The Deity Challenge Line-up - Game #11 - Morocco

T54 Boudicca offered DoF which gladly too, sold her some copper to be able to afford to buy a settler in Rabat instead of building two as I was already using workers to dodge her settler. T64 prophet spawned but instead of 3rd religion I planted it & started buying Pagodas & Mosques with faith. I was supposed to get another prophet as well but forgetting automatic purchase on Mosques I never got it. T82 Oracle by which the mainland scouting was mostly done and I decided to ignore navy & cargo ships. T93 4C NC, T95 CS & T108 Education.

T117 Boudicca went Renaissance as first while being dead last in tech and T119 reoffered DoF which she earlier denied. T122 killed Shoshone spy, forgave it & he also offered DoF 5 turns later. T131 Harald settled his 3rd city, finally in range of Caravans, sent one & DoF offer came T134.




T133 PP so I founded WC next turn but suggesting WF pleased surprisingly low number of peoples. 137 Opened Rationalism and T146 LToP from which I took GE which was used for PT T159. The filler policies were used in Piety just use the other revamped tree.

As I couldn't decide what to do with this I decided to do nothing including actively avoiding few things like caravans to capital, buying wars, harming CSs in any way, starting wars and generally keeping balanced cities which all have at least one NW & WW by ~T220.
Alex was leading in most of stuff, had almost all CSs which I had found all probably all of those I hadn't found. Pocatello had most cities and Nappy largest army. First war I saw started ~T110 when Harald DoWed Kame.




T160 Alex went Industrial still in tech lead, T172 I accepted Nappy's DoF mainly because he was at war Alex, Boudicca wiped Assyria off the map, T182 Radio & I was first to pick so I took Freedom keeping this different from the previous ones. T183 Harald wiped Kame off the map, too but otherwise it's been very peaceful - every second war seems to lead to a genocide.
T198 Eiffel to get some tourism, T206 Oxforded Plastics, T214 Broadway as didn't have useful stuff to build either, T219 SoL where I stopped.
For the sake of suspense my most modern units are CBs & a swordsman but only Alex doesn't like me that much and that's not really anything out of ordinary either. I have some oil and luckily money, too so in case of being DoWed I prolly just buy/build few bombers.

Not sure which VC to pursue but it heavily probably depends on whether I'll get involved in wars or not. Peaceful diplo with full Patronage Alex with endless gpt for one is not an option; I might even do another SV mistiming everything. Planted the first GS, have bulbed one I think & have 5 hanging around atm. With the lack of Observatories & keeping the capital relatively small it'll be slow but safe.

No major problems for most of the game thought only very moderate happiness & income due to very bad cravan options very limited CS ally options. Almost total lack of WLtKDs is more annoying than actually hampering. I'm not sure whether it's later development or am I just taking closer notice of it now but AI's habit of not improving luxes is stupid. It doesn't matter that much while taking their cities & killing everything but waving sacks of gold on their border while pointing towards unmined gold vein gets boring after a while and it's not like their workers were doing anything more beneficial at the time. Sure the AIs don't need the small amount of extra gold and very rarily the possible happiness but still, from the gaming pov it doesn't make any sense.

Beginning of T234 deleted all the caravans & then rebuilt most of them but avoided internals. Neuschwanstein, Hubble, SOH & pentagon in later turns otherwise just building infra & a bomber but not enough military action to get even the first general. Last CS was found on T226, nobody DoWed me in the game and only got denounced once by Alex and no one even GG bombed my lands. Some sort of wars were going on but without any serious effects.
2 DoFs with Boudicca & Poca and one with Harald. Didn't pay for wars and on WC I voted against Alex's ban lux X ideas. IG was running when the game ended.
Few filler policies on Aesthetics, filled Ratio, 3 in Piety and the rest in Freedom.

In my game things went really early too - can't recall Oracle, but both Alex and Celts hit Renn t102, Alex even took Rat open to get PT. I was able to faith GE Eiffel, and hard build CR, Neuschwanstein, Hubble, Pentagon, and Kremlin - but mainly because my tech path doesn't coincide with the AI. I didn't hit the tech lead until the 230s.

My N city next to lake was super defensible, what with XB's shooting across the water and the classic AI plunge every 2 turns. At least Harald's UA could have been useful there, but it's so easy to potshot units in the drink. [edit - Oh, and I sent all early units for Alt Training - all of them.]

"Oi you fellas! Get yerselves over to Kilimanjaro for a bit of extra training. It'll let your running levels go up to 11!"

Everything went very smoothly - again, it seems as soon as you hit Satellites and 5 Year Plan the game is in the bag. My base science was only about 1100 - I thought it would be higher with 5 cities but that's what you get with no Observatories and so much desert and mtn. Scholasticism gave me another 250, as I had 22 allies vs Alex's 8. I was very surprised to take such a lead, but his mid-game coups and buys tailed off a lot late game.

I passed an embargo of him, and it only dropped his gpt from 130s to 120s - everybody pretty much hated him, esp after he took a bribe to DOW his only buddy Harald. I finally got him to fight Poc at the end for 8 gpt. Alex and Poc swapped mil lead all game, Poc had most of the demographics and really tromped Underpants, shoving him into the NW corner after Underpants made good headway vs Celts and Harald. Alex dominated Nappy. I stayed Friendly with Underpants, Celts, and Poc all game. My only real worry was Celts getting pissy, but I could afford to lose N city, and she still was fielding canons and Lancers with her Infantry.

I ended up with full Trad and Rat, 6 in Order, 4 in Patronage, and 2 in Commerce. One thing beneficial about not hitting Renn early is that you can get a lot more mileage nabbing Consulates. Late game it is such a worthless policy, so I went Commerce. It would be nice if Consulates, in bringing the base up to 20 from 0, would give you 20 turns of +1 influence to mitigate loss, but I tested it and it didn't appear to do that.

Faith bought 1 GE and 2 GS. Ended up with Eiffel, Neuschwanstein, CR, Hubble, Kremlin, and Pentagon. Probably could have built SOH for funsies, but I finally started building a navy instead. I also citadelled Harald late to nab a Holy Site, Manufactory, and Uranium for fun, but he didn't DOW.

I caught a flu bug, which sucks, but it did open up some time to play Civ. Sadly, the virus didn't spread to Greece, as I'm dealing with a runaway Alex. He's wiped out the Shoshone and Assyrians. Somebody else went berserk all over Polynesia, so we are down to 5.

Alex was 1st to ideologies, snagging Autocracy. Harold Bluetooth (how does one get blue teeth?) went Order the same turn. I Oxforded Radio 4 turns later, thought about going Order also as Harold was sweeping through Boudie and was on my doorstep. However, I was on the cusp of a new SP and WF was about to commence, so I knew I'd have 6 Foreign Legion very soon, so I used the last of my meager resources to send Harold after Alex and took Freedom. Nappy went Autocracy next, and later Boudie would join me in Freedom.

Alex look it to Harold early in their war, liberating a couple of CS, so the entire Eastern part of the map is colored that ungawdly white and baby blue. France is no help, as they are strong but docile. Harold was forced to go Autocracy, so I'm glad now that I skipped on Order. I don't think Boudie will last much longer, so it'll be me against 3 strong Autocratic powers. My defenses may hold up, as I'll have a pretty strong air force, but I need a navy soon and my weakest city is my only coastal one.

I'm still about 10% behind Alex in science, but have 5 GS ready to bulb. If I get Hubble, I may have a shot at a t300ish SV. Otherwise, Alex is going to win by Diplo or SV pretty soon. I am waiting to start bulbing until I can get my BPT over 800, which will happen soon. Low population from going Liberty is killing me, and I'll likely only have enough gold to buy 1 or 2 SS parts.

Wish me luck…..this one is gonna be tough.

(My screen shots are over on the Polynesia game thread and I accidentally posted there and can't move them here, so feel free to view them there if you want to see the awful sight of a runaway Alex).

I was 10 turns away from launching my own sleek spacecraft, but going Liberty to go after Petra killed me. I had a RA ready to pop in 3 turns, so it was actually closer than that. Also, I had 260 or so banked faith when the last religion was founded, so I could have easily had the 2500 GS if not for bad luck…….still, Alex was also about 5 turns from CV and I'd have had to be pretty creative to keep him from getting Diplo at the next vote.

I never could get Nappy to DoW him, so this was frustrating. His war with Harold must have been a fun one, as the nukes were flying:



This was a winnable game, it just didn't break right at the right times. Petra, religion, Arts Funding, and many other turning points all went the wrong way. I didn't fight much, but I was pretty much safe from invasion for the final 50 turns.

Do we really have to wait another week for the next DCL?

The starting location wasn't that great, but the 500 gold from ElDorado meant fast expo at least. Bought a settler, and forward settled Boudicca. She didn't DoW. T85NC, 105 Education, 5 cities around t120, 206ish plastics. Boudicca had an insane religion, so I made a religion solely for hammers in cap and faith. Tithe, 15% production, +2 faith per wonder, reliquaries. With so many GS reliquaries really provided a lot of faith.

T154

Alex took out Poca and Assyria, so diplo was out. Keeping some CS allies was also a major pain, I think he is my least favourite civ to play against... Luckily he was more than happy to DoW everyone for a few gpt, and fought a war on 3 fronts pretty much the whole game

The whole game was peaceful, and all that jungle to the north allowed for some extra bpt. 4 RAs. Polynesia was also wiped out, with a few more friendly civs the game could have been faster. I also messed up the timing on the spaceship parts and lost 4 turns there.

T274