BOTM 241: Sapa Inca, Deity - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted
Noble Zarkon appears to be distracted by real life (we can all imagine, with the Royal Funeral, how busy this month has been for the nobility) so I'm stepping in to post the spoiler threads for this game. I have a thing or two to say about it, myself.
Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, particularly anything after 1AD
Did you win?
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I don't like nuke war. I'm an environmentalist . Since diplomatic victory is disabled, there is no UN non-proliferation resolution. Nuke wars are inevitable so I leave the game incomplete.
Continuing with my Adventurer save (not Challenger, as I first wrote yesterday ) report...
Like MirrorGuard, I dislike nukes, and I try to get non-proliferation passed whenever I can. With that option off the table, this game turned out to be very different. But after I conquered the Americans in 3600 BC, no wars broke out anywhere, for five long millennia. There was no opportunity for me to start one (Gandhi would have been my target for a cuir rush, but he had cuirs long before I did) and all the AI got along together. I was tempted to just let the game play out this way. It would just reach 2050, while everyone researched deeply into future techs, and the computer would look upon a world of peace and plenty and declare that I'd lost. Or may that everybody lost? Exactly what was the algorithm, when a Time Victory wasn't enabled?
But around 1620, I thought about a way to tweak the results a bit. If Gandhi the pacifist couldn't be goaded into a war, perhaps I could use espionage missions to spread my culture and flip a couple of his cities, both on the mainland and on the southern island, which had been split about five ways between me and all of the AI except Asoka. So I started sending in the spies. As some of their missions failed, I noticed in 1725 that his opinion of me had dropped from cautious to annoyed. And now he was plotting. Uh oh, is he not such a dedicated pacifist as I thought?
I started a golden age and switched from Rep/Bureau/OR to US/Nationalism/Free Religion. That eliminated the penalty for having a different religion and got Gandhi back to cautious. It also moved Frederick to Friendly, and I signed a Defensive Pact with him. Fine, it's time to just let the clock run out again. But I left my spies in Gandhi's cities, and by 1760 he had dropped to annoyed again. But I hadn't tried any more espionage missions, why was this happening? Oh, just having my spies captured while sitting in his cities added to the diplomatic negatives. Uh oh!
To be continued: A Tale of Nuclear Wars. (Not for the faint of heart.)
So, my spies had upset the tranquility of a utopian world. And then...
Nuclear War 1 (1780-1822): Gandhi declares war on me, with Frederick honoring our defense pact by declaring on him. Gandhi captured Machu Picchu and Vitcos, and exploded two ICBMs in Cuzco. (I had made an error by not starting to build SDI as soon as I was able, so that still had a few turns to go.) I responded with two ICBMs, one of which was intercepted, and briefly took back Machu Picchu but couldn't hold it. Before Gandhi's forces can overwhelm me, Frederick's army arrives at the front. They exchange more nukes, and Fred takes those two cities back. Hatty becomes annoyed at Gandhi, and declares war in 1810. After losing one more city to Fred and two to Hatty, Gandhi capitulates to Frederick.
In the peace that follows, Frederick graciously returns my two captured cities to me. We might have remained at peace here, but now Hatty dislikes the combination of Frederick/Gandhi and starts plotting.
Nuclear War 2 (1854-1917): Hatty declares on Frederick/Gandhi and bribes Asoka to join the war. Gandhi breaks free from Fred in 1862, then Elizabeth attacks Gandhi in 1866. I should have stayed out of this war, but I declare on Gandhi in 1866, hoping I can capture a border city before he caps to someone else. That attack fails and I only soften up the target for Hatty. Asoka peace-vassals to Hatty in 1872. Gandhi capitulates to Hatty in 1874. Finally, in 1917, Frederick capitulates and Asoka breaks free.
Hatty has emerged as the dominant power on the map (although still far below the domination threshold). She's plotting again and I know I'm her next target.
Nuclear War 3 (1936-1944): Hatty/Fred/Gandhi declare war on me. I hit their invasion stacks with tactical nukes. Asoka and Elizabeth sign a Defense Pact. With more nukes, I manage to raze three Egyptian cities and capture one German one, but the war weariness mounts until my people strike in 1943. Hatty could have crushed me if she kept going, but she accepts one of my island cities for peaces.
Even before the 10 turns of peace are over, Hatty begins plotting again. I fear another war, with the huge war weariness I've accumulated, will finish me. But to my surprise...
Nuclear War 4 (1964-1975): Hatty/Fred/Gandhi declare war on Elizabeth, and Asoka declares on them! Lots of nukes are fired all around. In 1967, I decide to join the alliance against the Egyptian menace. I raze one German city and capture one each from Germany and Egypt, but will all of the war weariness crippling my economy again, I sign a ceasefire in 1969. Elizabeth loses London and capitulates in 1974. Asoka makes peace, without capitulating, in 1975.
Now, a fairly long peace follows, as I rebuild my economy. And my tactical nuke stockpile. Hatty is plotting through much of the peace.
Nuclear War 5 (2006-2007): I decide to strike the enemy before they do. With a particularly successful round of nuclear bombardment evading their SDI, I raze three German cities and capture two. On the eastern front, I raze one Egyptian city and capture two. Then I give one of them back to Hatty for a peace treaty.
Nuclear War 6 (2017-2021): As soon as the peace treaty expires, I launch another preemptive attack. I take three German cities and one Egyptian city. Hatty takes that one back. I take it again, plus one more. A huge Egyptian army takes back that first one, plus one of mine. Hatty still won't negotiate. I capture Frankfurt (with Mining, Inc. and the Pentagon) but my economy again goes into strike. I feel like I may be on the ropes again, but Frederick has lost so much territory that he breaks free from Hatty in 2020 and capitulates to me! With that, a good chunk of my war weariness disappears. Hatty accepts another border city for peace.
Hatty begins plotting again, before our peace treaty is over. But she has another target in mind.
Nuclear War 7 (2030-July 2040): Hatty/Gandhi/Elizabeth attack Asoka. Gandhi breaks free from Hatty, but continues the war. In January 2035, Asoka asks for my help against Gandhi, and I agree to join that part of the war. But in July 2035, Asoka capitulates to Hatty. (Before this, he refused to peace-vassal to me, saying "he's doing just fine". ) I nuke/capture a city on Gandhi's border, but he won't capitulate. He will make peace, though, and I accept that before things get worse.
As I keep trying to last to the end of the game, one further thing that somehow has escaped my notice all these years: at the very end of the game, the time scale changes from one year per turn to six months per turn! But before I got this far in the game, I had begun to suspect--then more or less confirmed with searching other civfanatic threads--the awful truth. In a game without a time victory, if nobody achieves a victory condition, the game will never end!
But in this game, Hatty was plotting again. Universal Suffrage has become useless, since my towns have nearly all been destroyed by nukes or fallout, and my economy no longer can produce a surplus of gold to hurry units. I revolt to Police State to relieve some of the upcoming war weariness.
Nuclear War 8 (July 2043-January 2047): Hatty/Elizabeth/Asoka declare war on me, again. I nuke the invasion stacks and I nuke/capture two cities, failing to capture a third when my paratroopers are intercepted by jets. I take one more city, then Hatty takes two from me. I take an English city on the southern island (the last one not in my control there). In July 2044, Asoka breaks free from Hatty and capitulates to me. Hatty signs a peace treaty with me in January 2047.
Hatty is plotting again almost immediately. I don't know if she plans to fight me again or Gandhi, but it doesn't matter. Between the nukes, the never-ending fallout, and the deity-level inflation, my economy is struggling to break even, even with all but a couple cities producing wealth. (I had to prepare for the next war by building at least a couple more nukes for my arsenal.) I've learned that the AI really don't know how to handle nuclear wars properly, so I could have kept pushing Hatty back with these short wars. Who knows? Maybe somewhere between Nuclear War 15 and Nuclear War 20, the tide might have finally shifted decisively in my favor. But, faced with the deity-level economic handicaps in the middle of a nuclear hellscape, I couldn't keep the economy going to fight those wars.
Which really is to say: I can't win this game playing at Deity level. Which I already knew before I ever started.
I played to July 2050, Turn 501 (yep, the game really wouldn't end on Turn 500!) and then I retired. I can't even be credited with officially "finishing" the game with a loss. (Although "cheating to lose" would have been a very easy option--just give away my cities, disband my armies, and let the enemy walk into my capital. Nope. Not gonna do it.)
Here are a few screenshots to document the end of this nightmare of a game.
Spoiler:
Can you tell when the wars happened?
Even after having her stacks of doom vaporized, Hatty still had twice the power I did!
The economy on Turn 500. On 501, I tried settling another city on the border, and the deficit grew by another 50 gpt!
The butcher's bill. (A key number not appearing on this graph: I built 163 tactical nukes. Three were in my arsenal when I retired. One was lost when a city was captured. The rest were used, with about the expected number intercepted by SDI. Can you say "boom"?
The final summary. Notice the time spent. I wasn't leaving the game running while I did other things. That time is accurate: 40 hours, 35 minutes!
Fun game.
I played the adventurer save. Did not leverage efficiently my handicaps but still took out America and knocked Germany down to 2 cities before they vassaled to Asoka. Then I had to give away one german city to Asoka to get peace. At some point Liz and Hattie signed a defensive pact, and without an option for spaceship victory, I saw little or no hope for victory. Stopped playing at 620AD, and unfortunately forgot to submit my unfinished game.
I played the adventurer save. Did not leverage efficiently my handicaps but still took out America and knocked Germany down to 2 cities before they vassaled to Asoka. Then I had to give away one german city to Asoka to get peace. At some point Liz and Hattie signed a defensive pact, and without an option for spaceship victory, I saw little or no hope for victory. Stopped playing at 620AD, and unfortunately forgot to submit my unfinished game.
Hmmm. At 620AD, you seem better positioned for an eventual nuclear wars campaign than I was.
Of course, the trick is to get into it without turning the entire world against you. Looks like Hatty's your only potential ally, here. What was her opinion of the other AI?
Finally on replay number 9 I managed to get a domination win at 2037AD. During the replays i tried out different strategies and ended up having to be very aggressive at the beginning, spamming Quechas at the expense of infrastructure. Of course America was the first to go, followed by Germany, and at the same time declare on Asoka. Asoka spammed so many units and got Egypt to take him as a vassal, that I had to leave his 3 cities at the west of his former territory. Then it was playing catch-up, making nice, then turning on the culture to push Asoka's borders way back. After that it was spam as many Nukes as possible. IIRC I had almost 140 before declaring on Egypt. I was able to take about half her territory, and all on the southern island. Once she vassaled, it was spam more nukes, which kept Gandhi at bay until I started to roll him up. That was enough to get him to vassal and give me a city. I did learn one important technique for keeping my units alive in the face of nuclear onslaught.
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. Since diplomatic victory is disabled, there is no UN non-proliferation resolution. Nuke wars are inevitable so I leave the game incomplete. 
) report...
Nuclear War 1 (1780-1822): Gandhi declares war on me, with Frederick honoring our defense pact by declaring on him. Gandhi captured Machu Picchu and Vitcos, and exploded two ICBMs in Cuzco. (I had made an error by not starting to build SDI as soon as I was able, so that still had a few turns to go.) I responded with two ICBMs, one of which was intercepted, and briefly took back Machu Picchu but couldn't hold it. Before Gandhi's forces can overwhelm me, Frederick's army arrives at the front. They exchange more nukes, and Fred takes those two cities back. Hatty becomes annoyed at Gandhi, and declares war in 1810. After losing one more city to Fred and two to Hatty, Gandhi capitulates to Frederick.
That was awesome.
