Deity Challenge: Welcome To The Jungle!

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TheGrumpyBuddha

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I've been goofing with the Amazon Plus and South America maps with Monte/Raging Barbs and I figured I should probably share my pain/wonderment.

THE BAD:
  • Them barbs, they're a ragin'.
  • Production is usually low because of all the damned jungle.
  • # of different luxes available, also low, so you won't want to city spawn.
  • Seriously, there are a lot of damned barbs. You can make a bunch of archers to go barb-farm, sure, but if you do that you won't be finishing CS quests or protecting the home front.
  • Good luck sending caravans to the AI for an early science boost.

THE GOOD:
  • The AI is dumber than usual. For instance, sometimes +1 culture/jungle is left for the 4th or 5th pantheon (i.e., yours).
  • You're Monte! WOOT! Getting 8 or 9 SPs before Ren, piece of cake.
  • Overall the AI will *probably* be slowed by the setup (e.g., Ren on turn 120 instead of 105) but it's not guaranteed, given there are sections of the map that are less jungly.
  • You'll get a lot of ruins. Sometimes turn >100. Maybe even turn >200 in the western side of the map.

Attached is a save file that took 5 or 6 restarts to make -- tossed a couple where it wasn't all jungle, another couple where there were no hills at all. This is a jungle start in the top 10%, I'd say. Haven't even played it yet!

SO. What do you do? Opening Honor might seem obvious but you're Monte already, do you really need it? How many early units? Do you go straight Liberty, given you'll have good growth anyway bcs of Floating Gardens? Maybe go crazy straight Honor, take out an early AI (assuming they're close which they probably won't be. Or maybe you don't mind the loooong walk)?

Can you make enough units to protect your workers, clear CS quests, and farm, while building libraries and granaries and gardens that float and Colleges?

Have fun!

----
DLC used -- all but Scrambled. You need Explorers for this map.
 

Attachments

  • Montezuma_0000 BC-4000.Civ5Save
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Now now Grumpy, how are you going to get people playing without a bodacious beauty shot, hmm?

The Start:
Spoiler :


 
Spoiler :
BO: monument/ jaguars till I hit the (!) / granary

Belined Bronze working then Philosophy.

SP: Honor opener, liberty x4 - (skipped the settler so far... can't see any good spot and have plans to take over Odas evil realm of terror.)

Stole two workers from Japan, got a third from barbcamp. Focused on chopping that damn jungle and reveal hammers so much that I forgot to grow... :sad:

Got a faithruin on turn 21 and thought I was going to pick first but in the same turn some AI bastard stole sacret patch. I swore and took God King mainly for the extra hammer.

Plundered a trande route from Japan before we made peace and bought a library.

Going for NC now and scout/kill barbs with my straycats. I think I dare to try a trade route since evil Oda put a city pretty close. Maybe we can be friends? :rolleyes:

I have no idea what i'll do. Probably diplo if I manage to survive. There is bad boys and girls out there...

Screenshot:

Spoiler :




*Update turn 90

Spoiler :


Met everybody, filled liberty and settled a second city to be able to have more units and was just about to start producing them when...

Spoiler :


The prick caught me with my pants down. By far most units of every civ with samurais in the bunch. There is no way I can survive this.

Game over!


 
This is not an easy map so far!

Spoiler :

Nasty neighbours.
Really jungly. (For me. Not all the AIs).

I should possibly have been more aggressive, but instead went 3 city NC (t88). Liberty 3 -> Tradition (need Monarchy!). Chose God of the Craftsmen pantheon for more early hammers.

Some of the AIs are powerful:

Poland has a size 20 city on t100
Shaka has captured Moscow and raised Novgorod. He also has double my hammers.
Wu has double my food.
Japan is sandwiched inbetween me and Wu. No Barbs for him ...
 
I made it to turn 115. In a bit of a better position, but still not in control of this game.

Spoiler :

I would have expected Amazon + Monty + Raging Barbs to be easier than standard Deity play. I'm not finding it so. However, the AI is slowing down a little, so perhaps, by the industrial era I'll change my opinion again.

Some pre-planning ideas.

- Monty should have an easier time getting 1-2 early policies in the early game. This likely means 7-8 SP before the option of Rationalism.

- This is my first raging barbs game, so an extra unit or two seems prudent.

- Hammers are going to be an issue: don't chop the few forests, aim for Republic, etc.

The opening mostly went according to plan. Toku** to the North and Russia to the south is not what I want to see. (Edit: Apparently Oda Nobunaga has replaced Tokugawa as the Immortal Leader of the Japanese peoples ...)

I decided on a Hybrid opening where I'd go Liberty -> Citizenship (Worker) -> Republic -> Collective Rule -> Monarchy.

Only stole 1 worker from a CS, the rest are locally built.

Cap @t31: Extra hammers from God of Craftsmen pantheon + first mine completed.



3 cities at t50. Moving settlers and workers through the jungle is so very slow. I had to plant into unhappiness to control the barbs. 4 turns of unhappiness is not too painful since the capital now has plenty of hammer tiles to work.



When Russia is your neighbour you never want to see Moscow turn this color. Bad News:



On the other front there was good news in the form of an expected China-Japan spat. Hopefully this lasts through the Samurai danger period:



My own development is a little slower than usual, but not too bad. I finished Education at t115, which is alright for a build that requires an Engineering detour. There is quite a bit of infrastructure in place in the first three cities: Granaries, Libraries, hand-built Aqueducts, Floating Gardens + NC, a Colosseum and a Market in the Cap.



Two immediate challenges:

1) Happiness. The lack of Horses (no circuses) and Stone (no stoneworks) is hurting. Already paying GPT for two Luxes.

2) SP Dilemma: I could open Rationalism next (as long as I don't kill too many barbs), but Meritocracy would also be pretty nice.

 
Spoiler :
Im gonna mess about with this game now. I saw the start and I figure I will settle on the gems. Some people frown upon such things because it is a slight use of abuse but I do not care about such things! :)


Edit: Turns 0-33

Spoiler :
Ok so I thought this would be a fun change of pace since I don't play alot of jungle maps or Monte for that matter. I was kinda wrong. Jungle maps are like playing with a map that is a full scale Great Wall. It is nice to have Jags though since they can move through that jungle better than your foes. Ruins were not a problem for me this game. I think I found 5 or 6. I got Free Cult, Free Pottery on the first 2 and the rest were some gold, maps, upgrade unit to Spear and I think I got another Cult but not sure. Anyway Free Pottery sure was nice and I was the 2nd to a Panth. Ofcourse the first Panth was +1 cult for jungle so I decided to take God King since I most likely will not get a religion. So there goes your theory that the AI waits for jungle Panth lol! My B.O. was Jag, Shrine, Archer, Archer. I'm not sure but I guess Floating Gardens is next and after that Gran maybe. I opened up Honor for the double cult. I think it is OP when you are Monte and have raging barbs and open Honor. I love all that free culture though! After that I went plain old Tradition down to Landed Elite. I went to war with Japan on turn 14 and stole one worker. He is sore about it and will not give me peace yet. I stole a worker from Buch CS as well. I met Shaka and got some gold for my embassy. I went mining first but the AI has no gold to trade with me yet so that was a waste I suppose. After that I went Arch, AH, Wheel, and now am teching BW for clearing all this jungle (ugh!). I think since Japan is so close Ill just take his cities perhaps. Should be fun I suppose but I'll save it for later as I have other things to do for now :)


Edit: Up to turn 107

Spoiler :
I went 1 city NC this time... got it around turn 80 or so. I built mostly troops but I snuck in some things like Float Gards, Gran, Writers Guild, NE. I have no plan really. I just wanted to take out Japan and use the cities they built. Kyoto falls t 107 after trading it once. Im not sure if Im gonna wipe them out or let them live. As usual my tech rate is far under bench marks but I don't see that being a problem with all this jungle and Universities. I put Shaka and Russia to war and have not met anyone else. I think they are in a deadlock so that is always good. Thats about it for now, time to watch some baseball.
 
I've played it a couple of times to test Honor open vs No Honor open and I'm leaning towards the latter. Fights are a lot tougher but once you get to wanting that 9th or 10th SP and you are generating only 20 culture a turn (except for kills) it's tough.

In the first play, I got careless because I was multitasking and Shaka got me in a surprise attack and I figured I'd just restart.

In the second, Odo was a MEGA PAIN IN MY BALLS and I couldn't even bribe him to attack someone else because he hadn't met someone else, even on turn 80! WTF?!

Definitely a fun map and learning a lot about how to play jungle from it. May try again just for fun.
 
I'm back to thinking this is hard. To the t180s.

Spoiler :


Happiness shortages are tough. Colosseums and Circus Maximus built. No more options. Gold is being used to buy luxuries. I guess I need Ideologies to bail me out :(

The marginal Aztec realm at t150



I questionably went for (and won) the World's Fair with pretty sad hammers. Ok, really sad.



I ended up burning A 2 GS to get to Radio around t180. Happiness problems solved? Not really. A few turns later Oda stole my dyes. The nerve of that guy - that's worth 8 happy :mad:



The same turn I lost a Culture quest with where I was leading with 1 turn to go! Errrg. Not going my way this game. I haven't even tried for a wonder yet.

No coal, no Aluminium, the only good part is that I've still got ok beakers. I guess the plan is Flight (Oil?). Oda needs to die, but he has nothing useful (other than my dyes). I'd really like to go south for Poland. Warsaw has all three of the happy wonders: Notre Dame, Forbidden Palace, and Chichen Itza, but I think I need to handle my Oda problem first.
 
TheGrumpyBuddha said:
I've played it a couple of times to test Honor open vs No Honor open and I'm leaning towards the latter. Fights are a lot tougher but once you get to wanting that 9th or 10th SP and you are generating only 20 culture a turn (except for kills) it's tough.

In the first play, I got careless because I was multitasking and Shaka got me in a surprise attack and I figured I'd just restart.

In the second, Odo was a MEGA PAIN IN MY BALLS and I couldn't even bribe him to attack someone else because he hadn't met someone else, even on turn 80! WTF?!

Definitely a fun map and learning a lot about how to play jungle from it. May try again just for fun.
Click to expand...

*sigh* usually the best way to play jungle starts is to move out of it... on Amazon map I don't think that's possible however.
The people playing this probably are either masters of the game, or just masochists :lol: since I already looked at the spoilers... I really think I'll pass :lol: good luck to those how attempt it! I srsly do not mind Shaka... really... (easy enough to befriend him and he'll stay a loyal friend most likely by rescuing his civilians from barbs) but Oda the backstabber? Yeesh.
 
kb27787 said:
*sigh* usually the best way to play jungle starts is to move out of it... on Amazon map I don't think that's possible however.
The people playing this probably are either masters of the game, or just masochists :lol: since I already looked at the spoilers... I really think I'll pass :lol: good luck to those how attempt it! I srsly do not mind Shaka... really... (easy enough to befriend him and he'll stay a loyal friend most likely by rescuing his civilians from barbs) but Oda the backstabber? Yeesh.
Click to expand...

C'mon, what other Deity map will you be finding ruins on turn 160 and have to worry about barbarians on that turn as well?! :)

Yeah, Odo is a mega-pain, wishI had posted a game where he's not next door. Played again going straight Tradition and I think it's actually strongest of all the options. Got to turn 200'ish going straight for artillery and didn't build up enough of an army on the attack and so lost too many units to make me think that after I wiped him out that I could win. (Maybe, but it wasn't fun anymore.)

But you have to put up with a minimum of two Odo 20+ unit attacks, one quite early, and that's even doing everything you can to humor the bastard/bribing him into wars with others. So yeah, a little masochistic, I guess :eek:
 
Oldune -- nice looking civ! I didn't think I could support 4 cities but you're doing well with it. Can I ask what your SP path was?

Yeah, Odo stole my dyes as well, with a double GG plant. Part of the reason I went to war a little prematurely, I was pissed off.
 
Spoiler :


SP: tradition until LE+monarchy - honor open - tradition full - honor right side (cannot earn more than 30xp with barbs anyway so left line is not useful yet) - secularism - honor full (around t180, right before I start the 1st real war)

stole a worker from japan (he hated me afterwards...) and two from CS (ormus).

Settling on top of gem (after spending 2 turns) was no-brainer for me. I have no patience to wait to improve that jungle gem tile.

I rush bought shrine to catch jungle +1 culture pantheon, but lucky faith ruin did the job. I ended up getting a religion myself too. I focused on scouting a lot to meet all CS asap and to get ruins.

I built 3 archers and 4 jaguars (3 of them got upgrades, and that was a problem... there was no horse at all in this map and I could not upgrade them to lancers!@#@#!@). My culture was basically from barb killings, and other unit kills after arty rush (my gpt relied on killing at this point too).

Spoiler :




t70 NC and built 1 more city. education around t110, but spt will be low for mid-late game, compared to tradition 4 cities. I used nearby barb camps to get culture until I start a real war.

Spoiler :




my tech wasn't that bad until dynamite (I didn't even use oxford) but my production was horrible. I delayed the tech until I get 4 cannons (could be earlier than t179, but I think I started attack around t185). I cleared nearby barb camps and upgraded cannons, and attacked japan. I made sure that Japan and China fought for a long time.

Spoiler :




t207, Japan cap falls. I sold/gave non-important cities. meanwhile, Shaka almost killed russia, and I bribed him to attack brazil too. freedom united (brazil, maya, and poland) DoFed from the beginning. I was in that circle too, maya denounced me when I chose autocracy and took lots of cities, and other two immediately followed.

Spoiler :




t241, china cap falls. All these archaeologists were "hired" and I used them to build landmarks and get artifacts. Of course I did not build single archaeologists and all my GA and GW were burnt for golden age and more social policies. I had some happiness problem (ideology pressure) so had to give/sell lots of cities. Zulu usually razed them and poland kept them.

Spoiler :





 
Spoiler :


rax +2 happy tenet was not enough. I went for pat 3 (all left line) to maintain CS allies and more happiness from them.

Autocracy 5 so far - main tenets are -33% unit purchase cost, -33% unit maintenance cost, and rax +2 happy.

I opened commerce to get big ben - only world wonder I built.

I was on the way to maya after china, but poland army showed up near my border - I had no unit (except one unit per city to get honor policy bonus) back home so my veterans had to come back and take those cities first. Range+logistics artys just crushed like 15 great war infantry (50 culture and gold for each! :))

maya had rocket artys and lots of planes when I got back there.. I lost some units, but finally managed to take one of the main cities when I got rocket artys too.

Spoiler :




When I got 5-6 range+logistics+march rocket artys, it became really easy. I also had 3-4 bombers and fighters with air repair.

While Poland had lots of votes (went patro 5), he used all of them to say no for embargo poland (zulu proposed it - and of course I used all my votes during the previous session to make him the host instead of freedom guys). I used all my votes to my proposal - world ideology: autocracy! finally I do not have any unhappy from ideology.

Maya showed me 5 rocket artys and 2 artys out of nowhere (nothing was there when I clicked the next turn), but it didn't matter - I kill'ed them all and took lots of wonders. In particular, SoL!

Spoiler :




Spoiler :




rocket artys could break 150+ defense in one turn. Tikal falls - yay for machu pichu.

Spoiler :




As brazil and maya finished manhatan project a while ago, I really need to get to brazil asap.

 
I started this and am really kicking myself that I didn't get an early shrine. I played about 140 turns but am I kinda wasting my time at this point. Me and Oda are palls so far. The thing about Oda is he hates warmongers, so you cant afford any negatives. While I think it is possible to stay friends with him all game long, I am not exactly sure how to do it.

What I hate about these jungle maps is that while you have no hammers, there are civs around the edges that still get normal terrain and more hammers.
 
TheGrumpyBuddha said:
I didn't think I could support 4 cities but you're doing well with it. Can I ask what your SP path was?
Click to expand...

4 cities is really a stretch. Each picks up a unique luxury, but the missing happiness and lack of duplicates makes growing challenging. Possibly I should have stayed at 3. (Currently I actually have 5: one is a coal grabber - I want factories for more hammers!).

To t188, I believe this is the SP path.

Liberty Open (Culture Ruin) -> Citizenship (Worker + Clearing Speed) -> Republic -> Collective Rule (~t46)
-> Tradition Open -> <Culture Buildings> -> Monarchy -> Rationalism Open (~t125)
-> Secularism -> Humanism (WF freebee) -> Free Thought (Writer)
-> Socialist Realism -> Young Pioneers -> Workers Faculties (haven't built factories yet, so this will be helpful) -> Hero of the People (Writer) (~t188).

I have three happiness tenants available that I really want: Meritocracy, Aristocracy, Academy of Sciences. I'm already back to ~0 happy without any Ideological pressure ... not a good position to be in ;)
 
Spoiler :


Poland had almost nothing. I guess he used all his units to defend Brazil. t283, Warsaw falls.

Spoiler :




The next turn, fighter gave me a vision - seems that there are lots of Brazilian units there. Brazil had 30K+ gold and gpt was 1K+. He also had like 700 tpt - damn carnival. I DoWed him and my rocket artys + bombers (air repair and logistics....) erased them.

Spoiler :




t296, brazil cap falls. Rocket arty and bombers are sooo OP. He had nukes and some planes too, but his planes got shot down by my intercepting fighters + mobile sam.

Spoiler :




I could have won with domination very soon (for example, just XCOM drops...I think I can buy/upgrade like 20+ XCOMs), but didn't want to spend more time on this. I wanted to check whether there is an achievement if I give all my votes for another guy, but it seems not :lol:

Spoiler :




Spoiler :




 
Spoiler :


Aztec really shined in this setting. I am pretty sure that I might have lost if it were not for Aztec UA and UB.

1. UA: I think I got a lot more culture from this UA alone (than my own culture output). I could get lots of social policies thanks to this UA. At t300, runaway brazil had like 65K culture total, and I had 52K - which is amazing, given that I didn't even open aesthetics. Even during mid/late game, my unit were waiting for barbs to spawn at 2-3 camps. barb great war infantry gives 50 gold (from honor) and 100 culture!

2. UB: without this, growth would have been limited and my spt (and hammers too) would have sucked. Floating garden really rocks.

3. Full honor: honor open was the best policy ever in raging barb setting, and after completing honor I think I earned more gold from it (than my own gpt output). Of course, it would have been difficult to finish it without UA.

4. I don't think you can win with a peaceful approach. Maya and Brazil have really good lands and they will run away.

 
budweiser said:
I started this and am really kicking myself that I didn't get an early shrine. I played about 140 turns but am I kinda wasting my time at this point. Me and Oda are palls so far. The thing about Oda is he hates warmongers, so you cant afford any negatives. While I think it is possible to stay friends with him all game long, I am not exactly sure how to do it.

What I hate about these jungle maps is that while you have no hammers, there are civs around the edges that still get normal terrain and more hammers.
Click to expand...

One thing that I learned in my playthroughs was that the first thing to do with early stolen workers is mine those spots along the river, even before you put a plantation on the spices.

Glory7 -- nice job! I never even considered finishing Honor the times I opened with it. instead I dumped some stuff into Patronage. I think I needed to work harder to set up barb mining spots.

With having only two cities for so long, did you have any keeping-up-with-science issues?
 
Last update (Civ 5 crash, no autosaves close enough :rolleyes: )

Spoiler :

Well this one started off with Oda stealing yet another Lux. Ok, enough already :lol:



Building towards Flight. Tenochtitlan finally has some real hammers, and is ready to spam some GW Bombers next turn :hammer:



With GW Bombers I rolled over Japan fairly easily, with a little help from Wu.



Unfortunately, I took Nara in the peace deal, selling it to China, and I got the "Choose Production" bug. I don't think there is a way to force end the turn. I did load an autosave (from 10 turns ago, hmm, I should change that back :lol: ), but the game took a few different turns, and I lost interest in playing the "alternate" version. However, I think I'm in a winning position. I've got a substantial tech lead. I have plastics (but no labs built yet) + 3 sleeping GS. With 650 beakers pre labs, and the games only air force, I don't think there is much the AI can do. :shrug:

Thanks for the map. This one was challenging.



 
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