Bindy's Road to EQM -- Round 14

Hello again!

As I mentioned in this thread, I have devised a plan to achieve all the requirements for four of the six legs of the Elite Quattromaster Challenge.

I will try to post a thread around every two weeks with the game conditions, and then some highlights of my game, and encourage others to do the same. I also open the floor to discussions of strategy, as the regular HoF'ers never cease to amaze me with their insights into the game.

Round 14: America Rises Again!

Back in round 3, we put the man with the skull friend on the big chair in the UN. Now we’ll take human sacrifice to the next level, and the world will bow to us!

"Required" Settings:
Expansion: BTS
Note: We are in the grace period for HoF versions, so both 3.13.001 and 3.17.001 are ok!
Era: Ancient
Civilization: Maya
Victory Condition: Religious
Game Speed: Normal
Map: Rain Forest

All maps except duel are eligible for EQM.

Here again are the opponent requirements for various map sizes.

Pacal is Expansive and Financial. Expansive may prove an early boon to jungle-ridden cities, and financial is well, financial. His UU, the Holkan, a spearman with first strike immunity and lack of resource requirement, has an interesting advantage against archers, but I’m not sure I see the usefulness at normal speed. The Ball Court, a coliseum with 2 extra , is not likely to be of significant use either.

Pacal starts with mysticism and mining. Early religion, or Holkans? You make the call.

If you're interested, the current best dates for a small map are:

and the current best dates for a standard map are:



Results:

bestje won in 225 A.D. on a Monarch small map
bestje won in 300 B.C. on a Deity tiny map
Bindamel won in 475 A.D. on a Monarch small map
Conquistador 63 won in 1100 A.D. on a Prince small map
ozbenno won in 175 A.D. on a Deity tiny map

I'm going to play this one - actually played a few times with this set up. Please ... someone remove this 'Prince ruff_hi 1520 A.D.'.

Now that the HoF mod is back to 3.17, I'm in. I have Pacal at Emporer (was an AP game funnily enough). Might try Immortal or Deity.

As for the ball court not being useful. I disagree. In AP games, once you've built the AP, you want to grow, grow, grow so your vote is greater. Happiness usually is the limit, so an extra happy face is always useful.

Ok, I played 2 games for this round, I played the first on a small map at monarch difficulty and the second on a tiny one but at deity

the monarch game produced a 225AD win


and the deity game a 300BC victory, not good enough for top spot but beats my previous best effort


though as you can see in the screenshot I forgot to build an army and got invaded by one of the more aggressive warmongers

both games were played to a similar plan to trigger a self voted AP win (the deity game is included to show just how much easier this is) my plan was to found christianity via an oracle slingshot then build the AP before switching to no state religion.
Then converting just enough opponent votes to activate the diplomatic victory vote before switching back to Christianity and voting myself to an extremely cheasy diplomatic win.
Although the deity one was a bit too close for comfort, I think I only just finished the oracle in time and if the vote had taken much longer to come up I might not have had any cities left

I didn't find the UB particularly useful but the UU isn't bad early game, if neccessary you can rush with it and it is a useful resourceless defender, the main advantage to Maya is the starting techs

OK, I'm really confused. Tried a Deity game, had the religious victory option come up while I was in no state religion, after the vote I changed state religions to trigger the cheesy victory and patted myself on the back for winning the game but after the IBT, no victory?

Then I get a message "The election has been cancelled (Diplomatic Victory)."

WTH is this? Has AP changed in 3.17? Is there no cheesy win left?

Wow - just what I was trying to do last night until Lizzie declared on me. Did bestje play 3.13?

My best time for a Small/Monarch/Religious win was 620 AD? I must have been slacking on that one.

No Emperor or Immortal entries for Small or Standard sized maps.

Maybe I'll give this a try.

Ozbenno said:

OK, I'm really confused. Tried a Deity game, had the religious victory option come up while I was in no state religion, after the vote I changed state religions to trigger the cheesy victory and patted myself on the back for winning the game but after the IBT, no victory?

Then I get a message "The election has been cancelled (Diplomatic Victory)."

WTH is this? Has AP changed in 3.17? Is there no cheesy win left?

Click to expand...

NHJ BV said:

I was just about to make this thread, I want to play BtS through Steam and it started to update. Steam update news doesn't mention anything though.

edit: found patch readme:

Moderator Action: I'm taking the full list posted by Snoopy369 later in this thread and replaced NHJ BV's - Methos
List of changes for version 3.17
Special thanks to Bhruic

...


Fixed some UN/AP voting time-delay issues

...

Click to expand...

I read through the patch notes more than once, but it only now occurs to me what time-delay meant in context.

ruff_hi said:

Wow - just what I was trying to do last night until Lizzie declared on me. Did bestje play 3.13?

Click to expand...

bestje was definitely playing 3.13, because he asked me for an advance list of games so he could play ahead before a long trip to New Zealand.

I haven't upgraded to 3.17 yet. I'm wondering if I should play this first

I'll join in on this one as I need Maya, Rain Forest and Religious for my EQM at noble. I never seem to be able to get a Religious victory on any previous tries so even if I don't on this one at least I'll knock out 2 more things for EQM.

just to confirm I did play in 3.13
there didn't seem to be anything specifically mentioned in the update about banning this exploit but it appears to have been banned, any chance of someone confirming this for us?
In fairness it is good that this exploit is gone, it does give a huge advantage.

Bindy, I'd recommend playing this in 3.13 if you are still able as otherwise i'd say its a game in the bag for me

strategy advice without the exploit: gift cities to the other AIs, instead of using missionaries to spread religion and have the election in no state religion.
this should get you +4 diplo boost with every other civ and hopefully you could get one to friendly, i'm not sure if this will work on deity but it works at monarch level

@bonscott what difficulty are you playing on? and are you on 3.17?
If you are still on 3.13 use the self vote exploit and you should get an easy win.
if on 3.17 its a bit harder but I'd suggest an oracle slingshot for theology and then choosing an AI to suck up to, you need to get one to friendly. gift them a city with the AP religion, give into their demands and adopt their state religion. make sure that no one adopts the AP religion as their state religion and when the vote comes up hopefully you will have the +10 you need to get a peaceful AI to friendly

Hatty is the best AI player to have in this type of game. Her favorite civic is Organized Raligion. When going for an early AP victory, you want to run Organized religion any way. If you adopt Hatty's religion and run Organized Religion, she is almost guaranteed to be Friendly with you. Gifting her a city is just icing on the cake.

I generally get Monotheism first and gift it to Hatty. That is when I switch to her religion for the additional diplo bonus. While running Organized Religion you can build missionaries without monistaries. Make sure to spread the AP religion to all of your cities and at least one of each AI. Once you have spread it to all the AI players, spread it to more of Hatty's cities sice she will vote for you.

Mesix said:

Hatty is the best AI player to have in this type of game. Her favorite civic is Organized Raligion. When going for an early AP victory, you want to run Organized religion any way. If you adopt Hatty's religion and run Organized Religion, she is almost guaranteed to be Friendly with you. Gifting her a city is just icing on the cake.

I generally get Monotheism first and gift it to Hatty. That is when I switch to her religion for the additional diplo bonus. While running Organized Religion you can build missionaries without monistaries. Make sure to spread the AP religion to all of your cities and at least one of each AI. Once you have spread it to all the AI players, spread it to more of Hatty's cities sice she will vote for you.

Click to expand...

Sounds like a good plan to get an AI to vote for you, Hatty is one of the friendlier AIs, be careful not to spread the AP religeon to too many of her cities tho as then she will convert and you don't want that to happen

the problem with gifting techs is you have to research alphabet and thats a bit of a sidetrack on the tech tree for a religious win

If Hatty founds one of the early religions, she will generally not change to the AP religion even if it is spread to all of her cities. She does a very good job of spreading religions herself without player help from missionaries.

I would recommend spreading to Hatty first and then spreading the AP religion to the other AI players. I generally spread to the players that are farthest away and then to the closer AI players just in case a missionary fails to get into position. It is a lot easier to send another missionary to that far flun AI player early than waiting for another missionary to reach him when that is the only player left to spread to.

I also spread to India last. Both India leaders like to build the SP wonder and switch to Free Religion early which eliminated their "Brothers of the Faith" diplo bonus. India also does a good job of spreading the religion to all their cities, and it doesn't help for an AI player to have a lot of cities in the AP religion unless they are likely to vote for you.

ok, I didn't know that about Hatty, thats useful in this game as you could give her a lot of votes without her becoming your opponent

absolutely agree with your other 2 points

how is everyones games going so far for this round?

I'm interested in giving it a try, but I have only 3.17 so no cheesy win for me. I wonder how is it possible to get someone else to vote for you while running different religions. Worse yet, on higher difficulty levels, e.g. Immortal, how can you avoid getting declared on as soon you as you declare a different religion from everyone else?

EDIT: I ran a quick try small/prince (as ruff_hi requested ). I don't know how to play this stuff but got a 1100AD finish.

Hatty will be the new cheese

First my game, then some comments.

Monarch, Small, still on 3.13, no surprises there. Reading the excellent advice here, I made sure Hatty was on my opponent list, with Mansa, Cyrus and Zara. My victory came on my third serious attempt. My first attempt was foiled by Cyrus declaring on me early, and my second when Hatty didn't found a religion (and I stupidly founded too many religions.)

Here's the obligatory capital screenie:



I Mapfinder'd 280 maps, getting 15 saves with food + mining or quarry resources. There were two decent marble starts, see above. It wasn't even close to necessary, to be honest.

Built Oracle, discovered Theology, built AP, fired off missionaries in one city each of the AI -- you know the drill. I did throw away 5 turns because as I was getting ready to spread the faith to Zara, I realized I hadn't gone back to No State Religion, and had to wait 'til I could switch back.

Before the revolt to Christianity:



and after (cutting it a bit close there, aren't you Bindy?):



The "Mesix" strategy worked a charm, although it wasn't necessary:



475 A.D., not too bad; not as good as bestje, but not too bad.


if you look at the numbers on my screenshots, I would have only lost a diplomatic victory without using the exploit by three votes, thanks to Hatty voting for me. If I had spread Christianity to more of her cities (combined, she and I would need to have 42 votes), I could have easily won by staying in No State Religion. I may try this in a game once I upgrade to 3.17.

My opinion is that diplo (religious) victory shouldn't be an option if you're not running the state religion. This way the diplomatic minus from running a different religion will prevent them from voting for you.

Postscript while my 3.17 patch is at 84% downloaded

I replayed an older save of my game (after submitting of course), and was able to non-cheesy win in 900 A.D. I could easily improve that. Mansa and Hatty will both spread your religion through their empires, and are fairly easy to get to +8, which is all I needed for both of them to vote for me.

Monarch level, ymmv.

So convert to build AP, and then leave the religion behind forever. I suspect that's not as intended, but it is what it is.

Deity 175AD win on 3.17, tiny map.



Basically Oracled Theology, built Apostolic Palace and converted to Hatty's religion to get her to vote for me (wasn't sure that would work so only did it after the second vote so could have won 10 turns earlier).

Out with the old cheese and in with the new.

Congratulations everyone!

Best turnout in a while with 5 games by 4 players. bestje gains another point on me in our overall race, and beat out Ozbenno on the Deity win! He almost beat everybody to the submission race too, as he had the second and third submissions of the update.

I've added the results to the first post.

I'm almost certain i'll never manage to beat Ozbenno again, the odds were a little stacked in my favour! i'm going to miss 3.13 and its cheasy religious wins

Well done everyone, we've entered some very competitive dates with all 5 games making it into their respective HOF tables