The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game #8 - Mongolia

Who can play?
Anybody can play. The more the merrier. Even if you normally don't play deity games you are still welcome to try. The games can become great learning resources for the player trying to improve. Even if you don't finish the game, we are still interested to hear about your experience.

Do's and Don'ts
We are going to be using the honor system. Feel free to restart, reload, play the same game multiple times, but don't use the science overflow exploit. Also please don't edit the game in IGE. If you do chose to cheat, please don't share your results in the comments. Also, please use the spoiler tag if you post a picture, comment about neighboring civs, close by wonders, or locations of ancient ruins.

Also, please tell us about your Build Order, Social Policies, Tech Order, and what type of wonders you went after. I know a lot of this stuff seems pretty mundane to the experienced player, but the details are incredibly useful to people trying to learn.

Why no vc's? And what is the point if this isn't competitive?

The Pilgrim said:

Having freedom to do whatever suits you best, whatever suits the map best, freedom to experiment and even fool around is, probably, one the main appeals of these games. We have two restrictive types of games. Why would we need another speed race?

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Acken said:

I obviously don't want to forbid people from proposing (deity challenges) but if at least one was aimed to regroup more people that would be great.

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klaskeren said:

The Deity challenge series is not about winning as fast as possible imo, its just about people playing the same start and telling the story of their game, unlike for example HOF and GOTM.

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Craziness. Plopped my settler on the hill. Two more cities to the south. Took two of Liz's workers, and two of Ur's. Montezuma predictably marched against me at turn 55. Had to bribe the Inca away too. NC at turn 73. Chivalry at turn 92. I'm on turn 96 now; have Oracle, Chichen Itza, and am looking to grab for the first time ever Alhambra and Statue of Zeus. Filled out Tradition, now going Honour. Going to destroy Monty first, then turn on Liz and her Great Wall. Don't know after that.

There are going to be some super fast domination wins in this one. Captured London plus great wall with chariots and horsemen on 97. Captured Aztec capital on 117 with logistics keshiks. Splitting army now to fight on multiple fronts. I'm guessing this will easily be finished sub 200 if i do this right

But, I suspect maybe the opponents were hand picked? Unit density is extremely high. I paused at t135 just as I am about to make forward progress against Monty. Keshiks are just starting to get Logistics now. I don't think I can win it with just the Keshiks.

Got Alhambra and Statue of Zeus. On turn 115 London fell. Now I'm going to move south on the Inca, who have the highest score because the AI is actually using terrace farms correctly for once.

full honor
got late pantheon (faith ruin - salt/iron faith) and last religion (pretty crappy)
chivalry @T103 with 14 chariots rdy for upgrade (got london with chariots)
this map looks too easy

Took Machu from the Inca and kept it because it had Petra and Angkor Wat. Meanwhile, I made peace and went after Alex because he was a softer target. Athens falls on turn 143. Roughly 15 or so turns from Dynamite. About to turn back on the Inca, and then on through Atilla, Casimir, and finally Maria.

Turns 1-97

I got two ruins right away, one being population and the other was culture. After finishing pottery I hit another ruin for free writing. This eventually led me to getting my NC around 70ish, which in turn helped me get Keshik's by t96. I planted my second city south of Karakorum next to the salt and silver. That city was better than my capital as I was able to build Zeus and the Oracle while still churning out some units. The third and final city was up north on the coast next to the marble. I didn't really produce much out of that one, but I wanted the marble.

Tech Order
Pottery>Writing(free)>AH>Mining>Archery(free also)>Trapping>The Wheel>BW>Philo>

Policies- Honor all the way

Early in the game I stole a couple workers from Elizabeth, but instead of the normal peace deal I just kept attacking and stealing workers here and there. Finally by around t50 she offered up wine and gold to make me go away, which was fine by me since I needed to build my NC and the Oracle.

I had a few friendships in the early game which allowed me to sell off luxuries at full price. With that money I purchased multiple chariots and a couple horsemen. Elizabeth built the Great Wall, but it didn't do much good since her borders were not big enough. York went down with little resistance and London was pretty much the same. From the picture you can see that I have some Keshik's, but none of them actually got any shots in at London. That was strictly done by chariots and captured by the horsemen.

Elizabeth wonders: Great Wall and Temple of Artemis



Turns 98-117

Right after taking London I upgraded all my units (except horsemen) and moved them west towards the Aztecs. Tlatelolco, which butted against my borders of Beshbalik, was Monty's newest city, but it was surrounded by units, so it took me a while to smack those suckers down, but the city itself fell pretty fast. The next city was Teotihucan, which was plastered right up against a mountain. It took a minute to take that one, but this was the city where my units finally started to upgrade into logistics. While going up against Teotihucan I moved half my units to the north to take down the coastal city of Tlaxcala. After capturing Tlaxcala, I was able to attack Tenochtitlan from both sides and finish it off with a horsemen.

The Inca just lost their capital to the Huns a few turns earlier, and I had open borders with Pachacuti which meant I would be able to go down and attack Cusco from inside Inca borders.

Monty's wonders: Hanging Gardens and Stonehenge


Turns 118-123

After taking the Aztec capital I decided it was time to split my units. Half went southwest to go after Portugal, and half went southeast to go after the Huns. Cusco was not a problem whatsoever. There was nobody in the city and it only had a population of six. My four Keshik's and horsemen were able to capture the old Inca capital in just one turn. The Knight seen in the picture is the first Hunnic unit I had seen. Also, I just built Machu Picchu in Beshbalik, and I have Poland fighting the Huns to the west. This should help me get to Attila's Court without much problem.

Cusco wonders: Chicen Itza, Borobudur, and Mausoleum of Halicarnassus.



Turn 124-135

Fighting wars on two fronts (also at war with Portugal) slowed down the ease of mowing through cities. I had to take Attila's second city before finally taking shots on his capital. It wasn't much of an issue though since all my Keshik's are logistics with range by this time. It is took longer since every other civ was spamming muskets which don't die off as easy as pikes. Either way I was able to sit across the water and fire on Attila's Court and again rush in with my horsemen to capture the city. One interesting thing to note is that I did not see a single battering ram or a horse archer, which means Attila must have upgraded his units...something he normally does not do.

Portugal was a little more difficult to take, mainly because of the rough terrain and that I had to capture /raze three cities before I finally got into position to capture the capital. Her units were basically nowhere to be found while I was rolling over her. Most of her units were fighting my cs ally, Valletta. Throughout the war she had offered me basically everything except her capital to go away. I persisted and captured Lisbon on turn 135, which also happened to be the same time I captured Attila's court.

Maria's wonders: Angkor War, Colossus, Great Lighthouse, Hagia Sophia, and the Pyramids.

Attila's wonders: Great Library



Here's where I need to start making some decisions on how I want to proceed. From the next picture you can see that Warsaw is pretty protected behind a bunch of cities.

I was going to run my eastern units to take out Athens, but I think there is too much city spam for the western units to deal with in a timely manner. My guess is that I will get to Warsaw with the eastern Keshik's before I take out Krakow with the others. My open borders with The Inca are not going to last much longer either (and he denounced me) so I am probably going to have to build some roads southeast of Cusco through the mountains in order to reach Athens at the end of the game.

Social Policies


Tech Order (I haven't even researched sailing and doubt I will)


My plan from here on out is to probably capture some Polish cities and sell them, then build units in the original cities to go after Greece. I only need two more capitals, so I think this should be doable between now and 165 or so. I better hurry because Keshik's become more and more obsolete the longer the game goes. I think as soon as rifles are out is when I know I've waited too long.

Settled in place, hoping for culture ruins to get some policies in tradition before switching over to honor. Really unfortunate game when comes to ruins though, manage to find a few but all of them either gives me a map or barbarian activity. (really the only ones i don't find useful)

Going for a 4 city NC opening, however after Monty hoarding a little too many units on the border, I decide that a 3 city NC will have to do. Settled both cities south. Saving some golds for buying chariot archers was able to baiting him into declaring war. This is around turn 56 I think, after wiping out his army i proceed to take his forward settled city. Getting NC at turn 68. At turn 79 his capital fall as well. Just about to reach civil service next turn as I'm only guilds and chivalry from getting to those beloved keshiks. England just denounced me so we will see if she can provide enough targets for my chariot archers to reach logistics before chivalry.

Machu dies on turn 153. Backstabbed the Huns on turn 160 as our research agreement expired. Oxforded into Dynamite on turn 162 with 8 cannons. Great Engineered Brandenburg. The World's Fair ended up running so long I forgot about it (from turn 145 to 168, longest I've ever seen. Largely because four of the defeated civs put less than 100 hammers into it). Atilla's Court fell on turn 165, on turn 168 I pushed through to the west and made peace with Atilla. On turn 169 I declared on Casimir. Aiming to swing to the north of Warsaw, around the mountains, then come back south, then fold back on Maria.

Finish Honour and capture Warsaw on turn 183. Lost 2 Keshiks and my only Xbow to Winged Hussars. Moved against Maria next. Had a bit of trouble getting through the jungle, but she was way behind on tech and no problem.

After seeing Nigel play 60 or so turns on a 2nd attempt for fun last week via the forward settle I thought I would move a few hexes and see if we had a close neighbor as usual. It seems when we have a Warmonger Civ, we have close neighbors. I really did not want to move my capital since that start had a ton of farms and what not but I know that can be an easy win so I decided to mess about with this and make it harder on myself. I ran into England on turn 1 so thats when I decided to make my Cap in this horrid spot. I should of waited to settle since Englands 2nd Settler was nowhere in sight. They showed up next turn and went far to the East to settle. They made another one that I gobbled up later. I haven't grown at all but I managed to get a monument and granary down the road. It was mostly archers and warriors at first. I went Arch 1st, got Free Mining and I teched Animal Husb next. I decided to go full honor but Im not moving very fast in Cult at +1cpt for most of the game so far lol.

I was bootcamping just fine and all of a sudden the Aztecs show up with an Army and I thought I better just take out London and get back to protect. The Aztec bluff worked and I didn't get to level up as many archers as I would of liked. I only played out about 70 some odd turns and hope to finish this up within the week. It is sorta like my last game but this map looks hard pressed for grass so I hope I can just go on a kiling spree till I see fit to turtle up. This is the worst Science Start I ever tried... only pulling 6spt on turn 72 lol! I guess the way I did this is clearly not the best way to do things if you like a smooth game.

After reading some of the spoilers I realize that I forgot chariots can upgrade to Keshiks lol. Oh well I do not have very much experience with this Civ .

Declared war on Monty around T25 to capture an undefended settler coming my way.
Got Dow'ed by Lizzy and Attilla around T40ish.
Now T66 and I just captured London and created some space for myself. Monty is nicely at war with Pachacuti.

I'm thinking of using my army to make Monty's empire just a tad smaller. What do you think? Maybe NC first?

My usual play style is actually very peaceful. I almost always win via SV. So I'm still torn between going full war or just clearing Monty out of my valley, setting up 6-ish city's and going peacefull after all. Suggestions?

Turns 136-151

After capturing Lisbon and Attila's Court I was faced with a decision on how to attack Poland. The initial plan was to take the units from Attila's Court and send them east to capture Athens, but the southwest was littered with Polish cities and units, and I figured my western units would take way too long to get down to Warsaw. I decided I would attack the Polish Empire from both sides.

My units from the Attila's court attacked the Polish cities that were closest. Both Szczecin and Gdansk fell fast and caused me serious happiness issues, so I gave one to Attila and sold the other for 1gpt to England. After selling the cities I marched units west and attacked Poznan. The far western units fought off spam for a while, captured and razed a city and started taking shots on Krakow. When my units from the east finally got to Warsaw I was surprised to see the city completely vacant of Polish units.

For several turns not a single Polish unit came to protect the capital, but instead surrounded Krakow. After bleeding the capital of nearly all its defense, the Polish moved in for protection, but it was too late. I was able to knock Warsaw down to no health and moved my horsemen in for the kill. Immediately after I sued for white peace and got the hell out of dodge.

Casimir's wonders: Notre Dame



152-163

By far the most tedious part of this game was moving all my units from Warsaw to Greek lands. I lost borders with Pachacuti sometime earlier, so I used some extra workers to build a road from Cusco heading southeast into the tundra and snow. My units north of Krakow had to go all the way up through the old Aztec capital area then south east through my original cities. The units south of Krakow went back through Cusco and up through Quebec City. I tried offering the Inca all my luxuries and 100gpt for passage through their lands, but that wasn't a good enough offer.

I thought I would be able to move my units in Warsaw all the way into Athens, but sadly that was not the case. They got stuck because the borders of the Greek and Inca connected. My only option was to use my 3,800 in gold reserves to buy up some Greek allies and start the war earlier than expected. I purchased Quebec City and Lhasa then declared on Alex.

After clearing some unit spam I was able to finally start taking shots on Cornith. Right about the time I was capturing Cornith is when the second wave of units were able to get into position on Athens. I used three Khans to citadel bomb Alex, which gave me access to a much needed bridge. Athens pretty much didn't even fight back in this one. Instead of being aggressive with his units, he pulled them all back towards Sparta, which meant that I just took shots at the city until it had zero health. From there I captured my final city with one of my original horsemen.

Alex's wonders: none



Here's the little road I had to build southeast of Cusco going to seemingly nowhere. If I didn't build this I'm sure I would have wasted quite a bit of time moving through that rough terrain and river. I don't know how many turns it saved me, but I'm guessing around four or five.




Never even researched sailing



Policies


This was fast domination victory for me which was helped because I never had to go to war with The Inca. The whole game was basically won with eight Keshik's and two horsemen. I had a few other units standing around, but they really didn't do much. IIRC I captured every city with the original two horsemen. I had a couple cavalry right at the end, but they played no role in the game. Also I never used Oxford because I forgot and honestly never needed it. This was a fun game and I'm looking forward to some of finish times.

Initial BO:
Scout > Scout > Granary > Shrine > Caravan > Chariot Archer > Settler (4pop) > Chariot Archer > Settler (5pop)

Have 4 Tradition followed by 3 Honor..

Highlights:
T55 Got a Keshik from a goody hut (!!!)
T74 Missed out on last religion when final two were founded on same turn. I had 185 faith and +9 faith/turn at the time (befriended/allied Lhasa fairly early). I had checked earlier and none of the remaining Pantheons were faith, so I thought I could get one. This cost me a bunch of turns on NC in the end. In hindsight, this was my biggest mistake. I would have been much better off going Sun God instead of Earth Mother (+4 food in capital alone) until someone spread their religion to me. Planning a strat to adopt the religion that has the best reformation belief is probably a better idea than founding a weak religion anyway, especially on Deity.
T76 Bribed Alex to war dec Inca (3 gpt + 2 lux)) because his vast army of companion cavalry/hoplites was marching my way.
T82 spawned first Khan
T86 3 city NC
T88 Raze York (capped it when Keshik stopped getting EXP)
T90 Oracle
T97 Monty has a ton of Jaguars at my border. Bribed Atila to war dec him (cheap - 1 lux and 4 horses). It wouldn't be the end of the world here if he declared on me anyway, but I'm not quite ready and it cost me basically nothing.
T99 Capture London
T103 Bribed Alex to dec on Inca again because he had stuff at my border. 9 GPT + 2 horses cost.
T105 Finished Chivalry and upgraded 4 chariot archers. Got my lucky Keshik up to lvl 8 through farming Elizabeth then made peace.

Diplo is going really well. I'm friendly with 4/7 AI. I only have warmonger penalties with 3 of them: England (duh), Poland and Portugal.

Plan for rest of game:
I'm done Machu Pichu in 8 turns which would help a ton, hopefully I get it. My trade route to Aztecs expires in 6 turns, then I can war dec him shortly after. Until then I'm going to spend some time farming Ur for experience as I never made peace with them. This will also give me time to repair Elizabeth's wine and sell it to everyone before getting mega warmonger hate. I will send one army west to Aztecs and a second army south to Greece... if I go for DV.

To be honest, this start is so good I am almost tempted to try for a science win now, even with three points "wasted" in honour. Obviously not ideal policies but I think I will have plenty of culture to spare. I've already finished two culture guilds and have mosques everywhere, as well as culture from wine/incense. Of course it wouldn't be as fast as Dom but I think I could still finish at a quite respectable time (<T250). There is still room for a good 5th city with a costal river (internal route to London) just north of cap and a good 6th city with jungle/mountain/river south of Beshbalik. Settling those two sites within the next 10 turns and rushing universities would mean spawning 6 GS by T230 or so, give or take a few turns. Faster if I could manage to get Pisa.

My infrastructure is quite strong already (two culture guilds up and London has GL). I have a good shot at getting the Renaissance wonders I want. If one of the Piety civs goes Jesuit Education and I can adopt it then I could rush buy schools or labs with faith. If I go for education right now I would get it around T115. We'll see how I feel when I get home