The Deity Challenge Line-up #13 - Indonesia

First thing I’ll say is that, as I wanted, this game was definitely in the region of hard but not too hard…at least my playthrough was. There were several runaways that could have crushed me militarily at any time, after I decided to forego a DomV attempt. All of them must have been plotting against me for a good portion of the time. Thankfully, what gave me a chance is that none of them played very sensibly, in typical AI fashion. Ethiopia had a continent to himself but didn’t go for the science win. Ahmad shared a continent with Gandhi, went full Honor, and didn’t attack him. In fact, he didn’t attack anyone until the Modern era. Rome tried to turtle for the science but had genocide in his blood and so DoW’d me around T220 in possibly the stupidest move ever: surrounded on all sides by my AI friends, with no way to squeeze his units through. I built a few subs and just made sure I killed enough of their ancient navy so that when peace came he’d give me his money. He roped the Ottomans into his war, and they fared better. Their Sipahis and so forth killed a lot of my non-upgraded units but eventually got pushed back by infantry. After taking peace from both totaling 200 GPT, I continued with my CV plan but after buying all the things I wanted, I still had loads left, so bribed and coup’ed all the remaining CS. I then went to war with Rome so I could GM bomb him, and I think I’d have won a CV in the next few turns but was so ‘done’ with the game that I breathed a sigh of relief that I won DiploV on the first WL vote.

So yeah, second point is that Indonesia are a powerhouse diplo civ. The unique luxes are fab, plus if you’re going wide you can have a large number of other luxes. This map enabled me to hard-build 8 cities, never have happiness problems and make good use of UA and UB. I was thinking about a rush with the UU but didn’t get anything going in time.

Opener was Full Liberty, One with Nature, 3 city NC (T82 I think) then spammed settlers and sent them to the locations I scouted with Optics, which I researched after philosophy. I delayed construction once I realized that an early rush was not gonna cut the mustard. Since I wanted to try for a naval DomV at one point, I researched Bronze Working, and Iron Working was a better diversion for Indonesia than construction. Of course, the Colossus was gone like T20 or something stupid.

I was very lucky that the Ethiopians didn’t head up to snatch Sri Pada, but in all honesty once my religion was enhanced, no more effort was required. Just sit back and let those Candi do their thang.

The hardest part for me was ignoring things like aqueducts. I’d seen Acken building them in his Maya game and thought ‘Am I mad for ignoring these?’ but I trusted my instincts which said get Opera Houses, Museums, Hotels and Broadcast towers up in preference. Put those hammers to exclusive use, and try not to worry too much about growth. I took a tech lead about T195 (quite late) and didn’t really hold it, so knew that it was gonna be hard to win CV. Luckily, Oxfording into Radio plus then bulbing two saved scientists was enough to cement my position by a few techs; at around the same time, the other AIs were warring pretty much constantly. This always helps.

After Liberty, I went two into Aesthetics, then realized I would need Consulates to hold onto the neighbouring CSs. Then I took a couple more in Aesthetics, then Freedom (unpopular at first but Sweden and India joined which eased the pressure). Finished Aesthetics, then lastly took the Gold gifts policy, which I’m sure helped the win.

1. After all is said and done, I’m through with peaceful play. Every game I play in the DCL here on in I’m going to commit to either a Liberty-Domination (a la Moriarte) or the Honor-Autocracy 3 city strategy that PeddroElm uses, and try to master both. Grinding out peaceful wins is just not my thing, and I’m not much good at it. OBSOLETE. I now have more peaceful wins than warring.

2. For those wanting to do a CV on Deity with Liberty, I think that my strategy wasn’t too bad, but I was very lucky not to be aggressed against earlier, or by Ethiopia at all. He was the points leader for most of the game and could easily have seized the 3 cities I made on his continent, but thankfully putting his Orthodoxy in them seemed to satisfy him. He went Tradition-Piety and was probably developing a CV of his own.

3. So overall, I’d have to say that if you go wide and try for a CV you’re gonna end up in wars, whether you start them or not, so you may as well be the aggressor so you can time the start of the wars to suit yourself.

4. Like some on this thread, I am a little tired of Deity on standard/standard and may well be playing small maps or epic speed just to try them out. I’ll still stay host of the DCL as long as people want me to, but…

5. Finding good maps is becoming a bit of a drag and I could really use help here. Some people have been submitting maps, but are forgetting to disable the map packs or other mods. Please, clean submissions only.

6. Also, I could use some suggestions on which map types are actually playable besides Pangaea and Continents. Archipelago is so unbalanced it’s untrue, Hemispheres makes ugly, unfinished, lumpy maps with terrible capital locations, Inland Sea is unbalanced, etc. I tried Lakes at someone's suggestion but it looks like it will take some getting used to. Are there some playable ones that I’m missing. Your thoughts please…

7. I couldn’t commit to making a VidLP of my playthrough because I have been a bit ill while playing (off work and laying in bed), but will really try for the next one.

8. Future civs. Some may not like me for doing this, but I have below made a list of all the civs I intend to explore through the DCL at some point in the future. I came up with the list by removing from the list of all civs those that had already been picked on previous DCLs, ICLs and ECLs. I also took out Babylon, Greece and Korea because they're just crazy strong. I also took out a couple that the folks who set up the IDS (Interesting Deity Starts) series wanted to get 'dibs' on for their own thread.

Which leaves the following (provisional map types in brackets afterwards):-

Assyria - Pangaea?
Austria - Pangaea?
Aztec - Lakes?
Celts - Continents?
Egypt - Continents?
England - Continents?
France - Pangaea?
Huns - Pangaea?
Iroquois - Arborea?
Portugal - Archipelago?
Siam - Pangaea?

My final question in this long post is this: does the DCL community want to express their preferences via some kind of vote? I'm more than willing to do what I've done up until now, but I'm also the kind of person who likes to put their ideas by other people when I have them.

So if you're interested in developing some sort of future schedule or prioritising the civs on this list, here's your chance to say so.

OK, you can get back to Indonesian shenanigans now!

T60 Rome build GW and made peace with Sully so he turned towards me. T62 denouncement scared him off but really didn't please him so I made a tech detour to CBs not to be but to feel safe.

Got the first prophet after but 4 religions were already picket and Swedes had Jesuit Education I though I'd skip religion & won't build/buy Unis, PSchools or RLabs either but buy them all will faith. A solid plan but the damn Gustavus didn't send a single missionary anywhere near me.

Building units screwed everything including timing so I hard build Oracle ~T90 in Jakarta and used the Liberty GE for 4c NC in Surabaya on T85 and settled 5th city right away and 6th few turns later. Had I found the Marble Island in time I'd have settled there. I was planning a city there later but didn't have troops to clear so I skipped the plan.

As soon as possible I gave OB for Sweden and I even let him settle beside me but the first missionary came on T98 but the enjoyment wasn't that great as it was wrapped with double DoW from Gustavus himself & Sully. One missionary on my territory ran away & the rest were killed by Zurich and I sensed some communication problems in Sweden between Military & Religious castes.

No troops from either but my gpt took quickly a deep dive so I abandoned my scouts and bombed Istanbul's territory with my only GG.




Sweden was suicidal in his attempts with Zurich so I slowly killed Ottoman troops until this happened - volunteers from Cape Town were helping the Swedes but Cape never allied with anyone and at that point I'm leading the culture quest and Pyramids is only a turn away. Quite often the CSs keep on fighting after a peace deal by major civ counterparts but this is a novelty.





Another GG bomb and nice local road network and Istanbul is mine. Catching it wasn't that hard but assuring keeping it took some extra care. Janissaries with double cover aren't really mince meat for Xbows.
Economy is tanking seriously as either Sully or some random CS Caravels were very efficiently playing spot & sink with my cargo ships. DoFs with Morrocco, India & Ethiopia kept me barely floating as happiness wasn't really an issue before this point.





PT ready a turn before Rome would've build it, WF just started, my economy is envious of Greece, policies are light years away from each other, I'd love to build more units but can't really pay the salaries of these, Ethiopia is sending endless prophets & missionaries so I'm buying missionaries & inquisitors to keep the faith like Bon Jovi once said.
I was planning a rescue mission for Zurich but don't want to take Uppsala as long as it follows it's own religion and can't really move tropps away from cities either. I was also planning a war against Rome starting with liberation of Vatican but that's been postponed by ~20 turns just because I couldn't afford it.
I also made peace with Sully just get get my TRs running again. Lizzy is tech lead and has most WWs followed by Rome.

One interesting thing so far has been the board expansion - Jakarta hasn't had a single riverside tile yet and the new tiles are so expensive now that Jakarta's growth has been pathetic at best even with frozen pizzas from other cities.

I've never played Indonesia before so why not do it at DCL

Started with 3 cities and after finishing NC another city on the island. First part of the game was rather peaceful, made friends with Rome. Later on after barely winning WF Ottomans decided to attack me. I allied Mbanza kongo which helped to stop them and the war was over very soon.

After everyone picked ideologies the world was divided into several groups of civilizations who were very hostile towards each other and at war. I also made occasional bribes to AI to fight each other so it was a lot of fun watching that After T200 I was fiends only with India (who also picked Freedom) and Morocco. I also bribed Romans and Swedish to kill Ottomans. At the end of the game they both decided to attack me though. Everyone had Manhattan ready but me (I was doing science instead), so I hoped maybe this will be the first game ever where my cities have been nuked but no. The end of game came sooner after bulbing all GS and buying last parts.

Policies: Full Tradition, full rationalism, patronage opener, commerce right hand tree.
Ideology: Freedom up to 3rd level to buy cheaper space parts.
Happiness was fine despite occasional -20 hits. FP helped here I think.

Religion: Pantheon - 10% growth; only AI's religion which was spread to my cities (bought 1 pogoda and a mosque, 1 GS and 1GE).

Thank you for the map.

Screenshot (the loan was taken from India and my trade routes were destroyed at the end)

Result: Tired of the map around turn 120.

Unlike some other players social balance was absolutely not on my side on this map. This was war, war, war, war for pretty much every turn, starting around turn 40 with a dual declare from Rome and Sweden, followed a few turns later by Suleiman. Rome turned out not to be a threat at first, but Suleiman was at my doorstep spamming about a dozen units. I *barely* managed to hang onto my most western city.

Meanwhile Rome went around making friends with all the city states to my north, drawing me into war with them too. So the number of units being fought kept climbing. At various points both the capital and my most SW city were down to zero HP and only survived thanks to the enemy being very poor at using melee units.

After many slow, slow turns beating back units from Suleiman, Sweden (who I had made peace with for a while) came after me a second time, with a surprise attack on the capital. Probably could have won but I was just weary at this point.

I never did make peace with Rome at all, constant war from turn 40 to when I abandoned.

Interesting map though.

I think your doing a great job. I guess the voting maps was a bit too much but keep up the good work if you want. I wouldn't stress too much about the perfect maps. Honestly I do not even check the maps when I post I pretty much go by the start. This hosting can be alot of work for very little return but Im sure someone can post up a few maps if you get bogged down. I wouldn't say Im tired of Stand/Stand but I might need a few weeks to take a break from Civ. I find it works pretty good taking time away and comming back later making the game more fun again.

A quick update on my game. I pretty much kept up the wars. England kinda messed things up by getting Sigtuna in a peace deal and I decided to retreat from Stockholm to take on a war with England first. I wanted to citadel bomb up Stockholm anyway and I wanted/needed Sigtuna. So I fell back the troops and got some loan gold from 2 DOFs and bought up Englands CS's that were a threat.

I declared war on England and killed some troops and the war only lasted a few turns and she bribed me with low gpt and silver to give her peace. This was fine since I took down Sigtuna and I figure I'll get her later. Stockholm fell in a couple turns and I was sad to use 3 citadels but I hate when they get troops stuck in the Capital and I wanted something to kill them.

Oh ya I didn't start the first war with Sweden, they decided to jump on me, but I had the CS's and some troops give them plenty of trouble. They were building Red Fort before my first attack after the peace deal but either they got beat to it or change production. I did lie to them because I wanted to start the war on my terms which Im sure the rest of the world is going to hate me for lying about going to war.

So I have not focused on anything but Military this game. I have no real pop in my capital. I did build some Universities but can't really work them yet. Im more worried about taking as many cities and as much land as I can. I most likely will try to tech up after that since I know I have no desire to build a Navy and embark my troops to war with the other Civs. Perhaps Xcom Rush down the road. 12 Cities in my empire now and should be good enough to win but I think I'll try to get London and a few others.

SP's and Religion: I did get some free amps up and opened Ratio. I finally enhanced after buying many missionaries to spread. I chose +2 Happy from Gardens and Rel Texts

Im not getting bored but it is starting to feel like a chore so I'll take a long break and get back to it soon.

It's always nice to see a goodie hut on the open. This one gave me a map that revealed Mt. Fuji, so I took my settler for a walk and settled on t3 on the coast. 2 turns later, I meet Vatican City for 8 faith, so I spend one turn working the Wonder, and Voila! Instant Pantheon. I take One With Nature, and I'm pretty sure this is going to be a nice religious game.



I Researched Pottery > Mining > Animal Husbandry (nice to have some horsies for a change) > Trapping > Beeline Philosophy > Sailing > Optics (I could see the corner of what looked like an island off the East Coast) > Beeline Kris Swordsman (Only 1 set of iron in my borders, but one of the islands I discovered later had 4 more) > Beelining Unis.

I built Oracle t88 and finished with a 4-city NC on t102 right as I was settling the first of the two islands.

I went Tradition Opener > Full Liberty (I took a GE but haven't used him yet). I was thinking I was going to go back and complete Tradition as my cultural game is really kicking a$$ (Mt. Fuji and 2 cultural CS allies) but I figured with this ring of CS around me, I may as well grab a couple in Patronage.

Diplomacy is great as Rome just DoF'd me (but now they want me to DoW Sully, and I'm not to keen on that with only 3 Kris).

Now for the bad part. I've never played as Indo before. My first 2 Kris Swordsman ever each went out barb hunting to see what their special ability was. 1st one almost lost a battle to a barb brute as he got Evil Spirits. 2nd one almost got killed by a freakin Hand Axe as he got Enemy Blade. I'm half tempted to delete both as it only takes 4 turns to build a replacement in my 1st expo. What are the odds of that? (Don't answer….I can do the math).

Religion is my normal boring Tithe-Pagodas-Feed The World-Religious Texts. Shark Diving should be pretty strong this game even though Rome just built one of the religious Wonders.

No clue what VC I'll be going for, but will have 6 pretty good cities and a strong cultural start…….may as well give Cultural Victory a shot……..perhaps a bit of warmongering later on to enhance that. I guess it depends on what I can use that GE on…..maybe I'll delay Unis and try for LToP.

The past 30 turns have been all about growing and building infrastructure. I'm up to 6 cities, 2 on the Northeast islands and I like both locations. I discovered the bigger island and am sending 2 settlers over there; 1 for Sri Pada (will be great for One With Nature) and 1 for the Boars (truffles will give me 2 WLTK's). That will put me up to 8 cities. I'm going to have to kill my 2 caravans and replace them with cargo ships next chance I get.

I'm now building 4 Uni's and the island cities will do so as soon as their libraries are complete. I may have to rush/buy uni's in the 7th and 8th cities if I want to get Oxford up on schedule (probably for Radio).

Right now, I'm got a very good shot at winning 3 culture CS quests and another for techs. I did lose faith quest recently, but only have 3 Pagodas up so far. Not sure how I'm going to spread my religion to the island expos…..guess I'll have to use the 500 GP.

I've met all other civs, and Morocco is the runaway. They are at 8 Wonders built and a civ score of 900. Rome and I are both at around 600 (I've built Oracle and a very late Pyramids). I've still got my GE parked in Jakarta, just waiting for a good Wonder to grab. I'm now 3 policies into Patronage and will probably finish the tree and go for CV. With 8 cities founded, I doubt I'll be able to get back to finishing Tradition, as I'll be hitting Rationalism soon.

Now, about Rome……..I see a few Trebs and escorts heading my way so I bribe him to go after the Ottomans. I still have a DoF with Caesar, but he's not trading very politely and I can't figure out what I did to tick him off. Sully asked for open borders and I declined several times. As a general rule, I don't give the Ottomans open borders as I like to limit his chances to build up his navy. In this game, having the islands settled, I figured I could block him pretty much all game. Sully, of course, doesn't appreciate this and denounces me. I neglected to denounce him back and 2 turns later Rome and Sweden joint DoW me. Really Caesar? I'm your friend, am trading some cool stuff to you, not settling in your direction (anymore), your enemy denounces me, and you're going to DoW me? I've no clue what Sweden's problem was….they just forward settled me in the North, but I've been pretty cool with them and was hoping for a DoF for their bonus.

In any event, I've got 5 Kris with decent promotions, a few comp bows and a couple of pikemen. I've also got a couple of good CS allies in strategic locations, so these wars are not going to be too difficult. I'll just sit back and build my uni's and pick up XP. I'm just hoping I can get peace with Sweden and eventually become friends, as that GP bonus will work real well if I go for CV and finish Patronage.

Another quick update as the whole world was at war with me except India. Sweden and Turkey did not have a chance and I took down Edirne eventually with 3 Gats and a Knight. I was heading into York and trying to get into position when England said she would just give it to me for Peace. I accepted and I had to kill a few ships from Ethiopia and Morocco as well . I killed a few of Englands SOLs before the peace.

As you can see I have not tried to grow or improve many hexes or even worried about spt or any Nat Wonders. Im about 18% behind India but I think I can catch up. I did not get the PT this game. I put India at war with Morocco and Ethiopia and Ethiopia asked for peace but the whole war started because of them stealing my CS's so Im not so keen on Peace. I would like to take down London after the peace deal but Im not sure I can do it with Gats since she has Trad/SOLs/99 defense.

I may have waited too long to worry about spt but Im busy with wars and have no problem with killing my Cont while some Indian flys into space .

I sent my warrior to the S. The goodie hut there was a map. I went down to Vatican City (8 faith), then E. By turn 4 he saw Mt. Fuji. On turn 5, I got 80 gold and on turn 7, I got 20 culture, so I had to make the decision on Social Policies.

I’d seen a good bit of territory and not yet met any rival civs, so I picked Liberty. (I always go Tradition, so I’m trying Liberty just for a change of pace, since the map seems to lend itself). Moreover, I feel like I’m on a pretty big landmass (CSs that aren’t on the coast), so I figure to use Spice Islanders at all, I’m going to have to found island cities later in the game. I’m open to anyone’s comments on my choice of Social Policy, and of course, I’ll have a look at what all the rest of you chose to do. I don’t know how to play Liberty.

I went Scout, Scout, two turns on a worker, then Shrine, then back to worker. I wanted to capitalize on the 8 faith I got from Vatican City. There wasn’t a pantheon on turn 5 or 8, so the Celts and Ethiopia aren’t in the game. It was hard to pick Shrine because I feel an almost simultaneously urgent push for a granary (such low food here!), a worker (ditto, plus luxes), and a monument (b/c without Tradition, I’m worried I’ll creep through the policy tree). But it paid off. I get the third pantheon in the game on turn 21. I consider God-King, just cause I need help with everything here early on, but I incline toward Sun God, which has the immediate benefit with my wheat, and will really benefit a city to the W of Vatican with all those bananas, and then to the east with all that Citrus. Again, I’m open to anybody’s alternate suggestion what I might have done.

Here is what I'd explored at turn 7 when I settled on Liberty and turn 21 when I settled on Sun God. My scouts are further to the west than can be shown on turn 21.

…What in gawd's name is this Vatican City Pikeman doing on my island?



You Papists are supposed to be my ally after I spent 500 gold to influence you to provide a buffer from Rome. I did NOT pay this money so you could send your freakin troops over to my exotic islands on some USO tour. You are 20-something hexes from where I've got two strong civs trying to invade my lands and I could sort of use your help there. What, are you going to throw your pike at the lone Roman Galleas? Get your A$$ back on the mainland and……go pike some people. Sheesh!

Sometimes this game's code just cracks me up.

Heh Are you at war with Rome? Is that CS likely to be captured in the next turns? Looks like a deserter

sun8119 said:

Heh Are you at war with Rome? Is that CS likely to be captured in the next turns? Looks like a deserter

Click to expand...

Yeah, I am at war with Rome, but they are barely showing a unit to snipe at. Vatican City is not threatened at all. That deserter hung out on my island for 7 turns before taking a leisurely swim back to the mainland. I want a court martial!!!

T173 bribed Augustus to DoW Lizzy while building WF which I won on T178 and same turn I also paid India & Morocco to DoW Rome and joined them on next turn. Not an awful lot troops but building roads & clearing jungles took some time so I liberated Vatican first on T192.
I don't I've seen such close match in military power ever in and the only two slightly off the pace have excuse of being war with me currently or in recent past.





T203 Lizzy joined Order & Gustavus a turn later and things looked, temporarily, fairly ok but took a worse turn when India & Morocco went Freedom instead. After taking Antium Rome was easy prey on T210 especially when I made a tech detour Arties. I also wanted to put the 4 catas gifted by Belgrade in use finally. Eiffel was also ready on that turn.






T212 Oxforded Plastics. Defending the religion was costly so using just JE for Labs wasn't that fast and only managed 4 of them in reasonable time but sadly not in the 2nd city with Observatory. Much worse than with Unis or PSchools besides losing the religion cost me 4 happiness in both cities. T215 Lizzy's ally Valletta easily wiped Rome off.
T218 paid Morocco vs Ethiopia & T227 India vs Ethiopia so Haile picked Autocracy. Liberated Zurich which some difficulty as Sweden had unlimited horses and I heard a rumour that Sully was marching to Jakarta so I didn't want to keep my units sandwiched between the two. T230 Lizzy had a brilliant idea of attacking Sully so I joined her adventure.
T231 Atomic and I was well ahead of the pack with quite a few GSs to spare. T236 Kremlin as Lizzy & co were taking the scenery route towards Internet. T237 India DoWed out of the blue so I, again, lost TRs due to Valletta's units and to slow Gandhi down I handsomely paid Ahmed to DoW him. Gustavus had doomsday prophecies and ~300 gpt but still wouldn't settle for reasonable peace so taking Stockholm T238 seemed appropriate besides I assumed my troops would be needed elsewhere soon and even befriended with Lizzy after turning down her previous offer.





T244 Ratio finisher for Satellites, Gandhi built Manhattan and I ran into a slight happiness issue next turn so I switched to Freedom, a bit too late to please the other freedom fighters but a necessity for some happiness, finished Sweden off T247 and got backstabbed by Lizzy T252.



Morocco did decent job to say the least by killing Indian troops so I had relatively easy job taking the coastal cities with navy. By far the most annoying thing was the side swapping Valletta; while obeying the Maharadja they destroyed my TRs & boats and then switched back to being a loyal subject of Her Majesty while I rebuild my TRS & back to a wannabe oriental - rinse & repeat. I really wanted nuke it to oblivion. The Ottoman war wasn't really going anywhere and eventually took Delhi T263, completed Hubble, converted the two cities & bought RLabs for no other reason than completing the set & getting rid of excessive faith.





India was falling so I bribed the greedy desert lurker Ahmed to DoW Lizzy T268 - wasn't cheap but well worth it - and killed Gandhi on next turn. Haile probably saw it coming when I DoWed him on T270 as my TRs were gone again the next turn but he didn't have much troops for expressing his outrage. Addis Ababa T276 & Haile gone by T278.




Few turns of digesting the burning cities and DoWed Morocco T281 - bit late for swapping pleasantries so I didn't even denounce him. With unlimited oil & and very healthy bunch of subs I surprisingly lost several Battleships but SBs & Rocket Arties had no match - I was still some 15 techs ahead of peloton. The main problem was my cultural success so while capturing cities the natives stayed instead fleeing in numbers. I could've switched ideology but was too lazy.

T290 DoWed Lizzy but she had bomb shelters everywhere so rather than taking the cities I kept on nuking & keeping their hit points at 1 in hope CSs getting few of them and Vilnius actually captured two of them. Surprisingly few defending ground troops around and naval units weren't too keen on engaging in combat. Took London with 5 other cities on T300 to end the game.

And yes, Jakarta finally got it's natural riverside expansion tile - on turn T245, huah.






Annexed Rome at some point but the main purpose in the end were buying a carrier which provided a nuke lauch pad for southern England.




Managed to cut the number of cities and getting rid of the RRs but still for quite a few turns I wished I was Attila. One wtf moment was after sieging Ur for several turns to downsize it's pop due hunger when I suddenly noticed that it was a CS screaming for liberation. Hardly cost any turns or made otherwise a great impact but proved paying at least some attention is generally useful. Partly the same issue I had while carelessly GG bombing food tiles from Ottoman & English cities and effectively cutting off the CS's pathway to those cities.





No surprises here. Full Liberty, left side of Honor, few in Rati, then Ideology, Honor finished T262 and few late ones in Aesthetics.
Used all Artists for Golden Ages as I didn't have space for even captured GWs so I didn't build any Archaelogists and ended up deleting some of those I captured.

Bought two GSs with faith but could've bought several more if needed. Got 3 techs from spying before surpassing the AI and only Sully & Gustavus noticeably stole from me.

The only moment of any danger was around T60 when Sully made peace with Augustus and seemingly wanted a piece of me instead of me, Swedish troops never reached my borders and city defense was enough to scare off the few Indian daredevils. Valletta had more troops in my territory than the major civs combined and Vancouver even made an intercontinental attack at me with both land & naval units.
Another smaller issue was the shortage of oil but with surplus GG I managed to secure some. The CSs with oil were formerly allied with Sweden hence I could much do anything for them.

I've been in 3 pretty boring wars……haven't even generated a GG yet. Nothing achieved in peace deals either. I've still got the same 3 CS allies, and Morocco is dominant on the other continent and he's been a good friend. If he ever gets mad, I'll lose those expos pretty fast.

Because I've got 2 NW"s in my borders, I proposed whatever the Heritage thingie is that gives +5 culture. It got voted down. Fortunately, someone else proposed WF, which I won. It's nice having 8 cities and a Golden Age (Happy Hour!!!).



Production is not that great in capital. In fact, I used a cargo ship to send some production to Jakarta instead of feeding one of the island cities, which means I can't work all of my scientist slots. I finally bought my 8th and final Uni a few turns back, but haven't even looked at Oxford yet as I'm struggling to finish up PT. With all of the culture from WF + 3 GW's, I was able to complete Rationalism and used the free tech for Radio. I have to choose an ideology now, and I'm thinking I'll go Order and go for the Cultural Victory, with science as a backup plan.

I'm pretty close to finishing FP in my 1st expo and will need to hard build Eiffel somewhere. Jakarta needs to build NC sometime, but I may delay that for Eiffel. Not finishing Tradition is hurting me this game as I could certainly use the aqueducts and GE's. I might circle back instead of going into Aesthetics after Ideologies, but that would mean going SV. Need to decide by then which direction to go.

I also have to decide whether to research Industrialization next or get the archeologists out early. It will only take 7 turns to finish, and I figure that won't kill me in the archeological race…..if it does, SV will likely need to happen.