SV 120 (RELOAD Maui resource generation)
Heroes, secret societies, corporations and clans makes it easier, but also harder to optimize since I usually only play with the clan "cheat" mode.
Did a quick wiki scan on SS, decided perhaps Voidsingers and faith economy would be ideal with the 10% of faith = science/culture, and could pick a religion that supports both science and amenties. Minerva also a decent option, the extra wildcard slot, economy and envoys would certainly help. I used to like the vampires, finding great joy in massive vampire castles for an insanely strong capital, and the (slow) but super strong unkillable units, ideal for domination. But despite sending envoys and finding tribal huts, no other SS popped up, and with Hermetic order already pre-found, I figured maybe it was locked to that. I played with Hermetic once when SS was introduced, I remember the lay lines were quite annoying and poppped up in the wrong places (and I think it got buffed after launch), but it had a special university, so I went with Hermetic. As expected by the irony gods, some few turns after selection of course the other SS appeared.
I tried to play to the hermetic strengths, with early Magnus in cap to chop out Oracle, followed by Pingala with grants promo, to secure extra great people. The massive culture from the starting wonder sent me rocket speed through the civics tree, settled my second city other side of wonder for even more culture/money tiles, but off freshwater due to Cinguetti's annoying placement. I was housing capped, but progressing rapidly. First meet Cinguetti and a faith hut gave me early pantheon, devine spark and builder/growth one were on my target list (earth goddess if Voidsingers probably), but religious settlements were available, and an extra city early is almost always best, so that was my pick and sent the settler up north, for a tundra freshwater settle, in range of double ley lines and a river for Hanging Gardens. Had to feed the city with internal trade routes.
With the hilly terrain I picked monumentally in my first golden (also no need for culture boosts, and not high adjacency on my com hubs and zero harbors), allowing my builders to move a little faster, and with Cinguetti close I envisioned a decent faith income. In reality I was able to faith buy a single builder, I found my self severely faith strapped (which would also be handy for heroes), as the cinguetti suz bonus required a (founded/majority) religion, which I realized very late. I then prioritized a holy site, but the last prophet got taken before I had enough points. So that was not great and a wasted district slot, even if it accumulated some faith for me long term.
Of course I also got harassed by barbarians, but I managed to defend losing all units except a lone archer and a hiking scout in the process. I remembered from playing with heroes that Sinbad was an early game bad-ass, Hercules could build 3 districts immediately and otherwise Maui seemed reasonable, extra luxes would be nice. Maui only gave me bonus resources, I thought it was random and admit to reloading to spin the wheel again, but no luck, I think this has to do with type of tile and of course no hidden resource below. Worked fine on new continent. I needed some heroic tales to find Sinbad, but launching him from the capital, ready to find new continents and top off my treasury. On the west side of capital, it is an inland sea with same continent (and already semi-scouted), so that was a bummer, but at least I could kill and cash in on the annoying barb camp. I then prioritized settling on the east side, so I could send Sinbad out to discover the world. I went with Liang, with the fisheries improvement promo, decent harbor and room for Halicarnassus didn't take long until that city was absolutely rocking.
Cree was my only nearby civ, and he was friendly but forward settled me slightly, so I was a little cramped with my 4 cities (of which 3 were really good). My scout found some virgin settlements to the west, and Sinbad found some to the east, so I started teching ocean-travel and spitting out 3-4 settlers. As often is the case when learning the game on standard speed and going to online, I underestimated the time of travel immensely. I picked the continents golden age with extra travel for embarked units, but my ocean voyage was almost over by then. It felt like half the game passed and my tempo vanished while I was stuck on 4 cities and my settlers snailing their way forward one hill at the time, getting blocked by barbarians, stupid mountains and what not. With extra embarked movement, would have been faster to head out east side. I completed the spaceport in my best western city the turn I won the game. My tall build was pretty potent, plenty of adjacency, I ran many great people projects and got almost all merchants, a few key scientists (including the happy one Kaldhun) and a lot of engineers, but tall is still a poor man's wide in this game, at least the way I play it.
I also did not fully realize how the industry and corporations worked, that could have helped my growth issues at least in some cities. Not to mention a faith industry/corp in capital with Voidsingers. I had plenty of merchants which should have been used for the growth/housing industries/corporations, it is quite hard to plan this in advance with an optimal usage of the potential setups, too many balls in the air.
At some point the hermetic order with great people adding to ley lines kicked in, it was a little underwhelming, since I at this point had plenty of science/gpt already. Pretty sure I misplayed the science tree as usual, I beelined the spaceport (top tree), and upon reaching it my science was massive, but I then realized I had to navigate the untouched bottom tree as well, to get the Mars and exo-planet +++, I should have done this earlier since I could now 1-turn everything, but still only 1 tech per turn. Not quite sure how this works, but suspect many turns were wasted. I got Oxford also, but completed it without prepping tech tree to boost the hard ones. Also misclicked a builder which would have completed a light-speed-boost project putting me at 24/25 travelled. I got the Kilwa and suz of all but a handful CS, casa for gov titles, picked up a late colosseum as well, cities often +10 amenities so overkill. My (few) cities were ecstatic most of the game (audience chamber + golf + lux), so that was a good boost. I was unable to utilize Scotland's war of liberation for 10 turn 100% production, forgot all about it - at some point (late) I casually scanned the map to spot any CS names among civ cities, but found none, I assume that is how it works, they have to conquer something for me to use this declaration of war. I also missed that I could utilize a born-again Hercules to build my spaceports, so that could have shaved 6 turns of my timing (assuming I hadn't bottlenecked my self by late timing on tech bottom tree). I could also have pillaged my way to more science earlier in the game, but I was completely peaceful. In the end, my three cities on new continents did not contribute much to my win condition, due to late timing, but is it always very satisfying to find a virgin legendary settlement, a ley line or two with 10 prod kickstarts a city, but doesn't matter when game is close to over. Just spamming wonders and finetuning irrelevant details while I wait for science victory (shift-enter part of game) I also settled one snow city for Amundsen Scott wonder and another one south of Cree on another wonder with ley lines, but it was too late to have any significance. Also settled one city to pick up some coal and a ley line close to home, for a total of 11 cities, but in reality it was 3 cities propelling me forward.
The AI was unusually toothless this game, except for some barbs, I was left to sim city all the way. Not once did I have an issue with golden ages.
I love the deity and online combination, and this was a fun one to play. Thanks for arranging it! The "cheats" like heroes, SS and corps does help, but it also raises the bar and I was far off maximizing the potential here. One part of me enjoyed this game, and another part wants to replay it for a faster win. Film at 11.
