The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game #6 - Byzantine Empire

Not that it matters either way but I guess a 50/50 shot is worth it to try to get Petra. In the game that I messed about with Petra and lost out on it I toyed around till about turn 215. I wiped out England and she had some nice wonders. Denmark beat down Askia but not enough it appears and Askia came back with a vengance and took out the Vikings. My cap is at 30 pop and all 4 cities are really strong on this game. I could wipe out my Cont or I could just turtle from here and blast off into space. I don't mind this start with the gamble and loss on Petra, the game is still pretty strong. In my 1st attempt, before watching Acken's LP, I just went full warmonger and took out England very early and just about took out the Vikings before the save.

I decided to play it out and finish it. I was going to attack Askia when he took out (cs) Sidon but I decided not to since he was my best friend pretty much the whole game. I put all my troops close to him just incase but I never went to war after England and just next turned my way to Space Victory t303 without really trying. I did use 2 GEs rushing parts. I didn't have much culture so I only finished Trad/Ratio and 6 deep into Order. The Inca ruled his side of the world and I just ran away with tech. Petra would of been really nice but its just as easy to win when you miss it. I may finish my 1st attempt that I saved. In that game I just played full warmonger and was close to taking out my Cont early but saved it when I seen the game was over. I wanted to try this set up for some fun and for some reason I decided to finish it out and post up a screenshot.

Settled on hill between the grapes and got easy Pantheon with the two religious city states. Hats gave two techs (Pottery and I think Mining) some gold and maps and a weapons upgrade. Show an opportunity to steal a worker from England and proceeded to. I kept at war with her and farmed 4 workers and a settler. Lost a possible caravan from her but had a good workforce my four city empire. I was afraid to build a cargo ship due to some barbarian ships and waited to get a dromon before doing so. NC was built by turn 86.



Harald fancied a neighbor city state and attacked, he didn’t counted Askia who fancied Haralds lands and attacked him after he had lost half his army. This resulted to Askia conquering the Danes making him a fearsome neighbor. I had a DoF with him and foolishly thought I would be ok.

To be safe i paid him to attack England and built more dromons and Composites for defense. At some turn he made peace with Lizzy and in the next turn he attacked me. I managed to kill some troops and generally stall him till Lizzy could be able to attack him. Then he accepted white peace and as a classic dirty backstabber he chooses to have a friendly stance. Luckily the rest of the game the fought between them harder and even when they made peace between them they didn’t bothered me. I just kept paying Askia to declare war to England as soon he could. On the other continent Celts dominated rather easily, with their good capital. I also paid them to war with Incas and Egypt for most of the game, something that probably gave me first spot on WF.

On my continent I had the only religion which with the two expansion enhancers (overkill) was spread on all the cities of the continent. At least I earned good gold from it.

I went full Tradition, full Rationalism, 6 Freedom tenets and 3 policies from Commerce so I could cheaply buy space parts.


Screenshot before launching


Demographics


Launch

A real game changer was having festivals as pantheon. The bonuses late game may not have been great, but getting that early culture is a massive boost.

Unlike others here there were some skirmishes with both the Danes and the English, after taking York things settled down for the late game. Had a near run-away Inca with over 500gpt, but after convincing both Boudicca and Ramesses to attack he was slowed down somewhat. Nice map!

Starting off the game with my capital a bit to the northwest of what seems like a nice coastal hill with some wine. Since my plan is to go for a strong early navy with the possibility of earning promotions as early as dromons I want the great lighthouse and therefore all sea resources i can get is really beneficial.

However already from the start none of the AI really seemed to like me. Askia was the only one wanting to be friends even though just for a short time before he declared war instead. I did steal 2 workers from him so maybe his response was kinda delayed.



Managed to grab like 4 workers from poor ormus as well before they served the purpose of being exp farm for my dromons.



Met the 2 religious CS early so get a quite early pantheon. Choose the god of the sea for the production especially i plan all my cities to be coastal. In retrospect I maybe should have went for the culture and faith from wine first and picked up god of the sea with extra belief you get as byzantium.

Managed to find sailing with one of my scouts, which made the decission to beeline optics early easier for a safe Great Lighthouse.



Quite early felt that I did have too much workers, especially since I did a concious decission not to build roads and wait for harbour for city connections and safe some maintenance cost. In retrospect maybe not such a wise decission since it took a while for them to be research and built and probalby more important could have needed them to more easily maneuver in my defensive wars.

I wanted to try a bit unconvential social policy strategy. Opened tradition then liberty and took republic before back to tradition and Aristocracy for bonus production building great lighthouse and later also the colossus and NC. After that switching to liberty again and grabbing collective rule hardbuilding 2 more settlers for a 4 city setup and then going for legalism and monarchy. Had a plan of maybe finishing tradition but culture output was so low that I then decided to open Exploration instead for extra naval movement. (7 movement frigates with range and logistics makes naval warfare kinda easy) Grabbed Naval tradition(happiness really needed) and navigation school (more great admiral was needed with a widespread fleet) before as my last tree honor. Just for the extra great generals to make citadels in the last push.



Actually all 3 of my neighbours decided to have a try a my citys. First england, this was the first point i realised that a kickas navy would'nt be enough so i had to buy some CB:s.


However my focus was still on getting a nice and promoted fleet. Then both Askia and Denmark decided to kill some units against my wall and coastal bombardments.

At reaching machinery and building a few LB:s England decided to have another go against me. Well enough is enough and time for my navy to really come into play. Which now was all upgraded to galleas and some of them with range promotions. However i came to realise later that the critical upgrade for naval units. Especially with Great Lighthouse is logistics since you have extra movement to easily both get in and out of range.

However in retrospect this one of my not so bright strategic plays, as I decided to wipe out England at here peak of power which slowed me substiantially. At this point Longbowmen kinda hurt and I couldnt avoid my galleas to not get it altogether.Made what I consider a nice move with a heal from my admiral to keep my fleet alive and still take nottingham without losses.



A better plan would have been to see that see her reach machinery, bribe her against askia while i took the western route around my continent starting to secure Copenhagen first. After that take out Askia and England before shifting focus to the other continent. However took the eastern route around my continent and took both Gao and Copenhagen before continuing my journey to the other continent.



However the big problem that I encountered was the only one of the capitals on the other continent was coastal and my army at this point was not particularly good at taking high defence cities not reachable from the coast. Since land battle was limited for my guys i did not really have well promoted ranged land units to take cities with. Even if Venice fell very easy at the time for Edinburgh to fall my archers couldnt go into range of the city without being oneshoted. They also has quite alot of units so i make sure to bribe the Incas to fight both Egypts and Celts. Incas that are the strongest Civ right now happily accept.

I had to wait for my beelining for artillery to finish, really late i know. Really should have focused a bit more on science and science techs earlier to get that science production going much earlier and give me the possibility to use artillery much earlier as well as battleships which I never actually had the time to research before i finished, but would have made the end much easier. Edinburgh eventually fall though, no time to waste and already at war with the egypts to wipe out their fleet and grab their coastal cities to reach thebes.




Both Giza and Pi Ramesses is going down, even though I only intend to set up artillery around Pi Ramesses to bombard Thebes, I managed to kill and distract alot of his units around Giza instead of providing defence for the capital. With a citadel from a great general securing the artillery lane I move on to repeat the process with the incas to wipe out their fleet and get a foothold for Cusco.



Really hoped for the Incas to chop the forest just east of Cusco so my range+logistics frigates could bombard the city directly, which never came to happen and had to take some extra turns get artillerys in place as well as great generals for citadels to negate the effect of the great wall that he had built. (Still in place since he seemed to delay his dynamite).



And at turn 214 all capitals is finally secured into the holy Byzantium empire.



However a few questions for people experienced with naval warfare.

What tech paths do you go for a naval domination game? I can see that this is a trade off between beelining for the military techs and getting science rolling. However i felt that my frigates and artillery (kinda needed for inland capitals) and never got to use battleships, which seems really strong with range and logistics on them.

Especially with extra movement from GL it did seem that logistics was the pivotal upgrade. Do you skip range promotion to get the logistics first at 100 XP or is range to essential to keep on getting XP?

The last question i probably have a good idea myself about and it is about the initial expansion, which did occur at approx turn 60-70 where i planted 3 new cities. I did delay it for me to get collective rule first, (even with the unconvential SP strat) and built both GLighthouse and workboats before expanding. Is this even viable for a dom. game?
I proably think that I should have needed to grab either citizenship much earlier or hard build them anyway.

Nice play with the GA heal at Nottingham - I think you timed that perfectly to keep the momentum.

I probably would have pushed to Biology and Electronics since each capital is within bombardment range of a +1 range BB. A handful of BBs with Range and Logistics will flatten those defences in a couple turns. However - you have a pretty stout finish time so I doubt whether that would have saved any turns ...

Pretty standard 4 city tradition opening and the FoY helped a lot with happiness early on. I got NC, education, and a university built in cap by turn 110 which is a decent start though probably could have done a little better.



Beelined up to ST while focusing on getting all the food cargo ships going to capital. Got to ST and bought 3 public schools by turn 159.



I wasn't really sure what to go after next so went for Navigation -> Chemistry -> Fertilizer -> Industrialization -> Archaeology (for food/production/culture) then beelined to Radio -> Plastics. Not sure if beelining Radio/Plastics first would have made things faster or not.

Decided to go Order since I figured I needed the 25% science from factories (only had 2 observatories) and the extra production. Ended up with full Tradition -> 3 Exploration -> full Rationalism -> 7 Order. Launched on turn 239.



General comments:
- Missed Pisa by 1 turn (ouch)
- World Congress passed the 33% decrease for scientists/engineers (ouch)
- Not sure if exploration policies were worth it (mostly took it for production/happiness)
- Bulbed a little too late as I ended up wasting a few turns building the final few boosters since I had the GS/GE from Order to get final part
- Overall, probably could have finished at least 10 turns earlier based on those few things though I'm still amazed that some people get SV by turn 220!

I moved my settler 2 spots West to settle on the hill, right in the middle of wine country. I've got immediate visions of Byzantine orgies, with everyone drunk on my religion. I'm going to do everything I can to get religion, so it will be Scout > Shrine.

Warrior heads East, sees some nice desert terrain (I'm thinking maybe desert folklore for a bonus belief), and stumbles onto 2 religious civs, so I get an immediate pantheon. I take Goddess of Festivals and start working wine immediately even though this will slow production a bit.

Warrior then finds FoY (did I mention this is a lovely map?), heads north, meets an English scout, then steals a worker that England presented quite politely. Scout has transformed himself into an archer and taken a worker himself from a CS. I make peace with both, discover Songhai and (gulp) Harold Bluetooth. This appears to be a 4-civ continent, flush with CS.

I decide I want 4 cities ASAP as there are really good coastal spots, so I skip early Piety.

Social Policy path will be Tradition Opener > Left Side of Liberty > Finish Tradition.

BO is Scout > Shrine > Library > Settler > Granary > Settler.

I've founded all 4 cities exactly where I want and nobody seems upset. Harold is up to his usual tricks and already took out Hong Kong and asked me to DoW Askia. I initially accepted but changed my mind. I want to get on England's good side and I think I risk warmonger status.

I got 2 early allies (1 religious and 1 military) by clearing out barb camps and returning workers. Best part was that the worker I gave back to religious CS got captured, so I got to re-take it and the barb camp and now I have 4 workers and probably no diplo penalty left from early steals.

I founded 1st religion t51 and took Tithe, Pagodas, and God of the Sea (with all of these sea resources I couldn't resist). I was tempted to take Mosques as well, but since England founded on t52, I'm glad I didn't. They seem to be pumping out a lot of faith and went Piety, so I wouldn't have had time to build 8 religious buildings as I'm probably going to have to use my 500 faith GP to get spread to my own cities.



I'm pretty sure I'm going to be going for a Cultural win here. I'm currently building Oracle which should finish just as my expos get libraries so I can then go for an 80-ish NC.

The trick here is going to be staying out of early wars and I'm pretty sure Harold will provoke plenty. I traded wine to him immediately and will trade next 2 to England then Askia. All-in-all, a pretty amazing start (I hope). I'm going to get food cargo ships going ASAP and then build a ton of fishing boats.

Mid-game went as expected. England's religion was all over the place, and I would not have been able to keep my religion if I hadn't built HS. Even after using that GP to spread to my 3 expos, building all Pagodas for 200 FPT (and 2 Monasteries thanks to England's early spread), it was a struggle to keep my religion until very late. And I HAD to keep my religion because of the God of the Sea. Luckily, Lizzy agreed to stop sending profits into my lands after we became mutual friends denouncing Harold.

I gambled and built SC in 1st expo while I was working on Oxford and PT in Capital. Got them all, as well as Uffizi (I opened both Rationalism and Aesthetics and nobody else had). After that, my tech caught up and I built every wonder I wanted and it became a cultural steamroll. Oxforded into Radio, GE'd Eiffel and hard built everything else.

The mid-game wonder-building slowed science as NC went t99 and Education was researched at about t115.



I made a few mistakes with cultural path, but had so many policies, it hardly mattered except for finishing time. I did the whole piety tree in about 15 turns late in the game. I never even finished Rationalism and still had 1200 BPT.

When we met the other continent, the Incans were well on their way to being a runaway. They were quite friendly with me. They were also nice enough to propose WF and IG (which I barely beat them at both times mostly because I got them to DoW the world and distracted them). Inca ended up with a civ score of 4609, which is about the highest I've seen.

Inca went Autocracy. I went Order. England and Songhai followed into Order and it was pretty much over when Incans had to convert around t250. They then became friendly again, opened their borders, and it was just a matter of wearing them down with tourism

Game could have been quicker if I'd managed my GM's better. I also detoured my tech path a bit in Industrial to make sure my defenses would hold up, so that slowed Internet.

Great map, and I've never had 4 more balanced and strong cities. Portugal now moves up on my list of favorite civs.




4 Balanced cities and God of the Sea was a great choice for Bonus belief:



Lack of coal and Uranium weren't a problem, although Poca taking out London and York where the Uranium was hiding gave me a bit of a scare. They didn't even have the tech to mine it until way too late.

The flexibility of this map, being able to switch back and forth between food and production, really made a difference. I'm going to keep that in mind when settling cities in the future.

Lastly, my hatred for Venice has grown. He's lost his capital and been kicked off his own continent. He's down to 1 CS that he MoV'd. He asks me for open borders. Not worrying about him, I allow it. 1 turn later, my game-long religious ally Geneva is wearing purple. What a jerk.

Well, on this map I did pretty much what everyone else did, score Petra and HG and then see the population sky higher than even the FoY can support

Things worth mentioning:

- I was very lucky with barbs, got a lot of free workers without breaking a sweat, they were literally coming inside my lands, like hey dude need any muscle
- Culture wonders were taken pretty quickly, so I guess it was obvious it would be another launch title. Liz and Harry around meant no RAs any time soon. Dandolo's massive amounts of gold helped out very much in the end.
- I had crappy culture per turn which delayed Scholasticism by a fair bit. I snowballed into the lead much earlier anyway and managed to score the Caesar rating somehow
- This is the second time I go Order and it definitely suits me better than Freedom somehow.

Also, Harry didn't really want me around so I asked my good buddy Askia to deal with him. Which Liz spotted and went at Askia as well. Double teamed, he was taken out very quickly and Liz would prove to be trouble. So I did what I usually don't, I accepted an invitation, Liz asked me to go hit Harry together, I was like let me prepare my Frigates and while neither of us killed Harry, I took two of his cities (one being a liberated CS) and gained an ally with a massive big navy for the rest of the game. It was also the first time I tested Frigates and they're really nice, usually I build a bunch of Privateers for defense so that I can have more ships after I'm attacked than before

Oh and, I had no idea Theo's UA works so that you can pick literally anything as a bonus, that means even a pantheon, hehs I never played that. Really OP map

I'm determined to go back and finish ALL the DCLs, and thought I'd get this one out of the way. I had actually finished this twice before - a really slow CV and a not-too-shabby DomV - but lost the save and all record of them. In replaying, I thought I'd practise my SV stuff. Turned out OK. Askia was a lifetime friend. Liz turned nasty at the end but hey, she's Liz.

Took DF and Goddess of Festivals as the bonus belief, to give a lot of early faith. But then Askia took Jesuits so I let him come in and replace my religion with his. Allowed me to faith buy all science buildings from Unis through to Labs. A lot of gold and hammers saved this way...

On the other continent, Pachacuti was committing mass genocide and Rameses was wonder-spamming while I tech-ed ahead and set everything up for an early finish.

The biggest problem was that I only had Askia as DoF when the time came and he didn't have much gold to borrow, so I wish I'd gone Order, really. But I just saved up enough to buy most of the parts and built a couple. I still need to work on my endgame. I think this map could easily be done ca. 210 if not earlier.

Mind you, I got really lucky with Wonders. I hard-built Petra on T80-something which is late, and when I was done, I noticed that HG and Oracle were still unbuilt too. What WAS Rameses doing???

Acken is right about coastal vs. mtn I feel. 3 cargo ships into 1 city ought not to be allowed, really.

Very peaceful game for the most part. Every time Denmark marched an army near my borders Askia was kind enough to distract for cheap. Never had a problem with England. She tried plotting against me a few times but never acted on it. Despite being the 5th Religion founded I was the only one on my continent to do so which helped diplomacy a lot!