Deity Challenge #13 - The Dutch

[The Pilgrim]

It'll be a nice pay back. I hate Gandhi.

 

[Gori the Grey]

What would be a good turn to check how Liberty worked for me versus how Tradition worked for someone else? I'm at turn 80 and I've had what for me is a satisfying start in that I got NC built by turn 69 and fended off the first big attack. I've built a third settler, so I'll soon have a third city, (if I can get him settled; sort of dicey placement.) By what turn are Tradition players getting four cities and NC?

 

[The Pilgrim]

What would be a good turn to check how Liberty worked for me versus how Tradition worked for someone else? I'm at turn 80 and I've had what for me is a satisfying start in that I got NC built by turn 69 and fended off the first big attack. I've built a third settler, so I'll soon have a third city, (if I can get him settled; sort of dicey placement.) By what turn are Tradition players getting four cities and NC?

It really depends. You can get NC by 80 with good luck, by 90 on average and by 100 with some bad warring. I think the first point you can really benchmark is after staffing universities. Turn count and bpt will show who's doing better.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Turn 103

Spoiler :

I haven't managed the game particularly well. It's how things always go for me at deity. I guess I have to try to the Tradition start. One part of what scares me away is more cities is more cities to defend. So I feel if I had founded four cities, with all the lost money and hammers for buying/building settlers, I wouldn't have had the troops to repel Genghis when he came on turn 74.

Genghis settled with me at turn 80. I was still at war with Pachal, so I went down to try to take Chichen Itza. My idea was to raze it and build a city on the silver east of the river (eventually reach as far as the truffles). But it proved hard to get at Chichen Itza with all those forests, so I founded Utrect where you see. Should be good for the polders, eventually.

Pachal was actually in a place where he probably could have taken Utrect on turn 96 when Theodora attacked me out of Nicea. But he was willing to settle for a straight-up peace deal, so I hauled my troops back to my land. I bought Genghis into the war against Theodora (she might have been able to get Rotterdam otherwise). But then he got to Nicea before I did.

So I basically just slogged back and forth through a big forest for two fruitless wars against Pachal and Theodora. Education, as you see is still a ways away. I'm not giving up. I might be able to take a bunch of Genghis' cities, so I might try that. But I'm getting that feeling of slipping behind in a way that will just snowball. England has 28 techs, me 18.

 

[Grendeldef]

Spoiler :

My main focus of hating the map has slowly brought me into T100 - this game has so far resulted excessive coffee drinking and few hilarious moments one them Pacal the Destroyer of World unable to take a flat land, non-walled def 11 city with 20+ troops from T80 onwards.

Anyway, bribed Genghis to DoW Theo ~T65 & DoWed him few turns later to Liberate Lisbon which was easy enough however Pacal saw a weak spot in my defense (probably uses the same optician as Stevie Wonder) and tried score constantly limping in offside so his adventure has been much of a success. I bought couple of CBs so he didn't have to play all by himself and allying a nearby CS caused some havoc on the front row seats.
Meanwhile Genghis annexed Monaco, started buying units & made peace with Theo, the whining prophetess who had largest army at that point. Genghis presented impessive amount of fresh pikes so my barely measurable advance was halted for a while. Scared away Pacal's troop as I hit CivS and he offered a fair peace which rejected since it was described as unfavourable alround solution in Warmonger's ABC, lesson 3.
Liberated Monaco @T97 and either the Mongols have found an alternative amusement for themselves or the pike training camp for boys is temporarily closed as all I can see is a very long wall of catapults in horizon. If this is his attitude towards fellow enemy I'll take La Venta soon & start thinking some sort of strategy for this game. Meanwhile I'll hate the map but I admit it's very safe sleeping on the edge - nothing can feed you to the sea monsters.
On the other front I'll probably catch a city from Pacal & then figure out should continue with war or just keep the corner to myself.

Classic 3 city Tradition NC was the plan but a pioneering Maya got me rush buying a settler & lib so I finished 4c NC ~@83. Wonders have been out of my reach & this doesn't change for ages. No chance of a religion either and so far Egyptian missionaries have been the only ones to bother with converting my antitheistic peasants.
DoF with Theo, Isa & Lizzy while Augustus turned me down on the renegotiation round. I probably should learn to swim and look for more CSs.

Apparently hate is still a formidable energy source otherwise my game would've ended on turn 5. Nobody's into spying yet but it shouldn't take more than few turns and I'm still sadly 3 turns away from Edu with pathetic 60bpt. This just feels weird.

A Spy report from the evening edition.

Spoiler :

As there was some thoughts about spies' functions here's what happened in this game. The Art of spying materialized on T101 and as had two ongoing wars I put 007 in Amsterdam. 108 he gets double promotion as he able to kill both Mayan & Mongol spy on same turn. Given the passionate love affair between me & the map I might actually reload the T100 and send 007 abroad but I very much doubt that on T108 he has more than bedded few women & drank half a dozen Martinis - shaken and/or stirred they're still crap.
I also had to revise my yet unthought plan about capturing Mayan cities. The pathetic 20+ army of atlatlists & spearmen reincarnated itself as knights, pikes & trebuchets. I think Pacal is fiddling the calendar as his tech must've been phenomenal for few turns. Also Theo joined uninvited the Mongol war but it seems somewhat odd that while being #1 in military she's represented by archers, catapults & a single pike in the battlefield. One just have to love this game but I still hate the map. Two turns after peace with pacal Lizzy is knockin' on my door warning about Pacal's Macchiavellian plans and a turn after that Pacal wants to be my pal. I'll have xbows on T113 & probably take La Venta then but the rest of plan got simplified a lot - kill Genghis seems like a reasonable short term strategy.

 

[JINYX]

Did anyone else

Spoiler :

Have freakin Theodora drop a troll city right next to all that copper to the northeast? She literally settled right where I was gonna drop a city the next turn. Turn 38 or so

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

ugh

Spoiler :

settled on the copper/mtn spot. tradition. went 1 more city (on the huge copper spot). i got oracle on t70 or so and finished trad with it. i had a 3rd city about to settle when Genghis plopped Hsia where i wanted. He dow'd and took my settler. No big deal, i had 9 comps upgraded the turn his units showed up to the border. wiped them out easily. counter attacked--he had 2 of his owns cities at my doorstep (Old sarai just north of my 2nd city) and took 2 of those CSs on his path south to me. i pushed back to liberate and weaken his point lead and took Hsia in 10 turns from his Dow.

i was on my way to Lisbon when Pacal, my DoF partner, back stabs and sends a paltry 5 units that included 2 pikes. but while i dropped 2 units back to cap to defend, my 7 comps werent enough to take a str30 Lisbon (22 when i started attacking it). And then the AI starts playing for real and he rolls in 6 Keshiks--and i pillaged the 2 horses Lisbon had. I retreated all my units to Hsia for shelter (had Faith Healers--paid for by Jerusalem friendship-- until I realized Hsia didnt have the pantheon, haha). I retreated even further after losing 3 comps to Keshiks all the while getting pounded by Trebs. swords, and pikes from Pacal at my cap. My cap wasnt in real danger because terrain really let me take a unit out every turn but Genghis, like Pacal, had some kind of tech shoot to suddenly roll in with lots of Keshiks and pikes/swords. The war with Genghis started at t85 or so and by t100 he had those massive units while i had my own pikes but many turns from xbows. After I lost Hsia/more comps i decided to give up and try again from scratch. I'll place my 2 cities in the same spot and i'll still build about 9 comps but i need to see how the Dows play out. Ive been stabbed by Pacal before I just forgot he was capable and neglected any effort from his angle. i dont know if i can work in a 3rd city and hold it so i think i'll just take/annex theirs. Lisbon is a nice coastal spot i keep it.

I dont really care for the map either, but it isnt horrible other than making the beggar (and a coastal city) less useful. i went scout scout and it was uncovered pretty easily. Disbanded one when he got border locked before OB was available.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

Did anyone else

Spoiler :

Have freakin Theodora drop a troll city right next to all that copper to the northeast? She literally settled right where I was gonna drop a city the next turn. Turn 38 or so

wow, no i did not. reminds me of that Maya challenge.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Did anyone else

Spoiler :

Have freakin Theodora drop a troll city right next to all that copper to the northeast? She literally settled right where I was gonna drop a city the next turn. Turn 38 or so

No. That sucks.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Did anyone else

Spoiler :

I just beat her to the spot, at turn 35. On the image I posted, you can see where she went on to found Nicea (though now captured by Genghis)

I'm on turn 135 and in an endless defensive war against Genghis; the game is in essence going nowhere.

 

[Grendeldef]

Did anyone else

Nope, but I had that spot settled ~@t30 and I was in war with them.

the game is in essence going nowhere.

My game is going straight to hell or space depending on one's pov.

Spoiler :

I took few Mongol cities eventually but things got a bit trickier as he started pumping out musketmen - no wonder the pikeboy training camp was abandoned suddenly but not a single keshik on sight yet. Apparently I pillaged his pastures before he upgraded and the few chariot archers left are riding donkeys; slightly awkward trying to catch fresh horses on foot on those vast Mongolian steppes I assume. Unfortunately I had to keep even the crappier cities to avoid Theo's settlers making permanent camps there.

Obviously Pacal the Hawkeye spotted another weakness in my defensive infra & we started from the scratch. As his trebuchets were slightly more worrisome than atlatlists I even bought some walls. Apparently he had some logistical problems in his army since it mainly moved around - perhaps they were paid per marched km rather than anything else. However, I had to build more xbows & split the Mongolian front army to secure my southern cities.

No one else seems to be keen on war at and I'm suspecting that there is an almighty monster in the middle of the sea who's giving orders for everyone to hide in their corners - I named this yet unmet teacher-like entity Pilgrim for no particular reason.

Took Karakorum ~T135 & made crap peace with Genghis as he had nothing in his cities nor pockets. Just to amuse myself and piss him off I GG bombed his gold & iron right after that - I expect an invasion soon after our armistice is over.

The Pacal front didn't take too long to flip to offensive war but the 40+ def cities are unhealthy to my troops besides I ran into happiness issues and there're only 6 CSs left. I hit industrial T147 so I'll probably wipe Pacal off around T160.

Policies come extremely slow which affects the bpt heavily but real hammer came from Augustus when he hit modern on T151 - few turns before that he was 7 techs ahead of anyone else, cool. He also started a war with Isabella (I confess nothing) but I'm afraid it'll be terribly one-sided.

I'm currently building PSchools due to lack of money and policywise Rationalism & Order opened so I'm hoping for global interest in Order but I doubt it'll happen. At this point it's easy to see that not having a plan or strategy wasn't the optimal approach but I just hate the map.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Grendeldef,

It's funny how differently the games play out, even independently of how the player does.

You have someone to modern by T151. My earliest to industrial just hit it at T132. And this has been a war happy map, with people declaring on others halfway round the donut.

I didn't hate the map:

Spoiler :

I liked being in the corner, so I only had to focus on two fronts, and I liked it that La Venta and Monaco gave Genghis something to do until I could get an army up.

But I wasn't able to make anything of it. I asked Pilgrim to roll a start with just G+K so that I could hone my skills by playing the same map as better players and seeing where I fall short. I can always win Immortal but never win Deity. I'm not sure I honed my skills, but it's comforting to learn that even other good players sometimes can't play out of a particular start. What you report often happens to me; I get so busy addressing the contingencies of a particular start that I never really get a particular victory condition underway.

 

[Grendeldef]

Grendeldef,

It's funny how differently the games play out, even independently of how the player does.

Luckily so.

You have someone to modern by T151. My earliest to industrial just hit it at T132. And this has been a war happy map, with people declaring on others halfway round the donut.

T151 modern isn't anything spectacular but I expected it to take a bit longer as there wasn't that many cities. The gap between the leader and the rest of the pack was more impressing.

I didn't hate the map:

But I wasn't able to make anything of it. I asked Pilgrim to roll a start with just G+K so that I could hone my skills by playing the same map as better players and seeing where I fall short. I'm not sure I honed my skills, but it's comforting to learn that even other good players sometimes can't play out of a particular start. What you report often happens to me; I get so busy addressing the contingencies of a particular start that I never really get a particular victory condition underway.

Spoiler :

My hate for the map comes from it not being a globe - corner or in the middle I can live with. Some sort of plan would've been nice but now I just cruised forward and wasn't even effective on that so the fact that I'm behind the leaders is not a surprise. The Dutch are also news to so I didn't take advantage of their UA nor I did I settle polders on my mind.
Dual war is a bit harder than one front one but by far the main obstacle has been the absolute crap cities but I kept most of them just to prevent others settling on my paths. The other option would've been selling & reconquering & razing but that's in class of meh so no thx. The other thing was their lack of money - a peace just to get denounced didn't seem tempting.
My game is still winnable, no doubt but it won't be pretty. Augustus, Lizzy & Theo all have of everything, most worryingly oil at this point. Next I'll DoW Rammy & see what'll happens. He has an annoying city near my capital and I have RAs with Theo & Lizzy which I really could use if I can prevent them having RAs with anyone else.

 

[Grendeldef]

Few turns more on my beloved map so it's T200. Oh, how I hate it momentarily & still keep hitting the 'next turn' without hesitation.

Spoiler :

DoWed Rammy as soon I had some oil @T183 and started hitting the troll city of Alexandria beside my capital. 4 GBWs aren't that effective against def 80+ cities but one has to start somewhere. Surprisingly Rammy also upgraded his nearby units in a flash so first I had to save Monaco. Slowly hammering down city my units started to get bombed without any air force nearby so I started retreated to take a closer look at the map without spotting an Egyptian coastal city and therefore suspected a presence of classic squadron of ghost bombers. Just to confirm this I reloaded a save from two turns back and in new light saw the 4 Egyptian GWS - jolly. I moved my xbows away for the borderline to museum as exhibits were they belong, not in the battlefield. This saved me few xbows but cost a 00 in Thebes who got killed - before reload I stole successfully. At this point my absolute love of the map started to diminish slightly. Took the city few turns later & it's still burning - probably had more flammable stuff than anything even remotely useful.

Meanwhile I've been more successful initiating wars while keeping reasonable relations with everyone with any substance. Rome went Atomic T181 and Rammy followed on T187 as the rest of us are catching Augustus. He still leads though while I'm 4th 7% behind. Militarywise Rome just passed Spain but the 5 big ones are roughly equal.

I'm currently aiming for Hubble and if that works and Theo keeps friendly this might turn for the better. My worry is still happiness and I might have to take a detour for Refrigeration to compensate. While Thebes looks tempting it's 35 pop does not.

 

[valnas]

Spoiler :

I think i've lost. I just feel boxed and my wars have not been fruitfull. I ruined some decent cash and settled on the copper NE and snagged the dye's with hope to grow out to MT. Fuji, but then war started. Genghis kept taking the city states north, byzantine and I liberated them maybe 3-4 times. pacal was up my ass down south ping ponging my army as i finished with genghis gaining no territory. I took Uxmal and marakesh from pacal turn 124 and 135, but by now my army is showing age and all future cities are 37+.

5 cities went tradition, 2 patronage, now rationalism. my cap has the mountain and i'm 8% behind in science. Friends are England and Byantium. Pacal, Genghis hate me, and rome and egypt are best buds with the war mongers across the pond.

I see my path as through pacal and egypt, and trying to get rome and byz battling at stalemate. But I have no idea how to really muster a modern army. Might punt

 

[Grendeldef]

The evening is getting darker and my devotion to disgusting things brought me T239 with new stuff to get exited about.

Spoiler :

So the Egyptian conflict went on and on and on and still some until I got bombers and he ran out of money. Liberated Bucharest few times, captured Uxmal twice and since Theo made peace with Rammy I sold it to Theo. It gave me nice safe haven in the middle of Egypt and moreover I could bomb Thebes over it while he couldn't retaliate. Took Thebes ~T220 and kept killing melee units as the city was with zero health for several turns. Luckily Rammy built Eiffel two turns before capture so I didn't go negative happiness after all.

I also managed to get myself into 2nd in tech but Augustus was mopping the floor with Isabella and running away from the rest of us again so I dived into cave of unbelievably crappy plans & fetched myself a #9, it was clearly out of space but I didn't care. Bulb GSs, buy all aluminium from Theo & start nuking - screw the space this time as it won't happen before Romans.

This plan also had some difficulties in form of the lovely map - I was nowhere near Roman borders so OB from from Lizzy, build road towards Sidon through England while building nukes. Meanwhile Isa lost her capital and Augustus was dangerously close to getting uranium which would be more than a minor setback. Luckily the gullible conqueror didn't see anything weird of troops hugging the border.
He had all the oil & aluminium one could ever want so I was slightly worried but when I attacked I only lost one bomber on first catch & a tank on second after which I nuked Zurich to have a turn or two for catching my breath. While I was mildly happy and somewhat surprised of the success the game backstabbed me. Glorious 007 was on top of his game and @T239 stole either Ad. Ball. or Penicillin from Rome but it got lost in diplomatic post - 64 turns of careful planning for nothing; got to love the game. Obviously on next turn there's no sign of such espionage.

Catching Rome doesn't seem too hard atm but after that I need to take a u-turn to South & head towards Spanish deserts for aluminium before I dare attack Lizzy and/or Theo. This isn't pretty, effective nor fast but seems to work to a degree.

Spain is almost a gonner with two cities and a dim future, Lizzy is doing something with Rome, mainly her wandering troops are screwing my plans and Theo turned into catholicism, abandoned contraceptives & experienced a massive population increase.

After some mental regrouping I might even finish this tonight.

Couldn't get myself back to the grindstone but the image is fixed.

 

[sufficiency]

Meh I screwed this up badly.

Genghis was very aggressive and took two of the CSs south of me. He coveted my land but I managed to make him dow Theodora instead. I was trying to fight Pacal, but Rammy dropped a troll city in my way and made the whole thing a lot more difficult. Genghis is like 4 times my score with 10 cities while I only had room for 3.

I probably need to restart it.

 

[Grendeldef]

Domination on T263 with nothing much unexpected happening in the last turns.

Spoiler :

Rome went down T247 while killing his troops in numbers. Isabella was wiped off by Theo whom I bribed against Rome, too and even Lizzy turned up it more offensive units than workers. Lizzy liberated Warsaw which I allied for aluminium & as buffer against England. I also bribed Lizzy against Theo and gave OB in hope that she'll move some troops from London area, fat chance. Augustus was extremely stubborn and refused to give abything but Madrid so I catched the 3 cities with nearby aluminium before accepting only Madrid as a trophy on T256.

DoWed Rammy and paid Lizzy to attack him & Theo to DoW Genghis. Moved half of my SBs to Madrid, NuMissiles to only city I could reach Constantinople and ModArm/GDR towards Jakarta on Theo's border from where they could reach her capital in two turns.
Nuke London T257 to get rid of most of her bombers but decided not to nuke Pi-Ramesses with only nuke I could see. Lizzy's retaliation was a very AI-like - she nuked Thebes with a lancer in it, swarmed around Warsaw, made few random attacks with Navy and successfully couped my ally Monaco but oddly enough after the turn Monaco was angry with me and allied with Theo. At this point also map graphics got screwed around Amsterdam but since no wars around there I didn't much bother me as I loved the map anyway.

Captured Nottingham twice as wanted to get a bunch of troops near London even if I had to nuke it on the last turn but it wasn't necessary although Lizzy captured Warsaw on T262 so my last bombing mission where made with lack of aluminium penalty.
3 NMissiles & few SBs where enough to take Constantinople so I had few extra ABs & NMs. SBs are still ok but nowhere near as good as they were back in vanilla - the city defs are just so much higher than back but one still got to love logistics SBs against troops apart from MSAMs and endless supply of AI workers do give nice XP farming opportunities even for the wounded ones.

I got the Hubble with faith engineer & later build Neuschwanstein similarly as 4 CSs were hungering for it. In the last 20 turns I could've build whatever without it making much of a difference and I ran scientists later than there were needed and all sorts of stuff like but again, not an example of effective gaming but from start I was more interested in hating the map than anything else. Apparently that's enough for wins.

No annexed cities, no coastal cities so no navy but quite a few RAs to keep in the gave. Rome took 4 nearby CS before I met those and Spain 3 - this is probably due to the map and it's very limited space. I also stayed away from religion not that it was hard at all. I had a worthless pantheon as nothing useful was available nor did I build shrines or temples early on - something of a test to see how things are without religion. Obviously situational & number of sample games is extremely limited but lack of religion does hurt.
Genghis took 3 CSs & the Mayans one so without some freedom fighters the life span of a CS was very short. Egypt took one Mayan city but other than that nobody wanted to go on early war but stayed in their corner which partly resulted a decent tech rate & population groth. Egypt spent all it's money buying GWBs & triplanes before surrending, Rome bought ground troops, Pacal nor Genghis never had any and Theo & Lizzy were both sitting on 20k+ in the end.

If I had to do this again I'd hang myself but the next best option would be keeping all 3 of the early liberated CS now I only kept La Venta.
Genghis was his usual self but luckily I beat him before/without Keshiks but Pacal was pathetic.

pix

Spoiler :

 

[Light Cleric]

Congrats, Grendeldef. I know that feeling; you get one of those maps that's just god awful, you don't want to finish it, but part of you is just damn determined to do it for some reason.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Congrats Gren and hats off to you! Your determination is inspiring and admirable!

Health issues prevent me from being involved in any stressful activity atm and I haven't touch the game since my last update. Too bad, because I'm very very tempted to peek into your spoilers.