LukaSlovenia29
Emperor
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2016
- Messages
- 1,500
Hi.
I won a deity game. Playing as Maya vs. Songhai, Assyria, Greece, Poland, Egypt, Aztecs and Arabia, oval map, all standard settings (no events, though, not sure if they're enabled by default), won a science victory on turn 308.
Disclaimer: I made two major save&reloads, in both cases going back some 50 turns. The first one was fairly early, where the Songhai settled in the middle of my empire in very deserty setting, something I thought it wouldn't do because I thought it was a really horrible place for a city, even with AI bonuses. It was just out of reach of my tile-buying-prevention-stragety, so I went back around 50 turns, built one city one tile close to my capital, which allowed me to buy tiles in a way it prevented such settling. Otherwise I played the 50 turns the same. The other was late in the game when ideologies came online. Poland picked first (Freedom), I picked second. The first time I picked Order because I thought that surely not everyone else would go Freedom, especially with some civs going imperialism and conquering left and right. Sure enough, everyone else picked Freedom and later on all my DoFs were cancelled, I was denounced and then declared on despite oodless of positive diplo modifiers. So I went back 50 turns, selected Freedom and played the game from then on (again trying to play the same way), with everyone else again picking Freedom.
Included are some screenshots from the final turn.
I started next to olives and lakes. I went shrine first, hoping to grab either the purity or springtime pantheon. I started with researching pottery. Built shrine, then warrior, then two settlers, a warrior and another settler. My scout got culture, money and upgrade to scout from ruins (which enabled me to use it as a military unit). I grabbed the purity pantheon.
To the north I saw a nice settling spot with lots of marshes by a river and forests/jungles abound for my kunas. I had to declare war on Songhai to zone-of-control prevent their settler/warrior pair from reaching the settling spots before my settler. I then used my warrior/scout pair to attack the warrior, sending the settler and the warrior back to whence they came from. I then settled another city to the west of the new city, immediately buying a forested tile next to Mbanza-Kongo so in the future I could steal the CS tiles with a great general if necessary (it turned out it wasn't, I had enough other tiles). The next settler went to the east in a good defensive position, with lots of jungles/forests for my kunas.
Once I researched pottery, I beelined for construction and bought a worker, then built one to go building kunas. After building some more warriors, I built three more settlers, then went on building horsemen/swordsmen for protection. I made peace with Askia, luckily I never saw its mandekalu cavalries going against my cities. In all the new cities, I went shrines first (I think an exception was one of the cities with walls). I settled all my cities away from the coast for defensive purposes. I bought tiles to prevent any AIs attempting to settle a single spot to the south of Palenque, whilst also preserving that spot to later settle in the modern era (with the hospital technology settler) when I could defend coastal cities. So I had 7 cities throughout most of the game, with the 8th coming online in the modern era.
Since I had kunas, I could afford to focus less on building science infrastructure and focused first on building up my production capacities (forge,...). I went progress. Assyria founded first around turn 65, I founded second or third, grabbed apostolic tradition and churches, then used my first free GP for a great prophet, immediately enhancing with pacifism (for happiness and cheaper missionaries) and mandirs (hoping to help me with big cities alongside olives' monopoly and castles' food bonuses) . Songhai and Greece were the other two founders. I managed to spread uncontested to a big Polish empire, granting me enough followers to reform, went with one world, one religion so I could spread my religion more easily and to deny Poland&co. benefits from my reformation belief. I then managed to spread to Egypt, then Aztecs and lastly Arabia (which eventually fell to Songhai despite having the Great wall). Somehere along the line Poland proposed my religion for the world religion and it lasted until the penultimate WC session where it was recalled.
I beelined to get the 5th policy so I could time that with my 2nd free person, a great engineer, to grab the Oracle and complete my Progress tree. Then I went Fealty and later on Rationalism.
At some point the Songhai offered me a defensive pact, which I accepted because my army wasn't strong enough to withstand a Songhai attack, which led to a DoF. This did lead to a war with Assyria when it declared on Songhai, but due to good defensive positions of my cities I survived without many problems. This was the second of the three wars I had in the game. During the pact, I worked on upgrading my army (also by keeping friends with Belgrade, Mbanza-Kongo and Sofia for free units), so when the first expired, I didn't accept it anymore.
I tried to keep a low profile throughout the most of the game, using my diplomats to share intrigues which perhaps helped to keep the major powers (Assyria, Songhai, Poland) in wars with (each) others, leaving me alone. I also rushed civil service for open borders (for more friendliness and easier missionary spreading), then banks to benefit from purchasing. I missed out on Forbidden palace by a few turns, went to Egypt (which in the last 100 turns or so got chopped up by Poland and Assyria). I remained more or less in touch science-wise for a long time, eventually benefiting from kunas, monasteries and rationalism to pull ahead. I was selling technology to Egypt, Aztecs, Arabia and Greece for plenty of GPT.
Throughout the game, I focused on great scientists and engineers in my cities, with also building 3 GW guilds, 2 GAs guilds and 1 GM guild in my capital. Palenque was big due to apostolic tradition, so it was basically the only city where I worked on GMs, GMs and GDs. In retrospect, I should have perhaps dedicated one less city to engineers and more more to merchants (because of the bonus to production during WLTKD from fealty). GAs weren't essential because of apostolic tradition, and musicians weren't important because I built a caravansary in Palenque and sent all my caravans from there, earning me enough cultural influence to benefit from trade routes.
Due to lots of great engineers and tech parity, I managed to grab Slater's mill and Eiffel tower, and later on I grabbed some key wonders for a faster science victory. Two last hiccups in my game were Poland's votes and Assyria. I noticed Poland (who went statecraft) had plenty of votes to pull off a diplomatic victory, so I had to focus Palenque on building diplomatic units to keep Belgrade, Mbanza-Kongo,..., my allies, and to try to take some of the CS to the east. Assyria declaring on me on its own in the modern era, which made it harder for me to send diplomatic units to the east (had to make a long detour), plus they were seriously threatening my new coastal city. I kept on stationing units next to the city so they'd soak up the damage (another thing I'd recommend AI change - focus on the city first, then units surrounding it), plus stationed several ranged units, and also kept on buying bomber in nearby Palenque. My city withstood the 30 something turns long siege and I made peace with Assyria.
Poland didn't win a cultural or diplomatic victory in large part due to AIs wrong decisions (see https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/some-endgame-observations-from-the-latest-version.624389/ for more), because of Songhai and Assyria strong culture and because in the wars it lost several allies and lost three city states to my influence, thus bringing its vote count to below the required (though it could have crept up again with the bonus from diplomats technology). If the Poland AI were more focused on peace (enabling it to keep CS, to keep diplomats, to be able to send musicians,...), it very well could have won before I won a science victory. In the end, it was a clear victory, and I only had 3 or 4 fewer policies than Poland.
All in all an interesting game, but I definitely have to play a bit more safe and not underestimate the AI's decision re: settling and ideologies, and hopefully I'll soon win a deity game without reloading the game.
Screenshots in the next post.
I won a deity game. Playing as Maya vs. Songhai, Assyria, Greece, Poland, Egypt, Aztecs and Arabia, oval map, all standard settings (no events, though, not sure if they're enabled by default), won a science victory on turn 308.
Disclaimer: I made two major save&reloads, in both cases going back some 50 turns. The first one was fairly early, where the Songhai settled in the middle of my empire in very deserty setting, something I thought it wouldn't do because I thought it was a really horrible place for a city, even with AI bonuses. It was just out of reach of my tile-buying-prevention-stragety, so I went back around 50 turns, built one city one tile close to my capital, which allowed me to buy tiles in a way it prevented such settling. Otherwise I played the 50 turns the same. The other was late in the game when ideologies came online. Poland picked first (Freedom), I picked second. The first time I picked Order because I thought that surely not everyone else would go Freedom, especially with some civs going imperialism and conquering left and right. Sure enough, everyone else picked Freedom and later on all my DoFs were cancelled, I was denounced and then declared on despite oodless of positive diplo modifiers. So I went back 50 turns, selected Freedom and played the game from then on (again trying to play the same way), with everyone else again picking Freedom.
Included are some screenshots from the final turn.
I started next to olives and lakes. I went shrine first, hoping to grab either the purity or springtime pantheon. I started with researching pottery. Built shrine, then warrior, then two settlers, a warrior and another settler. My scout got culture, money and upgrade to scout from ruins (which enabled me to use it as a military unit). I grabbed the purity pantheon.
To the north I saw a nice settling spot with lots of marshes by a river and forests/jungles abound for my kunas. I had to declare war on Songhai to zone-of-control prevent their settler/warrior pair from reaching the settling spots before my settler. I then used my warrior/scout pair to attack the warrior, sending the settler and the warrior back to whence they came from. I then settled another city to the west of the new city, immediately buying a forested tile next to Mbanza-Kongo so in the future I could steal the CS tiles with a great general if necessary (it turned out it wasn't, I had enough other tiles). The next settler went to the east in a good defensive position, with lots of jungles/forests for my kunas.
Once I researched pottery, I beelined for construction and bought a worker, then built one to go building kunas. After building some more warriors, I built three more settlers, then went on building horsemen/swordsmen for protection. I made peace with Askia, luckily I never saw its mandekalu cavalries going against my cities. In all the new cities, I went shrines first (I think an exception was one of the cities with walls). I settled all my cities away from the coast for defensive purposes. I bought tiles to prevent any AIs attempting to settle a single spot to the south of Palenque, whilst also preserving that spot to later settle in the modern era (with the hospital technology settler) when I could defend coastal cities. So I had 7 cities throughout most of the game, with the 8th coming online in the modern era.
Since I had kunas, I could afford to focus less on building science infrastructure and focused first on building up my production capacities (forge,...). I went progress. Assyria founded first around turn 65, I founded second or third, grabbed apostolic tradition and churches, then used my first free GP for a great prophet, immediately enhancing with pacifism (for happiness and cheaper missionaries) and mandirs (hoping to help me with big cities alongside olives' monopoly and castles' food bonuses) . Songhai and Greece were the other two founders. I managed to spread uncontested to a big Polish empire, granting me enough followers to reform, went with one world, one religion so I could spread my religion more easily and to deny Poland&co. benefits from my reformation belief. I then managed to spread to Egypt, then Aztecs and lastly Arabia (which eventually fell to Songhai despite having the Great wall). Somehere along the line Poland proposed my religion for the world religion and it lasted until the penultimate WC session where it was recalled.
I beelined to get the 5th policy so I could time that with my 2nd free person, a great engineer, to grab the Oracle and complete my Progress tree. Then I went Fealty and later on Rationalism.
At some point the Songhai offered me a defensive pact, which I accepted because my army wasn't strong enough to withstand a Songhai attack, which led to a DoF. This did lead to a war with Assyria when it declared on Songhai, but due to good defensive positions of my cities I survived without many problems. This was the second of the three wars I had in the game. During the pact, I worked on upgrading my army (also by keeping friends with Belgrade, Mbanza-Kongo and Sofia for free units), so when the first expired, I didn't accept it anymore.
I tried to keep a low profile throughout the most of the game, using my diplomats to share intrigues which perhaps helped to keep the major powers (Assyria, Songhai, Poland) in wars with (each) others, leaving me alone. I also rushed civil service for open borders (for more friendliness and easier missionary spreading), then banks to benefit from purchasing. I missed out on Forbidden palace by a few turns, went to Egypt (which in the last 100 turns or so got chopped up by Poland and Assyria). I remained more or less in touch science-wise for a long time, eventually benefiting from kunas, monasteries and rationalism to pull ahead. I was selling technology to Egypt, Aztecs, Arabia and Greece for plenty of GPT.
Throughout the game, I focused on great scientists and engineers in my cities, with also building 3 GW guilds, 2 GAs guilds and 1 GM guild in my capital. Palenque was big due to apostolic tradition, so it was basically the only city where I worked on GMs, GMs and GDs. In retrospect, I should have perhaps dedicated one less city to engineers and more more to merchants (because of the bonus to production during WLTKD from fealty). GAs weren't essential because of apostolic tradition, and musicians weren't important because I built a caravansary in Palenque and sent all my caravans from there, earning me enough cultural influence to benefit from trade routes.
Due to lots of great engineers and tech parity, I managed to grab Slater's mill and Eiffel tower, and later on I grabbed some key wonders for a faster science victory. Two last hiccups in my game were Poland's votes and Assyria. I noticed Poland (who went statecraft) had plenty of votes to pull off a diplomatic victory, so I had to focus Palenque on building diplomatic units to keep Belgrade, Mbanza-Kongo,..., my allies, and to try to take some of the CS to the east. Assyria declaring on me on its own in the modern era, which made it harder for me to send diplomatic units to the east (had to make a long detour), plus they were seriously threatening my new coastal city. I kept on stationing units next to the city so they'd soak up the damage (another thing I'd recommend AI change - focus on the city first, then units surrounding it), plus stationed several ranged units, and also kept on buying bomber in nearby Palenque. My city withstood the 30 something turns long siege and I made peace with Assyria.
Poland didn't win a cultural or diplomatic victory in large part due to AIs wrong decisions (see https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/some-endgame-observations-from-the-latest-version.624389/ for more), because of Songhai and Assyria strong culture and because in the wars it lost several allies and lost three city states to my influence, thus bringing its vote count to below the required (though it could have crept up again with the bonus from diplomats technology). If the Poland AI were more focused on peace (enabling it to keep CS, to keep diplomats, to be able to send musicians,...), it very well could have won before I won a science victory. In the end, it was a clear victory, and I only had 3 or 4 fewer policies than Poland.
All in all an interesting game, but I definitely have to play a bit more safe and not underestimate the AI's decision re: settling and ideologies, and hopefully I'll soon win a deity game without reloading the game.
Screenshots in the next post.
).
