The Deity Challenge Line-up #40 - Korea

@zxcvbob

Sounds like it might be a bit of a stretch for you just at the moment, yes.

You should be able to settle 2/3 extra cities and build NC by T90 in every game at the Deity level, really.

Standard Deity peaceful opening in a nutshell

1. Build 2 scouts and send them looking for other civs, CS, ruins, etc.
2. Steal or build a bunch of workers and use them to improve PRODUCTION FIRST (farms can come later when you have Civil Service)
3. With a combination of working production tiles (hopefully improved) and chopping forests, get 2/3 settlers out quickly, and get Granaries + Libraries built in them (plus maybe a couple of Archers for early defence/barb hunting)
4. After researching Lux techs, Beeline Philosophy and time it so that it completes after finishing libraries everywhere. Built NC in Capital.
5. After Philosophy, drop down the tech tree and get Currency, etc, then Civil Service. Farm up the river tiles.
6. Beeline Education and build or buy universities.

After this you can follow any path you like.

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@adcarrymaokai

I replied to your earlier post, but it seems to have disappeared. Mods don't usually delete without a message, and there was nothing unsuitable in it, so I have to assume it's a glitch.

The points I made, in short, were:-

1. Compare like for like. My comment was T184, ST's was T150, and your example was T147. Very different times in the game.
2. Korea are miles better than the Shoshone.
3. Good, as I used it, meant 'good', not 'middling', as I said previously.
4. While not as fast for SV, a DomV game will often have higher raw beaker output by T180ish, especially if you were given 2nd or 3rd cities in peace deals prior to getting their capital. In the DCL#5, for example, I think I had several 2nd cities belonging to Tradition AIs, plus their capitals, all annexed, all with Public Schools. I'm pretty sure (from memory) that I was over 1000BPT at around T200.

Anyway, I hope you accept these disclaimers, and ST's

Warmongering on deity is usually going to delay science. If you're after fast science, you have to stay peaceful through whatever means possible. Try to learn the techniques for bribing and getting good diplo. Early things such as external caravans to leech science also works well on deity. I don't see how you can gain speed by conquering unless you have Venice next door with tons of wonders or get gifted large cities in peace deal. Also if you do not have enough happiness to build 4 cities before NC, you should do 3, then settle 4th once the NC is completed.

By T184, the turn in question, AI cities are huge. If you're conquered a bunch and annexed them, this gives you a large BPT. This does not make for faster SVs because the tech costs are increased. I don't know how many times I need to say the same things.

So, I realize I am a little late to the party, but this map looked cool, and Korea is a very interesting civ in my opinion, so I decided give my first OCC a try.
Here's how I stand at t150: 323 bpt; 130 cpt(in golden age) and 53 fpt, with Cap size 29. Radio was researched a few turns ago, and I am now making my way towards Plastics, with 4 GS (and more on the way) eagerly awaiting that benchmark.

Heres how I did it:

Technology: Pottery -> Animal H; Writing (Ruin) -> Calendar -> Philosophy (GL) -> Beeline Mathematics, then Civil Service, then Education (t85) -> Beeline Compass for Astronomy (Oxford) -> Beeline for Scientific Theory (t132), then Radio (t148).

Initial BO: 3xScout -> (Granary) -> GL (~t23) -> Granary (finish) -> NC (~t37) -> Caravans etc. -> Hanging Gardens (t48).

Faith: Pantheon at ~t35 (God-King, just for fun ); Religion at t80 (Tithe; Religious community); Enhanced ~t110 (Divine Inspi; Religious Texts)

Social Policies: Tradition (full); Patronage opener (+3 top policies); Rationalism (left side first); Freedom

The main difference for me from playing a multi-city game has been that my usual chop-rushing stategy to spit out 3-4 settlers before t35 instead was adapted to snagging a few classical wonders (especially GL(!)), that have been crucial for the rest of the game. Writing was obtained from a ruin around t13, and 4xchop-rush + the policy allowed me to finish it before anyone else.
Education came pretty fast, and I was able to sign 5 RAs by turn 92, and have been able to renew them since. Needless to say, this focus on tech has left me ca. one age ahead of everyone by now, so victory is all but assured, unless a cruel chain of DoWs happen soon.

OzymandiasDK said:

The main difference for me from playing a multi-city game has been that my usual chop-rushing stategy to spit out 3-4 settlers before t35 instead was adapted to snagging a few classical wonders (especially GL(!)), that have been crucial for the rest of the game. Writing was obtained from a ruin around t13, and 4xchop-rush + the policy allowed me to finish it before anyone else.
Education came pretty fast, and I was able to sign 5 RAs by turn 92, and have been able to renew them since. Needless to say, this focus on tech has left me ca. one age ahead of everyone by now, so victory is all but assured, unless a cruel chain of DoWs happen soon.

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You got the GL? What turn did you manage that? Typically it is gone by 40 or 50 at worst.

OzymandiasDK said:

So, I realize I am a little late to the party, but this map looked cool, and Korea is a very interesting civ in my opinion, so I decided give my first OCC a try.
Here's how I stand at t150: 323 bpt; 130 cpt(in golden age) and 53 fpt, with Cap size 29. Radio was researched a few turns ago, and I am now making my way towards Plastics, with 4 GS (and more on the way) eagerly awaiting that benchmark.

Heres how I did it:

Technology: Pottery -> Animal H; Writing (Ruin) -> Calendar -> Philosophy (GL) -> Beeline Mathematics, then Civil Service, then Education (t85) -> Beeline Compass for Astronomy (Oxford) -> Beeline for Scientific Theory (t132), then Radio (t148).

Initial BO: 3xScout -> (Granary) -> GL (~t23) -> Granary (finish) -> NC (~t37) -> Caravans etc. -> Hanging Gardens (t48).

Faith: Pantheon at ~t35 (God-King, just for fun ); Religion at t80 (Tithe; Religious community); Enhanced ~t110 (Divine Inspi; Religious Texts)

Social Policies: Tradition (full); Patronage opener (+3 top policies); Rationalism (left side first); Freedom

The main difference for me from playing a multi-city game has been that my usual chop-rushing stategy to spit out 3-4 settlers before t35 instead was adapted to snagging a few classical wonders (especially GL(!)), that have been crucial for the rest of the game. Writing was obtained from a ruin around t13, and 4xchop-rush + the policy allowed me to finish it before anyone else.
Education came pretty fast, and I was able to sign 5 RAs by turn 92, and have been able to renew them since. Needless to say, this focus on tech has left me ca. one age ahead of everyone by now, so victory is all but assured, unless a cruel chain of DoWs happen soon.

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Oh this is quite lovely. Let's wait and see if you will piss some people off of you will be allowed to sail into space Rooting for a 260ish win. Early game culture alliances are a godsend in science games, and Scholasticism is very strong in this setup

That's some insane early game, I would love to see your timing for late game after Plastics. That's usually where my OCC games fall short.

In my OCC, I hit Plastics somewhere in the 180 area. I didn't have Scholasticism though and this means a lot for OCC

I controlled most of the city states through bribes/election rigging since t160, so I decided to go for a diplomatic victory, since I was pretty well setup for that.
Finished Plastics t164 with the Rationalism finisher, and bulbed my 7 GS at t172 to reach the Information Era and trigger diplomatic victory elections shortly thereafter.
I think a sub-t240 Scientific victory would also have been possible, if I had focused on that instead, and I might try that just for fun.
I guess the key to keeping the science coming out faster as Korea in OCC is to have as many specialists in your cap as possible, at least after reaching secularism (Rationalism tree), +4 Science/specialist is just too much to overlook!

I'm at turn 286 in a new game. Settled next to the mountain again. Found a goody hut that gave +1 population and I immediately started a settler. (maybe I should have waited for it to hit 3) I settled on the coast next to . Got my national college as quickly as I could, then spent all my gold on a settler and headed east to settle in all those cattle. Of course as soon as I started moving that direction a barbarian camp popped up and my archer escort wasn't enough to fight them off. I had to retreat and brought my starting warrior and scout over and the 3 of them were able to clear out all the barbs and settle a city, but it took a lot of turns. Shoshone had a pathfinder nearby but he just watched.

Pocatello started his settler spam around turn 100. I could have settled another city before he claimed all the land but didn't want to stunt one of my cities, and 4 cities is harder to defend than 3.

I was friends with everybody; open borders all around for most of the game. Got a religion again. Having trouble keeping it again because Catherine's religion is so strong, but Seoul is holding it's own.

I am number one in science but only barely ahead of Shoshone. I'm building Hubble Space Telescope right now. Just captured Moscow, then immediately offered peace. I could have wiped her out, but don't want to piss off Japan, also she *might* have recaptured Moscow and I didn't want to lose all its good buildings. My workers are building a railroad to it. Not sure if I should burn most of my faith to buy an inquisitor...

I think Alexander is going to win a diplo victory. I have Treaty Organization, but I can't even hold onto 1 CS ally (my source of aluminum) because he has so much gold to throw at them -- plus he's Alex. Pocatello could wipe me out in just a few turns if he took a mind to. I need to get him at war with Alex. I paid Monty to goto war with Kate (about 40 turns before I declared war myself), and he took my money and never fired a shot, but it was rumored he has a large naval fleet with embarked land units headed my way for a sneak attack and that never happened, so maybe my bribe paid off afterall. (or the rumor might have been false and I just wasted my money, who knows)

I started watching one of Acken's deity culture LP's. I was amazed at how many workers he stole! I didn't steal any. I maybe could have stolen one from Yerevan, but I never saw them produce a worker, plus I wanted to be at least friends with them. (maybe stealing a worker doesn't really hurt diplomacy that much; England didn't seem to mind when Acken stole them) I captured 3 barbarian settlers with a scout around turn 200 or so, from three different civs all huddled together, but I returned them all because it would take me 30 turns or more to get them back home.

I wish I had some oil. I'm buying 2 oil from Japan (giving him iron and GPT) for my battleships, and that deal will end soon. I couldn't have captured Moscow without them.

BTW, what does "expo" mean? I didn't see that term in the FAQ's but it's used a lot here. Is it different than just founding a city? (I guess the distinction might be that it's not a captured city)

Question: Why do you go to war in the late game, and capturing cities? It increases tech cost and it takes a very long time to get out of resistance. Even if she declared war, you don't actually have to fight an offensive war.

Also, you should put other civ's name and Natural Wonders in spoiler tags, or not directly reference them.

The other thing is, what kind of victory are you aiming for?

Also, you should put other civ's name and Natural Wonders in spoiler tags, or not directly reference them.

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I'm sorry. I will be much more careful about that. I thought this late in the thread that all was revealed already. Editing this now not to reveal anything else.

I'm going for a science victory, but not sure how to get there because Pocatello is right behind me in tech, and he has plenty of resources and production. (it really hurt when I got beat to the Statue of Liberty by 5 turns) I'm not going to win, but I'm going to play this one out.

I went to war because her tourism output was so high, plus she had a diplomat in my capital and was sending me trade routes, shared religion (hers), and she had a different ideology. The unhappiness was dragging me down and my people would revolt soon. Also she had denounced me, she had a larger military than I did (everybody had a larger military), and if I waited much longer she and Japan would have double-teamed me. This way, Japan would stay out of it because of a research agreement and a declaration of friendship that was nearing its end.

Moscow will add a lot of production to my empire when it comes out of resistance. And it has resources I need.

zxcvbob said:

I'm at turn 286 in a new game. Settled next to the mountain again. Found a goody hut that gave +1 population and I immediately started a settler. (maybe I should have waited for it to hit 3) I settled on the coast next to (wonder spoiler)[/B]

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I also hit the +1 pop on the turn I founded and built a settler immediately, with worker chops to help. However, I didn't settle on the coast, so our games diverged after that. I treated this similar to when I get 500 gold from El Dorado - I want a 2nd city out ASAP.

OzymandiasDK said:

Initial BO: 3xScout -> (Granary) -> GL (~t23)

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So I was like, let's beeline to writing. Pre-chopped all the forests, got Writing on t21, GL gone on t22. Alrighty then. -___-

You could've saved before you started building the great library and then reload when the great library was gone to put production on something.

Pretty sure you can't get GL without hitting a tech ruin with writing. It simply takes too long to research. That's why I say GL is almost impossible on deity, requires that much luck. I would be even more impressed if he did it without any reloading.

I am teching faster than I can afford building (and WF is coming). The plan is to XCOM rush everybody, but I already had to reload and bribe Alex away. He is quite... strong.

Sclb said:

Pretty sure you can't get GL without hitting a tech ruin with writing. It simply takes too long to research. That's why I say GL is almost impossible on deity, requires that much luck.

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Generally, I agree, but I would say that these map conditions make it less difficult, because of the advanced start (worker + scout) and , which makes it more likely that you get one (or several) tech ruins.

In my case, when I popped a tech ruin t13 with writing, I reloaded a couple of turns back to change my workers chop-rush of a Granary to pre-chopping for GL. But I would not say the GL is essential to perform well in a game. It is useful in a OCC game, but in a regular game, I would prefer to get out at least three settlers before t35 to having a cap with GL (and NC), but no expansions around the same time. It simply takes too much time and resources in the latter case to be worth it.

Lost on turn 326; You Know Who won a culture victory. I built whatever piece you uncover at Satellites (cockpit?), had 2 engines almost finished, and enough gold saved up to buy 2 parts. I would be farther along except I had to research Ecology and build recycling centers because I was at -1 aluminum. I still needed to research Particle Physics and had a turn or two to go on Mobile Tactics first; all that would have taken about 10 turns unless I got another GS in time. But a GS wouldn't really help because I needed to hard-building that last engine -- about 12 turns with Seoul on production focus, maybe 11 if I starved 'em.

The odd thing is that I was friends with almost everyone at the end, even civs with different ideologies that had been hostile a little earlier.

I think I'm going to try one of the Immortal challenges; maybe the America one. I'm not ready for Deity.

zxcvbob said:

I'm not ready for Deity.

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I don't think you should be discouraged. You are doing okay! T326 is a little on the fast side for the AI to win. My second try at this map I took until 339 to get an SV. Had this not been Korea, I would have been perfectly content with that finish time.

Unlike most here, I struggle with peaceful Deity wins. It comes down to if you find the challenge more interesting than frustrating. The next DCL in the series, #41 Shoshone, might be an easy SV. It does not look like anyone is trying that though...