The Deity Challenge Line-up #16 - China

I think we could play around with something like that on my site that I am using for stats and other ideas. Breaking away from the usual stand/stand changes things to a point where stats are hard to adjust. The other problem is player activity. This is one reason I did not want to go back and adjust all stats from the new revised DCL series from #1 Zulu. It seems we have lost some players over the past 5-10 challenges so I decided to keep records from DCL 16 and on including ICL's, IDS's, and any other map posted up on here or there.

As you can see with the IDS series we do not have very much player support. This game takes days/weeks to complete. We also have players downloading the maps but not posting up any results. I was hoping that building a site that tracked stats, win/loss records, and awards for completing objectives would help get more results. Change is hard and it is going to take time and dedication to make this work.

You can always email me your ideas and what you would like to see or change. It might work for you and I but I am not sure how many players we could get to join in. What we need is something that is standard and that most players want to participate in. The DCL is working but also seems to be limping along. I think the more I get educated with site building the stronger player support will be. The more I think about it the more I think Deity isn't fun enough for the larger part of the community. I think if I changed it to Emperor I would see a higher spike in player support.

Either way I will keep drudging along and see what happens. I paid for a year to see if this will work. Either way it works for me and even though it is taking a lot of game time away from me I am having fun with it and hope to be rewarded in the end.

Just a quick update on my game. I am up to turn 202. I have taken over the tech lead and France is trying to attack my capital. I have a couple of RA's going and I had my first with Sweden who denounced me a few turns later. I guess I should not of taken away a couple of his CS's he got upset about that it seems. I was trying to rush buy a Lab in my capital but took the RA's instead and I had to drop some gold into Jerusalem. I decided to build Big Ben instead of hard building the Lab for now. I am having some trouble seeing this attack coming so I might need to rush buy some units. I am kinda waiting to see what happens before I decide.

I decided to play this game very passive after my early wars. I can't get into the countryside of France since the Terrain is difficult and he will not give me any peace. Once I get up to Rocket Artillery it might be a different story. I would like to take India's capital since it has some nice Wonders but since he is a good trading partner I will let him be for now.

I did decide to go with Order since I think it is the strongest Ideology for how I am playing. I also finished Rationalism a bit early and took Steam Power as my Free Tech which isn't very optimal but I wanted to finish the tree for the stronger RA's. I am the only one with Ideology for now and it has been that way for 23 turns now since I reached Modern at Turn 179 with some bulbing. I used Oxford for Plastics recently. I did complete the PT at turn 177. I used some Faith to buy a few Science Buildings but holding off now to get some GS's later.

I captured Troyes on turn 186 but had to sell it to William a few turns later since I didn't want to try and hold it which was going to be difficult. No problem since he gave me a pretty good deal. My tech path was a rush up to Radio. After Radio I decided to beeline to Plastics and after that I am on a beeline to Railroad to get the Kremlin. So far it is nice to see the AI tech very slow not putting pressure on my decisions.

I couldn't get peace with France and it was a stalemate trying to get into Paris. I didn't want to take out Wittenberg in fear of upsetting the world so I tried to bypass them but had a hard time getting into French Lands. I killed a bunch of units and wished I had Full Honor for all that gold. Later I used Nukes and some units to get into a few of the French cities. I razed one and sold a few to William. I had to sell Rouen towards the end since France was about to recapture it. Not a problem since William was a DOF. I just bought all the nukes from him after I sold him the city with 8 Nukes in its borders.

After I researched Physics I figured why not get peace with France and use my 3rd GE to blast off. So I gave France Gao and Tombouctu for Peace and on the same turn I put him to war with the rest of the world. He was happy to do it for only 5gpt each Civ. They wrecked him pretty good. I had to wait another 7 turns to blast off since I had to build a booster I must of forgot. I was surprised to see two parts left after I bought my last GE. Not a big deal waiting for the extra turns/time to win but it was silly of me to miss that since I could of had it ready in time.

This was one of those games where the AI just did not seem to tech at all the whole game. I would of thought France would of teched closer to me since he had the most land and cities. France was not at war with any other Civ either until the very end. Nobody would dare DOW them even though I offered 175gpt lol!

It was a fun game though and I got to play with a lot of late game toys/units. I had some good mid game war and decided to play peaceful with India and William since I was set up for a more peaceful game not committing to Domination. It is funny how I finished with my original two cities only after I took down about 10 cities or so total.

I settled on the mountainside river/hill to the West. I thought about going coastal and trying for +2 faith from quarries, but there was no coastal river and I find teching to Masonry to slow down things like getting libraries and Oracle built. I love this location, as it is highly defensible has access to desert if I can get DF for a Pantheon.

I sent my Warrior West where he found 2 huts, one of which apparently taught him how to use a spear. Good thing, too, as the next turn one of Williams's settlers shows up with an escort. 3 turns later, and I get a nice new early worker. I kept the settler pinned within 4 tiles of the CS so he couldn't spawn a city.



I opened Tradition, as always, then decided that I'd complete Liberty and try to use GE on Petra. Of course, I had forgotten that I didn't settle Beijing next to a desert tile, so when the GE popped t78, I had to march him to my Southeastern expo. There's only a couple of useful Petra tiles there, but it's still helpful, deprives the AI of having that production, and I LUV the extra Caravan.

I built Oracle pretty early, then straight to a 3 city NC around t80. I noticed Hanging Gardens was hanging around, and not having anything else important to build at the moment, built it in Beijing in 11 turns. Machu Pichu was also still around at t98 so I built that as well. This is going to be a pretty wealthy empire.

I did manage to get Desert Folklore, but 5th religion was founded pretty quickly when I only had 180 faith. Thankfully, Gandhi sent a missionary over and his religion has Mosques, which I bought in both expos. Hopefully, the other AI's will send their religions in as well. Beijing is still holding onto the Pantheon for now, which is fine.

Darius asked me to DoW France t40ish. I agreed so that I could get some XP for my two archers (1 former scout). The Immortals did a pretty good job of knocking down the walls of France's Western expo, so I finished the city off with 2 bowshots and my spearman. Right after, Paris completes Great Wall, so I figured I'd better make peace. I razed the city instead of selling it because I was pretty sure that France would be my first victim once I got to Machinery and launched the War Machine. If you look at the screenshot below, you'll see that I'll be able to position 2 CNK's within range of Paris before declaring war (maybe more if I can swim over to what looks to be an island 2 hexes SE of Paris).



Gandhi would be the easier first target due to easy terrain, and I really do need a 2nd coastal city for cargo ships. However, he's been a very nice neighbor and he's DoF with the Iriquois. William is about 1 turn away from getting knocked out of the game by Askia, so if I can take France's 2 cities quickly, I can denounce Askia, then turn East, and hopefully get Darius to help me attack Songhai.

It's odd for me to play without a religion, but since I'm pretty obviously going for a Domination V, everything about this game will be odd (in a good way). I'm going to open Honor next and bang out Statue of Zeuss, since nobody else took Honor. I scouted less than usual this game as units were needed back home (only built 1 scout who became an archer).

My science is decent but I'm going to be very late for Uni's (probably t130's), so maybe CV will be my backup plan. Problem, for me at least, is that I doubt I'll be building many Cultural Wonders, especially since I can't buy GE's. Perhaps I can capture a few…...

Time for war:

Welcome Back! I noticed we both got some of the same Wonders. I did not get Petra though and you seem to get that a high % of games proving that it is easier to get Petra than I thought possible. I would of been destroyed if my Capital was on that side of the mountain. France, Almaty, & Sofia marched a good amount of troops on that side getting slaughtered. France and Almaty would also try to March troops through the narrows on the other side as well most of the game.

It is not a big deal and I was not doing a very good job at it myself but if you get a chance during game play to write down turn times for NC and all Wonders you build or capture it will be a big help for me when I write up your statistics page. I need to do a better job at keeping records during game play myself. Next game I plan to write down things like when Education, Public Schools, Plastics, and Satellites were researched and all turn times for Eras as well since I will keep track of those stats from now on. I kind of have an idea of when you finished most of these so far, so if you do not have that info I will just estimate for this game.

On a side note... I played a very odd game going 1 city until after Turn 73 when I settled my second city. Usually with China and only 1-2 cities I would just go straight Domination but the game changed so much for me after crushing Askia that it seemed like SV was a better route. I guess it was a 4 city, Tradition game since I annexed Gao and Tombouctou. Of course I did not get the free buildings in those cities. I guess monarchy really is that strong!

Settled on spot, tradition, settler out pretty early with 2 +1 pop ruins settled to the northeast on the hill below the fish. Hit some happiness problems early as I usually only take captured barbarian workers and didn't find any. 3rd city to the south in between mountain and horses, NC around t85, also managed to get oracle before t100 and opened patronage. Ghandi for some reason didn't settle any cities to the north so I settled on the river below the wheat in range of both of the oasis sacrificing a coastal city(only saw the one source of crabs at the time, little mistake not scouting out better).

Rushed out 10-12 cho-ko-nu with 3 swordsmen from Almaty and slowly(25-30 turns) battered down Ghandi's units and finally took Delhi(Parthenon, HG, Chichen Itza, GL) at t187. Meanwhile Persia destroyed France, followed by a double team of Sweden and Askia taking down Persia. Both Persia and France were down to 1 city by t200.

Went order(2 free tenets) got revolutionary wave but was friendly with everyone(except Ghandi) so there were pretty of luxury trades available. William was running away with tourism and was preparing for war with my +1 ranged gaitling guns only to have the Netherlands get wiped out in 10-15 turns by Sweden, got the Brandenburg Gate built a bunch of bombers with instant air repair and siege 2 to go after the Iroquois because I can stand that city spamming guy.

Sweden continued on to take out Songhai who was down to 1 city(Paris), someone put Persia out of its misery and France was stuck with their 2 pop island city for like 2000 years. Iroquois went freedom and built the SoL so finally DoWed him. I took out Hiawatha's first city with my bombers only to have Ragusa steal it under my nose and raze it, then took out his capital(t287) which SoL was not in sadly, went for his SoL city and Sweden snaked it from me with their hekkapeliitta after I brought it down to 0 HP.

Sweden now controlled over half of the continent(Songhai, Netherland, France and Persia empires). Built a bunch of wonders in Delhi as I didn't work any specialist slots and focused full production after I got 30 pop. Went for a diplomatic victory but missed out by 2 votes at around t290ish so barreled down and finished the spaceship at t327. Looking at other games on here I got pretty lucky that no one forward settled me and that I never had to pay off civs to go to war as they were all warmongering each other.

I did indeed send 6 CKN's with a Spearman and Warrior to take down Paris. 1st GG was generated after the opening shots were fired. The Scout/Archer finally got Range around t150 and Paris fell on t156. I'll have to take his Northern expo also, as it is right in between Paris and my Empire.

Lookie lookie what Paris had for me: Great Wall, Himjei, Artemis, and Pyramids (yeah, I get to do the pillage/repair thingie.



I have 2 militaristic CS Allies, and they specialize in Impii and Berserkers, so my meat shields are going to be good even if Impii are nothing special without the Buffalo Promotions).

I thought I'd make Songhai the next victim, but everybody seems to hate the Iriquois lately, so maybe I'll join in that pig pile.

Science feels slow as I only built 3 cities, but I seem to be keeping up. I'm currently beelining for Radio (just finished Architecture). Next policy I'll open up Rationalism, hopefully build PT, and I have no clue which Ideology I'll go with at this point. Culture is a bit slow and I've got like 1200 faith built up with nothing to spend it on yet.

I finished off France and annexed Paris and Troyes. Sadly, this put me into negative happiness and GPT. I built a road to the land formerly known as France, but it went through Almaty who stopped being my friend and therefore the road didn't count. This would be an issue with other civs, but with China popping GG's so often, I just marched 2 on down to Almaty and made the road a permanent part of my borders. Happiness and gold issues instantly solved. Although Almaty had been my friend, they are Allied with India by quite a large margin, so I'm going to be at war with them soon enough. May as well render them less useless now with those citadels.




After building Courthouses in my new wine-producing province, I now had 5 good cities just in time for WF and I have been saving GA's for this event. I quit building WF in Beijing after several turns, as I was already over 700 hammers in and the WF was only 46% over. Finished PT and timed Oxford to coincide with my RA with India's expiration and bulbed to Radio t195. I decided to go with Freedom (I'm first to ideologies), mostly for the early happiness (I foresee happiness issues going forward) and the fact that the 6 FL's will come in very handy both in defense (my CNK's are 10 turns away from capital). and when I go after India after finishing off the Iriquois. I'm going to raze all of the Iriquois nation if I can get away with it diplomatically and render the inland sea useless.

I have a navy consisting of less than a rubber duckie and can see that Gandhi has flooded that inland sea with Caravels and Galleases. I've exposure to that in only one city, so it shouldn't be a problem.

My spy heard wind of a rumor that Darius might be a bit unhappy with my recent land acquisitions. In fact, according to my spy (who employs nothing but honorable methods in his information gathering…..no torture) Darius was actually marching an army to liberate Paris. Well, this won't do……..so I got military leader Askia to DoW Persia for the low-low-low price of a 1-population Tours which I was razing to the ground. I also got open borders from Askia for the bargain of one horsie, as I needed to maneuver through Tours still.

Overall, this is s slow paced game, as there are no runaways and the most advanced unit I've seen thus far were some Songhai Gatling Guns. I'm now 4th in science, but should catch up soon once Public Schools are built. I have 5 super-promoted CNK's who will soon be GG's once Industrialization is finished (if I have enough gold). I'm hoping that will be enough to rush India after I finish off Hiawatha.

Hopefully, my spies can steal me the upper naval technologies in the next 10 turns and I can start working on a small defensive navy. Beyond that, it's beelining to SoL, then I'll probably head towards Flight before Artillery….this assumes I can steal my way to Biology. I'll circle back for Labs and use SV as a backup plan, but right now Dom V looks pretty promising. I just wish I had gotten some experience for my Trebuchets…..they've pretty much been sitting at home, resting/playing defense. I again regret not finishing Tradition, as I'll have to hard-build things like Eiffel, SoL, and Hubble. I was considering skipping Eiffel, but I really do need the culture if I'm ever going to finish Honor, Rationalism, and get through Freedom, even with WF victory coming in the next couple of turns. Freedom does feel like the right choice; A. It's the best ideology for happiness when you are likely to be in the minority, and B. My biggest vulnerability is if Persia or Songhai comes with force for Beijing or the artist formerly known as France. Those FL's pretty much cancel that threat, especially if they aren't all needed when mowing through India. My Impi now have March, and they'll make good Lancers soon enough.

I finished off Hiawatha pretty quickly…..well, I left him with one island city for future trading potential. Gandhi is still very friendly….just signed an RA with him. Darius is down to 2-3 cities and is pretty much good for nothing but denunciations. Sweden (Autocracy) and Songhai (Order) are both being stingy trading partners and both denounced me (not sure if this was due to mowing through a 2nd civ or due to ideological differences), so I bribed Askia to DoW Gustavo. 5 turns later, my troops were back home, mostly upgraded to Modern, and I'm marching on Songhai's ally Jerusalem. This should fall quickly and then I'll try to take the Northern route through Songhai, liberating a Dutch city or two, capturing Amsterdam, then hopefully head South to take out those 3 capitals…..saving India for last.

My hope is that India stays friendly…..hopefully they'll go for Freedom (they seem to like that ideology, which is one of the reasons I took it). I just built Eiffel and will bulb a GS to open up SoL and get that built ASAP. Happiness is still a struggle as Eiffel got me to +2…..that will improve after Onadonga builds its' Courthouse. Money issues will be a thing of the past once I finish upgrading units, but that'll take another 1500 or so and I'm only generating around 70 GPT.

Resources have been plentiful enough, but I still need to get Biology soon. I'm done with spying, unfortunately, as all 3 spies are needed for CS. I needed to get a couple of neighboring allies before DoWing Askia and I need the culture from Kabul. Songhai and India are pretty evenly matched on the Cultural front, so I'm not worried about CV.

Good news: India has remained a very good buddy, signing a RA and a DoF.

Bad news: India just went Order. Ideological pressure isn't bad yet…….yet.

Bad news: Sweden made peace with Songhai t225.

Good news: Sweden DoW's Persia t227. Persia won't last long, but I might be able to get Sweden back into war with Songhai when their peace treaty expires t235. that's about how long Persia is going to last, so we'll be down to 4 divs.
I
took Jerusalem and am marching on a former Iriquois forward-settled city that Songhai had taken offense at. Right now, Askia just showed up with some Cannons, GWI, and MCavs. The 5 super-upgraded gate are making mince meat of his units, but he's got a lot of them. No planes flying yet, I've got plenty of oil, and will be finishing up Flight in a few turns. SoL is 9 turns from completion and then I'll be launching a pretty big aerial assault to back up a strong ground game. I've got plenty of unexperienced units guarding my backside.

Biggest problem is slow culture is keeping me from going further in Honor.

Thanks F.A. I literally couldn't sign in for more than a week. This site simply refused to email me a password reset. I finally realized my username was Shark Diver and not Shark_Diver, so I feel like a bit of an idiot….but I'm used to that.

This game was odd with the late availability of Wonders and the slow tech and culture pace. My best guess is that the terrain just isn't very favorable……but I haven't scouted well enough to say for sure (half of Songhai and Sweden are still under the Fog). Regarding Petra; I do seem to go for it often lately, but was surprised I got it this game so late. India looked to have some desert tiles and he's never shy about building Wonders.

I'll do my best to report turn times for certain events. Someone should create a cheat sheet and share it.

Back to this game: I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get a DomV, but have SV in ok shape as a backup plan. I was hoping for a bit of a quicker pace in rolling up Capitals, but France had GW and tough terrain so that slowed me down. If I can keep Sweden fighting Askia, I should be able to move West pretty quickly. Double-shot gatlings are pretty awesome and my FL's are the strongest thing on the map right now. If I can keep rolling while working towards flight/artillery I should be able to finish up sub t300.

I thought this looked like a fun start, so I loaded and turned it into a Deity-Lite game by adding a Scout and a Worker, so any benchmarks are invalid. I settled on site, like Benzy19 - all those quarries! While scouting W luckily I circled back S a bit, and met the 2 Rel CS, so I got Stone Circles. I added Tithe and Monasteries (wanted cheap bldg and had Wine and Incense in expo), Enhanced with Sword-Plowshares and Itin Preach. I filled Tradition, and currently have 3 in Piety (I plan to skip Rat altogether again, that is a huge handicap when going peaceful). All the religions are on the W end, so I hope to spread quickly, I am behind a lot, stupid Iroq beat me to Great Mosque by 2 turns - and he has no religion!

I nabbed a lot of huts with my early Scouts, and the Worker couldn't improve anything for a while, so even he found a ruin. I focused on the quarries, and built MoH. I got Oracle, but missed HG by 2 turns as well.

I did 4 cities before NC, and had enough cash to buy 2 Paper Makers (a first). Added the 5th on lake coast SE of cap. I don't forsee any real problems, as Askia sort of forward settled me, but doesn't covet. India never came my way, I had units and the river to block Settlers. This is setup to be a classic SV, but w/o Rat I don't know if that's possible. I'm 7% behind in tech now. I bribed Askia against Wm because Wm was starting to spam Missionaries into my half of the map. First turns looked even (I had a Scout - he likes to watch ) but it looks like Askia may roll him. Persia is a runaway so far.

War against Songhai is progressing. He showed up on t255 with about 6 GWB's who could take out my Gats, so I had to back those units up into Jerusalem's vicinity where they could be protected by a couple of Triplanes of my own. I didn't get Flight until t254, but now have 6 GWB's who will be upgraded soon.

I finished Honor, and the money is flowing in, so upgrades shouldn't be an issue. Tombuctu will fall in the next few turns…….I need to clear out some GWI so he can't take it back, and then I should be able to roll Gao, liberate a Dutch city or two on the way to Amsterdam and then it's probably South to take on the Swedish war machine.

Gandhi finally got around to denouncing me, but we still have a bunch of trades to each other so I'm hoping he'll hold off on any imminent attacks. I am vulnerable in the East to a good naval attack so I'm pumping out a few Battleships right now.

I bribed Sweden to attack India around t250, but it didn't look like much damage was done. When they made peace, to ensure I wouldn't face two armies on the same front, I bribed Sweden to go back to war with Songhai……it cost 5 Aluminum and 5 Iron. This should divert both long enough to route Songhai.

The game is pretty much academic at this point as the money/happiness issues are the only things slowing me down and it appears that my tech lead is going to be insurmountable. Hopefully, I can bang out Neutwshesendsteiendioandein (or whatever it's called) and that'll help the happy. Tombuctu and Gao will likely need to be annexed, and that will probably get me into the red.

No idea what turn I'll finish this on at this point, but the DomV looks pretty good right now. Super Gatlings are now Super Machine Guns, Artillery are coming, and the Bombers all have air repair. I've bulbed several GS for military tech, so SV would be very late if needed. CV is out the window and so is Diplo…..that goes for everyone.

Oh yeah, apparently Persia is still alive somewhere, hiding underneath some fog, because they occasionally inform me of their less-than-robust opinion of my military capabilities and I just saw a caravan wearing red.

Lastly, I guess I'll have to find a creative way to use all of these GG's. I think I'm up to 9 generated so far.

Well Askia spent all of his troops in a futile effort to defend Tombuctu. I took a few extra turns to clear out his troops before taking the city, then Gao went down very quickly. Next was liberating Rotterdam in the hopes of keeping Gandhi and/or Gustavo from hating me. He has no troops defending Amsterdam, so I'll take that out with a few Rocket Artillery/Bomber runs.

Gao had some nice little happiness Wonders for me, so I'm still at +8 happiness and will be able to annex if I choose to.



I haven't even bothered with any theming and haven't built a single Archeologist, although I did capture 5-6 and just built landmarks. World's Council is an afterthought, but I did just vote against India's Embargo CS, as I need that gold, so he's not too happy.

Next move will be to see if either Gustavo or Gandhi wants to accept a bribe to DoW the other. I'm hoping Gustavo accepts, as I'm in pretty good position to rush his capital with some seriously experienced units. If neither bites, I'll end up in a 2-front war where I'm seriously behind in naval units, so may lose a city or two. Right now, Sweden is barely ahead of me in total army strength, which means I should steamroll him pretty easily due to the science advantage, GG's, and a ton of XP.

Of note, nobody has even completed Manhattan Project or Apollo. I just opened Hubble and will go for nukes next. I am building Apollo in an expo……just in case.

Songhai was routed as discussed. Amsterdam went down with absolutely zero resistance. I had a ton of extra luxury resources, so I just gifted about 12 happiness to resurrected Netherlands. He responded by casting his 4 votes for me for World Leader, which put me tied with Sweden. At least I'll get to make a proposal, finally, this game. I'll probably embargo Sweden or something like that.

This screen popped up right before Amsterdam fell:



That is a lot of dinero that Songhai was hoarding for whatever reason. I'm just glad he didn't realize he could actually buy units. On the peace deal I offered him after Amsterdam fell, I initially asked for 9999 gold, but he negotiated it down to 3000 gold, which is a new record for me, and means there will be upgrades everywhere. Oddly, those Impii that I had gotten to March earlier didn't want to upgrade to Lancers as I thought a pikeman replacement would, but instead wanted to become riflemen. I guess I had misremembered that.

So now to decide whether to take out Gandhi first or Gustavo. Gandhi didn't want to take a bribe to DoW Sweden, but Gustavo gladly DoW'd India for the low low low price of 1 load of elephant tusks. I'll give him about 5 turns of heading that direction while my troops head South and then DoW Sweden. Hopefully, Gandhi will be grateful enough that I don't have to fight a 2 front war. He's got a good defensive set of mountains between us, so it will be a bit of a slog getting to him unless I plow through one of Persia's 2 tiny cities first (don't think I'll bother due to happiness/reputation issues). I'm hoping my air force can punch a hole quickly, but this just might be an opportunity to use some GG's.

I think you're about to discover that upgraded Impi-Riflemen are better, by miles, than any Lancer on the face of the earth.

Regarding Impi: How are they better than any other Rifleman? They don't keep the spear throw. Because I'm China, no Ikanda and therefore no Buffalo Promotions. It doesn't seem to me that they are better in any way, other than the spear throw made it easy to get them upgrade to March very early in my game.

I'd love to find out I'm wrong about this.

Getting March early and +25% against Gunpowder units is better than Lancers, surely?

EDIT: And they can progress towards Infantry, Mech. Infantry, etc., whereas Lancers turn into Anti-Tank guns

Yeah, I did get the March promotions early, but totally forgot about the gunpowder bonus (DOH!!!), and was too lazy to click on my units to look it up. They certainly are better than a Lancer upgrade.

In my game, I initially used the Impi until my FL's appeared. These are so superior to Riflemen, that I sent the Impi back home as a rear guard. I've now upgraded them to Infantry (more expensive than the FL upgrade) and they are back in action leading my secondary army, so have 10 heavily promoted foot soldiers now…..which is nice.

My big regret was not paying more attention to the military CS that was giving out Berserkers. I was low on money and lost that friendship. Too bad, because an army with upgraded Berserkers, FL, AND Impi would be very tough to deal with…..especially when they are leading the way for heavily promoted CNK's.

I am curious about one thing: Do military CS specialize in the same unit for each of us that plays the challenge or is it randomly generated at another point in time? In other words, did Sofia give out Impii for everyone?

Sweden put up a decent fight, considering my tech/promotion advantage. A couple of my units got knocked down to below 10% health, but his ancient air force didn't last more than a few turns going against advance air units and/or several Mobile SAM's.

Once I punched through the mountain pass (with help from open borders bought from Persia), the route was on. I was gaining about 500 gold every turn just from unit kills.

Stockholm fell easily, followed 2 turns later by Persepolis. I've now got about 5 pupated cities and 7 or 8 capitals. Interestingly, my happiness goes up after each captured city…..a testament to Sweden's nice Wonders/happy buildings.

IG was going on during this period, and I did halt production in a few cities to make sure I got a silver medal, just to save money on CS bribes before the upcoming DoW on India. It will take me about 5 turns to get enough forces back home and invade India. Gandhi won IG with about 2700 hammers, but, as mentioned, CV isn't going to happen this game. He's only influential over 1 remaining civ (resurrected Dutch) and has zero chance of getting influential over me or Sweden.

The trick here is going to be taking Delhi very quickly because Onondaga is surrounded by several India cities. I should be able to surround that city with enough advanced units to hold off the inevitable Indian swarm for 6-7 turns, but it will fall if I can't take Delhi fast enough. Fortunately, I'll be able to ally all strategically important CS before declaring war and should be able to go through India's Northern expo then straight to Delhi. I've got a couple of nukes built and proposed banning nukes, which should get passed in about 3 turns. Gandhi has built Manhattan Project, but I don't think he's had time to build any nukes. We shall see. I've also got Xcoms being built right now. It is now down to a race to see if I can topple Dehli before Onondaga falls.

Delhi and 1 other city went down in 3 turns. I dropped a nuke on Delhi because…….well, because Gandhi deserves such. Here's Delhi right before the coop-day-grass:



Onondoga was threatened, but I had airlifted enough troops to have held the city for at least another 5+ turns:



All in all, a very fun game. I don't get Domination Victories very often, but China is a great civ for it and a lot of things went right diplomatically. I could have cut quite a few turns off of the finishing time if I'd have built a bigger CNK army earlier, but did my usual thing, making sure I had a balanced empire, and also had some gold and happiness mid-game issues. I was a bit surprised at how quickly Delhi went down…….I didn't even get my most experienced troops back East for the fight.





PS. I got a kick out of the final Demographics screen shot that shows the Dutch with an army of ZERO.

PSS. Just taking capitals seems a bit cheap to me. If one wanted to implement some more demanding personal standards, I can see where requiring completely clearing the map would be more difficult, if not a bit boring at the end once the writing is on the wall. (This game was not boring at all, as I got to use some units I rarely use, and there was some doubt about the final couple of conquests…..in fact, none of the conquests were really easy with the exception of Iriquois.