Deity Peaceful Space [Fractal/Standard/Normal]

[Nick723]

Hello fellow civ fanatics!

It's time for a new challenge! It's time to unleash the ultimate builder in you! It's time to beat deity as you have never done so before...!

I present: the peaceful space challenge!

Spoiler The rules of the game: :

- Must win by space victory
- Must not declare war unprompted (i.e. through diplo screen or by clicking on scoreboard)
- The following are acceptable reasons to enter war:

• Declared on by an AI
• AP resolution
• Accepting a war bribe from a 3rd party AI
• Pulled in as part of a defensive pact

- If at war:

• Can fight normally, including taking cities, however,
• Must take first available peace option that is in player's favour (i.e. AI is paying for peace). For the avoidance of doubt, the player can pay for peace earlier if so desired
• May not capitulate an AI as part of a peace deal
• Must return any conquered cities to the AI following peace

- The following are allowed

• Razing cities
• Taking and keeping barbarian cities

Spoiler Our first leader :

Perhaps the best leader for this sort of challenge. Spiritual is super helpful to avoid dying, financial for that extra oomph. Both uniques are handy and starting techs (Wheel/Mining) are good as well.

And of course most importantly, guarantees that there's no AI Mansa in the game, helping to keep the tech rate down.

Spoiler The map :

The map here is

Spoiler :

Highly favourable!

I have played this map already. I lost, but got close enough to winning to think that some of you guys will do it no bother! I figured we'd start with a (relatively) easy one, then more challenging games can be played. Don't expect this to be a walk in the park though...peaceful space games are nail biting throughout in my experience!

Spoiler Our starting position :

May you reach the stars...!

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Spoiler Up to T155: :

I settled on the hill. What lies in the darkness? Iso-start + space mandate lead to a rather conservative opening - full fogbust + pottery after agriculture. My settler only needs to be ready when I discover Animal Husbandry.

The expansion out - Kumbi Saleh will be the long term capital. I tech to Writing then to Monarchy - this is the last tech I absolutely need before waiting for an academy. One nice thing about Iso-start is that you can go through a dark age with little repercussion since you have no trading partners anyways.

There is some argument that with marble on the corner of the map, Great Library + National Epic would be super nice for the long run. I contend that with this type of start, grabbing Monarchy AND Literature would be a pretty expensive play, especially since you have to burn through your Optics stockpile without an academy, and every turn counts for tech trading.

Emerging from the other side of the dark age after the academy goes up. 695 gold saved. Palace reconstruction in full gear. Note that Djenne has no granary and is on full Settler/worker building duty.

At the turn of the 1st century - settling more than I normally would, since aiming at space. Not bad on optics timing.

Contact +1 bulb to Astronomy means I finally get to cut a few good deals. At least it looks like Mali has an exclusive supply of wine, which is great. New cities go up immediately.

I follow two rules on trades, playing an isolated start. 1) Never trade Astro if you can help it. 2) Double trade with each civ you contact before discovering the next civ to minimize the counter on "We fear you are becoming too advanced"

Overall, the race to liberalism has been pretty rock solid. There were some nice trades around the Optics/Machinery/Philosophy/Feudalism/Paper tier that I took full advantage of without releasing Astronomy or Education into the pool. Again, not sure if possible if I had delayed for Monarchy and Literature.

In 780 AD (T150), I made the tough decision of taking Printing Press with Liberalism. While it was theoretically possible to take Scientific Method by self-teching Printing Press, I was pretty sure everyone was on Education by now, and I really wanted to grab Economics for the great merchant and to force civs out of mercantilism.

Tech situation on turn 155 - acquired Economics first - I have a feeling it was pretty close. Ground breaking for Oxford starts on T157.

Huyana and Hannibal don't like Victoria. Saladin and Caesar don't like Hatshepsut.

 

[soundjata]

Question about the game rules:
Are we allowed to bribe X against Y?

 

[Nick723]

Question about the game rules:
Are we allowed to bribe X against Y?

Yes we are! Indeed, often v important to keep others occupied.

 

[Nick723]

Lack of replies suggest that this is harder than I thought. I’ll post some updates from my failed game soon to get the ball rolling (hopefully over the weekend).

In the meantime however, some generic tips from my experience (non spoilers)

Spoiler Generic tips :

- the Town is the strongest tile improvement
- late game civics are the ones at the bottom of the list (emancipation, environmentalism, in particular)
- democracy is a tech to beeline
- being first to space is normally not the issue, but preventing culture / domination / dying
- golden ages are generally the best use of GPP
- it pays to have one ‘super production city’ that can build the internet and Apollo programme
- the late game happiness wonders (hit movies etc.) are nice to snag
- corporations aren’t worth it outside of aluminium co if needed
- the space elevator is worth it if you can get it
- launch your spaceship at the earliest opportunity

 

[Fippy]

In my case i don't play Civ atm, but i'd strongly consider this if i would
But really really don't even think about the Space Elevator..has been showcased long ago that it's never worth getting.

 

[Nick723]

In my case i don't play Civ atm, but i'd strongly consider this if i would
But really really don't even think about the Space Elevator..has been showcased long ago that it's never worth getting.

Hmmm you may well be correct (you usually are) but I’m not 100% sure here. I have seen some of those analyses and they are very different games.

In a non peaceful space game your total commerce + production is much higher, making it not worth it. With a lower overall output, my experience was that it did help, but I might be wrong. Anyway, not the big point here, building space elevator or not is the least of your worries when winning these maps. Got to get there first!

 

[soundjata]

I'm not used to preventing AIs grabbing a victory of their own in the late game, but I know what I want to beeline:

Spoiler :

Kremlin is the key for me, in conjunction with many cottages (>50 is the target) so that rushbuying becomes an acceptable deal
Astro > Scientific Method > Communism (trade for Democracy)
Be a Spy Lord in the late game

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

AP resolutions. Do we have to vote "no" to a war? (We don't have to defy). If we are the chair, can we propose to go to war with a target?

When the AI drags us into war, do we have to check the diplo screen every single turn to see if they will accept a fair or better peace treaty, or are we only obligated to accept if they offer?

What is a "war bribe" from an AI? I've never had anyone pay me to go to war, they only ever want me to join their wars for nothing.

I must give back conquered cities but can I keep cities given in a peace treaty?

Can I keep cities flipped using culture?

 

[Nick723]

AP resolutions. Do we have to vote "no" to a war? (We don't have to defy). If we are the chair, can we propose to go to war with a target?

When the AI drags us into war, do we have to check the diplo screen every single turn to see if they will accept a fair or better peace treaty, or are we only obligated to accept if they offer?

What is a "war bribe" from an AI? I've never had anyone pay me to go to war, they only ever want me to join their wars for nothing.

I must give back conquered cities but can I keep cities given in a peace treaty?

Can I keep cities flipped using culture?

Good questions!

1. On AP, we can vote yes or no or defy on ‘stop the war’ or ‘holy war’ votes. As chair, we can instigate a holy war.

2. In war, yes you should check every turn. This is the main rule to prevent conquest by the back door. In general, I expect your army is likely to be small enough that you are unlikely be in position to do much extortion.

3. Yes ‘war bribe’ is the wrong term here, rather was request or demand. You can say yes to these.

4. No keeping of cities given in a peace treaty.

5. Yes you can keep these!

In general, I’m trying to give the player some diplomatic flexibility, whilst preserving the overall peaceful nature. For example, accepting a war request might be needed to keep an AI onside, even if little actual fighting is then done. If you had to say ‘no’ to all these things it would be quite an uninteresting challenge I think, as it would be very luck dependent on the diplo side.

I also kept razing cities in, originally I had it out but this is directly to allow the player some flexibility to prevent culture victories. Of course, you have to engineer a war declaration, but then you can put together a hit squad to raze a legendary city. Without this culture is too luck dependent (generally culture comes before space) and I wanted to give the player a fighting chance here too!

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

When I conquer cities, may I gift it to another player? May I move the palace there? May I setup a colony? In these cases you don't give the cities back after peace.

Are we closing these loopholes?

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

I'm not used to preventing AIs grabbing a victory of their own in the late game, but I know what I want to beeline:

Spoiler :

Kremlin is the key for me, in conjunction with many cottages (>50 is the target) so that rushbuying becomes an acceptable deal
Astro > Scientific Method > Communism (trade for Democracy)
Be a Spy Lord in the late game

I've never used that wonder before. Could you possible expand a bit more about this strategy?

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Okay, I played up to T155 - updated post above. Could really use some advice from others on next steps:

Spoiler :

What I'm not really sure about is how to max out beakers peacefully here - my guess is that getting to around 1200-1400 beakers would be ideal for having a shot at space.

A couple of notes:

1) Oxford construction starts on T157, current slider breakeven point is 70% - I have sole possession of Liberalism, Economics, and Printing Press. Oxford and some natural growth would easily get me another 200 BPT, hitting the 800 range.

2) A couple wonders are potential candidates:

a) Kremlin, as mentioned above. I could've taken Scientific Method with Liberalism, but would've lost on Economics. How many remaining buildings do I need to whip? I think Harbor, Trade Houses, Banks (?), Markets (?), Some Observatories, Laboratories, Factories Levees. Theaters? Oh I wished I had a chance at a religion this game. Is there enough gain here to be had for the wonder?
b) Statue of Liberty, although at the 10-12 city range, its power is limited
c) Hoover Dam, Broadway, Rock and Roll, Eiffel tower. Desperately need more production and happiness.
d) United Nations. What does modern diplomacy look like here?

3) The bigger problem is that normally at this point the goal would be to conquer more land in order to "breakout" to space. However, that doesn't fall under the rules of this challenge!

Therefore, I have to maximize the use of land that I have, which likely means settling 2 more terrible cities that I normally wouldn't? Is it worthwhile?




4) The bigger problem is resources - As you can see below, I am trading mainly wine for both health and happiness Happiness cap is at around 10 right now, Health is also at 10 for cities not on a river.

I could try for a hard play at (Fur, Ivory, Silk) Whale (owned), and commit to markets in the short run?

 

[soundjata]

I've never used that wonder before. Could you possible expand a bit more about this strategy?

Spoiler :

(from memory) When rushbuying the conversion rate is 3 > 1
With Kremlin it becomes 2 > 1
If the city has market+grocer+bank you finally get 1 for 1 (when slider is at zero) which is great when most of your cities are in the 100 /turn range.

The focus is to whip those commerce multipliers, get Kremlin (and maybe Wallstreet too!) while switching to Universal Suffrage. Wonders can also be rushbought.

Also avoid hammer multipliers (until the very late game) because they brings no benefit (and give )

By the look of our island, not every city is going to generate lots of gold. Some will have to provide hammers in a more traditional way

 

[Nick723]

When I conquer cities, may I gift it to another player? May I move the palace there? May I setup a colony? In these cases you don't give the cities back after peace.

Are we closing these loopholes?

Yes, please don’t do any of these things

Rather than debate the precise rules, please get stuck in. This is not HOF

Okay, I played up to T155 - updated post above. Could really use some advice from others on next steps:

Spoiler :

What I'm not really sure about is how to max out beakers peacefully here - my guess is that getting to around 1200-1400 beakers would be ideal for having a shot at space.

View attachment 656993

A couple of notes:

1) Oxford construction starts on T157, current slider breakeven point is 70% - I have sole possession of Liberalism, Economics, and Printing Press. Oxford and some natural growth would easily get me another 200 BPT, hitting the 800 range.

2) A couple wonders are potential candidates:

a) Kremlin, as mentioned above. I could've taken Scientific Method with Liberalism, but would've lost on Economics. How many remaining buildings do I need to whip? I think Harbor, Trade Houses, Banks (?), Markets (?), Some Observatories, Laboratories, Factories Levees. Theaters? Oh I wished I had a chance at a religion this game. Is there enough gain here to be had for the wonder?
b) Statue of Liberty, although at the 10-12 city range, its power is limited
c) Hoover Dam, Broadway, Rock and Roll, Eiffel tower. Desperately need more production and happiness.
d) United Nations. What does modern diplomacy look like here?

3) The bigger problem is that normally at this point the goal would be to conquer more land in order to "breakout" to space. However, that doesn't fall under the rules of this challenge!

Therefore, I have to maximize the use of land that I have, which likely means settling 2 more terrible cities that I normally wouldn't? Is it worthwhile?




4) The bigger problem is resources - As you can see below, I am trading mainly wine for both health and happiness Happiness cap is at around 10 right now, Health is also at 10 for cities not on a river.

View attachment 656994

I could try for a hard play at (Fur, Ivory, Silk) Whale (owned), and commit to markets in the short run?

Nice work!

Spoiler Some thoughts :

That you have won lib in iso is impressive, in my game Vicky won shortly after I got Astro...

Some definite improvements on my game, moving capital and squeezing more out of the land.

Religious mix looks promising…probably good to spread Buddhism and Judaism when you get them so that you can switch for diplo points later if needed - this was crucial to stay alive in my game.

On trades, you can get rice from hatty that’s better than cow. Or maybe she is everyone’s worst enemy?

I don’t think the Kremlin is up to much to be honest, 1:1 is still not great, and you have to sink a lot of hammers into markets / grocers / banks. Happiness wise I think the best thing to do is to be in free religion and spread all you can, 40 hammers per missionary is cheap and then also gives diplo options. Also Rep is good on this map for diplo with Vicky / caesar, I actually didn’t go US until pretty late once happiness was in a better state.

Statue of Liberty is worth shooting for I think, you have copper so fail gold is still good if no dice. Out of markets / grocers / banks I only built a couple of grocers in my game, seemed short of hammers and lots to build.

Would be great to see a tech screen shot. Next research target?

 

[pi-r8]

Lack of replies suggest that this is harder than I thought. I’ll post some updates from my failed game soon to get the ball rolling (hopefully over the weekend).

In the meantime however, some generic tips from my experience (non spoilers)

Spoiler Generic tips :

- the Town is the strongest tile improvement
- late game civics are the ones at the bottom of the list (emancipation, environmentalism, in particular)
- democracy is a tech to beeline
- being first to space is normally not the issue, but preventing culture / domination / dying
- golden ages are generally the best use of GPP
- it pays to have one ‘super production city’ that can build the internet and Apollo programme
- the late game happiness wonders (hit movies etc.) are nice to snag
- corporations aren’t worth it outside of aluminium co if needed
- the space elevator is worth it if you can get it
- launch your spaceship at the earliest opportunity

probably not gonna try this since I'm not playing civ right now. But from previous experience I do think this sounds like a very tough challenge. The AI just gets massive bonuses in the late game on deity, and not being able to launch offensive wars really limits your options. Even if you're ahead in the midgame they can catch up despite being half your size.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Yes, please don’t do any of these things

Rather than debate the precise rules, please get stuck in. This is not HOF

Nice work!

Spoiler Some thoughts :

That you have won lib in iso is impressive, in my game Vicky won shortly after I got Astro...

Some definite improvements on my game, moving capital and squeezing more out of the land.

Religious mix looks promising…probably good to spread Buddhism and Judaism when you get them so that you can switch for diplo points later if needed - this was crucial to stay alive in my game.

On trades, you can get rice from hatty that’s better than cow. Or maybe she is everyone’s worst enemy?

I don’t think the Kremlin is up to much to be honest, 1:1 is still not great, and you have to sink a lot of hammers into markets / grocers / banks. Happiness wise I think the best thing to do is to be in free religion and spread all you can, 40 hammers per missionary is cheap and then also gives diplo options. Also Rep is good on this map for diplo with Vicky / caesar, I actually didn’t go US until pretty late once happiness was in a better state.

Statue of Liberty is worth shooting for I think, you have copper so fail gold is still good if no dice. Out of markets / grocers / banks I only built a couple of grocers in my game, seemed short of hammers and lots to build.

Would be great to see a tech screen shot. Next research target?

Spoiler :

Yeah I was somewhat fortunate on trades from Astro ->> Lib. That's 450 AD to 780 AD, starting from COL.

I plan to stay in free religion, I don't think permanent diplo points is an avenue from here.

Not trading with Hatty because she's hated.

To be clear, I don't think the play here is to use Kremlin to buy things faster, it would be to whip things cheaper.

Missionaries are a good point ... I regret not getting religion spread earlier - however I don't think it was even an option until T134. Let's look at costs .... 12 cities * 4 religions is around 2000 hammers from 4 monasteries, although I could max happiness by building temples for 40 effective hammers as well. And not every city needs max happiness. It's certainly cheaper than markets. This does mean scrapping together the monasteries before scientific method though.

Here's the tech screenshot. I'm leaning towards Kremlin over Statue of Liberty.

 

[Nick723]

@CarpoolKaraoke some comparisons with your game

Spoiler My T154 :

Slightly different settling pattern. I thought about moving the capital, but in the end decided against it. My main take away from these games is that coast is completely irrelevant - how can I get the main land tiles in the fewest number of cities. Every additional city is many many hammers sunk into buildings, without being able to work more tiles. That said, i prefer some of your placements.

Spoiler Settling pattern :

I've just researched Education, on to Printing Press. Tech situation is ok, but not as rosy as yours I think. No chance for me to get any of the free Great People. Beaker count is low but will grow quickly after printing press, universities and oxford.

Spoiler Tech situation :

What is looking good is the general chaos in the rest of the world. Not sure if I have seen everyone in a different religion before!

Spoiler Diplo situation :

Spoiler Some comments on your comments :

I see on Kremlin, that makes a lot of sense. Free spy from communism would be great as well!

What i meant on the religion piece was that if you have Judaism, you can switch if needed to get Saladin to pleased to beg if he starts plotting. I'm pretty sure the more well spread the religion is, the bigger bonus you get.

You’re at least 10 turns ahead of me, if not more! I think you can do it, go go go!

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

@CarpoolKaraoke some comparisons with your game

Spoiler My T154 :

Slightly different settling pattern. I thought about moving the capital, but in the end decided against it. My main take away from these games is that coast is completely irrelevant - how can I get the main land tiles in the fewest number of cities. Every additional city is many many hammers sunk into buildings, without being able to work more tiles. That said, i prefer some of your placements.

Spoiler Settling pattern :

View attachment 657055

I've just researched Education, on to Printing Press. Tech situation is ok, but not as rosy as yours I think. No chance for me to get any of the free Great People. Beaker count is low but will grow quickly after printing press, universities and oxford.

Spoiler Tech situation :

View attachment 657056

What is looking good is the general chaos in the rest of the world. Not sure if I have seen everyone in a different religion before!

Spoiler Diplo situation :

View attachment 657057

View attachment 657058

Spoiler Some comments on your comments :

I see on Kremlin, that makes a lot of sense. Free spy from communism would be great as well!

What i meant on the religion piece was that if you have Judaism, you can switch if needed to get Saladin to pleased to beg if he starts plotting. I'm pretty sure the more well spread the religion is, the bigger bonus you get.

You’re at least 10 turns ahead of me, if not more! I think you can do it, go go go!

Spoiler Continued discussion on next steps :

Thanks for the comparison! I think your city placement is interesting - there is a legitimate argument to whether or not maximizing sea tiles is a worthwhile venture with financial. Normally in the long run, absolutely not, since you'll be conquering more land. I have yet to make up my mind about it in this game.

For example, I posited that going for Kremlin would be the next step. But, the more I think about it, the less it makes sense to me. It is Turn 155. I need to continue ramping up commerce, besides building Oxford. I can get to Communism by 165 with the great merchant, and then take another 15 turns to build it. On turn 180, I have no valuable corporation (no food resources!) to make cities grow back faster with extra food, so I will be (decreasing!) tech for another 10-20 turns as I whip for long term gains. At that point, I will be completely behind the curve on beakers per turn.

No.... I think perhaps the better answer is to take a leaf from the OCC playbook. I need to stack great people in the new capital....but the only 2 ways to do it that I can think of are to 1) somehow find a way to build the great library + national epic and get monarchy before optics, or 2) have national epic + national park in a 2nd city....which, likely means I need to go back to Turn 0, not move on to the hill, and NOT chop my forests!

 

[Nick723]

Spoiler Continued discussions :

Yeah it’s interesting isn’t it. That’s what I like about this challenge, there’s no ‘playbook’ and it forces you to rethink what is good. For example, depending on how developed your cottages are, don’t underestimate the benefit of emancipation.

For what it’s worth I mainly stopped whipping post universities, just using US in golden ages to slow build things. I’m not convinced of the value of incremental infrastructure here, beyond observatories, factories, levees, coal plants and laboratories. Snagging 3 gorges would be nice, but it’s just such an expensive wonder I wasn’t sure how to do it (and my main production city had internet and Apollo programme to build, plus things like broadway may well be better use of hammers than 3 gorges).

I’m not entirely sure about your settling GP piece. Golden ages are super powerful here. Do you plan to stay in bureaucracy? Eventually free speech got better for me (although you have a stronger capital). This was the one thing I reloaded…impossible for me to judge without switching what would be better!

In your situation I think there are two immediate options.
1. Beeline democracy. Rep + Statue of Liberty + emancipation. Also on the way to corporation (solid boost) and assembly line.

2. Go for the free great people from communism and physics.

I think you’ll be fine on beakers…I was comfortably tech leader in my game and I’m quite far behind your position…just made an error with culture victory.