The Deity Challenge Line-up #13 - Indonesia

Continents

Continents

should encourage players to try something other than 3/4 city tradition science victories. I think the civ's UA and the map actually go quite well together, unlike in The Morocco game.

I decided to settle in place, because really, why not? First build was a Scout while the starting Warrior stumbled onto a couple of ruins -- one for gold and one map, which revealed Vatican City. The Warrior met Vatican City and then found Mt. Fuji, which was immediately very intriguing.

After the Scout I got started on a Monument, and while this was going I used gold (from the ruin and meeting city-states) to buy another Scout. I don't care that the map is Continents; I want Scouts. They are incredibly useful and you should probably build more of them.

Upon growing to two population in the capital, I had to decide whether to work a Sheep or a Gems. I decided that I wanted to get a Settler to Mt. Fuji ASAP, which probably meant building it at two pop. Since I wasn't going to bother waiting to grow, I just started working the Gems and stagnating at two pop. Between the Gems, being on a Hill, and working a Plains Wheat from Turn 0, I had a very strong hammer start, and was able to finish the Monument on the same turn that Pottery completed. I popped out a quick Shrine, missing out on the Piety opener boost, but sacrifices must be made if you want to play Piety on Deity.

Immediately following the Shrine, I started building a Settler, working two Gems tiles for some nice gpt. Meanwhile, one of my Scouts found a bunch of city-states and stumbled into an empty barb camp, while the other Scout pillaged a Swedish Caravan. All this extra gold allowed me to immediately buy a Granary upon founding my expo, giving me the ability to work Mt. Fuji without completely sacrificing that city's ability to do anything. Currently, one Scout is hanging around Zurich for Worker steals, while the second is hopefully going to creep around to the back of Swedish lands and steal a Worker before making peace.

There are currently three civs with pantheons, and the other two are non-faith pantheons that aren't on my continent, so things are looking good for founding a religion. Choosing a pantheon was very difficult, as there really isn't an obvious one in this situation. I ended up grabbing Sun-God, since there are a lot of those resources around. I will need to conquer some Roman lands if I want to take full advantage of that, though.

It looks like I don't have a lot of space for cities, although I'll need to scout up to the NE a bit. This means I need to go to war if I want to expand. I'm thinking 3-city NC (3rd city could go on the hill tile directly E of the barb camp in the lower left of my screenshot) into a Machinery rush. I'm not sure exactly what my overall plan is, since I don't know which Reformation Beliefs will be available to me. I'll have to play it by ear.

You're welcome! Looks like Suleiman was even more of a psycho in your game than he was in mine.

Sully built the Great Wall. Him and Rome were positioned perfectly to go at each other. I kept up my troop levels above 8th and sent caravans to each of them and eventually got DoFs.

I guess my finish time was long b/c I didnt grow my expos with food ships. Had plenty of money. Jakarta is in a good spot for a trade hub. I had 4 Commerce fueled trade missions to get cash. Big Ben. Even bought a GM with faith.

Missed Hanging Gardens by 1 turn in 700AD I won the World's Fair.

Full Tradition>Commerce>Rationalism& Freedom.

The world was all Order. I had to take -41 happiness in pressure during late game. Because of Commerce finisher, I weathered the storm.

I had the Invulnerable promo on one of my Kris. That dude would have been bad news in a fight.

Haile Selassie

Rarely has worker stealing been this tricky but otherwise I expected a far worse starting point - stole one from Sweden on T21 and one from Kongo T32 as apparently the CSs have some open labour issues and none of those I was watching over had a worker before T30.
Can't blame the land and an unusually useful early map from ruins revealed the nearby island so I went for Sailing by the time I settled the 2nd city, bought a Trireme and started checking whether this really was Continents or something else. Interesting options available for at least 5-6 city NC.

Befriended with Rome but Suleiman might be a problem, Honor and building nothing but units, asking tributes every nearby CS and just DoWed Rome so I assume our cordial relations won't last very long. Other than that I foresee no real problems anytime soon.
T33 Pantheon but religion is far from certain. Liberty open as usual but I really don't have a clue what I should do next.

Moved Settler to the East. Stole worker from Melbourne and two from Sweden, while also plundering his trade route. Full Liberty (built Pyramids), Full Piety, 2 in Patronage, and a couple of ideology tenets.

My early game was focused on getting 3-city NC with Liberty finisher GE and then expanding overseas. I settled 7 cities in total. With that Mt.Fuji, I picked One with Nature pantheon and got a religion. I settled my 7th city near Sri Prada -- it also had wine and pearls. I ended up with so much faith from Candis that I built 8-10 holy sites and therefore decided to finish Piety. Sadly, a few turns before my victory, Caesar stole my 2 holy sites. What an ass.

Basically, I really hate plains starts, and this one, as usual, is poor on food and production, so I was going for Diplo pretty much from the start. I was very lucky that the AI's did not go Patronage, so I built the Forbidden Palace (and this is the part where I stopped paying attention to science because with Forbidden Palace you don't need Globalization to win).

Then I did the cheesy Charitable Missions (Reformation belief which grants 30% more influence on City-States from gold gifts) and Philanthropy combo for bonus 55% influence from gold gifts, which is pretty much a free win as long as you have the money. I prioritized gold generation and external trade routes -- and as you can see, I was swimming in gold. After that, I amassed enough votes from CS allies to pass Order as the world ideology and Islam as the world religion, and that gave me just enough votes to win the world leader vote.

Somewhere very early Suleiman made a move on Liz, but then I saw Caesar's army marching at me and convinced him to fight the Turks, who subsequently perished. I had to keep Rome occupied, so at the end everybody hated him, but thankfully he was too busy fighting the rest of the world to ever DoW me. He only stole a peice of land 3 turns before my win.

Rome

give stuff like a free resource when they ask you for it. I did that about 3 times to Rome. Pretty much had continuous DoF all game long. I think that made the difference. Plus he got defeated by Sully and was playing OCC against me. That air unit is also an ATOMIC BOMB

By the time that screen shot was made, I could have wiped Caesar off the map.

Finally you see Valetta is my Ally. I made sure they were my ally all game.

Did a liberty game again. 6 cities. The beaker count below is without my scientists.



I screwed this game up a little bit as you can see by my tech count. I was researching my final tech before future techs when I finished the space ship. Should have been burning scientists sooner to get started on the space ship sooner.



I again used nuclear deterrent to fend off late wars. It did get a little dicey as Rome and Gandhi declared war on me before I got my atomic bombs online. Rome was no problem, but Gandhi completed the Manhattan project right after declaring war, and why yes, that is some uranium in his borders. I pounded him with mech infantry and battleships until he took peace.

Early warring was defended with a few composites/crossbows. I had the ring of city states around me as allies most of the game. Got a little lucky here as I managed to found a religion without even intending too. I ended up with tithe and itinerant preachers, so most of my continent was following by the end of the game. The early city state quests were a mix of barb camps, of which I got all of them, and faith counter, which I won all of (pre meeting Ethopia). This let me snowball a nice city state farm.

Consequently I took the 25% science from city states policy in patronage. Filled down left side of rationalism before going order. Suli beat me to order by a turn, but I still decided to go with it for the super factories. Rest of the world ended up going a mix of freedom and autocracy, so in hindsight Freedom probably would have served me better.

Suli eventually revolted to join the autocratic brotherhood. Not long thereafter I had enough votes to pass whatever I wanted in the UN. I forced world ideology for order down everyone's throats and created a fun situation where no one was happy with their ideology. Good stuff.



Lost my focus playing around like this though so missed a good complete time. I had all my techs for spaceships parts before my first part was finished building. Oops.

I think that covers everything. I did expand aggressively to snipe some luxes early and I did have to fend off Suli as a result. Also, I was the first to meet every civ so that helped me stay in control of the world congress for the entire game. Sadly I couldn't force my religion on everyone, as I didn't notice I had lost two city state allies the turn before and failed by 2 votes. Oh well.

So this game I was hoping to try and Dominate the world since last game I fell pray to not forcing the win. I was thinking maybe just 1 city but I decided to build a settler once at 2 pop since the NW was nearby and it seems I had more room to expand. I also rush bought 1 settler as well to push along. I made war with the Vatican on turn 2 and kept the war going getting some workers and XP. Down the road I decided to just take over the Vatican since they are kinda in the way. I stole a worker from Melbourne as well, 3 total by turn 30ish. I couldn't get a worker from any of the Civs and figured that I would get some with wars soon anyway. I did get to take a settler from Rome in the open unguarded which put us at total war. Turkey decided to help out and DOW Rome for a little while too. They didn't do alot of damage but it seems they cleared out most of Rome's Army and I took Cumae and Rome by turn 100. I even pressed on for another 11 turns taking down Antium on turn 111 but should of taken it a few turns earlier.

My B.O. was Scout, Scout, Settler, 6x Archers, 3x Spears, Library... onto the NC. In the expos I built a Gran, Library and some Units like Archers and Spears. I am neglecting most buildings and hoping to rush my Cont eventually. Istanbul should be next moving over to Sweden.

Usually I would sell some cities for gpt and help with happy but this game I am deciding to just keep all these damn cities for myself!

SPs: Full Honor and just opened Tradition

Religion: I took +4fpt from NWs, Tithe and Pagodas

Like I said before I took Antium turn 111. I decided to wipe out Rome just because Im dead set on taking out this Cont for now. I took down Istanbul turn 141 and made peace for some gold and gpt. I couldn't really decide on more SPs so I went Tradtion to get some free cult buildings later. That is about it really I have just been building mostly army and neglecting science and everything else. I beelined to Machinery and upgraded all CBs. I stole 1 tech before capture and hoping to get England to War with Sweden but Im not sure it is going to happen.