[BNW] Community Deity Game #34 - Rome

beetle

Deity
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CDG 34 – Augustus Caesar

Please see the CDG Series Discussion Thread to express yourself if you have remarks and ideas. Some maps in this series use mods. This map uses the DLC map packs, so you will need “Explorers Map Pack”, “Scrambled Nations”, and “Scrambled Continents”, as well as the earlier (and more common) DLC such as “Wonders of the Ancient World”.

Please be encouraged to share your experience playing this map, but if you post in the first page of this thread, please use the SPOILER tag if you attach a picture, make a comment about your neighbors, nearby natural wonders, locations of ancient ruins, terrain features, luxes, resources, etc.

Before you download and start playing the map, please take a moment to speculate on your initial thoughts and plans for the game. Will you settle in place? Will you try to found a religion? What are your plans for getting the most from the UA and UU? What Victory Condition will you be aiming for?

The suggested VC for this map is Domination.

Spoiler for starting screen shot :
civ5ss-cdg34t0000.jpeg

Spoiler for UA and UU :
The Glory of Rome: +25% production towards any building already built in Rome.

You can train the Legion which has a higher strength (17) than the Swordsman (13), which it replaces. The Legion is the strongest front-line land unit of the Classical Era, and can also construct roads and forts.

You can also train the Ballista which has a higher ranged attack (10) than the Catapult (7), which it replaces. It is also slightly stronger on defense (8 vs 7).

Spoiler for the map type and other settings :
Map type is HellBlazers Continents with low sea level. Raging Barbarians and Strategic Balance. Standard size, standard speed, standard number of civs and CS. I used Rotate Start Position to pick the best spot and IGE to remove a couple ice tiles and to tweak the starting location of a few coastal City States. AIs were selected for flavor and competitiveness.

Achievements — maximum 6 points in each category:
  1. Exploit the UA Early: 1 point for each building type completed in Rome before being started in any expo. To score, the building type must be completed in at least one expo before NC is completed.
  2. Spam the UU: 1 point for every second Legion or Ballista online at the same time. No partial credit, but mix-and-match as you like.
  3. Early Mayhem with the UU: 1 point for each city taken with the UU and only the UU. Two points if the city is an AI capital.
  4. UU Veterans: 1 point for each Legion or Ballista descendant that makes it to Level 6 and that are all alive at the same time. For scoring, the units do not need to survive to the end of the game. Please note that you will need some kind of strategy for tracking these units. They will not have any unique promotions, so there is not anything to distinguish them from melee or siege units that you build later in the game.
  5. Late Mayhem with the UU: 1 point for each AI capital taken using only descendants of the UU. You may war with other units as you like, but for this achievement, it must be only UU descendants that put hits on the AI cap. As noted above, you will need some kind of strategy for keeping track of the UU descendants.
  6. Steam Badges, one point for each:
    1. Zeupiter: Conquer the city with the Statute of Zeus.
    2. All Roads Lead to Rome: Build a useful road with a Legion.
Spoiler for links to previous threads in CDG series :
CDG1: Persia, Oct. 31st, 2015, domination, Pangea, hard, map by Consentient
CDG2: Assyria, Nov. 15th, 2015, science, Pangaea, medium, map by Consentient
CDG3: Ethiopia, Dec. 2nd, 2015, culture, NQ Pangaea, hard, map by Consentient
CDG4: Spain, Dec. 17th, 2015, domination, NQ Pangaea, medium, map by Consentient.
CDG5: Indonesia, Jan. 2nd, 2016, culture, NQ Continents, hard, map by Consentient.
CDG6: Zulus, Jan. 15th, 2016, domination, Oval, easy, map by Consentient.
CDG7: Shoshone, Feb. 2nd, 2016, culture, Oval, very easy, map by Enslingkorp.
CDG8: Austria, Feb. 15th, 2016, science, Pangaea, very easy, map by IronfighterXXX.
CDG9: Brazil, Feb. 28th, 2016, culture, Pangaea, medium, map by Blatc.
CDG10: Denmark, March 14th, 2016, domination, Lakes, hard, map by Beetle.
CDG11: Venice, April 1st, 2016, domination, Archipelago, very easy, map by Wild_Woojsha.
CDG12: Byzantium, April 15th, 2016, domination, Continents, very hard, map by Beetle.
CDG13: Inca, April 30th, 2016, culture, Pangaea, medium, map by Shark Diver.
CDG14: Celts, May 18th, 2015, domination or culture, Oval, hard, map by Consentient.
CDG15: America, May 30th, 2016, diplomacy, Mesopotamia, medium, map by Beetle.
CDG16: Sweden, June 14th, 2016, domination or diplomacy, HB Continents, medium, map by Consentient.
CDG17: Germany, July 2nd, 2016, diplomacy, Pangaea, easy, map by Dan Quayle.
CDG18: France, July 14rd, 2016, diplomacy, HB Continents, hard, map by MaxAttack.
CDG19: Ottomans, Aug. 5th, 2016, domination, Continents, medium, map by Beetle.
CDG20: Portugal, Aug. 20th, 2016, domination, Pangaea, medium, map by Beetle.
CDG21: China, Sept. 9th, 2016, domination, Pangaea, medium, map by @Dan Quayle.
CDG22: Maya, Oct. 2nd, 2016, domination or science, NQ Pangaea, hard, map by @consentient.
CDG23: Iroquois, Oct. 15th, 2016, domination or culture, NQ Oval, very hard, map by @consentient.
CDG24: Babylon, Nov. 11th, 2016, science, Terra Incognita, medium, map by @beetle.
CDG25: Arabia, Jan. 15th, 2018, domination, Pangea Plus, medium, map by @beetle.
CDG26: Polynesia, Jan. 29th, 2018, culture, Small Continents Plus, easy, map by @beetle.
CDG27: Poland, Feb. 18th, 2018, domination, Terra Incognita, medium, map by @beetle.
CDG28: Huns, March 4th, 2018, domination, Terra Incognita, hard, map by @Grendeldef.
CDG29: Korea, March 24th, 2018, science, Small Continents Plus, easy, map by @beetle.
CDG30: Songhai, April 23rd, 2018, domination, Terra Incognita, medium, map by @Grendeldef.
CDG31: Russia, May 10th, 2018, domination, Terra Incognita, medium, map by @Grendeldef.
CDG32: England, June 9th, 2018, domination, Continents, medium, map by @raider980.
CDG33: Aztec, June 24th, 2018, domination, Lakes, medium, map by @beetle.

There are two save files attached to this post. For the file with lite in its name, the starting Warrior has been replaced with a Legion (!), you have a Worker on that Wheat tile, and the nearest Natural Wonder has been upgraded from mediocre to great.
 

Attachments

  • cdg34_Augustus_Caesar_BC-4000.Civ5Save
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  • cdg34lite_Augustus_CaesarBC-4000.Civ5Save
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Good to see another game up. I've given up on Deity, its just too hard and even some Lite's are not lite enough. But this Lite version sounds like it'll be helpful, I'll be playing that.

It would be nice to start on that hill but that would move you away from the wheat, fish and gold. I don't think its worth it. I'll move the Legion to the hill to see what is there but I'll most likely settle in place. I won't bother with a religion on Deity but I think I'll try to take advantage of the UU's and attack someone early.
 
Will try the lite version as well. Have beaten the last few lites but not familiar enough with Rome to try the full version yet. Maybe if I beat it I'll try again on the harder map.

Probably will move to the hill to settle. Gonna work the cattle first anyway, and the early benefits of the extra hammer are huge. Unless the warrior finds something on the west tiles that I would want in the capitals range of course.

Question, are the deity lite maps considered harder than immortal?
 
Question, are the deity lite maps considered harder than immortal?
The Deity Lite maps where I deleted the a Settler and Worker from AI are definitely harder than Immortal — since the Immortal AIs do not start with those extra units. But starting with extra units is probably is a bigger buff than taking units from the AI, so it’s hard to say.
 
I quite like the achis thematically linked to the UUs though one logistical suggestion - can we get them numbered or something similar? It'll be easier later with recaps to compare various results if every achi has an individual identifier. As for keeping track about original Legos I think the unit renaming option which is available at least by the time of promotions comes handy - well, at least if it works as I think it does.

The start looks tempting enough to SiP but I think I'll move the Warrior over the river to see whether the riverside would be even better.
 
I have never noticed that feature. Is that that an EUI thing?

In the base game, you can rename a unit when it is eligible for promotion (click Edit on the unit screen). EUI allows you to rename a unit anytime (IIRC, by right-clicking the unit's name).
 
Thx Browd ;)

I don't recall using the option I just remember seeing the option when a unit gets a promotion. It actually seems like a useful feature but I just never got around to start using it. Easily seeing which unit is a healer, has logistics etc is handy.

Thx to Beetle as well - numbers are cool in this case.
Now all I have to do is to start playing and build endless Ballistae & Legos which will lead me to a mostly off beaten track since...I don't even know for how long I've avoided those. My games most often went with XBs etc rather than siege line until Arties so the achi setup seems especially interesting.
 
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I always forget to rename when promoting (too focused on the promotion itself). But I dislike the UI clutter of EUI too much to install it just for the freedom to rename units on the fly.
 
Question, are the deity lite maps considered harder than immortal?

I would definitely say that deity lite is harder than Immortal, at least all the ones I've seen. The AI gets so many more advantages on Deity compared to Immortal that you'd have to give the Lite version a heck of a lot to make it equal. Or take away from the AI. Plus, the AI seem more aggressive on Deity, not sure if that's coded in but it sure seems like they are. I've only won one Deity Lite game but I can win the vast majority of the time on Immortal.
 
I agree with the general sentiment here that DeityLite is harder than Immortal as it should be. I see it as Deity with kick start to ease more or less significantly the early 20-40 turns; after that it's just almost normal Deity but I also think it works as a decent stepping stone from Immortal to Deity for those feeling more comfortable with Immortal. Whether the adjustment level is right in every game is an open case but as always suggestions are welcomed.
 
Spoilers are from T89 and include 3 nearest neighbor names and a map.

Spoiler The Sack of Rome :
Well, that didn't take long, lol. Rome got sacked T90.

I tried to expand before the hyper aggressive neighbors took all the land. Greece had six cities when I still had just one. I got a city by the NW and also a third to the west. But I was having serious money problems so I couldn't build units and my three cities were conquered by T90 with a simultaneous attack from the Mongols and Persia. The Mongol horde sacked Rome. I didn't even get a chance to build the UU's.

I don't usually like to replay maps but I'm tempted to try this again. However, I'm not sure what I could do to prevent the same result. One thing to change is to not go Honor and just stick to Tradition. No matter what the map or game, Tradition seems to be the best policy to take. Perhaps, I'll wait to see what others do and had success with.

Early on, Mongolia asked me to war with him against Greece. I said yes because I was far enough from Alex that he would have to go through Mongolia and Persian land to get to me and I figured it would make Mongolia like me. But the war didn't cause any cities to change and Genghis still attacked me later.


Spoiler Map right before the fall :


Rome CDG.jpg


 
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Well, that didn't take long, lol. Rome got sacked T90.
It is a tough map. I could not get a DOM VC. I think I did manage to squeak out an SV. If I had gone 4-city Tradition, my game would have be stronger. I did a Liberty play.
 
I hate this map so much. Currently 0-3 and about to reload again.

Spoiler :
1st try, Greece ran wild. Spent most of my time trying to fend off Genghis and Persia, so could not keep up. Fell so far behind in tech I gave up and started over.

2nd game it was Genghis who caused the problems. I was able to found a city up north of Lhasa by the wine\whales, which was great. Was able to keep up in tech this time, and Alex was pretty tame, so thought I was in good shape. Went to war with Genghis for the 3rd time around turn 175, stayed at war over 60 turns. I didn't count, but I had to have killed 70 units. Had range\logistics on all ships and ranged units. Was ready to finally move on his capital (was pure defense the whole time, the attacks never ended) when Persia backstabbed me. Had no time to get back to defend and still hold off Genghis and lost 2 cities.

3rd game things were going good. I knew the city locations i wanted and rushed to get them. Had a solid military, good economy. Slightly behind in tech most of the game, but not significantly so, and I hadn't finished rationalism or Oxford yet, so I could catch up. Unfortunately, Alex was doing Alex things, and had allied with EVERY city state in the game. Most to the point I would need 200 or more influence to turn them. I had 2 spies trying coups, but after every one Alex would flip them right back. He had 38 delegates, and was about to get autocracy passed, so there was no stopping a diplo victory on the 1st vote when it came. Called it quits around turn 275.



Will try again, but not sure what to do differently. Have gone tradition all 3 times. Don't think I can make liberty work on this map.
 
I started as well and it's not a novelty but still sad how rusty one can get within few months away from the game. I also reloaded few times due to that because I forgot to switch the build order to avoid having a soon-to-be-ancient units while prebuilding units, same thing with researching a tech I wanted to leave a turn short and the classic ranged unit charging in instead of shooting. Generally I was even way more sloppier than usually.

The first 120 turns

Spoiler T120 :

Settled on site, culture from 1st ruin which was encouraging, DoWed Genghis T8 for a worker but only managed 2 in total, normal Liberty start but I had to DoW Darius on T30 to get his Settler by the salt where I settled my 2nd city. 3rd & 4th by Silver and Cocoa.
Darius went Piety and Alex got an early religion as well so I didn't bother even with a pantheon besides I was building units as much as my shaky economy allowed so not much room for buildings which only lead to 3 points on achi #1 (Monument, Shrine & WM).

The war between Darius ended almost immediately as I needed a trading partner. First Caravan to Alex and 2 lux bribe for him to attack Genghis. Sadly the war didn't last long so I've been sucking up to Alex ever since. Mongolian war has been basically just taking pot shots here & and there and I soon realised that Ballistae are useless in this game (as usual) so I haven't build a single one. Only one Lego as prebuilding them as Warriors doesn't seem to be working and I couldn't afford upgrading so achis #2 & #3 look bad at this point.

T89 Liberty -> planted GS. I was thinking about a GA but it was a bit late for that and I really needed the sci boost. T98 CS, NC few turns later, T113 Education & T116 Alex opened Renaissance.

General position is ok as I'm only 6% behind Alex in tech, I have a decent Army & apart from Rome decent size cities and still on positive happiness. The negatives apart from usual Liberty related issues are mostly due to Alex - he leads in everything, allied with almost all CSs and, well, he's Alex so the DoW is coming at some point.



And if it wasn't otherwise obvious I think one of the two menaces to the game in general is on the verge of screwing this one as well.

--- add.---

Apparently prebuilding Legos as Warriors only works after researching Metal Casting. Probably has always worked like that but just one of the gazillion details I've forgotten.
 
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A survival game which later turned into a usual SB & XCom dom with a hint of nukes. T285 and the end is on this side of horizon but not imminent.

Spoiler very short 'happened since last time' :


Endless war with the Mongols due to geography which resulted taking his cities starting with the most further one and like boomerang knocking them while returning to Rome. Sucking up to Alex in hope of managing to keep a mercantile CS ally for happiness. Spies sacrificed for CS repu for most parts, happily trading with Dido & Theo while Attila was disposed soon after we met. Darius provided nice tenets with his religion but inquisitive mind resulted not a marriage but untimely war - I didn't count my units by the border :( Nice xp for my GWBs but nothing much more. This however displeased Theo & Boudicca to DoW me which resulted mostly lost trade routes but very units as the Celts were inland bound and I had been relatively successful keeping The Big Three busy with each other sniping Theo's units with Bombers while she played pingpong with Alex on two coastal cities, good times. Just managed to take Constantinople with half of the WWs by SBs,BSs & XComs and now I'll wait over night whether she'll nuke me or not - I think not but moving planes there is risky business.

Few Nukes on stock but I need more XComs before I can take remaining 3 capitals which I have to do in one turn to avoid retaliation. Prolly a bit post T300 as I don't have carriers for Nukes anywhere in suitable positions either.

Achiwise this game went a bit ashtray as I needed more to focus on actually winning than the style of it, a welcomed novelty. On hindsight I should've left Genghis in peace and went all out for Alex but crap happens when one's trigger finger is itching at first sight on recruitable worker. Killing Darius' Settler was handy at first but after that he went hiding and didn't even send Missionaries so my first city to get a religion happened ~T115 which is ridiculous as had I had a pantheon there would've been a horde of holy word salesmen on T60 sieging my cities.

 
Turn 337 SV. Was my 4th try, so loses some of the excitement of winning.

Spoiler :
Settled in place. Got a culture ruin and went tradition as I did the 3rd time when Alex ran away with it. Also got an upgrade, so had a longswordman by turn 8 I believe. Built 1 scout, then 3 warriors (cheating a bit, usually build more scouts but had map knowledge already) and let the longsword go harass Persia. Took 2 workers, then made peace and he parked himself in that spot next to the wine north of Lhasa I wanted for a city. Waited there until a settler arrived and founded the city.

Basically ignored religion. Never even faith bought a GP at any time. Got 3 pagodas from Persia's religion but my faith per turn was about 26 at the end of the game. Left some defense to the east to keep Genghis at bay and built up balistas, comps and legions to go for Persia. He asked me to go to war with him against Genghis and I said yes. 4 turns later Alex also asked me. When it came time for war i changed my mind and attacked a mostly undefended 2nd city

When it came time to go with Alex I dow'd Genghis to stay friends with him. Never even saw a Mongolian troop, but Darius's guys were there but never threatened my city. Persian capital was in a bad place to take with Ballista, so I peaced out. Genghis offered me a city state to go away which I puppeted, knowing Alex would just grab it if I liberated. Alex shortly finished off Genghis and he was out of the game.

Hit artillery around 190 and dow'd persia again. Took the capital and Susa a few turns later but Alex got his last city. Took Lhasa during the war mostly to keep it from Alex. Attila had finished off Boudicca already (strange, all 4 playthroughs Atillla eliminated her before we met), so we were down to 5.

Still wanting my 1st dom V on diety I built up a force and went for Atilla. Bribed Dido to attack him, and Alex joined in on his own. Took his capital, but I was far from reinforcements and he had a massive army, so made peace. At that point I realized I coudlnt take the continent, so went heavy science. Bought enough troops t make sure my lands were safe, and chained research agreements with Alex/Dido/Theodora as long as I could.

Both Alex and Dido had launched 5 parts when I finished. Thank god i beat them there.


Still wanting a win on my 1st try. Hopefully I can beat a non-lite version soon
 
I almost won on T306 but instead of actually winning I made a massive eff up :)

Spoiler The End is near :

I took Edinburgh with ease ~T300 and Athens & Carthage T306 but to my surprise didn't get any indication of a win so I started looking things a bit more closely and found the culprit - Attila's Court. I only briefly met Attila before Boudicca moved him to greener pastures so I never paid any attention to where his cities were never mind planned capping.them so the question now is if I can/bother to take it before Athens will be lost. Holding other capitals is/should be easy but I don't have too many troops near the Greek border as I didn't plan or prepare for this sort of event.

The next action will be decided tomorrow after I'll properly look at the map & think about what can be done. The options are roughly

a) I can send a/some unit(s) to the city right away to at least see it for SBs - after that it's only a matter of one turn to cap it
b) I need few turns to move close enough to see & bomb AC & cap which prolly means I have to retake Athens which may happen right away or take few additional turns hopefully without much need to defend my own cities
c) I'll the give last 2 turns of the game a one finger victory salute & reload autosave T305 to play the last few turns with at least few operational brain cells

Whichever of the options it'll be the refreshingly entertaining game made a twist to even better on the goal line - epic failure would be another appropriate term

 
T307 Dom thanks to a single Destroyer who's solo mission hunting TRs and protecting Malaccan Uranium proved lucrative in the end by offering sight for paradrops which then provided visibility to the last city.

Quick count of achi points: provisional 10. Too bad winning itself took over from achi hunting early on.

1) 3 Monument, Water Mill & Shrine
2) 3 6 Legos, not a single Ballista in the game
3) 0 None taken
4) 4 4 well promoted
5) 0 no chance
6) x Have to check where SoZ is but no roads solely build by Legos



Proper recap & pics to follow.

I wasn't really in danger of losing at any point but a single DoW from Alex could've changed that at any point before ~T200 so the game was generally far more interesting than usual hence props to the map. Could also be that I was just sloppier than usual but other than the turns ~295 to 305 I was at least mostly awake.
 
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