on I believe 4 extra GSs due to bad timing.

The name of the image file is a song lyric, a local rock band actually did a song about Haile

Rome was kind enough to give me 3 workers at the start. He ended up settling a city to the north right where I was going - the one with the gems copper bananas and truffles. Threw a city up next to Mt. Sini which ended up being my 2nd best city. Was debating getting a city next to Kilimanjaro but decided that being wedged between Poland Rome and Japan wouldn't be the safest thing to do.

I liked Ethiopia, but found them confusing as their unique traits seemed to suggest conflicting plans. In this attempt, I went went full Liberty, Commerce to Mercantialism, full Rationalism, and 6 in Order to Spaceflight Pioneers. While I thought I did some things better than ever before this game, there was still clearly a lot of room for improvement.

Initial moves were to the East, met Rome, went to war. I stole a LOT of workers/settlers from them (deleted 5-8 by mid-game), while XP farming a few units, and eventually taking over the city. This part was easy.

With so much room to expand, my plan was to block off the area with my first 4-5 cities. Culture went faster than expected (probably allied a culture ally without trying) and my plan was to go into Commerce instead of my usual Patronage, so I had to delay the completion of the Oracle while using the liberty finisher to GE a National College and get to Guilds ASAP.

I had a lot of trade routes being sent to me early, so even with the extra turns invested into Guilds, I reached Education in perhaps my fastest ever 108. Built most of the universities, but the long-term plan was to buy as many schools and labs as possible. I got Big Ben (only one to open Commerce) and was first to Order.

For Religion, I got Stone Circles, Tithe, Pagodas...Mosques and Religious Texts. My two closest neighbours (aside from Rome) adopted religions and spammed pretty hard.

As you can see in the screen shot, I only reached 20 population in 1 city at the end of the game; focus was on expanding and I wasn't successful in growing that much. My peak science was ~1500. This was the first BNW game in which I saved most of my Great Scientists to bulb late game, after maximizing/producing Research for 8 turns.

Now, a problem with my choice of policies was that I had to build 5.5 of my 6 spaceship parts. I expect I could have expanded to cover the same area having gone Tradition, and won earlier too. But, I don't want to replay to find out.

Victory screen shot

Walked my settler to the mountain, while discovering Rome's settler. Managed to settle capital and capture his settler. As a result, Rome lost all his units and I was able to steal all his workers. As a result, Rome was pretty much out of the game.
Settled 3 cities close to capital quickly, for 4 city NC

NC 89
Education 113
ST 168
Plastics 203

Due to lots of empty space around, wanted to experiment with wide tradition empire, so settled 4 more cities for total of 8 to see how wide empire affect end game beakers.
Happiness wasn't problem once happiness buildings up and traded lux for 28gpt. Gold was a problem this game due to that.

Got stone circle pantheon, founded religion but effort was futile as Poland converted all of my expos early.

Experimented with Order due to wider empire, and it significantly increased my hammers, since production was bad prior to factory/hydro plants. Of course, when I go Order, other AI's go freedom/autocracy, except Arabia.

Friends with Arabia and 2 other AI early, but all of them except Arabia backstabbed later in the game, due to their constant wars and ideology. Happiness problems near the end due to nobody selling lux. Fixed happiness problem once I took 2 extra SP in Order for the science building happiness. I was able to pass world ideology: order near the end, but it wasn't required.

WC: WF(won easily), WI: order
Rest were trying to get my whales unbanned, which was finally successful after 2 attempts.

Wonders: Oracle, LToP, Taj Mahal, PT, ET, Kremlin, HST
SP: full tradition, 2 Patronage, full rationalism, 8 Order

I was always prepared for DoW from Rome, but it never came as his tech was 2 eras behind, and my city bombardment can kill his units in 1 hit. No other AI bothered to DoW me, although most of them were hostile near the end.

I'm a bit rusty on Order SV. 4 cities produced parts with SS factory (capital had HST) GE rushed the last 2 (one bought, one from SP). Had to buy a few SS factory to speed it up. Bought 1 GS. Used oxford on the final tech. Order was the right choice, as I never would have enough gpt for Freedom parts, but then again, maybe they won't denounce me if I go freedom?

Only had 1823 bpt at the end. Core cities weren't large enough for higher beakers, so more cities might not be that strong for order after all, since it takes time to build parts. GS bulbs were higher than usual 4 trad cities, but still took 50 turns from plastics.