The Deity Challenge Line-up #15 - Poland

Pangaea

Small Continents

Pangaea

as (unquestionably, in my opinion) the strongest civ, they have a UA which means you can pursue any VC, and therefore will allow the DCL community to (hopefully) post a range of different games. Also, since they are Poland, they need a suboptimal start to make it a real challenge. I hope that the starting dirt and neighbours create a challenge you enjoy.

I decided to play a few test games up to about turn 200 as Poland on a different map to kinda test them out using Honor/Comm/Auto. Im starting to enjoy this strategy but for me it does not have alot of room for error. You really have to play it spot on to make it work. At least that is how I see it but I might be doing some things wrong. I do notice waiting till about turn 105 to start your wars with Comp/Xbows is pretty strong. You seem to roll AI's pretty quick. However I still like starting my wars earlier but in the spirit of this strategy I am trying it as Ped has suggested beelining Education and waiting for Construction till much later.

You really start to earn alot of gold once you finish the Commerce Policy. A few problems I seem to keep running into is timing. I keep having 2 to 3 policies xtra before I open up Autocracy which is a problem. So I guess I need to watch that more closely and try to time it out perfect so you finish Honor and Commerce and go right into Autocracy next, hopefully your the first to open Autocracy which is another big plus.

I notice that it is pretty amazing that once you have Big Ben in place along with the other two gold saving policies, that you can buy many Landsknechts for 80 gold in one turn and upgrade them for 190 gold to Hussars! Pretty amazing to buy 8 units at once and wreck havoc! If your pulling around 160gpt which is my norm at this time in the game, that means you can get 1 every 2 turns. You can always buy other things as well for about the same price like Rifles.

I do not know if they changed the purchase price or if I am forgetting another policy but I remember being able to buy Landsknechts for 40 gold instead of 80. The thing I like about them is that you can buy them and move them out of a city and keep buying them all in one turn and upgrade them all in the same turn you buy them!

Anyway I still do not have this strategy down pat yet but I see how it can snowball out of control as Ped has said. A few things I really do not know for sure... What is the Science Cut Off point where you stop growing and stagnate? I have tried it with very low pop and it works fine but I notice I tend to get 20-25% behind the leader. How far behind is too much? Also I have been doing it with no GS's and only going for Great Merchants which is pretty cool buying CS's at will if you choose. However I can see the use for 1 or 2 GS's first and go for Merchants after that.

I guess I'll start up this game and see if I can make it work. The only thing about this strategy is that you really have no back up plan. I can't see you going for Diplo VC or SV once the window for Domination is closed. Perhaps I need to have two seperate Armed Forces instead of just one.

I have been testing this out and I like it if you can get it. You can build other things and buy archers for 80 Faith but you need something like DF or a NW and you should have at least 10fpt so you can get 1 every 8 turns.

Well, the trend of "interesting" neighbors is intact. I used the settler radar and didn't find any civs nearby, so settled on the Gold next to the hill and river. Warrior went South and found Greece immediately so I'm wondering why the radar didn't see them. In any case, after seeing Alex as my neighbor, I resisted the urge to throw stuff at my dog and just stole one of his workers instead. Sure enough, by t6 he had settled in my face (but thankfully outside of my 3rd ring. I gave him peace around t30 and he soon thereafter gave me a DoF and we started trading.

Scouts found most of the rest of the map early, but it took awhile to locate Egypt and Persia, as I had to trespass through a CS to get to that part of the continent. Scouts, of course, found Mongolia pretty quickly. It didn't take that psycho Genghis long before he was attacking and capturing 2 CS that just happened to be East and West of Krakow (which I had settled next to Uluru). So basically, I really didn't have much room to settle.

I went with a Lib/Trad start (left side of Liberty only) as I obviously needed to get settlers out ASAP. After competing Tradition, I went several tenets into Commerce, before getting the important Rationalism tenets.

Research Order was Pottery > AH > Resource Techs > Beeline Philosophy > Beeline Metallurgy (even though I only have 4 freakin horsies) > and was still able to Oxford into Radio and get 1st Ideology.

Siam was also an early discovery, and I realized that with them and Greece, I'd be wasting my time going Patronage. Although I got some CS quests early, I didn't waste much money on keeping allies. I did grab a few allies later on once I got some spies, as happiness became an issue.

Oracle went on t55, so that's 2 games in a row that I missed on it. I didn't build any wonders, with the exception of Petra. I noticed it was still out there on t90, so gambled and hard built it in Krakow. I've only got about 5 tiles that benefit, but the extra caravan is nice.



It was a pretty peaceful game up until WF, which I proposed. Despite having 4 good cities, all with workshops, 5 internal trade routes, AND 4 workers chopping, I got trounced in WF and only took 3rd. Korea and Mongolia were fighting and I bribed Egypt to fight Persia, but I still got beat. Oh well…..



It was pretty obvious to me at this point that I was going to go for a SV. Korea and Egypt were building every Wonder and were cultural giants. The lack of horsies made me reluctant to got for Domination, but the option is still open. This is a really balanced map, with no runaways. I'm tech'ing pretty hard and am still 6th, but only 4% behind. GS bulbing will take care of that soon enough.

I got first Ideology, and went Freedom. About 5 more civs got there in the next 5 turns and all went Order or Autocracy (Siam and Mongolia). Everyone else ended up Order, so I'm alone in Freedom and getting a ton of unhappiness.

I only had 1 source of 3 Aluminum in my borders and none of my 3 CS had any, so I sent a settler out to start a city on the Southeast island that I had just discovered. That's another 8 Aluminum and 2 more horsies. 6 W Hussars with upgraded Foreign Legions should be enough defense, but Genghis and Alex are both getting a little uppity, so I'm hoping I can get some bombers up in time. Idiot Genghis settled Hsia right between 2 of my cities, and I'll look forward to clearing that blight off of the map soon. He just lost the city East of Hsia to Korea in one of their numerous wars. I suspect Korea hacked his computers first.

Wonders built so far: Petra, PT, Eiffel (faith GE), Big Ben (Krakow), SoL. I'll buy another GE for Hubble.

Cashflow has been great, and my religion has spread so well that Greece just proposed Shark Diving for the World Religion. Sadly, I took Tithe so I'm not benefitting from the spread too much. Religion is One With Nature, Tithe, Mosques, +1 Happiness from shrines (unusual for me but it has really paid off), and Religious Texts.

I have built zero ships, but probably need to get a couple of Battleships up soon to protect my little cove.

As soon as I hit 800 BPT I'll start bulbing and it should be a pretty easy science win if the wars don't get too ugly. I've still got several DoF's going, but not with my 2 neighbors.

A note on Germany: They have done nothing but sit in their tundra/ice Northwest corner and throw denouncements at everyone but me. They've been my constant friend and trading partner, but haven't done anything at all with the exception of joining me, Siam, and Persia in knocking Egypt down a peg when Ramses got a bit too expansive.

As predicted, Genghis DoW'd me 2 turns after last update. Egypt joined in, but I doubt they'll do much more than harass trade routes. I paid Siam to DoW Genghis so he now has a war on 3 fronts.

Mongolia sent quite a few troops my way, but they pretty much just bounced off of my FL/Infantrymen and my W Hussars pranced around and finished off wounded units. He hasn't even gotten a shot off on my cities and his damage has been limited to a couple of pillagings. Rammy sent some Elephants at him, distracting half of his army, but it wouldn't have mattered. Genghis offered 2 GPT in peace (all he had), but I declined, instead sticking to my vow of removing Hsia from my backyard. I'll casually build a couple of Artillery and start knocking down his walls next.

On the other war front, Egypt did pillage a couple of cargo ships and then sent about 5 Rifles and a handful of Privateers at my island expo. I bought a Battleship to hold them off (Commerce with Big Ben is pretty awesome). He probably could have taken the city, but I was about to go on a Landsnecht buying spree there, so maybe not (did I mention I love Commerce?). He made peace exactly 10 turns in to the war, which I think addresses a recent question regarding whether or not AI's bribe other AI's to war.

Everyone hates Siam for some reason, and Alex has finally gotten around to informing me that he doesn't have a very high opinion of my military capabilities. I'll have to get those artillery up quickly, as my 2 sources of oil are on his borders and I don't want to be sending out bombers at half strength.

I just started bulbing GS on t249 and have about 5 more to go. Hubble will be built with a GE, and I'll be able to faith buy 1-2 more GS. This is looking like a textbook t300 SV, with a bit more action. I'll probably turtle up just so I can get back to the Dutch game.

Oh, I just took Protectionism and watched my happiness go from +1 to +22. Commerce kicks a$$.

Never one to settle in place (jungle no less... ew...) my warrior found the NW pretty early in


Too bad Genghis was already around... in any case I'll take this spot (and buy out the silver before the CS gets it) and pray for Petra. The narrow choke created from the NW with the hills and CS should prove handy if an invasion comes and holy warriors with faith from NW will help.


Found out Korea (my most hated civ to meet aside from Atilla or Shaka) gets a salt start... ugh... hence the "challenge"



Paid through the nose for Genghis to go bother our runaway a little bit. Also helps that they have trade routes with each other so hopefully they'll send those caravans to ME instead. Genghis is in the middle of an assault on Yerevan anyway so his units are already there. This also saves Yerevan from being taken.


Dare I expand there?... but it seems I have no choice...


Genghis, never one to leave CS alone (he has yet made peace with Yerevan even, attacked Sidon. However the mountains (and a couple of my units) saved it. He lost a lot of his forces there. Meanwhile I finished Petra, yay!


I had hoped to rely on Genghis to get rid of my Sejong problem but Korea had built Terra cotta army AND great wall. So bribing Korea instead against Mongolia is an obvious choice. Hopefully he'll waste some of his hammers on units and won't runaway too far (although I do think he's going to be very problematic for my CV with his wondermongering and fast tech speed)


Oh Genghis... you're at war against 2 CSs and Korea and yet you would accept Bismarck's invitation to attack Siam... I wonder what goes on inside that artificial brain of yours... On the other hand I have all cities I want up (3 is enough for me), and DoFs with Greece, Germany and Siam. Time to stabilize and catch Korea. Education looks to be done t110 on schedule.

Nice write-up. I like the style. The similarities and differences in our games are interesting.

One question: at t98 you are just finishing Theology and say you'll have Uni's at t110. Did you do the tech order differently than the default beeline Education? If so, why?

I went full Honor, 3 cities, aiming to emulate the peddroelm style. Settled on the gold, near to the NW and to the east to have a coastal city and have more luxes. Stole 2 workers from Alex, then made peace and trading partners. Everyone dog piled Genghis, so I accelerated my own plans to kill him, and barely missed liberating Sidon (Siam beat me to it). His cities fell pretty easily, and I found myself asking 'OK what now?'. I had a choice between an early incursion into the lands of 'the courteous people of the East' or wading through the ICS empire of everyone's favourite student of Aristotle. I chose the latter, and although taking Sparta and Athens wasn't EASY, I only lost a couple of units. He gave me the western cities for peace, and I couldn't work out if I should sell them or what.

The major thing that stalled in my game was science. I'm not sure how peddroelm would have played this game. I guess he would have warred better, and faster, so that science mattered less.

After Alex, I no longer felt that my units had much of an edge, so I built more. A lot more. However, I discovered the sheer lunacy of Deity unit spam when I attacked Siam.

They were pumping out so many units from their 4 (later 3) cities that frankly it's cheating. If the human can only buy one (non-Landknecht) a turn, then the Deity AI should be limited to that too. Yet somehow he was making up to 10 elephants a turn. It took me forever to get close to his capital, by which point he had bombers and I gave up.

So I think I did quite well against Genghis, and I'm glad I tried this play style, but I need to do more research into warmongering before I try it again.

I'm glad this map turned out to be quite tricky. I'd like to see if anyone can win a DomV on it. That's my additional 'host challenge', if you like.

I should send you my t235 save. I'm thinking that bulbing all of the GS early would give one a dominant unit tech advantage and a warmonger like you could roll with it. I'd like to see it done. Personally, I'm just going to play defensive war, grab a few cities, and ride the SV to victory. But……..I'm set up pretty good for late game Dom.

I got civil service (here the +food thanks to the rivers and oases and petra, allowing me to work those faith desert tiles are of bigger importance than that extra SP from entering medieval a few turns earlier) and besides you need currency for Petra anyway before theology so after theology will be education directly.

I used Mongolia as an XP farm for a bit, then got bored with him and built a couple of Artillery and finally took out Hsia, which I razed to the ground. Twas interesting how fast my borders expanded to remove any trace of that eyesore of a city ever being built. Genghis offered 47 GPT in a peace deal, which I gladly accepted.

Persia and Germany, for some odd reason, decided I was a threat from across the globe and DoW'd me. It took 1 nuclear sub to turn back Persia's invading "force". Germany never even sent a troop, but proving what a moronic AI he is, wouldn't give peace for a long freakiin time, then gave me a ton goodies in a peace deal. 1 turn after peace, Bismark wants to trade. The next turn, he offers a DoF (declined). Next turn, he denounces me. He's a moron this game.

I bribed Alex to DoW Egypt when both were creeping up on my borders. Alex immediately plants a citadel and steals my Western oil source, putting me negative. Well, we can't have that, so I returned the favor. He was displeased that I had the gall to steal my own land back, but didn't do diddly about it. Next turn, DoF. Another psycho AI.

Korea was cultural leader, but never got past 52% influential over Siam. Korea did built 3 SS Boosters, but that was it. IG was never proposed.

I signed a RA with Korea on t265 as insurance, but was pretty sure I'd have my last spaceship tech before that. Indeed, I spent 1500 faith on one last GS on t291, and then just had to wait about 4 turns for my 1150 BPT to research the last tech.

I hard built 3 SS parts and bought 3 for 1850 apiece. Commerce w/Big Ben is pretty awesome and money was never an issue.

It took me 3 days of practice to get the hang of Poland going Full Honor first and trying to follow the Honor/Comm/Auto Strategy. After testing over 30 games on 5 maps I decided to dive into this challenge. I still struggle with this strategy and find that Poland has a tough time going straight from Commerce into Autocracy. The free policies kinda hurt the timing. So you could open Ratio or Patronage instead or you could try something I have been messing with. I try to hold back on cpt and hope to finish Commerce when reaching Industrial Era. It is not very easy and I find that Liberty/Honor or even Tradition/Honor is much easier and smoother of a game. Ofcourse that is more about my playstyle and trying to emulate another persons strategy can be very difficult.

In my own personal tests I have seen some strange things each time. Sometimes I am pulling so much gold that rush buying an army is not a problem early on around turn 160. Other times it is very difficult to earn any gpt to help at all. It seems that you have to have an amazing Diplo game with the Civs that you are not going to go to war with. Once you do go to war it gets very messy and all sorts of problems happen in my games. It is a very tough balance and Im not sure that you could play this strategy every single time and win with ease.

I would have to say that Poland is by far stronger and easier going with a Full Trad/Lib mix as Tommynt has showed with his very detailed Poland Strategy Guide. However this write up is more for some of us trying to master the Honor/Comm/Auto strategy that Ped has written.

Not a very good start but we do have Gold/Mtn/River so ofcourse trying this strategy can be easier if you can get an Observatory so I settled on the gold. 15 turns for new pop so I decided to just work a hill until I could get the oranges in my border. Four turns for a scout not bad. I met Greece on turn 2 and it seemed that I was able to detour his second settler and steal one worker. I also picked up his ruins nearby for a free pop and a free tech. Sent the first scout North and found Sidon and Uluru later finding Yerevan and heading straight East finding a few more CS's and no ruins. I didn't want to steal workers from these CS's since they were all Culture CS's but since Im holding back on Culture I should of taken them in hindsight. Of all the places... I worker farmed a few workers from Panama. A very long hike back to my empire. I really did not get alot of workers total this game but at least it was better than building them.

I sent the other scouts West and South and found some more NWs/Ruins and CS's along with 5 out of 7 Civs. So the Capital isn't so great for growth going Full Honor into Commerce but Im usually only aiming for 12 pop anyway even though I notice Ped suggests a taller Capital. After the scouts I built 3x Settlers and hurried up to settle Uluru and hope Mongolia didn't crush me for such behavior. I settled in the face of Alex as well hoping to take his land away but he didn't go Liberty, instead he went 2 Honor, 2 Patronage and later got into Aesthetics. I used my GG to take his Silk and Marble away and he wasn't happy. I sent him my first Caravan in hopes that he wouldn't attack. He sent me two and peace it was for the time.

Everyone else pretty much wanted to DOF me which was fine. I put Siam, Mongolia and Korea all at war with one another a few times. I wasn't really able to ally any CS's but I did get a few friends for a little while. My plan was to get Tithe and Holy Warriors to help with my build time so I wouldn't have to build archers and could build other things like Barracks and Markets. That worked out and I still have not enhanced. So I teched up writing before I usually do and hard built all 4 libraries and got the NC done around turn 87-88. Next I built Markets in all cities and Barracks after that.

I find Tech Path to be tricky with this strategy. I went Mining, BW, Pott, Cal, Writing, Philo, Wheel, Currency, Theo, Edu, Sailing... Etc. I did steal Guilds and delayed Construction a few turns more to get one more archer on Faith Buy. I know I got free Arch and I may have gotten Free AH as well. I decided to go to Machinery before Astronomy. Next most likely down to Metalurgy for the Hussars. I really struglle with going to Artillery before Industrial but we will see. When you hurry up to Industry you can rush buy the 3 Factories and get an Ideology up around turn 155-160 which is nice. You can also start on Big Ben much earlier. Going to Artillery is better for your rush with Military and I have not decided which is better. When you go Artillery first you jeopardize not getting to Autocracy first.

My Capital B.O. was 3x Scouts, 3x Settlers, Barracks, Gran, Library, NC, Water Mill, Market, Mint, Writers Guild, Art Guild, and now into Heroic Epic.

SP's ... Ofcourse Full Honor going down the left side instead to get faster XP on my archers that were farming culture from barb huts. I actually opened Commerce before I finished Honor since the war had not started yet. Next down the right side of Commerce to get to Mercantilism asap.

My Church as stated before is Tithe/Holy Warriors so far.

I had put Greece to war with Siam and Korea a few turns before the war but I do not think they did anything. Perhaps they sent troops North since they didn't seem to have alot of troops near Athens. I met Persia a few turns before I started the war and I exploited the heck out of them. I bought sugar for 28gpt so that Yerevan would give me 50 influence and I DOWed them the next turn to get my gpt back and free influence. You may not do such things but I do not have a problem with that and Yerevan is a military beast. So Athens has fallen now and Im probably going take some more of Alex's cities as well.

The game is far but won and this strategy can go south in a hurry. One thing I have done is buy up 4-6 Landsknechts to defend Uluru and hope to get many more to upgrade to Hussars later. If you can get a monster army of Hussars things can become very easy.

I did not want to wipe out Greece but that is what I did. I wanted Yerevan to take out the last city but it would of taken a few more turns if at all so I bit the bullet. The thing about this strategy is you have to move very quick. I started my war very late on turn 124 but it is tricky to wait for upgrades and get the war going. I find it much easier to start a war on turn 40-50 and keep pressing. Perhaps going 4 city instead of 3 made my war time 10-15 turns too late.

I razed two expos of Greece and going to raze down Corinth to maybe 1-2 pop depending. I didn't want to sell the cities in fear of an attack on my backside since all my troops will be away for some time.

Egypt has the better side of the Wonders and Mongolia doesn't have any. At least Greece built me Statue of Zeus which will be very helpful. Im not sure if I should take out Mongolia up the middle and after that split an army and try to take Korea and Siam at the same time or just go get Korea now and work my way back. The good news is that Germany, Siam, Mongolia and Korea are in alot of wars with each other and troops should be low. If anyone has any suggestions on what they would do from this point I would like to read it. I most likely will be far ahead but it still would be nice to hear another point of view.

Persia actually gave me a 3gpt peace deal which was nice.

Got to keep the gold rolling in so... War is on the agenda! I was about to take down Karakorum when Kahn asked if I would give him peace for Jeonju? I was thinking I could just take this Capital and go take down that city too but I thought it might be easier to come back later and move on to Korea with a nice city close to attack. So I moved the troops over and started in on Korea. I lost one of my highly promoted Xbows which was not nice. I think I forgot to put some injured Pike in the way to take the fire. I didn't like losing that Xbow but I moved on and took out Busan and Seoul by turn 191. I asked for peace but Korea refused. Maybe next turn. I need someone to send my Caravans to once I start in on my only friend Siam.

The whole world is at war with each other and it is helping to keep the tech rate low and close to me. Since I decided to Oxford Industry first and wait for Artillery it is gonna be awhile before I can really start to wipe out Civs/Cities. I decided to build Big Ben asap and not use my Guilds. Two more turns and after that is done I will go back to build the EIC by turn 199. Im not sure how I am gonna buy a bunch of units since gpt is a problem. Im guessing killing units will help.

I timed Industry and finishing Commerce just right and the turn I got Ideology I also had an SP choice so I went 3 into Autocracy choosing Mobilization, Industrial Espionage, and Nationalism. Im not sure if these were the best but for the game I am playing it seemed like the right choices. I know for sure you have to have Mobilization and the happy choices were no good and I had no Miltary CS.

Im not sure if I should leave the Mongols for last or take them down now. What would you do? I could start right into Siam before and that would break our DOF and since the world already hates me Im sure they won't hate me much more. Persia went to war with me but I see no troops yet.

Seoul has 3 nice Wonders (Stonehenge/Borobudur/Notre Dame) but it is a shame because sometimes they get really wonder happy. The Wonders have been kinda balanced with Germany and Egypt having 9 each and Persia has 5 with Siam having 3.

On a Side Note... it may be easier to have a two front war with Korea and Siam at the same time making things go faster. I notice the better players do things like this but I have yet to be able to figure it out. The huge problem that I am going to have is trying to control a few CS's before the war with Siam since they have almost total control of them.

Only 50 turns more but it feels like 500! Even though Siam had many GWBs up he could not stop the rush of Hussars! I was thinking about how ISIS is overrunning land and cities while I was doing this. Ofcourse the AI does not concentrate GWBs very good, usually attacking my cities or bait. I need a shower and a break but I will write up more of a story later. I just wanted to post up the picture of Siams Capital falling down and the Demos. I will try to finish in the next day or so.

I could not win the game before entering into the Modern Era. Im guessing you need a larger army and split them in 2-3 attacking all over. I still do not know how to get to Egypt or Persia lol!

After a shower, some food, and a little rest... I decided to update my journal of these turns!! After taking down Seoul and Busan, I moved the troops over to Karakorum and captured it and got a little greedy with Siam. I was planning on stealing 2k of gold before the backstab. Exploit you say? Yes, yes it is... and I have no problem with it since it happens in everyday life with real world Civs. Ofcourse as usual I waited too long and the turn I was thinking... ok, just take 500 to 1000 gold before you get denounced... I got denounced lol! So I couldn't cheat the AI this time! I knew this war was going to take a toll and it still is. I wasn't happy that I couldn't get Sidon on my side but I did manage to get Monaco which kept Siam busy for awhile before capture. So I had to have some troops near my capital since Siam built a city right next to me which is my own fault for letting him in there. We fought long and hard but I managed to take down Beshbalik with ease but Chum and Muang had to wait for Artillery. I built some roads while I took some pot shots.

Great War Bombers were up and I had to use injured troops as bait and hope they went for air raids on my cities instead of my Artillery. I think I only lost one to a bomber and a few to ground attacks. However, I managed to capture Chum and Muang and Liberate Monaco. I moved troops from the Capital through Monaco and the main front moved West from Muang. It took some time but we took down Lampang and Sukhothai. I was building alot of Hussars and some Rifles with Artillery here and there. I was rush buying alot of Landsknechts and upgrading them to Hussars. Yes it costs 20 more gold to do this but it is worth it since you can buy unlimited amounts and upgrade all in the same turn. Hussars are just pure awesome! They move troops all over the place and kill them as well. It is not very hard to out build the AIs more advanced units with these Gems! They also move across the map like some sort of Ancient Tank! Another awesome thing about them is they can injure troops, pillage and move away all in the same turn allowing your range units to mop up! I think they are one of the best units in the game to control. I was starting to capture many POWs that I used to repair hexes and build roads. I also used them as a nice wall for bait that the AI was happy to take every time!

I chose Elite Forces, Militarism, and Clausewitz's Legacy. I wanted Total War but I think I needed the happy from Militarism at the time so I bit the bullet again. I also opened up Rationalism and went down to Sovereignty, which helped my gpt. I did enhance my religion and chose: Rel Community and Rel Texts. I need to spread this out now with a GP since Im out of the Industrial age.

About the World Congress: I helped Siam ban Pearls and the rest of the world decided to Embargo Poland... Not nice! It could be worse, they could of banned trade with CS's as well. Im starting to get a hold on delegates so maybe I can Repel that. Egypt has joined me in Autocracy and has proposed it as World Ideology. Siam went Freedom. Persia and Egypt went Order and the other two still have not had a chance to choose.


Siam has alot of cities and Im not sure I can just plow over to Germany before taking out his surrounding Expos. The good news is Germany looks weak so they might be easier to capture but it might be mission impossible to take down Persia and Egypt since I still do not know how to get over to them. I guess some scouting is in order but it feels like I might have to cross an Ocean. I might have to settle for Diplo or just plain out lose! Time will tell. I guess the good news is that I am not as far behind as I feel tech wise but Im not sure what tech path to get into now since Im supposed to have won before Modern Era lol! I did build a couple of PS's though and might have to get up some Labs as well. Adapt and Overcome when the plan fails... right! Industrial Espionage is pretty nice stealing my way into the Modern Era actually.

I seen that the PT was up so Im building it in Seoul where Korea was supposed to build it. I did manage to get Big Ben but I should of built EIC first. Lesson Learned. Siam has some nice Wonders: Bran Gate, Eif Tower, Forb Palace, Him Castle, and SoL! Muang Saluang has Petra in it as well!

Usually the people of Poland prefer Pierogies. However... My army seems to have the munchies and could really go for some Hamburgers!! As you can see in the picture below on turn 259 Hussars can get Crazy Fun!

I did not have to war through that mtn pass since Siam gave it to me in peace deal!! That was really nice! Germany was about to take Siams new Capital so I decided to get the war on and save him and get some gold for killing Nazis! I want my 100 scalps!

So you know what is going on by now... War, War, War...what is it good for? Im am starting to think nothing since it takes me 4x to 6x times longer to finish a game compared to peaceful play. Anyway. I basically have been building mostly units. Stealing Techs. I have no labs up yet since it takes too long to build and I don't want to drop in 800ish Gold for one Lab when I can upgrade units or buy them. I took Berlin and could of avoided the take back but I really didn't care since it will help my happy to lose the population. I actually let the Germans retake Hamburg as well so I could lose the pop and get some xtra gold. My troops still were hungry from too much smoking so they decided for some Frankfurters as well. After that they were pretty full and made peace with the Nazis for now.

Berlin has some nice Wonders as well. It is nice to see a balance for a change and Egypt not getting every single Wonder. Berlin has Ang Wat, Chic Itza, Red Fort, Hang Gardens, Taj Mahal, Uffizi, and ToA.

I was just about to plan out how to take Egypts two CS's nearby Thebes when he asked the Mongols to go to war against me and they said... why the F not! Egypt and Persia are in a tough spot for me to get at for the time being. I'll have Satellites up in 5 turns and since I have Rocketry now I upgraded to Rocket Artys! I notice Egypt has some weaker units compared to mine so if I can get over there it wouldn't be hard to force peace. Im gonna use Berlin and Frankurt to buy a Navy. I guess I'll take back Busan since I sold it to Egypt long ago since Florence was gonna capture it when I was at war with Siam. Egypt does not have 1 unit there so it should be easy.

You can see in the picture below that Im about even on Demos so things are going good. I don't see how you could clear this map out before Modern going Full Honor into Commerce but I'm sure someone could of done it. Anyway Im about to get into the Info Era so you know how it goes. Going this deep into the game isn't so bad... I did get to finish Ratio and Im 7 deep into Autocracy as well. I bought some Prophets and spread around my Religion to get the Tithes.

I feel like just calling this a win and not finish so I'll just take a long needed break and finish it later win or lose!

Not too much to say really. Although the end game is fun it gets to be a slaughter! I like that though . Basically 620 gold for a Nuke when you are making over 300gpt and getting paid to kill units is a little too much for the AI to handle. The wars that I put Egypt and Persia in had dwindled units down anyway.

I would say if you struggle with unit spam on Deity you just need to be putting the Civs at more wars with each other so they will not overwhelm you. Some games it is tough to get them to fight but it does make things alot easier.

I found this game very fun and Poland as always is the best/op Civ in the game IMO. It took some time but I slowly moved my troops in the mtn pass to Egypt where I nuked the heck out of him and Persia to win the game on turn 317 via Domination! By the way... I never put up a Lab in any city unless a puppet built it. I wanted to but buying troops made more sense and I took the tech lead around 73% anyway. Industrial Espionage is pretty Awesome!

Thanks for this map it really was fun and all of your maps have been great after your first week! Keep up the great work! The bad/good news is that I have to go and play my least fav Civ now ... The Netherlands/William !

I see how it works and Im sure you can do it with ease before Modern Era but I still think going Liberty/Honor is smoother and easier. Full Honor from the start makes the game more difficult IMO.

When you win via Domination you win for sure not like my game a few weeks ago where I really won but lost. Also my Egypt game where I won but really lost! White Men Can't Jump... right !

The White Men Can't Jump reference really describes my play in these two DCL games. I won with Poland, but didn't play all that well. I may not win as the Dutch, but am playing a very good (and slow) game.

Then of course, there was Rome, where I not only lost, and deserved to lose, but did so twice

Congrats on surviving your long Polish ordeal. You have more patience than I.