"Interesting Deity Start" Series

Im glad to see all of you that have posted having an easy go of it! I however was blinded by a huge stalemated war with Arabia. I usually do not play very good but this game is a prime example of what not to do! I really stunk up this game/map but on the bright side I have taken out Mecca which is satisfying in itself. Im sure that it has cost me any chance of a win but that is ok since losing just makes me play better next time.

Not alot to say about my game. I really wish I had gone Full Honor instead of Full Liberty. The amount of gold I would of had for killing so many units would of been a big boost! I decided to go Freedom which I never do but since I was able to get 2 free tenents I figured that was the best play. It will not matter since I have no cpt and am having trouble even finishing Ratio lol! I really should just resign but since Im only 10% behind in tech now I have some sort of a delusion that I still can win lol!

So if you are sort of new to Deity make sure you get others to attack the Civ that you are planning to attack because it makes it much easier. This was a huge pain fighting a war 1v1 and not having any help. You would figure having around 8000 hrs into Civ V that I would not make this mistake but that is what I get for thinking I can just do whatever I want in this game and still win. This theory is true for Immortal and below but Deity requires a little better planning!

Also going down the middle might not of been very wise. It may have been better to take out the city to the West first but I was thinking Arabia has to run out of units this time but they never did until about turn 240 !

I took Baghdad in a peace deal and it was a nice city but no wonders either. This ego driven war cost me the game. Poland is not too far from a CV. I would say before turn 300 for sure. I have not played this Civ very much and I forgot they get a free Harbor for every coastal city. If I was to play this over I think I would do the same thing but I would play nice with Arabia and get them in a war or two before taking them out. I also would go Full Honor as well. Ofcourse I could play a more safe approach and go with Peace/SV but I enjoy the tactics of war but I need to improve at it. I think Im gonna roll a few maps and post up another since I do not want to wait 4 days for the next DLC and I know I can finish out another game before Friday. I do not expect many people to play the map but it makes SP alot more fun for me when I can post my results. It is pretty funny though how much of a cold streak I am on. I think I have lost the last 3 out of 4 Deity games after going on a 10 game winning streak .

Poland, Greece, Zulu, Ethiopia, Netherlands, Maya, and I had to put Arabia in here for some revenge!

So you mean the same way we do the DCL and ICL. Every time you have a new map you make a new post with the tile IDS #2... one map per post right?

Once again it seems I let my last game dictate my choices and I stuck myself into a 4 city Tradition start... soon to be 5 at turn 101 on the Western Silver. Im thinking 1 more city to get another coastal spot and pick up 2 more Ivory but I have no experience playing with 5 and 6 city Traditon so Im not too sure.

As usual I started with scouts. This game I decided to go 3x scout in hopes of getting some workers and blocking. I did get to block Ethiopias 3rd settler a bit and they settled Adwa pretty close. Shaka worries me but he got a strange start and has a choke point problem. He has coveted my lands the whole game and I put him at war with Ethiopia and Cahokia twice. Shaka has traded Adwa a few times already. I did get 1 barb to join my army but I am not making very good use of Germany's UA.

After my disaster last game I decided to try and play nice and it is an interesting balance with Shaka to the West and Ethiopia to the East. Im not sure but it looks like some sort of Conts map. I haven't met any other Civ yet and that hurts. So I went 3x Settlers after the scouts. I rush bought a worker since I was having trouble stealing them. I did make constant war with Cahokia and stole 3 workers since. I hard built 3 libraries and rushed the 4th. Looks like 4 city Trad NC at turn 101. Shaka could roll me easy if he wanted to. I decided to build the Oracle and opened Patronage with it after Full Trad.

I sent my first 2 Caravans to CS's to get ally status. I have one into Ethiopia now and not sure what to do with the next. I need to keep allied with Samarkand to keep all that happy. I guess my plan is to try to ally up with Shaka (pfft) and take over Ethiopia down the road. I dunno maybe just peace up the whole game and SV since I could use a win. Time will tell.

I did get a religion thanks to Mt. Kailash but it isn't holding very well. I chose Tithe and Pagodas so far and am buying the Pagodas instead of enhancing.

Im not very keen on how to roll good maps over bad ones but I kinda like this one so far.

I was thinking we just use this thread, exactly how you just did it. That way, months down the road, somebody who is just browsing will see this thread, find some "interesting" maps to play, and learn from the experience of those who post here.

If we start a new thread for each map, the older ones will get lost into the nether regions of inter-space (that's me trying tech-talk). Those who are going to play around with the maps here, and post their own maps, will know that this thread is the place to do so.

How's that sound?

Hint: Petra Gambit, full mid-game warmonger, and CA's vs. Impi coming to a theatre near you soon.

So I got stuck this game playing with Peace and building. I still would like to roll over Ethiopia down the road though. Im always worried that Shaka is comming to get me soon so I keep him as busy as possible.

I missed the PT this game since I didn't even try for it because I went into scholasticism instead of opening up Ratio. I won WF though by almost double production . This game drives me crazy . I used Oxford for radio around turn 188 getting the second Ideology which I chose Order. I think this is gonna be a problem with Shaka and Ethiopia so I guess I better start getting ready for some war. I used some loan gold for rush buying a Hanse and Public Schools. I have the tech lead but need to focus on military soon. I plan to faith buy a GE to get the Kremlin. Nothing really new for my games. Im rushing to get to Plastics for labs and over to Railroad after that and onto Sats for Hubble after that.

This game has given me a good amount of choices which I like. Im not exactly sure how great the map is in general but I am happy with the tension I am getting from it.

I forgot to mention that I decided to settle the Capital on the gold after thinking about it for 5-10mins since I couldn't decide if I wanted the Mtn or not. I was happy to find two bananas in my radius. I have struggled growing my expos though since I am trying to take advantage of the Hanse with CS trade routes.

After seeing the map I wish I would of tried for an early clear of this Cont but Shaka's Capital location kinda steered me into a more peaceful approach. Oh ya and as always I made the Germans Jewish which always makes me laugh.

I basically built a small army and once all my TRs were out of Ethiopia I attacked. I had the Zulu at war with them for about ten turns prior and it looked like Ethiopia had little troops left. To my suprise they had a decent army still and it took some time killing units and moving in to take the Capital which happened on turn 265. I gave them peace since I thought they could get it right back and I figured I can take some more cities later. Im about to finish Hubble and Im guessing SV from here on out. I have had the tech lead for some time and I don't think Im in any danger of an AI CV or Diplo. I did have to rush buy some troops which cost a few thousand gold from loans. I have 5 DOFs now and am RAing it up. I was glad to see the Zulu ally up with me and they have all green modifiers with us so I do not think they will backstab since we both went Order.

I had some fun with Ethiopia and sold Adwa to William. Alex was a monster with CS's and actually used his gold to take them over every turn which was a nice surprise. I couldn't hold any of them (I had 3 with over 500 Influence) so I had Shaka go to war with Alex and take them out. It was a good thing I had a late GS and my saved GE to blast off because I was not going to be able to stop Alex from a Diplo Victory even if I took out Kuala Lumpur. It was nice to see him pass his Church and Ideology since I usually don't see them propose that.

All in all Id say this map is on the easier side but I had fun with it. Most likely because I won lol. The thing that I enjoyed the most is that I was able to do alot of things. I was able to play with some peace and build. I had a nice war that was a bit of a struggle. The game felt well rounded for me. I had some early/mid game tension since I did not build any real army till late game. Shaka can be your loyal hound dog if you get him on your side but I think he had a poor start this game.

My SPs were... Full Trad, Schol into Patronage, Full Ratio, 6 into Order for Spaceflight.
My Religion helped but was crippled most of the game, I chose... 1 with Nature, Tithe, Pagodas, Swords into Plowshares and Rel Texts.
The nice thing was I was able to Faith buy 2 GS's and 1 GE with it and Tithe gave me enough gold throughout the game.

Ethiopia was taken out by Shaka and I paid Alex to wipe out Arabia for some revenge from my last game !

It was a pretty uneventful final 50 turns, as I bulbed 9 GS and used the research boost from ISS to get the final 4 turns of research. Nobody else had even built a SS part. Poland was going for CV, but was only up to 75% on me and 66% on Arabia.

There were wars aplenty, but I played a pretty good diplo game and only got drawn into one or two. My final civ score was 1081, which may be the lowest I've had in a winning game.

Carthage was a beast, and I got a lot of benefit from late-game Exploration tenets. I'm going to start using this more often. Arabia, who had joined me in Freedom, defected to Order around t280, and I got denounced by just about everyone, but happiness stayed positive (built Neuschaewtethenstein) and had more than enough gold to buy the final part.

Getting an easy win in a game with no oil, no aluminum, no uranium, and no religion is kinda nice.

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I settled the capital on the hill next to the mountain. I love getting sea/river/hill/mountain capital, but this one made it so that early food was going to be a problem. That's fine, as it gave me justification for a pop 2 settler for Mt. Kailish while I waited for my borders to expand. It's going to be a slow start, but my plan (thus far) is going to be a late-game war monger.

BO >Scout > Scout > Monument (mistake) > Shrine > Settler > Granary > Caravan > Caravan (I got a sailing hut) > Statue of Zeuss (to keep Shaka from getting it) > Library > Working on Oracle then NC will be t100 or so.

SP > Tradition Opener > Honor Opener (may as well find the barb camps easily) > Finish Tradition soon > Probably get more honor as the GG will be helpful if Shaka becomes feisty (IF????).

I've cut the continent in half and will settle to the West leisurely. I paid Shaka to DoW Ethopia too early, as they've already made peace and the first Impi just showed up. Since I settled in Shaka's face, I expect some action soon, as he's not trading in a friendly manner. Because I had an early military CS ally, and have cleared a few barb camps, my military is pretty strong (if I can get my comp bows soon).

Alex just stopped by to say hello and introduce himself. He seems like a pleasant fellow this game, but I was tempted to inquire how he had already annexed Amsterdam into his 9 city empire (yikes!). The turn after his introduction, the peanut gallery (unmet civs) denounced him twice. I don't know what their issue with him is…..he does seem most agreeable.

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Got rolled by Shaka because I had nothing to bribe him with and half my units were in the Southwest killing barbs. Dumb move to bribe him too early to DoW Ethiopia. I should have saved those resources for when he threatened me. What a waste of what could have been a fun game. I haven't been rolled like that in quite awhile, so maybe I was getting cocky in my diplomatic skill. On a landmass with only 3 civs, you've got to pick your spots a bit better.

Oh man I feel your pain lol! You really settled right in Shaka's face!! I know how you feel after winning game after game after game you think you can never lose and wham the game can be brutal like that! I would like to see your Petra map now since we seem to be the only two actually playing these games in lightning speed and I could use 1 more game before the DCL game comming up on Friday !

I actually paid Shaka to DOW Cahokia and Ethiopia twice very early (I paid him to Dow Cahokia even when I was allied with them just to distract that bastard) before they marched some units through that choke point. I parked my warrior right in that choke point (You can see this warrior on my turn 100/201 pics) to try and block the Zulu hoard and never moved him till like turn 255! The nice thing was since Zulu and Ethiopia didn't like one another they sent me alot of Trade Routes.

I noticed Ethiopia settled on that sweet spot, in your game, (Lalibela) that I got early since I forced him to move his settler away from that spot with two scouts and an archer. Im trying to get better at blocking and stealing the workers/settlers/trade routes in the early game. Interesting note is that I took about ten mins to decide where to settle my cap. I chose the gold since it was close to the luxes and farm/deer but it got even better when I seen the two bananas. It also blocked Ethiopia from getting where he did in your game. Ofcourse I went Mining first and it gave me a nice gold boost in the early turns for the bribes.

Thats alot of games. I think on Stand/Stand it takes me 2 days on average to complete one game. I like how it says I played 6 hours and I know I have played 22+ hrs in real time!

Dude, I didn't even think about bribing him to DoW a CS. I'm an idiot for forgetting this, as I used to do it all the time.

I'm going to go back a few turns and try that and maybe finish the game. I only need about 10 turns and I'll be able to handle him.

Are you ok if I post an Arabia game here? F.A. is jonesing for another map, and this is a fun one. We need a more efficient way to do this.

Hint: salt starts are not always as good as one thinks.

This game seems too good to be true. I built scout, scout, shrine, 3x Settler... (4 free Monuments from going Tradition). All this salt and spice is pretty amazing. I wanted to settle my 2nd Expo beside the coast but Ethiopia's scout was locked in that hex so I bit the bullet and settled next to the mountain instead. All other expos on the gold and marble. Indonesia is a DOF but upset about the forward settle that I couldn't really see so I bribed him to DOW Ethiopia. I bribed Rome to DOW France as well. All this salt is pretty strong for trades and gold and just growth and production in general.

I would never even try for Petra in this desert. So basically the game is won from here unless the Diplo gets really ugly which it could happen, I suppose, but I will try to be best friends with Rome and Indo since they seem like the biggest threat. It looks like Rome is beating on France for now. I chose Earth Mother ofcourse and should get an easy Religion up.

7 salt in my borders! 3 spice, 1 gold, 1 marble, and 1 dye is pretty OP. Time to take a break, party, and sleep in that order . Rome went Tradition which is unusual so I will not have to worry about them ICS-ing for now. Oh and I hard built 2 libraries and rush bought another and need 28 more gold to rush buy the last.

I want to put a cargo ship into the capital but it might be wiser to put a caravan into Rome and Indo to keep them happy with me.

I'm guessing you haven't met your northernmost neighbor yet? He's got better starting turf than you…..and there's no place to hide.

I picked Arabia because I want to experiment more with the Petra Gambit, and the idea is to have a non-desert capital and still get it through tenets…….and the way this map developed makes for some interesting decisions.

Have fun, and I'll post my t100 update later.