Deity sub 200 turn science victory attemtp

Hi everybody!

First of all thanks to Realyn for inspiration. No chance I'm gonna make video recordings but I can handle taking screenshots easily.

Short preamble. An early science victory is something I want to achieve and constantly whine about for a long time. So finally I've decided: it's now, before the expansion comes out, or never. I had several attempts all of them sort of close but not quite there.
On top of the obvious challenge I have to admit I'm not a casual deity player. 90% of the time I play on immortal. However in all my recent games AI was really broke. I'm neither patient enough nor dedicated enough to the process to find creative ways of fund raising. Also turtling is not exactly my cup of tea and my personal experience with it wasn't very positive. Killing someone else is just seems easier than worrying about not being killed.
With all that in mind I expect few tiny hardships along the road. So to balance things a bit I chose the best civ (in my opinion) for this kind of game.



The settings:

Civilization: Siam (duh )
Map: Fractal (got bored by pangaea's predictability. I might be sorry about this later ).
Standard speed, standard size. No advanced setting checked.


For the purpose of full disclosure this is my second map in current round of attempts. I played the previous one for ~100 turns but was totally off the pace. Made too many mistakes even for me: lost pop in my second city, attacked the wrong CS and many more. It is possible I still could win but definitely not in desired time frame, so I tossed that game away. Hopefully with 'live' audience I'll be less reckless than I usually am and you won't let me screw things up. Needless to say all feedback is welcomed. And if this walktrough can help someone else to learn something new it will be a nice bonus.

Wish me luck!




==========================

Part I: The Beginning
1, 2

Part II: Growing up
1, 2

Part III: Pumping science
1, 2, 3, 4

Part IV: Gaining the lead
1, 2, 3

Part V: Shooting steroids
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Part VI: Desperate times
1, 2

Part VII: The final push
1, 2, 3

Part VIII: Per aspera ad astra
1, 2, 3

Look forward to reading your story. Why would you not try to use Korea for this attempt? I have had my best success for quick science victories with them. Just curious.

My plan for this game is pretty straightforward. To settle 4 cities quickly, pick Legalism for free wats, keep good relations with everybody and abuse RA's to the ridiculous extent. Allying cultural CS's has high priority as well but unless someone expansive is going to DoW me and let puppeting zillions of his cities, money will be a problem.

And here we go... Starting location:

Well... Not bad. The cons: no river, no mountain. Remember what I said about money problem? Forget it. It was a problem. Now it's a big problem. The pros however: I'm on the hill, have marble within my capital and starting on coast with a bit of luck I might not end up being totally sandwiched between blood-lusting maniacs. And most importantly production-wise I'm set. So I'm happy I guess.

Moved warrior south, found no river, no mountain, no food (not the kind that justifies losing turns) and settled in place:

But I do know where I'm gonna settle next.

Capital builds scout -> monument -> scout. Research-wise: Pottery -> Calendar -> Mining -> Masonry.

Ruin love:

This is great because I have to pick lots of policies early on. Also got another ruin revealed.


No complains.

Another one?!

Got 80 . Warrior also found Rock of Gibraltar to the south and two pearls. Really nice. I don't have 4 unique luxes from a get go very often.



Also picked Tradition opener.

In the meanwhile scout goes west and meets Askia:


Nothing exciting happened for the next few turns. Scouts goes west, warrior continues to clean the fog. The good thing - this little peninsula is all mine. The bad - it looks too much like Sinai Peninsula and we all know how peaceful the Middle East is. I won't start celebrating yet.


I picked Liberty opener.

Usually sending the warrior scouting in rough terrain isn't smart but I saw Askia's scout before and wanted to outrun him if there is CS to the east. And voila...

I believe 4 ruins for starting warrior is my personal record.
Scout met cultural but hostile Vienna and Egypt.

Yuck:

But I think I shouldn't complaining. And there is a CS to the west. Lets pay a visit.
Second scout is out. Suckhothai just hit size 3 and starts working on 2 consecutive settlers. Forgot to capture city screen. Sorry. Citizens are locked on two stones and one hill for extra speed since food is negligible while producing settlers.


Ramesses has Writing already. Dude, are you going for GL? Or just want to give me some money? Either way you have my blessing. He's still neutral. Sold him open border later on.

Turn 17 and it's time to take a loan and buy first worker:

Kind of dumb actually. Should have waited as Calendar was 2 turns away therefore worker started a useless non-riverside farm and I got into negative balance and lost 2 beakers.

Second scout tries to move east to meet CS but stumbles upon some barbs. Warrior got hit as well. Both heal for little. The most annoying part soghai scout is heading back which implies the peninsula ends there. Wasn't even worth the wounds. However the barb in the camp is severely injured himself and my guys want revenge. No, frankly I'm just too lazy to wait for CS quest and I want to send those two in other direction asap.

Turn 20 and Calendar is finally done. Worker starts justifying the money paid for him with hard labor and improves the cotton.
Quick overview:

Numbers represent city locations. Looking back maybe switching between #3 and #4 was better (or even forgetting about #4 and settling on the hill) but I really wanted that extra cotton soon. Cash shortage paranoia, you know...

Next turn chose Collective rule for free settler and he moves to the first location. With harbor and seaport this will be a good city. I could distribute fishes and pearls between two cities but I'd rather have one than two mediocre ones. Numbers 3-5 won't be killer powerhouses no matter what you do with them. I would definitely rush a 2 cities NC start here and go offensive to claim some better lands had not that been the complete opposite of what I'm trying to achieve this time.

Next turn my scout (the one that actually does some scouting) sees India but for god knows what reason runs away from it. Please don't ask me why. Some things I do are beyond my own understanding.

Another barb jumps out of the fog and attacks my healing warrior. He instant heals and finally goes to get his revenge:


Scout helps him out and does some flanking despite the fact he should be far far away looking for suckers that will buy my open borders and two billion cottons.


I have the goods but no buyers. Deity you say? Well, ok, they'll get over it.

Sold cotton to Ramesses for 146 + 3gpt.

Second city is found on turn 25 the same turn first of two settlers pops out. Starts with monument.

The wasted scout tries to get to bloody CS. Since barb is zoning it's going slowly. The warrior doesn't have sufficient health to kill him and needs additional healing.

Third city is found. Builds monument.
Scout finally meets Stockholm, moves forward - no worker yet. Moves back on his way flanking the stupid immortal barb.

And that's when another one spawns and suicides into him... Just after the first one suicides into my warrior.

Can't say anything. I had it coming. Luckily both my guys survive.
Seriously though, don't try this at home. That is not what scouts are supposed to do. It really isn't!

They're supposed... well to ally maritime CS...

Killing another suicidal barb close to borders and returning their worker made us friends. I've sold second cotton and OB for Gandhi and bribed them to allies. Once again could have waited for quest but as you see my scouting till now wasn't brilliant, didn't want to delay meeting other people even more.

My research plan after completing Masonry:


Another settler is done and he scouts a bit to make sure there are no barbs on his way and checks out the fogged piece of coast:


Capital is working on granary.
Nothing interesting happens. Met Washington. Warrior still heals up, worker moves to marble:


Moved settler to designated spot:

Ooops... Did I mention stupid mistakes I tend to do? This one could have cost me.
The camp spawned this turn. I've checked last turn it wasn't there.
There is a rumor barbs don't attack the turn they spawn... Don't know about that but I was lucky. Kind of luck I didn't deserve frankly. Totally noobish move.


...

Found the last city for now. It also starts working on monument. Will grab both horses later. Hit some tiny unhappiness which will be eliminated once marble is hooked up. Thanks CS ally.


Bought another worker in new city and healed warrior moves down to protect him.

I'll stop here for now. Overall I'm pleased. I have 4 cities at turn 36. Nice capital, no real happiness problems and pearls yet being connected and no close neighbors to be afraid of at this point. On the negative the second city is set food-wise but not the other two. And all of them aren't fantastic production-wise. Will need some serious infrastructure investment which will take... hm... forever. And scouting... Yes. It is plain bad. Must have at least one more scout searching the 'mainland'. I'll try to improve in the next turnset.

alangtknox said:

Look forward to reading your story. Why would you not try to use Korea for this attempt? I have had my best success for quick science victories with them. Just curious.

Click to expand...

I don't have DLC and neither any plans to get it unless it comes as a part of bigger expansion.

Good luck!

Below 200? You need more than 2 neighbors.

Good luck!

Tabarnak said:

Good luck!

Click to expand...

Thanks. So what if I'm a bit ambitious? I know it can be done. This might even be the right kind of map. The big question is whether I can do it. We'll see. I'll bring my hat anyway. Someone will eat it afterwards.

Tabarnak said:

Below 200? You need more than 2 neighbors.

Click to expand...

I'll settle on 7 nice loving neighbors that will not break RA's. And will be willing to give me some cash just cuz I'm so damn pretty.

So how many suicidal barbs we had? 4, right?

Wrong:

I simply don't get it. I really really don't. Why would he do that? Tempted by worker?
Finished him off, picked 25 gold. Warrior stays around. I need some hmm... protection in case Askia becomes cranky, after all.
Marble is done, happiness is back. Worker starts improving 4th cotton.

Next 5 or so turns are pretty much 'next-turn' clicking. After finishing the granary capital constructs the stone works -> library -> one more scout -> trireme -> temple and then, after satellite cities finally finish libraries, NC will be built. Possibly I could change the order, libraries first, monuments second, but I really wanted extra culture.

Policies-wise I need to finish Liberty, pick Legalism and unlock Rationalism and all of this before turns 105-110. On any difficulty up to emperor I'd build the Oracle for instant Rationalism opener. On immortal/deity we have to do this the hard way. All of that reminds me I should ally a cultural CS soon. Will wait for a quest for little longer though. I'm a cheapskate, if you still have doubts.
Moreover, science-wise I'm doing okay I think. And I will finish NC by turn 80. Which is a bit late I guess but high population will compensate for that.

Stonehenge gone on turn 37. Not very early. This can be good news. Better chances I'll get Hagia Sophia. In my last not so successful attempt it wast stolen on turn 87.

GL finally goes on turn 42! Ramesses did go for it after all. This is typical time for immortal but a 10 turn delay for deity. I actually could get it.


And forgive me, but I just have to get it off my chest. Because GL obsession that so many people share really bugs me. Let's put aside the fact there was absolutely no way for me to know whether I can complete it or not. That it would have been a risky play which could turn into deep troubles. Let's assume I would have built it. What would that mean?

That would mean at turn 43 I'm with 2 cities generating 3 (palace) + 6 (capital pop) + 3 (library in the capital) + 3 (second city pop) = 15 per turn. Let's say the capital at size 6 (I'm almost sure it would be 5... doesn't matter). The second city at size 3 yet completed the monument. I do have Philosophy but nowhere near the point I can use it since my second city hasn't even started library. Now I need to settle two more cities which will never be capable of completing monument+library+temple at the time Education is researched. They are struggling now. In the described scenario they would be plain useless. How is this worth it???

I'm too lazy to do the exact math. After I finish the game I'll replay this part just for comparison purposes and post the results.

Anyways, shall we move on?
Warrior goes to check out Askia's land a bit better, on his way steals a worker from Singapore. I wasn't sure about that at first but then I really wanted another worker. Dude starts working on stones and cows for capital. Another one hooks up spices. And another one came from Liberty and does some mines and pastures.
Normally I would have chopped all these forests but unfortunately they'll be my main source of production for crappy cities number 2 and 5. I'll chop them in the end to speed up parts. For now - Construction, here I come.
I also squeezed Optics in between Writing and Philosophy. New scout will swim to Egypt. That will go faster and it's on the path to Astronomy anyway.

Time passed, no quest popped out, so for horses and remaining cotton money I bribed Geneva:

Sadly, Sydney's influence dropped but as much as I would love free food I couldn't afford them both. And I needed that culture badly.
Oracle gone the same turn.

Updated tech tree:


Cities slowly and painfully finish monuments and start working on libraries which will take... Well... forever and more. Played a lot with tile sharing between horse city and pear city and horse city and capital to minimize construction speeds. Should have captured that. Sorry again. For some reason I don't remember to press the button when in city screen.

My empire:

HG gone on turn 50. Just for common knowledge: AI does prioritize it!

One of my incredibly useless scouts (well, not useless, just occupied with other important things ) finally meets Arabia. Really good news. 5 RA's before Astronomy are much much better than 4. Still need to find 2 dudes.

Wonders of the world:

Hey guys! Let's have a deal: you're wonder whoring and that's all you're doing. Long live the love fest, right? Peace.
BTW, Askia took Honor. No surprise. He always takes it. So far everybody are friendly with me so I sell OB to all.


Washington isn't doing very well, does he? Neither does Askia actually. His dirt is moderately lousy. Which turned me off a bit from killing him. At least for now.

Okay... Love fest - no more:

Wait wait wait... What does Sydney want? Gold? I know who has it.


Trading my only cotton for Harun's spare gold and get Sydney back as an ally.

Scout is snooping around arabian lands messing with roads. Just for fun. One of my cities want Silk. Stockholm has it but I'm broke.

Washington wants to be buddies.

I don't. You're gonna be everybody's punching bag. Score-wise we're dead even.

Picked Republic on turn 56, couldn't benefit much from GA with such poor production.

Washington will be thrashed another time I guess.

Barbs are coming. Do I need some units here? One unit? Let me think about this.

The lost warrior is coming back eventually. Don't want to delay improvements due to stupid barbs. Capital works on temple. Finally some progress towards libraries.
With +8 happiness I sell spices to Washington. Money hoarding for RA's should begin about now.

Trireme sails east and meets another cultural CS. And it's friendly, too.

Can't afford it. I can however to build National Epic in capital. Frankly, I never build it. But there is nothing better to build right now. Few units would be nice. Don't want to pay maintenance. And if things go wrong capital will crank them out in no time.

On the bright side:

Sell 6 iron immediately. Will keep 2. Just in case.
Beelined Civil Service. On empreror- I wouldn't complete neither CS nor Theology before signing RA's. Entering Medieval era increases their cost from 200 to 250. On higher levels AI enters it earlier than a player (Chichen Itza built on turn 69) and thus the delay is pointless.

More good news: scout dives into the waves, swims for a while and meets Persia. One dude to find.

If he has his own continent it'll be a perfect alternative to Askia's sad puppets.
Workers slowly construct roads. I was really lazy here. Didn't do 'almost complete it and then line up workers and connect the city in one turn' trick. This is kind of micromanaging which is, IMO, an overkill even on deity.

I love fractals:

Warrior finishes some barbs and dives to pick it up. After some more thinking sold the remaining iron.

Capital finally starts NC. Will be done by t81. I'll live with that. Hit GA, so this worked out well.
But damn Askia... Don't you have better things to do? Like killing egyptian people?

Didn't really need that city. I will settle one more spot on deer and forests. And capital will be able to finish two expensive parts in the same time frame satellites will deal with one cheap each. It's the principle that matters.

Scout fools around. Again. Just because he can.


11? Ugh...


Kukia will steal the horses though. After some painful contemplating I decided to buy a hill tile. 4 turns to border expansion. Since it's resource tile pink hex switched immediately to it once it became available. Spending another 110 is harsh. Praying for luck.


Got some with other stuff:


Ok... Askia, bro, this will hurt...

Arabian troops are heading east. And there is no one but him. Well... There is also me. But what do I have to do with anything? Anyway, fighting both Egypt and Arabia he won't declare on me. I won't declare on him either. Darius it is.
I mean long live love fest!


Praying for random gods twice as hard as before for right tile expansion. Need pearls. I'll pay 55 but still...


Geneva's borders expanded just right. Should have sent the scout to pick the second one. Sent him into Arabia instead. Why? Dunno. The chances to find there a final dude were non existent. And yeah, remember my grand plans about scout swimming to Egypt? Sent in opposite direction. He found Persia, yet the whole thing is really bizarre. I don't know what's going on with me and scouts in this game. Like they live they own separate lives.

Cruel bad luck with horses. Didn't capture it unfortunately. Was too busy explaining my rage to the table and my fists.
1 turn for horses grabbing. Worker in position... you guess what happened. Lost them. Had it coming. As my wife says: being a cheapskate is very expensive business.

To summarize this part:

Looking suprisingly good. Under GA i'm second in production with only 4 cities and only one real production powerhouse. Also not last in techs.

Next part will be the most important and the trickiest one I believe. Have to have a good rest.

Feel a strong urge to share: next part after the next part will be as much important and even trickier than the previous one.
Have lots of posting to do so it will take some time. Holidays, you know... But gonna watch G&K demo first.

Great read!

I look forward to following your continuing journey

Thanks ense7en! Glad you like it and sorry for being so lazy. Holidays are fun but kids spend waaay to much time at home and go literally nuts on us. These are usual times when my wife and I feel really sorry we can't send them to no vacations boarding school or something.

Ok, enough with complaining. The journey continues.

Part III: Pumping science

Turn 80 is the turn when party begins. I start signing RA's. Ideally I'd like to sign all 7 between turns 80-86. Since I didn't find the final dude yet I'll have to settle on 6. I also could have started to sign them few turns earlier, on 77 or so, but I wasn't 100% sure I'll unlock Rationalism before turn 107. Neither is crucial, though.

At first it was Egypt:


Next turn several events occurred: the most annoying - Arabia stole my Sydney. Which sucks big time. My cities grow at horrible rate with it and this will become even worse. And I cannot allow myself throwing money at them every time AI behaves like a jerk. This is a problem at higher difficulties and turtling approach. Player doesn't have cash when AI has tons and steal CS's all the time. I was pissed but it didn't really catch me by surprise. Could be worse. Loosing Geneva at this point would have been devastating.

BTW, here you can see the lost horses. My horses! Stupid mistake.
Egyptian triremes are snooping around and make me a bit nervous. I am going after few wonders after all and if Ramesses wants them too he might not be happy with me.

Anyways, I went to Harun and signed RA with him at the same turn trying to drain as much money from him as I can while it still matters. Later on he will sit on thousands so my pathetic attempts to rip him off will not be even felt. He already makes 120 per turn and completed Machu Picchu this turn.


Next turn he declared on Askia. No surprises here as well.
Capital finally finished NC and my bpt jumped up to 45 from 34. Previously I planned to train a settler for number 5 city but without Sydney it would mean dropping deep into unhappiness. -8 is too high for my taste (totally forgot about Meritocracy that was about to kick in ) so I've decided to wait until after Notre Dame. It wouldn't change much. Forest city will be pretty bad anyway. No chance for great scientist. All I need from it is one SS booster and even that most likely will be possible only with prebuilds. So I went defensive and trained chariot archer instead. Special tribute to Realyn. And in case Rami gets some funky ideas.

I also signed third RA.

Arabia has already snapped off a chunk of America. Future looks grim for poor Washington.

But since they are at peace currently I signed a RA with him as well. I need him to survive for 30 turns and considering Harun is fighting Askia now I'd say it's relatively safe bet.

Finished Liberty and got my first GE. Capital starts working on HS. Newly trained CA goes to check Songhai situation. Lack of troops in Kukia may be promising for the love fest.

Notice number of turns left of researching Education. 11.
Two cities build circuses and one a workboat. Pearls come in handy.
Another RA signed.

Between turns number of turns left of education changed to 9 and not to 10 despite the fact my bpt stayed the same. Meaning one of the AI I know discover it. With my unlucky experience last game when HS was gone on turn 87, my heart skipped a beat or two. Did a bit of annoying math, micromanaged the capital and sent workers to improve two mines. It will shave one turn off from Hagia and synchronize it with completing Education. Also played with artists in satellite cites to reduce number of turns left till the next policy by one. One more turn with wats is sort of important.
RA #5 was signed.

Got few pennies shy of the last RA, so I borrowed some from Harun, selling him gpt. Not a good deal still worth it. Darius isn't in love with me. Well, it's kinda mutual.


Finally got some screenshots of the cities:

Cotton to Egypt expired but he was broke and couldn't pay anymore.
Sold him anyway for 127 gold + open borders + 2gpt.

I've planned to scout his territory for a long time. But who knows where is that scout now? Well, at least I have a trireme.

Look what it found:

Deity it is! And marble... My heart skipped few more beats. 4 turns for Education...
Tried to see whether either of HG/PT/ND are built there but don't think I did. Means nothing. He loves to rush with GE's.

Barb camp spawns again NE from forest city deer. 'Checked' with GE. Warrior goes to earn free XP.


Turn 90 and Harun enters Renaissance. Good news for me. Won't have to pay penalty for being era ahead when signing next round of RA's. I expect for few AI to join him but probably there will be some real turtles. Like Washington who is still at 0% in literacy. How this is even possible?

Pearl city grows and fills artist slot. Now I get my wats 2 turns after Education. Unfortunately no money for cultural city state. I hate running artists. But wasn't able to force myself into calculating the turns needed for the next policy after that which will be Rationalism opener. Must get it on turn 110 at most. So I played safe.


My capital:


And here's one more reason to run artists at this point:

Sold my only pearls to Darius and prayed that 250 will be sufficient to bring Geneva back where it belongs. I'll get another pearl soon, whether random gods will be kind and expand borders or I'll have to buy that tile. And if my plan works Geneva will give me silver and I stay and +1 happiness. Otherwise I'll drop to -3... *Sigh*


Got quest for a road a while ago. Yeah... Sydney wants GM. Not gonna happen too. Sadly.

Scout encounters barb situation. Have open borders from Harun but on that hill he'll be killed, so he waits till the nearly dead galley actually dies.



Still praying...

No comments needed:

Choosing GE over GS wasn't actually a trivial decision. In many cases on lower difficulties I'd prefer to get GS and not to micromanage their natural birth very tightly. However given my totally crap economy and piles of gold that AI hoards and thus can and will steal my CS's on regular basis I chose to go with ND. Not sure if it was a wise choice. We'll have to wait and see.

Now lets have a look at tech tree.
These are all techs I need to clear before turn 110.
Simple math shows it will take me 28 turns and currently I'm at turn 93. Scary or what?



Sigh of relief... Missing PT would bury my chances. Do or die really. Raw science will never be high enough to compensate over that. However, ND is also important so I didn't quit praying yet.

The almost dead barb galley eventually died or just ran away and my scout bravely moves in.


Random gods decided this time against me so I had to buy second pearl tile for 55 gold.

Look, and I pushed Askia's little ship.
Sold pearls to Gandhi and bough Sydney back.


Damn! Wasn't enough.

Rush Notre Dame and still praying:


And that's it for now.

This stuff takes time!..

Had some rest and back to work.

Turn number 95 it is.


One more sigh of relief. Now I can start playing for real.

Barb galley bombarded the unfortunate scout but he survives and finally runs to discover second part of the Great Barrier Reef. Only 1000 years later.


Workers begin setting up lumber mills. Development is still painfully slow. But I did passed America in score.


Little overview of Persian lands. 10 iron is not very comforting. And there might be more in the fog.


Harun is giving Askia some hard times. Askia's death wouldn't do me any good at this point so I asked them what they want for making peace:

Yeah... Don't think so. But since you both obviously are willing to call it I suspect my neighbor will stick around for a while.
I did sell Askia 6 iron though. Maybe he needs reinforcement.

Gold was used for good purposes:


In addition I sold all of my luxes. That's what I wanted ND for:


And here's the moment I've waited for since the beginning of the game... It's policy time again. Much cooler though than all the previous times. I'm about to get some freebies.

See 48 beakers per turn?

No more! Picked Legalism and filled all 4 wats with specialists. Artists in temples were replaced by scientists who thanks to the wats give culture as well.

97 bpt - this is more than 100% bonus. And 62cpt towards unlocking Rationalism.

The downside as fantastic as they are wats are heavy load at my not so great *cough* economy and satellite cities are too small to work them efficiently. And I sense they'll not begin growing properly before Fertilizer. It's a long-long wait.

But let's concentrate on the positive.

Two turns ago I had 28 turns of research left. Now I have 14. Actually it's 13 with the overflow. So I'll reach my tech goal at turn 108. Timing is pretty good.

Another suicidal barb... Well.. CA joins the party. He wants free XP too.


Put few trading posts here and there. Cities are not growing anyway and I'll need high commerce tiles soon.

Capital finishes coliseum (wasn't necessary, frankly) and trains settler for forest city. Don't raze barb camp yet, hoping another barb will spawn and give me more XP.


Next turn was probably on of the funniest I had playing Civ5.
Ramesses' boats keep sailing in circle around Rock of Gibraltar. He looks friendly and no negative modifiers added since I've got the wonders but I don't believe him for a second. Let's check how he really feels about me.
I approach him and suggest to make our mutual love official. Being positive he declines.

Ergh.... Really? Okay then.

Quick look at global politics screen gave me and idea what to do next.

Rami is a buddy of Harun as well as Washington's. But America has not initiated any wars so far (they are too beaten down so they can't ) and Arabia has. Easy choice.

Being friends with both will hopefully give me positive modifiers with Songhai and Egypt (friends of America) and with Arabia and America as friends of Egypt. What did I say about love fest?

Approached Gandhi as he never been an aggressor too, he declined though. Still neutral, btw. Don't know why he doesn't like Siam. He's always neutral to Siam in my games. Maybe I should reread flavors spreadsheet. That intrigues me.


Following set of images doesn't require commentary. Enjoy.

Wow, things are working out just wonderfully so far

Some rather talented timing there, something i'd screw up every time.

ense7en said:

Wow, things are working out just wonderfully so far

Some rather talented timing there, something i'd screw up every time.

Click to expand...

Trust me, been there. Many times. It took me quite a bit of practicing to get a hang of an algorithm. And I still can mess it up when I don't stop to think for a moment and play more impulsively than I do in this game. Showcasing it really helps actually. I even pulled out my calculator once or twice, something I force myself into for extremely rare occasions.

But it's not all roses. I had some luck here and there however this map is not a very easy one to play. Growth is horrible, production is low, economy is crippled and my building order in non-capital cities wasn't optimal as I can see it now. Looking back I should have placed horse city differently as well.
The really hard part is still ahead as you'll see in the next turnset. I keep my fingers crossed.

At the beginning of turn 98 trireme reached the 'end' of our continent not finding the final dude so it turned back home.

Checked XP needed for GG. I'd love to have one for the golden age during parts construction. 73/200.

In the meanwhile Askia is beating Edinburgh down. Good job! Free CS I can liberate later.


Then I had a non surprising visitor:

Sure. Although you're a dead horse too for now it will work. As long as we all are big happy family and no RA's are broken I'll sacrifice my principles.

After Askia another visitor came by:

Still neutral though. What did I ever do you, man???

Watch and cry:


I'm going to bulb Astronomy is 2 turns so the scout moves closer to his target. Final dude is hiding somewhere in the area marked on minimap.


Settler in capital is done, working on market.
I have plenty of happiness so food focus everywhere.


Astronomy on turn 102. Scout dives into deep waters. I really have to find the final dude in next 20 turns!


Unfortunately no barbs spawned again and I have no choice but raze the camp. Forest city is finally founded.


Better be safe than sorry. Capital switches to production focus again and works on caravel. I don't want to take chances with scout wondering around and not finding that AI.


6 turns till reaching our tech goal.


At turn 104 we have our first birthday party:

I'll need many more eventually.

Gandhi is catching up in science. Good. Spare my bucks buddy!


In pearls city I have to manipulate the trade-off between food and production constantly. This stuff is killing me.


Rami goes wild. Why not. I don't care. Mess with each other and leave me alone.


Start working on some production building in smaller cities.
Next turn I'm unlocking Rationalism. 1 turn ahead of schedule.


Ha-ha! Finally Gandhi woke up.

Sure. Let's be friends.




Ouch. Go Gandhi!


Unlocking Rationalism:


Got second piece of Barrier Reef two millenniums later than should have.


Second scout swimming in the ocean and sees piece of coast. My heart is pounding with hope.


And between the turns...

The Pilgrim said:

Approached Gandhi as he never been an aggressor too, he declined though. Still neutral, btw. Don't know why he doesn't like Siam. He's always neutral to Siam in my games. Maybe I should reread flavors spreadsheet. That intrigues me.

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He probably is mad that you are building wonders, or maybe you have CS he wants. I had a game recently where I was friendly with everyone except Gandhi (who eventually turned hostile) only because I was building wonders and allying CS that he wanted.

RedRover57 said:

He probably is mad that you are building wonders, or maybe you have CS he wants. I had a game recently where I was friendly with everyone except Gandhi (who eventually turned hostile) only because I was building wonders and allying CS that he wanted.

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He was neutral all the way since the beginning even before I've built wonders and he never tried to steal my CS. No negative modifiers as well. Just 'nothing happened between you' statement. The funny thing it's not the first game I've noticed his unfavorable attitude towards Siam. I think I had at least two more games where the same situation took place. I do need to reread leaders spreadsheet. Maybe it just adds some historical flavor. IDK.
Franky, what puzzled me more is how the hell can Washington stay at 0% literacy while he's deep in the medieval?

My point being that if he is that far away from you and only neutral he doesn't like something that you are doing even if it doesn't show. If you keep doing the same thing then he will likely turn guarded and even hostile at some point. As you know these AI civs can turn on a dime. In my game it was really funny to me that I was friendly with civs like Aztecs and Japan for the whole game, yet Gandhi of all people became hostile and started to taunt me (he never attacked me though). Gandhi definitely doesn't seem to like when you build a lot of wonders and ally a bunch of CS, which you may be doing most of the time when playing Siam.