Peaceful Americans (Deity) - Take 2

The tunnel was long and dark. It was designed for an average sized man to just barely crawl on all fours at a sluggish pace. Rodents, tree roots, and unknown critters did not help either. The flickering light - from the flame burning at the end of a human bone wrapped in cloth drenched with fat from a dying animal - barely managed to stab at the darkness here and there and accentuated the flickering dance of the shadows on the walls. The injuries left a trail of blood, the sickly sweet smell of which mixed with the musty humid odor of the tunnel and attracted more rodents and insects.

Any lesser man would have given up; but not Abe. Indeed he was too preoccupied to notice his immediate surroundings. Memories of the past few thousand years flashed by in his mind. And he wondered again and again as to what went wrong.

The Babylonians and the Carthaginians had attacked him one summer morn without any provocation or warning. They razed every city of his; killed men, women and children. Their soldier’s steel spared none.

Yet, Abe was intent on bringing the message of peace once again in a new world.

So he started afresh one week later after his wounds have healed.

I restarted till I got a good start. This was the fourth or fifth one. I am crazy, but not so crazy as to try a difficult variant in Deity on a tundra.

Space Race tells me that the other civs are Rome, Babylon, Russia, Japan, China, Carthage, Aztecs, Germany and Egypt. Those are quite a few aggressive civs. I was hoping to see India and France from earlier on. But no such luck.

Abe settled on a land that was fertile and held lots of promises for his civilization’s future. Years passed. Abe’s scouts met the Ansazi tribe who taught about Ceremonial Burial. Eventually, he met someone else who was also sharing the land. Yes, it was no other but Hammi of the Babylonians . Abe remembered what happened with him last time, yet he greeted Hammi and immediately ordered some gifts sent to him. Hammi was also kind enough to teach Abe Bronze Working for Masonry.

Eventually, Cleo of the Egyptians was met and she taught Abe Horseback Riding in exchange of writing. At this time Abe also sent ambassadors to the courts of all the civs he has met.

Eventually, more civs were met. The Romans and the Russians were not happy to meet Abe as usual. But some lucre and an embassy in their capital changed their attitudes.

Then one day news came from the Babylonian court of the following.



Abe was sad. Hammi, Oh, Hammi! Why do you keep waging wars? Nothing Abe said could deter Hammi from what he wanted to do.

“Be gone!” Hammi roared. “Otherwise my generals will practice their bow skills on your head.” Abe retreated.

Abe also met the honorable Japanese. They treated Abe’s land as theirs and their army passed by Abe’s capital. Completely defenseless Abe spent sleepless nights.

Abe got word from his citizens (who have been chatting up the Japanese forces as they were passing by) that they want to invade Abe’s friend Ceasar. Abe mulled over whether he should let Ceasar know that Japs were coming. However, he thought that it would be best not to come between two warring parties (if war happened at all). Abe everyday prayed for peace.

But peace was not to be. Japs predictably declared war on Ceasar.


In time another civilization called the Chinese (of whom Abe has recently heard of) also declared war on the Japanese.

By this time I was plenty worried. I was sandwiched between Romans and Babs and Japs. And I have the chinese and the russians on the same continent to boot. The Japs and Romans were already expanding like crazy all around me while my most productive city was building the GL. I wondered whether I had made a mistake. In a normal game by now I would have been already doomed.

All this time when most of the known world has been waging war, Abe has been peacefully doing scientific research. He also traded knowledge with all he knew. As soon as Literature was discovered a nearby palace which was being built for Abe was changed to a great monument called The Great Library.

And in 900 BC this project was completed.




In retrospect this was the fastest GL build that I have ever had. I had put my most productive city on a palace build (which in any normal scenario would have been building swords) and just switched to GL when Lit was found. Within some three turns of getting Lit I had the GL. I had crossed the first hurdle in the game.

Abe asked all research to be stopped and ordered his seers to gather all knowledge from the GL itself. Immediately knowledge of Code of Laws, Construction and Philosophy was acquired. Soon after this the important knowledge of Map Making was discovered. Abe thought about expanding his horizons and charting the unknown seas. He asked for some galleys to be created and some brave volunteers to chart the treacherous seas.

Meanwhile came heart-warming news. Abe wondered whether his message of peace was slowly getting through.

I was desperately hoping for galley luck like I had last time. If I had the early contacts then I can trade them later for a lot of gold especially if the continents were far apart. However, that was not to be. This game was becoming more difficult as it progressed.

Having built a few galleys and trained a few brave sailors Abe bid them god speed at the port. They traveled far and then went and tried to brave the ocean. They were not heard of for many days. Till finally an Egyptian galley gave the sad news that wreckage of Abe’s brave galleys have been washed onto the Egyptian shores. Undaunted, two more galleys were built and duly sent. They too met the same fate.



After several failures Abe gave up. His last galley hugged the shorelines of Egypt hoping to find another break. Meanwhile the Japanese went at it again. Once again Abe’s preaching of peace fell on deaf ears.



By this time all of the civs that Abe knew about were gracious to him. They had demanded a technology or two and some gold from him from time to time. Each time Abe conceded, hoping that his magnanimity will in time shame them into better behavior. In this he was pleasantly surprised. The extortions soon came to an end.

In fact, the mighty Romans were so pleased with Abe that they sent their hard working laborers to toil on Abe’s pastures. When Abe wanted to pay Caesar for his generosity Caesar declined. The wine yards of Abe were irrigated by Romans and Caesar and Abe had a wonderful party.

Here is the screenshot. A roman worker was irrigating the wine near Boston. Hey, can this make SOTD? I have never seen this one before!


And here he has finished it a few turns later.


During, this time the new government type of Republic was also learnt from the GL. After much commotion that lasted 70 long years (more bad luck, is this going to end ) Abe’s empire was a republic.

Soon, Abe came to know that Egypt has made contact with a new civ beyond the great blue called Carthaganians. Contact with Carthage was bought from Cleo. Carthage sold to Abe contact with Aztecs and Bismarck. World maps were exchanged and Abe now had a map of all the major landmasses of the world.

Soon after that another war broke out. Knowledge of Theology came in from the GL and Abe once again sacrificed one of his palaces for another great project.

And Cleo declared war on Mao. Abe sighed.



Notice something in the screenshot above. Yes, I am building the Sistine. Once again, I have used a palace pre-build. I thought long and hard whether I wanted to do this. Building Sistine makes a very attractive target for a rival civ. But having a productive city sitting there and having nothing to build I thought I might as well.

Finally, in the year 230 AD, the great project of Sistine chapel was finished. There was WLAD (We love Abe day) throughout the empire wherever there were cathedrals. Abe asked cathedrals to be built in cities that did not have any. He also asked to start the building of another palace. { I will try to go for Copernicus the moment education came in. }




Abe learnt about invention, gunpowder and chemistry also from the GL. ( This was a bit lucky. The civs went for the lower line of research before they finished Education. )

Before long, Education was learnt from the GL. The seers told Abe that they have learnt all that can be learnt from the GL and had to start studying on their own. Abe agreed and asked them to learn Physics as fast as possible. The seers said it will take 100 years ( 10 turns ). Abe was sure the civs will learn Astronomy in the meantime and he wondered whether he will be able to trade his knowledge of physics for Astronomy and other things.

Soon Abe realized that the China and Egypt knew about Banking, Printing Press and Astronomy.

I had absolutely no trade opportunity on this one. At the end of a turn they had none of these techs and then at the beginning of the next turn they had all three. They could not have learned it from anybody else since no one else knew about these. And how could they have learned three techs in one turn. At most they could have learnt one each and traded each other for it. But that’s what had happened; three techs appeared in the same turn with both of them. Maybe one of the readers can tell me how this can happen?

Yet, no one had physics. A few universities soon kicked in and the seers announced that they can now learn it in 80 years. At the end of the eighty years knowledge of Physics was found. Abe taught this to China and Egypt and Carthage. In turn they taught him Astronomy, Printing press and Banking.

A guy called Copernicus was given control of the palace Abe was building and he built the following.

The trade advisors had been very busy in the meantime. The knowledge of Gunpowder had led to the discovery of a saltpeter source in the empire. Abe had nothing to do with such nasty stuff. However, it seemed that Cleo had no source of Saltpeter in her empire and she was willing to give 50G/turn for it. Abe agreed and immediately Cleo turned from polite to Gracious. Abe knew he was being shortchanged but he did not mind. That 50 G could go a long way in his research. Abe’s excess furs have also been going to Roman’s and the Chinese at almost throwaway prices and that too had made them gracious towards Abe.

After Physics Abe asked ToG to be researched after Physics. It had almost been learnt when the Chinese discovered. Abe bought it from the Chinese ( I only had to pay something like World Map and 400 G) since I had just two turns left on it. However, I missed out on the Newton’s University. The Chinese cascaded to it when I built the Copernicus. )

Abe was able to learn Magnetism before anyone else and knowledge for this was traded for Metallurgy. And a new age dawned on the American empire.

Hey! I am past the point where I lost in the last game. In some ways this is a success.

At this time Abe, asked for the study of a new power source called Steam Power.

I knew the civs will be going for Military tradition and democracy. They always do that. The scientific civs, Russia and Babylon and Germans were way behind. Germany was actually still in the ancient age. So no one is going to get the free tech of Nationalism, which is what they will start researching once they enter the industrial era. Thus I had a very good chance of getting some techs for Steam Power. I also took a slight risk. I sold ToG to Egypt and Carthage for about 400 Gold/turn total and also bought and traded Democracy. While the civs were researching Nationalism and MT I revolted and went to Democracy. This trade was way risky. But I thought even if they declared war to get out of their commitments they will have to cross the seas to attack me and in the meantime I can sign MAs and get them off my back even before they crossed over to my island. In hindsight it worked out perfectly. The concluded their deals and paid me all the money. That funded my research till Scientific Method without any deficit to which I was making a beeline for. The tech pace of China had slowed down considerably owing to the following war. And I had drained Egypt. These were the two tech leaders. This was the break that I was looking for to get the tech lead in Deity.

At this time Japanese declared war on Chinese. It seemed Toku had a death wish. The Chinese were far larger than Toku and had military tradition that Toku lacked. No amount of logical reasoning by Abe will deter Toku from his wishes.

The Japanese war dragged on for many years. China signed a MA with The Babylonians and the Romans against Toku. He was surrounded by enemy forces on all sides. Seeing that he may not last very long, Abe did not renew his Rop with him. Toku became furious with Abe. Abe hoped that if he managed to survive then he can renew the deal. However, it never came to that.



Also notice that I am three turns away from SM. And my palace is going to finish in 4 turns.

After the Japs were finished off, the very next year, King Brennus of Carthage declared war on the Aztecs. Now, Monty was a very close friend of Abe. For the last 200 years or so, Monty has been supplying silks and spices to Abe since Abe taught him about Magnetism ( I think it was Magnetism. But it could be some other tech. I forget. ). Abe was all for renewing it too.



It was not really clear to Abe, why people did not like Monty. He seemed such a reasonable chap; except when he was sacrificing virgins and soldiers all in Abe’s honor. But soon China too joined in the war against Monty.

The year of 780 AD was a great one for Abe. A great treatise called the Theory of Evolution was completed by a chap called Darwin. Unknown to Abe though, immediately his seers discovered the knowledge of Atomic Theory and Electronics from it.

This is a great mystery to me. How ToE can lead to AT and Electronics, Firaxis only knows!



That same year, Egypt declared war on the Romans. Abe, ordered one more of his palaces changed to a great project called Hoover.



I did not need Hoover particularly since all I was producing was wealth (although Hoover helped a bit). It was mainly for denial. The Chinese were sure to get it later as they were the tech leaders in this game and they were rolling over too many civs. Notice how big they already are in the ToE picture (the pink mass above me, the puny square).

At this time I was sure I could coast to victory if only I can slow China down a bit. However, the closer to Caesar you are (literally and figuratively) the more the danger. And I was just next to Caesar So I kept checking my scores constantly. Owing to the modest size of my empire and handful of citizens I was way down in the pecking order.



As Hoover Dam was created and Abe was researching a new metal called Steel Caesar also declared war on Monty. It seemed almost everybody apart from Abe was at war with Monty.

Just to make sure that no one wanted to do to Abe, Monty's friend, what they were doing to Monty, Abe gave everybody a gift of 25 G/turn. Except Caesar his best friend who he gave 50G/turn. Caesar was delighted and said something like "How did you know it was my birthday?" Abe didn't and inwardly Abe did not care so long as his message of peace went through.



A typical AI dog pile. Pick on the civ who is at war most.

By this time Mao and Cleo suddenly learnt Free Artistry. Abe smiled inwardly. While everyone else was trying to improve their artistic skills Abe was fast on his way to a new era. After learning of Steel, he traded that knowledge for refining and went on to learn combustion. He also traded steel for Free Artistry. The Capital city of Washington built its finest monument in a long time.



In a few years another great construction was completed. It gave Abe a lot of money which he donated to Caesar and Mao.

A few turns later came an opportunity that catapulted Abe technologically. Mao went from AT to Electronics straight to Radio for some reason giving Motorized Transportation and Mass Production a wide berth. Abe already had Mass Production and was researching Flight. So Radio was bought for Mass Production and 4000 Gold from Mao. It was sold to Cleo who has Motorized Transportation, which was sold back to Mao for all his gold. Thus Abe became the trade broker, and was on his way to research Flight. He was sure Mao will research it before him, but will all the money in the bank he was not willing to take any chances.

This was the last break that I needed. After this the game was won.

In the meanwhile Egypt too declared war on Monty. Poor Monty.