Deity Challenge 3 - Monty the Ultimate Diplomat

Map:



After bloody Barb busting, i have some good Comb1+Cover archers to protect capital and new settlers. Kublai is directly to my East, West is wide open. So now the race to claim all those resources to the East is on.

Got those cottages up ASAP, at happy cap, with good archer protection, now focusing on setter/worker production. Aiming for GL in Capital.

where would you settler? here is my dot map based on my priorities.

First 2 satelite cities settled as planned.

See some old friends and some new faces, all will be strong contenders. MM is also to the East, Han and Suleiman seem from West since their scouts are heading East. Issy not sure.

Feeling the pressure from KK, will try to settle city 4 to claim at least 1 Ivory. AI's value these phants highly. Also use this city to help block of KK.

By 2000BC, Henge, GWall, and Oracle were all built, so can delay stone city for a bit. Now just focusing on worker/Settler production and land grab.

Tech wise going the GL route as usual.

KK is my strong neighbour, now our top priority is to suck up to him so he does not kill our puny nation. So i switched to his (and MM's) Christian religion the first chance I got. and Switched to OR+HR. It was great timing to apply the 25% prod bonus to GL. 2nd prod city buildig Jags as happy police.



Capital, 2 turns to finish GL, has 3 villages already.




KK is Cautious, MM is pleased. We hold off on trading away Literature until GL built.




Favorite civics, KK likes Beauracracy, next research priority is COL/CS. HR is Sul's favor.




So the plan for now is befriend KK and MM pretending to be a faithful Christian, the goal is to get KK friendly/Bribable And MM friendly so we can whore tech with him for as long as possible.

After GL, will build more settler/worker to claim more land to the West. And Use capital as a part-time GP farm to get those 3-4 GS needed for Liberalism. This capital is perfect for swicthing between GP farm/Wonder production roles.

First thing that popped into my head given the high commerce and production start was axe rush, but having Kublai as the only close neighbour is just evil. He’s high on my list of least favourite AIs to rush. I have a look around and notice the stone and a huge amount of territory. Being able to settle several cities shouldn’t be a problem here so I decide to make a run for the Pyramids – I can afford a little slower earlygame.

Made archers while growing and tried to optimise my build order for as fast as possible Pyramids while still having defence. I pre-chopped some forests while waiting for the settler to enable the stone and made a 2nd worker in the capital for faster chopping. The Oracle went at turn 35 or something this game, at the same time as the Stonehenge(!)

I Finished the Pyramids at 1400 BC. Note those 2 archers protecting our important improvements from barbarians.



1240 BC – HE unlocked:



Another good reason for the Pyramids is that we have no marble, thus the Great Library could be hard to get. With this in mind I avoided running too many scientists and in 500 BC we spawn a GE which rushes the GL for us.




Some trades for spare change:



The tech pace is really fast this game--2 civs having currency already.



Further plans: settle westwards. Mansa Musa finally sent a confucian missionary to me so maybe I should adapt that religion to befriend him and Kublai. The downside is that we're sandwiched between everyone so bad diplomacy can be the doom of the aztec people. Pacifism is still too good to pass up on though, so I will probably adopt Confucianism - if only for a little while.

Hannibal already founded Taoism (450 BC) but I will bulb philosophy regardless.

Really an amazing mix of AIs for a random game. Got the techer, the zealot, the aggressor and a wonder-dude. This will be tough.

Izzy has enough on her hands (will probably attack Kublai) and HC too (don't know what he's up to but at least he's nowhere near me).

I put all my espionage pts on KK, and his power curve towers me. The chance of fighting a successful pre-rifle war for human on deity is quite low.

Wow, pyramid is a bold move. The only down side i see is it delayed you expansion to the East where KK is gobbling up the lands there. Do you plan to hurry to claim those Furs/silver? that spot is too good to pass on. Also see you building Shadwa Paya, i would pass on this wonder and crank out some settlers. But maybe you are only building it while you are growing your population in Capital.

Your take on the S. Paya is correct; I was just building it temporarily for cash (got the resource for it), not to finish it. I'm stopping where it's at now and will go ahead with settlers because currency/CoL is coming up; the new cities will be of benefit right away.

Got a settler with eta 1 at the point of the save - that one will go for furs/silver/iron. It's a horsehockey city output-wise, but gaining all of those resources makes it excellent regardless. I can sell the surplus ones for huge amounts of gold per turn. I don't mind giving Kublai space tbh, because if he settles around me I won't border Izzy (she won't like me when I adopt a religion). Kublai will provide a very neat safe-zone east/north as long as I get him to like me. Then I can focus most of my efforts on Suleiman and the other western civs.

These AIs sure are annoying. I've lost track of how many times I've gotten asked for techs or other requests. Here's an example; Izzy demanded something twice in 4 turns.



Regardless it seems I played my cards right because here I am at 520 AD all safe. Several pleased and nobody's got their hands full (except those already at war). KK has been warring with Izzy up until shortly as expected and Suleiman with Hannibal.

Happy about my game so far. I'm at a point where I have several options, but I decided to go for cuirassiers and drafted muskets as some AIs are a little behind in techs (ETA 11 on MT). I should be able to wipe out or vassal someone soon. I'm thinking of attacking Izzy as she has a shrine and the AP. If I get rid of her I'll only have to worry about 1 front.

Got liberalism at ~400 AD and picked Nationalism. Tenochtitlan is currently getting the Taj Mahal while doing the last remaining techs and Teotihuacan is 2 turns away from Moai Statues. I will queue up HE afterwards. Teotihuacan will be an excellent production city. It will be able to amass a great number of cuirassiers.

I should be able to win this unless something unexpected occurs, I'm in a very good position and I doubt Izzy will be able to stop my planned attack. I also managed to grab all 3 granary resources (rice, wheat and corn) in addition to all three sources of seafood (clam, crab and fish) so health won't be much of an issue. Currently sitting at 8 cities, but most of them are small still. Unfortunately I got to the furs/silver/iron city 2 turns too late. Kublai's culture expanded and I could no longer put a city there. Very uncool, I should've been faster. Settled a city there anyway (iron+silver).

Will probably delay playing further for a little while, got a game in another thread as well, but we'll see, I'm really looking forward to the continuation.