Community Deity Game #17 - Germany

Welcome to the seventeenth installment in the Community Deity Game series!

CDG 17 - Germany a.k.a "Alternative Diplomacy"

We aim to post an interesting challenge at the beginning and middle of each month. We try for a variety of starts and difficulties. There is a suggested Victory Condition and a list of Achievements for each map.

Please see the CDG Series Discussion Thread to express yourself if you have remarks and ideas. Some maps use mods. Please note that maps you wish to share must have the DLC map packs disabled, so those who do not have them can enjoy the challenge. To do this, you go into the DLC option from the Main Menu and untick the options for ‘Explorers Map Pack’, ‘Scrambled Nations’, and ‘Scrambled Continents’. You will need to do this every time you start a new game; or you might just simply delete the map packs from your computer.

When posting about your victory, please begin the post with the turn number, victory condition, and achievement points in bold text, e.g. “T247 DiploV, 10 points”. This is so the kind volunteer who updates the finishers spreadsheet can see it more easily.

Also please provide a screenshot of your victory turn, and maybe more related to the achievements and keys point in the game -- because it’s fun to read for all of us! Restart and reload as you like, but in your write-up (does not have to be long) please describe the challenges you faced.

We welcome all comments and questions, but please use the SPOILER tag if you post a picture, make a comment about which civs are in the game, about natural wonders, locations of ancient ruins, terrain features, luxes, resources, etc. In short, if it’s information you can only know by playing the game, don’t spoil it for others by divulging this information in the open. Thank you for your co-operation, and have fun!





Victory Condition: Diplomacy
Quick combat and movement are on (turn them off if you like).
Game Version - 1.0.3.279
Downloadable Content includes: Wonders of the Ancient World DLC. Gods and Kings expansion, Brave New World Expansion. The map packs are intentionally excluded.

This is your chance to try out rarely used policies such as Gunboat Diplomacy, Arsenal of Democracy, Treaty Organization and to explore the Patronage tree. Bribing WL votes may also be a good idea as well as Great Merchant trade missions (30 IP).

DanQuayle said:

Great Merchant trade missions (30 IP).

Click to expand...

Or 60 with the Commerce policy

Thanks for posting! Sorry I did not notice it sooner!

I like the VC, especially that you kept "Efficient investments” pretty liberal. Even in my Diplo games I don’t think I gift much more 3.75K, and that even then it is mostly during gold quests. So the only points I should lose is that WL vote usually takes me 3 or 4 tries...

I think I will SIP. I like the idea of moving to the mountain where the warrior is in OP, but that puts the salt kind of far away. What do folks think?

T70

T008 and I have reloaded already because an AI snipped a ruin from under my nose...

Update:



Fun map so far!

Picture of my t86 empire


Build orders:



Tech path:



t292 retreat



While I was busy killing and conquering around the northern diplo-man grew into a beast... I find myself way behind in everything. I'd almost prefered if he actually bought all CS and finished me off with diplo but he's a true sadist just sitting on 40K gold...

Very fun map. I might play try it again and pay more attention to things.

T145 Victory



Full Honor, Commerce to Mercantilism

@Consentient Wow! Very impressive! Must have been bloody kamikaze-wars? Did u suffer from unit cap? I often run into that with Germany...

No, actually the worst I got was -20% production. The more cities you capture, the bigger the cap gets! The wars were fairly suicidal for the Knights, yes. But the first wave of war gave me access to so many Horses. The ones that survived had March + Blitz, even on T145! Would have made lovely Panzers one day, if they had another set of capitals to aim at!

Tech Order was Civil Service > Machinery > Chivalry > Banking > click anywhere I don't care

[EDIT: Ooh, I almost forgot to say. I located a strange hex out East between the AI civ's territories that was unpassable. Is this a Civ bug or something with the map?]

@consentient - I often see that bug in my games... A missing mountain. Very annoying!

Yea, you really have to start capture and keep early on... (Some civ should have a double unit-cap UA) Its a logical thing but anoying for honor games. I prefer just making one expo, maybe zero. Unit cap is the only reason I make a third city when playing honor. Expanding through capturing is what makes it keep up with tradition etc.

Well the different trees are suited for different purposes. On this map, Honor gives a quicker game than Liberty because of the cash for kills being plowed directly into more units.

If glory7 or someone wants to take a crack at Liberty Domination on this map and prove me wrong, then so be it, but I think Honor is fastest on this map.

Tradition can never compare to Liberty or Honor in most cases because it doesn't have any bonuses for warfare at all. If you only want late-game war, then Tradition starts to shine, but that is just sooooo booooooooring, to my tastes.

I was afraid the map would be too good for a domination run.
As I can see consentient, you could just not pass up such an occasion

If you put all warmongers in the field of opponents, it makes the tech pace pretty slow, therefore making Domination easier. If you want to make a really difficult Domination map, choose all of the Tradition behemoths - Pacal, Haile, etc. They will turtle AND make an army, and have big powerful cities to one shot the player's troops/

Gustavus Rex said:

I often see that bug in my games... A missing mountain. Very annoying!

Click to expand...

Strategic view shows it correctly. OP mentions tweaking the map, might it be near there? I have seen the bug before too, but only with CDG maps. I blame IGE.

It took me 170 turns to get the expo spot I wanted, but otherwise I am having a fun time with this map. I built Temple of Artemis, Hanging Gardens, and Forbidden Palace. Three wonders I almost never even get unlocked before they are gone -- and all in one game!

I cleared 7 barb camps and got a brute, hand-axe, and a sword. 3 in 7 must be about two standards deviations from 67%!

I cleared 5 camps and got 3 Brutes and 2 Archers.

Jesus... That was furious

DanQuayle said:

I was afraid the map would be too good for a domination run.

Click to expand...

I am very much enjoying the map in the spirit it was offered!

My plan at T0 was to beeline globalization and then get the Panzers online to liberate any AI/CS that I could before eventually winning WL vote.

I settled in place, and that has worked well enough. I hit a culture ruin on T2, so I made the safe choice and opened Tradition. First expo placed to catch the NW and I made that my Holy City with OWN, Mosques, Tithe, Religious Texts, and Guruship.

Neighbors on either side each took away my only two coastal spots, so third expo had to be inland too, on about the only available tile. Low production, too close to my Holy City, and just four tiles from northern AI cap. My only other option available was worse (touching three mountains, with more mountains in the second and third ring)!

I had the one long war mentioned above, to secure a coastal spot to build ships and (eventually) Sydney. Also, as mentioned above, the wonder-whoring is a nice break from my usual play. To that list I have added Broadway (themed), Eiffel Tower, and Cristo Redentor. I won WF and IG by about 1K hammers each.

All game, I have been bribing everyone to war, just looking for cheap fights. Except for the northern AI who I pay whatever it cost to keep him fighting the eastern neighbor.

Once I saw how well I was doing with the CS, I risked proposing World Religion. I had converted two unaffiliated AI caps, so I thought they would vote with me on that.

I immediately face multiple denouncements (no surprise), but then the next turn three DOWs. That might be more for being the only Freedom civ, it is hard to tell for sure.

But this is the rare game where I have a solid tech lead, so I am just turtling while the AIs thin themselves out. They have Rifles, Canons, Gats, and Cav. I have Infantry, Arty, Triplanes, and those double-tap +1 range Gats from my too-slow earlier war. I am outnumbered like 6:1 but I do not anticipate any real problems.

WR vote just came through. Both converted AI voted against it. But it passed anyway because the AIs were more interested with seeing Arts Funding fail. Very strange! I did not propose Freedom as WI because I do not think I can force that through -- yet.

VC is still a long ways out. I have changed my plan for working the tech tree, so as to get the Panzers up ASAP. I will delay the Atomic Age for as long as I can, but I might actually win WL in an earlier round that way. I have all but two CS locked up, and there is an AI that I can recall to life now. Also several CS need liberating, so better sooner than later. I have never won Diplo VC without Globalization before, so that would be another nice change of pace!

Fun game, even as my optimism in the post immediately above turned out to hubris!

I think the map only has 15 CS and not the usual 16.

DanQuayle said:

You start at 20 points and lose points for not meeting the following criteria.

• City State Defender: lose 1pt per CS captured and not liberated by the end of the game
• Legit Democracy: lose 1pt for every CS coup you attempt
• Cultural Diversity: lose 2pt per civilization eliminated and not recalled before the end of the game
• Emergent Leadership: lose 2pt per World Leader vote where you fail to emerge as World Leader
• Efficient investments: lose 0.25pt per 1000 gold gifted to a CS after adopting an ideology (rounded down)

Click to expand...

Seven CS were gobbled up, mostly by who you would expect, but a couple elsewhere. I had to abandon my plans to liberate more of them because two turns after I proposed Freedom as World Ideology, I was DOW’d by all the civs except the one with the one with the CSs!

The civ to west would never take peace, but I thought I could ignore her. She had no CS, so what did I care? It turns out she was leading me in tech, which I should have anticipated because she beat me to Porcelain Tower.

Berlin had six (!) Atom Bombs dropped on it (which is why it is so small), two before I had the tech for a Bomb Shelter. In the screen shot, I only just started to return the favor. Also, she beat me to SOH and CN Tower. (I got CR, Pentagon, GFW, and Hubble.)

No coups on my part.

I recalled a civ, and to keep him alive, I had to gift him the former cap of the neighbor. His vote put me over. I did have time to reach Globalization, and I need that too. Forbidden Place + WR + WI is not enough when half the CS are gone!

I won first World Leader on first vote on turn 319.

Except for 1500 at turn before the vote, I only gifted CS during gold quests. An AI who was not at war with me coup’d Zanzibar near the end, so that made the single bribe necessary.

I am loving the Hanse. Expos can have +25% for railroad, +15% Guruship, and up to +40% for Hanse.

The map has 16 city states.