The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game # 5 - The Inca

Settle on the mine to the Northeast I'm going to attempt to get earth mother going in full force, worker steal from Assyria and Katmandu and I'm off to the races BO in the Capital was Scout, Scout, Granary, Library until AH then Caravan to Russia. Went for construction prior to NC to get Some nice Terrace farms up and running. After my caravan was up I built three settlers and rush bought 2 slingers to escort work barb camps. On turn 46 I DOF Korea and Brazil, they will be my friends for the next 150 turns. Mongolia is on a tear killing all of the CS in the bottom potion of the map Manilla, Ife, Morraco are gone prior to t70. Meanwhile after I finish up my libary I build a watermill and then the Oracle while waiting on my satelites to finish their Libraries. Finish Oracle on T80 and Start NC. Khan has now Dowed Assyria I up grade my slingers and start wall production. The DOW never Comes but my Friend block which now includes Russia All denounce Mongolia and so do I. Settle into Building Universities and Observatories and get Dowed by ASsaria on turn 130. I contain him in a choke with 1 Pike, 2 LKs, and 2 Crossbows, thanks for the GG ASsayria! (I'll use that on that coal later on) t145 Korea beats me to the porcelain tower, oh well finish up on my public Schools, Circus maximus, iron works, and Oxford into the Modern Era prior to starting the World's Fair won it with 970 hammer on t176. Propose World Order as the next vote, I get followed into Order by Korea hopefully that will help me win the World Congress vote. t186 Rush buy all my labs and switch to all science production, 196 bulb my 3 idle GS, and take a break. I think It will be about a t240 finish, unless something crazy happens.

I think I could have done better with CS Quests and influence more early on and my religion is nonexistant Russia and Iroquios keep bombing me with Great Prohets, (Holy Crap, a Great War Infantry cost 2250Faith)

I messed up my end game I didn't even get to the Order finisher so I couldn't use a GE on the Stasis Chamber. Around t200 I lost my friendships and Brazil took Autocracy had to fight Russia twice to finish up despite them being an Order Civ too. Wonders Built Oracle, Big Ben, Cristo Redentor, HST

I haven't done a Freedom SV in quite a while, usually stick to Order. I had a ton of gold by turn 220 that I probably could have dumped into CS for an easy DV but went for SV instead and bought 3 space parts.

Only built Oracle, HSS, ET(so culture civs wouldn't) and SoL.

Amazingly I won the WF by a good margin even though Cathy had quite a large empire. I had enough culture for full tradition + full rati + 6 in Freedom + 4 in pat and 1 in commerce.

Was pretty smooth up until the end when Korea+Assyria DOW'd me forcing me to upgrade a lot of units. I didn't have any naval units at Machu so the CS there razed all my sea tiles and I quickly bought a work boat and submarine(which died) and started on another sub but didn't matter at that point.

RAs were hard to come by and I could have shaved at least 10 turns off if I had made a RA with Hiawatha and Caeser but they didn't like Cathy and I wasn't willing to risk making friends with her enemies just for the RAs since our friendship was right on the edge.

Assyria was going to take down Monaco but too late anyway.

First game was lost when there were two AI:s left around 200. Mongols conquered Assyria, but was promptly eatenby Russia. Brasil eat rome, but was defeated by the Iroquois which reduced Korea to ashes. Gave up then, was behind anyway.


Second game, was slightly less aggressive with the foreign policy, and as a result everyone but Rome & Brazil survived until the end. Mongols conquered Monaco and thus culture was lacking whole game. Managed to complete Rationalism in time to start popping scientists.

Anyway, went 4 city tradition. Stole worker from Russia and some CS. Pottery (from hut), Archery, Mining, Husbandry, Writing, Philo, Calendar, Sailing ... Education ... Construction ... ST ... Dynamite ... Plastics ... Satellites ... Remaining.

Could not defend Monaco against Mongols, had like 2 composites at the time. Didn't really want war. Traded early with Russia, and got their religion. Iroqouis wanted me to have theirs too, but Russia got Cathedrals that gave some much needed culture.

Had Mongols and Assyra fight wars, Russia next. Got DoF with Korea and Russia.

Liberated Monaco when Dynamite arrived. Was probably possible earlier, but I didn't dare to. Took another of Ghengis cities which was sold to assyra for 35gpt + 300 gold. (All he had, and I got low on happiness). Everyone else wanted to pay like 1 gpt for said city. It pays to shop around
Not quite worth it because I lost like four artillery pieces to fog of war. Ghengis suddenly had Cav. I should have brought more melee units as buffer.

Took order along with Brazil and korea. Only to have Iroqouis, Mongols, And Russia go Autocrazy. Iroqouis alos sold me some blue jeans, and brought a pamphlet which said Revolutionary wave. Went from -1 happiness to -23 in one turn

This occurred while building international games. Missed out silver by four hammers
Made this up by spawning a Great Engineer two turns ahead of Satellites, so I got Hubble Telescope.
Think I bulbed 10-14 scientists for the last techs. Are you guys chainbulbing (I.e. the same turn, or do you wait one turn in between?)

Had no aluminium so I had to buy, realized that Mobile Rockets needs aluminium after I'd upgraded a few. Bummer.

Also, prebuilt Oxford (1 turn remaining) to finish last tech. Forgot until it was two turns away. 8 turns down the drain Well not quite, couldn't have produced the chamber in said turns anyway, but so much for planning ahead.

So, there, that's how amateurs play, but still win.

Glorious victory:



Note the army crammed around Ragusa. I was at war with culture-leader Hiawatha and used this corridor to funnel through Great Musicians. Sadly, I cost myself a turn of victory by liberating Ragusa shortly beforehand, as I could’ve gotten my Musicians to Hiawatha faster if he had that city. It would’ve been cool to get under turn 240 – one turn isn’t much of a difference, but it “feels” bigger when it’s moving the tens digit.

The bulk of my base tourism is coming from wonder culture via the Cultural Heritage Sites proposal. I have 14 wonders in Cusco, so the three culture per wonder from that proposal is generating 84 tourism before modifiers all by itself. Multipliers from Internet, International Games, World Religion, and Freedom are all stacking up big time. I also have six artifacts in the capital and one landmark each in Machu and Tiwanuka.

Here’s my complete list of world wonders (all in the capital, in order of when I built them): Oracle, Hagia Sophia, Machu Picchu, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Taj Mahal, Forbidden Palace, Porcelain Tower, Statue of Liberty, Big Ben, Eiffel Tower, Cristo Redentor, CN Tower, Neuchwanstein, Great Firewall

Notably absent from that list: Sistine Chapel, Uffizi, Louvre, Broadway

I got all but one wonder I tried for. The one I missed was Angkor Wat, which I definitely haven't ever built on Deity. My cities were growing so fast that the tile expansion seemed like it would've actually been really good. Oh well.

The World Congress was very valuable for me. I was able to propose World’s Fair on the first Congress. I won the Fair and popped 4 Great Writers during those 20 turns for mega culture. Second Congress I proposed Cultural Heritage Sites. The AI proposed and passed Arts Funding – I really couldn't decide whether this was a good thing or not, so I just put all my delegates into ensuring Cultural Heritage Sites went through. On the third Congress I proposed World Religion – afterwards I realized that may have been a mistake and going straight for International Games would’ve been better. Then I checked, and it turned out the AI had proposed International Games for me. So I was able to actually have it all.

Here are my policies:



I thought it would be cool to avoid Aesthetics entirely, but I ended up with extra endgame culture and nothing better to do with it than speed up Musician generation marginally. I was also thinking that I might buy up Great Musicians in 40 turns or so if I somehow failed to win during International games. I actually would’ve completed Future Tech by then if it came to that.

Musicians Guild was not completed until the turn before I started working on the International Games. I generated two Musicians during the Games, and that was enough to win it. Hiawatha was the leader, with only like 22,000 culture. Amusingly, it seems that the lack of cultural city-states on the map may have been helpful for Culture Victory, as that slowed the AI’s culture growth a lot.

My science was absolutely ridiculous this game. I was the tech leader by turn 130. I finished Plastics on turn 174. I completed the Internet by around turn 205. I think this was just an extremely favorable map for the Inca – infinite food + infinite hammers + Observatories everywhere + defensible terrain is a good combination. I would've set a personal record no matter which (non-Domination) victory condition I went for.

I didn’t start any wars myself, but I got DOW’ed a few times – four times by Assyria, and once each by Mongolia, Russia, and the Iroquois. Assyria ended up paying me for peace every time. I felt safe enough that I didn’t bother much with war bribes (although I did send Russia after Mongolia once, when half my troops were occupied with Assyria and the other half were surrounding Monaco to prevent my "friend" Genghis from conquering it). I had so many hills and chokepoints that nobody could really threaten me, and war bribes do run the risk of creating runaways (in addition to just costing money, which can be spent on other things). These days I bribe a lot less than I did when I first started playing on Deity.

After the Artemis fiasco, my game is running pretty smooth. One advantage of playing the Inca is that opponents will rarely covet your lands (except Hiwatha, of course), so you have friendly friends everywhere (even Genghis, who's so hard to befriend), even among neighbours whom you've forward-settled (sorry, Ashurbanipal, but I needed to monopolize that Copper!)

I've made a few mistakes, I think, like not going for any religion. I didn't know Pantheons could still be founded, and I expected to not have any chance at a religion in this map, but hey, I guess it can't hurt to build a shrine or two. Another mistake was not aiming for the Oracle (the AI left it alone for a very long time). As of now, my culture output is low, but I haven't built the Artist Guild yet. Currently undecided on going Commerce or Patronage first (probably the latter, I have some good CS neighbours, here)

Now, for some oddities, has anybody else found it strange to find so many inland Maritime cities? Also, almost all of them are asking for Salt, which I can't see anywhere else yet! Even my capital is demanding it, don't they know it's bad for your health?

And then there's Hiwatha, who I normally despise (this game, he managed to finish Petra and Pyramids in the same turn!), but this time...



...he made something mindboggling. I think that was his only Cotton copy, too!

Without Rationalism SV didn't seem like the way to go besides Korea was running away and I sort of decided against it in the beginning so as wonders were built in left & right of me good ol' dom always works but to give it some spicing I went for Total Domination like in the Snarzberry's original Challenge. The allying all CSs without Patronage seemed like a nice bonus especially if one steals away AI's allies before starting a war with them - Hiawatha was an exception.

Kill order Korea-Rome-Brazil-Iroquois-Russia-Assyria while Cathy wiped the Mongols off somewhere around T170.