Deity Challenge 4

[Sneaks]

Spoiler :

Turn 120 and I've taken Paris. Harun DoWed but China snuck from behind him and took Damascus. I am pretty split on what to do now. I have half a mind to take my "eff you" cavalry south and conquer Oda, whose troops were severely depleted thanks to Nappy and Cathy. Massive puppet empire with Honor and Piety might be the best direction.

 

[RedRover57]

Spoiler :

My game is so ridiculous. I actually survived the situation in my last screenshot. Instead of blitzing my city and ending me, France declared on Cathy the next turn and took several of those troops (including the LS) around my city to the north in order to attack Cathy's city to the SW. The AI must be programmed to attack the city with the lowest strength, which was Cathy's city. I was able to hold my capitol against a now much weaker attack, bulb Chivalry, and now I have 6 Mandekalu with 2 more in the queue. I haven't been able to do much with them so far as France keeps sending troops at me, but I think he is now weakened considerably.

My bribing Oda again to fight France paid off (sort of). He ended up taking two of France's cities, but that put him in contact with my border to the SE. So on turn 114 he backstabbed me just as I was going to try for Cathy's city to my SW and I had to pull back to my territory. Now I am faced with fighting a war on all sides. I'm pretty much ready to just uninstall the game.

 

[RedRover57]

By the way, I'm trying to figure out what is so great about Askia anyway. I don't understand why he always gets ranked so high. I'll take 6 keshiks or CKN on turn 95 over 6 Mandekalu any day of the week. With only a movement of 3 the Mandekalu can't attack without getting hurt the next turn.

 

[Vo01985]

By the way, I'm trying to figure out what is so great about Askia anyway. I don't understand why he always gets ranked so high. I'll take 6 keshiks or CKN on turn 95 over 6 Mandekalu any day of the week. With only a movement of 3 the Mandekalu can't attack without getting hurt the next turn.

Yeah I totally agree. I too never seen the potential with Askia. I guess it must be that Mandekalu are great against cities, but your most important fights are fought over units, not cities. Keshiks are the single greatest unit in the game, for they allow you to deal damage without ever taking any.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Askia was completely evil back when MPMs were 5, didn't require Monuments and Landed Elite was what is now the Tradition finisher. You could very easily get a large vertical four city empire up and running by taking two in Liberty, then running down to Legalism. It was strictly better than Napoleon's UA, with the additional UA and the helpful UU. It was Napoleon on steroids, basically.

Now Askia is great up to Emperor and struggles on Deity. Pikes > Mandekalu, and the AIs like to spam Pikes. I agree that this would be a fairly simple game if we were Mongolia. 11 Keshiks and the token Horse would wreck house.

By the way, I'm trying to figure out what is so great about Askia anyway. I don't understand why he always gets ranked so high. I'll take 6 keshiks or CKN on turn 95 over 6 Mandekalu any day of the week. With only a movement of 3 the Mandekalu can't attack without getting hurt the next turn.

You can, but you have to bait the AI into bad positions and it frequently refuses to cooperate. The result is that you don't have control the way you did with old school Horses/CC or Keshiks. The Mandekalu are unwieldy at 3 moves, you can't kill as many units per turn as you'd like, and this makes it tough to get ahead of the reproduction rate of the zombie horde.

Hopefully I'll get back to the game this evening, but I want to finish up the "new school" article on teching first. I do need to figure out what to do with all that . Usually it's best to plow it back into units in a Domination setting (which is the only way I'll get a "Culture" win here before getting nuked to death - gimp all AIs), but I'm torn since Education is almost done and I really want to get a University in the capital to accelerate Machinery. Crossbows behind a Mandekalu screen are probably going to be the only way to actually kill stuff on the offensive.

 

[RedRover57]

The one good thing I will say about Mandekalu is that they are decent on defense since you can attack from inside a city, kill the unit then move back inside to safety. But playing defensive all game isn't going to cut it on this map.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I've found that a few tactics with Knights (and by extension Mandekalu) work:

- Wall. If you've got a tile that only one Pike can reach due to intervening water/rough terrain and isn't subject to heavy Archer/Catapult bombardment, the Pike won't attack even though it theoretically has the advantage. You can therefore hold things one tile away with the Mandekalu and then shoot them from two tiles away with ranged. Put appropriately promoted units on the tile whenever possible; if you do that, even two non-Pikes will almost never put the Mandekalu down until Rifles arrive.

- Rolling hit-and-fade. Once the opponent moves up to your wall, it's usually possible to kill the AI's critical zone of control units with ranged, then drill everything one tile away from the Mandekalu and retreat. That leaves the ranged units exposed, but if there aren't any Horses in range you'll be fine. Then you either scoot the ranged back or reform the wall with fresh Mandekalu, order the injured Mandekalu to heal and repeat.

Eventually you should scythe down enough units that things start getting pretty sparse on the opponent's side of the field. That's when you rush up to the city and smash it in a single turn - which is when the Mandekalu bonus does come in handy.

 

[RD-BH]

This is ridiculous.

6th attempt .. no go.

Spoiler :

Even though I had not met Napoleon at T83.
He bypassed a buffer city I sold to his warring rival,
... and he came out of the fog three deep on all sides to declare war on me.
... Can you say: "An unmet player has declared war on you!"

 

[puyo]

This is ridiculous.

6th attempt .. no go.

Spoiler :

Even though I had not met Napoleon at T83.
He bypassed a buffer city I sold to his warring rival,
... and he came out of the fog three deep on all sides to declare war on me.
... Can you say: "An unmet player has declared war on you!"

Spoiler :

How didn't you meet him before t83?????
he's right above, even if you don't meet him, he should meet you...

 

[RD-BH]

How didn't you meet him before t83?????
he's right above, even if you don't meet him, he should meet you...

Spoiler :

6th attempt: I was being "creative" 8)

I took a couple turns and settled to the west.
I built a buffer city (2 tiles west of start),
... then sold it to Hiawatha (2nd on score list)
When I met Napoleon he was at war with Hiawatha.
... but when fleeing with a wounded pike I took shelter near Hiawatha.
... since the city wasn't under attack and troops were flowing past on north
... I assume he declared war on Hiawatha just to get to me.
I'm disturbed he surrounded me on all sides each game.
The AI knows what tiles I can and cannot see.
... spooky.

 

[peddroelm]

I have 6 Mandekalu with 2 more in the queue. I haven't been able to do much with them so far ..

By the way, I'm trying to figure out what is so great about Askia anyway. I don't understand why he always gets ranked so high. I'll take 6 keshiks or CKN on turn 95 over 6 Mandekalu any day of the week. With only a movement of 3 the Mandekalu can't attack without getting hurt the next turn.

When not used for attacking cities the Mandekalu = plain Knights. Did you expect to roll over the map with only knights on deity ? They are not a I win button - you still need to have a balanced army...

 

[puyo]

Noooooo! I was forced to win by Diplomatic on turn 271 because of Iroquois who built the UN...

My mistake was to try to go too much cultural mixed with conquest, so I had a weak science output for a moment (my farest tech was nuclear fission ) and pushed conquest too late .

Given how cultural victory works for now, I should have focused more in conquests to prevent the stupid Hiwatha to build the UN while I had almost all the CS....

 

[Martin Alvito]

I'm glad someone has been able to get back to this. Between getting slammed IRL, the popcorn-inducing discussion over in General and trying to tighten down the science article down to unassailability, I've been too busy to play this further.

I think that you're absolutely right in your thesis. To satisfy the conditions, this has to be played as a Domination game where you break every AI's capability to generate a win condition in about the 160 turns after you get Chivalry. You have to make a ton of sacrifices in the early game in order to survive, and as a result a Cultural win in a reasonable time frame just isn't feasible. Knocking over adjacent civs is the only way to both recoup the lost investments in survival and to stay alive; knocking over more distant civs is the only way to catch up.

 

[MinutiaRules]

Thanks to Martin Alvito posts at turn 171 on my 3rd attempt I'm at the following position:

Spoiler :

Plan? Annex Paris. It already has two wonders and looks like good production potential. Then play defensively and try for a cultural VC. No idea how far I will get. But I see no reason to disturb japan at this moment as they have been more than friendly throughout. We'll see.

 

[puyo]

@MinutiaRules

Spoiler :

Thanks to Martin Alvito posts at turn 171 on my 3rd attempt I'm at the following position:

Plan? Annex Paris. It already has two wonders and looks like good production potential. Then play defensively and try for a cultural VC. No idea how far I will get. But I see no reason to disturb japan at this moment as they have been more than friendly throughout. We'll see.
View attachment 299339
View attachment 299340

Not to be pessimistic but I can't see how you'll be able to win a peacy Cultural victory, seeing your position, even with conquest... your science output is too low, same for culture, for turn 171. Japan won't way too long before declaring war to you!
Good luck though

 

[MinutiaRules]

@MinutiaRules

Spoiler :

Not to be pessimistic but I can't see how you'll be able to win a peacy Cultural victory, seeing your position, even with conquest... your science output is too low, same for culture, for turn 171. Japan won't way too long before declaring war to you!
Good luck though

Spoiler :

As it turns out I did end up losing this. I have little experience with Cultural play. So this game has worked out fine for learning. One problem was I didn't finish the Piety tree before going on to other policies. DUH! And I could have signed more earlier RAs. And I could have belined to industrial instead of filling in all same level techs. And possibly hook up more cultural CSes. Not sure if that would be enough but I'm going to try. BTW for some reason Japan stayed my undying friend to the end. Even though they eliminated France, they didn't refuse a DOF at any time.

 

[l4d2bob]

What if im not good at civ

 

[RedRover57]

So I guess people gave up on this challenge? The map is probably too tough for a culture victory. However, I would still like to see if anyone can win a cultural victory on a Deity pangaea map. Maybe I will try to post a start with a little better production (and hopefully not so vulnerable to attack from multiple sides). Any suggestion for the civ (should I try Askia again)? Also, do people care if DLC are used?

 

[snarzberry]

However, I would still like to see if anyone can win a cultural victory on a Deity pangaea map.

That I have done, not long after the patch and with Askia too.

However I was hosed in this game around turn 120 by a triple front war, cathy dealt the death blow I only attempted it once.

I like Askia as a civ, though you could try someone else. Personally I'd prefer it if we left the victory condition open ended because it's interesting seeing the different approaches people take to the same map.

Another suggestion, next a civ that doesn't specialize in a particular win condition would be good, like Persia. We might get some pretty wildly different games.

 

[puyo]

You can win this one by just playing like a domination game and wait for the cultural victory...
A fake cultural victory