The Deity Challenge Line-up #29 - Dido's swimming pool

I'm not going to describe what I did, because it didn't work well. It started with getting my scout assassinated while trying to nab a worker. Suleiman founded a city that turn and I was smack in the middle. I didn't steal any workers, and couldn't scout any further until sailing. I founded 3 cities, but after two early wars (one for each expo) I didn't get my NC up until T93.

My cities were pathetic until I caught up in the Industrial era, but not because that was the goal. I decided to pursue diplo because I was out of position for the other VCs. I didn't have a specific VC in mind when I started, but I don't think that was my problem because every one I was thinking of involved a solid 3-5 city foundation in the Renaissance. That didn't happen. Every time I turned on the game I had to light a match to clear the stench from what I saw. My end game numbers don't look too bad considering all of my trade routes were recently pillaged again, but it was painful to get there.

Everybody hated me until the middle of the game, then I somehow managed to be first to an Ideology and everybody quickly hated me again. I had at least one war with everyone except Askia, and that was only because he was wiped out. I unfortunately lost some troops with every new wave of AI units, and had to keep replenishing the ranks the whole game.

I had Treaty Org, but I kept getting my cargos pillaged every time someone else decided to pile on and it didn't help as much as I would have liked. After full Tradition I went into Patronage, 2 into Rationalism, finished Patronage, and then 6 into Freedom. I opened Commerce and finished Rationalism before the game ended.

I actually won on the first vote, with more than enough votes from liberating Askia and Suleiman, Globalization, World Ideology, and owning all but one of the surviving CS's. I kept playing a few extra turns just to drop nukes on Oda. It was a pretty slow game by the AI too, with no real culture threat and no one finishing Apollo before I won. The game was pretty war heavy from front to back. Sejong went for culture and got suckered into two free picks in Autocracy, so he was effectively neutered and I didn't have to worry about an early launch. I did win, but it was not a pretty win.

Pretty messy start .Wanted to try something different, but it just worked out slow. Beelined Optics first to try and have it by T35. Built a settler when I hit 2 pop and settled to the east, bought the tiles across the ditch necessary to claim the Spices. Opened tradition, stole a worker and a settler off Suleiman ~T25, long walk home though :S. I knew this start was going to be slow, but the target was to have 3 cities by hopefully T40, then start running cargo ships like mad.

Built 2 Quinqueremes to have a poke around and see if there were any good settling spots. Allowed me to settle both islands to the west; one with Pearl & Whales, and settled on the Furs on the southern island.

Wasn't exactly sure where I was heading but was looking like either science assisted Dom, diplo or science. First war was when I hit Battleships ~T200, Silly Ottomans attacked me. I'll admit I didnt have the troops at the time, but the location is so crazily defensible its not funny. Two rush bought subs and a luckily timed foray into the modern era allowed me to get some foreign legionnaires which was enough to beat back the tide. 10 more turns and a couple of GS later, I had 6 battleships ready to go. These made pretty short work of ol' Suleiman. Stacked the legionnaires with the battleships which proved surprisingly neat. I think I might use this tactic more often (although the slower movement than the ships could be a hassle if you're crossing an ocean rather than a pond). Took all his cities along our shared bay (including Istanbul). Russia then finished him off (which ended up proving hugely important in the world leader vote!).

Naturally, everyone then dogpiled on Russia and I said yes to one of the numerous invitations to war. Was a bit slower going with her, but 4 or 5 subs and 6 or so battleships were never in doubt of winning. At some point during this was flight was introduced so I bought a carrier and some fighters/triplanes to counteract. Liberated two of Suleiman's cities on the mainland, and one on the island slightly to the North East with the 2 CS, La Venta and... can't remember. I took the rest on my mainland, one of which kindly had the Prora . Japan and Assyria took her last two terrible island cities.

Japan backstabbed, decided that suicide zeros were awesome and spammed me with them. Painful when he started taking down my veteran battleships. Ended up beelining the military side of the tree and spamming missile cruisers, subs and a couple of intercept carriers until I finally stopped the tide. Once I got stealth bombers and XComs (~T290) started to turn it back on Oda. Took about 4 or 5 of his cities, sold one to Askia which he burnt. All in all this detour cost me around 50-60 turns by my calculations, but it was fun. I've never used Missile Cruisers much before. The lack of resource requirement is pretty awesome, although tricky because they can't be upgraded from an existing veteran, and no indirect fire was a bit frustrating.

From here I was either going to win Diplo or science, got too lazy to finish the Dom and to be honest Korea was running away with culture a little to much. By the end, Korea would have had a cultural victory within the next 10 turns or so, but I had the cash to either win dilpo or go to space anyway.

Spent the whole damned modern-info era at about -50 happy because I was the only nation to go Freedom (obviously Korea's Order propaganda was the issue here). But meh, I wanted the SoL. Exploration was very helpful at this point, the +3 happy from every city saved the day. Quicker and far less of a detour to get +30 happy than the commerce finisher.

Research - Was either at future tech, or had GDRs to go, so basically whole tree. Wa behind on the early bench marks, but picked up pace quickly through the Renaissance, even without Observatories.
Social Policies - Tradition (All), Rat (Opener +3), Detour through right side of commerce, 2 into exploration and Freedom. Finished Rat for Robotics, then filled out Freedom to 9 policies incl. space procurement and treaty organistion (?)
Wonders - Only built SoL and Big Ben, Korea's tech rate was pretty much parity with mine for most of the game, so he took most of the other good ones.

Tight finish on Worlds Fair

Victory Screen w/ vote details. Thanks Suleiman!

My SV I was 3 SS parts ahead of Sejong. I think he was aiming for CV for that game too, but Pacal was keeping him well in check. The International Games never came around for my Tradition game, so I am not sure at all what Sejong was doing to run away with it.

Odo was a constant threat, so I was continuously bribing him to attack people. But in my Tradition game I could not get him interested in Sejong.

I was aiming for getting some capitals with frigates and beelined for them. After taking Istanbul, however, I had to do something about Sejong, but it was too late. He snowballed like crazy and had battleships by the time I could've attacked him. At around turn 260 he was at 99% tech and had built several spaceship parts. At the same time, half of the AIs decided to attack me simultaniously and kicked my ass to the point of resignation.