Diplo win on Gods and Kings

[Silverfuturist]

Played a duel/continents/classical start and opponent didn't attack, so I went for diplo win, got it on turn 185. Diplo wins are much easier now compared to vanilla.

I went with Ethiopia for the faith bonus, but could only squeeze 8 cities on my continent (2 CS got in the way.) I became a faith factory, and with buying padogas using faith, happy never a problem, and bought 3 great sci with faith later. The faith great sci do not add to the great people points!!!

I went full liberty with some tradition then full rationalism - oppponent went full tradition and then rationalism. This duel is more evidence proving to me the supremacy of wide vs tall. Plus u bury them in gold by going wide.

For entire game opponent had biggest pop, most of game they had tech lead. However, 8 cities with 4 sci specialists = 32 specialists (didn't even need research labs) and when combined with rationalism their few huge cities couldn't compete, I have over 1000 sci by the end.

Opponent resigned when he asked how my sci got so high, he had about 450 to my 600 at the time and I still had GS to pop. When he left said might as well go diplo, AI not smart enuf to destroy CS in time.

The voting is funny, you can't vote for yourself and neither can the opponent, so u vote for the enemy.
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[tommynt]

Liberty is just superior to Tradition in such duel because you cant buy settlers from ai gold early on, and you dont want 8 turns on producing a settler which you ll never be really able to protect as early prod is just much lower.
Also you need 8 good city spots which you ll hardly find in most single player or ffa situations

If you can get 4 cities up fast somehow and get them rolling with grannies and after libraries Tradidtion is really strong.

1000 bakkers before reasarch labs isnt bad tho

 

[Lose]

Liberty + Honor rush would be effective too.

 

[Tabarnak]

Well if you are isolated and can steal some workers from cs you can go wide with Tradition.

Not as strong than sp but doable. Competent players can use both trees and go wide or tall like they want.

I've done a game with 9 cities from my own using Tradition(calling myself a competent player ). But Liberty is nice for his early boost. For the long run Tradition is, on paper, a bit better because bonuses are more valuable for huge empires.

You need a 20 capital to have same happiness from meritocracy with 10 cities after all.

Question : How much religion can you have in duel games? 1 or 2?

If only 1 is available, Ethiopia is suddenly very powerful. a religious civ can be have a lot more bonuses compared to a non religious one.

If i go duel on a pangea map and war is the epicenter of all plays available, of course Liberty is much stronger...but for this game Silverfuturist i'm really not sure. Really.

I'm sure you can do better than 185 turns under Tradition. Probably <175.

For an empire of 10 cities under Liberty, 6-7 are enough under Tradition to pacifically compete that tree.

Edit : Also, in duel games, if you litterally blow the tech tree you can have a huge load of wonders! I wonder if you can do the same against 4-5 players each on your own island without fights like this game.

I don't denigrate your talent it's just that the old Liberty thinking from vanilla is still planning in the air and i just want to tell that some facts are right but some others are also wrong.

Fact : Tradition>Liberty for peaceful victories for sp and mp.

Edit2 : 1 more question...

What was your pantheon and beliefs choices?

 

[Silverfuturist]

Well if you are isolated and can steal some workers from cs you can go wide with Tradition.

Not as strong than sp but doable. Competent players can use both trees and go wide or tall like they want.

I've done a game with 9 cities from my own using Tradition(calling myself a competent player ). But Liberty is nice for his early boost. For the long run Tradition is, on paper, a bit better because bonuses are more valuable for huge empires.

You need a 20 capital to have same happiness from meritocracy with 10 cities after all.

Question : How much religion can you have in duel games? 1 or 2?

If only 1 is available, Ethiopia is suddenly very powerful. a religious civ can be have a lot more bonuses compared to a non religious one.

If i go duel on a pangea map and war is the epicenter of all plays available, of course Liberty is much stronger...but for this game Silverfuturist i'm really not sure. Really.

On duel you both can get religion.

I think Ethiopia is best with liberty. The irony, cuz the UA is useless when u spam cities, but the +2 faith per monument bonus is so powerful. The only limit to cities is space, and you make so many settlers that building them without liberty takes a lot longer per Tommynt.

The steamroller is to get the +1 happy belief per city, then go for padoga belief after religion founded. Don't enhance religion, keep buying padogas until every city has them. Combined with liberty adds up to +4 happy per city! The padogas give +2 happy +2 faith and +2 culture so you can buy a padoga like every 3 turns using faith once u get rolling. When every last inch of land settled, then go for the great prophet and enchance. By the time rationalism is available, most all of liberty and tradition filled out.

Last few FFAs rolling everybody with this, once landmass gets full I fill up islands. I have opponents with 36+ capitals while mine is half that but... I have unlimited cities, am always happy, and get rationalism, and do it on time! I did the same thing with Mayans but... I like Ethiopia better despite the Maya +2 sci per city cuz faith harder to get than beakers and I get more scientists as Ethiopia vs Mayans.

I would like to see what Tabarnak is doing, I beleive u can get 9 big tradition cities but how much longer does it take.

 

[Tabarnak]

On duel you both can get religion.

The steamroller is to get the +1 happy belief per city, then go for padoga belief after religion founded. Don't enhance religion, keep buying padogas until every city has them.

Interesting. Well usually you want to build settlers under Tradition from inner cities instead of your capital. You let your capital grow and build settlers with other cities. When Tradition is filled out, your inner cities will grow again in no time.

Nothing is perfect, but i think Tradition is over 50% chances of winning that kind of peaceful game over Liberty. Maybe 60-40 or 65-35.

Always depend of civ you get too. Mayans rock with Liberty imo.

 

[Silverfuturist]

Interesting. Well usually you want to build settlers under Tradition from inner cities instead of your capital. You let your capital grow and build settlers with other cities. When Tradition is filled out, your inner cities will grow again in no time.

Nothing is perfect, but i think Tradition is over 50% chances of winning that kind of peaceful game over Liberty. Maybe 60-40 or 65-35.

Always depend of civ you get too. Mayans rock with Liberty imo.

I have an idea then - we can try out some duels on hemispheres, maybe agree not to attack until a certain later era... see how the 2 face off!

 

[Tabarnak]

I have an idea then - we can try out some duels on hemispheres, maybe agree not to attack until a certain later era... see how the 2 face off!

Good idea. PM me for details.

 

[Silverfuturist]

So just won a Science victory, turn 188 6 FFA pangea. Got 12 cities down as Ethiopia! Captial + liberty + made 10 cities in capital. The people I played were experienced but not "pros." With more practice I can shave a lot of turns off that. Austria was next to me and they were weak, that made a big diff I admit as I puppeted them. Turn 77 all my cities down. 1684 science per turn by the end:
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Tommynt's point is right on, in order to pump out 10 settlers the liberty policy is crucial. I filled out all of liberty and the happy policies from tradition which came out to +27 extra happy! The happy rationalism policy came just in time, it was over +30 happy bonus.

It was all about the faith, buying happy faith buildings crucial to this plan.

 

[Tabarnak]

Pretty huge land! I'm still finding the right map to go over 6 cities without puppeting. Did you play standard map? Did you kill a civ or 2 among the way?

Did you build Hubble?

Did you complete rationalism in time despite having all these cities?

Did you build all your cities before the NC? If not, how much of them?

Well i already told that when you can build over 6 cities it's preferably better to go under Liberty. I think everyone can agree on this statement. Over 1500 bpt is pretty impressive. Congrats!

Ethiopia is well rounded for massive empires.

We need to play a game soon. Sry i couldn't this week-end i was too busy

 

[Silverfuturist]

Pretty huge land! I'm still finding the right map to go over 6 cities without puppeting. Did you play standard map? Did you kill a civ or 2 among the way?

Did you build Hubble?

Did you complete rationalism in time despite having all these cities?

Did you build all your cities before the NC? If not, how much of them?

Well i already told that when you can build over 6 cities it's preferably better to go under Liberty. I think everyone can agree on this statement. Over 1500 bpt is pretty impressive. Congrats!

Ethiopia is well rounded for massive empires.

We need to play a game soon. Sry i couldn't this week-end i was too busy

I killed Austria early, who didn't spread out - that was a 6 person pangea map with 6 people, but the funky landmass gave some players a disadvantage with landspace. I find on weird shaped pangeas some players get screwed and others get unfair starts...I don't think the map generator takes into consideration the extra effort it takes to cross water to settle cities.

I did build Hubble, what a nice wonder - 2 GS and a spaceship factory!

I never end up completing rationalism in the plan I have been playing. I find the happy bonuses (including extra gold and wonder bonus) so useful in the game. I take the happy capital bonus at a time when I am out of happy options and this keeps me growing (extra gold nice.) The last 2 rationalism techs don't help me out that much, I don't have RAs and getting the gold boost comes so late in the game. But perhaps there is a way to play it better.

I build all of my cities before NC, and NC happens later in the game - with that many cities the hammer cost on national wonders is high, I get the sci and happy buildings ASAP and that makes up for a late NC I think.

 

[Tabarnak]

Yeah if you go full rationalism i guess that it's better to let the 50% research agreements boost for the last policy(then immediately get 2 free techs). The 2nd policy from the right is the one that let you an happiness boost. I wonder if it's better to go there before the left side where an immediate tech boost is offered.

If you are really ahead, some theaters aren't bad at all.

 

[Silverfuturist]

Pretty huge land! I'm still finding the right map to go over 6 cities without puppeting.

The space is often there as long as you pack them as tightly as possible without regard to terrain or resources. If there are islands off the coast, even better, cuz u can plant cities only 1 tile inbetween if separated by water. Micromanaging cities so that newer cities work the growth tiles and larger cities get the production tiles is what I do.

It is like a puzzle for me, to figure out where to place the cities so the most can fit. Also the first few city placements are key, to prevent other players from infringing on my rightful spam.

In addition... often you have to raze puppets, because their placement cuts down on how many cities you can pack in.

Most recent Ethiopia game... packed 15 cities (not including puppets) in after razing the 2 Spain puppets (forced to keep capital.) woohoo:

 

[Tabarnak]

Rolled Greece for a shuffle 5 players small map.

Landed on a island. Land was ok but thats all. But desert folklore helped a lot to gain religion pretty fast. 2 cs around me, 1 didnt connect his whales until turn 130 and the other one had similar lux and hostile. So they were nothing useful really.

Started with 3 cities under Tradition then NC. Built 4 more cities. I wanted to go domination of course without the single think to go for a diplo win. I went Piety(i like this tree under mp) for cheap shrines and temples, more faith from them and the free ga/culture boost policies. Then left side of Commerce.

I was building an army of boats before Navigation when suddenly the last players had quit for no reason on turn 120(well i had quite a big lead by that time )So i decided to stay and see how much fast i can reach globalization. I didnt' sign any RAs with the AI and i played these last turns at lightning speed. I think i played them(50) under 20 min .

I didn't bother about the ge, just wanted to see which date it will be. I popped 7 gs, 3 settled. With Oxford of course. I finally ended on turn 170. That would probably neat a 180-181 turns victory. I forgot to switch to rationalism tree to buy some gs...

I really don't see how i could put more cities here.

 

[Silverfuturist]

Rolled Greece for a shuffle 5 players small map.

Landed on a island. Land was ok but thats all. But desert folklore helped a lot to gain religion pretty fast. 2 cs around me, 1 didnt connect his whales until turn 130 and the other one had similar lux and hostile. So they were nothing useful really.

Started with 3 cities under Tradition then NC. Built 4 more cities. I wanted to go domination of course without the single think to go for a diplo win. I went Piety(i like this tree under mp) for cheap shrines and temples, more faith from them and the free ga/culture boost policies. Then left side of Commerce.

I was building an army of boats before Navigation when suddenly the last players had quit for no reason on turn 120(well i had quite a big lead by that time )So i decided to stay and see how much fast i can reach globalization. I didnt' sign any RAs with the AI and i played these last turns at lightning speed. I think i played them(50) under 20 min .

I didn't bother about the ge, just wanted to see which date it will be. I popped 7 gs, 3 settled. With Oxford of course. I finally ended on turn 170. That would probably neat a 180-181 turns victory. I forgot to switch to rationalism tree to buy some gs...

I really don't see how i could put more cities here.

You would have had to plan cities for density as opposed to optimal placement there.

PreBigBanger - I have played him often , I wonder if he reads the forums?

I just played an Egypt, got 11 cities down, went overkill on the happy... with the padogas and burial tombs I should have used the other beliefs to get something else besides more happy, it was overkill... once got above 0 went to 30... with rationalism went to 60... did get an extra golden age from happy though. I got full liberty full tradition and full rationalism during the game! The Egypt wonder edge was helpful, and I used liberty person for manufactory. Finished tech race in 188 turns

 

[Tabarnak]

Agree about Egypt. With a nice legalism trick this makes him a very good Liberty tree contestant.

 

[EEE_BOY]

Agree about Egypt. With a nice legalism trick this makes him a very good Liberty tree contestant.

What legalism trick? G&K Egypt got special temples, not special cultural buildings any more.

 

[Tabarnak]

What legalism trick? G&K Egypt got special temples, not special cultural buildings any more.

Really? Haven't played them yet. So they get +2 happy and +2 faith per turn but with no maintenance?

 

[EEE_BOY]

Really? Haven't played them yet. So they get +2 happy and +2 faith per turn but with no maintenance?

Yes, Songhai temples work as before though I guess.

 

[Silverfuturist]

Really? Haven't played them yet. So they get +2 happy and +2 faith per turn but with no maintenance?

The burial tombs are a faith building, you have to build all of them from scratch. This slows Egypt down from vanilla with the happy. I still used legalism, the 4 ampitheatres are maint free no matter what civ you use.