Deity Challenge 20 - China -Pangea - (Hard)

[ense7en]

Spoiler :

China with 3 salt, rivers, marble, wheat. Good expo spots available.

All I needed to do is settle good spots, don't get into wars before I get enough CBs, tech to CKNs. I didn't even steal any workers to make sure that I won't get into wars and to avoid using any "exploits".

I used my favorite quick speed deity strategy - liberty fast settler tech with early pyramid. after pyramid hard built 3 settlers and 5 cities are up at t62 (screenshot #1).

After monument-granary, paper maker/archers at expos. When I got enough archers, I upgraded them to CBs. Other civs were busy warring and I of course bribed them to do it more.

When I got 10 CBs lined up, Alex already got several cities from 4-pack team. I was thinking about waiting for CKNs, but I thought I needed to stack XPs and reduce his army size before he decides to attack me. I DoWed him at t80 and just killed his incoming units - 2,3 per turn. I used liberty GE for NC and got 13 CKN around t100.

Alex already spent lots of units and the remaining procedure was mere steamrolling. Took 4 cities including Athens by t120 and he gave me all cities. I sold them to huns and he burnt them down. I DoWed 4 pack and took Russia cap with GW at t128. Most of CKNs got lv3 upgrade and 2 got range upgrade.

Found last religion at t126 with Sophia GP. DF-tithe-ascetism. SP: liberty left line, liberty finish and commerse right side. Got mercantilism and about 15 turns to go till +2 happy per lux one.

I don't see any point playing further - it's over already.

You are good.

Spoiler :

But also, how you managed to avoid war for so long seems rather lucky.

I had Cathy plop St. Peters down beside me before there was any chance of me getting another city out.

edit: i forgot to spoiler this earlier; i'm sorry

 

[Light Cleric]

Spoiler :

You are good.

But also, how you managed to avoid war for so long seems rather lucky.

I had Cathy plop St. Peters down beside me before there was any chance of me getting another city out.

Spoiler :

Can we please use spoiler tags, guys?

Anyway, it's not really "luck" wrt not getting DoWed by Cathy; take your Warrior and stick it in front of her Settler and the AI will walk it southeast instead of towards you. Problem solved. Even if this doesn't work(it works in most games when I try to guide an AI Settler) this start is so ridiculous that you can just Archer -> CB spam and trash some AI cities.

My game is pretty much going how I expected with everyone hating everyone. Alex DoWed the 5 team, the Rome team DoWed Alex, the Cathy team DoWed the Rome team, etc. Alex did plop a third city near my second city which is on the Copper, so I DoWed him and razed it(it had nothing). I took some losses from pushing hard into Hoplites and Companion Cavs, but I took Corinth which had Horses + an unimproved(wtf) Spice. I was pondering where to go next because 8 pop Sparta had 24 defense...and then Alex offers it to me for peace It had several buildings including Colosseum+Circus+an improved Spice t wasn't a very big happiness hit and now I have a straight shot to Athens later. Almost immediately after we made peace, he went after Darius, so I don't think he'll be back for a while

Shortly after peace with Alex, Cathy DoWed me. The most annoying part has been Gahndi's Knight spam; Cathy has just spammed Pikes/Swords/Composites which is a loser when you're facing China's stronger GG. The plan is to wait for Machinery, snag Dehli, and then try to push towards Cathy, maybe with a Citadel. This start really is disgusting. 4 Salt + Marble is nuts.

Also Attila has totally been my BFF, I've sold him SO many luxuries Plus he's been harassing both teams(mostly Germany) and just being a general troll.

Also if Science Victory is off then I have my doubts about the AI winning. India won by CV in Yoruus' playthrough of the Persia DC, but that's extremely rare in my experience and really only happened because A)India got almost every wonder it wanted and B)Was a total runaway because Yoruus was OCCing so he couldn't keep India in check. Yes, I know I said the same thing about the Arabia map, but that one was boring and tedious as hell because it was just so big so the AI won by IRL Time Victory

 

[Moriarte]

Spoiler :

I used liberty GE for NC and got 13 CKN around t100.

Spoiler :

That's grossmeister move, glory, very impressive. I'm thinking of revisiting liberty in one of my future games after your report. Inspiring .

What's the biggest setback to keep in mind if one goes this way?

 

[glory7]

Very impressive again!

Spoiler :

GE to finish NC is brilliant! A good strategy after REX.

What's your early capital tech order and build order, when did you start Pyramids? Thank you for sharing! I assume you go free settler before the free worker?

Spoiler :

I usually play quick speed, so let me set the time guideline in terms of quick speed turns - roughly speaking, you can multiply 1.5-1.8 to match standard speed.

If you can get pyramid before t33, it's 80% safe, and if you can get it by t29 it's more than 90% i'd say.

tech: pottery if you have wheat or dear - mining/archery/masonry - lux tech - CB beeline

You need 2 workers - ideally from other civs, but one from CS and one rush-bought is fine too. For this map, I decided not to do any worker stealing, but I got 2 gold ruins so i could buy one early and improved salts immediately (and ofc sold them).

BO: scout - monument - granary/worker (nice if you can skip them by rush-buying) - 1,2 archer - pyramid - settlers and archers.

For SP, yes you go for free settler (left line) first. If you could not find any culture ruin and your starting was an okay one (not fantastic, not terrible), you will receive free settler at t26. By that time, you can see where to expand, who to fight, who/where to avoid, etc.

I usually either choose 1. get one more settler and prepare for 3 city 8 CB rush by t40 if I cannot find good expo spots or I have an aggresive neighbor who builds his city right next to me (so war is inevitable), 2. Spam cities and build up while defending with CBs.

 

[Tabarnak]

Congratulations glory7 Time for you to move toward BNW

You have recently demonstrated, from many sort of games, which paths are the best for any particular games, especially when it comes to decide which tree is better to start between Tradition and Liberty.

But more importantly, thanks for sharing your experiences

Haven't played the save yet...not sure if i will since you already showed a(almost?) ''perfect'' approach.

 

[Fire0rb]

Well Tabarnak, its a lot with the RNG in this game. who DoW's you when and who not. When you dont get instantly spammed by Cathy and Alex with cities you may have a chance to do the liberty start.
But in most cases (which posted here) you get 1 or 2 cities from both of them in your very near neighbourhood and your doomed when you dont get as much archers up as you can asap. even then you need to get lucky imo
But Hail the Mighty RNG

 

[EEE_BOY]

Spoiler :

I usually play quick speed, so let me set the time guideline in terms of quick speed turns - roughly speaking, you can multiply 1.5-1.8 to match standard speed.

If you can get pyramid before t33, it's 80% safe, and if you can get it by t29 it's more than 90% i'd say.

tech: pottery if you have wheat or dear - mining/archery/masonry - lux tech - CB beeline

You need 2 workers - ideally from other civs, but one from CS and one rush-bought is fine too. For this map, I decided not to do any worker stealing, but I got 2 gold ruins so i could buy one early and improved salts immediately (and ofc sold them).

BO: scout - monument - granary/worker (nice if you can skip them by rush-buying) - 1,2 archer - pyramid - settlers and archers.

For SP, yes you go for free settler (left line) first. If you could not find any culture ruin and your starting was an okay one (not fantastic, not terrible), you will receive free settler at t26. By that time, you can see where to expand, who to fight, who/where to avoid, etc.

I usually either choose 1. get one more settler and prepare for 3 city 8 CB rush by t40 if I cannot find good expo spots or I have an aggresive neighbor who builds his city right next to me (so war is inevitable), 2. Spam cities and build up while defending with CBs.

Thank you, a very good guide

Well Tabarnak, its a lot with the RNG in this game. who DoW's you when and who not. When you dont get instantly spammed by Cathy and Alex with cities you may have a chance to do the liberty start.
But in most cases (which posted here) you get 1 or 2 cities from both of them in your very near neighbourhood and your doomed when you dont get as much archers up as you can asap. even then you need to get lucky imo
But Hail the Mighty RNG

Not entirely RNG, as someone just mentioned, station a warrior near their settlers so they will go around to leave you. I saw that before but not realised this may be programed somehow.

 

[Fire0rb]

Not entirely RNG, as someone just mentioned, station a warrior near their settlers so they will go around to leave you. I saw that before but not realised this may be programed somehow.

Well if you replay a map or scout your opponents very fast that is possible but i had neither advantage, i found Alex when he settled right into my face :S
but dont get me wrong, i wont whine here or depriciate glory7's build, he did a very good job under the cirumstances

i really need to play this map further but i lack time for civ atm :S

 

[Deau]

@Glory7

Impressive - unlike most people, my question isn't with regards to build/tech order it appears somewhat straight forward from your original write-up...but how the hell are you managing happiness o.O

I may have overlooked some unique luxuries because I wanted to try a honor SP game for a while but even then, with a unique lux, extra cities next negative happiness from pop 3 and on...

Did you catch ceremonial burial or something like that?

 

[Light Cleric]

@Glory7

Impressive - unlike most people, my question isn't with regards to build/tech order it appears somewhat straight forward from your original write-up...but how the hell are you managing happiness o.O

I may have overlooked some unique luxuries because I wanted to try a honor SP game for a while but even then, with a unique lux, extra cities next negative happiness from pop 3 and on...

Did you catch ceremonial burial or something like that?

IIRC cities on large maps only cost 2 happiness + 1 from the pop instead of 3 + 1.

 

[glory7]

t144 updates

Spoiler :

Tech:
After gettting CKNs (t101), I went for education and after that, printing press to dynamite beeline. Stole Banking from Huns, but not really meaningful. current spt is over 250 and 3 more techs to go - with growing cities it would take about 22-24 turns without Oxford. Maybe I will rush Oxford with Pisa GE and get dynamite before t160 (usual use of Pisa GE in this case is to rush brandenburg). With high gpt and mercantilism I can just rush buy artils and go.

Cash:
I hard built Machu Pichu (one of the best wonder for larger map and for liberty domination games). I considered rushing it with liberty GE but NC seems to be more urgent. Thanks to this wonder and lots of puppets + commerce, gpt soared and I could rush buy lots of stuff, including universities and happy buildings.

Happiness:
I maintained positive happiness and imported some lux for WLTKD. I got aquaduct in main cities and that helped growth in key cities. when I finally reached the end of commerse right side (protectionism? +2 more happy per lux), happiness jumped to like 30.

Military:
I don't think I lost any CKNs - maybe one or two melee for whole game. Most CKNs (about 10) got range upgrade and killed everything.

I didn't even build any CKN (all of CKNs are upgraded ones). I built horsemen/knights at one city (nanjing) where I got stables and forge and for other cities I focused on teching as I knew that I really need artillery to finish the game.

Wars:
After taking Athens around t120, I took Moscow before t130 (got GW!) and finished two remaining indian cities. Germany sent lots of units (yes, lan......) but range upgraded CKNs destoyed them without any loss. Liberated Lhasa and going for German cities - he cannot defend at this point. I continuously bribed AIs (so many easy, cheap targets like France, Huns, Germany, Rome, ...) and there have been so many wars between AIs.

Overall Plan:
Keep going and finish Germany. Then move east to attack Rome and Iro with CKN/cavarly/artils. Keep steamrolling - lots of shooting practices and gg. Not sure I have time/motivation to finish this as it seems over, at least to me.

 

[glory7]

Spoiler :

Russia settled pretty close to me (St. Petersburg) and when I saw that I really wanted to get settler fast (that's why I chose that strat) and claim the land asap. For Alex, I don't know.. I didn't steal his worker even I had the chance but not sure my scout near his border delayed/changed his mind. As far as I know, it's usual for AIs to settle it's 2nd city near its cap and Athens is like 20 tiles away - he built his 2nd city (and others) at 'reasonable' distances in my game.

And for no early wars... I think it is random but you can change the probabilities with your actions.

1. I usually steal worker(s) and when I do that I knew that I can be DoWed easily (warmonger red line), so I use that only when I can def DoWs or I will DoW them soon (fast CB rush, for example). This time, I didn't DoW till t80 when I was ready to fight.

2. more importantly, I bribed AIs continuously. I spent 126g very early to initiate a war and did several times more (and will keep doing it till I kill every AIs). From my experience, as long as you get your neighbor "busy" he won't attack you as long as you keep good reputation and have some army. I spent lots of gold on this so could not rush buy many buildings and even did not have enough money for archers to CBs upgrades.

Lastly, for happiness - as LC said, for large map you have smaller penalty. And this map was tough as there are only 5 CS - I usually rely on CS quests to get happiness. I think I did a quest for Marrakesh (not sure this is correct.. happy CS on your left side) and kept spent money on that guy. I also had brussels (culture CS) but Persia took it later with spy.

And with pyramid, you can make sure that you can improve necessary tiles (lux, tiles that citizens work) in time and move on. And two turns for a road (1 turn for quick speed!) saves lots of time moving units and help to get meritocracy effect quickly.

I think cap had 3salt marble, 2nd city had 2copper, 3rd city had salt, 4th city had spice. As 3rd and 5th city did not have unique lux so I am not sure how it exactly worked out, but I think I imported one or two lux and happy CS helped. My pantheon was so late and it was DF so didn't help at all for happiness.

 

[ense7en]

edit: delete

 

[glory7]

Congratulations glory7 Time for you to move toward BNW

You have recently demonstrated, from many sort of games, which paths are the best for any particular games, especially when it comes to decide which tree is better to start between Tradition and Liberty.

But more importantly, thanks for sharing your experiences

Haven't played the save yet...not sure if i will since you already showed a(almost?) ''perfect'' approach.

Thank you for the compliements. I don't think I found optimal paths for most of the games (well, after all, most of my strats are from other players like you).

One thing I do agree 100% is it's time to move toward BNW.

For this map, I personally believe

Spoiler :

tradition opening would work okay too, especially with very strong cap terrain. I usually use tradition when I feel that I can win and aim for fast victory, in particular non-domination victories (like SV in DC19). I use liberty when I think the game itself is at stake as I feel that liberty start provides more flexibility and early game advantage. You know, the real power of tradition comes after the finish, and liberty is not really useful after the (policy) finish.

 

[glory7]

Spoiler :

That's grossmeister move, glory, very impressive. I'm thinking of revisiting liberty in one of my future games after your report. Inspiring .

What's the biggest setback to keep in mind if one goes this way?

Spoiler :

I started using that trick (use GE for NC) when I realized that even when you get puppets the hammers for the national wonders increases (not sure this is bug or intended). Not sure it's optimal, but it's good in most of the cases.

compared to tradition, for liberty start, I think the main disadvantages are 1. early cap growth potential (you can feel the difference between with landed elite and without), 2. early game happiness (monarchy provides much earlier happiness, compared to meritocracy), 3. Mid-late game growth. Tradition finisher, 15% growth and 4 aquaducts are really strong.

Given that, I think early-mid game warfare is key in liberty starting - if you were to wait till cavarly/artil timing, it's better off playing tradition, and if you aim for fast (non-domination) victory it's better to use tradition I think.

 

[tommynt]

I truly wonder that some experiencd poster here "wonder" that liberty works well on a pangea map with china.

OBVIOUSLY Liberty is a very good tree if u want go for early war/ domination - every multiplayer games shows that and looking into the polcies will tell you same ..

The "problem" just is that from the ss glory posted to actually winning the game is a LONG (in hours playtime) way - concquering all world takes ages and even with having 15+ cho Ku you will loose some stuff if u dont micro carefully at deity.

So i am not sure if this more "effective" as just building "normal" and attacking 1 civ midgame "by the way".

But if early war is coming anyway no matter how u play it - liberty will work better ..

 

[Old Peter]

It is very fun nowdays when liberty and tradition are balanced, and it requires a lot of thinking which of them to choose

 

[tommynt]

It is very fun nowdays when liberty and tradition are balanced, and it requires a lot of thinking which of them to choose

its pretty easy:
lot war = liberty
peaceful (building) edit GROWING = tradition

 

[Old Peter]

its pretty easy:
lot war = liberty
peaceful (building) edit GROWING = tradition

It is never easy though, you never know what is going to happen really.

 

[Light Cleric]

The "problem" just is that from the ss glory posted to actually winning the game is a LONG (in hours playtime) way - concquering all world takes ages and even with having 15+ cho Ku you will loose some stuff if u dont micro carefully at deity.

That's the only thing I don't like when people say the game is "won" by like turn 100-130; I have seen some very, very strange stuff happen on Deity in the +100 turns it takes to clean up a map. There are no guarantees. It's not nearly as "won" as like being on turn 250 and all you have to do is mop up some capitals after dropping Nukes on everything.