Community Deity Game #18 - France

Welcome to the eighteenth installment in the Community Deity Game series!

CDG 18 - France a.k.a "Cultural Exception"

We aim to post an interesting challenge at the beginning and middle of each month. We try for a variety of starts and difficulties. There is a suggested Victory Condition and a list of Achievements for each map.

Please see the CDG Series Discussion Thread to express yourself if you have remarks and ideas. Some maps use mods. Please note that maps you wish to share must have the DLC map packs disabled, so those who do not have them can enjoy the challenge. To do this, you go into the DLC option from the Main Menu and untick the options for ‘Explorers Map Pack’, ‘Scrambled Nations’, and ‘Scrambled Continents’. You will need to do this every time you start a new game; or you might just simply delete the map packs from your computer.

When posting about your victory, please begin the post with the turn number, victory condition, and achievement points in bold text, e.g. “T247 DiploV, 10 points”. This is so the kind volunteer who updates the finishers spreadsheet can see it more easily.

Also please provide a screenshot of your victory turn, and maybe more related to the achievements and keys point in the game -- because it’s fun to read for all of us! Restart and reload as you like, but in your write-up (does not have to be long) please describe the challenges you faced.

We welcome all comments and questions, but please use the SPOILER tag if you post a picture, make a comment about which civs are in the game, about natural wonders, locations of ancient ruins, terrain features, luxes, resources, 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, and have fun!






Victory Condition: Culture
Quick combat is on, quick movement is off.
Game Version - 1.0.3.279
Downloadable Content includes: Wonders of the Ancient World DLC. Gods and Kings expansion, Brave New World Expansion. The map packs are intentionally excluded.

I grant a Special Cookie Point to those who :

miaasma said:

Spoiler :

christ, notre dame gone on t94. i realize it's high demand for AI and it's deity, but that is just absurd

managed to grab 2nd last religion with pearl faith pantheon and various religious CS friendships/alliances, though both are hostile so it's difficult to maintain the relationships. tithe and happy temples so far, pretty solid since i plan on controlling the continent and will need the gold and happiness. it helps that nobody else on my continent founded a religion/went piety so the rest of the religions are on the other continent. faith play seems extremely strong this game

stole a worker from kyzyl, stole 2 workers (one worker and one settler) from portugal, forward settled her to snag two crab and one salt (might not have been able to do this had she gone liberty, but she went tradition) white peaced asap and then was immediately hit by a DoF from both her and sweden on the same turn. what?

anyway, no war yet (other than the worker steals), but i expanded perilously close to an indonesian city to grab gold and cocoa. t81 3 city NC but have just founded a 5th city for the remaining pearls, and about to get a 4th stolen worker from a barb camp, bringing my total worker count to 5 including the free one from liberty, meaning i haven't hard built a worker all game which is a first for me

still friends and trade partners with portugal and a little reluctant to attack her yet, might start with indonesia since i think war with that crazy shirtless baby is inevitable. this game is my 2nd try, the first game i made too many mistakes and decided to restart, but i'm doing pretty well thus far (very close to the other AI on my continent in tech and catching up in population value too). so far have only met one other AI (lizzy) not situated on my continent

Click to expand...

there is lots of these games in this forum. how do i play them?

Download them to your Saves/Single folder and load the save from the in-game menu.

Thanks for posting Max! I will SIP.

I do not get out much. Who is France’s archenemy? Why 116 turns and not 100 turns?

i put my game down for a while but i've nearly caught up in science. only problem is my army is pathetic and with only 5 civs (myself included) left in the game and the two most powerful ones (on another continent mind you) hostile towards me my days feel very numbered

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years%27_War

116 years war is not a catchy title.

Der_Zorn_gottes said:

116 years war is not a catchy title.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I suppose that names the bonus civ for arch enemy points too?

My game is off to a slow start, late NC. Four cities was all I could find the space for. Got a religion from the pearls though, but that is not a food lux. Neighbors fighting each other instead of me, so that is a nice change of pace. I don’t have a plan for catching up, and I struggle with CV generally. Already missed, by quite a large margin, both Notre Dame and Sistine Chapel. Still sitting on my Liberty GE.

World Fair is coming up soon, and I will have workshops online for that, so I am crossing my fingers that it marks a turning point.

you're pretty much where i was regarding the GE. i didn't even manage to use it until porcelain tower

This map is very strong. It has

lmao that was terrible. i became tech leader around the beginning of the modern era and remained that way for the rest of the game, but i was dead last by a long shot in every other way. very close at the end as 2 AIs were extremely close to winning; in fact, i think they should have won, but the game may have bugged - the victory conditions screen said they had completed all space parts, but the game didn't end and i was able to win. so basically i have no idea how i managed to win this and it was pretty awful anyway

still my first deity win ever. thanks for the map it was fun

hiawafer said:

This map is very strong.

Click to expand...

Please use the SPOILER tag if you must name a natural wonder.

I am frustrated by this map. I don’t know how, even in theory, to balance coastal lux with Liberty three city CB rush -- so I did not try. Plus the map is not well suited to the very creative achievement points.

I was blown out in the World Fair: neighbor had twice my score and the far-away-runaway had almost twice that. It is T238 and the neighbor just beat me to Statue of Liberty and International Games is coming up. The only VC open to me at this point is Science. So that being case, I am going to start from scratch and try my usual Tradition game and see how that compares to where I am now.

i didn't manage to win WF and i didn't even try IG. i made the mistake of proposing international space station thinking i could win it, but even with all of my cities on it i wasn't even close to winning and it ended up making the game a lot closer than it should have been.

if you can stay friendly with at least 2 of your neighbours you should be okay. i managed to keep two solid friendships with civs who could have blown me out of the water pretty much whenever they wanted to and it made all the difference, even up to the end. also managed to get world ideology and world religion, the map offers a lot of money so getting CS allies even with the ever-rich deity AIs is possible. i had by far the most delegates by the end, enough that had it gone a few turns longer i probably could have won a diplo victory

beetle said:

Please use the SPOILER tag if you must name a natural wonder.

I am frustrated by this map. I don’t know how, even in theory, to balance coastal lux with Liberty three city CB rush -- so I did not try. Plus the map is not well suited to the very creative achievement points.

I was blown out in the World Fair: neighbor had twice my score and the far-away-runaway had almost twice that. It is T238 and the neighbor just beat me to Statue of Liberty and International Games is coming up. The only VC open to me at this point is Science. So that being case, I am going to start from scratch and try my usual Tradition game and see how that compares to where I am now.

Click to expand...

I am sorry for the spoiler. I think I fixed it now, right?

I dont know why you will play Liberty on this map. Tradition will be much better.

Regarding the worldfair, the best way to win it is to get early workhouses and ironworking. If you have 4 or 5 big cities, you can win it.

Good luck in your retry.

hiawafer said:

I think I fixed it now, right?

Click to expand...

Yes, thank you.

I dont know why you will play Liberty on this map. Tradition will be much better.

Click to expand...

I agree that Tradition is much better on this map. I played Liberty because it was in the Achievements.

Regarding the worldfair, the best way to win it is to get early workhouses and ironworking. If you have 4 or 5 big cities, you can win it.

Click to expand...

Yes, I am better than 50/50 success. But not this map!

I completted this challenge on turn 231. That is the fastest I win without any cheats like giving a city to enemy or making a war to open the borders. I used all the cargo boats and saved up religion to buy 2 musician.

i also went liberty for the achievement, but would definitely have gone tradition otherwise. i had some extremely tall cities by the end as it was

Scorch and burn.