Deity Challenge Lineup #43 Japan

Grendeldef

Trancerelic & coffeeholic
Joined
Apr 30, 2012
Messages
2,514
Location
Finland
Deity Challenge Lineup #43 Japan


I took the liberty of posting the very last piece of the series just to complete it. I haven't played this more than 5 turns so there's no guarantee of quality for much of anything but I'd assume that this won't be easiest in the series. Before jumping in I suggest that you'll take a look at the spoilers.

The map is Terra Incognita which is similar to Terra which is included in all versions and was used in the infamous DCL #10 but this time the civs may start anywhere so there's no way to predict whether the map resembles Pangaea, Continents or Small Continents and where the starting locations are.

Rules:

- All the games in this series are set to Deity difficulty.
- User civilizations, maps, and opponents change with each challenge, but the game speed is always set to Standard and the starting era is always Ancient.
- We try for a variety of starts
- This isn't a competition so there will be no predefined victory conditions.
- If you complete 5 challenges, your name will be added to the 'Top Finishers' list.
- When posting about your victory, please begin the post with the turn number and Victory Condition in bold letters - e.g. "T247 DiploV" (this is so the person who updates the spreadsheet can see it more easily)

* We welcome all comments and write-ups and invite you to post screenshots of key moments and the moment of victory (if you are successful), but please use the spoiler tag if you post a picture, make a comment about which civs are in the game, or about wonders, or locations of ancient ruins, etc.

In short, if it’s information you can only know by playing the game, don’t spoil it for others by divulging this information in the open. Thank you for your co-operation

- - -

DCL Game #43
You: Japan
Map Type: Terra Incognita


Extra Settings:
Spoiler :

- Raging barbs
- Low sea level
- few extra CSs on the map

*** ONLY CULTURE & DOMINATION VCs are available ***

Hand-picked opponents

Spoiler :

Harald
Monte
Shaka
Dido
Attila
Alex
Genghis




Difficulty: the starting position isn't great but
Spoiler :

check out the SW before settling.





Starting Location:




Quick combat and movement are on (turn them off if you like)

Game Version - 1.0.3.279
Downloadable Content: – G&K, BNW, Conquest of the New World Deluxe, Genghis Khan's Mongolia, Harold Bluetooth's Denmark, Isabella’s Spain and Pachacuti's Incan Empire, Kamehameha's Polynesian Empire, Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon, Sejong The Great's Korea, Wonders of the Ancient World. The map packs are intentionally excluded.

The Spreadsheet of Finishers is here
 

Attachments

  • Oda Nobunaga_0000 BC-4000.Civ5Save
    833.4 KB · Views: 330
Well, nuclear culture it is

Spoiler :

(too bad America are not on the map)


Spoiler :

Good point and clearly a thinking process neglected by me when I was rolling the maps ;) but peaceful hide-in-the-corner was surely something I didn't want to encourage - a bloodpath to complete the circle sounded much nicer. The selected opponents usually aren't going for the Peace Prize nor are heavy on the culture so either way it should be a lively game.
However, after seeing more of the starting location even SS started to sound like a possible option so after making sure Acken wasn't planning to post a map I thought this might offer some novel approach possibilities without being too hard.

Anyway, I only played up to settling beside Uluru to confirm it was possible & left it there - I need to finish the Assyria game before advancing with this. It just slightly bugged me that the series wasn't complete.
 
Sorry, I wasn't planning anything of the sort as some sort of co-host of the Deity series I thought I should participate again on the process. For the Immortal part I'll pass I encourage newcomers to make their presence known. It really doesn't take too much to put out a map to play and c/p everything else from a previous challenge and continue the awesome series. Just keep the other hosts informed to avoid overlapping.
 
Considering that I turtled on the start on the polynesia DCL map, similar strats could work here, and pretty sure it'll turn into late game domination or domination assisted CV.
 
Serves me right for reading the spoilers in OP. I didn’t cover my setter, captured by barbs on T2.
 
That's strange. I'm pretty sure I deliberately left my starting settler unguarded a few times as experiment and barbs never bothered with it
 
I went Piety
Spoiler :
Started settler on turn 6, settled at special place on t20
and even got Sacred Sites with Pagoda & Monastery.

But...
Spoiler :
I didn't pay attention to tech rate very well and ended up in a position where any Samurai would have gone against muskets. Didnt want to turtle so hard, so resign circa t158.
 
I struggled all game, just trying to turtle to CV, but lost on T368. Money was my biggest problem, so I am going try commerce tree instead of Aesthetics.
 
Should note on this map there are more CS than usual.

There are? How many to be exact so I can correctly edit the op.
Thx for the info anyway.

----

I added a notion of this in the op as well.

I assume there're 18 CSs instead of the usual 16 and if that is indeed the case then it is, most likely, my doings and then logic behind is that it slightly compensates the extra land mass from the map type and low sea level. I've been rolling quite a few maps lately with slightly altered settings so my bad, sorry peeps.
 
Spoiler musing on start :
I somehow never appreciated how dramatic it is to settle a faith mountain. I got the first pantheon (OWN, obviously) on like turn four! I tried to be the jerk than enhances before some civs get a pantheon, but no idea really if I pulled that off. I have to wonder if SIP might have been better though. But I really appreciated the hint as the map seems very tough. Production is so low!
...ended up in a position where any Samurai would have gone against muskets.
That one aspect should be okay, as Samurai upgrade to Riflemen because they are on par with muskets. Maybe that is the least of your problems, but I think you should press on.

The thing I always struggle with is getting arty before the AI has fight. The teching has gone okay for me this game. First city capture was with CB. Then a mostly unproductive war with XB, but had a few arty not long after that and took my first cap. Then it was all infrastructure building up for late game war with the close who had gone Autocracy while the rest of us are in order.
Spoiler naming civs :
Alex took Carthage pretty early and I killed Dido by taking her only other city. Not much heat at all for, what with the personalities in this particular game! Mongols have killed Zulu (mid game) but his tech is poor. Denmark is the runaway having killed Monty early. After Attila, Alex is the logical target, but I had to wait to save up gold to buy out the nearby CS first. His first city fell in one turn. Then a city (done) between that one and Carthage (done). I still have to get his city with Prora and Athens.
I actually made fair use of the workboat aspect of the UU. First war left me with a puppet city on small inland sea with a fish. Second war, just before rifling, a bunch of workboats got pillaged.

My second run is going much better, I think the AI are balanced (CV wise) against each other so that I have more time to pull out a late game DV. I have been at war pretty constantly, but only have only captured four cites (two caps) by T300.

The first cap I took had twice the production of Kyoto, even though Kyoto has a factory and Ironworks!

I will be interested to read how people compensated with the limited strategic resources. I went six city Liberty, plus one early puppet, and my cities are really quite spread out for a Liberty run. But there is not much in the immediate neighborhood.

Well, nuclear culture it is
Good luck with that!
Spoiler describing starting territory (but I don’t name civs) :
You have a sufficient amount of land between the AI to your west and the AI to your north. A few CS to the north west and the coast marks off your natural territorial border. Plenty of space, but not much in the way of resources. Lots of horses, which the AI will trade for, but you only have two iron. No coal. No Aluminum. There is sufficient oil. One patch of 4 Uranium. No mountains, and very few hills.

In my second game, I planned for the lack of coal and was able to get 3 from AIs and 3 from buying up a CS. So six factories, good enough!

All the oil has gone to bombers, the supporting zeros needing no oil is a nice perk.

I hard-built Kremlin in cap, but have had no time (and little spare oil) for tanks, since I compulsively have to have all the National Wonders first.

The run-away AI on the other continent has been trading me all the AL and U that I need. I plan to gift the U back as Nuclear Missiles after power plants are done. Nanotechnology for follow-up XCOM is almost researched as well...
(EDIT 12/14: non-proliferation passed pretty quick, so I had to wait quite a while longer for Stealth Bombers)
The map is Terra Incognita which is similar to Terra which is included in all versions and was used in the infamous DCL #10 but this time the civs may start anywhere so there's no way to predict whether the map resembles Pangaea, Continents or Small Continents and where the starting locations are.
Is this the map script? I am totally unfamiliar with it. Could you please add the options you picked, if you remember, to the OP? I think it may be a little disingenuous to characterize the map as being “similar to Terra” when the main feature of Terra is the unoccupied new world. So I think maybe this map is similar to Terra in that strategic resources are sparse where the player spawns. Does Terra Incognita spawn the AIs in areas with limited strategic resources, or only the player?

Also, how is it that you can share a map generated from a script without causing anyone difficulties? If one tries to share a map using, for example, Continent Plus, the resulting T0 file is a problem for people without that DCL. Do maps generated from mods come with similar limitations as to those caused by the Firaxis branded DCL? Or did you trim off the offending header bits from the initial save file?
 
Okay, so where are posts describing peoples paths to victory?

I think I am about run out of time again. Taking the best cities from the closer AI cut my turns available to deal with the far-away runaway from 50+ turns to less than 30. Guess I should have seen that coming!
And I still have one other AI to put down, that will take me at least a dozen turns.
Plus nuclear non-proliferation was passed before I had my missiles online. I have just researched stealth, and I think they can reach, but I don’t think they will be fast enough.
Plus all my uranium and aluminum is coming from the far-away runaway. I have uncovered the map, but still do not understand it!
Plus a CS captured and burned down the city with Uffizi in it (right after I first captured it from the closer AI).
Plus the closer AI could not bothered to theme Broadway for me.

I will probably reset back 100 turns when I lost IG by a single digit of hammers...
 
Is this the map script? I am totally unfamiliar with it. Could you please add the options you picked, if you remember, to the OP? I think it may be a little disingenuous to characterize the map as being “similar to Terra” when the main feature of Terra is the unoccupied new world. So I think maybe this map is similar to Terra in that strategic resources are sparse where the player spawns. Does Terra Incognita spawn the AIs in areas with limited strategic resources, or only the player?

Yup, that's the one. I like it and I've used it a lot, with & without additional tweaks and this one is of the latter type.

Only options I changed are

1) the 2nd continent must exist
2) 2nd continent is probably connected
3) Civs can start anywhere

The TI fundamentally is very similar to the built-in Terra but the option 3 in my list makes it much more versatile hence I mentioned about the '...can start anywhere' option
For the resource distribution I assume it is as random as ever and if it's not I haven't so far seen that as a serious enough problem to notice. If someone knows for sure I for one would welcome the information.


Also, how is it that you can share a map generated from a script without causing anyone difficulties? If one tries to share a map using, for example, Continent Plus, the resulting T0 file is a problem for people without that DCL. Do maps generated from mods come with similar limitations as to those caused by the Firaxis branded DCL? Or did you trim off the offending header bits from the initial save file?

External map scripts are just scripts to create something while the map scripts of DCLs are licensed hence the game makes a check whether one has paid for it or not before continuing - purely from the script's pov there's no difference as it's only needed before T0 save. With some creative editing most everything can be done but it was not needed in this case and most likely advising peeps to do so would be against the site policy if nothing else.
 
Okay, so where are posts describing peoples paths to victory?

I think I am about run out of time again. Taking the best cities from the closer AI cut my turns available to deal with the far-away runaway from 50+ turns to less than 30. Guess I should have seen that coming!
And I still have one other AI to put down, that will take me at least a dozen turns.
Plus nuclear non-proliferation was passed before I had my missiles online. I have just researched stealth, and I think they can reach, but I don’t think they will be fast enough.
Plus all my uranium and aluminum is coming from the far-away runaway. I have uncovered the map, but still do not understand it!
Plus a CS captured and burned down the city with Uffizi in it (right after I first captured it from the closer AI).
Plus the closer AI could not bothered to theme Broadway for me.

I will probably reset back 100 turns when I lost IG by a single digit of hammers...

I'm just taking my time on this map. On my game, no AI is in any position to win. I engineered enough wars to eliminate all but 3 AI civs. Finish time will be probably close to 350 since I'm going for culture and a bunch of other conditions. Removing science and diplo victory messed the AI so that their tech rate is snail paced and they don't care about CS as much. Well the AI on this map aren't great at science to begin with even in a normal game. Probably arts funding has something to do with it, but I needed it for diplo boost. Also something is very odd in this game when the far western warmonger AI spams wonders.
 
I took the liberty of posting the very last piece of the series just to complete it.
I neglected to say so before: Thanks very much for this!

Yup, that's the one. I like it and I've used it a lot, with & without additional tweaks and this one is of the latter type.
Thanks for the additional description.

The TI fundamentally is very similar to the built-in Terra but the option 3 in my list makes it much more versatile hence I mentioned about the '...can start anywhere' option
The options you picked seem like they would be the most interesting ones! I plan to try the script for my own future games.

For the resource distribution I assume it is as random as ever and if it's not I haven't so far seen that as a serious enough problem to notice. If someone knows for sure I for one would welcome the information.
My apologies then. For some reason I had it firmly in mind that the built-in Terra map is heavy with lux in the Old World, but light on strategic resources. Vice versa with the New World. But I cannot find a citation for this notion, nor any evidence that the TI script follows such a pattern.

External map scripts are just scripts to create something while the map scripts of DCLs are licensed hence the game makes a check whether one has paid for it or not before continuing - purely from the script's pov there's no difference as it's only needed before T0 save. With some creative editing most everything can be done but it was not needed in this case and most likely advising peeps to do so would be against the site policy if nothing else.
Thanks also for that explanation. I certainly hope trimming header bits from T0 saves does not violate site policy. That sort of lite hacking has saved a few DCL maps I know!
 
My apologies then. For some reason I had it firmly in mind that the built-in Terra map is heavy with lux in the Old World, but light on strategic resources. Vice versa with the New World. But I cannot find a citation for this notion, nor any evidence that the TI script follows such a pattern.

No worries - as I stated while hosting #9 & #10, feel free to insult the host if needed as all commenting will be beneficial to the series and my skin is rough enough to take anything the site permits to be said; deserved or not.

The Terra is different from TI with my settings as the 2nd continent will not have a good enough spot to place a capital nevermind few. The benefit of settling the 2nd continent on Terra is to secure resources, NWs, rarely a missing lux and in some cases easier TRs but as the game is now it caters more to the RP gamers than the fast finishers.
 
The Terra is different from TI with my settings as the 2nd continent will not have a good enough spot to place a capital nevermind few.
I need to pay attention to the end-game replay. With this particular map, it is not clear to me what is counting as the “2nd continent”. Don’t get me wrong, I am quite intrigued! Just a bit confused...

The benefit of settling the 2nd continent on Terra is to secure resources, NWs, rarely a missing lux and in some cases easier TRs
Okay, but is that not the usual case with any map that is not a Pangaea? Or is it that TI, with your preferred settings, tends to be more consistent with these features?
 
Top Bottom