[BNW] Enjoyable Deity Games

I had been reading up a bit on CVs and general tactics, such as not overemphasizing rushbuying Unis, which means I can actually sign a few research agreements cause suddenly I have the cash for it. I decided to take my new strategies out for a spin on two maps that seemed very similar, but with completely opposing results.

Spoiler EDGE#49 Zulu EDGE#93 France :

The similarities being: decent lands on an isolated peninsula with difficulty to get any kind of science leech going using caravans. In hindsight the French lands were a bit worse and moving to the coast was probably a mistake. Actually, I find it kind of interesting that both me and penguin went to the coast with questionable results while the smart players stayed on the salty mountains.


Spoiler EDGE#49 Zulu - T266 Peaceful CV :

BO: Scoutx2 start worker, shrine, finish worker, settlerx2

Ruins: unsure, but one culture, maybe one pop

Food religion: EM/tithe/SiP/FtW/IP

Policies: Full Trad, Aesthetics 1, Ratio 4, Freedom3/Explo 1, Ratio 1, Aesthetics 1, Finish Ratio, Freedom to lvl 3, finish Aesthetics

Tech pace: T107 Edu (no rushbuys), T128 Secularism (doublebulb), T189 Plastics, T217 Internet

T151 Machu Pichu (somehow still available :goodjob:), I get Taj but Ramses snipes Ufizzi, which is ok, not my favourite CV wonder but the artist is nice (note: this is before I realized that the FREE GWAM from wonders, and not just from LToP are in fact not free).

Assyria got to order before me! So I go for freedom, I think order could've been nice on this map, especially with a food religion diminishing the need for freedom to run specialists.

Bulb RP (for SoL) into T189 Ratio-finisher Plastics. Most likely a misplay, should've saved it for internet, but I wanted it for my RAs. Actually my RAs were nowhere near finishing, so definately a misplay to not save it, since I didn't have faith for scientists by this point anyway.

IG won at T207, T217 internet (RA finishes at T216, could've delayed scientist bulbs one turn to get it T216)
Everyone denounces me and I return the favour, picking volunteer army and building a few subs. Since I'm isolated geographically the war never comes. Turtle zulu is the new meta.

EDGE#49 so close.jpg
so close!

T251 WR passed. Buy 2 faith musicians and send 2 natural (3x 6.5k and 1x 3.5k) for the victory.

Culture to beat: Morocco and Egypt at 40k each.

15 WWs (vs. Ramses 11 :smug:): Sistine, LToP, Globe, Machu, PT, Taj M, Louvre, BB, Eiffel T, SoL, Broadway, Cristo, Sydney, CN T, Neuschw...

EDGE#49 win.jpg
EDGE#49 policies.jpg



So a few inefficiencies, but all in all a decent game. I think I went a bit hard on bulbing all my GWAMs and could have used maybe one or two extra great works instead to boost my base tourism. I also tried to build and work the musician's guild late after reading up a bit, this worked out fine but I don't think it is necessary. Still, I couldn't fit it into my buildorder earlier either due to other priorities.

Feels good to have CV with a decent finishing time vs runaways while essentially playing the neutrals.

Since my prayers to the cargo cult went so well I thought I would transfer my method to that other map since they were so similar after all, right? I had actually already played "Magnifique" up to ~T30 four or so times. Quitting either because I wasn't feeling it or because I suicided all my scouts while trying to get workers (Haile had built all his cities on hills). I should've gone with my gut feeling on this one.

penguin74 said:
EDG 93 turn 330 loss

I give up. The elusive 1st cultural victory on deity might be unreachable. Had started replaying some of the older one, but I wanted that first CV, so played this a few times.

My sympathies for anyone trying for their first CV on this map. As Nizef already pointed out there are plenty of better options. I found it to be quite hard actually. Not as in a hard Deity map, but definitely hard by EDG standards and the least enjoyable one for me so far by a wide margin (at least that I've played to completion, my aborted attempt at EDGE#99 using Acken-Liberty comes close ^^). Although, I suppose there is always a kind of enjoyment in experiencing new extremes.

Spoiler EDGE#93 Magnifique 5th attempt - T237 loss by domination :

BO: scoutx2 shrine worker settler archer settler

Snatch last religion T87 after 5-turn wait, phew! At T95 Washington enters renaissance through gunpowder, speedy! T118 Education into T161 ST. Haile is running away with all the wonders (9 WWs by T104) while Darius has somehow found the rationalism tree despite being an AI, completing Eiffel at T174 and Broadway by T181 and he has LToP, sigh.

Things are going sideways way too fast so I prepare to arty-rush Haile to prevent a loss. Even as I switch gears I forsee my entire army dying on the isthmus to the north since things are proceeding slowly enough for Haile to comfortably get flight by then. Of course, this is exactly what happens.

But before then as if things weren't bad enough I get double DoWed- by Attila and Haile while I'm still building barracks and factories. You see, way back when I took out some big loans and wanted to get free. I did every nasty diplo move you're allowed without being the backstabber to try to get them to betray me. Of course they stayed friendly, but now that the DoFs and RAs have run their course they are hungry for revenge.

My trade fleets instantly desintegrate, which means that the gpt I was going to use to get some allies to help me take down Haile is gone. My capital takes 4 turns to build artillery, my expos about 8, not fun. Trier falls in 2 turns to Haile's fleet while still building its castle. My fledgling army marches north after narrowly defeating the Ehtiopian navy south of the Cape of Ormus, but France was doomed from the start.

T221 Lyon falls. T222 Trier falls for the 4th and last time. T226 the general of the northern assault force is finally executed by the enemy only after his troops have already been bombed to smithereens. T231 an absentminded Napoleon orders for the completion of Prora while the enemy marches on Paris and takes it at T234. T237 Total defeat.

2 WWs engineered: Brandenburg, Prora

France before disaster:
EDGE#93 loss.jpg

 
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EDGE#111: Much ado about nothing (A challenge not to steal workers from any CS)

This time I proudly present something that is EDGE mainstream. We play as the Shoshone on an unmodded Pangaea map with Standard size and Standard speed. QC and QM are turned on and all VCs are enabled as usual. It is a Salt start (couldn´t help myself) and you are starting in a peaceful corner of the map. However, your production is likely to be average and the opposition... Well, I chose America, Brazil,Polynesia, the Incas and the Aztecs to get an "american" flavour. The other two you will meet very soon after getting started. What I didn´t expect was that the game would turn out so peaceful. Now it is up to you to decide what to do. Settle a bunch of cities and turtle to a CV like I did, or would you like to go on the offensive. Based on the map, you can go in any direction actually. Just enjoy all that land, one way or the other. There are pictures from t99 and t294 for you to compare as usual. Have fun!

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 Pathfinder-Shrine-Settlerx2-Worker-Granary-Settler. I stole a couple of wokrers from Elizabeth, but built the rest of them myself. 4 city NC on t89 and Oracle before that. Fifth city soon after that. With all those cultural spammers I was afraid that I would loose out on a religion. But I got the third religion with EM/Tithe/Pagodas/RC/Itinerant Preachers on t72! This is crazy on Deity. Monty tried to start some wars but they didn´t accomplish much. Instead Pacacuti had a swing at Polynesia and took Honolulu quite early. Education on t106 despite some minor detours.

I was first to Acoustics and managed to hard build Sistine and curiously enough also Forbidden after that. I was now firmly on the CV path and later I also managed Louvre. I was second to Industrial on t156 and chose Order while the Incas for some reason thought that Authocracy was the path forward. Brazil, England and the Aztecs all went Order and eventually I got it promoted to World Ideology. Pacacuti and Washington (Freedom) found it hard to stay in the positives at all. Brazil was beaten by Washington and Monty but only needed to give away a couple of cities.

In the endgame I was ahead in techs and easily built Eiffel, Neuschwanstein, Sydney OH, CN Tower, Kremlin and Great Firewall. No AI had any massive culture pool. However, they ALL had between 25-40.000 culture. SO I had to start one new city for Brazil and one for the Netherlands. Washington was my neighbour after taking out a CS, so I had easy access to him. I used 2 GMus for America and one each for Brazil and the Netherlands. Strange game all in all and definitely not too hard. It took me until t294 to secure a win, much to my own frustration. SP: full Tradition, Patronage opener, Commerce opener, Exploration opener, full Rationalism, full Aestethics and Order 6.
 

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I've been trying to improve my culture game. Looking back I realise I almost never build the oracle and it is kinda hard to squeeze in going 4 cities tradition before NC, at least on most maps. This time though, I didn't really like my options for a fourth city and decided the best opener would probably be 3 city trad into oracle before NC.

I've also tried to get more antiquity sites. I believe I've put too little emphasis on archeologists (given that they are essentially great people you can build for a few hammers). Also I've often skipped Uffizi since it's a hassle to theme that one, but after reading Beau's CV guide I realized it would make a good stash for all the artifacts I was going to get. I've also been considering lately that if a culture game really is a science game with extra steps, maybe it is actually counter-productive to pass arts funding (albeit good for diplo) and certainly this time it wasn't passed. Since I had no time for such a proposal with WC founded after T130 instead opting for WF, then WR, then IG.

I had several friendships going through renaissance boosting my GP acquisition by 40-50% before ideological differences ruined everything. Other than that I hardly used any of the Swedish quirks, gifting only one great person in total and building a total of zero UUs.


Also: shoutout to @Tiberiu whose suggestions for EDGE#103 I adapted here to isolate a rival, get the chain of denouncements going and secure mentioned friendships throughout the midgame, awesome!

Spoiler EDGE#68 Sweden - T236 Peaceful CV (New personal best) :

"Antiques? What the eff do we know about antiques, mate?"

"If it looks old, it's worth money. Simple."

-Barry the Baptist educating two scottish gentlemen in the art of fencing



BO: scoutx2, start worker, shrine, finish worker, settler (buy archer).

Policies: Full Trad, patro opener, aesthetics opener, 4 ratio, 3 freedom, lvl 3 freedom and finish aesthetics, ratio completed last (too late to matter)

Ruins: 1xpop, 1xarcher, 2xgold (no culture)

Religion: EM/tithe/Mosques/DI/Double spread to CSs

Tech Pace: T110 Edu, T120 perfect rationalism timing, ~T145 ST, T155 Oxford Radio, ??? Plastics, Internet somewhere between 210-220 probably..

T55 send caravan to Wittenberg and spend 250 gold for ally and faster religion. Not sure if that's worth it, but it's always nice to try something new. Since I'm stuck on 3 cities I wonderspam a bit before realising that I can use the spanish weirdness here. She is friends with only me while I have DoF's going with everyone, so I make some demands. She bs denounces me, which leads to an immidiate joint war request from Portugal. I promptly denounce Spain and all of my friends join in on the denouncing and eventually on the war. My CSs raze Toledo before I can get there, so I have to build a settler. Isabella starts spamming units so I ask Dido to distract her for 3 gpt.

EDGE#68 Rabid CS.jpg
Rabid citystates strike again!



T99 MariaT finishes Hagia, I build Boro at T100. Feels good picking the right one, phew. I really want Madrid, but I should probably secure some more CSs and RAs before pissing off the entire world. I sell Santiago to Austria for 15 gpt, which allows me to collect 25 gpt in the peace deal. I'm not really sure what use Kailash is to a CS so my GG picks it up after the peace talks. Isabella hates my guts but has her hands full with world war Spain. I take a few loans from Enrico to pay for RAs and then send Portugal and Assyria to backstab him for a total of 18 gpt, which is less than I just payed Mr Dandolo to pick up his last copy of Whales for Stockholms WLTKD. Formerly venetian Vatican city is promptly sold off to Portugal covering all expenses.

EDGE#68 tyvm.jpg
Thank you very much!

T169 WF I pay Dido to attack everyone because she is hammerleader and I haven't got to factories. WR fails on 2nd congress, so much for those bribes (I suicided a spy to get another CS, had I got it and been able to send him as a diplomat I might have got the vote). To win IG I send the world into chaos once more since I haven't had the time to build hydroplants and I wanna finish cristo redentor as well. I buy 3 musicians after IG, but only have time to use one, apparently I could've won faster.

Also, what you said about Stockholm was no joke, so many good tiles. So good in fact that for the first time ever going tradition I elected to outsource all guilds and national epic to an expo to not hamper my capital's wonder spamming potential.

10 WWs built: Oracle, Borobodur, Sistine, LToP, Uffizi (engineered), Taj M, Eiffel T (Engineered), SoL (engineered), Broadway, Cristo R.

11 Antiquity sites dug up.

Culture to beat: Austria and Portugal at 16k

EDGE#68 Win.jpg
EDGE#68 culture to beat.jpg



I'm not sure the patro opener was the right call, it meant I couldn't get ratio finished in time to free tech internet, because I had to complete freedom/aesthetics. Also I couldn't afford to open exploration for the Louvre. But then, I really didn't expect such a fast game either and having only one cultural CS on the continent also hurt my policy acquisition.

The lack of serious runaways probably helped my finish time, but also I had 10k+ of unused musicians at the end, so idk.

Also I found Divine Inspiration to be quite strong provided you can secure the wonders, but I still think I prefer production if available. At least for a culture game.

I also wanted to try out the same opener aiming for a science victory, this here map turned out to fit the description. Since I'm more of a peacemonger I've never thought much of England, but this seems to be mostly because I have severely underestimated Englands UA.

Spoiler EDGE#96 England - 3city T264 SV :

BO: scout x2, (2 pop) settler, scout, settler, archer, granary, caravanx2

Policies: Full Trad, commerce 1, Ratio 3, Freedom 3, finish ratio, +2 commerce (3), freedom to lvl 3

Religion: DF/Tithe/Pagodas/RC/ItP

Tech pace: T106 Edu, T120 Ratio, T150 ST, T164 Oxford Radio, T195 Plastics

2 workers borrowed from Morocco, 1 from France, 1 from a barbarian camp and 2 from a nearby CS

My sea trade route gets plundered, there's actually loads of pirates here. Fortunately they are too slow for English galleys. I decide to delay Education by a few turns because my cap is busy wonderspamming and my expos haven't caught up with their build orders.

AIs are kinda late on the wonders: Sistine T145, Globe T160, Uffizi T193, louvre T237. There would probably have been a real good culture game here even with France on the map.

I start a useless war with Morocco at T150, which goes on until T220 since France doesn't manage to march their troops there to assist and I can't get a proper army myself while keeping up with the simcity. The accumulated money loss is 1000+ from using non-moroccan inferior trade routes, even more if you include loss from potential incoming caravans.

T220 start 50+ turns of Golden Age to counteract Frances tourism, I elected to give him IG so I could keep spamming necessary buildings and a few extra wonders.

14 endgame scientists, 9 natural, 2 Hubble, 3 faithbought (3.6k faith left, almost enough for a fourth). Could've had more if I had manage to pass science funding, but the AIs voted it down even with lots of bribes.

13 WWs: Oracle, Borobodur, Hagia S, LToP, Taj M, PT, Eiffel T, Broadway, Big B, SoL(engineered), Cristo R, Sydney OH(engineered), Hubble ST

EDGE#96.jpg




Definately a viable map for 3-city Oracle, although I would've liked to control a few of my neighbours cities before the endgame. I don't think I could've done it much faster on only 3-cities, the endgame was smooth and I didn't miscalculate the endgame bulbs like I often do. After playing lots of culture games it is quite a change to go Freedom/Commerce Science Victory. Even though WF was never passed I should've made a few GW of writing earlier since you can apparantly get enough culture to fill out the necessary policies anyway.

Divine inspiration would probably have been good to get a 4th scientist (or just skip buying the engineer for SoL), but as it turned out I also really needed the production to get the simcity done in time, so idk here either.

Actually even more than the extra spy I was surprised at how fast I could clean out the fog of war with a few caravels. No need for sattelites!

So going small n' tall is nice and all, but for my next post I think I'll share a few games on the wide side. Thankfully, the post itself won't be quite as wide as this one, pinky promise.
 
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EDGE#112: Fond of my pond

A pond is of course a very small body of water and here "the pond" is in fact a little larger. But it will serve you well anyway! Another thing with this game is that, amazingly enough, there is no Salt near the starting location and your regional luxury is... Truffles. We don´t have too many of those in this series. Most likely you will not settle more than four cities yourself but you will nevertheless have a fantastic ride! Just conquer more cities, if you think you need them. The icing on the cake is that we are playing as Korea. Obviously we use an unmodded Pangaea map with Standard size and Standard speed. QC and QM are turned on and all VCs are enabled as usual. I haven´t played as Korea for a while and didn´t remember how overpowered they are. This was fun regardless of what I decided to do. I am sure your journey will be even more amazing! You will enjoy this one even if the start might be a little slow. There are pictures from t98 and t291 for you to compare as usual. Have fun!

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

Spoiler :

Settled t2 on the river/hill to the S. BO was Scout-Shrine-Granary-Settler-Scout-Settler. My workers came from a CS and also one from Gandhi. India had a rough trip and didn´t even make it much beyond t100. Increadably I got the last religion extremely late. It was not of much help though, since Portugal had a fantastic religion with Mosques, Pagodas and Jesuit Education. So,much against how I usually play, I let Maria spread her religion to my cities. The central starting location also meant that both Pacacuti and Genghis attacked me early. The defensive positons were great and I had no problem to repel those early attacks. Even with a slow start (I should have built my cargo ships earlier than t55-60), I still reached Education on t108. I was catching up nicely and the AIs entertained themselves with wars: Incas on India, Incas on Portugal, Incas on the Mongols, the Mongols on the Celts and so forth. Unsurprisingly it made it easy to catch up.

In the midgame, no AI opened up the much loved Patronage tree, so I opened it and also hard built Forbidden. Nice! :) Bismarck went for a more cultural approach, since he was short on space. Eventually we bacame friends. Genghis was eating all the CS (also Monaco) and started to think about how to do something about it. With all the wars going on, I was first to Industrial on t157 and chose Freedom. Genghis and Pacacuti went Autocracy but the rest (including cultural leader Germany) all chose Order. I tried to stick to my game plan but opted to beeline for SoL and also chose Volunteer army early. And eventually I dropped so far into the red that I had to switch to Order. No harm done, since I was able to build Kremlin as well.

After Plastics I finally attacked Mongolia together with Pacacuti and Boudicca. Monaco fell without siege units. Seoul was obviously very safe after this. Genghis stole some land late in the game, so I decided to give him another lesson and took Hsia (sold it to Bismarck) and Beshbalik as well. Bismarck finally tasted blood and took out Siam in only 10 turns or so. Ram had only three cities but still. After that I just started bulbing my GS, and as it sometimes happens to me when I am unfocused, I started bulbing much too late. After reaching the necessary SV techs, I still had 3 GS left. Bismarck tried a late CV push and was infuential with everybody except Genghis. But he would have needed some 20-25 turns more to win. Unspectacular end to an easy and fun game! SP: full Tradition, Patronage opener, full Rationalism, Freedom 5 and Order 6.
 

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Hi! I like all the activity on this thread, and the stories! Good to see new people like Turtle coming onboard.
I've recently played a cool game with Assyria and I was wondering what games are here with them, to try it out. I saw them at number 32 and I started the game.
Spoiler t82 update :

The settling was very suboptimal as I moved away from the good stuff in the area in an attempt to get a better location, and then seeing a ruin I decided to steal it with my settler. The ruin gave nothing besides it having a "deny value", thus I wasted one more turn. The first 3 civs I met - Venice, Morocco and the Netherlands were all on my "easy civs list" so it was fun to discover them, it will be nice to test how they all work in the same game. I went for the Tradition Opener and into Honor 3.
The warrior became a spearman, and I could steal a worker from Venice and do a barb quest. Thankfully, my first scout was brilliant, he stole 2 workers, one from France and one from Vilnius, and pillaged a caravan. With so many good options, it was hard making a decision with where to place the first city, and I eventually decided to forward-settle Napoleon, and I managed to steal a settler from him too, just in time.

With the delayed settling and the late shrine (i went 4 scouts), I only got third pantheon despite having 8 faith free from meeting Geneva. I had nothing good so it was either God King or God of War but since God King has no real chances to give you a religion I took God of War instead. I DOWed France, Morocco, the Ottomans, the Netherlands and Venice. I have a DOF with Theodora.

I used my first citadel against Napoleon to steal his whale and get some faith from killing his units, but in order to place the citadel one scout had to be sacrificed and one spearman died fighting the initial turns. Still, this forced Napoleon to capitulate and he gave all his gpt and gold (~700 value) which helped to mitigate the casualties. I had to waste 800 gold for 2 walls anyway and lost 2 elite scouts due to neglect.
After I got my second general, I put a city near Morocco which made Ahmed to send a lot of units to their doom, and he is now giving all his gold and gpt (~1000 value) but I am not sure if I should accept or keep pushing for the third general and to get the good promotions. Stopped this first session to take the decision well rested. Things are not going as well as I wanted because my neighbours didn't build any wonders except Zeus, maybe I attacked too early. At least Netherlands are sending sea caravans to Napoleon, which I pillage with a trireme. The Ottomans will be the tough civ as they have 6 wonders already. There's also an unmet civ who built good wonders, hopefully it's another bad civ.
T82edge32.jpg

 
I'm telling you guys this is the one. The liberty map of our hopes and dreams. It is the first time ever that I managed to use Acken's approach succesfully while settling more cities than recommended. If you haven't played it yet, what are you waiting for? :D

Spoiler EDGE#92 Alexander's Greece - T253 9-city mostly peaceful order SV :

"If you're not playing like a deity level AI, you're playing it wrong." - Free_Gold, on the merits of ICS and wide play

BO: scoutx2, monument, settler (buy scout), scout, settlersx7(+1 free)(+brief pause to complete a hoplite to handle the immortals)

Hardbuilding 7 settlers with a 3pop-cap is apparently ok with liberty (at least with 2 stone tiles and a hill), interesting.

Policies: Full Liberty, patronage 2, ratio 2, +1 patronage (scholasticism), +2 ratio (4), order 3, finish ratio and go for lvl 3 tenet.

Tech pace: ~T100 9city NC (Engineered), T121 Edu, T158 ST (delayed by angry neighbours taking my city), Plastics ~190 (estimated from demographics), Last SS tech before T240, Spaceflight pioneers T243.

After brief skirmishes with both neighbours in the classical era I join Darius war against Gustavus to improve my relations with Persia, but Sweden has a pretty good army and puppets one of my cities, oups! At T145 Mycenae is recaptured, Gustavus has to die since he didn't give it to me as a peace-deal, despite being dominated. The lives of my innocent peloponnese citizens will be repayed in kind with swedish blood.

EDGE#92 shouldve learned from thermopyle.jpg
Thermopyle rematch

EDGE#92 My truffles.jpg
Swedish blood.. and truffles!


T152 the AIs finally found WC, I'm one turn late to the tech since I didn't expect to get it ^^

Due to building soldiers and the Mycenae bs ST is delayed. At T159 all the world has denounced Gustavus following my suit (since I had given him open borders before our first war), because of this I am now friends with everyone and they start asking for cooporative wars against Sweden, yes please! I collect all of swedens money and gpt from the peace deal.

At T167 Taj Mahal and PT finishes while I get to choose my ideology due to having 3 factories, now that's what I call a golden age! T175 I get same turned on LToP, so late xD Uffizi goes T185. Louvre at T226, very slow AIs in here!


T191 I win worlds fair (proposed at 1st conference and finishes now!) comfortably since I am first in demos with 375 hammers. I manage to buy all cultural CSs and with this slightly late fair there will be lots of raw culture, which is good since I have zero chance of getting hermitage. Thanks to Darius annoying prophets I can faith buy 2 labs, in addition to rushbuys and the remaining cities can hardbuild in 8-10 turns which is ok.

My regular ss-producing cities have 160 hammers with ss factory and nuke plant, while Ephesos with the ironworks, Hubble and awesome terrain has a modified hpt of 260.

Since I take Pasargadae just before the end I guess this is technically a 10-city victory.

5 WWs built (7 more on the way at the time of victory): PT, Taj M, Broadway, Eiffel T, Hubble.

EDGE#92 victory.jpg



So there is some room for improvement. Oxford wasn't used and bulbs started a few turns late since I never had 12k+ scientists before and botched the math, also forgetting about the extra scientist from lvl 3 tenet. Fixing this I might have been able to launch at T245 (since the part would've needed 2 more turns to hardbuild even after hurrying, because that is liberty for you). Also, I had cathedrals on autobuy for too long, without this I could've bought a third GS for the lategame (ended the game with 2300 faith, having bought 2 GS). LToP would also have been a good idea...

I ended up using a similar approach for EDGE#111 going for the CV.
 
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Hi! I like all the activity on this thread, and the stories! Good to see new people like Turtle coming onboard.
I've recently played a cool game with Assyria and I was wondering what games are here with them, to try it out. I saw them at number 32 and I started the game.
]

Would you like to share your Assyria game?

I'm telling you guys this is the one. The liberty map of our hopes and dreams. It is the first time ever that I managed to use Acken's approach succesfully while settling more cities than recommended. If you haven't played it yet, what are you waiting for? :D

Spoiler EDGE#92 Alexander's Greece - T253 9-city mostly peaceful order SV :

"If you're not playing like a deity level AI, you're playing it wrong." - Free_Gold, on the merits of ICS and wide play

BO: scoutx2, monument, settler (buy scout), scout, settlersx7(+1 free)(+brief pause to complete a hoplite to handle the immortals)

Hardbuilding 7 settlers with a 3pop-cap is apparently ok with liberty (at least with 2 stone tiles and a hill), interesting.

Policies: Full Liberty, patronage 2, ratio 2, +1 patronage (scholasticism), +2 ratio (4), order 3, finish ratio and go for lvl 3 tenet.

Tech pace: ~T100 9city NC (Engineered), T121 Edu, T158 ST (delayed by angry neighbours taking my city), Plastics ~190 (estimated from demographics), Last SS tech before T240, Spaceflight pioneers T243.

After brief skirmishes with both neighbours in the classical era I join Darius war against Gustavus to improve my relations with Persia, but Sweden has a pretty good army and puppets one of my cities, oups! At T145 Mycenae is recaptured, Gustavus has to die since he didn't give it to me as a peace-deal, despite being dominated. The lives of my innocent peloponnese citizens will be repayed in kind with swedish blood.

View attachment 570957
Thermopyle rematch

View attachment 570956
Swedish blood.. and truffles!


T152 the AIs finally found WC, I'm one turn late to the tech since I didn't expect to get it ^^

Due to building soldiers and the Mycenae bs ST is delayed. At T159 all the world has denounced Gustavus following my suit (since I had given him open borders before our first war), because of this I am now friends with everyone and they start asking for cooporative wars against Sweden, yes please! I collect all of swedens money and gpt from the peace deal.

At T167 Taj Mahal and PT finishes while I get to choose my ideology due to having 3 factories, now that's what I call a golden age! T175 I get same turned on LToP, so late xD Uffizi goes T185. Louvre at T226, very slow AIs in here!


T191 I win worlds fair (proposed at 1st conference and finishes now!) comfortably since I am first in demos with 375 hammers. I manage to buy all cultural CSs and with this slightly late fair there will be lots of raw culture, which is good since I have zero chance of getting hermitage. Thanks to Darius annoying prophets I can faith buy 2 labs, in addition to rushbuys and the remaining cities can hardbuild in 8-10 turns which is ok.

My regular ss-producing cities have 160 hammers with ss factory and nuke plant, while Ephesos with the ironworks, Hubble and awesome terrain has a modified hpt of 260.

Since I take Pasargadae just before the end I guess this is technically a 10-city victory.

5 WWs built (7 more on the way at the time of victory): PT, Taj M, Broadway, Eiffel T, Hubble.

View attachment 570958


So there is some room for improvement. Oxford wasn't used and bulbs started a few turns late since I never had 12k+ scientists before and botched the math, also forgetting about the extra scientist from lvl 3 tenet. Fixing this I might have been able to launch at T245 (since the part would've needed 2 more turns to hardbuild even after hurrying, because that is liberty for you). Also, I had cathedrals on autobuy for too long, without this I could've bought a third GS for the lategame (ended the game with 2300 faith, having bought 2 GS). LToP would also have been a good idea...

I ended up using a similar approach for EDGE#111 going for the CV.

I would have been so p-ssed by the placement of Ankara. Good to see that you could control your temper. ;)
 
Would you like to share your Assyria game?
Hi Nizef, yes I would like to share, of course, but the thing is, it's a Huge size game, Continents from what I understand most people like to play Standard Size and mostly Pangaea. It's also a pretty poor looking start with many empty desert tiles so it doesn't attract the viewer too much. I am thinking it would be probably better if I would try to share something else more fitting to this thread's general "feeling", because I have a few "standard size" good starts, too. Now, let me know what you think, if you want to try a huge continents to see what you can do with it I think you would like it.
 
Hi Nizef, yes I would like to share, of course, but the thing is, it's a Huge size game, Continents from what I understand most people like to play Standard Size and mostly Pangaea. It's also a pretty poor looking start with many empty desert tiles so it doesn't attract the viewer too much. I am thinking it would be probably better if I would try to share something else more fitting to this thread's general "feeling", because I have a few "standard size" good starts, too. Now, let me know what you think, if you want to try a huge continents to see what you can do with it I think you would like it.
I think a huge map once in a while doesn´t hurt at all. I am all for diversity, so please go ahead. My own computer doesn´t handle huge maps too well, but others might be better equipped.
 
EDGE#113: The wonka-wonka ding-ding experience (the max five self built wonders challenge)

Here is a contribution that is long overdue. This civ is one of the better ones and one that people seems to play a lot. In this series they appear only for the third time. As in EDGE#42 also this map is not a very straight forward one. You will need to think a little before entering your journey through time. As you already have understood we are playing as the Mayans. This time we use an unmodded Continents map with Standard size and Standard speed. QC and QM are turned on and all VCs are enabled as usual. Your starting position is good, there is no Salt nearby but the land is overall only average. Since this is Continents, you will not have a lot of room for expansions either (I had four core cities). Luckily, your neighbours are not the most difficult ones. Coal will be a problem but Aluminium and Oil will be easy to hook up. One of the AIs had a fantastic game and I am sure they might do it again in your game as well. So hurry up, if you want to win this one! To sum it up: rough start and a breezer of an endgame! There are pictures from t98 and t292 for you to compare as usual. Have fun!

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 river/hill to the S. BO was Scout-started worker-Pyramid-finish worker-Granary-Settlerx2. I stole workers from Kyzyl and America. First expand far to the E to pick up Silver and Salt and the second to the W on the coast next to the Silver. That was okay since the city eventually picked up 3 Fish tiles. Third religion with DF/Tithe/Mosques/Plowshares/RT. I built Oracle before NC and thus I finished it as late as t95. As you can see in the picture from t98, America had a settler going for the tundra to the N. I had to block it and build a Settler fast to claim that spot as my fourth core city. Population was never going to be Uxmals best resource, however the production was okay and there was a fifth unique luxury and Iron to pick up. Anyway, my start was abyssmal and I was thinking of scrapping the game alltogether.

I entered Renaissnace as bottom of the pack, but nobody entered through Acoustics so I did that. Hence, I was able to rush Sistine. The rest of the cultural wonders went super fast though. The AIs were teching like crazy even if they were at war with each other most of the time. The other continent seems to have had even better teching possibilities. I entered Industrial on t161 and was second to last to do so! The Incas and America went Order and Polynesia went Authocracy. I bought some Coal from the Incas and was fourth to choose. The obvious choice would have been to pick Freedom. However, my culture was not the best and I would have been in the reds very soon. Instead I went for a different solution: I picked Order even if I didn´t get any free tenets at all. I almost never do that, but in my situation it actually made sense. My friend Pedro started to hate me and for some reason it was really easy to get the other AIs to jump on him as well. Thus I went to war with Cannons, Gatlings and Riflemen and took Sao Paolo after a short siege. I got 106 gpt in the following peace deal. Not bad. While exploring the world, I noticed that Spain had started close to El Dorado... No wonder I had difficulties to improve my culture game. My cultural situation only improved after I won the WF (with only 620 hammers!!) Funnily enough, my religion was super strong (only Pedro and I had religions on my starting continent).

The endgame was crazy. The wars were frequent and still the AIs were teching like there is no tomorrow. I thought I did allright when I researched Plastics on t229, only to see America completing Apollo on t235. Now I really had to hurry and my production was still not great. I was fourth to Atomic and needed to bulb my way to Satellites just to ensure Hubble for myself. My buddy, communist ruler Washington, wanted me to go to war against Pedro again. Brazil had no chance because Monty and Kamehameha also join the fun. I took Rio and Polynesia got Salvador and Pedro´s journey ended there. Also Portugal was wiped out right at the end. Luckily for me, I could distract Washington to fight a lot of useless wars. He seemed to have enjoyed them though, taking a bunch of cities from Polynesia. My timing was off with 5-6 turns and thus I launched on t292. Very interesting finish to a wild game and the slow start pushed me to play a more focused game than I usually bother to do. I only built four wonders myself: Oracle, Sistine, Neuschwanstein and Hubble.
SP: full Tradition, Aestethics opener, Commerce opener, Exploration opener, full Rationalism, Order 7.
 

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Hi! I like all the activity on this thread, and the stories! Good to see new people like Turtle coming onboard. I've recently played a cool game with Assyria and I was wondering what games are here with them, to try it out. I saw them at number 32 and I started the game.

Had to start up my game for #32 so I could peek behind the spoiler, feels good to be playing in parallell like this. I just hope I can finish. I play almost all of my peaceful games to completion but usually become bored with the logistics of war and quit halfway through. Still, since I've had some fun lately with #94, #100 and #109 I thought I just might try it and it's all good so far (I couldn't bring myself to turtle to a CV with Assyria, I mean c'mon).

Spoiler EDGE#32 Assyria T95 :

Opted for liberty dom, but built my first settler before CR to get to Mt Kili ASAP and ended up on only 3 cities, should've probably gone straight honor. Policies are: left side liberty + left side honor. Was aiming for liberty+patronage, but I realised that picking up scholasticism with the UA might be overkill, we'll have to see. Harun tried to kill me as usual not my fault, serious! But I sent him packing and took Venice T95. Machinery is 10+ turns away even though I beelined it. Napoleon is slacking on the science so my research is slow, but I'll manage.


I would have been so p-ssed by the placement of Ankara. Good to see that you could control your temper. ;)

Well you know me, I'm a peaceful turtle. Also I start to lose interest in terran geopolitics when I'm only a few turns away from going boldly where no man has gone before. :)
 
I'll post the game this evening. @TMNTurtle I find that in standard size there's not so much space for war to be that much consuming, I think I have gotten used to the huge size, it feels like double the size. It would be interesting to see how you finish. I think I'll finish the upcoming night. It's going really well now, around t145.
 
Tip of the day:
EDGE#31 with Ethiopia and EDGE#55 with the Incas have fantastic starts and are definitely worth the effort.
EDGE#20 with Babylon has a very interesting map and I am sure you will like it if you are not scared away by the need for two mods (RAS and Hellblazers map script).
 
I took a small break from EDGE to try a few things, will probably finish the assyria map by this weekend anyhow. In the meantime another report from my adventures with the wide playstyle:

I don't like Shoshone, shocking right? I want my strategies and experiences to be transferable across civs and pathfinders make the early game so different that it simply doesn't translate. Also I keep feeling like there is some kind of secret sauce to Shoshone that I am supposed to find to get my game to the next level and that comes across as uninspiring.

Despite my misgivings the game turned out great and this was definitely a good map allowing for several peaceful and warmonger strategies.

Spoiler EDGE#111 Shoshone - T244 8-city 'peaceful' CV :

"They need to completely rework the economic rules for this game, to give some sort of reward for having fewer and larger cities, and nerf the ICS strategy." - Pi-r8, complaining about how powerful 'wide' is compared to 'tall'. Then, he is talking about pre-patch vanilla, which might as well be another country.

BO: pathfinderx2, monument, worker (+buy worker), shrine (+buy archer), settlerx5 (+1 free)

Policies: Full Liberty (Engineer for NC), aesthetics 2, explo opener, ratio 3, freedom 3, +2 aesthetics (4), finish freedom/ratio/aesthetics

Tech Pace: T84 7cityNC, T107 Edu, T127 Ratio - T139 Secularism (Delayed because of 3 fillers and then no cultural CS for the renaissance), T149 ST, T165 Archeology, T167 bulb Radio, T190 Plastics, T216 Internet (ratio finisher)

Religion: EM/tithe/Pagodas/DI/ItP

World Congress: arts funding, WF, IG, CHS

3 workers from England (+1 english worker rescued from barbs), 1 hard-built, 2 bought, 1 from citizenship, 1 more rescued from barbs

Some inefficiencies in the settling phase: barbs come before I can buy archers and my pathfinders are busy with the workerstealing, no ruins past T20 so I had to build shrine which I didn't plan, forget to reassign tiles when building first settler losing 1-2 turns. Still done by T56 which is okayish.

Pedro blocks my settlers and then steals a camp I've been clearing, I retaliate by killing his entire army which he saw fit to march into my lands so boldly. He offers me a city but I settle for 50 gold, 30 gpt, gems and a few horses. Not bad all things considered.

Elizabeth comes for me so I send her towards little Pedro, hopefully I can keep this up and make her a pariah before mid renaissance and then turn the tables on her.

Good production, so I go Education before metal casting which is rare for me going liberty. Also theology before construction, again unusual but I get Borobodur from this and I did not have the smiles to sustain another food caravan yet. Representation before meritocracy leads to 3 filler policies, not good. My LToP is delayed and I see Pedro building it so I send Washington for him, but he suddenly allies Riga whose forces plunder my cargo and threaten my expo. So I have to peace out before I can betray Polynesia to get my income back and thus demand war tribute. Not fun. But I get LToP T147, bite me Pedro! Declaring on Kamehameha my income increases by 80 gpt, also since he has apparently pissed off just about everyone I denounce him too earning the praise of my fellow leaders.

Washington joins my mission to liberate Bucharest from its English opressors while I spread my religion to all his cities making us BFFs. As I do this he completes the Forbidden Palace, vote for Pocatello! Thankfully I get to Bucharest first. Meanwhile Vilnius has defeated Ife's land army and moved on to sack Nottingham, this is almost too easy. In the peace deal I get York (at 15 pop), apparently since I didn't have time to build my own musician's guild I now get it for free, cool! Thanks to bulbing Radio I have the happiness to sustain an 8th city. Even better, apparently great musicians are generated during resistance, nice!

EDGE#111 well done.jpg

T180 William snipes Louvre, I needed that! Washington has adopted some degenerate ideology and backstab denounces me, not fun since he has top army. Plastics arrives in the middle of WF, before I have all my factories up (I really, really should have picked the production belief...). I refuse to help William denounce my friend Inca, which of course means he denounces me, and a few turns later inca denounces me, sigh... So I decide to pay Montezuma to distract Pedro and Washington to distract himself by going for Pachuti's lands.

The infrastructure is a bit late, with IG won before T220, but most airports delayed till ~T220 and NVC to T227. Diplo is also a mess, I have to pay William 55 gpt for OB, but at least I get it. Pachuti simply refuses. A natural musician spawns at the perfect moment to join my 3 religious rockbands. The bombing leaves the Netherlands just a bit short, but the victory is only a few turns away.

11 WWs: Oracle, Borobodur, Sistine, LToP, Taj M (Engineered), Broadway, Eiffel T, SoL, Neuschw.. , Sydney OH, PT (built on the last turn)

Culture to beat: Brazil 27k, Inca and Netherlands 24k
EDGE#111 NORTH.jpg
EDGE#111 SOUTH.jpg



Picking production over DI would have made things so much more comfortable. It would have made room for Oxford and PT in my strategy. I lost the Louvre. I couldn't get hermitage up in time for WF while factories and hydro plants were again needlessly delayed. I wonder if this could have been my fastest CV yet, but I doubt the difference would have been that big.
 
Really delightful report, Turtle! I might be wrong, but it seems to me that your game have improved lately (from an already high level) even further. Do you think that also?
 
Really delightful report, Turtle! I might be wrong, but it seems to me that your game have improved lately (from an already high level) even further. Do you think that also?

Yes I do. When I left the DCL-circuit I was very much a T300+ peaceful CV player and roughly the same finishing times for the SV (although I had fast finishes on DCL#5 and #19, but those were godly maps for god tier civs). Nowadays I frequently finish in the 240-280 bracket depending on civ and map.

I'd like you to know that I 'blame' you, Tiberiu, Vadalaz among others for your contributions to this thread and others. Thanks for helping me be a better gamer!

Now I just need to learn some more things about that warfare bit and also get some experience with the order and autocracy culture endgame. I'm liking order so far, it feels a bit like a convoluted diplo-victory with all the buying of CSs and luxes to crash the AI players hapiness numbers.
 
I had some unfortunate developments with #32 and resigned around T145. How're you doing @Tiberiu still going strong?

Spoiler #32 Assyria :

I think going for Venice first was a mistake, should've bribed the guy and kept him for the caravans. Going after Harun next was another mistake, I can only excuse it with the persistent animosity that has developed between the two of us during my EDGE-career. My next target was either Suleiman (on 13 cities after invading the netherlands) or France, hidden behind jungle and hills, with no prebuilt roads. Janissaries or Musketeers, pick your poison! I lost half my army in the failed invasion of Ottomania after defending Marrakech. The rest were sacrificed to the musketeers soon after.

I guess sucking up to Harun and Enrico to get Caravans and DoFs might be better, and then rush France, completing the invasion before T95-100 to avoid the musketeer's. Hopefully get the world to hate Suleiman and take it from there. Any other suggestions for take two?
 
I had some unfortunate developments with #32 and resigned around T145. How're you doing @Tiberiu still going strong?

Spoiler #32 Assyria :

I think going for Venice first was a mistake, should've bribed the guy and kept him for the caravans. Going after Harun next was another mistake, I can only excuse it with the persistent animosity that has developed between the two of us during my EDGE-career. My next target was either Suleiman (on 13 cities after invading the netherlands) or France, hidden behind jungle and hills, with no prebuilt roads. Janissaries or Musketeers, pick your poison! I lost half my army in the failed invasion of Ottomania after defending Marrakech. The rest were sacrificed to the musketeers soon after.

I guess sucking up to Harun and Enrico to get Caravans and DoFs might be better, and then rush France, completing the invasion before T95-100 to avoid the musketeer's. Hopefully get the world to hate Suleiman and take it from there. Any other suggestions for take two?

Spoiler :
Why did you resign? Frustration or it was objectively lost? I am guessing you mean Ahmed when you say Harun :D. I will finish with victory soon, (now t301), but I had to overcome a super-runaway civilization and it required a lot of micromanagement and time since I also played like all the game in unhappiness. Will post a few screenshots+story later.


@Nizef. I wanted to finish the edge32 before posting the Assyria game here but I didn't expect to take this long, apologies for the delay.
 
@Tiberiu Oupsie! That is embarassing and arabia used to be my favourite civ in vanilla/GnK, of course that was almost a decade ago.

I'd say it's very objectively lost and I'd rather try again with a different strategy for many reasons including:

Spoiler #32 :
That I settled inland. There is a very nice salt x3 + fish x4 on the coast that I'd like to pick up for my cap. As well as handling the sweep order and diplo better, to see what how big a difference it makes


I think I'll try to replay it maybe next week, gotta finish up my report on #97 first.
 
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