Deity Challenge #14 - India

Grendeldef · Apr 12, 2013

Time for the next DC and this time it's India - probably much less played than an average Civ and since it's also the current choice in IC2 there might be some interesting comparisons to be made. Additional info within spoilers.

- Population Growth. Unhappiness from number of Cities doubled, Unhappiness from number of Citizens halved.
- War Elephant. This Unit has a higher Combat and Ranged Strength than the Chariot Archer, which it replaces.
- The Mughal Fort. Increases the city's Defense Strength by 7, Hit Points by 25, and provides +2 Culture every turn replacing the Castle. After Flight is learned, it provides a Gold bonus to the city as well.

Few additional rules but as there's no way to enforce them it's up to the individual to follow them (or not). In case it gets too tricky I'd suggest to skip the rules rather than skip the game.

- no trade & DoW, preferably no DoWs breaking deals at all but at least 15 turns cooling off period breaking a RA being an exception
- no selling razing/puppeted cities, annexed cities can be sold but this starts a 30 turn no-DoW period with the other part. Razing cities is fine.
- preferred VCs are domination or culture. All VCs are on for the AI to be competitive but sci & Some of the map section rules do not apply to the cultural VC. More rules on the map -section as those are related to the map

Map - which, how many civs & other settings

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DLC - which are needed & which are not

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Civs, explanations & list of them inside additional spoilers

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Civ list

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sufficiency · Apr 12, 2013

Even though, say, Korea is not on the map, if you didn't tick off the DLC it will still be required.

Moriarte · Apr 12, 2013

Sounds like liberty is not an option

.

Grendeldef · Apr 12, 2013

Moriarte said:
Sounds like liberty is not an option .

I think it's a safe assumption that majority won't go Liberty here and if that's the case I'm part of that majority. I'm on T37 and this is very weird and I'm playing much slower pace than usually because this is like a new game to me - last time I even bothered to load a Gandhi game was in vanilla & it didn't too many turns to decide that the UA is not for me. On the other hand I'm actually thinking what to do next instead of doing roughly the same thing over & over again until I hit renaissance - refreshing in that respect if nothing else.

Moriarte · Apr 12, 2013

Good luck to you, then. Be safe from evil

. I'll join in sometime this week. I hate Gandhi, terra, and special rules, but, you're right, it's good to step out of comfort zone once in a while.

Hammer Rabbi · Apr 12, 2013

i expect a lot of OCC experiments. i can only justify trying this with one more settled city at most. with that plains heavy start i might have to find a good growth spot for the 2nd city. i might as well get my India games for the year out of the way (with IC2), unless BNW makes it some OP powerhouse.

Optional · Apr 12, 2013

What's probably good to tell people is that a 'large' Terra map measures 128 x 80 tiles, which is the size called 'huge' in other map types. The terra maps are a size larger than normal, as extra space was needed to fit in the uninhabited continent.
Expect longer turn times as well...

I'm surprised to see that plains starting terrain for India, as they have a grassland start bias.

Grendeldef · Apr 12, 2013

Moriarte said:
I hate Gandhi, terra, and special rules, but, you're right, it's good to step out of comfort zone once in a while.

I only dislike one of those so this time I'm not winning the hate game. What it comes to special rules they clearly are not everyone's cup of tea so I don't see them as mandatory but optional extra - I like'em & will play accordingly whichever way it'll go. I originally started using selfset rules to compensate the sub-par AI but later used them also to break the increasingly linear gaming - if not a cookie-cutter playthroughs the games were becoming extremely similar. I wish there were at least a dozen more options in advanced settings. Also I don't wanna gimp cultural gaming any more than it already is so no need to set any extra rules but those should make dom vs cult more balanced options from the start. I'll stick with dom on this one but I'm interested in seeing cultural games - those are mysterious to me. Also I don't want the extra rules scaring anyone away from this challenge. Back in last summer we had a Total Domination challenge with more strick rules - highly entertaining game from my part but serious lack of participants though the few TDs went highly successful in terms of finished games anyway. Back then I though everyone played Deity but sadly I was proven to be mistaken.

Hammer Rabbi said:
i expect a lot of OCC experiments. i can only justify trying this with one more settled city at most. with that plains heavy start i might have to find a good growth spot for the 2nd city. i might as well get my India games for the year out of the way (with IC2), unless BNW makes it some OP powerhouse.

I was expecting that with India, too and that's one of the reasons why I didn't go with the std 8/16 - I don't like the relative ease of making peace while having only one city.

Optional said:
What's probably good to tell people is that a 'large' Terra map measures 128 x 80 tiles, which is the size called 'huge' in other map types. The terra maps are a size larger than normal, as extra space was needed to fit in the uninhabited continent.
Expect longer turn times as well...
I'm surprised to see that plains starting terrain for India, as they have a grassland start bias.

That's true to a degree but people shouldn't be scared of the unpopulated land mass either. Std Terra is very crowded and large makes it bit like Pangaea from the start while the other continent is much smaller and has much less everything useful. In G&K AI is more keen on settling the other continent but it won't have that many cities & especially troops - it's still mainly an open bucket of resources, sadly. One of the reasons for this is that the game is far too short from industrial to the end. If one is going to launch around T240 settling new cities around T150 doesn't seem like a sound option unless there's serious lack of aluminium or oil/uranium in smaller scale. I wish there'd be a continents/terra combo map or large islands with one or two uninhabited island to start with. Polynesia obviously shines on these but they got to be good at something.

Optional said:
I'm surprised to see that plains starting terrain for India, as they have a grassland start bias.

I've seen quite a few starts ranging from crap to awesome with every possible terrain type around while rolling with India - bias is just bias, not a guarantee of a certain type. Anyway, I wanted to avoid the extremes, desert and mining & calendar luxes to start with - something to slow down the start a bit. I also played few turns to see that there're no natural wonders within 4-5 tiles - all in all an average start ie nicely playable but nothing to really kick start the game. Everyone cheers for the underdog (in theory).

The Pilgrim · Apr 12, 2013

Geez, Grendeldef... I have a very very subtle hunch, you might not liked my Dutch map. Don't know why. There is no evident reason to assume that, but I just can't get rid of this gut feeling. And if it's true, I take my punishment and surrender.

Matthew. · Apr 12, 2013

I was thinking of playing the next DC since I've been missing out (been playing scenarios and games for achievements), but India? Ugh, I just played an Indian game.

Don't mind the special rules though. I make special rules all the time, since I play anything from Prince to Deity. The AI needs all the help it can get

So just to confirm the rules: aside from the typical no trade/DoW, basically the rule is you can't take another AI's capital unless they have zero settlements on the new world? How are you going to know for sure unless you have every tile explored? Also, what constitutes "other continent"? Sometimes these maps will spawn smaller continents just off the old world and are clearly part of that map, just not connected by land. In other words, are smaller islands and continents not part of the new world also part of the rule?

I'm not going to start this map right now, but will keep it in mind.

Grendeldef · Apr 12, 2013

The Pilgrim said:
Geez, Grendeldef... I have a very very subtle hunch, you might not liked my Dutch map. Don't know why. There is no evident reason to assume that, but I just can't get rid of this gut feeling. And if it's true, I take my punishment and surrender.

Clearly an unfounded suspicion from your part - I did nothing but praise the chosen map type. Have you considered a possibility where your better half might give you some hallucinogens to distance you from the game based on paranoia ? Besides, you'll love the map & we can all start ganghating Gandhi - a CFC coventure.

Matthew. said:
Ugh, I just played an Indian game.
Don't mind the special rules though. I make special rules all the time, since I play anything from Prince to Deity. The AI needs all the help it can get

Clearly a rare game - hardly anyone ever mentions playing with India myself included - one of the reasons for it to be the chosen one. Also it'd would be nice to clear the vanilla civs in the framework of DC before BNW arrives. And a fellow rulemaker even - excellent.

Matthew. said:
So just to confirm the rules: aside from the typical no trade/DoW, basically the rule is you can't take another AI's capital unless they have zero settlements on the new world? How are you going to know for sure unless you have every tile explored?

A valid question. Before renassaince this obviously isn't a problem nor immediately after that. One clue is the city list - it's a fair assumption that if one is knocking on the capital the surroundings are fairly well scouted so a city on unknown location is a warning. This is one way to encourage exploration and anything beyond T175 the lack of scouting is not an excuse. Taking cap while AI has half dozen cities somewhere hiding is clearly a no go after few turns in renaissance but as this is not a competion it's just a guideline - I will make sure that the other continent is clear, though.

Matthew. said:
Also, what constitutes "other continent"? Sometimes these maps will spawn smaller continents just off the old world and are clearly part of that map, just not connected by land. In other words, are smaller islands and continents not part of the new world also part of the rule?

Small islands do not count. The other continent is where there are 2+ CSs on the landmass. Occasionally the 2nd continent is actually split in two landmasses and in theory the smaller part could only have one CS but should still follow the no foreign cities rule but as I said it's a guideline and no one will get impaled for breaking. An easy rule of thumb could be 'if the land mass has a CS(s) there can't be major civ cities'. Everyone can & should use their own judgement.

The purpose of these extra rules are to help the slightly incompetent AI a bit, encourage exploration, give some incentive to build navy & settle later than usually or as I'd like to see it - build a balanced civilization instead of beelining to chosen VC in optimal way.

The Pilgrim · Apr 12, 2013

Grendeldef said:
Clearly an unfounded suspicion from your part - I did nothing but praise the chosen map type. Have you considered a possibility where your better half might give you some hallucinogens to distance you from the game based on paranoia ?

That must be it. What else can you expect from a woman who messes with people's brains for living?

Besides, you'll love the map & we can all start ganghating Gandhi - a CFC coventure.

I think we can do that already. I'm good. I even got Bollywood achievement. And I don't play as India and don't play for culture.

Hammer Rabbi · Apr 13, 2013

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Grendeldef · Apr 13, 2013

That's one unlucky start Hammer - after reading that my setbacks are minor at worst.

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Classic scout-scout-monument start. Barb camp 4 tiles away but harassing nearby CS more than me. DoWed US ~T20 to steal a worker and to my surprise he used a settler as scout to see what's going on so I arrested that for lurking, too. I had much more trouble getting those back into my lands than the stealing part was.
Just before T40 settled near the salt & Washington's 6th city but he didn't have much of a military there. 1st scout turned Marco Polo & went to East while the other was given a bow & few arrows so took u-turn to act as a defender. The 3rd scout got blocked by the American soon after that.
One shrine just wasn't gonna give me a decent pantheon so I didn't even bother building shrines on the other two cities. Took eventually MoGods but it's not gonna give me much nor have I relion @T110. I could really have used some happiness.
~T65 I had hald a dozen mini-Stumpies so I attacked the closest city, took it, not a single building but kept it for the placement. Few turns later took another city, no buildings so I razed it. Wash has nice bunch of spears, catas & CBs but luckily no pikes. Few turns later & Boston beside Cerro, again no buildings but I'll keep it. A little breather before New York & I'll have hijacked the 1st building - lucky me. At this point Wash threw most everything he had at me so few turns unit plowing before Seattle which was easy as Washington on T107 after which I made a 0-0 peace. Damn Ottomans took the city closest to Moscow so I should be in peace for a while.

Askia was executed on T72 by Cathy & Lizzy lost her capital ~T85. Carthage is down to 3 cities by Attila. Cathy is on a class of her own but I managed to bribe Nappy & his massive army against her. Cathy gave all spies on T103 and 007 went to Moscow. Some 5 turns later some cretin stole Theology from me while I had a 19 turn wait ahead - cool & fair I'd say.

Full Tradition on T84, 3C NC @T93, Education T111 and I bought 3 Unis & Oracle T114 - last two policies in Patronage as I have 3-4 allies and hoping to get more from the other continent.
12 turns to Astronomy, building a settler for a coastal city hopefully getting a caravel as soon as I get Astronomy. Friends with Suleiman, Nappy & Gustavus who is still neutral & didn't even pay full price for OB. I also screwed up buying embassies so I didn't sell OBs but few turns ago so I haven't bombed by missionaries at all. When one doesn't have a religion all missionaries are apparently on strike.

Most wonders are in Moscow but Petra was built by Attila so I might be heading there next. Luckily Attila isn't that keen on building walls which is extremely handy since I only have mini-Stumpies & pikes.

144bpt, 1k cash, 23gpt, 0 happiness and irrelevant 7fpt so far from optimal but it could be much worse with 5 puppets & all the freakin' whales from LC's China game have found their way here - I'm all for the no whaling policy but they are more numerous than tuna here.

While preparing breakfast or more precisely coffee I seem to have managed taking a pic @T107

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kirbdog · Apr 13, 2013

Going for culture victory, but I have never gotten one on Deity, so this is really a "challenge." I expect to be beaten by a spaceship...

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Hammer Rabbi · Apr 13, 2013

t102 update

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things briefly turned around. my first session was til t48. on t51 i found Americas 6th city. i mean seriously, there is SO much room available. because I lost those 2 scouts i didnt get to steal a worker til t40 so cap and my 2nd city were practically bare (settled on ivory near salt as i had to take out seattle anyway). i decided to go for pyramids and got them t70. that must have pissed Washington off cuz he dow'd t72. by this time russia also settled on the east coast under geneva (by the pearls). and Sully was sending settlers there too so i dowd him to take his settler. i didnt want to dow Cathy as we had DoFs as well as i had one with Nap and Gustav. i also got a pantheon at t60 knowing full well im not getting a religion. i took +1 food from camps since I had 4 ivory to work and wanted the growth. my 2 cities are now 10 and 5 at t102. i am friends with 3 CS and almaty gave me a chariot archer.

So now im at war with sully and george. i got 3 of sully's settlers and 2 more from George's cities plus 1 of his settlers. so i went from 1 worker at t45 or so to 8 workers (w/pyramid speed) by t102, haha. i was using 2 of them for pillages every other turn on Boston (has Cerro). i only have delhi and mumbai and took Seattle and boston (both puppets) and it sent me to -10 at t101 but -9 at 102 when i stopped. i was gonna sell boston but decided keep it for cerro. i'll be rolling in gold when i get those trade posts up in seattle. boston might bet annexed later.

i stopped cuz it's late and Washington (who lost 2 cities to me) is still 3rd on points list, asks for peace for all of my cities, all gold/lux. and he just took out 2 of my units and one of the workers on his turn with 4+ knights. im 1 turn from Pikes but it's feeling grim. I have 4 elephants, 3 comp bows, and 2 generals (lost the chariot archer and about 5 other units) but those knights showing up are crushing my guys and no peace deal is anywhere in sight. i got NC around t90. it could have been 15 turns sooner if i hadnt delayed philosophy so late. i finished tradition in the 90s and i havent started oracle yet but its next. im still last in points but im less than 20 behind the next one, Dido. i dont even remember what my bpt is but both puppets had libraries only. prolly still another 30 turns to the next policy. if i can get a gold or white peace deal with america i'll take it. i can go to his cap now but theres no way i have the units. at least Nap got GW.

Grendeldef · Apr 13, 2013

Hammer Rabbi said:
t102 update

Spoiler :

i decided to go for pyramids and got them t70. that must have pissed Washington off cuz he dow'd t72.

So now im at war with sully and george. i got 3 of sully's settlers and 2 more from George's cities plus 1 of his settlers. so i went from 1 worker at t45 or so to 8 workers (w/pyramid speed) by t102, haha.

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Grendeldef · Apr 13, 2013

A different game for sure and apparently at least slightly interesting as I've kept on playing all along the day for short stints up to T225 & still within a winning chance. I'll post few explanatory notes later but few words of warning for those using the domination rules. One reason playing only short period at the time are the reoccurring graphics bugs - textures get corrupted for some reason. First it was the fog getting it's colours from a rainbow & few turns after that it starts affecting the explored tiles, too - moderately annoying since one needs to restart the whole game or wait ages for the game to redraw everything. Strategic view is fine but it's so weird for a novice that I don't wanna play with it.

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kirbdog · Apr 13, 2013

Turn 144 Sistine Chapel. Not enough science. Took Religious Community and Religious Texts along with Desert Folklore, Tithe, and Cathedral. It's pretty lucky to get such a good religion.

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kirbdog · Apr 13, 2013

Turn 210, full Freedom.

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Deity Challenge #14 - India

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