Acken Challenges - #1 Carthage Immortal (6)

[adcarrymaokai]

your concerns about the map being awful.

Oh mah gawd. I DID NOT say that the map is awful. In fact, it is one of my favorite maps in the series; I replayed it twice for SV and Diplo and then a couple more times to mess with religion and religious pressure. It is rather mediocre without DF, however, and the thing is, DF is not even guaranteed on that map, unless you know where the religious CS are. The first time I played it, DF was gone on t10, so I had to reload and send my first scout straight up to one religious CS, while my initial warriors was making way to another.

My general point is that desert if often subpar when compared to other starts, unless you roll some insane start.

 

[Acken]

hey, when do you plan to post a 2nd game?

Can we send you games if we get a pretty coold one?

Yes and yes.

 

[beetle]

My general point is that desert if often subpar when compared to other starts

Well, I think you are in the minority opinion with that assertion. The assertion also contradicts the code because the fertility algorithm assumes that desert hills and flood plain rivers are less valuable than grassland or plains hills and rivers -- and so consequently overcompensates desert starts with extra luxes and resources.

 

[Panzerhorn]

T 272 Diplomatic Victory

Spoiler :

With the intention of going for a Domination win, I opened up the Honor tree.
First scouts found Vatican City for 8 faith, and from there it was relatively easy to get a pantheon and open God of the Sea for good production.

Denmark settled aggressively and war was inevitable.

I settled the second city south, by the wonder, and 3rd and 4th on the SE islands.

Meanwhile, the Celts and Marocco kept each other busy, Marocco being the friendly one, and eventually a long term ally.

After Copenhagen fell and Harald fled to nearby islands, I swept west with my honor-enhanced army, and took Edinburgh, while my fleet liberated the city states that the Celts had grabbed.

With one continent secure, the eyes were turned to the other. It turned out that Russia had already crushed Poland and India and were marching on Rome. By the time the carthagenian navy and troops were mustered overseas (helped by the Exploration policies), Russia had a hefty 10-tech lead.

Thinking it would be insurmountable, I decided to give it a go, and my forces easily took Warsaw as a staging point and liberated another polish city, reanimating Poland.

Things got ugly when Russia invented airplanes and suddenly annihilated my vanguard with great war bombers, forcing a peace. After trying to catch up in tech (still 10 techs behind, even 12 at one point), I tried a 2-stage war, first taking Smolensk, the only coastal city near Moscow, and then turtling until Russia would take the peace again. Two Citadels stole enough land that I was in spitting range of Moscow itself, but by now Russia had finished Rome and upgraded all the units (still 10 techs ahead).

It was clear that even the most determined effort to capture Moscow would fail, and now both Marocco and Russia were threatening CVs and Russia SV, but fortunately Maroccos votes were very easily bought for World Leader, and grabbing all the CSs and Polands full support (being recalled to life) secured the diplomatic victory.


Great map, thanks for sharing it, along with the mod.
Once Russia got going, it was not easy stopping her, with no real coastal cities and a vast tech lead.

Pictures

Spoiler :

Cheers Panzerhorn

 

[Acken]

Good job panzerhorn. Im currenrly not at home but when I come back Ill post the next map along with a mod update.

 

[miaasma]

Yes and yes.

"when do you plan on posting a second game?" "yes"

jokes aside i'm enjoying this map but i haven't been successful with it. it's been an interesting learning experience, i have a game going on it but i've kind of ditched it since i'm exploring the mod in other games right now. i'll definitely be trying the next map you post

 

[Acken]

I've just posted the new one which must be a bit harder. Don't worry if you find it too hard as things will probably get lower for #3

 

[OzymandiasDK]

T137 CV (!)

I just finished this map with the official mod version 8 with a pretty fast autocracy CV win. Acken, thank you so much for this map, and your work on this mod.

Like Acken, I started out not really knowing what victory type to go for. But the Cothon building and the many coastal resources in and around the starting area made me go for Liberty and 2 fast coastal expansions (settled both around t35), while beelining for Sailing and Optics, and securing the Fishing Boats Pantheon for 3-5F 2H 2+G water resources.

In addition to the two very nice expansion spots on the achipelagoes south and east, I decided to try to claim two sites rich in fish and pearls: Copenhagen, and a spot further North. Foot soldiers were used to block Copenhagens potential expansions, while a small fleet were sent the long way around to lead the actual assault. This two-pronged attack made short work of the Danes, who were eliminated ~t60, allowing me to settle the last of my 7 cities at ~t70. Around the same time, I spawned two Great Prophets (1 natural and 1 from liberty finisher) to grap Cathedrals, Liturgical Drama and more importantly: the Reliquary enhancer.

As all my 7 cities had at least 4 water resources, I spent most of the early game building/buying work boats, lighthouses and tiles, and was rewarded with a series of fast-growing, productive cities and ~200 gpt around t95, when I hit Education. Until then, I had managed to avoid too much trouble, while stirring up as much trouble as possible on the other continent through bribes, but around t105 my luck ran out, and the Celts decided that attacking a remote city on plains would be easier than the 20+ turns of jungle warfare with Marocco they had just been through. The first wave consisted of ~15 melee units, with 5 Comp Bowmen and a couple of Cats for good measure. The AI was is remarkably good at this coordinated attack, but a fleet of ranged ships meant that I was able to send the majority of the Celts back in body bags, and was able to secure a decent peace deal.

This was around t116, and I had just started on Printing Press, when I noticed that Futurism gives 400 tourism in this mod(!), and decided to use my ridiculous gpt and growth to try to go for a fast Cultural Victory. 20 turns, 8 techs, 7 wonders, 7 policies and 14 great people (11 of which GA/GMus/GW) later, everyone was buying my blue jeans listening to my pop music at 540 AD!

I used the following:
Policies: Liberty (left, then right side), Aesthetics (Cultural Centers & Fluorishing o.t.Arts), Exploration (For Louvre and Maritime Infrastructure); Rationalism (For Porcelain Tower and Secularism); Finished Aesthetics with Artistic Genius (after natural GA had spawned).

Tech path: PPress > Banking > Economics (bulbed) > Industrialization(t125, Oxford) > Astronomy(t130) > Aesthetics(spy) > Navigation(t135) > Archaeology(t136, bulbed with GS from PT).

After Futurism, I spawned 4 GA (1 nat, 1 from SP & 2 from wonders), 3 GW (1 nat, 1 Globe Theatre, 1 faith) and 4 GM (2 nat, 1 LToP and 1 faith), for a whopping 4400 Tourism with everyone, plus 4 Concerts for an additional ~1200 Tourism.

 

[Acken]

Thats pretty impressive. The buff for futurism may not be needed in the mod then. Its still a rather awkward policy though kinda useless outside that kind of playstyle.
Your teching is also really strong in that game.

 

[phryxolydian]

Whoa... Is this Civ BE? CV on T137?! Jesus, what have you done, Acken? And with only +45 tourism?

 

[OzymandiasDK]

I think this was a rather extreme case of what you can accomplish with an early Futurism. I had just barely enough tourism to be influential with Russia (~6200 vs. 6050, iirc),whose culture was increasing with ~200/turn, and I was running out of steam here. No significant tourism bursts in the next ~10 turns, so I would have been relying on archaeologists for any more tourism than this.
In my opinion, futurism is the only useful policy in the autocracy tree (maybe with the exception of industrial espionage, for tech steals) for CV, unless you keep the cpt of other civs down through conquest until the rennaissance.
I think Futurism can be strong enough to be a contender for ideology choice in cases where your opponents have not reached too high a culture level when you reach the Industrial era. Having said that, if Russia had had ~2000 culture more in this game, I guess I would have just beelined for Archaeology first, then industrialization, while spammed Archaeologogists to fill my Museums and Cathedrals with artifacts and get a tpt>200, before the Great Artist/Writer/Musician spawn, which would bring me up to ~10000 tourism easily around t150 with concerts.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Actually, Futurism can be pretty useful in Acken mod for other victory types precisely because tourism and influence now to matter. In all of my Acken mod games I was forced to go Order simply because every AI went Order, and my culture in non-culture games was never strong enough to combat AI tourism output. I feel like influencing other civs has a greater affect in Acken mod and can be useful for conquest, as well. There are small bonuses for being influential or even dominant. I wonder if Acken has ever considered buffing those?

 

[Acken]

Ive never really thought about it.