[BNW] Enjoyable Deity Games

[Nizef]

Here is a recap of the games in the Enjoyable Deity Games Experience (EDGE) series so far in 2020, (games from last year are listed on page 9 of this thread):
42. the Mayans 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Piety challenge
43. Siam (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Patronage partial challenge
44. the Shoshone 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
45. Poland 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Honor challenge
46. the Netherlands (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Liberty challenge
47. the Aztecs 3 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
48. the Celts (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
49. the Zulus (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Aesthetics challenge
50. Austria (Pangaea, Epic speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
51. Persia (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
52. the Ottomans (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Religion challenge
53. Rome (Fractal, Epic speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
54. Songhai (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
55. the Incas (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
56. Russia 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
57. India 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), CV challenge
58. Germany 3 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
59. Byzantium 2 (Fractal, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Religion challenge
60. the Iroquois (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Aesthetics challenge
61. America 2 (Pangaea, Epic speed, Standard size, Unmodded), DomV challenge
62. Sweden 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Petra challenge
63. Morocco 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), partial Commerce challenge
64. England 3 (Fractal, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), partial UN challenge
65. Portugal 2 (Continents, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), partial elimination challenge
66. Egypt 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)

 

[Nizef]

Short report on #42

Spoiler T102 :

The settling decision was hard but in the end I move away from the river and on the hill losing the hydrocentral but unknowingly getting marble, at least. I discovered Fountain of Youth early but wasn't fast enough to settle it and instead will have to eliminate Brazil in order to secure it. I founded my religion in Uxmal, a city founded to the south near Brazil's capital, not only to make it unrazable but in order to put pressure on more cities. I managed to build Hanging Gardens, Oracle and Hagia Sophia and I have obtained Sacred Sites Reformation belief while having Mosques and Monasteries as Follower Beliefs so I am already Tourism leader. The game is going along nicely, as I have 2 friends - Venice and Inca. Early game I declared war on England, Indonesia, Brazil, and Carthage, and now with a catapult soon ready and soon obtaining Iron to upgrade the Warrior, I am ready to take out Brazil. The game should evolve quite nicely. My main setback in this game was my failure to obtain workers early enough, and having no access to Liberty (besides the Piety rule I took Tradition to open Hanging Gardens and Honor to go to war, they improve things slowly. I can already see that only Inca can pose problems in this game as the rest are not doing really well. I have a domination victory in mind right now but we'll see how it goes.

It sounds like it is going very well. The Mayans are of course a very strong civ but I am still impressed.

 

[beetle]

Another great looking map, thanks! It will be a while before I can play, but I think I will go 1 hex NE (to have sheep in 3rd ring, still touch 3+ forest, and have more desert in range). Should be easy to get a pantheon without out building a Shrine, so crossing fingers for DF.

I really enjoyed this map. Ended having more difficulty than I expected, but that is okay! First I tried Liberty / Piety, but that really didn’t get anywhere, as Piety just does not have enough Culture. I reloaded to pick Ascetics as second try, and that was much better! It is alway nice when I can get liberty to work out.

Game was still a challenge, as there was a Cultural run-away. I had to replay the last ~30 turns several times, to keep the next-to-last civ alive, then win SV T327.

EDGE#41: Blue Jeans and Rocket Artillery — I will round off my trilogy of games on Epic speed with EDGE41, where the task is to play as Indonesia on an unmodded and standard sized Archipelago map.

Trying this one next, after Gajah gave me a hard time in my last game.

 

[Nizef]

I really enjoyed this map. Ended having more difficulty than I expected, but that is okay! First I tried Liberty / Piety, but that really didn’t get anywhere, as Piety just does not have enough Culture. I reloaded to pick Ascetics as second try, and that was much better! It is alway nice when I can get liberty to work out.

Game was still a challenge, as there was a Cultural run-away. I had to replay the last ~30 turns several times, to keep the next-to-last civ alive, then win SV T327.

Your cultural runaway was probably one of the red AIs? The one that was further away on this map is just strange. It can be more or less slumbering for ages and then boom - uses the UA and is relevant and competitive and threatens to run away with the game. The red AI that was nearby is more predictable, even if it also can be a pain in the late game. I will try to learn the secrets of Liberty+Piety. So far I can´t get it to work at all. Do you have any hints that you could share?

Trying this one next, after Gajah gave me a hard time in my last game.

I like the UA a lot, but I always overextend and thus do poorly. EDGE#41 is better in that sense that the starting island makes it possible to speed up the early development a little bit. Make sure to find out early where your closest neighbour is.

 

[Nizef]

EDGE#67: I am sailing
This is a kind of tribute as well. A person close to me passed away last year and on the funeral we played Rod Stewart´s evergreen song. The person in question was very fond of sailing, especially with multihulls. Besides, we haven´t had a watery map this year. Instead of pondering on different fates, we are here going to focus on the good and positive things in life, even in this extraordinary time of a pandemia. Obviously we are playing as Polynesia with a YASS and some fish as well. We are playing on an unmodded Archipelago map with Standard size and Standard speed. QC and QM are turned on and all VCs are enabled as usual. The map is suitable both for peaceful and aggressive play. The start is very OP and you will have enough room to expand. Make sure that you research BW early, if you want to go down the warpath. So, life can be good after all. Enjoy!

I played my own game in accordance to HOF rules and also submitted win. There is a short recap in the spoiler.

Spoiler :

Settled one tile deeper into the bay, which was a good move. Then Scoutx2-Shrine-Archer-Granary-Settlerx2. I got one of the first religions (Earth Mother/Tithe/Pagodas/RC/IP). I stole two workers but had to build a couple myself. First expand coastal to the E for the Whales, second expand on the island to the W near the NW. Oracle on t80 and 3 city NC on t82 and I reached Education on t108. No ancient nor classical wonders and no Iron nor Horses!

I had a nice midgame and built LToP, GT, PT and the Louvre. I was third to Renaissance and first to Archeology. I got 14 Antiquity sites. As you can se, I went all-in for a CV. But with only three cities, it was somewhat slow and I decided to expand a little and built two more cities. to get the techs. However, I was still first both to Industrial and Atomic. I went Order as did Portugal and Venice. Carthage was the only one to take Autocracy, but they had a crazy game: despite getting 89 (!) unhappiness from ideology pressure, they still had the most happiness! They were conquering left and right and also being culturally active. I conquered Venice myself.

The endgame was a loooooooooong excercise and I only got my CV on t349. This is my worst result that still has ended in a Deity win. It had less to do with the map though and more to do with my speedy game pace. Carthage and the Celts had culture in abundance and thus it took me so long. I was actually worried about loosing the game, so while waiting for the CV, I also prepared for a SV and I was about to launch when I finally got the culture needed (and the GMus). Painful end to an otherwise great game. SP: full Tradition, full Aesthetics, Exploration opener, full Rationalism and Order 7.

 

[penguin74]

well, the lockdown has given me some free time (Im in NY, its not pretty here), so I got to play my first full game in a while. Tried the england map as thats always my favorite civ.

Got a diplo victory on turn 356, not a great time, but its been a while, so im happy.

Spoiler :

typical 4 city tradition. settled in place, 2nd city got KSM. took out Darius with longbows. managed to take most of egypt and denmarks lands, except the capitals. Germany was the runaway, but we were friends all game, up til the last 30 turns or so. they had launched 4 when I won, so if 1 CS had flipped after my turn ended, i probably would have lost as I was about 16 turns away from launching myself.

fun map. might try another this weekend

 

[Nizef]

well, the lockdown has given me some free time (Im in NY, its not pretty here), so I got to play my first full game in a while. Tried the england map as thats always my favorite civ.

Got a diplo victory on turn 356, not a great time, but its been a while, so im happy.

Even if RL issues are grim at the moment, I am happy that you had fun with England. OP starting location, some nice expands and the power of LBs is a combination that will lead to a fun game. How did Assyria fare in your game?

 

[Nizef]

EDGE#68: Rematch with the beautiful city
I wanted a Deity HOF win with Sweden and thus I took a rematch after the Petra failure in EDGE#62. Stockholm is of course a beautiful city in RL and also here you have the chance to develop one of the most beautiful cities you will ever develop in Civ 5. In the late game (and not calculating two tundra tiles and a mountain) inside the three tile radius, the worst tile I could work had 3f1h and I had only two of those. The rest had higher yields! A hydroplant will be fantastic also for you. Here we have a YASS on an unmodded Pangaea map with Standard size and Standard speed. QC and QM are turned on and all VCs are enabled as usual. The start is VERY OP and you will have enough room to expand. Enjoy!

I played my own game in accordance to HOF rules and also submitted win. There is a short recap in the spoiler.

Spoiler :

Settled on the hill next to the mountain to the E on t1. I stole 1 worker from Portugal, 1 from Austria and 1 from a CS. BO: Scoutx2-Shrine-Archer-Granary-Settlerx2-Scout-Settler. I needed one more scout than usual because I lost my Warrior in the stealing process. I got the the third or fourth religion (Earth Mother/Tithe/RC/Peace Gardens/Messiah). First expand to the E for Marble and Incense (and being a blocker city, since I have come to the conclusion not to trust Portugal), second expand along the river to the S (nice location and Sugar), the third to the W mostly to claim all that land. 4 city NC on t90 and I built Borobudur afterwards. I reached Education on t110.

I had a nice midgame and built Sistine, PT and Eiffel. I was fifth to Renaissance but first to Industrial. Right after that I took Vienna with Gatlings, she was spreading her dirty religion to my corners and I did not tolerate that. I left Maria Theresa with Salzburg only and eventually Dido put her out of her misery. Dido had a good game and ended it on 29 cities and even with differing Ideologies we were friends to the end. Dido also conveniently took out the other religion spammer, namely Spain. This way I could maintain a reasonable religion in my part of the world. The AIs went Autocracy or Order and I was the only one with Freedom. Thus I needed to work a lot with my culture and happiness but eventually everything was fine.

The lategame was not peaceful! Maria backstabbed&attacked me with GWBs and GWIs and I did not even have flight (although I had Infantry). After a 6-7 turns she took Sigtuna and I retook it the next turn. (I had to build some Triplanes and beelined Ballistics. Sigtuna was of course badly damaged but it was very important for the two sources of Oil). After that she would not give me peace for another 15 turns or so. In addition Babylon and Venice also declared war. Enrico sent a lot of outdated units but nothing threatening. I also had to fight Antananarivo, which I conquered towards the end of the war. Eventful and fun! After the war I focused on winning and wrapped up the game with a SV on t307. Perhaps not very impressive but given the long war, I think this was decent. Population was 37-29-27-19 (Vienna) -11 (Antananarivo) -10 (the unlucky Sigtuna). SP: full Tradition, Exploration opener, Commerce 2, full Rationalism and Freedom 7.

 

[Nizef]

EDGE#69: War academy, Part 1
This is something like my training ground for warfare on Deity and it is also a tough nut to crack. I play a lot with this civ myself and thus it is natural that I have more games with them than with most other ones. I wanted to share this with you because I like the map so much. As you can see, the starting location is average at best and there is a lot of bad terrain on the map in most directions. Your workers will have to put in long hours to produce all the roads you need. Here we are playing as Germany on an unmodded Pangaea map with Large size and Epic speed. QC and QM are turned on and all VCs are enabled as usual. There are several rules to fulfil during your journey: 1. You have to settle at least five cities yourself (it is a Large map after all), 2. You have to found a religion (the easiest task here when you have scouted around) and 3. you have to achieve a DomV. For better players I would add a fourth target: Total DomV! This is a rough one, because even the peaceful AIs will have many cities in the late game and some of them insanely big, not mentioning the size of their armies... Should this even be presented in this series? Well, I admit, it is doubtful! Enjoy all the pain!

I have played this map four times, failing the first two, getting the undesired SV on the third attempt and only succeeding in a DomV at the fourth attempt. However, there is a short recap of my fourth try if you are interested.

Spoiler :

SIP and then Scoutx2-Granary-Settlerx2-Archer-Settler. 2 workers from a CS and 2 from Pacal. First expand to hook up Incense and Uluru, second to the SE for Truffles and Mt. Kailash and fourth to the S for Copper and blocking Assyrias expansion. 4 city NC on t129 and two more cities afterwards: fifth up N on the Ivory and the sixth to the NE for the Marble. Education on t170. Assyria took Venice early on.

The midgame was about catching up and going for Pacal with XBs and I took 3 cities (including Palenque) from him. But where to go after this? Assyria was expanding to the W and was painfully strong. I opted to also go W and went for Brazil with Gatlings and took Rio quite easily. Gandhi was my friend, so I could not go for him. It had to be Assyria next. I beelined for Dynamite and took Assur with Cavalry, Rifles and Artillery on t320 and I had to continue to kill Assyria to get both Venice and Marrakech. Finally on t367 I was so far and Assyria was more or less out of it. What then?. Unhappiness was becoming an alarming issue so I had to stop the warfare for now.

I opted to build my empire and get my science back on track. That took me almost 100 turns! I had basically only two opponents left (Gandhi had eaten Spain alive and Indonesia had done the same to Siam). So a Rocket artillery and Panzer divert attack on Indonesia (their naval superiority was alarming) and then getting the capitals with Atomic bombs and Xcoms. It took me more than 20 turns to actually control the situation. So only 15 city Gandhi left. With Nukes! I stopped counting but I needed something like 15 Atomic bombs and a sea of XComs to finish the game (once again I needed two capitals simultanuously). Madrid fell easily but I had to give all I had to push for Delhi (pop55!). Gandhi sent 10-12 Atomic bombs my way (mostly towards Rio and Imgur-Enul). Finally on t516 he cracked. What a game! For the reader I have to admit that I used S/L on a couple of occasions when I had missed some of the possibilities of the AI on the battlefield. On the fourth try, I think this is OK for this particular game, even if usually do not like it.

 

[penguin74]

Even if RL issues are grim at the moment, I am happy that you had fun with England. OP starting location, some nice expands and the power of LBs is a combination that will lead to a fun game. How did Assyria fare in your game?

constantly at war with Germany. I joined in a few times to keep peace with Bismarck. Never a factor

 

[Nizef]

EDGE#70: War academy, Part 2
If you do not like peaceful games, this one is definitely for you. As usually there is room to expand but it is mostly behind terrible terrain. Therefore, it is much more likely that you will go to war very early to get some cities and grow your empire. Here we are playing as the Huns on an unmodded Pangaea map with Standard size and Standard speed. QC and QM are turned on and all VCs are enabled as usual. There is only one rule: you have to stay at war as much as possible! This might sound ridiculous, but since this is Standard speed you also need to develop your cities at the same time. I found my game to be very fun and even if I did only a minimum of conquering, I was still at war for most parts of my game (including nuclear war). Here you can train your war skills during different eras. Once again, there is a lot of bad terrain, so going all out with Horse Archers seems a little risky to me. This is action all day long! Enjoy!

I have played my game according to HOF rules and also submitted my win. There is a short recap behind the spoiler.

Spoiler :

Settle t1 two tiles to the S for hill/river/mountain and then Scout-Monument-Shrine-Worker-Horse Archer-Settler-Horse Archersx5. Additional workers from Antananarivo. Only expand up N on the tundra for one tile of GBR. Fourth religion (OwN/Tithe/RC/Plowshares (everything reasonable already gone)/RT). Then I took Venice very early and Kathmandu right after that. 2 city NC on t73 and I built HG after that. William already hated me and this set the tone for the reminder of the game. Education on t112.

The midgame was about war. William came after me with Pikes and Knights and I had to defend for a long time. He would not give me peace either. We ended having a 100 turn war. Simoultanuously I built Macchu Pichu and PT. William had a h-ll of a game, bought most of the CS, so I had to fight them as well. Thanks to my capital and Kathmandu (both better than Venice), I was catching up in technology despite the war. Since I hit Replaceable parts and Dynamite before William, I finally went on the offensive and our first looooooooooong war ended when I captured Rotterdam. Unfortunately he had such a vast sea of landunits that I could not push for Amsterdam. Sweden was killing Morocco and Songhai, while Assyria helped me out with William from time to time.

I was already swithing towards a SV, when William, right after the peace treaty ended, attacked me again, now with modern units. For the remainder of the game we were fighting but I was also building the spaceship parts. Then I made an (almost) fatal error: I nuked Amsterdam without checking if William hed the tech as well. Never ever do that! Sloppy play by me, but I was already quite frustrated and just wanted the win. Unfortunately he had Atomic bombs himself, and bombed Attila´s Court. I lost population and some units but more annoyingly three GS as well. William was gaining momentum and also nuked Rotterdam and Venice while he was at it. This reminded a little of Gandhi´s behavior in EDGE#69... Finally on t300-something we reached a peace deal. I built the remaining spaceship parts and used my faith (+ one from the International Space Station) for GS and one GE and limped over the finishing line on t324. Obviously I am no good at war on Deity/Standard speed but this was more due to the fact that I played too fast. Besides William had a good game. All in all, almost 220 turns of warfare in this game. Kind of ridiculous!

 

[Nizef]

EDGE#65. Four's a crowd. Portugal, no mods, standard settings and speed, Continents map. QM can be turned on in options if you like to use it. The start is quite good, offering both high food and decent production potential, with a long river that can prove very useful against would-be invaders. The map offers riches to those bold enough to seek them out, but when too many people consider those riches destined to be theirs, peace can become fragile. We are facing a world where some are more blessed than others; there are 3 continents on this map, and yours is the most crowded. While you deal with envious neighbours in unfateful wars, others can use their isolation to make faster progress. Are you up to the task of not letting that happen?

I fooled around with this for a moment. It is really crowded because I had met two AIs by t4 and only Shaka was hiding until t14. War seems unavoidable.

You are welcome to upload your Spain game as well. I mean, I am all for diversity in this forum and we have not had a huge map before. Some readers might want to try it out.

 

[beetle]

@Nizef — I have a map (Denmark/Lakes) to share. Would you have me post in this thread as EDGe66 or something else?

 

[Tiberiu]

EDGE #71 Spain, no mods, Huge size, Pangaea, standard settings and speed. QM can be turned on in options if you like it. This start is very strong, having in sight 3 granary resources, 3 salt, 1 whale, river, coast, that more than compensate a few useless tiles in this tundra area. This map gives you a lot of freedom in what you want to do, and should work just as well to both Tall and Wide strategies. In fact, the freedom that I had in it was the most enjoyable aspect. To conserve this freedom, the challange that I leave for this game is not very restricting. I won't give any tips about potential Natural Wonders in order to not spoil the exploration, which is one of the most fun parts of a game, at least for me.
- Have a Natural Wonder inside your borders before the game ends. Optional bonus challange - also pass Natural Heritage Sites resolution, for extra spanish flavour.
Good luck and have fun!

I played this game more than a year ago and I had a lot of fun with it, and managed to barely win. When I played the game I didn't play with the challange from above but I think it should be achievable.

Spoiler :

After settling in place and with so much tundra around, I rushed a pantheon and managed to get Dance of the Aurora. I only built Temple of Artemis wonder myself, and couldn't build other wonders because of lagging behind in science too much. I went for full Piety + Sacred Sites with Pagodas and went crazy with founding cities, getting around 35-40. I managed to win eventually, but not culturally as one would expect, instead I won scientifically after first stopping Russia from launching their spaceship using XCOMs to block and destroy spaceship parts. It was my only game where I had to do this in order to not lose the game. Obviously founding so many cities can't be a good idea even on Huge size maps where penalties for founding cities are lower but I did it for fun in order to get crazy faith output (350+) and to test the strenght of a very wide strategy. Still, the endgame wars with advanced units was quite entertaining. I don't remember exactly the turn time I won but it should have been something like 320-325.

 

[Nizef]

@Nizef — I have a map (Denmark/Lakes) to share. Would you have me post in this thread as EDGe66 or something else?

I am delighted! Tiberiu just posted EDGE#71 and you are welcome to contribute with EDGE#72. I was actually thinking of playing Denmark shortly, since they have not been present in the thread since EDGE#4.

I would ask you (as I asked Tiberiu) to broadly use the "rules" for uploading:
1. I would like that you ask before you upload (just as you did),
2. use the next available EDGE# numbering (72 at the moment),
3. Write a short introduction of what we are facing and any additional tasks (policies etc),
4. write behind a spoiler how your own game went,
5. upload a jpg-file of the starting location and obviously also
6. upload the inital starting file.
I am sorry for being a little bit picky, but I think that a certain order will come in handy if/when more people upload games here. Thank you for contributing!

 

[Nizef]

Next civs in my own "pipeline" are Mongolia, the Netherlands and Venice. Just as a teaser...

 

[beetle]

EDGe72 Denmark, Lakes (Seas), younger (3B v 4B, so more hills/mountains), colder (so more snow/ice/tundra), Raging Barbarians.

Please see CDG10 if you think Denmark is a “blah” civ to play! The settings for this map are similar, except “Seas” instead of “large lakes”, and the AI civs are (somewhat) less insane. TLDR: (1) Map wraps left-to-right; (2) When you can, end your unit movement in the water (but outside of bombard range, of course). I used Rotate Start Position, and picked the strongest spot. SIP gets you costal hill on a river next to a mountain! All VC enabled, but Domination is strongly encouraged. I have not played the map through, but at T100 it was working out better than I could have hoped for!

I would ask you (as I asked Tiberiu) to broadly use the "rules" for uploading… I am sorry for being a little bit picky, but I think that a certain order will come in handy if/when more people upload games here.

Not picky at all! And those were all things I would have done without you asking!

 

[Nizef]

EDGE#73: Introduction to Deity
The EDGE series started out with "easy" Deity challenges and at least my own contributions have gradually evolved towards "normal" Deity skill level games. That is why I wanted to share an easy task. Here we are playing as Venice on an unmodded Fractal map with Standard size and Standard speed. QC and QM are turned on and all VCs are enabled as usual. The aim is to achieve a DipV. This setup is of course for many players how they reach their first win on Deity, but we have not had one like this in the series before. As I said, this is an easy task, but since this is Deity, you still have to work for the win. As an example, the AIs are well suited to fight for the influence of the CS (so at least Alexander is in the game). The start is nice but your end of the world is a little shy on growth. I would say that it is easy but not a free ride. Enjoy!

I played my game according to HOF rules and also submitted my win. There is a short recap behind the spoiler.

Spoiler :

Settle t1 on the Gold and then Scout-Monument-Shrine-Archer-Worker-Scout. I got a strong religion (Earth Mother/Tithe/Pagodas/Plowshares/Messiah). I used the first GMoV for La Venta and the second for Belgrade. I hard built Oracle and GMoD. Early NC and Education on t108.

The midgame was about sponsoring wars. William, Alexander, Ram and Pachacuti were all happy to attack each other. Babylon adopted my religion and we were buddies for the rest of the game. I had a slow midgame because my population growth was not the best. Only wonder I built was PT. I was first to Ideologies and obviously I chose Freedom. However the AIs chose Order (5) and Authocracy (2). I had no problem with my happiness but I was a little worried about the diplomatic game. Third GMoV for Florence.

In the endgame I built SoL and took Voluntary Army but after that I switched to Order. I had happiness enough, but by changing to Order I could play the diplomacy game much more freely. I started to buy all the CS and it is of course easy when you are making 400 gpt or even more. Pachacuti attacked me once, but it was easy to defend and I bribed William to join on my side and the attack melted away in just a few turns. My science was poor most of the game so it took me until t309 before I could win the WL vote. Very easy day at the office. I hope you will have an easy day as well!

 

[Nizef]

EDGE#74: The letter A
As a contrast to the previous game, this is harder than average (a sh-t ton harder actually). At the same time it is one of the most memorable games I have played for a while. I finished this one last night and I was so upbeat that I wanted to share it right away. Tiberiu and others who like decent challenges, here it is! It seems to me that every game I play with this civ is very fun. Here you are playing as Carthage on a Hellblazer´s Pangaea map (v.7) with Standard size and Standard speed. QC and QM are turned on and all VCs are enabled as usual. If you have watch MP games on Youtube, you have noticed that they always use this kind of map. The benefit being that there are always islands off the coast that are worth settling and they might have luxuries that you would otherwise have to trade for and you are guarrenteed to be able to circumnavigate the Pangaea without fear of blocking ice. In addition, this map has Legendary start + guarranteed Horses, Iron, Coal and Aluminium near your starting location. Strategic resourses are not the problem in this game. As you can see from the starting screen picture, your regional luxury is Pearls and then there is this strange looking Salt tile (which improved gives you 2f3h1g instead of the standard version 3f2h1g). There is one more oddity: there are only nine CS. I guess the map could not fit more than that on the mainland. But then back to the headline. The first CS you will meet, starts with an A. The first three AI leaders you are likely to meet, also start with an A and the first three capitals you are likely to find all start with the letter A. So now we have a direction for this one! Basically you have to prepare for war from the get go. However, to make this even more interesting the aim is to achieve a CV! How you do it, is up to you. Enjoy!

Just as a comparison, I knew about all the resources at the spawning location, but ended up settling far away on t5 anyway!

There is a short recap of my game behind the spoiler.

Spoiler :

Settled coastal on t5 two tiles from Uluru. This is the "curse" of finding an early NW, and it would take much for me to pass on this one. BO: Scoutx2-Granary-Settler-Archer-Settler. First expand on the Salt at the spawning location and the second expand further SW on the coastal hill on the other side of the peninsula for two more Pearls. First religion (DF/Tithe/Pagodas/RC/IP). As it often is with coastal starts, also this was slow, so no wonders and 3 city NC as late as t98 and Education on t116. Third expand on the island to the NW for Spices. Attila´s troups were tickeling my borders on several occasions but I diverted him towards Assyria, Greece and later also Indonesia. Assyria had a rough game, but they still managed to stay alive and were almost relevant! Interesting for an AI that lost all three of its early expands.

In the midgame I tried to keep Attila busy. That worked well enough but during one of the lengthy wars, my only ally died. Egypt had no chance when they got attacked by both Greece and Japan. The first wonder I built was Louvre and then PT. I beelined Archeology and was first to it. However I was short on AS in my own land so I had to hurry to get enough of them. I had to dig inside Assyrias, Attilas and Russias borders to fill all the slots. I also founded a fifth city on an island to the W for Cocoa and Crabs. How I managed to stay out of all the wars was just unbelievable. It must have been luck. I was only fourth to pick an Ideology and followed Alexander to Order. Japan and the Huns picked Authocracy. Assyria, Russia and more worringly, Indonesia all took Freedom. Since Gajah was the cultural leader. I directed my efforts towards getting him eliminated. My production was already decent and I built a lot of military units just in case.

In the last third of the game, I built almost every wonder, including more exotic ones like Christo Redentor, CN Tower or Broadway. Indonesias culture was massive and it took me forever to gain influence on them. Attila turned out to be my best cultural tool, as he and Japan killed Indonesia in an epic late game AI war. After that the rest was normal CV routine stuff. However I forgot to build the Musicians Guild, and that costed me another 10 turns or so. On t312 I finally won by using 4 GMus on Japan. For a peaceful game, I had insane military: 1 Atomic bomb, 10 Bombers/Fighters, 9 Battleships, 5 Submarines, 5 Infantry, 5 Gatlings and Machine Guns and a couple of Landships and Artilleries. "Armed to the teeth" so to speak.

 

[Nizef]

EDGe72 Denmark, Lakes (Seas), younger (3B v 4B, so more hills/mountains), colder (so more snow/ice/tundra), Raging Barbarians.

Please see CDG10 if you think Denmark is a “blah” civ to play!

I have had several fun games with Denmark in the past and one particularly fun game with them, as this one, on a Lakes map. I went for a DomV but after conquering 4 caps, I was stopped short by the mongolian horde and had to settle for a SV. Definitely one to remember. I am sure that this one is equally fun.

EDGE#72: 3 city NC on t92 and Oracle before that. Education on t108 but Shaka is building up for a visit.