The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game #6 - Byzantine Empire

Settle on the hill to the west; t2 pottery ruin, other ruins gold, spear, & population. Meet both Religious CS and get Godess of the Festival and tech to calendar also find Fountain of Youth. Decide that with the additional happiness from FOY I can go 6 City NC and build the HS while waiting on my satellites to finish their libraries. Track to one of the religious CS and take a barbarian worker so no CS penalty. I might use that as an opportunity to give my galleasses XP before upgrading them to Frigates. Lizzie is going to forward settle me so I rush buy 2 warriors and DoW her on t29 killing on her settler/converting it to worker. It kind of sucks that I had to blow 400 gold that early on warriors but I don't have to worry about York being 5 tiles to my southeast. Plus those warriors are going to be invaluable later when I go to block settlers from England later. All in All not a horrible investment. I receive a DoF from Songhai on turn 37 and Take another worker from Lizzie before offering White Peace.

My Tech order so far has been a beeline straight to Philosophy with slight detours to AH and mining. I need to get to Theology quickly to bulb my Liberty finisher and hopefully use the GP to enhance not found a religion. Missed getting religion somewhere near t70 turns with over 230 faith banked. Really wanted to make a run for HS and role play a bit but not this game I suppose. Start Hammering out the Oracle after settler number 6(4th built). Harold is getting a bit aggressive so I pay Lizzie to Dow him probably isn't a hard sell since he settled right on Lizzie's front lawn. She is going to get BTFO in this game, she only has 2 cities her presumed 3 city keeps getting denied by the great wall of warriors and she now has no space to the west as Harold is in her face.

My scout finds that Songhai is building oracle too so I pay him to Dow Harold. Just maybe I can get him to whittle down Denmark's defenses and I can suicide one or several of these warriors I keep getting from my CS allies and take his capital. Really bummed about the no religion. I'm going to use the finisher to pop a Great Admiral and check out the other continent.

t88 I meet the other continent starting trading for extra happiness and WLTKD. I haven't teched construction yet as I'm trying to make up time getting to Education. Honestly I probably should have at least teched Bronze working earlier that could have been at least 10 gpt. rush buy university in my capital and finish up the NC at around the same time. Sort of a dead period for me while I finish up Universities in my other cities and tech towards frigates. Meanwhile Venice is killed off on t104 and Harold becomes extinct at 113. Now that Universities are up I get lighthouses and start pounding out frigates. Exploration's hammer bonus is noticable when it comes to getting boats out quickly. I have a few CS providing iron, as well as 8 of my own, and I've bought a couple from my Buddy Asaka. 160 found Nicomedia near the rock of Gibralter. It will be a drag on science but the healing to Frigates and in general as a jump off point for more warring will really come in handy. At the same time DOW Lizzie and start killing her fleet, I end up pirating 2 SOLs.

i decided to get on the precious hill everyone was taking for a drunken capital full of wine.
The early pantheon reeealy helped in the early game with the culture boost. Stole 2 workers from Lizzy and made peace afterwards.

Did pump out 2 settlers @6 or 7 pop and settled one to the east in the massive copper mine and one at the mountain with the FoY and ridicolous sea ressources (5fish 1 crab wtf)

I did use an early caravan to Lizzy to get some science going but deleted the trade route as soon i got my granaries up in satellite cities to feed my capital via sea route.

i used some early gold to get geneva allied to get an early religion and i had was so freaking unlucky with that GP spawn (did reach 300 faith with 10fpt) but i did get monasteries which was the point of the CS buying.

Did get NC 81 and build another settler afterwards to fill the gap between Capital and NIcea.



I did go for a late Oracle and was lucky that i got it.



I did forget to take some screens between T100 and 200 but basically it was building up, bribing Lizzy vs Askia and buying out ressource to grow constantly and get WLTKD (payed 3times 30gpt this game to get WLTKD because gold was not a problem)

Biggest problem in the game was the absence of any culural CS which made Policies kinda slow and without WF i guess would have been impossible. Did go Full trad, Patro to Scholastiscm, Full Ration and 6 in Order.

Used the first 6 Trade routes internally (3 feeding my capital and 1 for each satellite city)
Got Plastics T199 with Ratio finisher (won worlds fair and bulbed some great writers)



Then i got Citadel bombed totally at Adiranople by Askia (he even placed a 4th and 5th citadel) by Turn 225 and i decided to kill sidon quickly and get my land back. This probably cost me 10 Turns of my finishing time because i build 5 bombers and some infantry (which was totally over the top because askia was still in Industrial Era) but i did want to get my lands back...



After getting Sidon 15 Turns later i finished Apollo and started bulbing. Build Hubble in Nicea and build a Space part in capital and Adiranople.
I did get tier 3 tenet of order T250 and got a natural spawn of GE @ Nicea T249.

I had stashed up 6k+ faith so i bought 2 GS and 2 GEs with faith and completed the last 3 techs i need and the last 4 parts with enginieers in 3 turns.

In the end i was first in population even though Pachacuti cleaned up the other continent and i was WAY ahead in tech. He also got a revolution exactly this turn because he had -60 happiness due to his massively spreadout empire and he just conquered Egypt in 3 Turns.



Very nice game but just as easy as the last challenge due to massive feeding possibilities and a godly start.

I failed to get a religion despite 230 faith banked by t70 Harold, Asaka, and everyone else on the other continent went piety the only nonpiety AI is Lizzie and she founded Christianity. Harold and ASaka both going full piety missed getting a religion

In my game both Askia (Stonehenge) and Harald (Earth Mother) founded early which means I'm fighting their pressure. After reading these other reports I'm feeling lucky founding the 5th religion at all

With no cultural city states, it's very hard to cream through the social policies, I found. I went tradition, piety and got IP and RT plus some other stuff, but I think without World Church it's gonna be hard to do a CV, right?

I got Stonehenge and the 2nd religion, and it spread to the whole continent. All the other 4 religions fought over the other continent. But I had serious culture and GPT problems after T100 when I had to stop working the wine to try to grow capital. What did you do differently?

It's just that getting FoY and 4 very good city locations sounds pretty OP to me. I'll admit that I'd like culture CS and more space for 5/6 cities though. I question the fact that you went Piety if you recognize that you will have few policies this game.

The map is very, very strong. FoY is crazy: not only does it mean 2.5 extra unique luxuries, but it means that you can focus on early economic accelerators instead of hooking up luxuries. 4 strong coastal cities with a plethora of copper and wine. Free pantheon. Weak neighbours. Missing cultural CS just means more focus on internal culture generation, I think.

Still fun, however

T105 Education, T109 somebody went Renaissance so I moved my 007 to Edinburgh which was by far the largest city approaching 30pop - 34 turns; moved to Cusco - 34 turns; moved to Thebes - 21 turns but entually I got 'nothing to steal' there so I thought screw this I'm going for influence instead. The funny thing later was that Boudicca later build Uffizi before I got to Acoustics or Banking and was very pleased when I forgave her stealing business. The tech lead was a wide open contest between everyone but me, Rammy and Pizza Enrico.

Took Kaupang from Harald but Copenhagen looked crappy so I just pillaged & took some pot shots until the city was without hitpoints Askia units nearby so I made peace T120 and got Aarhus - crappy city but it had Artists' Guild so I puppeted it. Askia wiped Denmark off the next turn.

I got DoF with Venice but Boudicca & Rammy disliked me for building their wonder(s) which was exactly Oracle. Pachacuti just disliked me for being a potential warmonger so all three stayed neutral which wasn't what I was hoping for.
Founded WC T135 and somehow managed LToP T146. Unlike usually the world wasn't very keen on WF but I suggested it anyway and later voted it down.

After the minor Danish war I resumed my spectator mode and was very impressed by Askia's ability to produce missionaries from 5 cities without Piety, fpt pantheon or tenets or CS allies - I had all of those and I still had way less missionaries running around so I couldn't even convert England nevermind CSs. To solve this problem I paid Lizzy to DoW Askia but his missionaries were just too slippery and agile so they continued the very unwelcomed mission.

Due to the start I decided to stay away from Rationalism, Patronage, Commerce & Honor so I went for Piety and later Exploration for giggles.

The Inca DoWed Venice without my help and captured the city T150 and T154 I helped them to DoW Egypt which was as obsolete as wars can be so flashed cash again T168 and this Pachacuti turned his hungry eyes towards the Celts.
This also meant few denouncements and Boudicca offering DoF which I took and even signed a RA with her.




While watching the world I eventually checked my puppets as I was wondering why my border guards aren't moving their posts further - one doesn't want to build a monument and the other one doesn't use it's; excellent. Not really a novelty but annoys me everytime it happens.
And if I was undecided about VC before I wasn't anymore - it's time to kill and Pachacuti with his largest army seems like a good starting point so I DoW him T175 with my enormous navy of 4 frigates & 2 privateers anywhere near his borders. Few turns later he offers a very reasonable peace where I should give all my expos and quite a lot other stuff, too.
Venice falls with ease T187 and navy starts heading the coast upwards while few land units are frantically swimming to defend Venice which is very close to fall on T194 but rush buying walls saves it and surprisingly Rammy offers DoF T197. Lizzy offered too which I turned down like Askia's few turn earlier as they'll be the next targets.

Hit Indistrial T168 and was first to pick Ideology which was Order - I was planning to make war so obviously I avoided Autocracy which was Pachacuti's choice few turns later and then Lizzy & Askia also took Order which was good news.



A lovely Venetian prophet converted the city back two turns after I captured it while why prophet was still in the city. Incans already had removed the Holy City status from it.

Kill the Inca, DoW Lizzy in ~5 turns after upgrading to arties and then DoW Askia after our RA is ready @T216 while trying to convert the 2nd continent are on the to-do list. After that just keep on killing.
Tech rate is crappy and as an icing on the cake I didn't take Order policies apart from the free starter bonuses, PSchools may soon help but I have to hard build them as CS battle against Lizzy is expensive, I have decent happiness until Boudicca & Rammy adopt ideologies but a natural GA starting soon with 3 GAs to prolong it.