The Deity Challenge Line-up #24 - Arabian nights

Deviating from the usual tradition/rationalism SV turtling thing which I definitely got the hang of, this time I tried out a different approach, went left side Liberty and then full Piety for Jesuit Education, using temples on steroids and Desert Folklore. Result was that I was able to get Universities in 2 turns per city and from the looks of it, schools in 3. Not a particularly effective execution but it was a fairly dynamic game.

The site where my Kupah is used to be a Brazilian city that I planned on razing when I accepted an invitation from Poca from halfway across the map, because Pedro had some brain damage and went all the way there to forward settle the Shoshone. That obviously backfired and it turned out that city was eventually given to Germany in a peace deal and Bismarck promptly razed it, eliminating my need to go to war. But oh well, it was too late to break the promise, but I had everyone dog piling the evil Santa. Currently, he's being hit by Germany, America, Mongolia, (maybe) Shoshone and myself. He's down to 2 cities, but I'm unlikely to do anything about that, because the Camel rampage plan was shot down very quickly due to horses not being available anywhere on my lands, so only 2 Camels

No endgame plan in sight, I haven't had this much gold in one game in a while and religion is a mechanic I definitely need to use more.

Ancient Era : Where are my horses?
So this is Arabia, one of the very best civs for fast domination thanks to Camel Archers and i'm trying to improve my warmongering. Fine, let's try a Liberty Camel Archer rush as Liberty is supposed to work better than Honor for very fast conquests. With all this Desert, it would be sad not to get a religion so i start with Pottery anyway. Settle in right there coastal-hill-river is nice. Scout-Scout and i will follow with a shrine.

Surprise n°1 : no need for a shrine. This was a very good surprise : 2 religious CS before T10. First Vatican with my Warrior as he moved south to get a ruin. Warrior then meets Brazil and get an opportunity for Worker "recruitment". When retreating warrior finds Mnt Kailash. Interesting coastal hill for 2nd city.
First scout moved north and after taking a ruin and finding the crappy natural wonder notices borders from a CS. Turns out it was Katmandou. T10 Desert Folklore before i could even start that shrine. Maybe i can go holy-camel-archers.

Surprise n°2 : Where are my horses?
So i follow with plan, get a monument, open Liberty, quickly settle in Pedro's face (didn't even wait for free settler).
Then i research Animal Husbandry and i start looking for horses : 2 miserable horses is all i can see Wut, but, what about my camel archers?
Well, at least god is on my side. I get first religion T47 and take Mosques.

I quickly settled a 4th city quickly by the mountains to the east to steal some Gems and Wine from Nappy and get a defensive border.

Classical Era : We need plan B
Well, with only 2 horses i hardly imagine i can get a Camel Archer rush. Probably i could have switched to a simple X-Bow rush but i wanted my camel archers. Well, no conquest then, but i'm Liberty and have tons of desert to spam cities with huge faith and i took Ceremonial Burial so Happiness should be manageable. Let's switch to a Sacred Sites powered culture game. Only one other religion has been founded so it looks like AIs are not crazy with religion this game.
I literally spammed cities. Enhanced with Pagodas and Religious text before 3rd religion was even founded and went Piety. Lots of culture and happiness from my religious buildings. Built an archer army to defend my lands and Pedro decided to pay me for peace. OK, going well isn't it?

Surprise n°3 : Sejong what were you thinking?
Got a notification : Korea added a reformation belief. Wasn't terribly worried : Sejong is more a science guy and he has only one religious building. He won't go Sacred Sites will he. Opened religion screen to check. He took sacred sites with 3 cities and 1 building per city
Now what. I have a very strong religion, went piety, have plenty of cities but plan B failed already. What will plan C be?
Don't fret, finish Liberty and get that NC built and then let's think of something to do. T 102 NC is not great is it?

Medieval/Renaissance Era : I don't know what i'm doing but i have faith
I have 7 cities, but they are not very big. I'm selling luxes to everyone and have lots of gold, and faith is very good of course. My religion is spreading way out of my borders and i never bought a missionary. God is on my side, so nothing can go bad. This time i will save money to buy those universities ASAP cause i'm really wayyyy behind in tech. Well, 2500 gold should get me universities in a good number of cities and with nearly 100 GPT the rest will follow. No plan C yet but i should get some research at least!

Surprise n°4 : Hey Nappy, it's not fair d'Artagnan never showed up in the crusades
But Napoleons Musketeers decided to invade my lands. Glad i had some natural defenses cause my Archers army was wayyyyy outdated. Construction was quickly researched after education, and my gold quickly spent buying some pikes and upgrading my archers. Now i can hard build all those universities

That didn't stop my city spam. I have faith and i still have some promised land to settle. I could put 9 cities in the end. I also found 4 more horses so at least i could buy a few camel archers to help against Napoleon and liberate my ally Byblos.
I had one option to propose a resolution to the WC and it was of course Worlds Fair. Everyone is always happy with this one. Maybe i will go diplomacy with all the gold i can get from trades. With all my cities order would probably be the best ideology and it doesn't go well with Diplo but even order can make tons of gold and AIs love it so this should get me some friends.
I realized my exploration sucked. One of my scouts became an archer and stayed home, the second died while trying to sneak around Brazil during the early war. I decided to at least explore the sea and bought a Caravel at optics. I found a small island near Great Reef. Cool 10 cities will give me a nice round number. Apart from the fun of spamming cities like the AI would, there was Incense there so settling it would secure my monopoly and with GR it won't be a totally crappy city.
I won worlds fair in record time with almost as much as both 2nd and 3rd civs. Well, at least all those cities give me some production. Free policy finally gets my reformation belief and i take the all purpose, always useful "To the Glory of God". I told you he was on my side right from the start.


Industrial/Modern Era : Plan C will be science
I really have met few CS. Where are they all? Huh, wait, Gengis is playing in the unexplored area to the south and everyone is Denouncing him Did i miss something?
Order-Science seems safer then Diplomacy. I'm still late to enter industrial but i still get to Modern era first after bulbing Radio with a Great Engineer, the first great person i bought with my faith. I only got there the turn after my double culture ended so unfortunately i lost some culture for the 4 great writers i bulbed immediately (2 natural, 2 bought) but i was first to Order and still got a good number of early tenets.
Now, time to get those fast factories and improve that science, i'm still behind everyone in total tech (Washington doesn't count, he's down to 2 cities thanks to Gengis)

Surprise n°5 : Is there some coal on this map?
So i get to Industrialization after Radio only to find there is no coal to be seen.
It took me some time in Strategic view with Resources overlay to finally notice a CS has some coal. Ragusa is not terribly far from me. It's allied with Pocatello. What does it want? A great merchant -> 1000, a bargain. Great Merchant was of course sent to Ragusa. Spy moved from Paris (need 100 turns to steal a tech), gold from great merchant was gifted to Ragusa. OK, i'm allied with them. But, why is Bismark attacking it, he's at war with Pocatello but that CS is no longer allied with Shoshone. Bismark, be a nice guy!
Well, that bastard actually asked 2 luxes and 15 oil to make peace. Glad i had tons of oil. Well, at least i have my coal. Let's build those factories now!

Atomic/Information Era : Horses, Coal aaaannnd .... Aluminium
Research finally improved with those factories, especially as laboratories followed in my best cities (33% reduction when purchasing buildings is great). I had a large army of Great Scientists waiting better times to get me to the end of the tech tree (i didn't use many so far and generated a large amount with all my cities working at least 2 scientist slots). I started looking where aluminium was. Well, it was where horses and coal were : out of my big country Napoleon has some but since he went order he's no longer DoWing me every 20 turns and i don't really want to double citadel bomb him.
OK, let's find a CS with Aluminium. Wellington what do you want? A great Musician. Sure, here it comes 1000, a bargain! Fun fact, with those CS needed at the end i was leader of the congress, but with only 11 CS left in the game, i'm glad i didn't try diplomacy.

I used the GE from the order Tenet to bulb Hubble as the game was really advancing and Pocatello was generating a lot of tourism from all his conquered cities. Gengis was all conquest but not much tourism so i wasn't afraid of him. I started building the first part (cockpit?) in Baghdad while Mecca was building my bombers defense, then Mecca started a first booster and finished it T290. Baghdad finished T291 and I finished the rest with 4 great Engineers, launching T294.

With the GE used to Oxford Radio i bought 5 (1000, 1500, 2500, 4000, 6000). I also bought 3 great scientists to get techs and a great writer to finish rationalism for the last part (with the GW used for order that was 3), 1 great merchant, 1 great musician and 1 great artist used to keep the Worlds fair GA longer. If i count well, i spent 28 000 on great persons How to turn a total mess of a game into a victory!

Considering i changed my plans a few times, settled more cities than i ever did in a Civ5 and went Liberty-Piety science : T294 is not that bad for me. Probably better players would have won faster but at some times i wasn't even sure i would win this one. At the end i was the last civ resisting Pocatello's culture, and only because i bulbed so many great writers and had 10 cities with Mosques-Pagodas and holy sites generating culture.

I started out 3 cities -> nc -> bowmen build.

Started out with left side liberty into piety, got my hands on dessert folklore, mosque, padagoda and sacred sites. Plan is to kill off the big culture targets and win a cultural victory.

My bowmen rush worked well against brazil (culture enemy nr1). Now I'm in an "defencive" war against the French (and Americans?).

For me it's usually a question on if, rather then when I win on deity so any tips and hints is much appreaciated.

I must admit, Korea finished 1 turn before me, but I shamelessly reloaded 15 turns and convinced Germany it's a good idea to DOW Korea for a handful of gold.

This of course delayed NC somewhat, but I will still have Universities around T110.

I wanted to try a DF fueled, holy warriors variant of the H-C-A strategy, so I went with a 3 cities honor setup. Planted Medina SW on the marble and Damascus a few tiles SE of the capital on the river.

Made sure to ally Wellington and Byblos for those tasty eight horses, and got really lucky with quests to snag them. Combined with the 6 horses I gained from my own cities that gave me 14 which was good enough to get the ball rolling.

Bought 9 chariot archers just after T100, paid Napoleon to look to his South and attack Pocatello. I was a butt slow science wise here, only hit chivalry around T117, but by 200 I had every capital East of me and then by 240 used artillery/super cavalry to take out Pedro.

Thoughts so far is that df and bazaars is what made this even remotely feasible, such a poor production start. I bought every single unit (approx 18 horse units all up including a couple of horsemen, 10 catapult>artillery and a bunch of other random units for garrisons) using faith. Bazaars came at the perfect time to sell enough stuff to get the cash for chariot> camels.