Gliese's Deity game

Shortly after the previous update I obtained physics from Suryavarman which was a pleasant boost. He got 4 techs from it, but most of them were widely known already. SB got MT to top his grenadiers with cuirassiers, but despite this I wasn't worried about whether I'd win the war, it was only a matter of whether I could end it in time to recover.

I missed out on the majority of the islands -- I found them too late and dedicated most of my production towards the war.

I landed my stack on the same hill as Gliese:



Cahokia fell 3-4 turns later after my stack had fended off some attacks from SB. I had some reinforcements come as well, but they weren't necessary -- my guerilla riflemen handled the cuirassiers and my pinch cavalry handled the grenadiers.

I got rid of the cultural defence after bombarding with my fleet SoD <insert missing picture of fleet size>. SB had his navy split up so I hardly lost any ships at all -- his frigates were useless vs. my combat (II) SoL(s). I think I had 5-ish SoL and 3-4 frigates.

By 1390 I've gotten to Mesa Verde. I've killed the bulk of his army by now so it's just a mop-up. I'm using airships (!) as a replacement for siege. They go hand in hand with mounted warfare as they can keep up with the movement unlike regular siege. They also don't die, so the same 4-5 airships are weakening SBs grenadiers and longbowmen of the city my eyes are on. My cavalry end up getting incredible battle odds despite 60% culture with these airships helping out -- I hardly lose any.

My airships also manage to scout JC's army, and it's huge (he might even have more of these for all I know). A quick look at the demographics (soliders) isn't very comforting -- if he attacks me I'm going to lose. I was planning on taking him next (even researched artillery), but this seems bad now, a peaceful victory has better odds here. If we were on the same continent it might've worked, but having to keep up with his fleet and ground army without the option of having him suicide a lot of units on my cities makes it very hard. He's such a beast after AL (infantry+much more production).



Around 1500 somewhere I have taken all of SB's cities on the starting continent, but he still has islands. Rather than vassalising I decided to simply take peace because:
a) My relations with JC would drop to cautious increasing/adding risk.
b) He's too small to pose a threat to me at this point.
c) I have no trouble with his culture as all of his remaining cities are on islands.
d) If I keep him around everyone should attack him instead of me. He will have less power and worse relations.

I started a GA right after the war ended and did a temporary switch to Hinduism as that made me friendly with Zara (exchanged some techs, can't remember which).

As mentioned earlier I had my eyes set on a peaceful win and here that would have to be space, so I decided to get cottages (with emancipation) and went on total research. I dedicated 2-3 of my starting cities (horsehockey tiles) to workshops and set them to produce wealth in order to keep a 100% research slider for the rest of the game. I also set my (Ironworks) capital to wealth and (HE) Sparta to infantry. It doesn't take long for it to show results:



Later on Zara goes into WHEOOH, but as predicted he attacked SB rather than me. It wouldn't be the end of the world if Zara attacked me though -- the real danger is JC. Still, it's very comforting that he's as big as he is (with Monty as vassal), it makes any domination attempts by JC less likely to succeed before I can intervene.

JC couldn't keep up with my tech rate towards the end and as a result I won by space. I can't remember when I launched, but I think it was at the end (or right after) this golden age (1785 AD here with 5 turns of GA left).



The highlight of this game (for me) was to see how well a transfer from specialists or hammers into cottages work with emancipation. The cottages mature very fast, so for a space race it is very effective. I am more convinced than ever that getting mainly cottages is 'bad' before liberalism on this difficulty (with some specific exceptions -- for instance capitals suited for commerce). I also love philosophical more than ever as I really noticed how cheap universities got my conquered cities up to date very fast (univeristies/libraries get destroyed) -- the 100% bonus to universities can be very useful after Oxford's as well. The economy switch is usually unnecessary as domination might be within reach, but in games like this it can be very useful.

Why did you choose constitution from liberalism? Were you running a lot of specialists outside of Athens? I only see 3 in Athens.

How many bulbs did you do to get to liberalism? Did you start settling scientists there only after that?

It seems that you managed to grab the GLib even though you were not aiming for it initially. In 50 AD I see you going for nationalism. When did you decide to go for literature?

From memory, it's some time ago. This is roughly what happened,

I attacked Bull the conventional way, Rifles and cannons. I land 1240 AD to start bombing but since i don't have much galleons it takes some time to get all the troops there.The real attack begins 1280 AD near Cahokia. I've some time to spare as SB needs to tech rp and rifles iirc, he also isn't near steel.I take the first 3 cities easily, actually i never experience any real trouble in this war just steamrolling. SB techs rifles somewhere and i'm slowed down by that needing longer healing times for the cannons. 1565 AD the last city on the main continent falls.

I found Rusten's game here enlightening to really cottage everything after the war (just as the cavs/airship combo, that's some to remember ). I'm definitely done later with SB then he is though (late 1500's), also JC is even bigger in my game, he has captured all but one of Englands cities. I need the production from the workshops + slavery to get in the infra so i didn't really have time to mature cottages with emancipation, actually my cities were just coming out of revolt ~ 1625 AD.

Since the new cities suffer from motherland yearning i capture the upper most island too wiping SB off the planet, it's not too bad really and helps a bit later on especially with espionage.

The end game is a bit of a blur, i'm out teched left right and center by JC who doesn't research comps when he should have though. So at least i'm first to the internet around 1800 AD. This helps since Zara is still in the game tech wise. I build/buy a lot of espionage buildings relying on the net to get me some techs. In the end JC slows down a bit for some reason giving me a chance to finally catch up, spies destroy some of his parts and i eventually escape with victory reaching Alpha 1890 AD.

I was somewhat surprised that i still won this game given JC's size, i've played some more games on deity and found since that there are almost always chances in the endgame, espionage can really help alot in tough situations. It's a big plus if you can get the redentor giving you much more flexibility to manipulate things.

To show that i wasn't really dominating this game



He could have crushed me like a bug. He was in wheoohrn the whole game without ever using his stacks, maybe he realized the game could crash/freeze if he moved that stack . Also take note of what Bugmod thinks of my power rating compared to JC's.

I still have the end save.

Why did you choose constitution from liberalism? Were you running a lot of specialists outside of Athens? I only see 3 in Athens.

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Yes, I was still running specialists in the seafood cities. I was about to pop 3 GSs from GPP which didn't have a clear lightbulb target and as I was anticipating a long game I decided to settle them. Oxford's was coming into play as well, so the extreme amount of science bonuses, the fact that I was about to settle some GSs in Athens and the extra happiness had some effect on my decision. However, the main selling point was that I had met rival AIs and instead of giving them education/liberalism I was able to trade for techs with consititution instead. I'd much rather have JC in representation (shared civic) than to have him get a bunch of universities (and communism).

How many bulbs did you do to get to liberalism? Did you start settling scientists there only after that?

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I lightbulbed paper (1), philosophy (1) and Education (2) IIRC. I didn't settle until after liberalism yes.

It seems that you managed to grab the GLib even though you were not aiming for it initially. In 50 AD I see you going for nationalism. When did you decide to go for literature?

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I went literature right after civil service. The capital had a lot of commerce so I felt bureaucracy was more important (especially seeing as I had CoL already).