Diety Challenge 38: Air Tight

[Deau]

2) is because Firaxis want their content not to be playable in MP if a single player has the pack. Or at least so is my perspective. You can design map scripts and set some parameter so that it is required to be played. Most rookie mod developers that do a map pack forget to change the switch causing mod users who play MP or share saves issues similar to this.


I got all DLCs + some mods that I had to pickup from a succession game. I could load the save without any issue. Not sure I have the time to play it in full I spoiled myself with some 30 turns explo -_-. Map is godly...

 

[loserforsale]

I can't reliably beat the computer above Emperor and tend to play on Immortal; this is my first Deity Challenge. I settled on the spot where the warrior starts, and have so far played 90 turns in:

Spoiler :

Headed into Tradition, have three cities (one south, on the river by the mountain and three tiles from Mt. Kilamanjaro, one north, to the east of the mountains on the river) and had my NC about turn 80. Got Desert Folklore, no idea why the Celts didn't take it, but I was still fairly slow in getting a religion: have founded (Tithe, Peace Gardens) and plan to enhance with Religious Texts and Swords into Plowshares when I get there.

The other AIs have been rather aggressive: Monty attacked Boudicca, taking Edinburgh and annexing Truro in the peace settlement, only to be attacked by Oda and lose Tenochtitlan. This despite Monty having built the Great Wall. I'm hoping that the mountains will provide sufficient barrier to Monty that he ignores me for most of the game, and I have a DoF with Oda.

I'm still last in score, but most of my infrastructure is in place. I'm planning to settle a fourth city rather soon, but I can't decide where exactly it should go. Obviously north of Cusco and West of the mountains but that still leaves several possible spots. Also, have finished Tradition and don't really know what I'll do until Rationalism becomes available. I'm thinking Commerce opener and try to avoid having to take more than one policy; if I must take another, I'll go for Wagon Trains.

 

[ense7en]

Oh thank you for this!

I'm quite sure i'm not going to make it as Deity is above my expertise, but it's a really amazing map with my favorite civ.

t110ish spoilers

Spoiler :

I put down two cities and then a third where i rush bought a Library for t83 NC.
Friendly with all neighbors excepting Monte...i was luckily able to pay him off to go after Japan (i saw him massing units by me), and then again after they made peace he again massed units by me, but was again luckily able to pay him off to go after Celts.
Ethiopia got swallowed up by Japan; they have only one crap city left.

I'm rather worried that Monte will devour Boudicca, but i'm not at XBows yet(went Education first), and even with them i really cannot do anything to him as he's gotten a good number of cities for great production and is like 7 techs ahead

Celts spread their great religion to me (they got Desert Folklore right away so i decided to not bother w/ religion, and they picked some great follower beliefs for me anyway )
My biggest worry is Monte as he's running wild, and i'm not sure i can really do much to stop him. I think i am going to be forced to try Arty rush against him as otherwise he's going to completely overwhelm me later (if not much sooner) unless i can convice him and Japan to stay in an eternal war (they are the two nearby monsters)

 

[pkf]

Spoiler :

tried tommys trad/lib mix for the first time.. sure wish i was poland

tradition - collective rule - legalism - aristocracy - finish trad - rati open

would have really liked to pick up liberty worker but needed tradition finisher badly. montezuma built pyras

cap went 2x scout - monument - scout - shrine - granny - settlers - caravan - lib - NC - oracle. 4 city NC done at ~t70. edu t104. settled 2 more cities, all of them have mountain, i think that should suffice, perhaps will settle one more.

at t120 cities are like this: 16 - 12 - 11 - 11 - 4 - 4 because i delayed the last two, lacking unique luxes. they are growing like mad though. unis are done, obs almost too, bpt is roughly 200, should be about 350 with obs/secularism (GW is waiting for GAge). monty cut through boudicca like butter and declared on me (gold city), but could hold with 2 cbs and 1 pike.. mt kili and inca is really broken =)

really not sure if it would have been faster to just go standard 3 city tradition NC and expand..

 

[BlackWizard]

Decided to look what map looks like and play a little bit. Well I played over 4 hours in row. Settled where warrior is on screenshot. Terrain seems very good(maybe too). I however decided to go OCC because havent done that for a while. Just researched Radio and I share tech lead with maria

Spoiler :

Nobody has dowed me and I havent even bribed anybody into war yet

Finished on turn 338 with one city

Spoiler :

I build only one city and in end it was 42 or 43 size.
I wasnt able to found religion and got only crappy religion from neihgbours. Didnt have enough faith to purchase any of those buildings. There wasnt single religious city state alive on this map when needed. So I got faith only from shrine and temple I had about 700 faith at the end of game
Used Oxford to bulb architectry and renessaince era. Also got 7th policy same time and opened rationalism. Build sistine chapel which I think wasnt necessary because it delayed artist and musician guild and iron works.
Finished rationalism accidentally one turn early so had to take not so useful free tech.

Could probably saved of 30 or more turns with more optimal gameplay.

 

[Blicero]

Spoiler :

I also tried tommy's tradition / liberty spoiler, and have to say I like it. I'll need to try it in a much more normalised situation as this map is a little ridiculous, particularly as the Inca.

I built 6 cities before NC, which left me with NC at T102. Maybe this could have been optimised a bit more, going for NC after 4 cities. Either way I hit Education at T120 and then Plastics at T202. I ended the game at T270 and had 2700 faith left, so room for optimisation there.

The world was not that peaceful, but nobody was able to make any inroads in war. I never went to war, carefully bouncing the aggressors off each other and trying to be as friendly as possible. I think I only signed a handful of research agreements because I simply didn't have the cash. I also struggled with happiness for most of the game. Religion was given to me by Boudicca, which was fine by me. She had desert folklore + pagodas + mosques. Still I struggled with happiness from the city pops, and then the ideologies kicked in. I was the first to get there and chose order, and of course the tourism hogs all went different ways and caused me lots of grief.

In retrospect I think I could have slapped another couple of cities up that NE stretch of mountain land. Maybe I'll replay this to see how many turns I can shave off the finish.

Still a personal best for me. I wouldn't be surprised to see someone get this down to T200.

Final SS

Spoiler :

 

[teqofc]

Was tempted to try another boring SV but decided to focus on my warmongering which needs a lot of work.

Going liberty. Used my engineer to build... get this... Petra! I couldn't believe it wasn't taken. I also got pyramids and my army of workers are quite busy. Getting troops massed and aiming for machinery to get Xbows. Oda is already at war with Monty so this is gonna be fun. Missed out on religion, could of really used tithe.

Check out that juicy 6 food 3 hammer square I have highlighted

Spoiler :

Unfortunately I'm not feeling so well so progress will be slow.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

Also got a turn 270 SV -- best game ever! Went with Tommy's Trad/Liberty/Trad strategy, didn't get the NC built until turn 105'ish because I wanted to make sure I got the Oracle SP. I think my flaw was potentially beelining to Construction for the whatchamajiggers, I wasn't building libraries in any city until turn 70 or so.

Went with 5 cities total, 4 of them next to Mountains, one on the coast up by the salt (the last one). I have NO idea how in the hell anyone could support six cities happiness-wise early on! (Though I did find Columbo pretty late.) Had some serious problems with just 5 cities even allied with two mercantile when Monty had Autocracy and everyone else had that or Order ... -31 happiness ideology penalty or so. Eventually came around, but ...

Anyway, a late NC worked fine, I had 200bpt by turn 120'ish and hit ST by turn 155 or so, Plastics turn 204. It's still a slog to get to Apollo, though -- think I finished it turn 250 or so, ended up with a science cap of around 1400bpt and rushed at least 3 parts with engineers.

No war. Monty was my best bud, he got me through some hard times -- lucky for me he always had luxuries to trade and sell! I had a good defense set up and I denounced Portugal after Portugal denounced him, set the tone nicely. He completely ringed me by turn 170 or so, but even with a different ideology, never DoW'd.

No city hit a pop of 20+ besides the cap (31); when the game is so rushed and you need to populate those specialists, not sure how you can get them very big.

 

[pkf]

t231 sv

Spoiler :

stayed at 6 cities, perhaps should have planted another coastal, but no good observatory spot left..

plastics ~t190, apollo finished t220 (4 turns), spent about 10 turns on parts (2 in cap, 1 GE, 3 in best cities).

lots of things to do better - still very much in doubt if opening liberty was worth it, finishing trad earlier would have helped. peaked at 1,6k bpt.

to get close to t200 you need more maritimes - i had no maritime ally almost all game which really hurt. cities could have been at least 3-4 pop bigger.

very fun inca map though (lots of awesome terrace farms..)

also got very unlucky and missed religion with 230 faith stored. that hurt quite a lot, at least i got DF from boudicca. but with more than 1 GS from faith one could get apollo 8 turns (one bulb) earlier.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

t231 sv
stayed at 6 cities, perhaps should have planted another coastal, but no good observatory spot left..

Can I ask how in the hell you kept that many cities happy? Best I can tell the only extra resource you would have had is the copper to the east -- I almost sent a guy there but I couldn't see how I could grow him without everyone being .

What happened ideology-wise? In my game, Monty went Autocracy, I went Order, then everyone else went Auto or Freedom until Portugal at the very very end... when those folks joined Freedom my happiness penalty was humungous.

 

[pkf]

Can I ask how in the hell you kept that many cities happy? Best I can tell the only extra resource you would have had is the copper to the east -- I almost sent a guy there but I couldn't see how I could grow him without everyone being .

What happened ideology-wise? In my game, Monty went Autocracy, I went Order, then everyone else went Auto or Freedom until Portugal at the very very end... when those folks joined Freedom my happiness penalty was humungous.

at ideologies: you should be first and go order. monty and oda went autocracy, but the only civ ever coming close to being exotic with me was portugal. proposed worlds fair at first congress - won it and actually even already exotic civs (india and portugal) dropped below 10% in the next 20 turns. only one to ever catch up to exotic again was portugal, but they founded ideology very late when my happiness concerns were over (10+). thats actually why in the finish screenshot i am not very happy

as for happiness: hard to explain but seems to me that happiness management is your biggest weakness.. as far as im concerned science games are always a battle against happiness, so this was too. you should never be safely above 10 happiness imo. check f4 every turn for duplicate luxes - they are your last resort. try to spin lux deals in a way where they will cancel each other out. other than that its just CS questing and trying to get as many unique luxes as you can.

edit: i also got marble in my tundra city (near cerro which i didnt use).

 

[Blicero]

I struggled with happiness the whole game. As pkf says a science game = a high pop game = an unhappiness game.

I remember hitting a breather right before ideologies, which I knew I needed. Basically is you are tech lead at industrial, you need to assume the world will go against you. This is exactly what happened to me and is what always happens: if you're going domination, then you rely on acquiring relics. If you're going science you rely on basically stacking up as much happiness as you can. In my game I built the Eiffel Tower, mainly for the happiness. But funnily enough the tourism from it plus the worlds fair staved off one of the nasty tourism oppressors.

In diety you have to assume the worst will happen because it pretty much always does.

There is another thread around here discussing how to predict which way the AI will go ideology wise. I'm not a coder so one who is can tell me I'm wrong. Button experience tells me it's the usual dumb A"I" that does whatever you don't.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

at ideologies: you should be first and go order. monty and oda went autocracy, but the only civ ever coming close to being exotic with me was portugal. proposed worlds fair at first congress - won it and actually even already exotic civs (india and portugal) dropped below 10% in the next 20 turns. only one to ever catch up to exotic again was portugal, but they founded ideology very late when my happiness concerns were over (10+). thats actually why in the finish screenshot i am not very happy

as for happiness: hard to explain but seems to me that happiness management is your biggest weakness.. as far as im concerned science games are always a battle against happiness, so this was too. you should never be safely above 10 happiness imo. check f4 every turn for duplicate luxes - they are your last resort. try to spin lux deals in a way where they will cancel each other out. other than that its just CS questing and trying to get as many unique luxes as you can.

edit: i also got marble in my tundra city (near cerro which i didnt use).

It's definitely my biggest weakness -- that and getting distracted (sometimes justifiably) so that I don't get a very early NC. I *did* go with 25% Great Person generation instead of a happiness bump with my 2nd free ideology SP, so there is that, but I just don't understand how you could avoid the -20 or -30 happiness drawback after everyone else picks up ideologies.

That's not true: actually, if you're 30 turns ahead of me, then in your game when you get your ideology most of them haven't hit archaeology yet and probably don't have much tourism. Plus that's 30 more turns of not worrying that much. Maybe that's half the battle -- if you are *really* rocking early science, there may not be that much competition tourism-wise.

Hmmmm ... this was a good test for me. I'm getting better, running 5 full cities this game with only maybe 5 turns of negative happiness ... if I can ever get to 6 ...

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

But funnily enough the tourism from it plus the worlds fair staved off one of the nasty tourism oppressors.

This is another thing I don't understand but enough of you do it that I must be doing something wrong -- in a rush SV win, my cities almost ALWAYS have something to do -- build a Bank for that extra specialist spot, catch up on caravan building, build a Zoo because my population is getting , or of course build the damn Public School or Research Labs or Factory or Eiffel Tower.

Meaning I am having a tough time imagining that in a super-early-win-game (where there is overall less time for building) that I'd have time to switch all my cities to production for the Fair or International Games .... is the idea that you make sure you don't do it until those Labs are built, try to do it during that 30 turn slog to Apollo?

 

[Hexacore]

Turn 207 DV

Spoiler :

Settled on the incense. That gave me 2 salt in my cap. Planted cities for the copper to the east and gold to the west. There wasnt any more good spots nearby so I sent a settler waaaaay down south for 2 gems and a crab. Lots of hills and mountains around it so easily defendable plus valetta was gifting me units there.

Monty didnt like me settling near him so I paid oda to DOW him so that kept him busy. Everyone else was eventually friendly with me.

My satalite cites didnt grow very fast as borders were too slow to expand( I missed out on a pantheon which could have helped). I got to dynamite at T160. 10 turns later than I would of liked but I saved a lot of turns with mt killimanjaro movement bonus and the Incans UA

Dow'ed monty on turn 164. He had GW deep in his territory so it was slow going at first. Sold his crappy cities to the celts. Once I finished him I split my army in 2 to go east and west to grab the distant caps. Then built/bought a third army to take out edinburgh.

I should of got this sub t200 but I was too slow to arty's/cav's.

Spoiler :

 

[Blicero]

This is another thing I don't understand but enough of you do it that I must be doing something wrong -- in a rush SV win, my cities almost ALWAYS have something to do -- build a Bank for that extra specialist spot, catch up on caravan building, build a Zoo because my population is getting , or of course build the damn Public School or Research Labs or Factory or Eiffel Tower.

In my game I always stockpiled enough cash to buy every science building in my capital, so that meant by the early 200s I had some "free time" to build the ET. As for the Worlds Fair, winning it gave me another golden age and also at least one extra SP from the culture bonus, which I would use for more happiness.

In a super early SV win I would guess there is no need or time for this.

 

[Blicero]

Nice game Hexacore. I have never managed to get dynamite by T150. Maybe I'll try it again using this map.

 

[pkf]

This is another thing I don't understand but enough of you do it that I must be doing something wrong -- in a rush SV win, my cities almost ALWAYS have something to do -- build a Bank for that extra specialist spot, catch up on caravan building, build a Zoo because my population is getting , or of course build the damn Public School or Research Labs or Factory or Eiffel Tower.

Meaning I am having a tough time imagining that in a super-early-win-game (where there is overall less time for building) that I'd have time to switch all my cities to production for the Fair or International Games .... is the idea that you make sure you don't do it until those Labs are built, try to do it during that 30 turn slog to Apollo?

Time Worlds Fair (if you can - in my game I wasnt host because someone got PP one turn earlier, but it was still about when I wanted it to start) with the period after public schools are done. If you have such a large empire you can finish building schools and just invest from every other city.. and on deity its just 7-8 turns till its done anyways so its a GREAT investment actually..dont production focus though, grow meanwhile, then you should be hitting modern era (oxford - radio) and get factories right after worlds fair.. timing pans out nicely =)

Int games are a great second proposal - you dont want arts funding, you dont want sci funding bc they will hate you and its too late anyways.. so you get int games starting some time after plastics which is when you really have little to build except for banks maybe and science..

i really would not get banks too often.. same for zoos, those i never build, you should try to get happy faces somewhere else..

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

i really would not get banks too often.. same for zoos, those i never build, you should try to get happy faces somewhere else..

I only build zoos if there aren't any other good options -- obviously I trade first/dump gold on Mercantiles (or some bribeable CS with a lux I don't have) if I can.

Re banks, yeah, for non-cap cities they are usually a "not doing anything else right now" build at the moment, when I'm trying out 5+ cities -- back in the day when I was doing the 3-city tall Tradition build I tried to have all buildings in my cities because I'd have the pop to fill them all up during the "GENERATE SCIENCE NOW!" turns.

 

[Splify60]

Don't downplay a t270 victory!
I play at deity, and consider myself a "pro"... T270 is nothing to scoff at, I often win earlier than that, but it's hard fought!