Deity Peaceful Domination, No Rock Bands

[Minou]

Does anyone want to try an experiment? I think one of the great things about the Civ series for replay value is trying different non-standard rules/goals, like One City Challenge, no chopping games, or even no districts.

Recently, I tried a Peaceful Domination (all capitals flipped by loyalty, no war against AIs or City States, no pillaging) game as Eleanor with no Rock Bands (quick note: I feel Rock Bands ruin all the fun of this variant, turning the game into a simple culture rush instead of a chessboard game of strategic city placement and great work shuffling). I was able to win exactly T200 on a Small Pangea map on Prince. In that game I specified the AIs to be the last 5 on the list, to avoid Dido showing up and ruining the game and also unchecked the Cultural Victory box to avoid an accidental win.

That game was a great deal of of fun - lots of planning out where to settler and when to move governors and great works, along with some nail biting moments where front-line cities were nearly swamped by negative loyalty but a timely food-chop, missionary and/or governor saved the day.

I was curious whether the same thing was even possible on an unmodified Deity Standard map, but when I rolled this incredible start I had to try. This is a Deity Standard Pangea map with random AIs and all victory conditions enabled. I have played enough turns at this point to verify Dido is not in the game so it can be won without Rock Bands (which appear to neutralize Didos's 100% loyalty on home continent ability based on what I have read - have not tested myself).

I'll play to the finish and then post the results - not sure but I think a win is possible. Maybe the biggest risk is an accidental Cultural Victory since the AI can easily be stopped from all Victory Conditions. If anyone wants to join me here is the save.

 

[Pietato]

Yeah, Eleanor is mad fun.

 

[Minou]

Just hit T100 and I think it will be possible. In some ways it is easier than Prince with AIs trading vast amounts of gold and giving out two free cities by forward settling right next to my capital early and later bear three of my large cities.

 

[Victoria]

I was curious whether the same thing was even possible on an unmodified Deity Standard map,

I have posted a strat in a couple of other threads that is fun.
Pillage a civ, make peace and pay for open borders then protect smaller cities while another civ takes a fat city, which then flips to free due to loyalty issues you take that city and let them take another city.. then the civs small cities start crumbling through loyalty. It’s quite fun.

 

[BenitoChavez]

I play a lot of Eleanor and always win a cultural victory far sooner than I would a peaceful domination. Even when only using great works and a handful of wonders (no seaside resorts, tourism policy cards, rock bands, etc) my tourism tends outpace the AI's culture.

In order win a peaceful domination game, I think I'd have to sell off excess great works, avoid the tech/civics that give +tourism, and take the government that gives a -10% tourism modifier. Maybe also avoid things like open borders and trade routes. Perhaps declaring war on everyone as well for the negative modifier but only fight defensively.

 

[Minou]

@BenitoChavez
Yes, there is a real danger of accidentally winning a Cultural Victory. I think it is actually much less of a danger on Deity compared to Prince but part of it depends on if there is a high-culture Civ like Greece or Rome in the game. In theory it should be possible to delay a Cultural Victory into the T200-T300 bracket with a few strategies.

1. Avoid Open Borders (which means avoiding Alliances) to the extent possible. That reduces tourism by 25% with each AI. Early borders might be necessary with some Civs to move Settlers to good spots quickly, and I would still recommend getting one Alliance for the Diplomatic Service boost since Spies are useful in this variant. But, you can then let the Open Border or Alliance agreement expire.

2. Don't send any trade routes to AIs. This will avoid another 25% tourism modifier. Plus, it is often more useful to run internal trade routes to grow pop in this game anyway.

3. Try to completely wipe out Civ when possible. It doesn't hurt to keep taking more cities after you capture a capital (and this may be inevitable due to the domino effect). Eliminating an AI completely will result in no further tropism from them without reducing the cap for victory.

4. Bypass the Printing Press technology. This is a big one. You don't really need to go that far up the science tree for this strategy. Since you will have tons of Great Works of Writing, avoiding doubling their tourism is a good idea.

5. Avoid improvements that will produce tourism at Flight (or bypass Flight itself). Spamming Chateaus is probably the easiest way to accidentally trigger a CV in this particular game. Likewise, don't build unneeded wonders or things like seaside resorts / national parks.

6. Consider gifting the AI leading in culture that second Great Work of Music (which you probably won't be able to slot effectively for loyalty purposes) to give them a small culture boost.

@Victoria
Thanks for the note. I sometimes pillage a single city to flip it in warmonger games but have never set out to do it on a large scale. I'd be interested to hear how your strategy played out in terms of win time and lessons learned. In my game, I won't be trying any of that since my "peaceful" rules mean no declaring war and no taking cities or pillaging if I do happen to be declared on (not much of a danger since everyone signs Friendship in perpetuity these days).

 

[Victoria]

I'd be interested to hear how your strategy played out in terms of win time and lessons learned.

I tend not to declare wars both Cyrus and Pedro declared on me and are both down to a single city. Hungary keeps taking Pedro last city, it flips, I free it for Pedro. I guess I’ll protect it a little better next flip.
Playing a CV as the Cree, have 5 alliances and friends with everyone but Pedro despite taking about 10 cities by stealth. It’s just a straight CV gets boring for the 400th time. It takes a little longer because I am not concentrating all my cities on projects and culture buildings, but where is the fun in that.
Still learning lots of lessons but it is a repeatable process although quite varying in how they happen and what you have to do, I guess that’s what is keeping it interesting, as well as baiting a civ in the first place. I’ll prob post a better rundown after another 10 games doing it because it’s quite variable.