is this game winnable?

effb

Chieftain
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Jan 3, 2003
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This is my first legit attempt at Deity and I'm not sure it's winnable anymore, so I would like some advice. I'm going for a Science victory as Korea (yes, I stacked the deck in my favor for my first Deity win).

I got a 3 city NC at turn 80, Education turn 115. Zulu has been harassing me almost the entire game which forced me to hard build enough military units to defend myself. He was a real threat early on and almost captured Busan, but I fought him off and since then he's only been a pest. He planted a citadel next to me, which forced me to plant one of my own to reclaim Truffles.

My land contains no coal, no aluminum, no oil. I've never been deprived of all 3 in the same game. I had to wait to get some off the AI because I was first to get Industrialization/Electricity, which sucks because it negates some of the tech advantage.

I proposed World Fair but could barely get the silver medal prize. The AI has more cities and production than me.

I haven't been putting too much effort on Culture and almost none on Religion. I've been using my Great Writers and Artists for instant culture and golden ages.

I started on the coast that is not connected to the ocean, so I'm unable to explore the ocean. I have 8 CS waiting for me to discover a natural wonder, and I know it's sitting on a remote island somewhere but the best I can do is send an embarked unit to basically fumble around in the dark.

I've been feeding food caravans to my capital for a while and pumped it up pretty well, I think.

My biggest concern is Egypt. I passed him for the tech lead around turn 200, but his culture/tourism is massive. I was first to ideology (Freedom), followed by Egypt only a few turns later. He and China went Order and are giving me bigtime unhapiness penalty (I'm the only Freedom civ so far). To top it off, Egypt managed to pass World Ideology for Order due to all his CS allies. I'm at -2 happiness now, and I can probably nudge it back to positive but it'll be a constant struggle. At this point in Immortal games I'm usually sitting around +40 happiness with clear skies, so this is new to me.

Basically, does it look like Egypt will win a Cultural victory before I can win Science?

Spoiler :


 

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This is my first legit attempt at Deity and I'm not sure it's winnable anymore, so I would like some advice. I'm going for a Science victory as Korea (yes, I stacked the deck in my favor for my first Deity win).

I got a 3 city NC at turn 80, Education turn 115. Zulu has been harassing me almost the entire game which forced me to hard build enough military units to defend myself. He was a real threat early on and almost captured Busan, but I fought him off and since then he's only been a pest. He planted a citadel next to me, which forced me to plant one of my own to reclaim Truffles.

My land contains no coal, no aluminum, no oil. I've never been deprived of all 3 in the same game. I had to wait to get some off the AI because I was first to get Industrialization/Electricity, which sucks because it negates some of the tech advantage.

I proposed World Fair but could barely get the silver medal prize. The AI has more cities and production than me.

I haven't been putting too much effort on Culture and almost none on Religion. I've been using my Great Writers and Artists for instant culture and golden ages.

I started on the coast that is not connected to the ocean, so I'm unable to explore the ocean. I have 8 CS waiting for me to discover a natural wonder, and I know it's sitting on a remote island somewhere but the best I can do is send an embarked unit to basically fumble around in the dark.

I've been feeding food caravans to my capital for a while and pumped it up pretty well, I think.

My biggest concern is Egypt. I passed him for the tech lead around turn 200, but his culture/tourism is massive. I was first to ideology (Freedom), followed by Egypt only a few turns later. He and China went Order and are giving me bigtime unhapiness penalty (I'm the only Freedom civ so far). To top it off, Egypt managed to pass World Ideology for Order due to all his CS allies. I'm at -2 happiness now, and I can probably nudge it back to positive but it'll be a constant struggle. At this point in Immortal games I'm usually sitting around +40 happiness with clear skies, so this is new to me.

Basically, does it look like Egypt will win a Cultural victory before I can win Science?

Spoiler :



There are better Deity players than me who can add more, but to answer your question, without loading your game, I can't tell how far along Egypt is towards CV. Is there another strong cultural player who can thwart them (I love that word "thwart"….never get to use it in real life)? Totally neglecting culture has its' drawbacks.

My first thought looking at your map was that you'd have been better off settling 4 cities given the space in your corner. If you had put an expo on the river down South, you could have been running cargo ships instead of caravans, which would make a big difference. Your BPT, at 750ish, is a bit low for this late in the game. A 4th city would have had you over 1000.

2nd thought was why not take some of Shaka's cities after beating him back? He likely exhausted most of his army and he missed his prime. Any new units he builds won't benefit from Ikandi, so make sure you kill any former-impis first. You could still prioritize this, and it would give you the ocean access you need. China doesn't look like much of a threat, and with your tech lead, your units should pretty much roll.

One thing I always try to do when going freedom is to make sure I have plenty of gold when I get Foreign Legions, upgrade them ASAP, and then steamroll while they are 1-hit killing units that are usually 2+ eras behind them. 6 of these, with ranged support can do a lot of damage pretty quickly. On your screenshot, I don't see anything that could stand up to such an onslaught, and 6 Infantrymen can take down almost any city without loss if handled well.

Most of my early regrets when I switched to Deity were from not being aggressive enough.

Edit: I realized after reading your later post that you did indeed have 4 cities up. Disregard that bit above, and I see that you did get your BPT count over 1000 where it needs to be. That's just such a huge difference when the time comes for bulbing. Good luck.
 
Who won the World's Fair? Egypt? Because if it's somebody else, Egypt will have a hard time gaining influential over that guy.

What are your plans to put your happiness above water? Usually when a World Ideology resolution passes, that is a recipe for a switch. Except that you're Korea, and Korea really likes Freedom.

I think you can take out the Zulu. That'll get your aluminum above board. Byblos looks ready to assist.
 
Egypt won the World Fair. Their tourism and culture output is roughly double the second closest civ, however they're nowhere near being influential on any other civ. Their tourism output is only 82 at this point and some other civs have 200+ culture/turn. The influence screen says the soonest they will influence their first civ is 72 turns away. Does the AI tend to massively boost its tourism near the end of a game like a human player would? One thing is for sure, I'm not proposing International Games.

My plan to boost my happiness is to build Zoos, Stadiums, and keep key mercantile CS allies (i.e. Antananarivo is worth +11 happiness to me). I probably can never repeal the world ideology because I don't have the CS allies to pass the vote myself and even though half the civs haven't even picked ideologies yet, it's basically impossible for them to pick against the world ideology, right? Since my ideology penalty is already at "revolutionary wave" it can't get any worse, so I should be able to get my happiness back to the 5-10 level. But that means I can't grow my cities too much anymore, except to add specialists (half unhappiness).

What do you mean by 'expo'?
 
Your problem is that you still have no artillery. You bee-lined so heavily on flight, and you got screwed over by having no oil in your own territory. If you went Scientific Theory > Dynamite you would destroyed them pretty easily. You still have Hwachas which are outdated. This game right now is winnable, however not through scientific victory. Your best bet is to build planes and destroy Egypt ASAP.
 
Well, I didn't beeline flight, and I didn't get screwed by having no oil, because I have no need for it. I did get screwed somewhat due to no coal/aluminum because I need those for factories and hydro plants.

I was going for a science victory from the outset and focused on the top half of the tech tree. I got attacked by Zulu and had to defend myself, which is where the Hwachas came in. I've had Dynamite for a while now, so I'm probably going to upgrade to artillery.

How do you propose I destroy Egypt? He's got the biggest army and is on the other side of the world.

I'm confused why you think a non-science victory is possible.
 
25 turns later and this game now seems very winnable via science.

- +22 happiness (still Freedom w/ revolutionary wave, but got more CS allies, zoos, Neuschwanstein with 4 castles, trade other civs for some luxuries. stadiums can be built if necessary)
- BPT up to 1299 (still have just 4 cities. yay Korea UA)
- peace with Zulu, and he's unlikely to bother me again since China keeps attacking him. he even somehow has a war going with Spain across the map.
- stumbled onto the last natural wonder to satisfy 8 CS quests at once
- Egypt still dominates in score/culture/tourism, but is still only 25% influential over Polynesia, so CV ain't happening for them
- 6 GS saved up with 13 techs left to go. will probably end up bulbing 8 GS and buying 2-3 spaceship parts

Spoiler :


 
Nice, my first deity win was science Korea as well(gotta love the academies with 20 science).
How are you doing in terms of SP? I'm assuming you went full tradition+rationalism+freedom?

Korea might be the only civ where it's worthwhile to plant more than one GS. Just make sure you can get a GE for Hubble though
 
Turn 285 science victory, and first Deity win :)

Happiness dipped a lot due to the double whammy of increasing population (-1 per citizen) and ideological pressure (-1 per 3 citizens), but never went negative. Egypt was trying for a science victory, but only got 1 part built by the time I won.

Yes, I went full tradition+rationalism+freedom with a few points in patronage.

I didn't plant a single GS, actually. I bulbed a few to beeline important techs through the game, then stockpiled the rest to burn through the last several techs at the end.

Next time I can do a lot better, I think!

Spoiler :




Spoiler :


 
Just from the screenshot, you're in unhappiness so you're not getting the crucial rationalism +10% beakers. Pretty much no excuse for that if you're going for science.
 
I find it even more impressive given the fact that you barely had enough luxuries in the cities.
 
This is my first legit attempt at Deity and I'm not sure it's winnable anymore, so I would like some advice. I'm going for a Science victory as Korea (yes, I stacked the deck in my favor for my first Deity win).

I got a 3 city NC at turn 80, Education turn 115. Zulu has been harassing me almost the entire game which forced me to hard build enough military units to defend myself. He was a real threat early on and almost captured Busan, but I fought him off and since then he's only been a pest. He planted a citadel next to me, which forced me to plant one of my own to reclaim Truffles.

My land contains no coal, no aluminum, no oil. I've never been deprived of all 3 in the same game. I had to wait to get some off the AI because I was first to get Industrialization/Electricity, which sucks because it negates some of the tech advantage.

I proposed World Fair but could barely get the silver medal prize. The AI has more cities and production than me.

I haven't been putting too much effort on Culture and almost none on Religion. I've been using my Great Writers and Artists for instant culture and golden ages.

I started on the coast that is not connected to the ocean, so I'm unable to explore the ocean. I have 8 CS waiting for me to discover a natural wonder, and I know it's sitting on a remote island somewhere but the best I can do is send an embarked unit to basically fumble around in the dark.

I've been feeding food caravans to my capital for a while and pumped it up pretty well, I think.

My biggest concern is Egypt. I passed him for the tech lead around turn 200, but his culture/tourism is massive. I was first to ideology (Freedom), followed by Egypt only a few turns later. He and China went Order and are giving me bigtime unhapiness penalty (I'm the only Freedom civ so far). To top it off, Egypt managed to pass World Ideology for Order due to all his CS allies. I'm at -2 happiness now, and I can probably nudge it back to positive but it'll be a constant struggle. At this point in Immortal games I'm usually sitting around +40 happiness with clear skies, so this is new to me.

Basically, does it look like Egypt will win a Cultural victory before I can win Science?

Spoiler :



Did you try bribing Shaka to attack someone else or vice versa? You don't have to build units then. For the unhappiness problem, I don't think it's that crucial anymore in the game because your done growing now seeing as you're at Flight. You should fill all the specialist slots and do some mass bulbing. One thing that being unhappy is not good for is that you don't get the science bonus from Rationalism. (also I saw that you only had 3 GS left, what did you use them for? I see that you have yet to finish the last research lab so you should have more saved up?)
 
I didn't plant a single GS, actually. I bulbed a few to beeline important techs through the game, then stockpiled the rest to burn through the last several techs at the end.

Next time I can do a lot better, I think!

Nicely done and congrats. It's my impression that post-patch, the slowdown of Tradition is probably worth around 20 turns in finishing time, so that's a good finishing time.

Regarding not planting any GS: this is discussed in detail in other threads, with math included, but planting GS early in the game is beneficial. I generally don't plant more than 2, and terrain matters (I love doing it on Deer), but you'll get more benefit by planting than waiting to bulb for 100+ turns.
 
Just from the screenshot, you're in unhappiness so you're not getting the crucial rationalism +10% beakers. Pretty much no excuse for that if you're going for science.

I know. I dropped from +29 to -2 in a single turn because Egypt passed his world ideology. It was pretty disheartening so I posted here wondering if the game could be salvaged (it was the furthest I had gotten into a deity game, so didn't wanna give up so easily). The answer was yes it could be salvaged - I repaired happiness to around +25 then it drifted slowly down to +3 by the time I won on turn 285.
 
Did you try bribing Shaka to attack someone else or vice versa? You don't have to build units then. For the unhappiness problem, I don't think it's that crucial anymore in the game because your done growing now seeing as you're at Flight. You should fill all the specialist slots and do some mass bulbing. One thing that being unhappy is not good for is that you don't get the science bonus from Rationalism. (also I saw that you only had 3 GS left, what did you use them for? I see that you have yet to finish the last research lab so you should have more saved up?)

Yes, early on (pre-T100) I bribed Shaka to attack China. They signed a peace treaty around 15 turns later, then he attacked me right away. That guy really has an itch to scratch!

BTW, I wasn't done growing by any means. I added 10+ pop to all my cities in the next 60 turns.

I think I bulbed a GS for Electricity (followed by Oxford for Radio). By T224 I didn't have many GS saved up yet (I didn't notice that I forgot to build Gardens! mistakes...), but I ended up with 8 at the end to power through the end of the tech tree.
 
Nicely done and congrats. It's my impression that post-patch, the slowdown of Tradition is probably worth around 20 turns in finishing time, so that's a good finishing time.

Regarding not planting any GS: this is discussed in detail in other threads, with math included, but planting GS early in the game is beneficial. I generally don't plant more than 2, and terrain matters (I love doing it on Deer), but you'll get more benefit by planting than waiting to bulb for 100+ turns.

Thanks. I usually plant the first one and save/bulb the rest, and I don't remember why I didn't plant any this game. I probably thought I would win way sooner than I ended up doing, or there was a crucial tech to beeline at the time. The reason I saved most of them for a final bulb-rush was because my production wasn't keeping up with my tech, so it didn't make much sense to bulb techs that I couldn't take full advantage of (i.e. unlocking a useful wonder that takes 30 turns to build). By the end I was pulling 1500+ BPT so bulbing GS gave me a full tech every time.
 
Thanks. I usually plant the first one and save/bulb the rest, and I don't remember why I didn't plant any this game. I probably thought I would win way sooner than I ended up doing, or there was a crucial tech to beeline at the time. The reason I saved most of them for a final bulb-rush was because my production wasn't keeping up with my tech, so it didn't make much sense to bulb techs that I couldn't take full advantage of (i.e. unlocking a useful wonder that takes 30 turns to build). By the end I was pulling 1500+ BPT so bulbing GS gave me a full tech every time.

I think you should always plant two GS even if you would win at like t200-220.
 
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