Deity Challenge #18 - Carthage/Large Islands

[The Pilgrim]

I don't think you will be, AI still struggles, especially with strategic thinking but is fairly competent making you lose boats if it can. That in itself is a nice change

Not the answer I was hoping for, but I won't pretend to be surprised. I played only two or three naval games since fall patch, determined to test the 'improved' AI and they left me pretty disappointed.

About a month back, I asked if a DC could be offered that didn't use DLC and Pilgrim nicely did so. But since then, people have apologized when DCs do use all the DLC. There's no need for such apologies. Any time there's one without DLC, I'll happily play it. I'm still looking for my first Deity win, and I think I could get stronger by watching top players play a game that I'm playing too. But it would be unreasonable for me to expect that y'all would often play without the whole game. Carry on. I learn some just by watching.

That's really not a problem. Not for me anyways. IMO, the contribution of extra civs and ancient wonders to overall gaming experience is minimal. As far as I'm concerned, most DC's can be DLC free and only occasionally have some or all of them. It's host's call though. And in many cases probably not a call, but as HR says, people browse through menus on auto pilot rather that intentionally include them. As I suggested before, Muhammad, don't wait for the mountain to come to you.

I haven't been playing DCs much but always read the thread and I must say I thought the main reason why DCs were mostly Pangaeas was because the community struggling at deity, struggled on Pangaeas (maybe continents) but rarely on other map types. Anyway I'm not criticizing the pick, I'll read nonetheless.

Yep. I even mentioned this somewhere, possibly in disclaimer to DC1. Naval maps are just not challenging enough. I still love them, but AI's ineptness ruins the fun big time. Also these games are one dimensional: Beeline frigates. If not end of game - beeline battleships. End of game.
Maybe LC will show us something new. No pressure, mate.

 

[budweiser]

Spoiler :

I thought about that and it is a bit of a tradeoff, but you could make that up with a production belief like Guruship or Religious Community.

Spoiler :

I also considered one with nature, but I planted city 2 to capture Mt Fuji before I found The Barrier Reef. Had I seen it sooner, I might have reversed the decision and taken One with Nature.

I founded religion 3 anyway by allying with the CS.

 

[Gori the Grey]

As I suggested before, Muhammad, don't wait for the mountain to come to you.

Yes, I'm thinking about doing what you proposed. Mine would be called "Deity IS a Challenge" and I would post screen shots and give my line of reasoning for every major choice I made, so I could see why others went in different directions at roughly that spot in their games.

One problem is that I play much more slowly than most of you. The DC#13 came at a time when I could devote more time than usual to Civ, so I could play my 125 turns into it (before admitting defeat) as quickly as the rest of you. But if I start a thread and post my first 50 turns, asking for feedback, and don't post my next 50 until two weeks later, I think it will make for an oddly paced thread. All the rest of you will finish the game I started long before I do, and the questions I want to ask at turn 121 and turn 133 and turn 157 will be posed so long after you've all completed the game that the circumstances of your games at those moments won't be fresh in your minds.

Anyway, until I do that, I'm content to play whatever DCs happen to not use DLC, however many or few that might be.

 

[jeespoks]

Looks like a pretty interesting map. Maybe I should LP this one, people seem to be looking for some naval action for a change and I haven't played much Large Islands.

Please do, I'd definitely watch it. It'd interesting to see a LP of a map which is played by other players too.

Spoiler :

I thought about that and it is a bit of a tradeoff, but you could make that up with a production belief like Guruship or Religious Community.

Spoiler :

You're right and my tradeoff was eventually not being able to pick the enhancer beliefs early enough. Had to take what was left and took Feed the World and Itinerant Preachers

 

[The Pilgrim]

One problem is that I play much more slowly than most of you.

Nah, I'm probably slower.

 

[jeespoks]

Spoiler :

I went for Liberty as I wanted to settle the best spots available asap. Liberty's happiness policy also works well with the instant, free Harbors. I filled my island with four cities pretty quickly, settled the 4th city before T60. Hardbuilt two settlers on cap. Polynesia's settler was floating near my island early then and I was afraid he'd settle there.

Took GotS for extra hammers and found religion as 3rd, took Ceremonial Burial and Asceticism as happiness was quickly becoming a problem. There were no wars in first 100 turns and I had a DoF with 5 or 6 civs. Peaceful Science victory seemed like a good option but I had already taken a different path by beelining to Compass.

I received a lot of gold from lux trades and had four cities building Galleases so with rushbuying three of them, I had 7-8 of them ready go with 4 Quinqueremes to visit Ottomans since he had iron and I didn't. Around T105 I DoW'd him and took Ankara easily for Iron but Istanbul was a bit hard to get. Only three spots to shoot the city and he had an Xbow and a Galleas sitting there. Finally around T120 he was out of the game since England took his last city at the same turn as I took Istanbul.

William went Renaissance really early and I gambled my spy on his biggest city hoping to steal Navigation. Rushbought Uni on my cap and filled it with scientist just in case it went wrong. I had a GS from Liberty finisher and used it to finish Astronomy (I had 1 turn left) when finally after 16 long turns my spy brought good news and I was able to get Frigates around T120.

 

[cmorganuk]

Good luck with this one guys, some weeks back I experimented with diety large islands with a number of civs. I only managed to pull it off with polynesia and that was with reloads etc to play a perfect game.

You'll have massive problems keeping tech pace with the AI and them sprawling cities onto every single crappy tile is annoying. I'd go as far as saying this is verging on impossible, but you guys always surprise me.

 

[Light Cleric]

Maybe LC will show us something new. No pressure, mate.

Spoiler :

Unfortunately this map does not allow much flexibility Water maps have little flexibility to begin with and 2 heavy wonderspammer AIs just kills any attempt to get cute. There's also almost no settling spots anywhere near the initial island, so going Liberty to abuse dido's free trade routes isn't worth it.

 

[jkg777]

You should just convince yourself to purchase DLCs. I'll give you one of my god-mode start saves that you can use to practice tinkering your deity strategies. I had a Babylon start last weekend that I played "OCC" until turn ~160, rushed tech bombers with 3/4/6 RA chains and won by domination with bombers&cavs I think it was at turn 229. All this popping wonders like I was playing on emperor, thanks to broken OP petra starts (which, from my PoV is even more broken than DF)

Deau,

I'd love to get a copy of the save that you mentioned. Is it available somewhere?

Thanks.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Out of curiosity, what's a typical tech path on such a map? I found myself quite late to get Galeasses

Spoiler :

William DoWed me around T80 and almost immediately came with Galeasses. I'm now T100, 12 turns away from Compass, and will still have to build those Galeasses. Well, William couldn't actually hurt me, but with Galeasses around, i had to retreat my Quiqueremes often to heal, and since even a lone embarked scout 3 tiles away from your city blocks trade routes and sea ressources exploitation, this has almost stopped the growth of 2 of my cities, and brought me in negative GPT

I didn't felt like i was taking detours. Researched Pottery->Navigation, then The Wheel for the free trade routes. Mining->Masonry for that Marble. Then 1 turn from Construction for CBs (as it was only a one tech delay) and then, i started the long path towards Compas, staring with Writing to get Libraries.
Still very long, and those water ressources don't help either, rather than build a couple workers, you have to build plenty of 1 use workboats.

 

[Vintage Port]

Bob, I agree with the frustration of work boats. It's one of my biggests beefs and PITAs of this game. It's what keeps me from playing more water maps. I love the idea of water maps but building all these 1 time work boats drives me nuts.

1 worker can be used for the whole game improving tiles. Work boats get used only once. Too bad they can go work the tile for 3-6 turns and set up the resource and move on.

I hate work boats. Wasted time and hammers for 1 time use. Too bad you usually need the resource/hammers with a coastal start/city

 

[budweiser]

You really only need to build 1 work boat to connect the luxuries. Can chop. The rest you buy. Later on, I assign 1 single city to work boat production and they make boats until every city has all the boats it needs.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Spoiler :

Unfortunately this map does not allow much flexibility Water maps have little flexibility to begin with and 2 heavy wonderspammer AIs just kills any attempt to get cute. There's also almost no settling spots anywhere near the initial island, so going Liberty to abuse dido's free trade routes isn't worth it.

Like I said, no pressure.

You don't have to play for domination though. Culture?

 

[Vintage Port]

You really only need to build 1 work boat to connect the luxuries. Can chop. The rest you buy. Later on, I assign 1 single city to work boat production and they make boats until every city has all the boats it needs.

I do this but it still frustrates me. Say I have 3 cities on the coast I will likely have 3-4 (on average) lux/fish etc. that all could be improved. That is 9-12 work boats that have a 1 time use. What if I want to go a bit wider and have 5-6 cities on the coast or an island map. Ridiculous amounts of work boats.

I personally find it a waste when the worker mechanic is so much different in that they are worth every penny (or hammer) that you spend on them 10 fold. Non-stop tile improvements all game. Yes please.

I'd rather be doing something else than pumping out work boats from 1 city for a good chunk of the game.

This is one of my biggest frustrations as you may have noticed.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

You don't have to play for domination though. Culture?

Spoiler :

Culture, when the Oracle and Terracota Army (two of the easiest wonders and great for culture) both go off before T60

You really only need to build 1 work boat to connect the luxuries. Can chop. The rest you buy. Later on, I assign 1 single city to work boat production and they make boats until every city has all the boats it needs.

This assumes AIs will have 240 lump to trade your Lux, not always true in the early game, even on Deity. Otherwise you need time to accumulate your gold back and you can't buy Settlers with that gold until your treasury replenishes.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Spoiler :

Culture, when the Oracle and Terracota Army (two of the easiest wonders and great for culture) both go off before T60

Hard and perfect! (c) Old Peter

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

yeah, he (Old Peter) and a couple others havent been around lately. i guess RL is calling, hehe.

 

[Deau]

Please do, I'd definitely watch it. It'd interesting to see a LP of a map which is played by other players too.

Spoiler :

You're right and my tradeoff was eventually not being able to pick the enhancer beliefs early enough. Had to take what was left and took Feed the World and Itinerant Preachers

How can you whine about IP! It is hands down the best enhancer bonus. It is actually more potent than Religious text. People just don't see the bigger picture. Messiah is the only other enhancer belief I could consider over IP and it would be for a very specific GP spam settle strat - probably for a culture victory although possibly, to a lesser extent, to settle atop resources across a Korean Empire to trade some 1h-2h for 6f+2b

IP means you start spreading on newly found cities by AIs significantly earlier in the game. In any game where your expansion isn't a straight line, it means that you will have so many more cities actively pressuring other cities that the net pressure output on each city "within 10 tiles" is similar to that of RT. You just get to already start to work on cities further at the same time. It is a very solid chain reaction that's well beyond what RT can deliver.

 

[Merenptah]

Thanks for posting this tempting map and game ... stopped my GOTM game to play this ... for a big slap in the face

To all those thinking that being "Large Islands" this should be easier than a Pangea Deity game, I can assure you that this is not the case, because:

Spoiler :

1. No Wonders: I beelined Philosophy and started building Oracle before NC with Lizzy completing it a few turns in. Then I focusses on getting a GE, who then was just sitting there the entire game as not even the crappiest WW was ever available to be built. Had three cities and after Philosophy, Education went for Astronomy and got the Observatory ... still, I did not even get close in getting any WW.
   
2. No Iron: Didn't have any; CS didn't have any; AI had some available eventually but too late and too little for a Frigate rush.
   
3. No CS Allies: Most AIs where aggressively buying CS Alliances + Coups; did not manage to get a single Cultural CS Ally and only a sinlge Cultural CS Friend from having a Spy there for election rigging. My only ally was Vatican City (Religious CS on my island), where I had my first spy, and which I kept dear in case I would get attacked.
   
4. No Religious Choices: Despite "One with Nature" as Pantheon and with focused effort, i.e. with two early secondary cities and tile purchases, I wasn't even able to get "World Church" as Founder Belief, let alone "Religious Texts" as Enhancer Belief.
   
   
   

Looking forward to see how AE is doing or anyone else attempting a CV. Feedback on my game also much appreciated (see screenshot in spoiler).

 

[Fire0rb]

well Merenptah you really got a very low science output for this kind of stage of the game, even if you go cultural and have just 3 cities thats waaaaaaaaay to low to get anything done, i had 200 bpt at turn 160, but im now specialist in CVs so nothing to go here. In my games i had a good 100-150 culture /Turn without focussing it just via Aesthetics + 4 city output

Edit update from Turn 165

Spoiler :

Game starts veeery slow and its hard to get anything up techwise
i opened up liberty to get the island full asap because of the fact you cannot settle on luxuries to sell them and you dont meet other civs that early anyway

after filling the island i just tried to grow as much as possible while churning out galleasses from my capital and searching an easy target to get some iron (took very long though to get to the Galleasses)

In my game everyone is freindly but Kamehameha, who is at war with everybody else, so i chose a spot where he had 6 Iron and attacked him there as well.
Captured those 2 cities (which are very far away from my main island unfortunately but very far from Kamehamehas Home island as well, so no defense but some bought CBs in the cities) and upgraded 6 galleasses to Frigates Turn 130-150 (Gold shortage)

At the moment i am relocating the Frigates to attack the homeland of Kamehameha and trying to wipe him out (maybe selling some cities to other AIs for some serious profit, because all are at war with him)

My goal will be a Diplomatic Victory or Domination because very many CS are still alive (AI unable to conquer them) which is very good for Aesthetics + Pledge play to get a little bit of an edge.
Biggest Problem is the Tech. I am still 5th in tech with 10-12% back and this for some time but soon i will hit Public Schools so maybe it will get better as well with the conquering of Polynesia.

Spoiler :