NEW Deity Challenge IV - La France

[Sclb]

Yea, this NQmod makes culture victory a joke. I was able to actually win via SS on deity.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Indeed. And with the buff to Patronage, a Diplo win no longer requires your beeline to Globalization. I suppose Domination and Science are a bit tougher now

 

[tarafran]

Too bad I can't play it on my mac due to the mod restriction

 

[Sclb]

Piety temples give science + happy, pagoda has food, grand temple is science? Even when I play wide, I caught up to AI before medieval era, and first to renaissance, in addition it doesn't raise the cost of religious buildings.

 

[DanQuayle]

Spoiler :

This was a pretty quick and uneventful game for me. I decided to go Tradition to try out France's new UA. Ethiopia was the first to found a religion, but was quickly eliminated by Shaka. Pocatello founded the second religion with Pilgrimage and pushed his religion hard. I decided not to found (to get the same religion as the runaway) and the last three religion were founded really late. AIs were friendly to me all game, except maybe the last 10 turns when they started to adopt differing ideologies. Shaka DoW'd Austria and Germany on his own and didn't even need to be bribed. I think I only bribed one war against America to keep him from getting more wonders and some more during the World's Fair.

Wonders: SC, LToP, Globe(GE), Uffizi, Louvre(GE), Broadway

The France UA means you almost get a theming bonus right away when you finish a WW. For example, Globe comes with 2 GW upon completion. I used Broadway as a finisher for its 2 free GMu plus 2 GMu from the Musician Guild (1 from the UA and 1 natural after 5 turns) to end the game. America was the major runaway with 26K culture, but I also had to use a GMu on Shaka who surprisingly had an unforeseen spike of culture near the end with all his cities. The lack of a Grand Temple (from not founding a religion), going small and the lack of a religious CS meant I barely didn't have enough faith to purchase an extra GMu, but the France UA meant I could get away with it.

After finishing my game, I tried the Musician Guild exploit. It worked, but only once. I was able to get an additional GMu after deleting the Musician Guild and rebuilding it, but it didn't work after deleting it for the second time. So I guess they only partially fixed the problem.

As for CV under NQ, I agree that it is much easier. Although, AIs seem to generate a bit more culture earlier, you can also generate a lot more tourism and earlier which in the end makes a CV easier for single player play. Taking that under consideration, you can clearly see that it is a mod that is definitely targeted more to multiplayer play where CVs are much harder. In those, a human player is more likely going to be the culture runaway and can go to great length to make your CV harder by denying OB, founding his own religion, DoWing to cancel trade routes, etc. He will also not accept any city gift for you to easily GMu bomb him and will try to kill your GMu or block them with units if you approach his borders with them. The CV buffs in NQ seem to be put in place to counter-balance this which no AI will do in single player play.

 

[Sclb]

Liberty settler, piety reformation for SS. 24 cities at the time of win and decided to stop spamming cities and try to play the game for a bit longer to get every civ to Dominant to try culture from chateau + great works + world wonders, see if it can be done before hotels. I was able to also get Oracle, and Chitzen Itza and Notre Dame for the happiness. The AI are very pathetic on religion this game and only 2 AI founded, so Stonehenge was also an easy build. Only 1 AI managed to reach renaissance at time of victory, and I was also able to be ahead of AI in science with that many cities, which seems that NQ isn't balanced for very wide empire, especially with all the +science from piety.

Started being aggressive against the neighbor to the west, and aggressively settled around her, while in a war. Also stole workers off other AI but wasn't as aggressive after forward settling cities. I basically have the entire middle of continent for myself. Most other AI are friendly except for the one which I used to bribe against other AI, he still covets my land.

 

[DanQuayle]

Wow, I will have to try this one time. Did any AI get angry at you for settling too many cities? The earlier Reformation in Piety and the culture from shrines also seem to make the Liberty/Piety mix more viable.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Liberty settler, piety reformation for SS. 24 cities at the time of win and decided to stop spamming cities and try to play the game for a bit longer to get every civ to Dominant to try culture from chateau + great works + world wonders, see if it can be done before hotels. I was able to also get Oracle, and Chitzen Itza and Notre Dame for the happiness. The AI are very pathetic on religion this game and only 2 AI founded, so Stonehenge was also an easy build. Only 1 AI managed to reach renaissance at time of victory, and I was also able to be ahead of AI in science with that many cities, which seems that NQ isn't balanced for very wide empire, especially with all the +science from piety.

Started being aggressive against the neighbor to the west, and aggressively settled around her, while in a war. Also stole workers off other AI but wasn't as aggressive after forward settling cities. I basically have the entire middle of continent for myself. Most other AI are friendly except for the one which I used to bribe against other AI, he still covets my land.

Screenshots? I know the map is huge, but fitting in 24 cities is crazy. Now I want to try that.

Also, I am surprised you had a peaceful time. Shaka was done with Haile by t90 and was at my souther expo on t100, even though I obviously did not have many cities.

 

[consentient]

T208 Culture

Spoiler :

Again, I gave myself the handicap of no Musicians, but what helped me survive the midgame also became my drawback later on. Germany ended up wiping out everyone between Berlin and Vienna, but then was himself wiped out. Pocatello ended up with a giant empire, even considering the huge amount of cities that were razed across the years.

Fuller write-up and screenshots to follow