I decided to go Rationalism-Securalism, and in 10 turns jumped from 185 science to 325. Hm. Interesting. Now do I rush for ideologies or research Archaeology? I don't want to go for the Louvre, and the world fair is coming.
Opened with liberty,commerce, ratio and Freedom.6 cities to block my neighbors which slowed me a bit in the tech department .Got friend with India and America and sold them all my GPT.Got peaceful till turn 305 when Ethiopia the score leader and Rome DOwed me. Had to rush a few nuke subs to finish my spaceship
Ended on t282 with CV. Just kind of clicked next turn for a while. Bulbed to the Internet, but forgot to build Musician's Guild. I had enough faith for 4 GM's, but then I had to wait for a while because Darius must have bulbed a great Writer or something as his culture suddenly jumped a few thousand points. Big thanks to Caesar for eliminating Alex who was hostile and never gave me tourism modifiers.
Interestingly, several civs adopted Order after me: maybe it was due to sacred sites tourism influence? Then it's totally worth it.
Also, I would rate this map as easy. There is plenty of space to expand and AI's don't tech very fast. I DoW'ed Darius early on, and when he started moving his settler, I signed peace, so his settler was sitting there for 100 turns, lol.
Couldn't get any coups going... spies all died on 70% coups... so no WC control until globalization and CHS was wayyyy late, so the turn time is a bit bad. Still, managed to catch two huge runaways with only faith from CS, so I'm quite happy with that.
Missionary spam, prophet spam, and now archaeologist spam (tech path was a bit convoluted, going for radio, then arche, then fertilizer, then plastics); didn't help that Persia's religion doesn't have a single shred of faith generation for me.
Friendship with all, entangling alliances with none. No bribes. The world is on fire, but thanks to my generous gifts everyone loves me.
Rome finally realizing I was a threat... lol @ those tiles worked...
lol my capitol is double his size so no chance anyone beats me to any wonders... At this point I still hadn't managed to propose CHS, so I couldn't really finish off the runaways.
End... would've been 10+ turns faster if I just gave a city to Ethiopia and bombed them, but that wouldn't make as pretty a screenshot.
My cities had absolutely nothing to do at this point. ToA really coming through this game as 10% food is a LOT of food when the cities were in their mid20s-30s
TWO 60+k runaways; would've been 30-40 turns faster easily if there was only one of them; I didn't have much faith going for me so I had to wait until tpt was maxed to work those music slots.
Pretty standard stuff,i played the usual next turn SV game,finished a bit late,but Darius planted a city way too early for me so i was left with 4 cities..
However Celts are one of my favorite civs so i had fun,and yeah i had to bribe Caesar alot,he was at war with the whole world(in the end only me him gandhi darius and hiawatha were in the game )
Bought all 6 parts,sp's were full Rat,full trad,comm opener and 8 in freedom
Thanks again for the map!
(will post pics in a day or two)
My experiment continues on without issues. Gold is good, I purposely delayed science and I think everyone else has an Ideology at this point. Culture is also good, which I have no idea how, Full Liberty, Full Patronage, Full Commerce, Probably Freedom since it's the flavour of the map apparently. Raking in the megabucks and stocking for the big UN voting obviously. So yeah, NO RATIONALISM this time. Hopefully there will be no world wars and the AIs will turn on each other to forget about CSs. Game turned out rather interesting, nobody is a science runaway, we're all 5 techs apart
After staring at the screen for a while, I decided to settle in place and chop in the ToA. This was kind of a fail, because I didn't settle any other cities that could send food cargos early and my cap didn't have the food it would have had inland. I think kb27787's screen shot shows it all. I did figure I could get my production from lumber mills, which worked out and allowed me to delay Chemistry longer than I would have normally. I opened scout/scout/worker/ToA, had mining ready, and painfully waited out the tradition opener. I was later able to parlay that early GE point into the Sistine Chapel.
I took a gamble on my pantheon and went for Desert Folklore, but the RNG did not smile on me and the last religion went off the board with my prophet count showing -3. I was surrounded by good religions (none stuck around long because everyone thought piety/prophet spam was a winning strategy), and used the 600 faith (no shrine!) I had in the bank to convert Edinburgh and Cardiff to Protestantism and rush in two faith Universities the turn I teched education. That faith would have helped get another GM out if my game had gone longer, but it felt like a strong play. I only stole two workers from a CS due to timing/circumstances, so I had to build 4 more. My roads came up late and early gold suffered for it, so I could only buy one university with gold.
The RNG didn't like my spies either, and I had two KIA. Their replacements made fine diplomats. I managed to keep the peace on my continent and get DOFs going with all three. I had to pay tribute to Persia to make up for my pile of un-upgraded archers, but it was smooth sailing until Ideologies. Then Autocratic Rome got annoyed with me, so he got some free stuff too. Greece denounced me at one point, and he was last one to crack under my pressure because we couldn't trade. He at first wanted 353gpt and 4 luxes for open borders after the denouncement expired... so I gave him a lux, waited a turn, then bought open borders with my borders and 2gpt.
That wasn't the only strange thing I observed from the AI this game. On turn 93 I see a Persian settler and knight trying to shoot the gap between my cities and surround me, so I block them on turn 95 with a scout in the woods. How long would you guess they stayed there: 3 turns, 5 turns, or 104 turns? It was like watching a trainwreck; I kept checking it every turn. I have many theories: was it elicit love that drove them to hide in those woods, or maybe a sudden respect for giving my borders time grow that stopped him from settling, or just a buggy endless loop? Rome parked a settler in the CS on my borders to finish the game after realizing that he could no longer snatch that Fur away from me.
It seemed like everyone went hard after archeologists, and I only managed to grab two artifacts outside my borders. The lack of coal/factories didn't help my ability to spam. It was enough to theme up the Louvre, so I couldn't complain too much. Late game I added Eiffel, SoL, and Sydney. Defensively, and because the WW culture bonus was passed, I built the Great Firewall, CN Tower, and Hubble too.
I won the WF handily, and got I finally got control of the WC in time to get the International Games going to end the game. I kept dumping gold into city-states only to have them get caught up in Rome's agression and swallowed. I somehow scraped together a W in the IG even with all the ICS going on, and that boosted up two GMs (3 total). I had to wait a while for Greece to get in line, but it was about the same as swimming a GM over to him instead so I didn't risk it. I was able to buy a nuke about 3-4 turns after I caught wind of a fresh round of plotting against me, finally earning a little respect.
@kb27787 - When you say no bribes, do you just mean bribes to keep the world at war, or does that include the regular protection payments gold gifts I make to The Godfather neighboring agressive AIs to get the green diplo modifier? I've figured out that if Shaka wants some Spice to season up that lion he just killed with his bare hands, it's a good idea to give it to him before he gets hungry and does the same to me.
Also, when you say no bulbs, do you mean you always plant academies, or are you just referring to GW and GA? I'm assuming based on what I've read that it doesn't include GE and GM bulbs, and I can see a lot of academies. I'm also thinking that because the CV tech requirements are so much lower than SV that it might not be as sub-optimal a play as it sounds at first. A little faster here, a little slower there.
I agree that putting the world at war is not the best way to get lots of DOFs and favorable trading going. Still, if I know someone is gearing up for war and I am on their hit list, I make sure they choose another name on the list.
After staring at the screen for a while, I decided to settle in place and chop in the ToA. This was kind of a fail, because I didn't settle any other cities that could send food cargos early and my cap didn't have the food it would have had inland. I think kb27787's screen shot shows it all. I did figure I could get my production from lumber mills, which worked out and allowed me to delay Chemistry longer than I would have normally. I opened scout/scout/worker/ToA, had mining ready, and painfully waited out the tradition opener. I was later able to parlay that early GE point into the Sistine Chapel.
I took a gamble on my pantheon and went for Desert Folklore, but the RNG did not smile on me and the last religion went off the board with my prophet count showing -3. I was surrounded by good religions (none stuck around long because everyone thought piety/prophet spam was a winning strategy), and used the 600 faith (no shrine!) I had in the bank to convert Edinburgh and Cardiff to Protestantism and rush in two faith Universities the turn I teched education. That faith would have helped get another GM out if my game had gone longer, but it felt like a strong play. I only stole two workers from a CS due to timing/circumstances, so I had to build 4 more. My roads came up late and early gold suffered for it, so I could only buy one university with gold.
The RNG didn't like my spies either, and I had two KIA. Their replacements made fine diplomats. I managed to keep the peace on my continent and get DOFs going with all three. I had to pay tribute to Persia to make up for my pile of un-upgraded archers, but it was smooth sailing until Ideologies. Then Autocratic Rome got annoyed with me, so he got some free stuff too. Greece denounced me at one point, and he was last one to crack under my pressure because we couldn't trade. He at first wanted 353gpt and 4 luxes for open borders after the denouncement expired... so I gave him a lux, waited a turn, then bought open borders with my borders and 2gpt.
That wasn't the only strange thing I observed from the AI this game. On turn 93 I see a Persian settler and knight trying to shoot the gap between my cities and surround me, so I block them on turn 95 with a scout in the woods. How long would you guess they stayed there: 3 turns, 5 turns, or 104 turns? It was like watching a trainwreck; I kept checking it every turn. I have many theories: was it elicit love that drove them to hide in those woods, or maybe a sudden respect for giving my borders time grow that stopped him from settling, or just a buggy endless loop? Rome parked a settler in the CS on my borders to finish the game after realizing that he could no longer snatch that Fur away from me.
It seemed like everyone went hard after archeologists, and I only managed to grab two artifacts outside my borders. The lack of coal/factories didn't help my ability to spam. It was enough to theme up the Louvre, so I couldn't complain too much. Late game I added Eiffel, SoL, and Sydney. Defensively, and because the WW culture bonus was passed, I built the Great Firewall, CN Tower, and Hubble too.
I won the WF handily, and got I finally got control of the WC in time to get the International Games going to end the game. I kept dumping gold into city-states only to have them get caught up in Rome's agression and swallowed. I somehow scraped together a W in the IG even with all the ICS going on, and that boosted up two GMs (3 total). I had to wait a while for Greece to get in line, but it was about the same as swimming a GM over to him instead so I didn't risk it. I was able to buy a nuke about 3-4 turns after I caught wind of a fresh round of plotting against me, finally earning a little respect.
@kb27787 - When you say no bribes, do you just mean bribes to keep the world at war, or does that include the regular protection payments gold gifts I make to The Godfather neighboring agressive AIs to get the green diplo modifier? I've figured out that if Shaka wants some Spice to season up that lion he just killed with his bare hands, it's a good idea to give it to him before he gets hungry and does the same to me.
Also, when you say no bulbs, do you mean you always plant academies, or are you just referring to GW and GA? I'm assuming based on what I've read that it doesn't include GE and GM bulbs, and I can see a lot of academies. I'm also thinking that because the CV tech requirements are so much lower than SV that it might not be as sub-optimal a play as it sounds at first. A little faster here, a little slower there.
I agree that putting the world at war is not the best way to get lots of DOFs and favorable trading going. Still, if I know someone is gearing up for war and I am on their hit list, I make sure they choose another name on the list.
I would've liked very much to expand south (after ToA) but I never got the chance since
Spoiler:
Persia dumped that city on me even before I started ToA on turn 25-30 or so.
With Fractal maps, settling the capitol on the coast is kind of a gamble (that assumes you have at least another city spot on the coast that is not too horrible and the AI won't expand there before you do.
No bribes just means no putting "declare war on" on the table on either side (which includes selling yourself as a mercenary). The best way is to not be on that hit list to begin with; a free lux when they ask, some landmarks here and there, choosing who to DoF and keeping the green modifiers higher than the red ones etc. are very useful. It works this time because
Spoiler:
Hiawatha and Persia
are very loyal and friendly civs.
If I had Indonesia or Carthage, Germany or Huns it would be a different story... and I would probably have to bribe.
No bulbs means I plant every GS, GA and GW (just because I can lol... if I'm losing then I will bulb of course, but some games, like this one, you don't need to do it) I have this sub-optimal habit of wanting to see as high a tpt number as I possible can, and each academy will add a handful of points with historical landmarks (and I get annoyed seeing all those GSs hanging around doing nothing but costing gold maintenance), so yeah... would've won faster if I had bulbed some of them and beelined plastics (but I feel very secure with building other civ landmarks just to make them like me) as I feel with my tech rate and RAs could've reached internet t220 or so easily.
GM I call "bomb" and GE I call "hammer" lol so yeah I don't refer to them as bulbs
Thanks for the response! I had the same expansion issues, and 0 military to get in the way. But the ToA gives you the growth to catch back up and more, and that early engineer point is very hard to come by, so I sucked it up.
Spoiler:
Stonehenge went on turn 20 this game, not that I tried. I had more trouble with Darius this game than usual, and his military kept checking the open tiles between our borders for barbs. At least that's what he said he was doing. My one bribe was sending him after Rome when it looked like America and Greece were losing. America did anyway, so maybe it was a waste. The way my game played out, I couldn't have transitioned to a peaceful diplo game if I wanted to. When Caesar showed friendly late because I was the only person trading with him, I kept checking what he would pay for luxes because he was gobbling everything up and sitting on a mountain of Autocratic happiness.
Navigating the occasional randomness of the diplo side of things is one of my favorite parts of the game.
Also, one of the things that got me away from planting academies in general is that the algorithm that places landmarks has no conscience, and will put them under your academies.
How do you call a Small Piety Strategy in which you don't go Piety?
After a couple of really frustrating attempts, I followed Grendeldef's suggestions and just took it easy. I don't remember if Orthodoxy was available at the time of me founding, I missed a golden opportunity to play a game as Orthodox Celts, and a cookie to who gets the reference. A total of 51 votes this time, an increase over 48 which I had in the Arabia game
Not much to write what I didn't mention in the previous update, everything is pretty clear from the screenies. Couldn't quite reach triple digit happiness, I think I was at 87 at one point.
Well I need to figure out what I'm going to do now. Up to T42 and initial plan is off the table.
Spoiler:
Saved rather than founding my religion due to plan A being off the table. Initial plan was to try and test whether or not the Celts UA can replace a faith pantheon well enough to support SS. Even though I had every help possible (although maybe the ais on the map are a hurdle here), a T2 culture ruin for early free liberty settler, 4 good +2 faith settling spots, many luxuries, room to expand, all of the FPT buildings were gone by T40. I could have founded on T37, but of course my prophet was delayed until I hit 250 ish Faith...
I'm still early enough I guess that I could tailor towards some other VC. I definitely still have a strong faith game in front of me, soon I will be sitting on 20 FPT from 5 cities. I have settled in mostly good city spots, (2 East of the starting spot and 1 North) maybe only 1 is questionable (south towards Perisa). Whether that means I could focus growth for a while and catch up on science, look for a T90 or so NC, backed up by Jesuit Education could be worth a look. Alternatively I could look to maybe ICS + Holy warriors + Heathen conversion and do some conquering.
I saved rather than picking my religion at this stage so I could reassess my plans. So far I have Ancestor Worship; as I said, testing if UA could replace faith pantheon and I figured that the culture would help to get to reformation quicker. It's an interesting belief, pushing out 4 cpt from each city by the time I have shrines and monuments up is helpful, and policies are coming quite quickly (currently have opener in both piety and liberty +2 liberty to free settler).
In some senses it is best to miss out on SS this early whilst I still have some flexibility than get all of the buildings and religion up and running and have troubles with culture runaways.
Other than this problem I have accepted Persia's gift of 2 workers for the cause. I remain at war with him which is causing a slight worry. He won't accept white peace when I have so many juicy cities to offer, I don't really have a large enough army, and I am likely to be late to construction. I will have to at least pump out some archers and probably Pictish warriors here to push at least his second expo then try for peace.
So far I haven't made good use of the UU, although it seems that its usefulness is limited at best when the ai steal all of the best beliefs before T40. I doubt I could manage to get enough faith up and running by T40 if I had put effort into getting pictish warriors running around by then. The pillaging bonus and strength in enemy territory seem good though, so not totally wasted. Could also potentially help me enhance my religion a little quicker I guess. These guys would probably go pretty well in a marathon game where you could use their faith on kills combined with holy warriors as a pseudo honor finisher. Without any real strength bonus over the spearman, they just obsolete too damned quickly in standard speed. It is a real shame this promotion doesn't carry over similar to the Aztec's UA, I could really see the use in all units (heck even just the upgraded Pikemen) gaining faith on kills, and think the resultant play style could be interesting.
Edit:
Spoiler:
Update: So as it turns out this Fractal map isn't a single continent. Well its lucky I didn't get SS after all haha. India took Jesuit Education on T46 as well though so still not sure where I'll head. Maybe diplo?
I've read that guide, and it's about how to play from behind as much as about Piety. I fully understood the "We've Traded Recently" modifier after reading that, and applied some of that knowledge in my tall/culture game. I use pieces of it in all games really, but think about DCL 10 where you were going to play from behind no matter what you did or what VC you chose. It also has good advice about getting your religion to stick, but you can use that with a 4-cities tradition tall game if you want to. Call it what you want, but you're synthesizing strategies which is a good place to be IMO.
Also, one of the things that got me away from planting academies in general is that the algorithm that places landmarks has no conscience, and will put them under your academies.
I've had that happen too
Then I've learned ALWAYS to try to remember where the camps spawned early game (easier to do if you finish games in one sitting) and of course park units on top of those so the AI can't get them. Not all camps will become antiquity sites mind you but at least some will.
But if the time comes, then just build that landmark anyway... you don't need science that much once all the necessary techs are researched.
How do you call a Small Piety Strategy in which you don't go Piety?
After a couple of really frustrating attempts, I followed Grendeldef's suggestions and just took it easy. I don't remember if Orthodoxy was available at the time of me founding, I missed a golden opportunity to play a game as Orthodox Celts, and a cookie to who gets the reference. A total of 51 votes this time, an increase over 48 which I had in the Arabia game
Not much to write what I didn't mention in the previous update, everything is pretty clear from the screenies. Couldn't quite reach triple digit happiness, I think I was at 87 at one point.
Small commerce strategy
But last time I checked that many cities can't possible be called "small" so I guess "wide commerce" would be more appropriate...
Really if you are going for diplo, the +gold from temple is rather useless as late game since sea routes are all you need. You can do the same strategy with tradition or liberty just as well as long as you have faith generation/the AI neighbors are not missionary spamming.
But even without the religion diplo boost, the strat works simply because of how diplo wins work; just have enough money and find enough suckers to vote for you. Usually that just means having some really good friends (you can incorporate building landmarks for AI into this strat too)
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