The Deity Challenge Line-up #27 - Danemark's challenge

[Blatc]

Thanks Acken! Time to learn how to play as Celts.

 

[Blatc]

T265 Science Victory

Early game went quite fast thanks to super-effective caravans, but my cities weren't very big so things leveled off later.
T99 Education
T107 Renaissance
T134 Secularism
T145 Scientific Theory
T163 Ideology. At this point, 1 civ had gone into each; I was 2nd into Freedom (after my neighbour to the SE) and was very happy when my neighbour to the SW also chose Freedom
T183 Plastics. Restarting from this point could probably net a much faster finish. I left Hermitage way too late and ended up finishing with 6 turns left to finish Rationalism and enough Faith for a GS

Spoiler :

 

[claudiupb]

This was a quite interesting map. The Danes are pretty meh, I didn't use any of their UI, with the exception of the pillage ability, but the terrain and combination of neighbors was pretty cool. It was actually my second attempt so I had terrain knowledge. In my first attempt I got forward settled by the SE neighbor, but in my second I stole one of their settler and forward settled myself.

Just like the German map, I turtled my way to modern era and then started warmongering with tanks and planes, but this time I included artillery because tanks are really inferior compared to Panzers.

Spoiler :

I don't know what bonuses the AI got (extra techs?), but they kind of worked for me instead of against me. I stole Theology while, beelining Civil Service, then education on turn 92. I wasn't did not send an external caravan, but with that terrain the capital was quite strong so the extra internal caravan worked better in the long run. I did a 3 city NC, traditional Tradition start, and settled my 4th city soon after. No wonders until modern era, not even Porcelain Tower.

The early game was quite favorable to me, stole an inca settler, and a worker from Russia. Both Korea and Inca coveted my lands, and each turn I would try to bribe a war involing them. I got Japan to Dow Korea, and I also DoWed them to grab another settler. It was pretty intersting as I had archers while they had Hwach'as. But they were focused on Japan, so I just pillaged their land, and they offered peace. Soon after that the focus was on japan, and eventually I even got a DoF with both Korea and Inca. Soon after Russia was wiped out by Assyria, and Japan was left with a single city by Korea.

I had some luck with quests and even got last religion, with faith and culture from wine and incense, tithe, happiness from gardens, and 1% production bonus from each follower, cheaper and stronger prophets to get my religion up in the expos.

I was teching quite fast after t92 Education (didn't have money for universities but it really didn't matter), t146 ST (again no money for Public Schools and currently working on WF, so effectively got a Public School in capital at t150). At one point I thought of going for SV, but that was quite boring, so I went for an Order Domination. I wasted a lot of money on tiles, but the automated system didn't pick the good ones (river hills, and river plains). The 4th city grew quite fast, with a food caravan towards it, and working river farms. Later I switched to mines on hills, on many tiles.


After Radio (oxford) I beelined Millitary Academy to grab Kremlin, and fertilizer, biology and then all military techs for landships, tanks, nukes and in the end it didn't really matter, but I was working towards Stealth Bombers. Used the Rationalism finisher for Radar, and started working on planes.

Won WF, to help with rationalism and Order policy. Went straight to Iron Curtain, but later I got a second level 3 tenant Spaceflight Pioneers (for Hubble and extra bulb). For level 1 I had: Hero of the People, Socialist Realism, Double Agents and later Young Pioneers. Level 2: Worker's Faculties, Five-Year Plan and later Party Leadership, but I think Academy of Sciences would have been a better choice. I had only one filler policy before rationalism and used it for Commerce opener.

The Inca attacked me when I had 5-6 cavalries ready to upgrade. Upgraded them to landships and proceeded to take his capital. I was building landships like crazy in capital, and the other 3 cities were building planes (I eventually had 9 bombers one fighter) and artillery.

Korea was next, they had a massive city with huge defense: Red Fort combined with Their Finest Hour, but it eventually fell. I used all my military, tanks, artillery and bombers. I just took capitals and got peace.

Japan was easy, they had riflemen and knights. Got the capital and moved forward to Assyria who were by far the strongest.

Got 4 cites from Assyria and another one in a peace deal (luckily it had airport as I used it as an airbase for taking Arabia).
Arabia was dealt with in 3 turns (captured 4 cites) and 2 turns later I nuked Rome to the stone age. The next turn I captured it with paratroopers.

Here are some screenshots:

Spoiler :

T92 Education


T146 ST, but working on World Fair


And the end game:

 

[stormtrooper412]

Vicious! Well done. It's Gotterdammerung for me, since most of the other maps are either too hard (too much war) or already done

 

[Sclb]

This map is among one of the hardest DCL, probably only reliable way to win it is to turtle. I skipped it the first time.

 

[reddishrecue]

T265 Science Victory

Early game went quite fast thanks to super-effective caravans, but my cities weren't very big so things leveled off later.
T99 Education
T107 Renaissance
T134 Secularism
T145 Scientific Theory
T163 Ideology. At this point, 1 civ had gone into each; I was 2nd into Freedom (after my neighbour to the SE) and was very happy when my neighbour to the SW also chose Freedom
T183 Plastics. Restarting from this point could probably net a much faster finish. I left Hermitage way too late and ended up finishing with 6 turns left to finish Rationalism and enough Faith for a GS

Spoiler :

Thats impressive. Being able to achieve this with Ai respecting you as you gain things are the keys to victory in a tradition start.

 

[Sclb]

Pretty sure the hardest victory type possible on this map is CV, since wonders were out of the question. I would've gotten SV a lot quicker due to high AI tech rate and therefore high science leech and tech steal rate. Also domination would be faster due to taking capitals is a lot quicker than taking every cities of a civ, and the resulting drain on gold/science. Culture victory encourages eliminating civs, due to AI moving their GW around to avoid capture. As always, I'll never take diplo V shortcut, and this time I also didn't sell any razed cities to cut down my happiness drain.

Spoiler :

Opened 4 city tradition with NC at T95. Forward settled Sejong and Pach, and sent caravans/cargo ships to leech science, and so that they sign DoF for RA later. One of the side consequence of high AI tech was that barbs were more advanced than my units, so killing them went slowly, and I lost scouts.

2 more cities to the NE after NC to get more coastal cities to feed capital, and to reduce fog of war. Suddenly some AI thought I had too many cities, which usually is very strange considering AI likes to spam cities at that point in the game. Wasn't able to get many dig sites outside my territory. Plastics at T200 and I was ready to start conquering AI cities to steal wonders and great works. Harun, Sejong and myself took freedom. And soon after Plastics, Pachi and Ash DoW suddenly and several other non freedom AI also denounced. So I was forced to deal with happiness issue and to build some army. Took Foreign Legion which helped as they were strong when upgraded into infantry, but wasn't enough to capture Cusco. Eventually bribed Sejong to DoW Pachi to help, but backfired as he took too many cities and also gained access to uranium. Was able to take out Incans once I got bombers and some battleships.

Next I worked on Cathy as I waited to get nukes for Sejong. There was no way to take his cities without nukes as his defense were in the 220s at least. Was able to capture Kyoto from her which had SoZ. Made peace soon afterwards.

Next target would obviously be Sejong, as without intervention, he'll definitely win SV before turn 300. He reached information era by 200 and had 5 parts when I took him out. I nuked each of his core cities, and he retaliated by nuking Cusco, which wasn't that bad. Pillaged all his uranium supply, so he wasn't able to nuke anymore. It was necessary to kill him off as he'll launch SS for sure. Seoul contained a huge number of WW, including Hubble, Great firewall.

With Sejong gone, went back to Cathy, which was by far the cultural leader, this time with nukes, and also dragged Ash into the war due to splash damage from the nuke. Cathy nuked Kyoto, but I was able to destroy most of her atomic bombs. I had xcoms and stealth bombers by this time and was able to position bombers such that they would be safe from nuclear attacks. Xcoms pillaged her remaining uranium supplies. Culture victory in sight after killing her off, and Ash got eliminated soon after that. There were no need for finishing Aesthetic tree or winning IG with that many WW and stolen GW. I didn't even bother with musician bombs. Remaining civs were influenced within 15-20 turns.

WC: arts funding, +culture to WW, WF(won), ISS(won), WR

SP: full tradition, 4 rationalism, 6 freedom, full commerce, 2 exploration, 4 aesthetics

1770 tourism without IG is amazing. Also my bpt is over 4600 even when many cities do not have all science buildings. You can see how far ahead Korea was from the first screenshot.

Spoiler :

 

[beetle]

I gave this one a try, hoping to turtle to SV, but I lost by SV on T288. That is faster than I can get there.

Couple weird things:

1. Very early, like T5, Almaty -- who is not close -- walks a settler near me.
2. None of the AI opened Liberty nor Commerce.

 

[Sclb]

AI in this game started with certain extra tech if I recall, and has all has a lot of extra SP. Only way to win is to focus on science and win SV or other victory condition. You will have to rely on tech stealing to catch up.

 

[beetle]

Science Victory on Turn 296. Six city Liberty, just being a turtle. Most of the remaining four AI had unlocked Apollo, but none had launched any parts. I handily won WF and IG, and built most of the later wonders. Nine Freedom tenets, but made no use of the two third tier ones. Shenanigans on my part with Porcelain Tower and SoL as I was not willing to live with losing those two by a turn.

Even though I did not start from T0 but instead when I made the Tradition/Liberty decision, the AI behavior was so very different as compared to my previous 4 city Tradition game. That game I was behind two AIs at the end for the space race. The AI runaway in the game I won only had three cities in the game I lost. I continue to be surprised, and more than a little disappointed, by how much variability there is from game to game. It really makes it hard separated out RNG from things I am doing differently.

Still, sub-T300 games are quite rare for me, so I am happy with my play.

AI in this game started with certain extra tech if I recall, and has all has a lot of extra SP. Only way to win is to focus on science and win SV or other victory condition. You will have to rely on tech stealing to catch up.

Yes, all that is detailed in the second post to this thread. OP has the map as Deity+ in plain text — which is why I wanted to try it!