The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game # 5 - The Inca

extremely lucky in all wars so far (did not have to fight any AI carpet of doom)
-stole very early worker from russia
-typical honor 3 city (built settlers at 3 population) (one coastal for future fleet - so far fleet was mostly fluff - not much experience but it does produce a bit of gold by sinking ships/burning coastal cities/land units)
-trained a bit vs a coastal city state that also donated 2 extra workers for the cause
-detoured for construction before philosophy - delayed tech and forced me to hard build composites instead of -slingers .. Still got Machinery at T104
-russia went to attack mongols - left capital undefended
-mongols were fighting some city state - left capital undefended (got friended by most of the map by liberating 3 city states from under mongolia)
-assyrians were under developed and wekended by wars - left capital undefended
-iroquois settled a ton of crappy cities and almost killed rome - left capital undefended
-brazil was peaceful but had no units - left capital undefended (few units poorly positioned)
-rome was barelly alive when I've reached it with my carped of doom - capital undefended (no units)
-korea is the only AI left standing - has best AI yech and biggest,meanest AI army but it won't be much longer (will I get landship tech before the end of the game ?)

my inexperienced fleet could not scratch the wall/swarm of turtle ships .. Landship + Arty cleaned up from the other side ...

Very nice early map, as I immediately had visions of acres of Terrafarms. Not exactly ideal early neighbors, but Catherine was in the mood to donate her excess proletariat and I was happy to accept 2 early.

-I got 1st pantheon by meeting 2 religious CS and took Earth Momma. Cathy had a very strong early religion and was determined to spread it. When she sent a brand new GP to my capital, I felt compelled to DoW (with Ashurbinapal's willing complicity), capture the GP, and sentence the heretic to several eons worth of penance as a landmark. After that, I just waited for my GP's to develop naturally, and was able to convert all of my cities to the glorious religion of Shark Diving for almost the entire game with very little threat. I took Feed the World, Tithe, Swords into Plowshares, and Religious Texts. Very smooth religious game.

-I went full tradition, then Patronage (only got 2 tenet before Rationalism). Because I was the only one to take Patronage, late diplo game was a cakewalk. If I had had a bit more cash or culture (to finish Patronage tree), I probably could have won diplo earlier as I had about 24 votes most of the time without much effort. FP went to me late, when I finally got around to realizing nobody else had Patronage.

-I built 3 early expos as good land was scarce, and Assyria decided that instead of forward settling, he'd just take over Monaco, basically in my back yard. Mountain range to the West provided great barrier from Hiawatha's always-expanding borders.

-Early diplo was about as smooth as it could be, with Assyria and Mongols being very cheap bribes. I barely joined in any wars and just built defense and infrastructure. Only generated 1 GG all game.

-Industrial period went about as perfectly as it could have. I proposed World's Fair, making everybody love the peaceful, happy Incas. I didn't even have to bribe to get others to war each other during WF, which was nice. I finished PT right before vote, popped a GA for Golden Age production boost (I like to call that Happy Hour….cheers), and won WF easily. Bulbed 2 GS, and was ready to pop Oxford right on time to get radio. I'm 1st to ideologies, went Freedom, and then popped 3 GW's to get through ideological tenets in about 2 turns. Game was pretty much over at this point.

Strategic resources were a bit scarce, as I had to use my GG just to grab an offshore platform. Several CS' got taken out early in the game, so even with 6-8 allies most of the late game, I only got about 3-6 oil out of them, no coal, and no Aluminum. Trading partners, as always, became a pain in the A$$, but happiness never spent more than a couple of turns negative.

I probably could have finished 15 or so turns sooner, but I bulbed a couple of GS earlier than I should have just to ensure a tech lead on the battlefield. Late war was pretty easy as my anti-air just sat back protecting my Foreign Legion/Infantrymen and 2-3 Triplanes/GWB's died every turn as I did very little proactively.

I bought the final SS part, but had more than enough time to hard build the others.

Genghis was my best friend all the way into the Modern times and then he just became for some reason. Come to think of it, they all started to hate me because I made a pact with Iroquois and when he asked me to denounce Korea, my ONLY remaining friend and I said no, he was like, some ally you are, betraying me like that.

Fortunately I already had plenty of cash to buy every type of power plant super cheap because Big Ben + Mercantilism + Skyscrapers is a wow combo and I didn't need any more loans. By the time I finished Hubble, I already had 3 parts completed in my other, slightly more terrible cities, and my capital had 276 hammers per turn, crazy, I don't think I ever had that many.

Rome went Freedom and Iroquois went Autocracy just to spite me and give me 30 unhappiness <_<

All the wars (apart from the last) were quite long, and I had to fight them in a strange order. No coast to coast sweep here. First to fall was Genghis. He was points leader and I didn't want him to get Keshiks, so I went down with CBs and carefully picked off his troops until Machinery when I was able to send XB reinforcements (the troops that were down there couldn't afford to get back to upgrade). I normally go Education before Construction, but of course with this civ, that would be stoooopid.

After Genghis, I simply HAD to get rid of Assyria cuz he was just in the way, frankly. I left him with one city that wasn't in the way at all. I had left Genghis with one city but Cathy wiped him out.

After Assyria there was a messy war with Cannons to take Salvador, and then Rio de Janeiro, with heavy casualties, but I knew that coming into Onondaga from the West would be literally 50x easier than smashing through the mountain pass.

I dallied in Iroquois lands for a while, razing the cities that were on the way to Rome.

I finally realised the difference that is made by selling science buildings after the tech cut-off. I annexed and bulbed my way to Tanks, and after that sold Public Schools and Unis in every city.

At this time, Cathy made the fatal mistake of backstabbing and DoWing me so I went over to her lands and taught her a harsher lesson than even her stallion had ever done!

By this time all my troops were super promoted and I had a crazy amount of them. Although I didn't get the job done before the Modern Era (that might be quite hard on this map), it meant I could spam tanks at a rate of 5 a turn, and eventually after getting the 'access' cities from Rome in a peace deal, I punched through the mountains separating Pyongyang from Seoul and showed Korea what in reality would literally be their worst nightmare.

A fun game, and one in which I had to get used to seeing 'Incan Tank', which is a bit strange and never really became normal for me. Probably overkill with units, and as always, my sloppy warfare means it could be done more quickly. Also, I lost the WF by 30 hammers, so had I won, that could have shaved some time off as well. I'd say 200-220 is probably the quickest this map can be cleared (although I never investigated ships as an option), as evidenced by Peddroelm and Hick's finishing times.

SPs were Full Honor, Full Commerce, Autocracy to Clausewitz