The Deity Challenge Line-up #24 - Arabian nights

I can't very well play Arabia and not use those lovely camel archers, now can I? Besides Napoleon is quite dangerous and could use a haircut.

Navigating the tricky terrain to Lyon:



By t148 I've depleted Napoleon's carpet of pikes/knights/musketeers and have Orleans at its knees. Since I can't really handle more unhappiness I'll probably sue for peace, sadly. At least I should get some gold.



Things look good in the Arabian core, with a few problems:

1) I have great growth (leading in food), but production is still low.
2) Korea is really flying through the tech tree. Tradition/Peity/Rationalism Sejong has nabbed all the wonders I can usually reach (Pisa and Porcelain Tower, included!). He already has Sci Meth and Fertilizer.
3) Ideologies could be a problem this game.

The Empire:

Instead of making peace with France, as I planned, I decided to capture Orleans, flip it to Pocatello and take out Paris. Nice.

Now it is time to slow down Sejong. Just as I am getting the Camels into postion Sejong declared on Pocatello. This will make war easier:



A very slow, but successful, march to Seoul followed.

Genghis declared on me so now the camels are in the SW liberating the Mongols previous conquests. At this point most have Logistics and are working on Range.




At home I'm building an air force, so I guess this will be a Domination game. Currently I am first in tech and second in food/hammers (to Bismarck). Ideological pressure is an issue, but I should be able to keep it at 1-level.

Despite opposing Ideologies Bismarck and I remain friends -- so the German will liked be last on the hit list.

One weird thing did happen: a successful coup caused Bratislava to DoW me! I assume the previous ally (France) has the same influence as Korea, so when I coup'ed the influence tie between myself and Korea was resolved in his favour:

This was one of the more competitive and intelligent games I've ever seen the AI play. From start to finish, several civs made some pretty good decisions, and France and Korea were tech'ing harder than I'm used to seeing.

The start was close to ideal. I settled in place and knew I needed Petra to get any production out of the capital. Warrior went SW and stole a worker from Brazil on t6, went home to heal up, then went NE grabbed a ruin that gave me Calendar and found Katmandu to help found Desert Folklore. Scout sent SE, grabbed 2 culture ruins, a couple of pop ruins, and became an archer.

I hard built Petra t70 (no Gambit this time as there was a lot of desert out there and I didn't want to risk it). Germany seemed the most likely to go for Petra, so I joined Mongolia in an early DoW against them to slow them down.



Feeling so giddy about the Petra build, I then built HG, Oracle, and got a t90ish NC.

Cultural order was a bit unusual: Tradition Opener > Liberty Opener > Republic (to help w/ Petra build) > Citizenship > Aristocracy (to help w/Petra) > Finish Liberty > Finish Tradition > 1st 3 in Rationalism > Freedom > I threw in Commerce Opener for Big Ben > Finished Rationalism.

Free Settler went West to grab the faith Wonder (which I really needed at the end). 2nd Settler, right before Petra, went to the Copper to the East (and I immediately bought 2 tiles SE to block France's expansion and grab some desert sheep). Final Expo went to the coast up North.

I was pretty much just cruising along, making friends with France and Brazil, when Korea comes out of nowhere and builds PT. WTF? It was pretty early. I used Liberty GE finisher for SC, which saved me as I barely got through all of my needed SP.

I only had 4 horsies, and got 3 Camel Archers built just in time for America's sneak attack on me. It was a pretty impressive invasion, but the CA's are just so freakin good. I ended up taking Chicago and gave Washington an expensive peace. He tried to retake Chicago 3-4 times, but it was a good defensive location and I had FL's, and eventually artillery, so he just kept suiciding units and paying me to not counter-attack.

Money was rolling in all game and I kept tech'ing and upgrading units. I probably bought more buildings than I ever have. I did keep Wonder Mongering, picking up, in order: Petra, HG, Oracle, SC (GE), Eiffel (GE), SoL (GE), Cristo (GE), Hubble, Big Ben, and then used a naturally spawned GE to build GF on the final turn just for giggles.

About that naturally spawned GE.....I also let a GMerch spawn and he delivered 1000 much needed late gold. Arts Funding had been passed and I wasn't going to get any more GS, and that 1000 really saved the game.

I had been tech'ing pretty well all game, but didn't get the tech lead until I started bulbing after Labs. I then watched both Korea and France pass me back up in science.

France was a conundrum all game. Napolean was a science whore, built plenty of Wonders, had the strongest army most of the game, but never attacked me even though he was right on my doorstep and I bought numerous tiles away from him. He also didn't really want to DoF, but he was a good trading partner. Had he not been the only one in Autocracy, he likely would have won the science race, as he had 5 parts built at the end.

I was 4th to ideology, and thankfully Freedom was still there. Germany would join me in Freedom, but he was everyone's favorite whipping boy and ended up as an island nation.

Korea was a a$$ right from when I met him. He never wanted to be friendly, was very stingy in trading, and was a tech monster even though he didn't bother building spaceship parts.

Brazil did try one sneak attack, but sued for an expensive peace after about 5 turns of losing everything he sent into my territory.

I had considered more military conquest, but my empire was so wide and skinny, my borders were going to be hard to secure. I was just too vulnerable from too many angles. At the end, I built 3 SS parts and bought the last 3. I had a tone of GPT (400+ at the end) and just had to wait a few turns to accumulate enough gold to buy the last one. It was a bit worrisome at the end when France again passed me up in Science near the end, but I got one last faith GS (2500) to pop the final tech needed. I guess taking both Mosques and Pagodas paid off.

The camel army made one final push to Washington. They do have some Bomber support this time around, however



Next on the kill list is Pocatello. His army is too advanced and too large to handle with the camel archers, but X-COMs should do the job nicely.



While an assortment of old units deals with Brazil the X-COM squads handle the Germans - with a little Stealth Bomber support.



This game was definitely a technologically inspired domination victory, which I think is the easier option for a militaristic Deity game.

Berlin had ALL the happy wonders so when I captured it my global happiness jumped by 60 or so

While the end game was the usual romp this map is actually challenging. I would rate in above the "medium" difficulty of the recent Celt DCL, especially if someone misses Desert Folklore.

Accumulate faith, found cities, try to befriend with few, pay wars, take French cities, get Karakorum, wipe off Pedro, take Moson Kahni, wipe off Sejong, nuke Bismarck, destroy Poca & Nappy while hitting Washy with everything while converting last few cities and hoping that CSs help put as much as possible.
I took 8 or so cities in the last turn & still barely got into double digit negative. Happiness peaked ~65 few turns before the end.

Fun concept but extremely time consuming.

I was able to get Petra, but the capital was still a bit weak on hammers. After a while I got a really good science game going, but it was somewhat delayed because of Petra and the weak production. I should've had some fun with camel archers while I could, but had so much stuff to build so I teched to Radio before feeling comfortable enough to spend hammers on war. My economy was pretty bad until then as well.

I bulbed myself to artillery, flight and other key war-techs and took Paris - as revenge for stealing one of my city spots. The Shoshone, however, had become very strong - killing Germany and Korea outright and controlling the Mongolian capital. Since he was as strong as every other AI combined, it took a lot of effort to take just two cities from him. It left me in range of his capital, but after an endless stream of units, since noone else would DOW him, I found I'd just chillax and do an Order-SV. I had no chance of getting the DomV anyway, although I would've liked to have his capital.

My faith was very strong throughout the game, so I could buy a bunch of both scientists and engineers, and finished the SV at turn 291.

Interesting culture victory in which I founded 6 cities but didn't get any of the mid-Rennaissance wonders (or Oracle, or Petra). But did manage to get Desert Folklore which meant I could buy whatever I wanted. I've learnt that Archeology sites aren't that important, going into Exploration to get the Louvre is a BAD plan (I didn't do it this time and it was fine). Went into Freedom then faith engineered the SoL and then changed to Order, which was a perfect plan I think. I was about 6,7 techs past where I needed to be so could have won this at least 20 turns earlier easily. Bazaars are great for gold and happiness, and deserts are great for faith! Just checked the screenshot and it actually doesn't show I won but I assure you I did. Was sending 5 GMs to France but they were eliminated that same turn, so I spent 350GPT to Open Borders with Brazil (lol) and gave them Medina. Not particularly realistic but saved a few turns.

I just started and on T30 I got forward settled on the Mt Kailash spot by Pedro.

Looks like it's going to be a comp bow rush.

I restarted. This time I got DF from faith thanks to Vatican/Kathmandu, and I managed to camp the Mt. Kailash spot. This time I think Pedro got delayed because the barb camp there decided to send some handaxes at him.

Notes
*America has Statue of Zeus & Great Wall; Rio has Pyramids
*bought 1 settler, other from Liberty, so capital could keep growing
*bought 4 hills in capital to boost production for NC
T67 3-city NC. Pushed this pretty hard, building Libraries 1st in expos. Science up to 41
T76 Brazil has a Crossbow!
T81 build Oracle, finished Liberty; saved GS to bulb Chivalry
*DOW Brazil; they had 2 Crossbows
T85 captured Rio de Janeiro (Pyramids)
T90 wiped out Brazil
T92 Chivalry. Enough gold to upgrade 8/10 chariots (getting extra horses from CS ally and trade deal)
T93 DOW France
T104 captured Paris; wiped out France
T113 captured Moson Kahni (Alhambra, Chichen Itza, Machu Picchu, Notre Dame, Temple of Artemis!)
T120-ish captured Seoul
T129 captured Berlin (Hagia Sophia and Stonehenge)
T138 captured Karakorum
T147 captured Washington (Great Wall, Mausoleum, Zeus, Terracotta). The end.

Pretty solid dirt around despite the huge lack of strategic resources. I think it would have been a real fun playing this map with a piety diplomatic victory as well.

Still, nothing really weird to report aside from damn Korea who decided to go rationalism so i only catch up and went #1 in science when i burned my stock of GSs. Could have done a lot better i believe. Probably if i had took reformation earlier as i only got it to insta buy 4 labs with my 2.5k faith i had in stock. And even then, i had enough gold to buy most unis and schools before. Again i think messed up somewhere before reaching renaissance. I think the thing that slowed me down the most was the agressive tile buying from the AIs. Check the screenshot and see how little dirt i have in bagdad, medine and Damas on the borders.

Overall :

NC 4 city turn 90/95 (which is bad i guess)
Education turn 114 (again, bad)
Got DOWed soon after by Napoleon which smashed his face on the mountain pass with medieval units and even musketeers. Took Chartres he settled a short time before DOWing me and i was planning to settle a 5th city anyway. Maybe a thing that slowed me.
ST turn 165 (hmm kay)
Plastics turn 190 or so
Got slowed down by a war from nowhere from germany and america while teching to victory around Turn 250 (those pricks... DOF all the way. But i had Brazil in between and even then i had enough units to stop any assault)
Win. (Sejong had built all 3 space rockets)

Managed to grab oracle, sisteen chapel, eiffel tower, SoL, late Neuschwanstein. Missed PT right before using my GG on it (obviously, korea had only took the opener so couldnt anticipate) and i hesitated between SS and Taj Mahal (not too long though). SS was the right choice as TM got built by Napoleon instantly so my GG would have been lost. It was turn 162/163 and 3/4 wonders were built in those 2 turns. Insane

Policies wise i went full tradition, then opened piety + 1 policy, then rationalism opener + secularism then went reformation. Grabbed liberty after radio (popped oxford on it), and took the time to buff my culture and basic tourism. (GEed Eiffel Tower). Then i took 3 more rationalism policies, leaving just the research agreement one for the finisher i used on satelites.

I went into happiness problem after Order world ideology passed the same turn i commited to make my religion World Religion. But i used diplomats and trade routes to get exotic on every civs. Immediatly got World Ideology abrogate using expensive trades.

Very end game was quiet even though i got massed denounced (why, no idea... maybe should have denounced both germans and americans after war.) so i couldnt grab money. I was spitting +200 GPT though and had built maybe 2 banks ? Makes me regret not focusing more on GPT. Maybe that could have helped scrubbing 10 turns by buying an extra launcher and not hardbuild it.

Anyway, was a fun game with powerfull lands and religion. But still not the walk in the park where you just go through the game without any need to focus. As always, couldnt end the game with even one friend despite having full green with 6/8 civilization for the entire game. (beside ideology and the very short World Religion red flag)

And here are the screens.