The Deity Challenge Line-up #16 - China

I actually have no freaking clue what the tech path is for DomV. Do I even pick Education?

Delhi looks easy for Chu-Ko-Nu, so does Amsterdam and Gao. Paris is surrounded by grassland, and so is Persepolis. I haven't seen Onondaga or Stockholm because I never gave them embassies. How do I even do this? Build roads to capitals? How many melee units are required and how many ranged on the average? I only won 1 DomV on Immortal, and it was the Russia ICL, where I took 3 capitals with Frigates. :lol:
 
No, for a crossbow domination you don't pick Education. You can get it after machinery and rush a couple universities though, it helps in case crossbows don't cut it.

You can use roads to help your movements yes.

Bring 2 melee units for 7-8 range units. Mounted units are the best though.
 
Well then. I wanted to try Autocracy CV, but screw it. Picked Honor with Oracle and switched to Machinery track.

 
Whoa, my first Deity domination win, and second domination win in general. Started around t125 and finished on t244. Took me a long time because I was carefully picking victims and crafting intrigues, so the the AI's hate each other and love me. I had all green modifiers with France and Persia up until I attacked them, and William loved me forever because I had revived him. Besides, I did not want to drop into negative happiness.

After that screenshot, I started researching Machinery and upgrading my units. Around t130 I liberated Jerusalem and started whittling down Askia's military outside his cities. I made others DoW him, as well, and razed one of his cities. Then I revived William and sold him one Songhai city afterwards. I did not want to eliminate Akia to avoid the hate, but I also wanted him eliminated from the game, so I bribed AI's to attack him. After I took Amsterdam from Askia, he only had Gao to himself. I saw French troops moving in and got really excited because I wanted to attack France next. However, he made peace last second, and Gao was taken by Sweden. I had to denounce and DoW Gustavus, and quickly took Gao. Those were my first 2 capitals.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, I was building an army to conquer the East. Unfortunately, by the time I got to it, it was past t160, and Delhi became too strong. I DoW'ed Ghandi and dropped a citadel, but while I destroyed his army, the hilly area around Delhi made it hard to bombard with XB's, and I decided to wait for cannons. After that, his capital fell quickly to 2 Cannons, and I made peace. Next up was Hiawatha. While I was fighting India, I bribed Hiawatha to attack France. While he was fighting France, I moved my troops and upgraded cannons to artillery because he put a city on a hill between mountains and other hills, so it was actually impossible to reach for XB's. While Hiawatha had the pointiest sticks at the time, most of his army were pikemen, mohawk warriors, and galleasses... alrighty then. It was just a pushover.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, I bribed France to DoW Persia, Persia to DoW Sweden, and Sweden to DoW France. :lol: The XB's who were chilling near Gao got upgraded into gatling guns (I still don't get why gatling guns exist in the game... like what's the point?) and went to capture Utrecht which had belonged to William, then Askia, then Napoleon. I liberated Utrecht and then took another French city and sold it to William. I built a road from Shanghai down to Orleans, and with a few artillery units, I very quickly took Orleans and Paris. Not sure what happened to Napoleon's army.... oh wait, he was at war with the Iroquois, Sweden, and Persia. :rolleyes: Who would have thought he had no troops around. So I gifted Orleans to William to fuel his eternal love for me.

At the end, I reached Persia and moved my gatling guns all the way to the West to circumvent the mountain range and come to the north borders of Stockholm. I saw a bunch of caroleans near Persian borders and bribed Sweden to DoW Persia. Caroleans took Kiev in 4 turns without taking any damage, and I thought caroleans are really OP. :eek: Persia was already having Infantry, so it made things difficult. Darius had allied Almaty, where I lay the road to the South, and because of my incessant trespassing, Almaty was pissed off to -55. I did not want to spend too much money allying them, so I knew once I got down there with my army, there is no going back (it's like the Lord of the Rings). I spam-bought cavalries and artilleries while warring with France, so I had about 12 cavalry and 6-7 artillery units near Pasargadae, but because of the infrantry, I lost 10 cavalry by the time I took 2 Persian cities. I sold Pasargadae to William, and Gustavus immediately DoW'ed him. I took this chance to rapidly move my artillery from Persia and gatling guns from the north to Sweden's borders, DoW'ed him and yolo-rushed Stockholm in 2-3 final turns.

Domination is lots of fun, especially when you manipulate diplomacy so that the Ai's don't hate you. I think it's a nice idea to make one AI eliminate another, and then revive the dead AI and be the hero, while "punishing" the bad guy, but keeping all the capitals to yourself. Also, making AI's constantly fight each other leads to universal AI hate towards each other, and among that cacophony you rise like a shining star of friendship and loyalty... of course, until you attack them. :mischief: The only downside of DomV is how long it takes. I turned off quick movement and combat to see AI movement patterns.

I might still do a CV with my t98 save, though. This time, however, it will be a CV with a splash of domination. :mischief:
 

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T263 Peaceful SV

I decided to go back and fill one more hole before the Arabia map came out. This was probably the most pedestrian and bog-standard SV of all time. No wars, completely average path to victory.

Tradition, 3 cities, open Commerce + Patronage before Renaissance, then Full Rationalism + Order 6.

I will never use Order again. I could have won 20 turns earlier at least with Freedom.
 
T268 DomV

Again I learned something. I did not know that you do not have to have Biology researched to get oil from your CS allies. Once I saw that about 15 turns after researching flight, It took like 5 more turns to end this. Would probably much faster, if I would have concentrated more on science than I did.

Spoiler :

So, I am starting off settling next to the mountain...but as always, I somehow forget about observatories and only build it very, very late in game. Anyhow, lot of desert to the east, so warrior marches west.

Built a scout, who finds a ruin and with that some nice bows in it.

So, hello there, and thank you for the fish:

Spoiler :


Later I realized how far away Amsterdam is, and found I was not the only one that was victim of forward setting (look at Tours):
Spoiler :


Found Jerusalem, and got Desert Folklore, but am not working many desert tiles, so I got the last religion with no good beliefs left, the only good thing is about it is tithe I guess. Most of the game not even all of my own cities belief in it. Which is fine by me, I only need to the faith for great people anyways.

I build 3 city NC, afterwards I am beelinig machinery and hardbuilt a fourth settler.

And since I am China, I also built the Great Wall. Mainly for role-playing reason, but also so the others do not have it. I find the GW a real nuisance, esp since a majority of wars will take place pre-artillery.

I bribed Askia to war with the Dutch.

T100:
Spoiler :


Askia managed to take out the Dutch shortly after and so right before Machinery I bribed him to war with France. He took Tours. I got machinery, and DOWed Songhai on t117. He was no real match and his cities fell quickly. I took Gao on turn 136. Because Songhai took out the Dutch, everyone still loves me, even after taking Amsterdam as well. I make peace with him having only Tours as his only city, and let the French take it back and finish him off.

Meanwhile Persia took out Sweden, the French assisted as far as I remember. I march my troops south. I DoW Persia and take the Swedish capitol on t157. Persia has a lot of CS allies and they are really getting on my nerves, especially at Amsterdam, but also later at Stockholm and Quebec is trying to plunder my trade routes with India.

Persepolis falls on T184, I get two more cities in a peace deal and Persia is down to one city surrounded by the French. A cheap bribe and the French roll over the city, and Persia is no more. Everyone still loves me, I still have DOF with India and Iroquois, and am still friendly with the French. I gave one Persian city back to the Iroquois, as they are no thread at all and far behind in tech.
But I DOW France about two turns before the last Persian city fell at t189. This way I was able to take out some troops while they are attacking Persia. About four cities into the war my Friendships expire and neither India nor Iroquois want to renew. But Iroquois still gives 7 gpt for any lux. India even starts marching up troops, but I still get about 5 gpt per lux, so it is not too bad.

I mess up Oxford, since I razed a city, which stopped production on Oxford. So I almost get Oxford (and thus artilleries) and Industrialization at the same time. India took already freedom, and I do not want any unhappiness from autocracy, so I only build 2 factories and am starting Big Ben. Bought a couple of artilleries, but spending most of my money on India's CS allies. I do not want the same debacle as with Persia repeated, so I send my spy from CS to CS, build a few roads, pop GPs and GMs, to ally them.

I finish commerce, which gives me 20+ happiness, so I finally buy me last factory, and go Autocracy, just in time for WF, which I win expectantly. With BB finished, troops are really cheap now. I think a artillery is like 320 gp. So any money that does not go into CS, goes into those, and I start building an army for India.

Even though the French have only two cities and no troops left, the Iroquois do not want to go to war with them, so this time I have to do the dirty work. The Iroquois still do not mind, no idea about India, since I DOWed them few turns earlier, after I allied almost all of their close by CS. The DOW was at t235.

India did not put up much of a fight either, probably should have started the war earlier, I have too many troops, especially with those from the French war arriving. Even though India has the science lead, I am not seeing any advanced troops except Great War Infantry. I only saw the first war bomber after Delhi fell. I then made peace with him and got the city next to the Iroquois capitol in the peace deal. I am moving some of my troops down there, and after they were there, I realized I could build bombers. So I bought a couple of them, and took Onondaga on T268.

Win:
Spoiler :


Minimap:
Spoiler :


Overview:
Spoiler :

 

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T176 Dom
Back to chronological order with slightly less on a slacker mode and without much of too fancy selfset rules. This time I prepared for a much longer game as there were no one to kill in the beginning and wasted gazillion turns on infra.

Pics added.

Spoiler :

Settled on coast & after wondering aimlessly & alone for long I was so happy to see Askia's worker that I immediately hugged him on T16 and same happened with Gandhi two turns later & Ragusa two turns after that; now the problem was to get these new friends home. I was planning some sort of domination but saw a flaw in my plan as there were no one near enough so I regrouped the troops for infra duties instead. Made peace with Askia after 2nd worker soon after that.
Semi-accidental pantheon ~22 after meeting La Venta 1st and Stone Circles still being available I even threw cash for Jerusalem to get a religion as the others weren't too ken on pantheons; more than a slight misconception from my part as 3 went Piety and I only managed 5th religion even with Jerusalem as an ally & 9-10 fpt of own production. Obviously the GP missed his bus and 2 religion were founded while I was idling on station until T59 so no happiness available but at least few CSs quests fullfilled along the way.

Caravan & 3rd city near India ready on T40 so white peace again and he offered DoF on T42. Ragusa was supposed to be target dummy but without walls & no troops at all before ~80 it didn't offer much xp at all. 3 CSs wanted MoH so I bought Stone Works & managed it on T50 and gave a shot at Pyramids which I got on T62 at which point I had more workers than troops.

Nobody wanted to go war at all so I denounced Persia on T76 and France T87 but only the latter had any effect, Nappy become became a bit pissed at me but didn't ask wtf were my 6 worker building roads in the jungle on his border an Impi and 2 Pikes acting as supervisors. Keeping Almaty as ally was so important that I didn't even notice it didn't have any luxes until much later.
T90 CS, T91 5C NC & Oracle to finish Liberty from which I planted the GS and finally Honor driven Gustavus was ready to accept bribes to DoW Darius which seemed like a major threat and they even managed to swap few cities which I found out later. T93 enhanced my almost obsolete religion and T95 Askia wanted his share of brown envelopes for attacking Darius though he was more greedy than Gustavus wanting 2luxes + gpt while the modest Swedes settled for half of that.

T105 Machinery & the fun could begin - upgraded my Comps and DoWed Nappy on the next turn. T112 Darius got HG which is pretty much the latest I've seen and Nappy started Renaissance a turn later - I put 007 on house arrest in Beijing as I was 2nd in tech & expecting quick promotions which didn't happen. T118 Paris without trouble but Hiawatha backstabbed right away. T119 Education but the lateness wasn't much of a worry so I continued spending my money on CSs rather than Unis.
Allied Kiev with cash in hope of it taking the last two or even the last French city to avoid diplo penalty but I accidentally helped it a bit too much so Kiev captured the closest city a turn too early and managed to kill all melee units while traveling the next 4 tiles. After a while I got bored, deleted the settler I had waiting to settle on excellent position and wiped Nappy off T124 which caused knives in my back from everyone but Gandhi. I also paid Gustavus to DoW to William but as all the prices had doubled I couln't afford Askia's services this time and Hiawatha retaliated by starting his ICS campaign probably still mad at me blocking some 50 turns his settling plans near Ragusa with a single scout; good times.

I was planning to take Darius next but Susa appeared to be under Swedish rule so I DoWed Gustavus on T127 instead to get few brownie points by liberating Susa on T130 and DoWed Darius right after that. T141 Persepolis without too much of a resistance but happiness or the lack of it started to effect luckily after the two miserable failures on that fron in DCLs 20 & 22 I was heading towards Industrialism instead of Dynamite and had quite a few CS allies.
T151 LToP, took a GS & double bulbed Industrialization. T155 Stockholm with GW at which point I surely decide to stay away from arties.
DoWed Hiawatha, razed few cities near Paris & GG bombed my way to Onondaga, lost few Impis & Pikes so he could have the feeling of success before losing Onondaga T170.
Askia was supposed to have a massive army so I prepared by building roads & fortresses before DoWing T160 but they must've been drunken awol after wipeing William off as I didn't see much of them, especially the lack of MCs was odd; might've something to do that much of those had their origins in my stables. T171 Gao but peace, 8 luxes & 5k G wasn't enough to get Amsterdam from him so after swallowing Delhi in two turn war T174 and GG bombing my way through Amsterdam T176 the game ended. I can't remember last time, if ever, when the 3 last attacks before winning were made by a Knight.

Full Liberty, then Honor until Order happiness on T160 and Honor filled few turns before the end. I was expecting or at least preparing myself for a much longer game especially with the relatively isolated start hence I spent wayyyy too much time for building infra instead of troops and when I finally put my troops into works I played it very much in safe mode partly to handle the lack of happiness which seems to be the only true obstacle in the game. Taking cites down with -20 takes a bit longer but the main problem is vulnerability in the front row especially against mounted units.
Half of the game I had 4 DoFs so had exceptionally large amounts of cash to keep the CSs happy until Askia started his campaign even though I didn't fully utilize cargo ships due to a barb camp behind Delhi; didn't even tech Astronomy and I didn't bother sending units to clear the camp.
Religion was meh but gave me few extra hammers and quests but didn't bother spreading so I ended up with some as I had a GS, GA & GW just hanging around in the end.

Better game than the Spain or Brazil one but in the hands of human the Chuko is just OP and with horror I remember vanilla when indirect fire was in promotion tree. After doing 3 essentially indentical games in a row I think I'll try something else next time around.










 
Ok,i've ended on t 268 with DomV(my new personal best:) ),am very happy because of tthis,could've gotten maybe t250ish win but i am still very content :),full writeup will follow tonight when i come back from school(for this one and the 2 more DCL's that i have not posted the pics yet)

thanks forr the map,this was the most fun challenge for me,i forgot how muuch i love to war the Ais:)
 
Spoiler :

Two jungle hexes road to Akwesame(from Shanghai) which i used to get closer to both Napoleon and Hiawatha,took it with only 3 chu's and 1 berserker gift from Almaty:),but a very important strategic city(Sofia was gifting me Impis,a beautiful addition to the chu ko nu horde you must say :D ,though that was earlier in the game) very funny since i payed Nappy to dow Hiawatha and he took down the city's hp down for me so i can easily cap it and prepare for the siege of Paris:D stupid stupid AI :/ (bbut he easily shaved 20 ish turns for me since my northern army congregated with my other fraction on the inland and went on to stomp Darius and Gustav..Hiawatha fell the last
Spoiler :

Spoiler :
 
Tarbos said:
T268 DomV

Again I learned something. I did not know that you do not have to have Biology researched to get oil from your CS allies. Once I saw that about 15 turns after researching flight, It took like 5 more turns to end this. Would probably much faster, if I would have concentrated more on science than I did.

Spoiler :

So, I am starting off settling next to the mountain...but as always, I somehow forget about observatories and only build it very, very late in game. Anyhow, lot of desert to the east, so warrior marches west.

Built a scout, who finds a ruin and with that some nice bows in it.

So, hello there, and thank you for the fish:

Spoiler :


Later I realized how far away Amsterdam is, and found I was not the only one that was victim of forward setting (look at Tours):
Spoiler :


Found Jerusalem, and got Desert Folklore, but am not working many desert tiles, so I got the last religion with no good beliefs left, the only good thing is about it is tithe I guess. Most of the game not even all of my own cities belief in it. Which is fine by me, I only need to the faith for great people anyways.

I build 3 city NC, afterwards I am beelinig machinery and hardbuilt a fourth settler.

And since I am China, I also built the Great Wall. Mainly for role-playing reason, but also so the others do not have it. I find the GW a real nuisance, esp since a majority of wars will take place pre-artillery.

I bribed Askia to war with the Dutch.

T100:
Spoiler :


Askia managed to take out the Dutch shortly after and so right before Machinery I bribed him to war with France. He took Tours. I got machinery, and DOWed Songhai on t117. He was no real match and his cities fell quickly. I took Gao on turn 136. Because Songhai took out the Dutch, everyone still loves me, even after taking Amsterdam as well. I make peace with him having only Tours as his only city, and let the French take it back and finish him off.

Meanwhile Persia took out Sweden, the French assisted as far as I remember. I march my troops south. I DoW Persia and take the Swedish capitol on t157. Persia has a lot of CS allies and they are really getting on my nerves, especially at Amsterdam, but also later at Stockholm and Quebec is trying to plunder my trade routes with India.

Persepolis falls on T184, I get two more cities in a peace deal and Persia is down to one city surrounded by the French. A cheap bribe and the French roll over the city, and Persia is no more. Everyone still loves me, I still have DOF with India and Iroquois, and am still friendly with the French. I gave one Persian city back to the Iroquois, as they are no thread at all and far behind in tech.
But I DOW France about two turns before the last Persian city fell at t189. This way I was able to take out some troops while they are attacking Persia. About four cities into the war my Friendships expire and neither India nor Iroquois want to renew. But Iroquois still gives 7 gpt for any lux. India even starts marching up troops, but I still get about 5 gpt per lux, so it is not too bad.

I mess up Oxford, since I razed a city, which stopped production on Oxford. So I almost get Oxford (and thus artilleries) and Industrialization at the same time. India took already freedom, and I do not want any unhappiness from autocracy, so I only build 2 factories and am starting Big Ben. Bought a couple of artilleries, but spending most of my money on India's CS allies. I do not want the same debacle as with Persia repeated, so I send my spy from CS to CS, build a few roads, pop GPs and GMs, to ally them.

I finish commerce, which gives me 20+ happiness, so I finally buy me last factory, and go Autocracy, just in time for WF, which I win expectantly. With BB finished, troops are really cheap now. I think a artillery is like 320 gp. So any money that does not go into CS, goes into those, and I start building an army for India.

Even though the French have only two cities and no troops left, the Iroquois do not want to go to war with them, so this time I have to do the dirty work. The Iroquois still do not mind, no idea about India, since I DOWed them few turns earlier, after I allied almost all of their close by CS. The DOW was at t235.

India did not put up much of a fight either, probably should have started the war earlier, I have too many troops, especially with those from the French war arriving. Even though India has the science lead, I am not seeing any advanced troops except Great War Infantry. I only saw the first war bomber after Delhi fell. I then made peace with him and got the city next to the Iroquois capitol in the peace deal. I am moving some of my troops down there, and after they were there, I realized I could build bombers. So I bought a couple of them, and took Onondaga on T268.

Win:
Spoiler :


Minimap:
Spoiler :


Overview:
Spoiler :

Click to expand...
Wait what, the Great Wall is actually doable on Deity?
 
I tried out a few different starts - had trouble switching my brain back to Domination mode, after mainly science (and failed cultural) attempts. Very early on in the warring I decided to try and see how quickly I could wipe out every civ completely (is there a term for this?).

T154 Domination Victory - Last Civ Standing

Spoiler :

My original goal was a domination victory in sub-T200, using Liberty, Commerce and Autocracy. I didn't make it to Autocracy; had 2 left to complete Commerce.

Religion
Stone Circles (2x faith from quaries)
Tithe & Holy Warriors
no intention to enhance, just used this to produce Archers/Comp Bows/Crossbows

Cities
NE by Quebec City, East by crabs 4 tiles from Delhi
West by Dyes SW of Sofia (leveled up Archers on Sofia; also built up funds with 2 tiles of pillage/repairing, even if I didn't need to heal)
4 city NC using GE from completing Liberty. Built Oracle and Pyramids in capital.

Rough War Timeline
T92 Machinery. T93 Wars begin, starting with Askia. Just Chu-Ko-Nu and 1 warrior. I had 11 or 12 Chu-Ko-Nu
T98 Captured 1st capital, Gao, which contained Statue of Zeus. Left Askia with 1 city and headed North to the Dutch
~T102 attacked Delhi (Great Wall) with 2nd army; used 1 General to Citadel bomb. Had 1-2 Horsemen by now; all unit production is Chu-Ko-Nu or Horsemen.
T105 or so captured Delhi (2nd capital)
T111 Captured Amsterdam (3rd capital)
T119 wiped out Askia; 2 civs completely wiped out; India just 1 city left
T121 Captured Onondaga (4th capital)
T126 army is currently split into 4, attacking 4 different civs. My smallest army has 4 Chu-Ko-Nu and 1 Knight, but has some city state help from Colombo; other armies have 7-9 units, all Chu-Ko-Nu and Knights. Persia is at war with 2 of them & friends with me
T127 wiped out Ghandi; 3 civs completely wiped out
T134 conquered Stockholm (5th capital)
T142 conquered Paris (6th capital), wiped out France (4 civs gone)
T143 – 3 civs & 8 cities (inc. 1 capital) left
T147 wiped out Iroquois (5 civs gone)
Delayed a bit to make sure Persepolis was the final city conquered
T154 - last civ standing

Spoiler :

There's no kill like overkill


Alone at last with my city state friends



 
Why did you wait so long to start wars? Wouldn't Honor have been better if you're gonna wait? T92 Machinery is very fast though :)

Not knocking your time, it's excellent. But I think it could have been even faster had you started earlier :)
 
I wouldn't be surprised if starting war with Composite bows could lead to a faster finishing time. For my full play through, the plan was a 4 city liberty NC with a goal of getting the Chinese UUs as fast as possible, creating the largest military edge possible.

I did try a start with Honour; I'm not as comfortable with it. I've read that Honour is better for a later starting war but am not sure I understand why. The main reason I delayed wars was to tech to my UU; Honour would have been slower than Liberty (or Tradition). I probably need to learn how to use Honour better and am open to suggestions; I'm actually thinking of going the opposite route for the germany dcl #17, going honour and starting war immediately with archers.
 
Blatc said:
I wouldn't be surprised if starting war with Composite bows could lead to a faster finishing time. For my full play through, the plan was a 4 city liberty NC with a goal of getting the Chinese UUs as fast as possible, creating the largest military edge possible.

I did try a start with Honour; I'm not as comfortable with it. I've read that Honour is better for a later starting war but am not sure I understand why. The main reason I delayed wars was to tech to my UU; Honour would have been slower than Liberty (or Tradition). I probably need to learn how to use Honour better and am open to suggestions; I'm actually thinking of going the opposite route for the germany dcl #17, going honour and starting war immediately with archers.
Click to expand...

Reasons why Honor is better for later wars:

- Troops will be more promoted
- Diplomatic relations will be better, and therefore the potential for getting more out of trade, caravan science leech, etc. is increased [EDIT: this is not strictly about going honour but about having 3 cities rather than more. Honor works best with 3 self-founded. Sometimes 2 is even better]

- By going Education before Construction, you can get to unis about as fast as is possible, maybe not as fast as with Tradition, but then you'll miss out on the military bonuses
- If you start later, you need to fight really strongly in the Industrial Era. Nothing does Industrial warfare as well as Honor. The economy is really strong because of the finisher, and MOST maps will last well into the Industrial.

Having said that, I think Liberty is much better for this map, judging by yours and Ackens' runs.

For those that don't know, I did do a Domination of my own on this game, using Honor, and finishing T180 something, but I was the victim of a VERY strange and mysterious bug that I've never worked out how it happened. I rolled this map, then used IGE to remove ice, saved it, put it to the forum, then loaded it and played it. SOMEHOW, the positions of the AIs were completely different to how they were on the other (identical, so I thought) version of the save file. Darius was where Gandhi was, Gandhi was where William was, etc. Because it was so different, I realised I wouldn't be able to submit it. So I downloaded the other version and played it with a lame SV. Bizarre and frustrating.
 
Ok Turn 314 domination victory - my first dom for Diety!

I must say that was quite a start. With that much stone and marble I figured the early hammers would more than compensate for lack of a river.

Spoiler :

I settled on spot
Started with the usual scouting and bingo! Free Pantheon 'Stone Circles' from 2 religious citystates, teched to Masonry built Mausoleum of Halicarnassus and got the 3rd religion.

I must say with the Mausoleum and then extra gold from Paper makers I was absolutely swimming in gold in the early game. It seems like a lot of people seem intent on moving their settler. I think that is a mistake as the start site has so many hammers that it is about as strong as a salt start. You have a lot of forest so you can also chop that Wonder to remove the risk of the AI beating you to it.

I built to 5 cities with Liberty and was originally intending on taking To the Glory of God. Songhai got that belief before me for their religion so I decided to change tactic and go for domination. I think for Diety that will my last attempt at getting 'Glory of God' - the AI seems to always aim for it now and I really think the Commerce tree would be more reliable.

China actually was a lot stronger than I thought and with the gold from MoH and reduced gold maintenance I had that much gold I was able to buy 3 PaperMakers to rush National College! Never done that before. After NC I teched to Machinary and started warring. Songhai was easy, France was no troubles. The general bonus and Heroic epic is essential as that gives you a total +45% strength.
Sweden was destroying Persia so I decided to intervene to stop Sweden getting too powerful. i didn't make it to artillery quickly enough and they stopped my army with great war bombers. That was a real blow as I lost a lot of units and my economic development was lagging. Anyway I teched to flight and got triplanes out and kept going. Sweden certainly took ages to break.
I wanted to take India next as they had about 2/3 of the worlds wonders but with the long stalemate against the Swedish I lacked the resources to fight 2 wars at once.

After Sweden I took the Netherlands (as India was still too strong). Then to my shock I realized India was 32 turns from a culture victory so I immediately declared war to slow their culture. India wasn't as much trouble as I thought. My capital had Brandenburg gate and with Autocracy having that base 75exp and Clauswitz's legacy gave me a huge advantage so it was pretty smooth sailing from their. I had some problem with Citystates as I had to fight off nearly every CS simultaneously and they actually took a major city but it didn't really do any lasting harm.

All in all that is a really strong start location in hammers and with a free pantheon, a guaranteed religion it really shows how valuable the start is. That map I think you can really play any victory you like. The extra gold on libraries works quite well on Liberty as it keeps your treasury afloat in the early game. The General bonus and UU negate the need to invest in Honor allowing you to put points into Liberty, Commerce, Rationalism and Autocracy.

Mistakes I made was definitely taking 3 points in Piety over Commerce. The extra gold and the Big Ben from Commerce would have certainly given me a quicker victory and made it easier to develop cities which is necessary to keep tech pace with the AI.

All in all China played out a lot better than I thought. Even if you don't plan for domination the General bonus is very valuable on Diety and allows you to fight on multiple fronts much more easily. The UU comes at the time when the AIs will probably start flexing their muscles and the double attack is retained on upgrade. It gives you the leverage to forward settle on AIs, plant Citadels to essentially make your borders impregnable. Another use for Citadels not often mentioned is that you can use them to snipe CityState luxuries.
 
Going to be a Liberty -> Artillery game most likely.

to t100
Spoiler :

Slow contact with AIs and quite a few expand options made me think I want to go for a builder's opener here. That means the aggression won't really begin until Artillery. I'll train some archers though, and may make a late CNK push too.

There was one very nasty barbarian that pillaged my cotton, and captured a worker. That cost me at least 5 turns of unhappiness and probably 1-pop per city.

Happiness could be a challenge here. I'll likely have to invest into Colombo. Training is going well enough - but I did lose a spearman accidentally.

to t100



 
t146

Spoiler :

This is going to plan so far. My spare CKN army easily dispatches Askia and is working on William. A very solid base is being built up in the Chinese homeland. 1st in literacy and food and I haven't even bulbed anything yet. Built the LtoP and founded the WC.

I can make a t148 Artillery timing, but I need some Canons for that to be useful. So I may save Oxford and wait until t157 or so. Spare workers are roading down towards Napoleon. Should be smooth sailing from here. I may not finish this one since it is a busy week ahead and I think I've done the fun part here already :)


 
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