NEW Deity Challenge II - The Maya

[consentient]

Actually, if I go Piety and get Jesuits, my FPT is usually such that I can quickly buy unis in all cities in less turns than it would cost to build them, so it's not just labs. You could buy Universities, and I've seen people with rich enough friends to be able to loan the money, but the way I play, my GPT doesn't really get going until Economics, perhaps because I invest way more in CS than any other player I've come across.

I always DO buy labs, but its the Unis and Schools where Jesuits comes into its own. Not only do you get an almost free science building, but it doesn't really affect your lategame buying at all.

Your argument fails to acknowledge that unless you buy SOMETHING with your faith, you will waste lots of stored faith before the Industrial anyway.

So let's see what you could buy:

- Religious buildings - should already be bought, should be a big part of why your FPT is so high in the first place
- Inquisitors - you're not gonna need many, if at all. On that Prince game, I spread my religion to all cities except one with ease, and only one AI founded before I won. On a Deity game, if you're going for Jesuits, it's more likely that you need a couple of Inquisitors, but that's barely anything.
- Missionaries - An absolute waste of faith. Probably the most pointless units in the game, apart from those rare occasions where you have a weak to middling religion and you want to spread it to your expos for happiness or culture or something.

So if you're wanting to make the most of a large FPT, I'd say that even with the nerf, Jesuits remains the best thing to spend Faith on.

In my most recent NQ game, I reformed 2nd and so missed it, and am trying the new Glory of God with the huge flat boosts. It seems pretty good so far.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Finished this game with a Spaceship Victory @ Turn 227! This map was fantastic and surprisingly tough. This is my record time for NQ Mod so far.

I will do a detailed write-up later I think. This game took me about a week to finish, but I'm glad I stuck with it. Once I met all the Civs it really took off and even though my 7 City run involved way, way too much micromanagement playing this map was still very enjoyable!

I finished with ~2200 beakers, which I think is a personal record for me. My cities weren't big at all, capital was merely 31 pop, but I got so much science out of running every specialist and having lots of mountains in my 7 cities that it did not end up mattering.

The two southern AIs really laid down a challenge for me, I was DOWed multiple times and just barely managed to defend every time, but played smartly and got good peace deals.

My finishing SP were Full Liberty, Full Piety, Full Rationalism and 6 in Freedom. Definitely do not regret going Freedom, I was easily able to buy all of my parts without ever having to produce Wealth in one of my cities.

Total playtime was 4hours

Mine was probably around 20 or 30. I don't know if I should be angry or impressed

Did

Spoiler :

Sweden

never DOW you? They had the highest mil. score almost the entire game and would try to kill me whenever I wasn't building or upgrading my mil. score for 10 turns

 

[Acken]

My threats were gandhi and siam but i just bribed them to attack one of the other 2.

There was always someone happy to fight.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I love how different the games turn out. In mine Gandhi was never a threat because I crippled him early game and then let Sweden take care of him. Siam was very dangerous when he got his UU, but after that I just completely ignored him. Sweden was a menace throughout the game, I finished with 200.000 unit score I believe, just so I wouldn't get DOWed

 

[DanQuayle]

Spoiler :

Probably my fastest CV. I think it has been the smoothest continent sweep I have done. Luck played a large part in this game and I capitalized on it.

Starting warrior gets an advanced weapon upgrade. Spearman steals workers from India and fortifies in a mountain to heal. India looks weak so I decide to forward settle him and get LV in the process. Going 5-city Liberty and planing to wipe out India. Gandhi then proceeds to attack my spearman (who has drill promotion and is fortified on a mountain) with two of his warriors leaving them with very low health. I then proceed to kill them both with my spearman. Meanwhile, I am producing some Atlatlists at 2-3 turns a piece to clear out some barb camps. Gandhi who now probably only has one warrior left asks for peace and since the army differential is big, he accepts to give around 275 gold + 12gpt. CB rush alert. I keep producing very fast Atlatists up to 7 and beeline Construction. I also get an 8th CB, because I am friend with Hanoi. So T59 I had 8 CBs + 1 spearman ready to go for Gandhi. India has the lowest army count.



Gandhi went Piety and founded Hinduism with Holy Warriors as a follower belief. Siam also went Piety, has Mosque as a follower belief and got a quick Jesuit Education reformation belief. Sweden went Honor. Siam offered me a DoF which I accepted. My West front secure, I can focus on the East. As I attack Gandhi, he randomly builds the SoZ not long before I take Delhi. Kryzyl and Brussels have a quest for the Pyramids which I proceed to build. I then get allied to both of them. Kryzyl helps me wipe out India's second city. Meanwhile, Hinduism spreads out to my two proxy cities. I can now use faith to purchase units. I go for Iron Working and faith purchase two of them + produce some others. Sweden builds the Terracotta army. Sweden now has the largest army, but not much bigger than mine. Sweden is still on 2 cities. I DoW Sweden with Brussels as an ally. With a "gold gifts are more effective" quest, I also ally Byblos not long after. I proceed to crush Sweden.



Siam now has two very tall cities and has just settled a third one. He is spamming missionaries to all my cities (Mosque + Jesuit). He is about to reach the Renaissance (tech leader) and has some Naresuan's Elephants up, but the lowest army count. I decided to not wait for the DoF to end and backstabbed him. I allied Mombasa and took care of him easily. His elephants did one-shot kill two of my CBs though.



T119 cleared the continent, captured 7 cities, razed 1 and currently razing 1, I would stabilize on 10 cities, building Circus Maximus
Happiness was tight all game and didn't settle any other city after

Maya long count GE on Sistine Chapel
Pyramids, Sistine Chapel (Palenque)
SoZ (Delhi)
Terracotta Army (Stockholm)
Parthenon, Borobudur (Sukhothai)

Education > Acoustics > Archaeology
I spammed maybe 30-40 archaeologists
I got 10 fully themed museums, almost all amphitheaters full, landmarks on all workable tiles.
Got all the archeology sites on my continent + 5-6 on the other one.
China spammed her religion on my territory which had Cathedrals as a follower belief for extra artifact slots.

This game also helped me understand the "they think you are settling cities too aggressively" better. China was friendly to me after spreading her religion to my civilization, but once she settled my continent that negative diplo modifier appeared and she quickly turned to Hostile. That backstab negative diplo also followed me all game, despite backstabbing before meeting all other civilizations. After I sold my city to France, England and France double DoW'd me which cut almost all my city connections. Maya long count GMu + faith purchased GMu concert tours in France for the victory.

0 Factory, 1 Hotel in Palenque, 0 Broadcast Tower



Room for improvement:
Don't propose WF (delayed my Hotels and benefits are too late), maybe pass Historical landmarks even if it brings hate
Go straight to Refrigeration (Hotels > Broadcast towers, they are too late and need L3 Freedom policy)
Don't build a guild in a captured city (so the new Aesthetics policy buildings effect stacks)
Focus more on production earlier, growth isn't important after Refrigeration

 

[Sclb]

Spoiler :

I wanted to explore with violent SV, but decided to speed up conquest of the continent before England get Astronomy so that I can trade for lux for full value with 2nd continent.

Liberty left side into honor (NQ makes gold available sooner, and also culture for non barbs). Eventually got the Military Caste after war ended to help with much needed happiness and speed up culture. Forward settled India just south of Delhi, stole many workers, didn't put up much of a fight and even stole his first built settler. Eventually he was willing to make peace with 3 lux trade deal which I took. GG bombed Delhi while I have extra GG in case he decides to get GW later. Meanwhile I also DoW Siam and Sweden to try to discourage their expand which I think worked as they both stayed at 2 cities.

Capital spammed the UU archers until settlers. Sent them all to Siam after India was dealt with. Meanwhile also DoW Hanoi to abuse the horse tile as it becomes a worker farming spot. Never built any workers in this game and I got a total of 22 in the end from all the wars and worker farming. Eventually I also built Pyramids which was overkill but I needed faster workers. Too bad NQ nerfed pillage repair. Archers and a warrior upgraded into Spearman with double cover along with 2 free warriors from honor was able to take Siam's expo before CB. Early gold was a lot more plentiful in this mod it seems. I was able to upgrade everything into CB no problem and took Siam's capital like it was nothing. I made a mistake here and puppeted Siam's expo but later I had to raze it due to the happiness hit from taking India and my many self settled cities.

Next was Sweden as I still had peace deal with India and he provided happiness, I'm not even sure what he was doing, my scout didn't report him advancing even though we were at war the whole time. I was farming a bit on him so didn't take him out quickly, but it wasn't a problem at all. Baiting his garrison was useful as it provided gold + culture for killing it. I also let my warriors get some xp and just let my spearman get ready for India.

Next was India, I didn't wait for the peade deal to expire as I had many expos by now and started connecting lux. I sit my spearman on top of GG on top of citadel and just laugh at him as he spammed his elephants which got destroyed as soon as it leave the city. Considered letting CS kill his final expo to save on some happiness hit but decided to take the bullet while also razing the Siam expo. I can just farm whatever rebels spawns anyway with my troops while all my cities built happiness buildings. At the end I got up to 18 cities on my continent all before NC as it was delayed since I delayed liberty finisher with honor.

First free person was GE for petra which probably was a mistake as I should've taken GAdm to explore. By the time he reaches the other continent India should've died if I speed it up, even if he doesn't die CS can kill him. That alone would've increased my happiness a lot. I ended up taking GAdm with the 2nd free person and GE with liberty finisher for NC. It was late enough that all cities had library by then. 3rd person was GS, then GW, GA, GMer.

Happiness was tight all game before ideology, especially before meeting other continent. Lucky that India's religion had pagoda and passively spread to a few of my cities, I later spread it to most of my other cities. He also had Cathedral for the extra happiness. Despite going DF pantheon, my religion had no faith buildings, but only happy shrine and garden. Therefore I just let my religion fade while I took and spread foreign religion. Later England spread her Mosque + Jesuit religion to me and I also happily took it and spread throughout my cities. I ended up buying schools and labs for the newer cities with it although the cost was increased, I had enough fpt with that many cities to justify buying some of it.

I GE rushed several wonders, and hard build some. Opened patronage into scholasticism for major science boosts from the many CS allies since it's easy once you control the continent. Built FP for extra happiness, hard built LtoP, GE rushed Globe for the extra culture from GW, hard built Sistine in 2nd city. Also built Taj Mahal to start GA immediately after winning WF. I spent way too much hammer into WF because I wanted it sooner even though I knew it was an easy win. I was also able to get PT later since no AI went rationalism.

Gold is also a problem this game due to having to rush many buildings and buy tiles especially mountains to get new cities caught up so Jesuit was big help. I ended up having to build 3 SS parts due to insufficient gold since no AI was friend with me and some of them guarded. I only needed to buy 1 GS in the end, and ended up with too many tech. So I planned to increase gold from conquering China, taking her cities and selling her conquered cities back to Denmark and England and it worked if I started it sooner. Beijing contained a ton of wonders including Chichen Itza which should've been mine anyway. Left China with 1 city which should be taken out by Denmark in a few turns anyway if the game doesn't end yet.

Also secularism comes way later and discount in Commerce comes later as well, so I ended up not having enough SP to take the gold discount. Standard freedom science approach seems nerfed. I'm not sure how Order compares but it seems it would be worth it to try next time.

Spoiler :