CFC: Fastest STANDARD SETTINGS Deity Domination Victory

[Bangau]

Civ Fanatics Competition: Fastest STANDARD SETTINGS Deity Domination Victory


Welcome to the Civ Fanatics Competition (CFC) where we will find out who can pull off the fastest deity domination victory on a game with ALL STANDARD SETTINGS!

Everyone plays Civ with their own 'standard' I know, but the game gives some 'standard' settings to us and many of us will regularly play them. This competition is meant to see who can achieve the fastest victory on those 'standard' settings.


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Start conditions


To participate, start and play a game that matches the following conditions:

• #players: 8
• Leader: Any
• AI Leaders: Random
  
• Ruleset: Gathering Storm
• Version : September update or higher
• Difficulty: Deity
• Start Era: Ancient Era
• Game Speed: Standard
• #City States: 12
• Disaster Intensity: 2
• Map: Any map that is randomly generated (NOT: Earth, East Asia, Europe or any of the TSL variants of those three. Also: no custom build maps!)
• Map Size: Standard
• Resources: Standard
• World Age: Standard
• Start Position Standard
• Temperature: Standard
• Rainfall: Standard
• Sea Level: Standard
• Victory Conditions: All enabled
• Advanced Options: All default
• Mods: UI (only!) mods allowed, no other
• Special conditions: Any random seed / map can only enter the competition once. Any player can join the competition multiple times, but always with a different map seed.

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Rules


To make sure it’s a fair competition, make sure to:

• Not cheat and/or use exploits (you know when you have, it’s that subtle feeling of shame when you post a score you did not earn fairly ). This off course includes using any cheat codes, restarting maps or playing maps you have seen others play, reloading previous saves after mistakes (not crashes, but even then you shouldn’t replay more than one turn exactly as you did before).
• Follow the GOTM rules, especially the ‘what should we consider as exploits’ (see https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/civ6-game-of-the-month.545/)
• If you participate and anyone shows you accidentally or purposely violated the conditions or rules of the competition, your name will be crossed from the top 10.

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Participate in the contest

To be eligible for a ‘top position’, post a reply to this thread where you:

• Mention the number of turns it took you to win the intended victory.
• Claim your position in the ‘top 10’.
  • End your post with the new ‘top 10’ with you in it (see below).
• Add the first turn save game and the last turn save game (post victory).
• Mention the game seeds.
• For flavor: post screenshots of interesting parts of your game, or even make a video.
• Describe (the more flavor the better) what your strategy was and how the game went.

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Current Top 10

Copy and paste, and enter yourself into the top 10 list if your score is worthy!

• 1st place: [player] - [number of turns] - [leader/country]
• 2nd place:
• 3rd place:
• 4th place:
• 5th place:
• 6th place:
• 7th place:
• 8th place:
• 9th place:
• 10th place:

Have fun!

 

[Casualty of war]

• #players: 8
• Leader: Matthias Corvinus
• Ruleset: Gathering Storm
• Version : September update or higher
• Difficulty: Deity
• Start Era: Ancient Era
• Game Speed: Standard
• #City States: 12
• Disaster Intensity: 2
• Map: Pangaea
• Map Size: Standard
• Resources: Standard
• World Age: Standard
• Start Position Standard
• Temperature: Standard
• Rainfall: Standard
• Sea Level: Standard
• Victory Conditions: All enabled
• Advanced Options: All default
• Mods: None
• Special conditions: Any random seed / map can only enter the competition once. Any player can join the competition multiple times, but always with a different map seed. Map and game seed are: -827628446 and -827628447

Turn 149 Domination Victory. I think a better player than I am could have gotten this done 20 turns sooner, so I've included some intermediary saves. My best time since the September Patch for Domination.

There were some aspects that favored a fast win and some that almost made me discard it. I did find an early Relic, which led to Religious Settlements without even needing to slot God-King. I had quite a bit of room for expansion, both good and bad because I had to hard-research Political Philosophy and there was tons of room for Barbs to spawn. Lots of Horses meant that the Barbs were often mounted, and my capitol actually got pillaged pretty thoroughly by a horde. The other civs had weird priorities this game, so I actually got Sun Tzu and Hypatia

My two nearest neighbors decided to fight amongst themselves rather than harass me, which let me clean up two weakened and depleted civs by turn 73. I could have probably pursued any victory condition for a sub-200 Turn game after I absorbed Kongo and Phoenicia.

I did build a small army, which got annihilated approaching Meroe from the Southwest; that capital was a deathtrap with many chokepoints and blocking cities. Most of the work by far was done with Levied forces, much cheaper to upgrade, Raven King-boosted and as fast as light cavalry.

 

[Bangau]

Congrats @Casualty of war for a great domination victory! Matthias is my favourite dom civ, I just love steamrolling the planet.

I loaded your last save, your map and game seed are: -827628446 and -827628447, could you add them to your post (and preferably also a turn 1 save if you have it).

Thanks for kicking of this competition, I'm wondering who can/will beat you turn time!

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Current Top 10

• 1st place: [@Casualty of war] - [turn 149] - [Matthias Corvinus of Hungary]
• 2nd place:
• 3rd place:
• 4th place:
• 5th place:
• 6th place:
• 7th place:
• 8th place:
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[Casualty of war]

No turn 1 save. I did a big Save purge and accidentally kept the wrong Matthias Turn 1.

No biggie if it's not "official." Just trying to prompt some others to start participating.

 

[Bangau]

A first turn save can always be re-created using the right settings and the game seed, so for me this one's official.

 

[Falabello]

Turn 140 Domination Victory

• #players: 8
• Leader: Cyrus of Persia
  
• Map: Pangaea
• Special conditions: Map and game seed are: -830671767 and -830671768
• All the others: Standard

My strategy was to combine the strength of Immortal (and Musketmen) with the gain of +2 Movement from Surprise Wars. For most of this game this worked well. With a great start, I was ready to start the first war against Dido at T57. By T73 the war was over. Incredibly, Dido offered me two Settlers and a Worker ...

Four things went wrong and delayed the game by at least 20/30 turns. But as I am a casual player, I can't wait for the perfect game and the main idea right now is to participate and foster the list ...

#1 - Robert the Bruce and the map

Between my lands and the Scottish lands were several mountains and two city-states. The best route would be north surrounding Granada. So it would be five cities until it reached Stirling Capital. After the war with Dido, I was preparing my units for the big journey and the surprise came: Robert declared war on me at T74. No, there was no Army to fight, but I lost one of my main weapons: +2 Movement with Surprise War. There was nothing to do but keep going. Stirling was conquered at T110. Another detail here is that when I reached Stirling, I had Immortals and a couple of Knights. Since this city was surrounded by three mines and defended by several Crossbowmen and walled, my units were not strong enough for the invasion and would be a suicide. So I had to back off and wait for the Musketmen upgrade. So much turns lost in this march . In fact, if I had declared my Surprise War as expected, my Army would be around Stirling faster, and things could have been different.

#2 - Cree and the map

After conquering the Scottish Capital, my Army was again in the south, and a large and vast mountain-chain separated our new lands from the Cree lands. Near, we only had one tile between the mountains for the invasion and going around the north was not an option. There was no resistance or casualties of war, but crossing an entire Army by just one tile, one unit at a time was a nightmare . Again, some more precious turns were delayed. At least we had our +2 Movements again ...

#3 – A separated Continent

After the Cree Civilization, Guitarja was not a problem. Everything went as planned: Surprise War and a few turns conquering three cities, including the Capital. Finally, my Scout found the other side of the continent. So far, I didn't know two of the last three Civs. But these three were on another continent separated by coastal tiles. Not exactly a problem, because there was no need to find Cartograph, but a barbarian Caravel right in the middle was... And I didn't even have a ship whatsoever. So my fastest units have to wait near the coast for some turns till a nearby Bombard arrives. My Scout had to commit suicide in order for Barb Caravel to be and stay in range. Again, a few more lost turns are added ...

For all the situations above: On the one hand we get upset because this is CFC and we can't waste any time (or turn). But on the other hand surprises (the good and bad ones) are precisely the challenge that make we have fun playing the game. So it's all right ...

#4 - The most defended city and my messed up

Once inside the second continent, the other two unknown Civs were discovered: Brazil and Dutch. My units that arrive first made an area recognition with opened borders and quickly studied the three Capitals. Pedro II and Wilhelmina, both fell easily and only the Capitals (sorry, it was not an intention, but had to raze another from Brazil just to pass my troops). My giant confusion was with my choice of Canada, when I discovered (during the game) that I could not declare a Surprise War against Canadian Wilfrid Laurier . Wow, bad and worst choice for my strategy. His Capital was well defended and his Army was the strongest in the game (apart mine). I had to declare Formal War. Although he could not defend the power of my troops, I lost precious turns infiltrating my units, especially Bombards. With some resistance, Ottawa was also conquered. Here's another detail: I'd have enough time to maintain Brazil's Capital until I conquered the last Capital Ottawa, so no concern about that. But I soon realized that without Surprise War, it wouldn't be that easy, and soon I sent some units back to Rio de Janeiro, which became a Free City. At the same turn I was conquering Ottawa, I was recovering Rio …

Congrats Bangau for the excellent initiative! As I said, I'm a casual player and medium Deity level, so my mistakes are quite common. But I'm happy to be able to collaborate and participate. Hope this game can attract more players to increase the list !

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Current Top 10

• 1st place: [Falabello] - [turn 140] - [Cyrus of Persia]
• 2nd place: [Casualty of war] - [turn 149] - [Matthias Corvinus of Hungary]
• 3rd place:
• 4th place:
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[Eyswein]

Settings: all per above; unique items below
Leader: Kupe / Maori
Map: Terra; kept regenerating map until I got one where I discovered the Terra portion of the map first; really wanted one with a science boost wonder, but didn’t want to keep generating for one
Game seed: 1837930798 Map: +1

T82 Domination Victory

Builds
Settled Capitol on T4.
Capital: Settler, Slinger, Warriors galore; later Encampment, Gov Plaza, Terracotta Army (for speedy Tao)
2nd & 3rd cities: Warriors galore (not even any monuments)
Didn’t build any more cities, just spammed military
Eventually built some battering rams & switched to Tao when they became available

Religion
T13 - Pantheon: Religious Settlements (thanks to Armagh & Relic)
T63 – Religion: Reliquaries & Crusades (only use was Mali capital that was held by Macedonia)

Trading: Whenever I could trade I would, to include trading away a relic early for good gold. Tried to do joint wars as much as possible, but later I was getting denounced on the turn after I met AI, so traded all I could on the turn I met them.
Science: beeline Construction + Bronze Working (Encampment) + Wheel (Eureka) [didn’t need wheel as I captured a water mill from Inca]
Culture: to Pol Phil + MT + Mys, then mainly upper
Policies: Oligarchy; Military construction (Agoge + UP) and Strategos (Great Generals)
Exploration: Found city spots for 2nd & 3rd cities, then sent 2 warriors to find the City State portion of the map. I was hoping for Akkad + lots of science, but only one science and no Akkad (hence the battering rams). I didn’t explore too early on the Terra side as I lost a warrior to barbarian ships and figured I wanted to be able to trade vs all denouncing me early.

Path to victory:
Battering rams were only needed for Georgia & China, but had 3 moving with my troops; huge number of warriors made early game losses to archers and heavy chariots manageable
Inca: Met T9, War ~T40, Capital T43, Eliminated T52 with massive warriors and one archer
Georgia: Met T43, War T58, Capital T66 (first city with Warriors, then Tao), then peace
Netherlands: Met T10, War T62, Capital T66 (with Tao), then peace
China: Met T58, War T69, Capital T73 (with Tao), then peace
Poland: Met T67, War T75, Capital T82 (started with 5 warriors for first city, then upgraded to Tao and had to send Tao from China area; slightly under estimated them as the first city I saw had a defense of 18, but by the time I found the capital and started attacking they had crossbows)
Macedonia: Met T70, War T79, Capital T81 (“fleet” of Tao looped around to capital after I found it with an exploring battering ram)
Mali: Met T74, never went to war as Macedonia had captured the Mali capital; Capital T81 (lots of Macedonian Hetairoi in the area; religion converted Niani for the +10 crusader bonus that made it easy for the large force I had)

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Current Top 10

• 1st place: [Eyswein] - [turn 82] - [Kupe of Maori]
• 2nd place: [Falabello] - [turn 140] - [Cyrus of Persia]
• 3rd place: [Casualty of war] - [turn 149] - [Matthias Corvinus of Hungary]
• 4th place:
• 5th place:
• 6th place:
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