The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game #9 - Rome

I'd be surprised if the game wasn't winnable - being less than 10% behind the tech lead at roughly T200 surely isn't an indication of a doomed game. In most cases one has surpassed AI by then but the glorious incompetence of AI is just about to start to kick in when it's making decisions based on ildigested Ideology choices. In rare case everyone chooses the same the inevitable late war is delayed but not avoided which leaves quite a few options to catch up. Overestimating the late game AI is one of the few consistent things in the game. Whether the late game is fun from a bad position is another matter.
This obviously is slightly speculative but you can offer a save from that point so peeps can check out your situation more closely.

Sadly/mercifully, I don't have a save anywhere near my point of despair. However, your point is well taken. When I played countless hours of Immortal/Marathon games, I always knew I could fight my way out of anything, mostly by wars of attrition. Perhaps I'm overestimating Deity……..I've only been playing at this level for a few months.

I don't think I've had to come back from this type of a tech deficit before. When you're in the tech lead, you don't really notice AI incompetence, as you call it, as you're always shooting cavalry with tanks (so to speak).

I will replay this map soon enough, and will endeavor not to rage-quit.
 
I don't think I've had to come back from this type of a tech deficit before. When you're in the tech lead, you don't really notice AI incompetence, as you call it, as you're always shooting cavalry with tanks (so to speak).

Yup, but being an era behind isn't that bad while obviously an era ahead makes life much easier. The scary moment is when AI has endless GWBs and there's nothing with double cover on the ground and the same time naval battles turn into Frigate vs Ironclad which is deadly.

After some data mining from a HD I found this.
Spoiler :




Only major difference is happiness, I'm worse off with tech but otherwise doing better. I'd say the main difference here is diplomacy - I had 4 friends even after wiping Genghis off and leaving everyone's BFF Gandhi with just one city.
 
Yup, but being an era behind isn't that bad while obviously an era ahead makes life much easier. The scary moment is when AI has endless GWBs and there's nothing with double cover on the ground and the same time naval battles turn into Frigate vs Ironclad which is deadly.

My situation was about to turn into Frigates (them) vs. Rubber Duckies (me). Remember, I chose to go for Flight and build factories (fail) rather than beelining Artillery and build Frigates while tech-ing. That left me with 6 Foreign Legions vs. a pretty good spam-army/nave from Ottomans.

In any case, I lied to you earlier. I did locate the save from when I quit. Here it is, and I'd love to hear your thoughts after looking the situation over more closely. On this turn, Sully Citadel-bombs my best source of Oil and my coal expires. Only saving grace is I did steal Refrigeration a few turns earlier, so I did have access to some oil.

View attachment Augustus Caesar_0214 AD-1520.Civ5Save
 
No surprises in last few turns but I didn't want to prolong the end anymore than T305.

Spoiler :




T208 DoW hostile Suleiman, T213 Maria went Atomic which I celebrated by getting 1st logistics Frigate next turn and surprised by my last success in WF I tried to win it again instead of sticking with 350 hammers as usually - I think it's safe to say slightly would've also been sufficient.
T226 I stole Plastics from Maria and bought 4 RLabs in few turns - only buildings I bought in satellites.




T231 I killed Suleiman by liberating Cape Town again. T238 Neuschwanstein, Hiawatha had an Order revolution which I wasn't too happy about, T241 Prora hard build for the first time in my games, T244 up to Clausewitz with Autocracy as I was expecting a long and tough war, T245 stole Atomic Theory and T246 DoWed Maria with Hiawatha.
Took Braga on same turn, sold it to Hiawatha in hope of quick recapture by Maria as I wanted it with lower pop for faster annex but that took 8 turns and all that time Hiawatha blocked the tile from which Lisbon was reachable in one turn so my navy was running idle for a while. Braga also had Kremlin & SOP so it was a nice city to have as a foothold. The Gibraltar look-a-like path through Funchal & Leiria looked too dangerous. Taking Lisbon made made the world to denounce me. Resurrected China T255 to have a friendly face nearby but that didn't last long.




A couple of turns later the less than mighty trio of Pedro, Gandhi & Kame DoWed me but the pic pretty accurately describes the efficiency of their effort. Only lost few Frigates to hungry Subs as the general lack of oil in the world made peeps going Greenpeace mode in their war machine and avoid oil based units.




T262 Satellites, T266 took & lost Rio, wiped off Kame and captured Beijing after which Hiawatha backstabbed, too & offered DoF on next turn - AI really doesn't like to see foreign nukes doing fly-bys. T270 was off the map and Pedro followed T272. By now Hiawatha had captured Rio from Maria and looked much more manageable than the original 39 pop.
Hiawatha and his 34 cities are about to get it just as my 60+ turn GA ended and WC had first leader vote.



T280 Hubble, T281 Exploration opened as Autocracy ran out of anything useful, T282 lost Honolulu and T284 Istanbul is falling.
The interesting part here is the origins of the defending units - 1 build, 1 bought, GG spawned and 1 airlifted is there's an Airport but where did that 4th one come from as there was no one in anywhere near the city. Down South are still few units after burning Pedro's cities.




Game ends as I didn't bother converting the last few CSs.




Just finished GFW for lack of anything else to build. 6 settled cities, 27 in total. 38 cities following Tengriism, one major CS city Taoism and 5 waiting for better offers. I had 2 prophets and a missionary left in the end but the start was so crappy I pretty much gave up the religion business as it seemed impossible to do it in reasonable time. On hindsight sparing few from Autocracy to Piety would've been enough as Maria was almost as dangerous as wet celery nor did I have any faith bought buildings. The weirdest part was Hiawatha settling beside both religious NWs managed to avoid religion alltogether. A nice full dozen manyfactories planted, though.




Due to perpetual global bonfire I didn't build Oxford nor finish Rationalism but for a change made half a dozen RAs. Far too many policies on Autocracy as I though I needed them at the time but ridiculous happiness in the end. There were only very turns with negative happiness even when I had half a dozen cities razing. Plan b was to give Hiawatha's cities to Wu and the recapture later with less pop but that wasn't needed. I let few twin city CS allies to go to India & China so I could raze the heretic ones of the pair.

The start wasn't as bad as I expected but the lack of happiness due to avoiding early scouting and meeting peeps slowed things down a bit - not a problem in itself but Maria running away that fast was worthy of noticing but then again I was keen on religious domination so dropping off the pace was expected.


 
Here it is, and I'd love to hear your thoughts after looking the situation over more closely.

I might be too tired by now to be the sharpest tool in the box but I just don't get what VC are you aiming for so few observations and questions rather than solutions.

-all specialist slots filled but Humanism before Secularism
-only internal TRs while you have much happiness to play with. Those are more suitable with Tradition
- DoWed someone whom with you had DoF - that really needs a good reason and no wonder the peeps don't like you
- you have double Ivory and others willing to pay for it
- where's that faith stack planned to be used
- NC on a 2nd city which isn't beside a mountain nor the largest city
- capital with 4 workable sea tiles but no Harbor or Seaport not running all of them but a city without Lighthouse
- all three spies in allied CSs
- more than half the map still in fog
- etc

Generally I don't get where have all the hammers gone and the situation is worse than I expected but I still don't think it's necessarily doomed.
 
I might be too tired by now to be the sharpest tool in the box but I just don't get what VC are you aiming for so few observations and questions rather than solutions.

-all specialist slots filled but Humanism before Secularism
-only internal TRs while you have much happiness to play with. Those are more suitable with Tradition
- DoWed someone whom with you had DoF - that really needs a good reason and no wonder the peeps don't like you
- you have double Ivory and others willing to pay for it
- where's that faith stack planned to be used
- NC on a 2nd city which isn't beside a mountain nor the largest city
- capital with 4 workable sea tiles but no Harbor or Seaport not running all of them but a city without Lighthouse
- all three spies in allied CSs
- more than half the map still if fog
- etc

Generally I don't get where have all the hammers gone and the situation is worse than I expected but I still don't think it's necessarily doomed.

I'll answer as best as I can recall.

1. At the time, I did a rough calculation of which gave more immediate science, therefore humanism. I probably should have popped a GW to get both.
2. I went to internal TR's because growth was lacking. 1st 2 early TR's were external.
3. The DoW w/ Polynesia came at Portugal's request. I was desperate to get Portugal fighting ANYONE. Bad choice, obviously.
4. I had my resource trades maxed for awhile. Recent wars may have changed that.
5. The NC in 2nd city was the first major mistake. My thought was at least I could build a garden there. I rarely build it anywhere but capital. In this case, 2nd city had growth/production mid-game problems and this really slowed me down. It was a bad gamble and not thought out properly. Some of the thought was that would free up Rome to build other buildings.
6. I rarely build harbors. Mistake? Seaport tech was recent and it was on the build list soon. Not sure which city didn't have the lighthouse? If you mean Cumae, those whales just got into the city's reach recently. Gold problems prevented earlier purchase.
7. 1 spy just recently went to CS (he had just stolen Refrigeration). I wanted the CS allies for my lacking strategic resources. I do often cease spying around this point in the game, but then again, I normally have tech lead by now.
8. I was late getting any ocean-crossing ability, so the scouting suffered. I only built 1 early explorer and he became an archer. I didn't send out any missionaries and lone extra GP, who would have gone exploring got taken out.

Again, I appreciate the feedback. I did a lot of things this game I wouldn't normally do, and…….you can see the results. I'm ok with occasionally not following the "script", but in this game, each deviation seemed to not work and it turned into a snowball effect.
 
I did a lot of things this game I wouldn't normally do, and…….you can see the results. I'm ok with occasionally not following the "script", but in this game, each deviation seemed to not work and it turned into a snowball effect.

2.You're happiness limited with growth, not surplus food limited hence the food routes seemed an odd choice and especially the 3 most recent ones.
3. That's generally a really, really bad idea unless you're the military and/or economic powerhouse in the game and likely the core of yours problems.
6. No, you don't need Harbors/Seaports everywhere especially if you're running internal TRs but Rome could use extra hammers and some other city dedicated building Navy as Rome should be building rather than units if possible.
7. Rigging CSs is fine but the upgraded 007s are usually better off somewhere else than in a CS that's already comfortably your ally.
8. I shouldn't be pointing out bad scouting after refusing to build triremes on this map but still, a scout or running around as long as there's a CS to find is usually beneficial. On maps like this one doesn't need Astronomy for effective exploring.
With that cpt rate and unlikely sci victory you could've bought a couple of prophets and convert Suleiman's cities and make few CS quests - nice extra cash and reputation, Suleiman would be less hostile and using his faith on Mosques which are handy by the time you'll capture his cities.

I've given up doing things normally and experimenting is fine but DoWing someone with DoF really didn't need any more experimenting:p
I don't know how much use would a replay be but if possible I'd start just before the crucial backstabbing.
 
I finished with a turn 296 Culture victory. Battleship rush was a satisfying mix of challenging and successful -- Battleships are pretty beastly, but they're ridiculously expensive to upgrade. It costs 390 gold to turn a Frigate into a Battleship?!? AND you need oil? Jeeez.

After the first war I felt I had gotten what I needed and didn't bother fighting anymore. Rest of the game was kind of a boring rampfest, but I did set a personal record for tourism output -- nearly 1,100. Probably cost myself a good 20 turns by being too cautious about proposing International Games. I also maybe could've won faster if I exterminated Polynesia or Portugal, but I get bored quickly with war. Would rather just finish the game fast and start another one.

Spoiler :
Longer writeup link:
http://manpanzeegames.blogspot.com/2014/10/civ-v-deity-challenge-rome-exploration_16.html

The ex-Brazilian lands:
Spoiler :


Final tourism:
Spoiler :

 

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2.You're happiness limited with growth, not surplus food limited hence the food routes seemed an odd choice and especially the 3 most recent ones.
3. That's generally a really, really bad idea unless you're the military and/or economic powerhouse in the game and likely the core of yours problems.
6. No, you don't need Harbors/Seaports everywhere especially if you're running internal TRs but Rome could use extra hammers and some other city dedicated building Navy as Rome should be building rather than units if possible.
7. Rigging CSs is fine but the upgraded 007s are usually better off somewhere else than in a CS that's already comfortably your ally.
8. I shouldn't be pointing out bad scouting after refusing to build triremes on this map but still, a scout or running around as long as there's a CS to find is usually beneficial. On maps like this one doesn't need Astronomy for effective exploring.
With that cpt rate and unlikely sci victory you could've bought a couple of prophets and convert Suleiman's cities and make few CS quests - nice extra cash and reputation, Suleiman would be less hostile and using his faith on Mosques which are handy by the time you'll capture his cities.

I've given up doing things normally and experimenting is fine but DoWing someone with DoF really didn't need any more experimenting:p
I don't know how much use would a replay be but if possible I'd start just before the crucial backstabbing.

I guess I didn't realize that the DoW was going to be THAT detrimental. I was kind of thinking that the ideological differences were going to bring unwanted wars anyways (as is often the case), but I certainly would prefer to have some say in when and where those wars take place (like maybe 15 turns later when I had GWB's). Is there some list that gives how severe different diplomatic penalties are?

Oh, and to answer a previous question, my intent for the massive bank of Faith was to finish Rationalism eventually and spam GS. Again, I don't normally send out GP's or Missionaries, as the cost/benefit has never made sense for me. Also, as I mentioned, I normally would have long since finished Tradition and would have popped a GE for one of the important wonders by now (I missed PT by 5 turns and I could have had another GE ready for SoL).

Because I'm a stubborn SOB, I am going to replay this game. It looks like my next-most-recent save is going to go back to t22, which is fine as it will let me go Tradition.
 
I played until t200 and got mired in some wars of attrition and quit because I was still pretty far behind in tech. I really want to try to emulate glory7's playthrough for educational purposes though.
 
T265 update

Spoiler :

got battleship tech - and trashing Portugal, some minor happiness issues due to keeping too many useless puppets .. Got city in range (+ optional carriers) to bomb Honolulu to oblivion, XP buildings and the money to make it happen .. I give this game 15 extra turns max - hopefully less ..Didn't get to pillage many cargo ships vs Portugal (manage to pillage 6 in the same turn in teh same spot vs Iroquois :) )

Again I'm experiencing upload difficulties (large file - poor connection - it gets corrupted during upload ~24 hour long process - youtube complains it cannot process the file - need to restart) .. Might not be able to get next episodes up until Monday
 
I also maybe could've won faster if I exterminated Polynesia or Portugal, but I get bored quickly with war. Would rather just finish the game fast and start another one.

I love the quote in Bold Print. Alot of times I feel the same way... let's hurry up and get to the next game lol!! In my own game I kinda rushed a bit but while I was away on the cruise ship I thought maybe I could still take India out and stop the AI CV. I might try it out since if the AI is gonna win it will not be too much longer.
 
t309 SV - looks like the slowest finish so far. I really thought I was going to lose this one, and almost quit midway...
Spoiler :
So much for a CV - soon after my last post Pedro, Maria, and Captain Underpants were clearly going nuts with culture, so decided on SV. I immediately regretted going Liberty, as I hate not getting faith GEs.

Khan stayed alive a remarkably long time - I love trading with remote warmongers. Sul was my only real threat, as he had a big navy, and although I had Frigates first, he had BBs first. Only one war, which he was willing to end quickly. Later I got China and then India to DOW him, and they killed him off just before game ended.

Maria was in the lead the whole game, and I could not get her in any wars. She finally attacked Underpants and took one city (I think she nuked a second). She went Order, followed by Iroq, later Brazil and Sul; Underpants went Autocracy (which I don't recall seeing him do before) then China; I went Freedom (3rd ideology), followed by India. Underpants became the least-liked later. Strangely, I could bribe Gandhi to DOW anyone but Maria, I thought he was more peaceful. I was hit with so much resistance it was silly. Once I got 6 deep In Freedom the 3rd and 4th in Exploration really helped with happy and gold.

The early happy hits kept some of my expos small until late, even then none got to pop 20. I lost on several wonders by 5 turns or less (really needed Eiffel), which wrecked my plans to use the UA effectively as my expos got ahead of Rome on some buildings. The killer was losing SoL to India by a few turns - what is the point of Freedom without it? I did manage to get Hubble and Neuschwanstein - which helped me breathe easier. Maria built 4 SS parts and had the tech lead all game except for when I bulbed to Adv Ball about t280 and when I bulbed again with 6 turns to go. I only bought the last part - had SS Factories in 2 expos.

Map-wise, I enjoyed the "shape" and the 9 players, but the governor drove me nuts picking snow and tundra over hills and forest all game. Also strongly disliked no coal or aluminum, and was amazed that I had plenty of both through trades. I never built a Legion or Ballista.
 

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T244 CV
Who's moving on to Beyond Earth when it's released later this month? I plan to so this will probably be my last time playing in these lineup games. They've been a lot of fun though.

Although Civ6 (BE) seems like it has some new ideas that might make game play a bit more fun I will not ever buy or play that game most likely. How can the next Civ game not have historical leaders!? I seen the previews of the game and I wish they would of called it Fantasy Civ. I wish they would just improve our Civ games or make Civ V more like Civ IV without stack attack. Bring back the Whip please lol :) I used to love being in Slavery and after the time period was up all my citizens would want it abolished!
 
Definitely a harder map than some of the recent challenges, but I think that was the point. :)

Spoiler :
This map looked difficult from the very beginning, money, production, and happiness were all going to be very poor. I settled in the best food spot I could find, the 3 whale + 2 fish location. Scouting showed there was a really strong coastal production location, where I eventually settled Cumae, so naval domination was a strong possibility. I went for a standard 4 city, full tradition approach, mainly to avoid piling on additional complications, on top of what I could already see. Early runes were really good: culture, population, and two techs. Despite building early shrines, the lack of city states and nearby AIs also meant that it looked like I needed to pick on Lhasa for workers, and therefore I did not get a religion. I guess I could have hard built them. :lol: Education did not hit until T116. I did manage to line up social policies and tech perfectly to go into rationalism during the first turn of Renaissance. No early wonders, not even the Oracle. My people were barely surviving with an economy based upon whale blubber and scrimshaw, and a diet of fish guts.



The entire mid-game was spent just trying to get my economy and tech rate out of the gutter, while struggling with happiness issues. The only thing that appeared to be going well was population, due to internal trade routes, but that was also just putting more pressure on happiness, so sort of a vicious cycle. The first wonder that I actually got was Porcelain Tower. My economic and happiness issues did not start to clear up until around T150-160, when I had finally trained up a spy and got a couple of successful coups. Suddenly, I had enough money freed up to actually do something in this game. Did I mention that most AIs went Patronage? City states bribes were a large drain on my economy, especially after it took so long to meet more than a handful of city states.

At this point, it was a choice, either go all in with a possible naval domination victory, or push for a science victory. I was never in contention for a culture victory. The choice became clear to me when Portugal went Rationalism, and I was still trying to gain the tech lead. For a player with limited naval domination experience, the possibility of naval domination was off the table, as I risked getting seriously out-teched by Maria if anything went wrong. The AI diplomacy was also really tight, so attacking anyone other than Mongolia or Ottomans looked iffy. Scientific theory came T167, which was not great, but not terrible, so I began to push for a Science Victory. Unfortunately, I had avoided a 5th city early on due to happiness issues, so it was going to be slow going.

The oddest part of the game came with Ideology, Maria got the first Ideology, and went Order, so I went Freedom and started building up happiness reserves for the eventual onslaught of Ideology pressure, which I suspected was coming. But, this ideology pressure never actually came, as 4 AIs followed me into Freedom, which was completely unexpected. If I had known this, I would have attempted a 5th city capture to raise science levels.



I barely won the World's Fair, and managed to get Big Ben to help with spaceship part purchases. Apparently, nobody went commerce on a small continents map. Okay. Also managed to get Statue of Liberty and Hubble.

The end-game was 100% science limited, so just a lot of hitting next turn.


 
@Tombakerwho

Spoiler :

Nice write-up. Loved the subtle humor.

Maria's expansion was different than what I saw and others have recapped here, but here tech lead is consistent.

I have to replay this soon (still licking my wounds), and have been considering that initial settling location.

 
@Shark_Diver

Spoiler :
I burned a few turns looking for a decent capital location, and although that location is not perfect, it is good enough.

There are a lot of factors to balance on this map, balancing my economy was the toughest. But I think having some naval combat experience would have opened up the map quite a bit, definitely a way to gain some gold. Perhaps I will try loading a save and to level up my skills :lol:
 
@Whoever picks the saved games for this thread:

Can we please have something nice and balanced with Aztecs, Celts, Egypt or Spain for the next one, if it hasn't already been chosen?

Thanks.
 
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