[BNW] Enjoyable Deity Games

Here is a recap of all games in the Enjoyable Deity Games Experience (EDGE) series so far:

1. Korea (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
2. the Shoshone (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded with Really Advanced Setup (RAS))
3. America (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
4. Denmark (Continents, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
5. Byzantium (Fractal, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded with RAS)
6. Germany (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
7. Polynesia (Small Continents Plus, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
8. Brazil (Continents, Standard speed, Large size, Modded with RAS)
9. Mongolia (Pangaea, Epic speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
10. Spain (Terra, Standard speed, Large size, Modded with RAS)
11. Carthage (Continents, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded with RAS)
12. the Aztecs (Lakes, Epic speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
13. England (Continents, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded with RAS)
14. Korea 2 (Small Continents, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded with RAS)
15. Venice (Fractal, Epic speed, Standard size, Modded with RAS)
16. Egypt (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded with RAS)
17. the Huns (Oval, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded with RAS)
18. Japan (Hellblazers Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded both with RAS and Hellblazers map script)
19. China (Pangaea, Epic speed, Standard size, Modded with RAS)
20. Babylon (Hellblazers Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded both with RAS and Hellblazers map script)
21. Polynesia 2 (Hellblazers Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded both with RAS and Hellblazers map script)
22. Korea 3 (Hellblazers Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded both with RAS and Hellblazers map script)
23. Russia (Hellblazers Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded both with RAS and Hellblazers map script)
24. Portugal (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded with RAS)
25. France (Lakes, Epic speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
26. Germany 2 (Lakes, Epic speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
27. England 2 (Fractal, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded with RAS)
28. Sweden (Fractal, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
29. Arabia (Sandstorm, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
30. the Mayas (Tectonics map, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded with both RAS and the Tectonics map template)
31. Ethiopia (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
32. Assyria (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
33. Poland (Fractal, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded with RAS)
34. India (Pangaea, Standard speed, Small size, Modded with RAS)
35. the Aztecs 2 (Hellblazers Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded with Hellblazers map script)
36. Morocco (Sandstorm, Epic speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
37. Babylon 2 (Large Islands, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
38. Spain 2 (Inland Sea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
39. Greece (Fractal, Epic speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
40. Carthage 2 (Fractal, Epic speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
41. Indonesia (Archipelago, Epic speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
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)
67. Polynesia 3 (Archipelago, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
68. Sweden 3 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
69. Germany 4 (Pangaea, Epic speed, Large size, Unmodded), War academy, part 1, DomV challenge
70. the Huns 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), War academy, part 2
71. Spain 3 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Huge size, Unmodded)
72. Denmark 2 (Lakes, Standard speed, Standard size, Otherwise unmodded but Rotate Starting Position was used)
73. Venice 2 (Fractal, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), DipV challenge
74. Carthage 3 (Hellblazer´s Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Modded with Hellblazer´s map script), CV challenge
75. China 2 (Pangaea, Epic speed, Standard size, Unmodded), War academy, part 3, DomV challenge
76. Mongolia 2 (Pangaea, Epic speed, Standard size, Unmodded), War academy, part 4
77. Brazil 2 (Pangaea, Epic speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
78. the Shoshone 3 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
79. Assyria 2 (Terra Incognita, Standard speed, Standard size, Otherwise unmodded but Rotate Starting Position was used)
80. Indonesia 2 (Small Continents, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), No Liberty challenge
81. Portugal 3 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
82. Japan 2 (Ice Age, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), No Order challenge
83. Persia 2 (Random map, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
84. the Netherlands 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
85. Denmark 3 (Tiny Islands, Standard speed, Large size, Raging Barbarians, Otherwise unmodded but Rotate Starting Position was used)
86. America 3 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Large size, Unmodded), No Tradition challenge
87. the Incas 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
88. Korea 4 (Pangaea, Quick speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
89. the Ottomans 2 (Continents, Standard speed, Large size, Unmodded)
90. Arabia 2 (Lakes, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
91. Ethiopia 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Pantheon challenge
92. Greece 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
93. France 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), CV challenge
94. Siam 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded),Incense challenge
95. Byzantium 3 (Continents, Epic speed, Large size, Unmodded)
96. England 4 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
97. Sweden 4 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
98. Babylon 3 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
99. the Zulus 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Large size, Unmodded)
100. Germany 5 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), CV challenge
101. Brazil 3 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
102. Austria 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
103. England 5 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, modded with RAS and Acken´s balance mod)
104. the Celts 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
105. Rome 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Large size, Unmodded)
106. Songhai 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
107. Poland 3 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
108. Russia 3 (Lakes, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), DomV challenge

The new subseries MIDGE consists of:
1. Finland (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size. Otherwise unmodded but the civ to play is Finland)
2. The Papal States (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size. Otherwise unmodded but the civ to play is The Papal States. You also need Austria-Hungary.)
3. Phoenisia (Continents, Standard speed, Standard size. Otherwise unmodded but the civ to play is the Phoenician civilization.)
4. Norway (Ice Age, Standard speed, Standard size. Otherwise unmodded but the civ to play is Norway. You also need the modded civs Finland, Iceland and Scotland.)
 
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Hi, I've been playing a few of the EDGE games and wanted to express my gratitude and which seems customary, report on my progress so far. For most of the games I have been aiming for my preferred win condition, the peaceful CV.

I always appriciate any game reports and it is definitely a special treat when somebody is contributing for the first time. Welcome and I hope to read more from you in the future.
 
No problem. I will post my Belgium game as #5 instead. I am sure you will like it.
I am sure I will!

I will probably try again in the future, just not with so many modded civs. We have also not played as Iceland even though though they have been featured a couple of times.
 
MIDGE#5: A glass of wine and a map

Welcome to a game as Belgium. We are playing on a Pangaea map with Standard size and Standard speed. QC and QM are turned on and all VCs are enabled as usual. On this rather odd occasion I also ticked the box for Strategic Balance. But before we continue, I will try to shortly go through the, rather bizarre, events that led to Belgium becoming a colonial power in the late 19th century. The big european powers at the time, England and France had gobbled up large chunks of Africa for themselves and obviously also others, like Spain, Portugal and Germany had claimed lands there. But most of it was in the coastal areas while the heart of Africa still was a white unclaimed spot on any european map of that time. The industrious Leopold II wanted to join, but didn´t have the means to do much conquering. Instead (almost as in a cartoon!) he sat down one evening with a glass of wine and a map and got his brilliant idea. The interior was indeed unclaimed! He contacted his peers in London, Paris and Berlin and asked if it was okay for Belgium to claim the heart of Africa. The three powers gave their "thumbs up" - and bingo! Belgium had become a colonial power. A "minor" detail is of course that nobody even bothered to ask the locals how they felt about this astonishing shift of power... The rest of the story is well known since Belgium hired Henry Morton Stanley to discover the desired lands and negotiate with local tribes etc. (He had found Livingstone three years earlier, in 1871 btw.) This history "lesson" relates to this game because the UA is The Congo Free State, a very interesting abilty: After researching Calendar all newly founded cities will instantly improve all plantation tiles within a two tiles radius (including Bananas). Given the history involved and given this UA, I obviously wanted a jungle start and that is what we have here as well. The starting position is average in my opinion and you should be able to expand without too much trouble. As a benchmark I settled six cities myself. This Pangaea map seems to be quite large and the shape of it is very interesting. There are some choke points here and there and I met the last civ only after researching Sailing. Your closest neighbour is as nice as Deity AIs can be. An odd thing is that the CS seems to start building military units from t0, so stealing workers is a rather tricky business! I know I say it a lot, but this game was indeed a memorable one. I am sure you will have an interesting journey, if you give Leopold a chance. At least my game was not too easy either, I had to play the late game very precisely to carve out a win at all! I know I would like you to try at least Finland in this MIDGE series, but in all honesty this is even more exciting. Enjoy!

Technical description:
You will need the modded civ Belgium for this game: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1838578599
Besides the UA, you will have one "garbage" UU (only possible to buy for money) and one UB (Chocolaterie, Zoo replacement which gives you one copy of an unique luxury, the Praline) to work with.

Remember that this game is a modded game and that there might be some problems. However, I didn´t find any problem all game long.

Here is a short recap of my game:

Spoiler :

SIP. BO: Scoutx2-Shrine-Worker-Settler. First expand to the NE for Solomon and two unique luxuries (including the non standard desert Cotton). Second to the E for even more Citrus and third to the W for a coastal/river location without new luxuries. Even with this rather difficult start, I managed to build the Oracle and got a four city NC on t95. Fourth religion with OwN/Tithe/Peace Gardens/Plowshares/Itinerant Preachers. I settled two more expands after NC. With a rough start I thought that I had no chance on the cultural wonders. Much to my surprise I was first to Printing Press (despite being last to Renaissance) and I built both LToP and Globe. Shaka and Dido had a lot of early fights and both Napoleon and Elizabeth joined once or twice. The wars didn´t change much though. France was teching like a maniac and pulled away from the rest of the field. Despite this I managed to build Louvre as well. I beat Napoleon to it with one or two turns to spare. Obviously I was going for a CV at this point. France had a different idea though! They entered Modern first and got most of the AS as well. Unfortunately I only had a handful within my own borders or even nearby. France was first to Order and I picked it as well and later Dido and Morocco followed. The Zulus and England went Authocracy, while Ethiopia took Freedom. Songhai was taken out by the joint force of France and the Zulus.

My endgame was a thriller. France entered Information before I even got to Atomic and their tourism went through the roof. Fortunately Ethiopia had a massive culture pool (about 60.000), so CV was not going to happen anytime soon. Militarily and diplomaticly nobody was close to a win. Thus, this was going to be a space race between France and Belgium. I beelined for Hubble and managed to rush it. This proved to be decisive in the end: I bulbed all my GS and overtook France right at the death. Napoleon only lacked Nanotechnology and he had five spaceship parts when I launched. I used a GE for the last spaceship part. Highly interesting finish, highly interesting map and definitely not an overpowered civ. SP: full Tradition, Piety 2, Aesthetics 2, Exploration opener, full Rationalism and Order 6.
 

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We have also not played as Iceland even though they have been featured a couple of times.

The UU is definitely unique and deserves a game of its own. I wonder how it works in practice to scout and found cities with your GWs? A watery map is of course required but on Deity one probably also needs to beeline Drama and Poetry.
 
I always appriciate any game reports and it is definitely a special treat when somebody is contributing for the first time. Welcome and I hope to read more from you in the future.

Happy to hear, and I wouldn't want to disappoint now, would I? Since I had been lurking for awhile I already have a bunch of games to report on and as I've browsed through this thread I've enjoyed not only reading about the crushing or struggling victories, but also the defeats and losses. I find that analyzing a botched game is often more rewarding than not. Now for a couple of mishaps and failures:

Spoiler EDGE#100 Two strikes :
1st attempt: I immediately found the NW and settled it going 3 city liberty, recruiting a few archers from the camps and making my way towards Indonesias northern expo. Tech was kinda bad due to no caravans and my Kailash-city not growing so I realised I wouldn't have time to get CBs and went for it, losing my entire army in the process. I have no units, no growth and definitely no tech whatsoever.

2nd attempt: ok that didn't work, I have to change up my game plan. Liberty 3 city, i settle the NW, recruiting some archers from the camps and make my way towards Indonesias southern expo. I don't have CBtech so I attack with warriors and archers losing my entire army in the process... I'm beginning to suspect that I am in fact not a smart man.

It is as if I'm obsessed with making something happen using Germany's UA, which doesn't seem to work. At least not in this way, on this map. For my third attempt I will open tradition with the caveat that I'm under no circumstanses allowed to attempt any early rush. Let's get some Hansas and factories up and let the Panzers roll!


Spoiler EDGE#104 Celts - Three strikes aand out! :
1st attempt: Liberty, steal a worker from Augustus and Gustavus. I build a caravan to leech some science off Rome, but he don't want no peace so I have to start a settler before collective rule to settle a city out west to get access to swedish trade. The war against Rome is slow and grueling, with one enemy city razed and one captured I still have a blocker city to mow through on my way to rome. It's nearing t120 and I'm not nearly done with Machinery. At least Shaka is having a good game annexing all of Suleimans lands.

2nd attempt: liberty+piety mix, again worker steals from Rome, again Octavian wants no peace. While I fight to take his nearest city he sends an army to snipe my west expo and the relief force arrives just a bit too late, only to see his forces retreat as a second army shows up at the doorstep of my eastern expo, I have been severely outmanouvered. It is as if Augustus has taken command of Rome and her industries while Agrippa marshalls the Legions, I am totally and utterly outmatched.

EDGE#104 loss.jpg
Fabian tactics, for shame!

3rd attempt: well now, this certainly looks like a pretty good tradition cap and there are mountain expos nearby, perhaps there is room for a strong tradition science game with this "liberty-civ".

Plentiful minerals
Conceited the Hastati
Serene my swansong



Spoiler EDGE#102 Austria T272 defeat - long :
Got a kind of good start going here despite an almost complete lack of ruins due to the map layout: 1 spear upgrade, 1 culture into tradition opener.

BO: scout scout shrine settler granary. My nearest CS pops out a worker on t14! I had to double-check that it was standard speed, isn't this rather unusual? My 2 scouts are slaughtered by persian immortals trying to - with no success whatsoever - borrow a few workers.

The game plan is 3city NC into a strong midgame where I will buy a fourth an possibly fifth city to complete my empire going for the science win. Thanks to Hiawatha we pass science funding and things are looking great.

During the midgame things fall apart. I have recently learnt how to manipulate the amount you can borrow using wealth production and I overuse this mechanic a bit sending me deep in the red. At the same time, around turn 160 a coastal barb camp has spawned in the fog between my cities and 3 barb ships appear simultaneously to wreak havoc among my trade routes, it is at this moment I realise that I have no Navy nor any dough to buy one. As the camp is cleared and one ship remains it spawns a friend as if from thin air, catching me off guard and gobbing up two more cargos. Can barb ships spawn buddies without a camp, does anyone know?

Anyways, after losing god knows how many turns to this nonsense things are looking up again since science funding keeps recruiting scientists at a ridiculous pace and I have a dozen lined up for the endgame extravaganza when I am alerted to the fact that Alex has the DV within reach. He holds all the CSs but two, they belong to me, but I can't hold on to them. I even tried to reload dropping all my money on them to prevent the DV, but he just rebuys them.

Several mistakes led to this loss (1) not parking a unit in the fog to prevent barbs spawning. (2) overborrowing for rushbuys that eventually didn't make too much sense hurting my cash flow and sicence. (3) not executing my game plan, i bought my first and only CS after plastics due to money issues only to discover that Kyzyl had trade route acess to all the rich cities on the western coastline, which would have fixed my economy immediately. (4) deforestation, cutting way too much jungle to get hammers that didn't really serve a purpose in a science game. (5) Not marrying at least two citystates during the course of the game. If I understand diplo-mechanics, this alone would have made it impossible for him to win the first vote. Any additional suggestions and critiques are of course welcome from what can be deduced by this report and the screenshot.

8 WWs: Oracle, Sistine, PT, BB, SoL, Broadway, Hubble, Neuschw...
Policies: Full trad - 2 patro - commerce opener, full ratio, freedom!
#102 Loss.jpg


I'm curious to what extent you guys clear jungle (non-lux jungle that is), do you always do it if the tile has fresh water access? Do you ever improve bananas early to get the growth boost, sacrificing the mid/late game science yield?
 
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In my opinion, Germany is one of the civs with which you might go to war very early. But on Deity it is still a gamble, at least for me. My experience has taught me not to attack cities with Archers if the city combat strength is 20 or more. Accordingly I rarely try to use CBs to take cities with 30 combat strength or more.

I am very happy that you tried #104 with the Celts. It is a game with a lot of potential.

Austria is a monster when the stars align. However, in #102 the player has it all to do. Thanks for trying it!
 
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In my opinion, Germany is one of the civs with which you might go to war very early. But on Deity it is still a gamble, at least for me. My experience has taught me not to attack cities with Archers if the city combat strength is 20 or more. Accordingly I rarely try to use CBs to take cities with 30 combat strength or more.

Yeah couldn't agree with you more here. I guess I was overcome with bloodlust, you see for some reason Gajah featured in almost all of my games when I was learning immortal and in each and every one he was an unsufferable nuisance.

I am very happy that you tried #104 with the Celts. It is a game with a lot of potential.

Agreed! I just couldn't get the recipy right this time, dunno why really, I'm glad you had better a better showing!

Austria is a monster when the stars align. However, in #102 the player has it all to do. Thanks for trying it!

Yeah they certainly can be very strong, I was surprised when playing DCL#39 how well they did even under less than ideal conditions. Given how fixing even one of my mistakes would probalbly have resulted in a win, I think 260-270 SV is within reach here, since I ended up making at least 5 serious misplays.
 
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Now, ever since the workshop opened I have been suspicious of modded civs, it seems like the temptation of making them just I bit too strong is ever present. I don't know if the problem is with the content creators or with the target audience, I can imagine a "balanced" civ runs a serious risk of not generating any interest at all. Judging by the comments to the Phoenicia game things may have stayed the same. Luckily, for MIDGE#1 some technical issues ended up making finland maybe a bit too balanced.

A big thanks goes out to @Tiberiu for his tributes guide that I eventually managed to put to good use here, and for answering my jungle question in another thread even before I asked it!

Spoiler MIDGE#1 - T288 "peaceful" CV - way too long writeup! :

The title of this game is either "Workers of the world unite" or "den underbara sagan om ett land på andra sidan hafvet", one or the other.

BO: scout monument scout granary sauna

Policies: full liberty (engineer for NC from finisher), 2 aesthetics, 1 explo, 4 ratio, 3 autoc, 2(4 tot) aestethics, 3(6 tot) autoc, complete aesthetics into whatever

After som early scouting I steal 1 worker from Siam, 3 workers from venice after killing one of his pesky merchants and secure 237 gold from the peace deal. I check very carefully for immortals in the neighbourhood before snatching 1 more worker from darius. It seems they were distracted from one of their settlers being captured by the barbs, I promptly recruit him to my cause. Venice refuses to send any caravans my way and then denounces me, so i pillage a few caravans and steal a worker from his ally Ormus, and then another worker from Venice. During all this time I have secured 3 workers from the nearest CS bringing my total workers up to 12 at T57, which is fine since I have 7 cities all in need of improvements. As icing on the cake 3 CSs ask for culture and I'm rocking 3-4 more monuments than anyone else on the map.

MIDGE#1 T57.jpg

MIDGE#1 Rammy knows.jpg
Rammy knows how to treat a neighbour, take note Enrico.

7 city NC into T 110 Education. At T121 Finland adopts the ideas of renaissance first, if I only could get one of them runsingers at some point...

Due to my warmonging ways D&D team up in mid renaissance to bully Finland, they better hope it's not winter!

But it turns out it was, so Darius has to cough up 25 gpt in tribute, humiliated as he is after I sold Ecbatana to Mr Dandolo for an additional 25 gpt. During renaissance everyone keeps attacking and denouncing, I'm in dire need of friends. Suddenly, Sweden is in financial trouble and asks for a few gpt , well of course little brother, let us be good friends. :)

T159 ST, still waiting for one of them runesingers. Everyone attacks and my economy tanks, but Enrico helps me by conquering Närpiö. My 7th city was apparently only dragging me down, still I can't help being offended and having thoughts of nuclear weapons. As I radio into oxford I realise this is looking like none of my normal freedom culture games, and I'm certainly not playing as Urho Kekkonen's finland. So let's go for some futurism shenanigans.

At T204 rammy pays 50 gpt for peace. At T207 I bulb plastics then hotels around T220 as I lose world ideology due to not paying attention and preparing diplomats. My midgame got delayed by not having any coal leading to lower hammers than usual, so my archeologists are fairly late and I have to skip a few WWs I usually like to make. But I eventually have enough base tpt to let "Cult of Personality" do the heavy lifting for me. At T233 I pay Dido to declare war on the rest of the world and the rest of the world to declare on Rammy and then, I join in on the fun as the export of Moomin mugs reach an alltime high.

MIDGE#1 problems and solutions.jpg

MIDGE#1 justice.jpg

But all is not well in Mannerheim's Finland as the Sissi are growing restless, when Mr Dandolo attacks they go berzerk and charge to finally retake Närpiö. Now if I could only get me one of those runesingers...

MIDGE#1 in need of some Sissi with sisu.jpg
Bring me Mr Häyä, Now!

Enrico opts for the only sensible move, which leaves me with a dozen rabid Sissi in need of release.

MIDGE#1 smart move.jpg

Seeing as how I'm still not influential with Venice I promptly declare on his Mesopotamian opponents (technically a backstab, but who cares at this point). Ecbatana is captured for the second time by a platoon of Sissi and burned to the ground. A final tribute is given by Darius as everyone returns home. I press end turn for the victory to the tones of Finlandia-Hymni. By the way, are the lyrics any good? It sounds positively entrancing, even to a neighbour who lacks any real knowledge of the Finnish language.

WWs 5 built : Oracle, Sistine, LTOP, Uffizzi (engineered), Louvre . 3 conquered: Pyras, Red fort, Taj Mahal. For a total of 8.

Culture to beat: Persia 32k, Venice 22k

So in conclusion I'm a bit bummed that I didn't get to experience using the runesingers, but then the game worked out fine even without them and after all, every other aspect of the mod seemed to work as intended.

Who knows, maybe there will be another Finland map in the future? :mischief:

Victory pics below
MIDGE#1 SOUTH.jpg
MIDGE#1 NORTH.jpg
 
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Now, ever since the workshop opened I have been suspicious of modded civs, it seems like the temptation of making them just I bit too strong is ever present. I don't know if the problem is with the content creators or with the target audience, I can imagine a "balanced" civ runs a serious risk of not generating any interest at all. Judging by the comments to the Phoenicia game things may have stayed the same. Luckily, for MIDGE#1 some technical issues ended up making finland maybe a bit too balanced.

A big thanks goes out to @Tiberiu for his tributes guide that I eventually managed to put to good use here, and for answering my jungle question in another thread even before I asked it!

MIDGE#1 - T288 "peaceful" CV - way too long writeup!]

Fantastic report. I enjoyed every single word. Thank you! And mentioning Moomin as well! That is a treat like no other.

I agree that there are (many) modded civs that are a little too good, like in EDGE#3. However, I think that the game mechanics didn´t suffer in #1, #2, #4 nor in #5. I actually aim to only bring civs that are not OP.

Obviously I also agree with you on Tiberiu. His write up on #103 (see the neighbouring thread "England map") is definitely top notch as well.
 
I wonder how it works in practice to scout and found cities with your GWs?
I have always wondered what it would take for me to interested in founding new cities all game long. It turns out that Pop 3 + Free Monument is enough!
Now, ever since the workshop opened I have been suspicious of modded civs, it seems like the temptation of making them just I bit too strong is ever present. I don't know if the problem is with the content creators or with the target audience, I can imagine a "balanced" civ runs a serious risk of not generating any interest at all.
You express the dilemma well I think. All props to @Nizef for getting me interested in modded civs!
 
EDGE#109: Over the hills and far away

With this game I wanted to fill a gap in this series. Even if this civ has appeared two times before, those games have been on Epic speed. Now this will change as the task here is to play as China on an unmodded Pangaea map with Standard size and Standard speed. QC and QM are turned on and all VCs are enabled as usual. I chose some AIs to get an asian flavour to the game. My inital idea was to go for a DomV and wanted a sweet starting location to go with that. Well, the start is good but the map provided some challenges. Without saying too much, I think, you will have to assess your options after uncovering the map. Anyway, here is an interesting civ on an interesting and versatile map. Choose your own path and beat your neighbours in any way you want. Turtles might be in for this one! You will have fun here. Enjoy!

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

Spoiler :

Flatland SIP, but it is a Salt start after all. "Standard" BO was Scoutx2-Shrine-Settlerx2. 3 city NC on t88 and Oracle before that. Biggest surprise was to see how isolated I was. I met Babylon on t19 and England soon after but that was it! I found Mongolia on t33 and Japan soon after, but still...I had to steal workers from a CS and even built one or two myself. My religion was decent: EM/Tithe/Pagodas/Plowshares/Itinerant Preachers. I settled a fourth city after NC. By now it was clear that this would not be a domination game, at least not with the UU. All neighbours were far away behind bad terrain and getting there would just make the units obsolete before doing any damage. Crossroads: what to do? Education on t102.

England was the tech leader so I decided stay friendly as long as it is possible. With Elizabeth I always assume that will come to an end sooner or later. She obviously also settled a city five tiles from my cap, on the only possible tile I had not covered. I stayed cool and went for science. I was second to Industrial and first to pick Order. I had Coal but no Aluminium. Closest source was five tiles from London. I could not resist to return the favour and settled. After that our relation detoriated fast. I diverted her focus towards Mongolia and (later) Babylon. Japan took out the ever annoying Ram and while they were at it, they conquered half of India as well. Indonesia defended themselves well and suffered not from the japanese offensive. Indonesia joined the Order gang, while England and Japan went Authocracy. India opted for Freedom and the rest didn´t make it so far. The midgame was all about wars in fact. Only I could sit back and watch the mess from my isolated location.

The endgame was a normal SV routine and I even got England and Japan to trade blows. Right at the death, I conquered Coventry. After all it had annoyed me all game. I even used nukes just to get it done in one turn. The AIs were far off the pace, which is normal in a game full of wars. SP: full Tradition, Honor 2, Exploration opener, full Rationalism and Order 8.
 

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Hi, I've been playing a few of the EDGE games and wanted to express my gratitude and which seems customary, report on my progress so far. For most of the games I have been aiming for my preferred win condition, the peaceful CV.

So thank you very much for keeping these stunning maps coming Nizef, I have thourougly enjoyed it so far. I have been playing through some DCL-maps to learn and break into Deity this year, but comparing yourself to them old results feels a bit like doing archeology and I'm glad I stumbled over this thread.

Now, I have some more results coming, including some failures and trainwrecks, but I'll save them for my next post.
I have enjoyed your reports. It seems like you have a unique playstyle that works well. When I first read that you did a 6-city NC I thought wow, that's awesome - and totally contrary to the prevailing opinion on when to build the NC. One thing I dislike about Civ 5 is how much it discourages building a lot of cities. I am trying your method in the Belgium game - I got 5 cities up and am going to go with that for the NC.

Also, I like that you're able to go for peaceful CV - I wish I could do that. But I can't win any kind of CV on Deity. I can never seem to build the wonders. Do you mind if I ask a few questions?:
  • How do you build so many wonders on Deity? Do you beeline certain techs to get the wonders that they unlock?
  • Would you say its necessary to get a certain number of cultural wonders to get a CV? If so, which ones do you think are the most important?
 
I have enjoyed your reports. It seems like you have a unique playstyle that works well. When I first read that you did a 6-city NC I thought wow, that's awesome - and totally contrary to the prevailing opinion on when to build the NC. One thing I dislike about Civ 5 is how much it discourages building a lot of cities. I am trying your method in the Belgium game - I got 5 cities up and am going to go with that for the NC.

Also, I like that you're able to go for peaceful CV - I wish I could do that. But I can't win any kind of CV on Deity. I can never seem to build the wonders. Do you mind if I ask a few questions?:
  • How do you build so many wonders on Deity? Do you beeline certain techs to get the wonders that they unlock?
  • Would you say its necessary to get a certain number of cultural wonders to get a CV? If so, which ones do you think are the most important?

Yeah it's fun to go wide every once in a while, I was very much a 4city tradition player before I found Acken's guide. I think its amazing how most of the time as long as you follow his liberty guide to the letter, everything including libraries seem to finish at just about the right time for you to be able to engineer the NC if you like. (just for clarity this is the guide I'm talking about). I was also overlooking just how powerful and important it is to get aqueducts up in liberty, since when you don't found a fifth city as tradition, you have never actually had to build them.

I think it has been repeated many times on this forum that a peaceful culture victory is essentially a science victory with extra steps, this seems to be the truth and also affects the shape of the game. With the pace I am teching I rarely have the hammer's for WF after the first vote so what i want from the world congress is 1st vote: arts funding 2nd: worlds fair (since you need loads of culture to get all the policies needed to be effective in the late game) 3rd vote: international games, ideally with internet/hotels/airports. Compare this to faster players like Fimbul who are able to win turn 212 on a map it took me 249 turns to beat. They just go for something like world religion on the first vote to get an early tourism boost. So science is King in a culture game. Which means not creating too many great works of writing, since you want to for example enter renaissance via acoustics and bulb ratio -> secularism to be competitive. Since you only have Oxford and maybe Globe for theming if you get it, bulbing writers is no biggie.

When going liberty I get workshops up before Unis since liberty cities are usually too small to build them fast without. Going tradition I go directly Education into acoustics and tech workshops later and rushbuy one in the city building Sistine, I really like Sistine sinse it gives empirewide 25% culture which is good since once again, you need lotsa policies. On a typical map most wonders seem to be built at certain time intervals eg. Oracle ~t85 (very wide error margin!), Sistine 135-140, LtOP and GT around 145, Eiffel/Broadway just after t200. If I can hardbuild them before this and don't have other needs I usually go for it, although you will have to keep track of your neighbours and their preferences and also map type can affect this.

Otherwise the general tech beeline is afaik: Education followed by Acoustics or maybe Printing press, architecture is also good, ST followed by your choice of either Radio or 3 factories for ideology, Probably pick up archeology and get plastics. Late game is your choice of airports (maybe if you got few wonders but have lots of museums, also good for defense against AI when turtling if they are being nasty) or Internet, which also gives national visitor center, I think the latter is usually more powerful for a standard CV game proceeding at my pace.

I thought wonders were really important, you know theming and such. But my last few culture victories I have ended up on just five or six with no problems and I recall one forum member, can't remember the name who were convinced that Wonders were essentially garbage. Instead he got his production up fast, beelined archeology and sent military to hold every dig site on his site of the map including his neighbours lands, while building archeologists. There are apparently many ways to do this.

I have yet to confirm that the quote below exists in any way shape or form on this forum, but I've found this in a very helpful post on the subject: "To me CV is more of a hammer victory due to the sheer number of things you want to build" - Fimbul

Lastly: I believe Consentient said something along the lines of "now I understand, a peaceful culture victory is essentially a hammer victory". Because you want to build everything required in a science victory, +extra wonders, hotels, archeologists and maybe get amfis and OHs in all your cities so you can get hermitage for the extra policies and you for sure wanna win the world congress projects, oh my! To make things even more interesting you reach Public schools and Factories at almost the same time and want both. All of this is borderline insane and I don't have an answer to this equation, at least two points in aesthetics for fillers before ratio can help with the hammers for culture buildings. I hope some more experienced players could enlighten us on how to best balance this, but it might just boil down to experience and intuition.
 
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I am trying your method in the Belgium game - I got 5 cities up and am going to go with that for the NC.

Oh and also, thank you and I must say that seems like a good approach. The map and belgiums UA seem well suited for it, I chose a similar strategy. Looking forward to reading your report.
 
EDGE#110: It is raining nukes (DomV challenge)

This game would require no introduction at all. We play as the Aztecs on an unmodded Lakes map with Standard size and Standard speed. QC and QM are turned on and all VCs are enabled as usual. Since this is a classic setup, you know what to do. To your aid you have the fantasitc Floating gardens and your capital will be huge (mine was pop38 at the end without any internal trade routes going there all game long). I ended my game with a six nukes barrage before moving in with my XComs and Stealth bombers. I hope you will have a similar experience. Just go and get them, one by one! Enjoy!

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

Spoiler :

Settled t1 on the hill. BO was Scoutx2-Shrine-Settlerx2. 3 city NC on t86 and Oracle before that. Third religion with EM/Tithe/Mosques/Ascetism/Itinerant Preachers. Fourth city after NC. Genghis ate a few CS early but otherwise the start was peaceful. Education on t104 and I was catching up nicely. When Isabella thought she was bullying me, I paid Gustav to give her a lesson. Genghis also joined and I had an easy task to take Madrid with Trebs and LS. She was annoying with her religion, so my allies and I decided that she had to be exterminated. I sold Seville to Gustav for a neat 86 gpt and some petty cash.

I bided my time and financed some wars in the midgame. Genghis on Hiawatha, Gustav and Hiawatha on Babylon, Hiawatha on Portugal... Well you get the point. I was first to Ideologies and picked Order (safe and boring, I know). After Industrialization I more or less beelined Dynamite. Now the fun really started. Venice was the second target and Genghis the third. Neither of them stood any chances and it was quite slow only because slow troop movements. Sweden chose Order and we were buddies until very late in the game. It was convenient since they had a reasonable army.

Babylon and the Iroquois got GWBs, so I cooled down until I had Mobile SAMs and Rocket Artillery. Then my troops hit the road again. Babylon with a strong culture and Freedom as their Ideology had to be wiped off the face of the map as well. With a little help from Sweden, it was an easy task. Since I was in that part of the map, I snatched Lisbon and some other cities from Portugal as well, liberating Mombasa in the process and unintentionally recalling Enrico to life. It was like taking candy from a child. They had a few Battleships but that was it. Then I researched the last techs (Nanotechnology and Stealth) before going after Sweden. They had a sizable army and since I didn´t want to use my nukes just yet, I had to grind through their entire army. But after some 10-12 turns I had secured Helsinki, Stockholm and Sigtuna and the fight was over. Funnily Seville was the new swedish capital. I saved Onondaga for the Grand Finale. Two nukes going there and the rest was dropped on other sizable cities. Obviously my XComs didn´t encounter much resistance after such a "shower". Game Over on t301. I really like late game domination and this was very fun! SP: full Tradition, full Honor, Commerce 2, full Rationalism and Order 6.
 

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I kinda like Rome, so I finished the latest Rome map going for a tradition culture game, it seems that the UA benefits a lot from having just a bit more hammers early on and throughout the game as provided by YASS. I wholeheartedly agree with your analysis, a strong map for anything really. Also, I somehow didn't realise it was a large sized map until the turn I finished and btw you had me beat quite handsomely on the optional quest!

Spoiler #105 Rome - T260 peaceful CV ...with nukes :

Policies: tradition, back and forth between rati/aesthetics, into freedom.

Godly ruins, with at least 2 pop and 2 culture early, which translates into an early T95 education into a planned science game, until I suddenly change my mind and propose arts funding. The plan is 4 city tradition with an invasion of the Incan wonder cornucopia, but I seem to have some kind of disability when it comes to sticking to my mid game plans and instead settle a distant fifth city on the west coast for god only knows what reason. At this point the Incans backstab me and while the lands are very defensible he is pillaging my salts and causing all sorts of ruckus at my eastern border. I ask around and everyone is very upset with his treacherous ways and will declare war for ~4 gpt each causing his forces to suddenly withdraw opting for a more defensive apporach...

Pachuti returns with a DoF, I am happy to accept since I'm sure by now that he will make sure I never pay full interest on my upcoming loans. During the midgame I go a little hard on the borrowing hurting my gpt and science so things slow down unnecessarily during the late renaissance and early industrial eras. Meanwhile the western expo is doing close to nothing to speed up my game and won't even offer any good cargo destinations.

Inevitably Pachuti attacks again around T180, tourism soars and while I never launch the planned invasion I drop a few nukes on his head to teach him a lesson. I find the AI-mechanics concerning nukes quite amusing, where they will come and tell me how afraid they are once the nuke is built, then denounce me as it is launched and my arsenal is depleted only to return to groveling once the second nuke gets finished.

EDGE#105 yoink.jpg
Yoink!

My religion game was weak, pic for comparison.

EDGE#105 gold.jpg

A good map with potential for a strong game, that's YASS for you. 'Twas fun, over and out!

8 WWs built: Sistine, LToP, Globe, Taj Mahal, Louvre, Eiffel T, Broadway, SoL

Culture to beat: Siam 40k.

EDGE#105 finish.jpg
EDGE#105 culture.jpg

 
I find that whenever I try to express my thoughts on a subject I will spend the next few days trying to look at it from every possible angle, what do I actually know about this? What don't I know about it? So I'd like to ask a few questions and make a final stipulation about peaceful CVs.

I usually don't build too many archeologists, usually 4-10 depending on map layout and where I fit in archeology in my tech order, also since I'm a peaceful turtle I typically do not have a standing army that let's me claim all the sites I can see, although in a recent game due to some early wars this was the case. Still I do not think I've ever done this:

All in all I managed 16 AS which was a good result compared to how I usually perform.

Since I beelined Archeology, Siam was first to Ideologies and picked Order.

For Nizef: I am curious as to how this was done and I realise this was a while ago so you might not remember. Still, a few questions: when you say beeline I'm assuming you picked up scientific theory first, but this might be wrong, do you still remember or care to guess about your tech order during late renaissance/early industrial? It seems you did not build factories before archeologists (bot this could also be wrong), did you just rely on forges to get your archeologists up? Did you have to cut any of your usual preffered buildings or wonders to get enough hammers for this many archeologists?

Another more general question: since my religion game is sort of weak and my diplo game is worse it has been a long time since i last proposed world religion. I'm assuming spreading your religion to a friendly non-religious neighbour is always good for this. But besides that, what size of bribes are we talking and how easy/consistent is it to get this in your typical deity game? Are there additional tricks to this that might not be obvious at first?

That's it for questions this time and I'll end with a statement. I would guess or even suggest that when first going for peaceful culture victories on deity Tradition is the preferred starting tree. While liberty can also be good or even competitive depending on the map there are two major advantages to tradition.

Firstly, with liberty there are more variables involved and therefore more things that can go wrong, Tradition is almost always a safe bet. Secondly, due to the how the mechanichs of the settling phase and early happiness work differently for 4-5 city tradition compared to 6-8 city liberty I find that on a comparable map tradition will hit education earlier. This also translates into getting acoustics and/or printing press and possibly even architecture faster, which combined with the +15% bonus to wonder production makes it easier to get the early renaissance wonders making for a smoother mid and late game.

I hope that a little back and forth on this is still okay within the scope of this thread, but if we start going all the way down the rabbit hole I suppose I should start a new one or necro one of the older ones on this topic.
 
Well, in general my tech order in the midgame depends on how good my early game has been. If I commit to a CV, I might go straight for Archeology, thus entering Industrial that way. If I feel that I have more time, I try to pick up either Industrialization or Scientific Theory before going for Archeology. Anyway, I want to have Archeology on t170 at the latest. It is also dependent on my production capacity. If I have the hammers, I go directly for Museums and Archeologists but many times I feel that Industrialization is necessary for a smooth CV game. One thing I haven´t done yet, is to bulb a GS to pick up all three key techs (Archeology, Industrialization, Scientific Theory) more or less at the same time. But I feel that that requires funds to buy at least 2-3 Factories or Public Schools.

For a strong religious game there is nothing better than Itinerant Preachers.
 
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