[BNW] Community Deity Game #28 - The Huns

[beetle]

@raider980, that does sound rough.

Spoiler as I name cities :

I took Ulundi T210 and then his last city on T212, as Wittenberg and Quebec City failed to bring melee units to the party. T225 I DOW Boudicca because Catherine asked. I would have preferred to wait on Arty, but that is how it goes. Sweden opened Autocracy before I could, so I will burn two GE for Prora when Flight unlocks in four turns. I am having trouble with happy and money, but friends with everyone but Boudicca and Maria, so I am able to do lump sum trades to keep out of the red.

 

[Grendeldef]

T287 dom.

Spoiler :

The latter half of the game was mainly a struggle against money issues while happiness problem was solved by Ideology way before anyone else picked up one.

T183 2nd to Industrial but while I went for Factories Maria went for PS so I got 1st Ideology @T192 and picked Order as usual in this type of games, luckily Carthage had a 6 Coal tile. I took a small gamble as WF started @T186 while I was building factories but others didn't seem too interested in building it so I continued with 3 factories while the rest of the cities went for WF which I ended up winning T194.

DoF with Maria & later with Ahmed. With Maria I had 2 RAs but neither were very useful and with Ahmed I didn't bother with one.
T210 Modern & T215 Cathy popped the eternal question 'why are you lurking by my borders?' so I had to DoW her again, not exactly as planned but at least I had few Gatlings by now and got Moscow T222. The lovely thing about HAs at this point is their constant delivery of xp and hence GGs by taking pot shots somewhere safe. I GG bombed quite a bit of Russian lands and since my cities were far apart I had to bomb the empty lands as well to prevent Dido setling in between my cities - she already caused some rerouting of my roads by late settling but I didn't want any unnecessary wars due to that.

T223 Eiffel mainly because I could, T225 bulbed Plastics but obviously no money to buy RLabs on the other hand it was so late that my main cities had decent production so it only took 5-7 turns. At the same time Battleships were hammering to coastal cities of Boudicca as it seemed that the easiest way of getting Edinburgh was range & logistics BS which happened T239. After that I also took but one of her cities as I wanted a coastal city on the East side of the continent besides nearby was Uranium. Maria backstabbed after that Gustavus was even more displeased besides he had most of the CSs so I DoWed him T247 as I met his Frigate fleet on the open seas - that battle was short and I headed for his closest city Åbo. A slight detour was made to La Venta which I liberated twice from him before moving along the coast. First city I sold to Ahmed and next two to Maria as I still had OB from both, 4th one I razed before taking Stockholm T276 with Xcoms. 2nd part of Navy was on the other side of the continent where he very conveniently had a crappy city which acted as my stepping stone towards Lisbon and Marrakech.

Meanwhile I also built Pentagon to save few gold and Hubble by the Order GE. T282 I DoWed Maria as my surpringly large Navy was in position to make mincemeat of hers while few units crossed the Moroccoan border to attract her grounds troops. 3 nukes later capped Lisbon T285, T286 nuked Marrakech from Carriers and took the city T287 after one turn war.

Policywise full Liberty, Tradition opener for border expansion, left side of Honor, full Rationalism, and Exploration opener, the rest in Order.

My religion wasn't that great to begin with but few gold always helps nor did any of the nearby one offer anything great and partly because I really hate the implementation of Religion in the game I used all my faith to convert cities rather than for GSs so I ended up as the dominant religion on the continent. Main reason for not having all the cities was few late cities founded by Dido where the first citizen was a Portuguese Missionary.

Teching was extremely slow but in the end I was some 15 techs ahead of Maria while Shaka barely had fire and the rest unevenly in between.

Lack of money was the theme of the game, at first nobody had any money, in the middle they didn't want to deal with me and in the end the civs on the other continent had a gpt 250-700 and Maria had a cash pile of 30k but I still got barely double digit gpt from the cities I sold. Because the lack of money I really couldn't run food caravans so cities grew very slowly despite two maritime allies - building Aqueducts @T130 is not the way to go.

Militarywise I didn't have much of a problem as no one ever was a real threat though Shaka's endless Impis was a formidable sight once. Boudicca didn't have a proper Navy and I didn't much engage with land troops, Cathy caused few problems but the cease fire solved that, Gustavus luckily only had GWBs & Triplanes so I could take a few hit and didn't lose a single BS, two Privateers before I could upgrade them and by the time of Marian & Ahmed their military was mostly obsolete anyway.

 

[beetle]

Well, I am not feeling very encouraged. T213 I am fourth to Ideologies, so could be 1st to Freedom or 2nd to Autocracy. I went through factories because I settled OF late to unlock Disney.

I tried Autocracy first, but even with Prora happy is still a problem and [1] beat me to [2] and then one my conquests flipped to [1]. I tried DOWing [1] but that went badly as she more than fully era ahead of me. So I reloaded to T213 to try Freedom. I took the FLeas early and plan to switch to Order soon after SoL. I am hoping I get [2] so then maybe save [1] for the very end. That still leaves the civs on the other continent for me to deal with, and I have no navy (and will not for a long while) because my coastal cities are so weak.

Spoiler to name [1] and [2] :

[1] == Catherine; [2] == Edinburgh

EDIT: Lost by SV to the raging AI on the other Continent T319. I was fun fighting her without a navy, but it pretty slow. The neighbor was probably going to win by SV before I could get Stealth Bombers anyway. City I put on OF really slowed me down, and I didn’t even need it since early captured cap had a mountain in the second ring for Disney.

I don’t I really have much of a prayer’s chance of winning by Dom VC on this map, so I will try for a more conventional SV.

 

[Grendeldef]

This seems to be much harder than I expected but at least it wasn't a quick dom roll over for anyone.

Has anyone tried the Lite version and if so does it change the tricky start significantly?

Next one of my maps will be easier.

 

[Grendeldef]

Bump as I finally added some pics in the final post.

 

[raider980]

I started the lite version but

Spoiler :

I don't think Shaka got the message that this was the lite version. First he forward settled me thus preventing me from getting my second city near FoY. Then he DoW me on T61 (see attached screenshot). I saw him coming and tried to bribe him to attack someone else but he didn't take it. And tried everyone else to attack him but no dice.

I ended up fighting him off and took the forward settled city T74 and burned it to the ground. But I'm at -12 G, only 17 S and have more units than I can support. Not looking good.

 

[beetle]

I ended up fighting him off and took the forward settled city T74 and burned it to the ground. But I'm at -12 G, only 17 S and have more units than I can support. Not looking good.

I think you might be okay, except that I am concerned that you haven't settled KSM. I guess you probably get NC done and then immediately settle KSM and FoY/? I worry that you might loose the spots and meanwhile your neighbor will be getting his UU and ready to DOW you again. It is a tricky map. Did you have lux you offer for the DOW bribe?

For the -12 gpt / 17 beaker problem: Assuming you have peace, disband one unit per turn for a while. The low science is tied to the negative gpt (since negative gpt subtracts from science). And then your production is low because of low unit support level, since you only have two cities. You may have to reload to get a KSM city sooner than later.

 

[raider980]

I continued tonight but resigned. This one is just too hard for me, even in lite mode.

KSM is so far away I didn't even consider settling it.

Spoiler :

I did settle FoY and two turns later the Impis came. Between the Zulu and the barbs I just don't see how to do it. Hopefully the next one is a bit easier.

Speaking of lite mode. Perhaps give us a starting worker. In the Greece game a while back that helped tremendously. Just taking away the starting settler from the AI didn't seem to make that much difference at all. In fact, I did worse in the lite version hahaha.

 

[Grendeldef]

The very dark soul of mine won't give free Workers on T0 and still call it Deity, sorry for that BUT a new 2Lite version has been added to the OP.

Differences are mentioned in the OP but I'll put those here as well since they are not numerous:

- 30G gold
- 2 HAs
- starting Warrior replaced by a Spearman

A hint

Spoiler :

- Settle both FoY & KSM as 2nd & 3rd cities in either order, whichever is easier. The coastal site by Marble is fine for 4th and so on but no one else will settle there for ages so there's no real hurry and moreover it's light on food so it'll have hard time growing before food caravan.

 

[BlackWizard]

My virus protection claims these have ransom ware?

 

[Grendeldef]

That would be extremely odd but which files?

 

[BlackWizard]

Now it seems fine. There was something spicy in my computer and glorious malwarebyte removed about 1000files

 

[bobbobbybobbob]

Ahh.. I love the Huns! Time to dig in!

Spoiler :

I saw that my neighbor was Shaka and Carthage..That was enough reason to go Liberty. I saw Solomon's Mines and I wanted to settle that ASAP so I could spew out units. I didn't care much for Fountain of Youth since I wanted to focus on early war. I wanted to rush both Carthage and the Zulu. I declared war on Carthage Turn 23 for a free worker and I stayed in the war for obvious reasons. I also took a worker from Wittenburg.

Zulu didn't like my forward settle and he send some units among my way so declared war on him as well just to get the edge. I didn't even know where he was by the time I settle my city. I killed some of his units and gave the city of Carthage the business. It fell Turn 61. I made peace with her for the sole purpose to kill Zulu ASAP. He didn't have his Impis yet so it was a easy match for me. One came out of last city, but then it was too late. Ulundi fell Turn 79. He had two cities before that I think and also another one left which I destroyed. So Zulu is out of the game which is a huge relief.

However.. Russia attacked me and took Carthage Turn 82.. I didn't think that was a huge loss to be honest. I rather focus to kill Zulu even though I left Carthage undefended. I recaptured Carthage Turn 93, when my army was back in position. From there I advanced north assuming Moscow was somewhere there.. I was right and I took Moscow without problems Turn 101, along with two other cities which I razed to the ground. (Gotta love that UA, so you can get away with unhappiness real quick!)

I also began to attack the Celts and razed one of her weak expo city. I decided to war her on Turn 94. I will probably kill all of Russia's cities if I'm able. I want the whole island for myself and I haven't met those other Civilizations (Three left who is unknown), so I might as well be an warmonger while nobody sees me right?

Carthage got two cities next to me and being super friendly, sending me trade routes! Gotta love that deception.. I think I will kill her off completely after my first army is done with Russia.

Things are looking pretty good!

Except I have no science or infrastructure in my cities at all.. and all my captured cities are puppets.

Policies are Liberty 2 (left), then Honor 2 (left).

 

[bobbobbybobbob]

It's Turn 180 for me now...

Spoiler :

I killed of Russia and made war with Carthage again. I killed of her remaining cities as well.. Now that was pretty easy, however the Celts were much harder! I was barley making any progress and I thought it was impossible to advance, but I ended up taking Edinburgh from behind. I didn't know land existed behind her, so it made the siege possible. She had some crappy expand city to west of it that I took easily. Edinburgh fell Turn 140 with Notre Dame and a few wonders. I had peace with her just so I could take her two cities and burn them. It was a lot easier then taking them by force. Ten turns later I killed her off, so I got the whole island for myself.

Now I just focus on infrastructure and to catch up. I met Portugal earlier than Sweden and Morocco, so she knows what a warmonger I am. She has denounced me after we made a DoF. She has also backstabbed Sweden and she is the strongest in the game right now. Those other two are pretty neutral to me so I get some good trade deals out of them. I only have two coastal cities, so naval warfare will not be so quick. One of the cities still needs some infrastructure, but that also means I don't have to worry about an attack against my other cities.

I will build some Frigates to explore and defend, but I don't think it's possible for me to take any capital with those units.

I have taken four capitals so I have set myself up for a good late game. I still have a lot of catching up to do, but I will manage.

Policies are Liberty 2 (Left), Honor 3 (Left), Commerce 1 (Left) and Rationalism 0

Here are some screens:

Spoiler :

 

[bobbobbybobbob]

Turn 342, Science Victory.

Spoiler :

Yeah, it wasn't the prettiest victory I have had.. But I take the victory anyways. I probably burned to many cities of my island. Also I didn't settle properly as you can see in my screens. I still believe I did the right choice by going all in with units in the beginning. I did have a lot of catching up to do so a Frigate rush was out of the picture. A was forced to go Order as third, since both Portugal and Sweden both went Order. Unbelievable. I would have liked Sweden to go something else so I could have least got one free policy. Morocco went Freedom, but Sweden had most of the votes so WI was Order pretty soon.

I also missed World Fair by coming second place which sucked. I would have needed those extra policies if I wanted to go to war. I was struggling to catch up, but in the very end game I did manage to do it and I got the victory. I didn't wanna risk going to war just to lose on a science victory. Sweden was the leader in the end game and nuked Portugal and they all three didn't like each other very much. So it was good for me so I could catch up.

This map was pretty hard. I did not know if I was going to be able to win this one even though I had taken four capitals and had the island for myself most of the game. (Portugal later found some city and didn't bother killing it.) I did struggle with money, but I went 5 Honor so I could get some money outta that. I barely survived..

Well, good game. I probably did a lots of mistakes by not claiming good lands, but I did win after all. Even though it wasn't domination.. At that point I was also pretty sick of this game and wanted to move forward.

Policy was: Liberty 2 (Left), Honor 5, Commerce 2 (Left), Rationalism 5 and Order 2 (Socialism Realism and Young Pioneers).

Here is the victory screen:

Spoiler :