Deity and Culture

[beetle]

Don’t you love a close game though? If you still have the initial save, please consider posting. With the benefit of hindsight, I bet you could have formed a coalition against Theodora. Plus, neither Babylonia nor Polynesia are exactly peacemongers in my experience (but I suppose it depends on their flavor rolls).

 

[fyar]

You're right about Nebby and Kamehameha, but I could only get them to DoW each other. I couldn't do anything to get them to DoW Haile or Theodora, who were my primary concerns. I'm sure there were things I could've done better.

One thought... in the game, I as the Inca had a DoF with 5 out of 7 AIs, including Haile and Theodora. In your experience, would denouncing Theodora have worked to convince my other 4 friends to denounce her as well? If that worked, then I probably could've bribed a war. I could've waited for my DoF with her to expire to avoid the backstab penalty, but my concern was the "You denounced someone that they like more than you" penalty.

In the end, I needed every single DoF (and subsequent research agreement) to catch up, so any diplomatic penalty would've sunk me. But might that idea have worked? The diplomatic nuances with the AI is one of my weaknesses in Deity games I think.

 

[Sclb]

If you're in a multi-way DoF as what I think is happening with Haile and Theodora, then it's difficult to break the chain until ideologies. Denouncing one of them isn't enough to break it as they'll probably like the civ you denounce more than you and they might even end up denouncing you and strengthen their alliance. Wait until ideologies and some of the DoF might expire without being renewed and you might be able to work something out. There is a reason why I avoid too many DoF as it costs a lot to keep that many Research Agreements and it isn't worth it if the AI is too low in tech.

 

[beetle]

Just never signing a DOF with Theodora in the first place might have influence things to turn out differently. She does not build up much of a military and she likes to send out missionaries, so in most of my games she gets dog piled.

 

[lindsay40k]

I'd like to comment on the OP without my usual 'farm XP and conquer your continent with Range Logistics'.

I consider Navigation a big priority. A decent Navy is pretty important - both for defence and for watching that island your trade routes pass for pirate activity - and it's the tech after a big science tech. With that in mind, it's not a big diversion to go for Archaeology after Scientific Method, and get some Landmarks dug. Best case scenario, you find three of them in a cluster around a viable city location. You should have the happiness to support it and the money to develop it. The sooner you start getting 30-50cpt from terrain (which scales up by era without having to spend a penny on development and maintenance), the bigger a hill rival Tourism has to climb - and even if it postpones your Research Labs, it's not going to hurt your Rationalism run.