One city. One Large Diety game. Always War.

Edit: Apparently you can't edit the poll options XD just pretend that says industrial.

So I need a breather from the annoyingly complicated french story I've started. The goal of this game: Get to as far an era as I possibly can before getting crushed. Place your bet as to how far I'll go! Will update as much as I can.

Settings:


-Standard speed
-Pangea
-Greece
-Deity
-Must declare on all civs
-Must declare on all City states
-One city only

Here's my start (just realized I was playing with a mod, regenned another vanilla start):

Whew, just played for a while, man this is a rush! Given the A.I. stupidity but extreme power, I feel like a lone guy with a shotgun barred up in a house fighting off hundreds of zombies. For suspense's sake, even though I'll prolly finish tomorrow, I'm going to spread the story out over a couple days.

So, my tech so far goes mining->bronzeworking->beeline to horses. Social policies end up being honor and the great general policy. My build order is warrior-> worker -> hoplite -> worker. I declare war on my first three civs, but they throw very little at me until egypt. Still, a cakewalk so far.



After horses, I make a beeline for civil service, the tempo rises quickly, but nothing I can't handle. I begin to notice the biggest challenge is not going to be the battles but in fact the economy. Unit maintenance scales only by number of turns, so I have to maintain as few military units at all times. I discover that exploring around to build experience when the cowards stop flinging themselves at me turns out to be a bad idea, as I end up having to declare war on Monaco.



Wow, that score is getting lopsided:



I stop building military, and start ironically building national wonders for culture solely because they have no maintenance. My first scientist bulbs Civil Service. I head to get iron working in a jiffy, and find a 6 iron, which unforunately is very far away from the safety of my city. I end up having to buy the tile for 50 very costly gold.



Oh joy, siam's special unit. Tough as a rifleman, impervious to companion cavalry. I halt building the heroic epic to build a pikeman. Not for this elephant, too late for that, but for future ones.



With two great generals eating up maintenance, I make a deft maneuvre, crushing the spearman with my warrior, city, and CC, build a citadel in front of the elephant, and send the hoplite onto it. That elephant isn't going to do much against a +100% tile defense +100% vs mounted units and -3 hp a turn.

I found that Civ 5 makes it easier if you play with fewer cities than Civ 4 did. I played a very successful game lately where I had 4 cities total versus 11+ for my rivals. Was ahead in tech, gold and culture

Okay, that was on chieftain (I think) - but still!

@AeonOfTime- OCC AWD has been won in Civ4 admittedly after a cooked start. Undoubtedly, someone will beat OCC AWD in Civ5 too, maybe without even rigging the rules.

@Slowpoke- You got balls, man. Bring it on!

Go Slowpoke go!
(it's looking sad for renaissance greece )

I wish you best of luck with this game. I`ll be lurking to see how it goes.

Wow, I certainly got a following. I actually finished it a while ago (or rather got to a point where techs got too long to make progress). I got way farther than I thought I would. Sounds like about time for an update for you guys, I'll post in a moment And yes, the medeival era was pretty brutal. Personally I doubt it's possible to win civ5 OCC AWD because of the lack of tech trading leaving you far behind in tech. Maybe a cultural win if you got really lucky.

Given the rules what might be the optimum Civ pick for this?

I'm guesing you went greek for the UU, might India be better for their UA... allowing more pop and more science (and general productivity)?

Or Aztecs, UB for growth, UA for faster culture?

So out of curiosity I check how evenly an attack would go outside the citadel with my hoplite. Man those elephants are tough! So much for spearmen countering mounted even in open terrain O.O



Luckily, my neighbors are a bit occupied themselves. Especially lucky is that japan starts falling. I really didn't want to fight bushido samurai while I have swordsmen.



So I get another great general, and a catapult. However at this point I realize that Citadels are pretty darned powerful if you're just defending. Even more important is the fact that my enemies are seeming to only come from three directions: The southeast, the south mountain pass, and the western forest. Blocking another one more means I can focus entirely on one front. But which one? The south seems to be the most heavily populated attack, but too I can't put the citadel two hexes away or I will get sieged by siam's city, and the only hex that adequately covers me one hex away from Athens is the silver mine. Then it hits me: put it ON the silver mine. Who cares about a second golden age that will never come? I can't get higher than about 12 population anyways:



Bluh, muskets start arriving. I queue up another CC, as I will definately need more mobility.



Boy am I REALLY glad I built the citadel where I did. The mountain slows the elephants to a crawl, dealing -3 a turn, and the citadel is difficult to attack. Still, I later switch my pikeman with my swordsman so elephants can't attack it at all.





Lancers Definately not good if they attack the city, but for whatever reason they don't. I push my units back, then hit them while they're sitting ducks. They're so bad at defense on an open field that my swordsmen with discipline cut them to pieces.



Riflemen! Very not good. Thankfully, my units are starting to get really uber. At this point, my Companian cavalry has about 150 experience, and my catapult can do some pretty decent damage in both open and rough terrain thanks to the promotions.





Now that the enemy is starting to surround me, they get confident enough to start attackign Athens, I start building city walls, hopefully not too late. I am wondering why there's been no pillaging, but the A.I. is very badly coordianted with a single civ, let alone 3.



Thankfully the attack fails. My CCs are still very powerful, but soon they will start to fall very far behind. I now make it to longswordsmen, and immediately upgrade my units.



I panic and start heading to rennaisance as fast as I can. I doubt I can make it to the industrial era, but of course I will keep trying once I hit gunpowder.



Meanwhile, that lonswordsmen is COMPLETELY invulnerable in that southern citadel.



Which isn't particularly helpful when the enemy starts spilling out all around you. Luckily, my catapult is getting pretty strong, and makes it to range + 1.



So, will I make it to the rennaissance? Will I make it through to the long long trek to dyanamite? You'll have to wait till tomorrow

@ Krikkitone - as far as which civ, in his particular case I got lucky and chose the best for the situation. Siam's elephants would've crushed the warriors, because I wouldn't have bothered to make spearsmen. However, in the long run, probably china, for an extra great general. While citadels destroy experience, when you get a catapult up to massively experienced they really rake it in for great generals.

Edit: Edit: Nvm, the best civ would definately be a culture civ. I forgot that the most difficult part of this was being unable to get both oligarchy (insane border defense), most of the honor tree, and opening commerce for the gold.

I voted for the rennaissance. You'll just make it, but will then be wiped out.

So is this the last post of our tale? Haha no, I make it pretty darned far. This is like harry potter where I split the last stupidly long book into two movies.

Okay so leaving off, I was just scaring you with that big horde. If you look closely, it's just muskets and spearmen fodder. I deal with them easily. In the meantime another, YES ANOTHER, great general is born. This doesn't sound like Athens. This is... wait that's been done.



So I decide I like citadels so much, I'll build another! With this final one in the forest, anyone attacking my city will have to either loop all the way around, which is too intelligent for the A.I. or go through one very snakey corridor of -33% defense.



I disband the CC (building units isn't a problem remember, it's the maintenance), giving me enough gold to buy the land and plop down that citadel. Admittedly, that CC was pretty hardcore, but then again it ran out of insta heals. And really it's a small price to pay for near invincibility for the next 50 odd turns. Meanwhile, I open the currency social policy to put me in the black. Or yellow I guess.



Meanwhile cannons start appearing, but they stupidly attack my longswordsmen rather than my pikeman. Their attacks are rather inneffective. They would've added up, but a neighboring civ kills it for me. Thank you enemy of my enemy (who is in fact still my enemy).



Meanwhile, my trebuchet is really amazing. Really really amazing. Really. Don't mess with that trebuchet.



Okay that trebuchet makes things so easy, I'm not even showing the next 10 odd turns. Suffice to say, I make it to the rennaisance by burning a great scientist. Dynamite is so darned far away, the only glimmer of a chance I have to get it is to go for education first. I do thusly. Those elephants? Mere rock fodder.



Okay so even with the trebuchet things pick up again. My pikeman burns one of many easy heals.



Thankfully Bismark declares in Hiawatha. Landschnekt (or however they're spelled) vs riflemen. Gee I wonder who'll win that. Still diversion is always welcome.



Dang Hiawatha:



It's a long way to dyamite:



Meanwhile infantry! Actually not as hard as they look. But it means shortly arriving will be artillery. I decide to hold off on cannons and go for riflemen instead. No point in uber attacking the melee units if my units can stand artillery hits.



One... two.. three.. four civs on the screen? It's multicultural day and everyone's out to kill me



Trebuchet one shotting a musket three hexes away and having one attack to spare. Seriously that is one awesome trebuchet. It has +1 range, +1 attack, Indirect fire, a limestone engraving of planepacked, drill 3, a limestone engraving of planepacked, and shock 3. It has killed elephants and riflemen and even the lowly spearman. It is the most interesting trebuchet in the world.



I time oxford university to finish after metallurgy to give me riflemen. Also, my trebuchet flings out a swarm of bees? Ugh, screenshots.



So, just 80 or so more turns to dyanmite. No sweat right? Right?

Lol awesome dude. XD

BTW, did you notice if an enemy unit stands next to two citadels at once, does it lose 6 HP or 3 HP per turn?

Honestly can't remember, but I think it does take the 6 damage. I remember thinking multiple times "blah, unit's in the oasis, gotta waste a shot.... oh wait it dissapeared... "

Lol, that's epic then. Imagine having enough Great Generals to build Citadels all around the city. XD

That + The Great Wall.

Nothing can come close... ever. Of course, given that enough Great Generals are generated... >_>

Well, it's not quite as simple as that. Citadels deal damage at the start of your turn, not when the unit approaches. So it'd be one tough city, but not invincible. Supposing the great wall worked, (it's bugged and doesn't ) 3+ movement units would get a first shot.

The Great Wall actually does work, but it goes obsolete when Metallurgy is researched. This (obviously) isn't documented in game though, hence all the reports of it being bugged.

Great game so far, keep up the good work!
Also, I voted for Ancient...rofl, good to see you proved me wrong ;D

You'll make it to modern era if you continue at this pace !
And your trebuchet is just extraordinary, if you can upgrade it to a cannon at one point, it'll be unbeatable.

Wow, nice work with the citadels, I'll have to remember that. I really like your attitude about this game - to see if you can survive against a crazy onslaught. You're lucky that you had iron so close to home, but in other ways your geography does you no favors: There are three approach paths to your city, and you need to defend them all. If the terrain allowed you to route your attackers into a single corridor, who knows... you might occasionally get enough of a breather to go punish those agressors!

spork said:

Wow, nice work with the citadels, I'll have to remember that. I really like your attitude about this game - to see if you can survive against a crazy onslaught. You're lucky that you had iron so close to home, but in other ways your geography does you no favors: There are three approach paths to your city, and you need to defend them all. If the terrain allowed you to route your attackers into a single corridor, who knows... you might occasionally get enough of a breather to go punish those agressors!

Click to expand...

Ah yeah, you're not gonna get far with this challenge unless you have iron. I suppose it'd be possible if you had a drill 3 pikeman on a citadel in the hills. In any case, time for the stunning conclusion!