Deity University - Justinian

[GKey]

First 94 turns (lost save from turn #100, sorry about that). Spoiler tags to make post shorter:

Spoiler :

Moved warrior to the coast and decided make my capital coastal. Settled on 3rd turn. Reasoning: same food and lux resources, 4 grassland hills in BFC, many forests and most important coast. Loooove GLH!
Having GLH in capital probably worth losing mysterious strategy resource, which later on appeared being horses.

Built Worker - Warrior - Warrior (till grove to size 4) - settler - Warrior - Lighthouse - GLH.

Went fishing (for lake) - Agr - Hunting - Sailing - Mining - Masonry - BW - AH - Pottery - Writing.

Very risky, I confess. But I've met all AI's very soon. Area appeared being so crowded that I decided postpone military techs. Numerous AI scouts and archers provided excellent fogbusting, plus I fortified 3 warriors on hills around. Of course if Toku was DoW me - I was doomed.

Founded 2-d city, which thanks to 2 food sources and later discovered horses become productive soon and started pump workers settlers.

Diplomatic situation - not too bad. OB with all except Gandhi and Toku. They were most hated guys. Not me thanks god . Traded everything I could with rest AIs.
1160 BC: Charley DoW Zara. Won't hurt. I was hopping Mansa will get involved too (he was teching like mad) but no.

Meanwhile I've finished GLH in 1080 and started REX, which I was late with. But GLH proved to be huge on this map.

Closest to turn# 100 save I've found is from turn 94 - 525 BC. Hope its OK.

Only 5 cities, almost no military, backward in tech, but economically not bad.

: Used Aesthetics course, which I learned here from you guys btw.
Traded not too many techs to postpone WFYBTA. Mansa and Zara tried gift me Archery and Meditation. I refused (Gifted techs do count vs WFYBTA, right?).

: Pretty decent, despite absence of cottages.
2/3 of my commerce coming from trade routes. Thanks GLH!

Plans REX to 8 cities (there are 2 barb cities south, 1 of them on marble which is must for me here), build GLib Going to be very tough, so wish me luck .

Currently playing third round. Will try and post report ASAP.

 

[kossin]

First 94 turns (lost save from turn #100, sorry about that).
Don't worry, it's just markers to control a bit what parts of the game are discussed at the same time.
Spoiler tags to make post shorter:

Spoiler :

Moved warrior to the coast and decided make my capital coastal. Settled on 3rd turn. Reasoning: same food and lux resources, 4 grassland hills in BFC, many forests and most important coast.
Moving away from river for 2 turns... gutsy but for GLH seeing the land I guess it can work.

Closest to turn# 100 save I've found is from turn 94 - 525 BC. Hope its OK.
Yea, no problem. You can always set auto-save to 1 turn if you like.

Only 5 cities, almost no military, backward in tech, but economically not bad.
Where did you put your hammers?

(Gifted techs do count vs WFYBTA, right?).
Yea, should be the same as begged techs.

Plans REX to 8 cities (there are 2 barb cities south, 1 of them on marble which is must for me here), build GLib Going to be very tough, so wish me luck .

Good luck

Currently playing third round. Will try and post report ASAP.

Commented in bold.

 

[GKey]

@kossin Thank you for your comments.

Spoiler :

Yes moving away from river was not that good after all. Early game advantage was clear - ~8 commerce per turn from routes vs ~3 without GLH. But now it forced me to make irrigation pass instead of cottages.

Hammers went into 3 warriors, 4 workers, 5 settlers and GLH. I need to chop more aggressively. Postponed chopping to after I get Math. May be that was wrong decision.

Thanks!

 

[Duckweed]

Round 2 -- Wonder spam

Spoiler :

Oracle took CoL
TGL
Parternon
MoM

Empire

Tech

Round 3 -- Grow, Lib race, War preparation, and War

Spoiler :

For the fun of UU, I even researched Guild myself, but then I obsoleted it quickly by researching Gunpowder.

Lib took MT

Dow WK in 580AD, he was advanced due to the GLH and brought Zara and Charleman. Well, I also had several techs available to get allies, hence the world war begun.

800AD, took 4 cities and WK had capital left.

Even totally focus on the war, I did not lag in tech race.

A cottage poor capital as many cottage addicted players will sniff at.

 

[Udey1]

@Duckweed,

Spoiler :

I wish I had snagged MoM, I missed it by a little bit, sure would have beefed up my 3 stacked GA's. Where is your stack headed next? I am hating ZQ culture after killing toku. I believe I have a 30 unit draft rifle force sitting in 2 cities to stop the flip. The cities have HG and mids and other shinies and I don't want them in ZQ hands. circa (1430-1450)

 

[Udey1]

@kossin Thank you for your comments.

Spoiler :

Yes moving away from river was not that good after all. Early game advantage was clear - ~8 commerce per turn from routes vs ~3 without GLH. But now it forced me to make irrigation pass instead of cottages.

Hammers went into 3 warriors, 4 workers, 5 settlers and GLH. I need to chop more aggressively. Postponed chopping to after I get Math. May be that was wrong decision.

Thanks!

@Gkey

Spoiler :

You have the most different capital site, so I am watching you to see if you pull it off, but to my point... waiting to chop forests till math is a luxury you rarely get to enjoy now. 2 chops and a settler now >>>> +10 hammers later.
3 chops and GLH 8 turns earlier>>>> later (you might have lost it, 1080BC lighthouse is VERY LATE and you got VERY LUCKY.)

 

[Sleepless]

@GKey

Spoiler :

Looks like you are making the same mistake I make in a lot of my deity games (not that I play many ). Namely to slow in getting my cities out. If you can get the barb cities, no problem. If not Mansa already has a settler just South of you and he will certainly like all AI take any gaps he can settle. So heres hoping you get the barb cities.

 

[GKey]

Round #3 up to 800 AD.

Spoiler :

Yes, I definitely need luck this round.
GLib race was very tough. First, when I got Lit and checked tech trade screen - all AI's except Charlie already had it! And I had no marble.
Went for drama. Whipped in Cap 4 chariots and raced to marble barb city.

Turn 108 was "to be or not to be" turn. Researched drama, finally traded math for it. Also got currency + 40 gold from Charlie for lit + drama.
On the same turn captured city and worker finished road to it.

My other 4 workers already positioned over 4 prechopped forests made last swing for 240 hammers. I checked tech screen:

And pressed ENTER.

I got GLib! (150 BC)

Was too excited to continue anyway.
After celebration checked tech screen again:

Guess where did they get all this gold? Not one, not two but four AI's were about to finish GLib on that same turn!

Also traided drama + gold for construction and calendar.

After that things start become grimmer.
Managed capture 1 more barb city, unlocked HE.

8 cities, only 6 workers, almost no infra and mighty army of 4 chariots

Wonders helped alot though. My tech rate was good, but who can get Mansa? He bulbed Philo in 800BC. I bulbed it nevertheless and got Feud, CS, MC and compass for it (partially researched ofc).
Then double bulbed Edu. finished Gunpowder while was waiting for next GS for Lib.
Then self-researched Machinery and traded Edu:

and

and

And finally:

Yesss! Printing Press! My next GS in 2 turns will lightbulb Chemistry instead of PP! Gambit for steel!

Tech situation in 680:

Chemistry in 2, Lib in 1

In 740 AD got Lib and Steel.

Tech situation:

Mil S in 12. Currently making cannons and going to hit.
Toku at war with Zara. I think Mansa. Must eliminate this tech monster. Of course any suggestions, advises, criticism are most welcome.

 

[Grashopa]

GKey -

Spoiler :

Dude lib steel Yeah go after Mansa, cannons will get you through him and then coast from there.

 

[dirtyparrot]

I'm just lurking the game discussion and Ding Dong brought up how the AI will lower the priority it gives to a particular wonder if someone else has already sunk hammers into it. I was just curious as to how that information was obtained. Is there somewhere in the code that states this?

 

[Grashopa]

Round 3

Spoiler :

Here was my 225 BC after oracle got me Code of Laws and I bulb'd civil service with a GM on my way to guilds. I went to Vassalage and Theocracy at this point for 9xp cataphracts.

Its 660 AD now, I finished off WK 4 or 5 turns ago. I had 16 cataphracts when I initially attacked, and I used several catapults on his stack which was sitting in the gift city I gave him right on my borders. That and revolting two of his cities with spies after converting them to confuscianism for -40% EP was enough to take him out at 80%+ odds, but I had bad luck and lost half my cataphracts. The other piece of bad luck was getting attacked by the HRE. I would have taken Gandhi's holy city and capital by 800 AD, but for the HRE and the extra losses I took.

As for the good things that happened - WK built the Great Lighthouse and Colossus so my beakers look good right now. Also there was a single non Mansa culture tile in the middle of his territory so I was able to gift him a city which helped out with keeping him off my back during the war with Korea.

And I learned that eliminating a civ gives you a hidden -1 diplo as that was enough to tip ZY out of friendly forcing me to convert to his religion to make the trade for Constitution a few turns ago. Hopefully no one attacks me in the next couple turns before I flip back out.

Stopped here since I have to go mop up HREs troops and switch over to caste/rep and do a lot of micro. I could probably still go right after Gandhi around 800 AD if I build troops instead of universities.. Toku is still a bit backwards despite me giving him all sorts of tech to attack people. Rifling is not far off so perhaps upgrading to cavalry is an idea.

EDIT - oh yeah WK could have had a 25 AD liberalism, and was going to get it at 150 ADish if I hadn't attacked him GLH and Colossus..

 

[Bugg123]

@GKey:

Spoiler :

I'm not sure I understand how you could move your capitol coastal (with no seafood) to get a quick coastal GLH capitol.. and then spend the better part of a millenium building the GLH for a very late completion (saving forests, no less).
I'm not a huge fan of coastal capitols anyway mostly, plus on T1 I wouldn't really know the lay of the land to decide to go for GLH.. so that probably influences how I feel about it

I guess maybe this relates to dingdings post about starting a wonder early leading AI to not chase that wonder somehow.

Delaying GLH also meant you delayed settling your next cities a lot, I assume. So you're potentially a bit underdeveloped in that regard?

Other than that I'm really wondering what Mansa was doing getting philo 800BC and then proceding to not really do much in the lib race. 720AD isn't late for lib, but it certainly isn't early for this map either for the AI.

So all in all it seems you've really taken advantage of the situation in hand and managed GLH + GLIB + Lib for steel

Will be interesting to see how you manage the buildup to war from here (cities are a bit on the small side for a quick force, maybe?). Taking on Mansa seems like a good idea if you can field an army quickly enough.

I know both tech and diplo looks a lot better for you than it did for me at 800AD.

Good luck

 

[GKey]

@Grashopa
@bugg123:

This stage of a game is always hardest for me, so any comment, advise is most welcome.

Spoiler :

I'm not sure I understand how you could move your capitol coastal (with no seafood) to get a quick coastal GLH capitol.. and then spend the better part of a millenium building the GLH for a very late completion (saving forests, no less).

My reasoning for moving was: same food and lux resource, same 4 hills in BFC. All same + coast. GLH was built late because: teching fishing - agr - hunting - sailing - mining - masonry took me about 60 turns. My only commerce tile was lake... (Settling on ivory allowed you work that gem which doubled your research speed, wish I knew about that gem...). Furthermore skipping early BW (17 turns research) made chopping relatively useless. I have just replayed my start and chopping made me finish GLH earlier by only 3 turns.

I'm not a huge fan of coastal capitols anyway mostly, plus on T1 I wouldn't really know the lay of the land to decide to go for GLH.. so that probably influences how I feel about it. I guess maybe this relates to dingdings post about starting a wonder early leading AI to not chase that wonder somehow.

Discovering 3 more good coastal city sites made GLH a must wonder IMO.

Delaying GLH also meant you delayed settling your next cities a lot, I assume. So you're potentially a bit underdeveloped in that regard?

Yes, you right, all my cities luck infra and population. In this stage of game I am still not sure was settling on coast good or not. Capital GLH was a life saver in mid game but greatly slowed me earlier and now my cap does not have enough good tiles to work.

Other than that I'm really wondering what Mansa was doing getting philo 800BC and then proceding to not really do much in the lib race. 720AD isn't late for lib, but it certainly isn't early for this map either for the AI.

Mansa beeline Democracy, and may be with Lib its same like with wonders: AI saw me 1 turn from Lib and did not go there.

Will be interesting to see how you manage the buildup to war from here (cities are a bit on the small side for a quick force, maybe?). Taking on Mansa seems like a good idea if you can field an army quickly enough.

Yes I desperately need advise here how to crank out 20 cannons fast enough. Cast System workshops or Slavery? What you think?
Also I can currently bribe Mansa into war with Toku, but he got AP and it can be 3 turns war... But if I declare on him myself I can defy resolution right?

I know both tech and diplo looks a lot better for you than it did for me at 800AD.

Good luck

Thanks a lot!

 

[Duckweed]

@Duckweed,

Spoiler :

I wish I had snagged MoM, I missed it by a little bit, sure would have beefed up my 3 stacked GA's. Where is your stack headed next? I am hating ZQ culture after killing toku. I believe I have a 30 unit draft rifle force sitting in 2 cities to stop the flip. The cities have HG and mids and other shinies and I don't want them in ZQ hands. circa (1430-1450)

Spoiler :

I don't have time to continue. Basically Toku will be gone with cav bliz and if Zara has not gotten rifling in 20~30 turn, he will be dead too. Charly is a dead meat from beginning. I doubt I need any tech than Rifling.

 

[kossin]

Let's finish this one so the next University can start this weekend!

Round IV (turns 150-END) is now officially open!

• You may now openly talk about Round I,II&III (turns 0-50;50-100;100-150) but anything from Round IV should be spoilered!
  
• Round I,II&III submissions are still accepted [there will never be a closing date for rounds] but beware that there might be some spoiler information posted from now on.

~~~

I know I haven't played Round III yet but I'll try to get to it before the weekend.

 

[Bugg123]

Round 4: Religious(!) Victory 1725AD

Spoiler :

Well.. there was definately ups and downs in this round. A few things I really don't like, some stupidity and some cheese....

In round 3 war preparation was started. I know I mentioned the possibility of attacking Mansa in the last post .. no, that didn't happen... ~5 turns into round 4 he got rifling. So target switched to Wang Kon. Had to delay the initial attack a few turns to make sure his SOD that was marching through my land after a more or less succsessful campaign on Mansa's side down south got out on the "right" side.




Got busy in 1030AD and took out one stack + one city on the first turn of the attack. 2nd and 3rd fell quickly too. In a cunning display of skill Wang Kon sent his remaining SOD out in the open between city 2 and 3, so that was easily disposed of. I soon found myself on Seol's doorstep. The problem was, ofcourse, that I had been unable to beg something from Mansa before starting the war (my diplo isn't hot in this game, that's for sure), so displaying a feature I don't really like, Wang Kon vassalized to Mansa (paying nothing for it .. no gold missing and he was behind in tech).

Wonderful...

Decided the Koreans had to pay for that, so finished them up as quickly as possible, and turned my attention to Mansa. Couldn't really find a good way to deal with Rifles+Cav+Artillery (really...), but at least he wasn't in a hurry to get troops in my direction.
When his SOD landed next to Nicuca he was at least willing to talk, and I gave up the fish+deer+silver site for peace.

Turns out the Koreans had built the Ap Palace, and I was now the proud resident. Took the opportunity to spread the religion to Charlemagne (bribed him out of theo as part of a trade), but couldn't spread to Zara... so left that alone.

Teched towards steel, and on to rifling.

Next target was a question of being a bit backwards. I was behind Zara, Ghandi and Mansa, but well ahead of Toku. Toku had 11 cities and decent land. Japan's next.

Started off with curassiers + spies, added cannons shortly, and took out 4 cities to start off. Had to take a 10 turn break when a stack of grens all of a sudden appeared (I guess my scouting wasn't the best either). During this first part of the war, Toku reinforced one city with mass grens, then decided to move them out in the open. Not real smart, but it was nice target practice

Nothing too exciting in the 2nd part of the war. The good thing that happened was that both Mansa and Ghandi also declared on poor Toku and was marching a few tanks, artillery and various infantry into Japan. The only good it did them was weakening a few cities enough to save me some time. Oh and I got a nice diplo boost too.

At the end of the war.. well.. I had one problem. Mansa's cultural attempt was picking up speed... the UN had been built earlier, but I was not eligible at the time. Could probably get in at some point, but I'd be hard pressed to make it work. I was backwards in tech, so dealing with Mansa's advanced units and taking out one culture city (they were all a bit unaccessible) could prove "tricky", although one of them was lightly defended.

Both Zara and Ghandi didn't think they would have anything to gain from going after Mansa (I guess "not losing the game to him" was no reason... that's just silly), so before I had to try it myself I had one last inspiring thought....

What about this AP-thing. I don't have mass media.. I'm still getting the odd election coming up... So maybe a religious victory is still an option? ... I spread Bhuddism to one of my last Japanese conquests and gifted the city to Zara, which gave me a good diplo boost... and



a few turns later I managed a cheezy religious victory in a game I thought I'd lost




There are definately several points I need to make work a lot better. I'm a bit behind on teching early compared to the good entries, but manage to catch up and win the Lib race a lot. It comes at a price, though, limiting trades later too often.

Still need more workers earlier.

One major point is teching during and after a war. I fall into a big hole here, and come up at the other end waaaaaaay behind. Need to go figure out how to make a better transition into lategame teching. If anyone's got a few pointers on any of this it's much appreciated I'll be looking over the other saves as they come in

Don't know how others feel about bulbing compass to catch up either.. I've done it a few times to even have a shot, but it feels like such a waste...

 

[Sleepless]

Till the end.

Spoiler :

First target was going to be Tok for me. I planned on Cataphracts but ended up with cavalry.

I thought let his SOD come to me. I'll wipe it out then invade. Killed a few of his units without moving out of my lands. Then

Tok Capitulates

[/IMG]

With zara's culture and no real need to take his cities. Plus very importantly he could still tech well for me with his original cities undamaged. I took it.

Next WK.

He had rifles by now so I thought a mixed unit of cav/cannon/rifles would work. It did sort of but I started to get bogged down near his capital. Even though it had the SoL I just capitulated him, gave back the couple of cities I had taken and headed for Ghandi.

I had to take Varanasi before he capped but with the Eiffel Tower/CR and Hindu/Judaism shrines he wasn't getting his cities back. I did lose one of them to WK though by flipping. No chance of the other cities going though.

Time for Zara. Can't remember if I bribed Charlie in. With Toks protective units for cover Zara's lands after capping.

He lost Gondar to Charlie which I had hoped to take. I gifted the city on the coast back to him but kept the 2 good ones.

Next Mansa I did scout around and didn't notice any big stacks. He must have had it hidden somewhere because I took one of his cities and the very next turn he took it back. Not for long though and after breaking his strength and heading for his capital he gave in as well.

Last Charlie. My units healing in Timbuktu

He did have gunships but by the end I had MA and 5 vassals there was only going to be one winner. Kudos to mansa he took one of Charlies cities as well.

Charlie Capitulates

Victory Screen

 

[Udey1]

Round IV

Spoiler :

Troop buildup continued till approx 1100AD. by now my blazing tech rate has given me cavalry to start replacing the curiassers, but seeing wang's army, I know I can press on without an immediate upgrade.

I began the war 3 turns after the first save. Splitting my forces in two in order to deal with Wang more quickly.

Easily conquering Wang I took Seoul. It contained Notre Dame, Statue of Lib, and Stat of Zeus. Score!

I sold rifling to Zara for 1780 gold. He was on the verge of it anyway, Upgraded my Curiasser to Cav on mass and sent the spies in to Ghandi.

Here is some of the force. I would switch to nationalism for a short time to draft a garrison army for the mass territory I would soon own.

Once this all was setup it was just a matter of switching espionage to the new target.

Cavalry vs that rabble and spies are in standby.

I would Capitulate him since conquering his islands would be a pain.

He did have a nice Shrine and Versailles exactly where I would want it.

Now on to Toku..

Split the stack in two once more because ZQ wanted a piece of him.

Here is the Situation at 1400AD. Toku will be gone in 3 turns. Then I am shifting to Mansa. He is hated but advanced. It may be a bloody war for my Cav but Ill get some airships to help even the odds.

India Now

Korea

Anyways more war will follow. I am taking over the world this time.


OOOPPS, I just realized that Kossin has designated this as last round. I haven't finished yet since I assumed we were stopping at 200 again. I'll play some more this weekend.

 

[Sleepless]

@Bugg123

I had to rely mostly on the AI for all my late techs. Handy when you have vassals. Control there research and trade them around with your other vassals. Especially as all the AI were in WFYBTA mode. Till I vassaled them that is.

One thing I notice you didn't have very many of and I'm just as guilty is GPs. No academy in your Capital etc. Something I failed on in the old Immortal Uni series and seems to be the same here.

Other than that well done on your victory.

 

[Bugg123]

Ah yeah.. GPs .. Will look at other saves to see what a "fair" number would be in here. I do well for my first few (this time was a bit odd since I used one for compass...), but then at times I go off on the wrong end, especially when I'm not spiritual.

Not having an academy in that capital is probably punishable by law in some states...

Thanks for pointing it out!