LukaSlovenia29
Emperor
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2016
- Messages
- 1,500
Hello, all.
Here's a writeup of a just completed Deity game with the February 7th version, no other mods. The post after this will include save files from various points in the game.
Settings: All standard/default, Oval map, played as Byzantium (selected) with selected AIs: Alexander, Askia, Arabia, Ethiopia, Egypt, Montezuma and Isabella. Game options were default, but also "Allow human vassalage", "No ancient ruins", disabled events system, disabled research agreements, disabled all tech trading.
Started on the easternmost point of the map, on the coast (does Byzantium still have coast bias? If so, it should be removed, imho), but after moving the pathfinder, I saw a big lake to the northwest, so I decided to move my settler there and settle San Francisco the next turn (I like to play as a "Star trek" type of Earth civilization, so I try to include city names from all continents). My starting luxury resource monopoly was Furs (with a copy Dyes next to my capital).
After seeing that it was a big lake and that there were some marshes, I decided to beeline for the Purity pantheon, so I went Shrine first. After that, I built a warrior (due to barbs) while waiting to have enough money to invest in a monument as my 3rd project. After that, I pumped out two settlers. While waiting for the settlers, I risked and parked both my pathfinder and warrior to the northern part of the lake (it was a 7 or 8 tile lake) to try to block any incoming Aztec settlers (Monty started to the north, to the south and east was the ocean, and to the west/southwest a belt of city states, and beyond that Ethiopia in the southwest and Egypt in northwest) from settling a city next to the lake. Luckily, I wasn't punished by barbs and Monty didn't decide to send a settler to the lake (which imo he should, considering his UB).
I chose progress, since I planned a peaceful game, so Authority wasn't viable, and I think Progress scales much better long-term than Tradition. Tech wise I chose Animal Husbandry first (to see where to settle for horses), then Potter. I risked going for Military Technology to get horses ASAP for an almost certain attack from Monty in the future, so I left Trapping quite late, but since camps only provide 1 gold to Furs, it wasn't such a big opportunity cost.
My 3rd city was settled in a forest/jungle area to the west, calculated to prevent Monty from settling to the north or west of this 3rd city. I bought tiles to the west to prevent Monty from settling there and thus also securing a placeholder spot for a city late in the game, with a colonist, where&when I could use great generals to expand into city states' territories.
I then built another warrior, then another spearman (I went for BW instead of trapping, again in anticipation of Monty), then another settler, which formed a 4th city below the 3rd city/west of my Capital. I moved to researching Construction for wall, while using my Capital to produce several spearmen/horsemen, and using my north lake city to produce two settlers for two coastal cities, one east of the capital (I debated placing it on the eastern ocean-looking coast where it would be more vulnerable vs. placing it in one hill southwest to overlook the southern ocean. I think I made a mistake in going for the more vulnerable place, but luckily it only faced one naval invasion in the whole game, which it survived without much problem), and the other to the south of the capital, thus completing my settling phase.
Around that time the Monty of the Asstecs came knocking with his army, and it looked dicey for a while, but due to my horses/spearman and a great general (which I parked in the city to increase its CS), I held him off. This was the first of two or three wars with Monty, other than that I was never in a war.
As for religion, Haile predictably founded very early, followed by Izzy, I was the third and Alex the fourth. My religion (and in general my early game!) was slow to start, so both Spain and Ethiopia spread to around 15 cities each before I enhanced, while Alex's religion never passed 5 cities and eventually lost even its holy city to another religion.
I founded with Way of Transcendence, Mandirs (to prevent GP assassination and provide extra food) and Holy law (science, gold, faith when adopting a policy). I purposefully didn't immediately spread, saving up for the 2nd GP, used it to enhance to Pacifism (cheaper missionaries and extra happiness) and Churches (doesn't really help that much for non-founders, but it helps me with extra strength for missionaries, lower boredom and more faith). I used my first few missionaries/inquisitors to rid the rest of my cities from Ethiopia's religion, just in time to have 6 cities following my religion entering the medieval era. Since both Ethiopia and Spain reformed, it was easier for me to grab St. Basil's, allowing me to pick "One world, one religion", invaluable for mass spreading of your religion. By that time I opened Fealty, quickly bought Churches, Mandirs and Monasteries, and with Basilicas coming online, I had lots of faith production, and my missionaries cost around 90 and 110 faith, so very cheap. I first used my missionaries to convert the neighbouring CSs.
I then got open borders with 7-city Egypt, sent around 25 missionaries (huge drain with their maintenance) and timed it to turn 5 cities around in 1 turn, usurping Ethiopia's religion. The second wave of missionaries was sent to Songhai (west of Egypt/Greece, north of Spain), which had Spain's religion. I managed to convert its 6 cities before the arrival of the Renaissance era (which I artificially delayed by researching first tier Renaissance tech to 1 or 2 turns till discovery). After that, I used other missionaries to convert Arabia (which was early in the game lost two cities to Alex and then became a vassal with 2 cities to Ethiopia, which had 6 cities, two of which coastal snowy), other city states and Aztecs. At some point I converted several of Alex's cities, since I saw he wasn't active with his religion and since we already had a DoF. After that, Ethiopia tried to put up a fight by flipping some CS to its religion, but eventually stopped, and also tried twice to pass its religion as the world religion, but without success. I eventually succeeded in passing my religion as the world religion.
The first DoFs came very easy, perhaps too easy, but there wasn't any weird stuff with DoFs/denouncements. I befriended Egypt, Ethiopia, Greece, Songhai and Spain, and after a 2nd or 3rd war, also Monty. There were quite many wars among the rest, eventually Greece gobbled up Arabia, Songhai conquered most of Spain, some CS and some Alex's cities.
The rest of the game was mainly about trying to keep track of Ethiopia, which was the tech leader/runaway. One of my first WC proposals was the World Science Initiative, which helped a lot. Ethiopia went Tradition/Statecraft/Rationalism/Order. Egypt and Greece went with Freedom, so I reluctantly followed (Egypt had LOTS of tourism, plus I rather risked war with Ethiopia than Greece&Egypt), since I generally dislike Freedom and prefer Order.
After finishing Fealty, I went for Rationalism (as did Egypt and Greece), then Freedom. I managed to get Eiffel's tower, but other than that most of the game I only had that and St. Basil's (Borobodur went unclaimed for the whole game!). I bought 3 great writers during/after the 20 turn culture bust from the World fair, but other than that I was saving my faith to buy great scientists to keep up with Ethiopia. I focused on GS generation in my cities, and I think later in the game I bought 7 GS with faith before they became too expensive (I think the last one I bought was around 20 or 30 thousand faith, I remember having 65+ thousand faith saved up at some point).
I tried to keep friendly with 3-4 military CS, which spared me lots of hammers due to gifted military units, other than the occasional bought diplomat I didn't vie for CS influence.
Ethiopia got Motherland and Sydney opera house, Egypt got Statue of Liberty, so I was falling behind somewhat culture, but generally not too far behind. Ethiopia went top of the tree, at one point my spy informed me that Haile was building Hubble, but never completed it, which was a major turning point. Really inexplicable. Some 30 turns after that report I finished Hubble, then rushed to discover the CERN technology, which I later built. At some point I overtook Ethiopia, with the other AIs lagging behind 7+ techs behind us. Both Egypt and Greece came relatively close to a diplomatic victories (40 votes out of 44 required).
I ultimately won a science victory on turn 359.
Some observations:
- Ethiopia not finishing Hubble was a huge thing. I still think I could have won, but it would have been a lot closer (on the last turn Ethiopia had 79 techs to my 81). It didn't have any unhappiness problems, no real threats due to warfare,..., so really weird. I don't know how the decision which wonder to build is made, but I think some wonders should be given a huge ponder or perhaps nerfed (maybe just one extra GS from Hubble, not two, and just one extra tech from Cern, not two, or perhaps a free SS Booster).
- Egypt proposed the repeal of travel ban, which was smart since it had the most tourism and was influential on 2 civs at the time, but then it voted against its own proposal, even though no other civs was closer to winning a CV.
- late game some some absurdly low valuation of strategic resource (Alex was friendly with me, had no oil, still offered 30 of value for 1 oil), with one exception at one point Egypt offering 3 luxuries, lots of gold and strategic resources for 3 items of oi.
- Founder beliefs need another look, I'll post soon in the discussion thread.
- DoF tendency (at least for the first DoF) could be a bit lower.
- I still think both CV and SV need tweaking, like I already proposed in the past, to prevent "hoarding" SS parts, GMs etc. and unleashing them all in one turn. The AI needs time to be warned of an approaching defeat, so it can try to throw the kitchen sink at the leader. At the time I proposed that the SS part and all GPs (except great admirals and generals) "vanish" after a set number of turn unless expended. Alternatively we could have a requirement of "15 turns (number TBD" after becoming influential with all civs/launching a SS, where if your capital is captured, the SS is destroyed and your influence with all civs is reset to "popular".
- Ethiopia is so great, I don't know how, but they're soooo good at being at the top of the leaderboard/techboard in basically all games I've seen, unless they're the first victim of a warmonger a la Shaka.
- Ethiopia at some point denounced me for having different ideologies and for competing for wonders (that Eiffel one I got) and it stayed icy for the rest of the game. I braced myself for an attack, but it never came.
- Freedom's Tier 3 policy of buying SS parts needs, imho, changing or tunning. SS are too cheap (around 4400 per part) and only have a cooling period of 2 turns. Order's Tier 3 is much less useful, because GEs have been nerfed and GEs are rarer than gold in the late game.
- I still wish (founding) AIs would be more inclined to station patrol inquisitors in their cities and to use them regularly to clean their cities. In this game, Alex's religion was a non factor.
Thanks for your attention and thanks in advance for any feedback. Saves to follow.
Here's a writeup of a just completed Deity game with the February 7th version, no other mods. The post after this will include save files from various points in the game.
Settings: All standard/default, Oval map, played as Byzantium (selected) with selected AIs: Alexander, Askia, Arabia, Ethiopia, Egypt, Montezuma and Isabella. Game options were default, but also "Allow human vassalage", "No ancient ruins", disabled events system, disabled research agreements, disabled all tech trading.
Started on the easternmost point of the map, on the coast (does Byzantium still have coast bias? If so, it should be removed, imho), but after moving the pathfinder, I saw a big lake to the northwest, so I decided to move my settler there and settle San Francisco the next turn (I like to play as a "Star trek" type of Earth civilization, so I try to include city names from all continents). My starting luxury resource monopoly was Furs (with a copy Dyes next to my capital).
After seeing that it was a big lake and that there were some marshes, I decided to beeline for the Purity pantheon, so I went Shrine first. After that, I built a warrior (due to barbs) while waiting to have enough money to invest in a monument as my 3rd project. After that, I pumped out two settlers. While waiting for the settlers, I risked and parked both my pathfinder and warrior to the northern part of the lake (it was a 7 or 8 tile lake) to try to block any incoming Aztec settlers (Monty started to the north, to the south and east was the ocean, and to the west/southwest a belt of city states, and beyond that Ethiopia in the southwest and Egypt in northwest) from settling a city next to the lake. Luckily, I wasn't punished by barbs and Monty didn't decide to send a settler to the lake (which imo he should, considering his UB).
I chose progress, since I planned a peaceful game, so Authority wasn't viable, and I think Progress scales much better long-term than Tradition. Tech wise I chose Animal Husbandry first (to see where to settle for horses), then Potter. I risked going for Military Technology to get horses ASAP for an almost certain attack from Monty in the future, so I left Trapping quite late, but since camps only provide 1 gold to Furs, it wasn't such a big opportunity cost.
My 3rd city was settled in a forest/jungle area to the west, calculated to prevent Monty from settling to the north or west of this 3rd city. I bought tiles to the west to prevent Monty from settling there and thus also securing a placeholder spot for a city late in the game, with a colonist, where&when I could use great generals to expand into city states' territories.
I then built another warrior, then another spearman (I went for BW instead of trapping, again in anticipation of Monty), then another settler, which formed a 4th city below the 3rd city/west of my Capital. I moved to researching Construction for wall, while using my Capital to produce several spearmen/horsemen, and using my north lake city to produce two settlers for two coastal cities, one east of the capital (I debated placing it on the eastern ocean-looking coast where it would be more vulnerable vs. placing it in one hill southwest to overlook the southern ocean. I think I made a mistake in going for the more vulnerable place, but luckily it only faced one naval invasion in the whole game, which it survived without much problem), and the other to the south of the capital, thus completing my settling phase.
Around that time the Monty of the Asstecs came knocking with his army, and it looked dicey for a while, but due to my horses/spearman and a great general (which I parked in the city to increase its CS), I held him off. This was the first of two or three wars with Monty, other than that I was never in a war.
As for religion, Haile predictably founded very early, followed by Izzy, I was the third and Alex the fourth. My religion (and in general my early game!) was slow to start, so both Spain and Ethiopia spread to around 15 cities each before I enhanced, while Alex's religion never passed 5 cities and eventually lost even its holy city to another religion.
I founded with Way of Transcendence, Mandirs (to prevent GP assassination and provide extra food) and Holy law (science, gold, faith when adopting a policy). I purposefully didn't immediately spread, saving up for the 2nd GP, used it to enhance to Pacifism (cheaper missionaries and extra happiness) and Churches (doesn't really help that much for non-founders, but it helps me with extra strength for missionaries, lower boredom and more faith). I used my first few missionaries/inquisitors to rid the rest of my cities from Ethiopia's religion, just in time to have 6 cities following my religion entering the medieval era. Since both Ethiopia and Spain reformed, it was easier for me to grab St. Basil's, allowing me to pick "One world, one religion", invaluable for mass spreading of your religion. By that time I opened Fealty, quickly bought Churches, Mandirs and Monasteries, and with Basilicas coming online, I had lots of faith production, and my missionaries cost around 90 and 110 faith, so very cheap. I first used my missionaries to convert the neighbouring CSs.
I then got open borders with 7-city Egypt, sent around 25 missionaries (huge drain with their maintenance) and timed it to turn 5 cities around in 1 turn, usurping Ethiopia's religion. The second wave of missionaries was sent to Songhai (west of Egypt/Greece, north of Spain), which had Spain's religion. I managed to convert its 6 cities before the arrival of the Renaissance era (which I artificially delayed by researching first tier Renaissance tech to 1 or 2 turns till discovery). After that, I used other missionaries to convert Arabia (which was early in the game lost two cities to Alex and then became a vassal with 2 cities to Ethiopia, which had 6 cities, two of which coastal snowy), other city states and Aztecs. At some point I converted several of Alex's cities, since I saw he wasn't active with his religion and since we already had a DoF. After that, Ethiopia tried to put up a fight by flipping some CS to its religion, but eventually stopped, and also tried twice to pass its religion as the world religion, but without success. I eventually succeeded in passing my religion as the world religion.
The first DoFs came very easy, perhaps too easy, but there wasn't any weird stuff with DoFs/denouncements. I befriended Egypt, Ethiopia, Greece, Songhai and Spain, and after a 2nd or 3rd war, also Monty. There were quite many wars among the rest, eventually Greece gobbled up Arabia, Songhai conquered most of Spain, some CS and some Alex's cities.
The rest of the game was mainly about trying to keep track of Ethiopia, which was the tech leader/runaway. One of my first WC proposals was the World Science Initiative, which helped a lot. Ethiopia went Tradition/Statecraft/Rationalism/Order. Egypt and Greece went with Freedom, so I reluctantly followed (Egypt had LOTS of tourism, plus I rather risked war with Ethiopia than Greece&Egypt), since I generally dislike Freedom and prefer Order.
After finishing Fealty, I went for Rationalism (as did Egypt and Greece), then Freedom. I managed to get Eiffel's tower, but other than that most of the game I only had that and St. Basil's (Borobodur went unclaimed for the whole game!). I bought 3 great writers during/after the 20 turn culture bust from the World fair, but other than that I was saving my faith to buy great scientists to keep up with Ethiopia. I focused on GS generation in my cities, and I think later in the game I bought 7 GS with faith before they became too expensive (I think the last one I bought was around 20 or 30 thousand faith, I remember having 65+ thousand faith saved up at some point).
I tried to keep friendly with 3-4 military CS, which spared me lots of hammers due to gifted military units, other than the occasional bought diplomat I didn't vie for CS influence.
Ethiopia got Motherland and Sydney opera house, Egypt got Statue of Liberty, so I was falling behind somewhat culture, but generally not too far behind. Ethiopia went top of the tree, at one point my spy informed me that Haile was building Hubble, but never completed it, which was a major turning point. Really inexplicable. Some 30 turns after that report I finished Hubble, then rushed to discover the CERN technology, which I later built. At some point I overtook Ethiopia, with the other AIs lagging behind 7+ techs behind us. Both Egypt and Greece came relatively close to a diplomatic victories (40 votes out of 44 required).
I ultimately won a science victory on turn 359.
Some observations:
- Ethiopia not finishing Hubble was a huge thing. I still think I could have won, but it would have been a lot closer (on the last turn Ethiopia had 79 techs to my 81). It didn't have any unhappiness problems, no real threats due to warfare,..., so really weird. I don't know how the decision which wonder to build is made, but I think some wonders should be given a huge ponder or perhaps nerfed (maybe just one extra GS from Hubble, not two, and just one extra tech from Cern, not two, or perhaps a free SS Booster).
- Egypt proposed the repeal of travel ban, which was smart since it had the most tourism and was influential on 2 civs at the time, but then it voted against its own proposal, even though no other civs was closer to winning a CV.
- late game some some absurdly low valuation of strategic resource (Alex was friendly with me, had no oil, still offered 30 of value for 1 oil), with one exception at one point Egypt offering 3 luxuries, lots of gold and strategic resources for 3 items of oi.
- Founder beliefs need another look, I'll post soon in the discussion thread.
- DoF tendency (at least for the first DoF) could be a bit lower.
- I still think both CV and SV need tweaking, like I already proposed in the past, to prevent "hoarding" SS parts, GMs etc. and unleashing them all in one turn. The AI needs time to be warned of an approaching defeat, so it can try to throw the kitchen sink at the leader. At the time I proposed that the SS part and all GPs (except great admirals and generals) "vanish" after a set number of turn unless expended. Alternatively we could have a requirement of "15 turns (number TBD" after becoming influential with all civs/launching a SS, where if your capital is captured, the SS is destroyed and your influence with all civs is reset to "popular".
- Ethiopia is so great, I don't know how, but they're soooo good at being at the top of the leaderboard/techboard in basically all games I've seen, unless they're the first victim of a warmonger a la Shaka.
- Ethiopia at some point denounced me for having different ideologies and for competing for wonders (that Eiffel one I got) and it stayed icy for the rest of the game. I braced myself for an attack, but it never came.
- Freedom's Tier 3 policy of buying SS parts needs, imho, changing or tunning. SS are too cheap (around 4400 per part) and only have a cooling period of 2 turns. Order's Tier 3 is much less useful, because GEs have been nerfed and GEs are rarer than gold in the late game.
- I still wish (founding) AIs would be more inclined to station patrol inquisitors in their cities and to use them regularly to clean their cities. In this game, Alex's religion was a non factor.
Thanks for your attention and thanks in advance for any feedback. Saves to follow.
