The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game # 2 - America

Liberty: I'm playing a hybrid between a domination and a science game, which is sub-optimal at best I suppose. The general idea is that in the long run the benefits of Liberty start to outweigh Tradition, and I'm setting up for a longer game. Besides I felt I needed the free settler and cut in half build time.

BPT: Should increase with NC, but I'll need more population in the cap. caravans are going out at the moment though. I'll also need more general population from conquest to get the most of a (semi) wide strategy. In that light waiting for conquest is bad. I'm not sure turn 100 NC is late, given that I do have 4 cities with basic infrastructure (monument, granary, library) and a military gearing up. All in all I realise I am neither fast on the science development / NC and I'm missing the best window of attack for CB's.

GPT: Dissapointing, not sure what I'm doing wrong outside fielding 10 units that aren't being used.

Population: What would be a good time to get aqueducts in this scenario?

Happiness: I'm not receiving the bonus from city connections yet as there are no roads. In the long run this is one of the points that should outweigh a straight Trad opening. I think I need more workers and/or change their priorities.

Attacking Atilla: You are right and I was planning to wipe out the rams and farm some XP in the process. I'm not sure I can take that capital at the moment.

OH, I am by no means a deity expert Still I think I have good idea what I am doing, unless it comes to early domination. So my plan here is also domination but late game - I am playing a science game until flight.

I am not sure that liberty is better long term, it actually feels better short term because of the free worker, settler and GE/GS, but in the long term monarchy gives you something like 15-20 happiness, and a lot of GPT + the huge growth and the free aqueducts. Maybe when u puppet 20 cities and road em all you can get as much happiness with liberty.

I'd just attack Atilla here - waiting is rather pointless, as hes army is not gonna become smaller

About Aquaducts - probably when you are done with building Military? And ASAP in the capitol ...

I think you are in a decent spot.

Beakers are fine. GPT should be propped up with trades and city connections.

Workers: I only see 3, that is not enough! Because you need earlier city connections, I don't think Liberty needs fewer workers than Tradition. It looks like only New York is working raw tiles however, so if you really only have the three workers then you've been using them well.

Aqueducts: I aim to have them up/building in satellite cities by t100, a little earlier in the capital, so I think you are fine.

I think the difference between Liberty and Tradition is actually very small. The gap, regardless of social policies, between us mere mortals and the glory7/tommynt/DaveMcW/etc crew is much, much larger.

Settled the river hill SE of the mountain for Observatory and good defense. Got my settler there and all the lux were 3 tiles away. No problem - cheap tile buys! I bought so many tiles I was slow to upgrade to CBs. Was able to snatch the gold from Jerusalem. Planned boot camp there, but my 100+ year war with Attila and barb trouble made me give up.

Got the 3rd pantheon, Sun God - niiice. My food was really good until Pacal started spamming Miss., and I was 2 turns away from 5th religion, so my cap got converted - 4 food lost. So I am buying Cathedrals, which is probably a bad move as I don't plan on having much art.

I only got 2 cities built, so had NC on t85, New York on western hill by horses. I stole workers from Jerusalem, Huns (almost a double steal, but Scout would have died), and Nebby's lone settler as he passed Jerusalem - not in my backyard! Rescued a barb worker and eventually gifted it back to Budapest, so had 5 at one point, none built/bought, a first for me. Downside was pretty bad trades for a while for being a warmonger.

Ended up building 4 Archers and buying 5th. They have all survived and 4 have Range and Log, 5th soon. Attila's first push was about 12 Rams and maybe 8 HA, 5 CB. He never fell for worker baiting, and Rams would bypass near dead warrior all day (wtf?). He had NY down to 0 for many turns, but as long as I killed the Rams and occasional melee I was fine. I have tried to have 2 horse units going, and 1-2 Pikes. I have spawned 3 GG without Honor, wow. I have killed 3 of his GG, he had 2 near my border unprotected, about to Citadel me hard I assume, killed both and only lost one Horseman! That's why I love me some hills near cap, road 'em up and slow enemy.

100 turns later and my first Range XB is still at near 0 health, it has been relentless. I built Boston on the west coast, poor food, but I needed a coast city, and used a Citadel to snag Wine and iron. Had been eying Mekness to raze and settle coast near it, and actually started to pound the walls, when the second wave came. I must have killed 1-2 units a turn the last 60 turns, often on two fronts. Where does he get all of them??? Have a scout sniping caravans to Pacal, sniped some going to Kathmandu too.

Nebby went Full Honor and is just sitting on 2 cities...? William is being nice. I cannot get any war bribes going, even for 30+gpt and a lux. Argh.

Now my dilemma - Just no chance for peace, and Pacal is wonderwhoring and running away. Finally took Opis to get more food for Boston, and citadeled east to get horses and wheat for it Opis. I can pound Meknes to dust, and maybe settle the coast (I always want a coastal city on both sides if I can), but Attila has Pyramids and Petra and is about to have Himeji Castle. I sort of want to take his cap and leave him stranded inland. My exploration is crap, not sure what lies SE of him. I do not want full-game warmonger, and I am bound to meet other civs soon. Any suggestions?

Wow, I have the worst city placements of anyone! I guess I probably could have settled the coast SE for second or 3rd city. It looks like I can still settle there and citadel the bananas - thoughts? I can easily hold Attila at bay with that setup, but it is frustrating to not get any DOW bribes going. Since I took a city, my warmonger hate is higher, I am about to get Caravels - if I go for his Cap and then some of Pacal's sweet wonders I will surely be the scourge of the planet. Plus after I take his cap, I will likely get backstabbed by William and DOW'd by Neb and Pacal, I will need to build barracks and double my military.

Other comments - Neb even built SOZ with his full Honor, but I guess taking his Settler confused him, unless he has settled east of his start overseas.

It looks like my DOW on Attila has caused me all my problems - I almost never steal workers from AI when going SV, I want good relations to sell lux. Then turtle with range units.

Yowsa, only 33 years of peace with Attila all game, this is grueling. Pretty sweet peace deal after the first war - 2306 gold and 30 gpt. Bought a Lib, 2 Unis, and an Obs. Of course he attacked again. I probably should have stayed on him before, as by the time I took his cap 30 turns later it was at 62 strength with an Arsenal. He kept producing 2 units/turn forever, I had to use my super-charged XB on the Muskets and XBs, wave after wave. He was stealing techs from me, although I did steal Chemistry just as I captured it. He paused only to build a Pub School, then a canon, then it was mine. I have 5 300+ XB, never been that high, and w/o Honor. 2 Knights and 2 Minutemen (will build 2 more, hopefully), 8 workers, none built/bought, 2 Hunnic GP for bait.

Meanwhile Pacal has Frigates and Canons and turned super friendly for quite a while - if I do go after him I will need to ramp up like crazy. I went for Gunpowder early to get Minutemen (I never, ever go lower tree), and should have gone Industrialization to get sweet Gats, but stuck to my original Sciencey plan and got Sci Theory on t174. I am now 6t away from Radio - still thinking about order for Factory science boost, but will decide later. Pacal has 10 wonders, Morocco 13. Mor has kicked ass on the other continent, every game I have played he is a pipsqueak. He took Monte's cap, although Monte has Haile's. Haile has been sitting at 0 gpt forever, I always want to trade with weaker civs if I can.

I'm trying for silver on WF. I have to decide whether to take Boise for the eastern ocean access, or just pause and build until Attila attacks again. I got minor warmonger on his cap, I have no idea at what point Boise will fall to minor. He will give a crappy 5 pop island city SE of him in peace, but not 3 pop Dallas up NW corner of continent with marble, 8 aluminum, and 2 fish in view. I could run food boats to Seattle from there, which could be a production powerhouse, but has been so food poor, only pop 12 now.

I have been in almost constant WLTK in my cap (several max gpt deals), and most other cities often, but plains suck. Tempted to run to Fert next, although I really want to find coal ASAP. I have only 2 GS planted - only 1 river city until Attila's Court, which has 4 GE pts/turn from Pyr, Himeji, and Petra. Wm has stayed DOF forever, asked me to DOW Neb with him, but he won't declare, nor can I bribe him. I can bribe Mor on Pacal, will do that soon...

Other weirdess - Zulus showed up the turn after peace w/Attila (my war) with 4 GPs. He converted my cap, but I didn't have enough faith to buy a Mosque. Then Pacal reconverted it, then all 4 Zulus swam away! Didn't even try to convert any other cities but Wms. Also, only one CS trade quest, that didn't arrive until t156. I have been allied with Geneva for much of the game for whales and faith, and need to sway Kathmandu when I can if I go for Pacal.

Why did you not go for Attila's cap sooner? Now you're not on track for domination or science (at least it could have been faster without the war effort and warmonger hate you attract). Or was it never your intention to take cities but just defend from Attila?

My spy in Babylon gave me Industrialisation before I got ST two turns later. Purchased 2 schools. I even had coil ...
Got Forbidden Palace on T162 and continued to tech Radio on T181.
All 3 options had one taker at this point - Holland picked Order, Ethiopia - Authocracy and Maya - Freedom. I went for order.


Sad thing happened on the WF - with full production on, it finished 4 turns later than it started and I even did not get a free social policy


After that I proceeded to get biology, then flight, with slight detour to get Military Science. Rushed Brandenburg Gate in the cap. I was already tech leader at this point.



Soon after that all cities except NY had Military Academies, and I started up with the army. Got plastics T223, rushed a lab in the cap and proceeded to Radar. Got it on T236, immediately upgraded the 9 planes i had and attacked the Maya.

8 turns later I had their cap and 2 other cities. This got me to -15 happiness



I sold Tikal to Babylon for 20GPT (it had 4 WW inside ...) and razed Uxmal.
Then proceeded to Babylon and cleared em shortly after. Took Tikal back with a landship and an Infantry. This time at a reasonable size of 5


Now Holland is my best buddy, so I will let him live, but I have to figure out how to kill the other continent, as its a bit crowded, and its possible that I am running out of time ...

Nice game - it looks like your AIs have their game face on. Early Ideologies and solidly large cities (can mine have some of that secret sauce, please? ).

I think you have plenty of time. Even the path to Stealth/Xcom is shorter than space, so ... to war! Attack the AI tech leader first, imho.

How is your tech position?

Edit: Not to mention that WF. Wow. Are you sure you didn't miss a few turns?

I crushed em like bugs

First was the Aztec dude - Moved the 11 planes (think 8 bombers and 3 fighters) with the carriers, put him at war with Morocco and paid Ethiopia (my friend at that time to attack him).

Went directly for his capitol, then took Teotihucahan (grrr these city names ... ), and Morocco got Texcoco. Rigt after this, I made peace, and started working on Morocco.

First was Casablanca, then liberated Texcoco and then Marakesh. For some reason, the dude didnt want to make peace, so I took some shots at Rabat too.

Gave me 2 cities, which I sold to my buddy William



Then moved the planes to Aztec cap and their surroundings to kill Ethiopians.
This was a bit harder, as they had AA guns and Triplanes, but still my bombers didn't care much. They had way bigger army tho, so it took some time. Killed the coastal city with 5 planes, and gave it to the dutch, after Milan didn't want it ...



After that moved everything back to the mainland. It was time for my best buddy William to die ...
Rather sad, as you can see how happy was he with me, even after I conquered everyone else.


Before I declared on him, Babylon told me he has nukes

I didn't care much



One turn away from the stealth bombers - I was going to get em from RAT finisher ...
So that was it, plan well executed.

Some random comments about the game:

1) I am not sure if I did the timing with the bombers right. Maybe I had to go directly radar, instead of plastics. At the end I only had the rushed lab in the capitol. On the other hand - if I had build em + the National Epic, that I forgot to build maybe I'd get the win a bit faster, maybe not ... As the problem was the movement of the planes, not their power.
2) Happiness was a bit of an issue the whole time, as I had around -20 unhappiness from ideologies the whole time. The thing that saved me was the Forbidden Palace I guess ...
3) Killing ppl with bombers is way more complicated on continents.
4) B17 is awesome ... That was my first game with the US on any level, the cheap tile purchase is very nice too. That saved me probably few thousand gold
5) I'd probably get a way faster SV here, but it feels sooo boring ...
6) Wonders I built - Oracle, Forbidden Palace , rushed Brandenburg, Neuschwanstein und Cristo Redentor. Could take something else at the end but it didn't really matter.

Anyway, nice game! Although it felt a bit less challenging than the one with Assyria. I don't think I was in danger of losing at any point.

Yes, I had originally planned a defensive game, at least until later - I am a poor Domination player, and so wanted to try SV, or at least 1st half of it and decide later with USA UU's.

I did get 4th city on the West coast, and a Hun peace deal gave me a NW coastal city which I was able to gold buy to a great medium city quickly because of Big Ben and Skyscrapers. They both pumped out many naval units because of 5 Year Plan.

Well, the last half of the game was much more mellow, for me anyway. I chose to hunker with my sweet units - the forever war was irritating. Monte moved N to eventually take out Ethiopia, while Morocco took all of Monte's S cities, funny. Near the end Bill-O really hammered Neb, had the military lead, and planted some cities on the other continent, which got nuked at some point. Isn't there a nuke notification? Pacal had a middle island city nuked too, I assume it was Morocco. I couldn't get anyone to DOW Pacal until Mor on t232. Bill-O started massing troops my last turns as I was building deterrent ICBMs, so I had to buy an A-Bomb quick. It took me the rest of the game to upgrade everything, I even had battleship tech with Galleases for a while.

Oxforded Plastics, then went for RR early, to get Fert and Neuschwanstein, one of my favorite WWs (21 gpt, 18 cpt, 7 happy). I screwed up my late tech order, going Sat-Nano-Adv Ball-PartPhys, meant to go Adv Ball second, derp! That meant I had time to build Space Factories in 2 cities. I had 3 Faith GE's and 2 GS, last GS just a few turns before the win, GE built most of last space part. Nuked Attila just before blast-off, take that, a$$hat!

I was 4th of 7 in most demographics, sitting at about 1/2 of leader in each. 1483 bpt, 190 cpt, 56 fpt at the end. I got RLabs in all but Opis, built expos to about 20 before shutting down growth and adding Eng specialists to Scientists. 7 cities instead of 4, hence sad faces and less science.

Arts Funding and lack of Gardens, etc. probably meant losing 2-3 GS. Cap only got to 32 - I struggled with gpt a lot, so had to work gold tiles more than I would have liked early. Didn't get East India until t 240. Had constant WLTK in every city.

I had Revolutionary Wave (raw -45ish) going forever, except for a short time when Neb had some clout. Had to build all happy buildings everywhere, a first, finished +8 net happy. I went Order t195 with Neb, Morocco, and Attila - Pacal went Autocracy with Monte - Bill-O went Freedom. I had to add every Order happy policy, which kept me from 25% GP boost too. First time I've had to do that. Took Skyscrapers (and had Big Ben), but didn't buy nearly as much in cities as I was constantly out-teching my upgrades! Full Trad, 2 Commerce (cheap roads), 2 Rat begin (Secularism, filled by end), 6 Order.

I beat Pacal on WF by 10 hammers. Skipped Intl Games. Voted against Intl Space Station as it would have helped AI more than me at that point. It seems like as I tech towards Satellites I can feel the game is won already - maybe this is part of why SV seem to be viewed as boring? Ended with Attila's Himeji, Petra, and Pyramids; GE'd Neusch, Big Ben, and Hubble; NYC hard-built Apollo and Manhattan. Usually I get Cristo Redentor, and should have taken Eiffel instead of Big Ben.

My CS allies were really weird - always 2 West Coast Religious, for flank protection for Boston (they both had whales, meh) and Samarkand for happy. As everything this game, I was behind in culture and faith, I didn't even finish shrines/temples everywhere for a looong time. Didn't bother with Grand Temple in Att Court as I figured I'd get last GS w/o it.

I was pummeled by Tourism - Pacal even got Sacred Sites near the end game, but I knew it would be a while until he caught Bill-O and Mor. Bill-O was my friend until I finally dropped him late, which was lucky because it was just before he started DOW'ing.

I am bummed I didn't take advantage of the UU's. Had the early game been more mellow, I would have been more likely to give 'em a rip! I may replay a little from mid-game to see if I can tech Arty or something and at least clear my continent. I have 4 Level 8 and 1 Level 7 Range units.

So I am still playing my redo, taking Hun cap with no peace first. I'm doing pretty well considering I burned 10-15 turns freezing all units to tech ahead to see how Gat rush worked! Too much to build, I had to build Barracks and Wall lines for happy, etc, and am about to get my trade routes rebuilt finally (Caravans mostly, small navy so far). After taking Palenque, Huns and Bill-O DOW'd me. I have taken Rotterdam, lost it on purpose, retook it small pop, just took Amsterdam at 17 pop on t243. I would like to lose it again to get pop 9-ish.

DOF with Neb and Morocco [edit - (Autocracy)]. Neb finally agreed to DOW Bill-O for 28 gpt 2 turns ago, very friendly for a while, still no Ideology. Neb has a huge navy (mostly Privateers), and I sold him Pacal's island El Mirador next to Valetta, cuz I was going to lose it soon. (I also sold Pacal's Calakmul to Haile). I know Babylon should be next - I think I will have to plow thru Breda (raze) and Utrecht to get there, where I can build more navy. Otherwise, had planned to sail from my Western shores army and navy together to Gondar. Currently allied w/Jerusalem, Budapest, Cohakia and Geneva.

1.) I would like to take NW coastal Nijmegen to force Bill-O to send me Caravans (remove all sea routes). This will give Neb time to maybe pound Utrecht. Too much of a diversion? I must admit, it will be fun. Peace now or take 2 more cities? No more Wonders or unique lux.

Attila is a constant buzzing near his old cap - I kill everything easily with 2 Gats. I think Bill-O would be much tougher if I take peace soon, and finish Neb last. Freedom is preferred, and I assume Neb will take it? I am 2 turns from Ballistics, and 3 from a GS to bulb towards Electronics or Radio-Plastics, plus a GS from PT in about 8 turns. Need 2500 faith for next GE. (I chose to build a GE in Att Court instead of a GS in my cap to get Big Ben - coulda had Machine Gun upgrades by now.)

2.) Tech path? My bpt is poor, only 600-ish, but am bringing more science on-line as I go, will peak about 700-800+ w/o RLabs if I work more non-science specialists with Secularism.

I know Gondar is the key to the other continent. My plan is to keep selling Haile any crap cities as I go. Morocco and Monte keep swapping Tenochtitlan. Monte's cap is Adwa, center of his lands.

3.) Kill order? Do I take out Neb first, and wait for B17's for other continent? I won't get them for like 14 turns, Carriers in like 8, And only if I avoid Plastics line.

4.) Policy? I am at my 6th Autocracy policy - obvious choice is Klausewitz, but I am thinking of waiting until next policy because the 50 turns will end before I get to Morocco (with GW), I assume. I need to burn a level 1 to get level 2 Nationalism or 3rd Alternative.

I have Nueschwanstein, Prora, Himeji, Big Ben, Gr Lighthouse, Forbidden Palace, Kremlin, Sistine, Taj Mahal, and 10 other art/culture/faith Wonders. I am near the top with 46 Tourism, 18 GWorks, yet my influence is crap, -24 pressure. 7 landmarks/planted GP - will get Historical landmarks in 16 turns.

Military 2nd (halfish of Morocco) - 5 Art, 3 Cav, 6 Gat, 7 GWB, 3 GWI, 3 Frigate, 3 GG, 1 GAdm, Scout, Caravel, 9 workers.

Happy 32, gpt +82 but will stablize about +110 (some war loans). 316 cpt (up soon) 71 fpt (up in a while - no time for shrine line!).