[BNW] Enjoyable Deity Games

[Mizzenmast]

I played the Songhai game #152, here was the outcome.

Spoiler Songhai Edge 152 :

I Sent my settler South following the river and founded on a coastal hill 3 tiles from Marrakech. I stole 3 workers from him in our initial war, and later a 4th that he lost as a Settler to barbs. 4 City Tradition. Capital BO: Monument, Shrine, Granary, Settler, Caravan, Scout, Settler, Library…

Allied Kyzyl on t46 through a boosted 500g gift & embassy quest. Entered Medieval through Theology t54 to double my culture gain from that, and bought a Garden while building National Epic. Prioritized Mud Pyramids in all cities and got my Prophet on t60. (I had picked Sun god for the pantheon which was not the best choice at all, but still fine). Tithe and Cathedrals. Bought 1 missionary to spread. I rushed both Guilds, the N. Epic, and Grand Temple. Quick Speed strangely had everyone demanding 3gpt for Open borders at first while I was exploring.

I got 3 Universities up Asap but didn't have time for National College before I hit Printing Press t97 (proposed Arts Funding) and went for Leaning Tower, but China beat me to it 3 turns in. Now I built NC, researched Acoustics/Architecture, and built Uffizi and Louvre in my cap, Sistine and Taj Mahal in my first expo. After buying all my Cathedrals, I enhanced t111 and took Religious Community/Religious Texts.

Policies: Tradition 6, Aesthetics 2, Patronage, Rationalism 2, Exploration...

T119, Arts Funding passes and Worlds Fair actually fails by the AIs, which is perfect because production is so tight for wonders and Archaeologists. Now I propose WF.

Adopted first ideology through Oxford Radio t130, I took Order and picked Factory science as my tier 2 a few turns later.

Borrowed thousands from Austria in the turns before our friendship expired, then paid her to backstab Morocco and warred her. Assyria backstabbed her a few turns later. When I made peace with her five turns later it was as if nothing had happened, but eventually she picked Autocracy and started to hate me. She had bought out 3 CS’s by this point, was the Culture leader, and had won the WF (I didn’t end up trying for 1st when the time came, went for Silver only). I had 3 allies in the 200s at this time (2 Culture, 1 Happiness).

Made Morocco Host, he proposed my religion as WR and it passed, and we successfully voted down a repeal the next round.

There were a few late game fumbles: Babylon beat me to Kremlin by 1 turn, and I lost the International Games by 30 production. That slowed me down a bit, but I won a Cultural Victory on t199 with a couple musician bombs.

 

[Tiberiu]

I am playing edge 118 with Germany with good results. I am t 200 and it seems this will be my fastest cultural victory on standard size map. (probably a t240 or even less).

Spoiler t100 :

The use of the UA was a bit unlucky with the first 3 camps yielding no unit but I eventually made a few units during the game which were useful.

I had a good start and built Temple of Artemis, Oracle and Machu Picchu. This map allows building the Collosus since there are so few coastal spots. But unfortunately for me, I did not take the coastal spot quickly enough and lost on this great Wonder.
Nevertheless this start was enough to make an awesome game since I also managed to get a good religion with Feed the World and Religious community and Itinerant Preachers.

Spoiler t200 :

After the good start, I went on to build ALL of the Renaissance wonders except Himeji and Red Fort, built Louvre and Eiffel Tower already and will build all wonders from now on.
I am first to ideologies and to Modern Era by more than 20 turns and I also have the World Religion.
I am ally with ALL CS .
First in population, production and literacy. The only civ with higher score is Rome and they only have 1 Wonder - Himeji Castle.
I have done a little warmongering by the use of Freedom's Voluntary Army and will soon capture The Netherlands for Petra, Stonehenge and Great Library.
I like the Hanse, a good building, giving much higher bonuses to the empire than the standard bank.

The cultural runaway is only 15.000 (Arabia) so this will be a piece of cake to dominate this map.

 

[Nizef]

I am playing edge 118 with Germany with good results. I am t 200 and it seems this will be my fastest cultural victory on standard size map. (probably a t240 or even less).


The use of the UA was a bit unlucky with the first 3 camps yielding no unit but I eventually made a few units during the game which were useful.

I had a good start and built Temple of Artemis, Oracle and Machu Picchu. This map allows building the Collosus since there are so few coastal spots. But unfortunately for me, I did not take the coastal spot quickly enough and lost on this great Wonder.
Nevertheless this start was enough to make an awesome game since I also managed to get a good religion with Feed the World and Religious community and Itinerant Preachers.

Looks like an absolute blast of a game for you!

 

[Tiberiu]

Looks like an absolute blast of a game for you!

Yes. Only turn 244, sadly. I was hoping to be under 240. It was nice, anyway. But I did not take out Wittenberg, I forgot. And I didn't see much reason to do it anyway.

Spoiler edge_118_t244_CulturalVictory :

policies were: Tradition 6 / Patronage 3 / Rationalism 5 / Aesthetics 1 / Exploration 1 / Freedom 7

 

[beetle]

@Nizef, I would like your blessing to post a Spanish map to this series sometime this weekend. I was inspired by @Tiberiu’s recent thread about civilizations that make the game easier for you — but I want to tweak the map before sharing.

 

[Nizef]

That´s indeed good timing! I am myself mostly enjoying RL and thus not very active with the computer. Use the next available number, which at the moment is 154.

 

[Nizef]

EDGE#154: Smooth starving with ridiculous twists and turns (a.k.a. The untouchable sheep)

This is a ridiculous game. Nice start but no fresh water and when you find a river you will get a cap with, in practice, the equivalent of two Lake Victoria. Still your cap, and in fact your entire empire will be shy on growth but the production is smooth to say the least. With all these limitations, at least my population was abysmal all game. And still this was a ridiculously easy win, one of the easiest in the series in fact. And just as I was cruising to one of my fastest CVs ever, disaster struck. Well, as you can see, this is a fun game indeed. This time around we play as Babylon on Pangaea map with small size and quick speed. QC and QM are turned on as usual. You can obviously go in any direction with this civ, but here the preferred choice is a CV. I am sure this will be a smooth and quick journey through time with one of the best civs of the game. Enjoy!

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

Spoiler :

On quick speed you don´t want to move far. However, here I settled on t2 for the river to the W. It was a nice surprise to get Mt. Sinai in the capital! Any incoming attack on this cap will fail! I felt secure already on t5. As you can see, crazy start. I got second religion with DF/Tithe/Pagodas/Plowshares/IP. 3 city NC on t60 and I reached Education on t68. Fourth city directly after NC. Dido came to visit me early, but her units had absolutely no chance at all. It was nice to be first to Renaissance for a change!

The midgame was great. I built Sistine and LToP and rushed GlobeT. A little later I also got Uffizi, PorcelainT and Louvre. So the path for the game was set. But then it was time for Industrialization and obviously I had no Coal, nor had the CS. So I ended up settling a fifth city off the coast to hook up Coal. I was going to get rid of it later, but chose to keep it even, if I had to buy a lot of stuff (Amphi, Opera, University etc.). England chose Authocracy and I picked Freedom. Dido followed into Autchocracy but the rest of the pack went Order.

I was first to Modern and rushed Eiffel, hard built Broadway and rushed SoL. Later on I also built SOH, Neuschwanstein, CNT, Hubble and Firewall. The AIs were entertaining themselves with countless wars and I could just chill and build my wonders. On t175, I was already influential over 3 AIs but then disaster struck: Askia and Napoleon, of course the two I wasn´t inflential over, declared war and my tourism bonuses went out the window. I wsa on trach for a win in the t185-188 range, which would have been great. Now I had to fight those two and sail my GMus across the big ocean to get the win. I also had to wait for some to spawn naturally and all in all this slowed me down significantly. In the end I won a CV on t204. This was still decent but there was so much more to get from this game. Anyway, this was a fun game and I am sure you can do it better!
SP: full Tradition, Piety 4, full Aesthetics, Exploration opener, full Rationalism and Freedom 7.

 

[Nizef]

EDGE#155: The Tail of the Snake

To go as a partner with the previous game, I now present a smooth game with Egypt on a small (and very snaky) Pangaea map with quick speed and QC and QM are turned on. The start is very good and you have room for some great expands as well. You will start in a very defensible region and your closest neighbour is one of the best you can have on Deity. There are 6 luxuries that you can reasonable claim, so basically you could go Liberty if you want to. And as a bonus, I promise that you will have access to Coal. With this civ, it is also possible to build some of the wonders you wouldn´t normally go for. As an example, I hard built Oracle, Borobudur, Sistine, Uffizi, Taj Mahal and Louvre, not to mention the wonders of the modern world. This was smooth and definitely enjoyable. You can go in any direction with this game but I recommend either CV or SV. SInce I could win in 190 turns, I would assume that better players can do it significantly faster. Enjoy!

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

Spoiler :

SIP. I should probably have moved one tile to the S to get Marble in my cap. In the end it didn´t matter much though. Third religion with God-King/Tithe/Cathedrals/Plowshares/IP. 4 city NCon t65 and I built Oracle before that. Education on t68. As you can see from the pictures, the land is good with both growth and production possibilites. Theodora sent 3 Profets into my lands and I declared war on her to claim them for myself and indeed one of them was fully charged. She also built a lot of nice wonders in Constantinople (Chichen Itza, Hanging Gardens, Notre Dame, Hagia Sofia). I had to wait until Dynamite before I could take the city for my own empire. My tech path in the midgame was Industrialization-Scintific Theory-Dynamite and only after that I went for Radio. Rome had wars with France and Songhai and Dido enjoyed a few wars withSonghai and Byzantium. No war was truly decisive. I was first to pick an Ideology and went Freedom. Theodore followed me and Dido went Authocracy while the rest of the pack went Order.

In Modern I built all wonders and only Rome was in touch techwise. I could have gone in any direction late game but decided to do a proper CV. I had six AS inside my own borders so that helped as well. I was also able to fill Louvre, Sistine, Uffizi and Hermitage for the tourism bonuses. Once again, I found it quite important to win the World´s Fair. I used two GMus to end the game (one for Cartage and one for Rome) on t190. All in all a smooth game and mainstream for how I want to play peaceful games. I am sure that you will not be dissapointed.

SP: full Tradition, Piety 3, full Aesthetics, Exploration opener, Rationalism 5 and Freedom 6.

 

[beetle]

That´s indeed good timing! I am myself mostly enjoying RL and thus not very active with the computer. Use the next available number, which at the moment is 154.

My apologies, I have lost or overwritten the T0 file that I wanted to edit and share. Thank you @Nizef for keeping this maps coming!

 

[Nizef]

MIDGE#7: Space Bull gets Rain in the Face (SV challenge)

So, @raider980, this is the game for you. You have had to wait for a long time, but now it is here. Here we play as Sitting Bull of the Sioux on a small Pangaea map with quick speed. QC and QM are turned on as usual. The starting area is great but you will need to think a little about where to put your expands. One will probably go next to the nearby NW but then? I had not chosen any of the AIs but the mix is definitely interesting: two very aggresive ones and two of the best cultural AIs of the game. However, for me, it was the fifth AI that caused me most of the headache. In fact, even when I launched my spaceship, I was only second in tech count!

Their UA is, that random Bison resources will spawn on plains tiles after you have settled your second city. These tiles will change over time and they can´t be improved but the base yield is very nice. It might be a little bit confusing at first, but I got used to it quite fast. The UI (Tipi) is very strong, giving you +1 food from the improved tile. However, they can´t be placed on adjecent tiles. The UU is a Knight replacement (Strong Heart) and your first unit will act as a Great General as well, thus giving this unit a specific name. In my game the given name was Rain in the face. Cool! (For those of us who are into history, there is a short biography of Rain-in-the-face (1835-1905) in Wikipedia, just to mention one source).

Great Player, help Sitting Bull to one more victory and give him the (space) ride of his life. Enjoy!


The link to this civ: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=280806564

Keep in mind that this is a modded civ and there might be some problems. However, I encountered no problems myself.


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

Spoiler :

Moved up on the Sheep and settle t1. All that Salt made the start pretty crazy. First expand to the SE against the mountain range to pick up Truffles and the second expand to secure the NW and more Salt. I decided against settling the tundra Furs and thus had a core empire of 3 cities. The map was very compact and even the AIs had trouble expanding. Thanks to Earth Mother, I got a fast religion. Even so, I only got the 3rd religion (how could one beat Ethiopia and the Mayans?) with EM/Tithe/Pagodas/RC/IP. NC on t60 and I thought everything went smoothly. However, Babylon had this crazy game, getting most of the midgame woonders before I could even reach Renaissance. The only wonders I got in the early and the midgame were Oracle, Forbidden, Uffizi and a little later Louvre. Nebuchadnessar even built thr PorvelainT. Monty started to gain momentum and got the upper hand against a resiliant Pacal. It took Monty all the way to early Modern to final kill Pacal. After that, he was obviously my neighbour...

The AIs went Authocracy and Order and I chose Freedom. Coal was in my fourth ring in between two CS but I got the tile surprisingly fast. Aluminium was another horrible story. Should I kill Wittenberg or settle a crap fourth city for the Aluminium? I chose the latter solution and was able to grow it to pop12 in only 70 turns or so. At its worst, Babylon was 8 techs ahead in Modern/Atomic and at the end of the game I was still two techs behind! Monty had a go at Ethiopia and decimated them significantly. Then he got bored and wanted to see if I was up to the task. He had proper Infantry but I had already Rocket Artillery, proper Bombers and even Tanks and the defensive nature of the terrain made for almost a standstill. I managed to take two insignificant cities but decided to call the day and sent Sitting Bull to space instead. Really nice starting area and what a set of AIs!

SP: full Tradition, Piety opener, Patronage 3, Aestethics opener, Commerce 2, Exploration opener, full Rationalism and Freedom 8.

 

[Nizef]

Next up is Polynesia. I realized it has been a long time since we had them in the series.

 

[raider980]

MIDGE#7: Space Bull gets Rain in the Face (SV challenge)

So, @raider980, this is the game for you.

Awesome, can't wait. If anyone has ever wanted to play a game with a good horse unit, this is the Civ. And the Tipi and Buffalo are fun too. Very different. I'm going to see how many Civs I can conquer with the Strong Heart.

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

EDGE#156: Undisturbed Isolation

Hey, thought I'd add a recent game of mine here. Inca, Standard size/speed, fractal. Got a workable Kilimanjaro right near the starting location as well. The area is protected by mountains, so you can survive for a fairly long time without worrying about an army. If I was a better player I might’ve been tempted to go for domination thanks to Kili, but I ended up with a T307 science victory. I'm new to Deity so I'm sure y'all can beat that.

 

[Nizef]

Hey, thought I'd add a recent game of mine here. Inca, Standard size/speed, fractal. Got a workable Kilimanjaro right near the starting location as well. I ended up with a T307 science victory. I'm new to Deity so I'm sure y'all can beat that.

Hi, nice to see you contributing! I would ask you to edit your post by adding a headline and mark it EDGE#156 in the same style as the other games above. This will make it easier for players to recognize our shared games.

 

[beetle]

Thanks @Mantis Toboggan M.D. — love to see starts with a NW nearby!

MIDGE#7: Space Bull gets Rain in the Face (SV challenge)

I really enjoyed this game, very interesting uniques! Thanks for posting! T230 SV, but it was Quick Speed. Seemed pretty smooth, and I did not do much with the Strong Hearts except generate extra GG since the neighbors were pretty aggressive. I just did four-city Tradition, but was at war for most the game, which was fine with me! I had assumed, for no good reason, that the unique promotions would persist upon upgrading, so that was my only disappointment.

 

[Nizef]

EDGE#157: The Eight Luxury Game (SV challenge)

Those with razor sharp minds will notice that this is not a game with Polynesia. It is coming but I had some unexpected setbacks. Instead, I present a highly interesting map with Germany. We play on a small sized Pangaea map with quick speed and QC and QM are turned on as usual. Many times I have found that small maps only give me 4-5 different luxuries to work with. However, here you can reasonably claim 8 for yourself! (You can´t turn down an expand with Lake Victoria, Gems and Pearls, can you!) So Liberty is on the table or at least you can do as I did: go for 6 city Tradition. This map is in fact the absolutely best of all the quick speed games in this series. I am sure you will like your corner of the world: only one direct neighbour (and what a fitting one!), a sheltering inland sea and luxuries in abundance. I played too defensively in the early game, going for a 3 city NC on t60 but decided to change my destiny and settled 3 (!) cities after NC. This gave me a slow midgame, but once the late expands got up to speed, it gave me a fantastic late game on Autobahn speed. I am curious on what better players can do here! As mentioned in the headline the aim is to go for a SV. Hint: you want to grab one expand to the N asap, but after that you can do your own thing. Once in a while you get these maps with high potential and I think this is one of them. Please try it out and blow me and yourself away! Enjoy!

EDIT: This game has been played on Twitch by PC_J_Law, https://www.twitch.tv/pc_j_law, whose streams (and uploads on Youtube) can be recommended. It is all new material and his analysis is very accurate. I am sure you would like to try it out. He has also made several guides on Civ5 and I have found them very interesting and I have learnt some new things myself. He won a DomV on t180 but we both estimated that he would have won a SV already around t160-165. Anyway I got proof that this map, with its growth potential, is indeed a very, very good one.

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

Spoiler :

Settled on t2 on the Silver to the E. It was off river but I still think it was a reasonable location, bringing those flood plains wheat tiles into the radius of the capital. My start was unconvincing as I am still only learing how to deal with quick speed. First expand to the N for two luxuries (and later also Coal) and second expand far to the SE for Lake Victoria. I wanted a fast NC but in all honesty, I should have settled at least one if not two more cities before NC. Now my early game was only average. .Having England to the N was a little dubious at first but Elizabeth went all in for a religion and didn´t expand much. Her religion was reasonable and I didn´t even bother to convert Hamburg to my own religion. I got the 3rd religion with DF/Tithe/Mosques/RC/IP. Unfortunately both Sweden and Brazil had their own religions as well. This meant that the only AIs without religion were Assyria and the Netherlands and both were far away from me. Or rather Assyria was, because they killed William already in Medieval. I built Hanging Gardens and Oracle in my capital to improve my early game a little bit. Okay start but nothing to brag about. Then I got a moment of insanity (or maybe sanity?) and settled three expands after NC. The coastal river SIlver to the SW was a nice spot regardless of have no unique luxury and the tundra coast S of Munich had its Furs, which I had missed when initially scouting. I also decided to settle the Silk to the E of the capital despite the very limited growth possibilities. But with cargo ships on the inland sea, it became a reasonable expand in the late game.

Settling three expand that late gave me two major problems: happiness and short term science. Thus I ended up missing most midgame wonders and I was only fourth to Industrial. Luckily I had instant Coal and thus only Assyria chose an ideology before me. They went Authocracy, while I had no other choice than to go Order. That fixed my happiness problems and finally I had the means to grow insanely. Brazil (only God knows why?) also went Order, while this was a rare game where two out of four AIs went Freedom (England and Sweden). Everything seemed slow and Assyria was teching faster than me. Would this be a failed game?

Assyria was first all the way to Atomic before I caught up and Sweden had a good game as well. I wanted to get a SV but, as it sometimes happens to me, I started bulbing much too late. And with six cities on quick speed the end went so crazily fast that I didn´t even need Oxford to win. My finishing time on t195 is definitely nothing special but given where I was on t140, this was a monster finish. I was never attacked all game, even if Assyria had some thoughts. However, I diverted their focus and had this totally peaceful six city game. A rare occasion for me!

SP: full Tradition, Patronage opener, Aesthetics 4, full Rationalism and Order 6.

 

[beetle]

EDGE#117: Religion of course, but what then?
With a grassland start bias, I am always a little unsure of how things will go with this civ. This time around the start offers a variety of pantheons and as a benchmark I got the first religion. But I played the rest of the early game poorly and was happy to wrap up a win at all... We play as India 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 added China, Indonesia, Mongolia and the Ottomans to the line up. This game has potential but I was unable to take advantage of it all. But I am sure you can do it better. Enjoy!

I am trying this map next since @Tiberiu recently tweaked my interest in the UU. I want to see what early mayhem I might get into! Thank you again @Nizef for keeping this thread going!

 

[Nizef]

I am trying this map next since @Tiberiu recently tweaked my interest in the UU. I want to see what early mayhem I might get into! Thank you again @Nizef for keeping this thread going!

There is a suitable vict... I mean neighbour to the E. You could probably arrange some "training sessions" against him.

 

[beetle]

Also this map, such difficult/delicious choices T0! I had hoped moving the Warrior might provide me some clarity, but no. I went for the desert river hill on mountain. Which is fantastic, but that meant passing on the grassland stone and a sheep!

 

[Nizef]

EDGE#158: Gems
Now, we are so far! This is indeed a game with Polynesia. We play on a standard sized Large Islands map with standard speed and QC and QM are turned on as usual. This map type already puts some constraints on your early game and here you will really think twice on how to settle your cities. You are a little short on land on your starting island and the nearest landmass is already occupied. This neighbour is usually friendly, however, at least in my game we had three unconclusive wars. Some of the other AIs also wanted to have a go. Let´s see if you will fare better. But having said this, you have a lot of Gems and also other mining luxuries nearby. All in all I am sure that you will be satisfied with your lands. Later on I settled cities near two NWs and I must say that I recommend this approach for you as well. You never know what you might find. This is a home game for Polynesia so make sure to make the most of it. Enjoy all the watery action!

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

Spoiler :

Crossed the river and settled on t1 on the hill. Gems is such a nice luxury and Tears of the Gods a good chice to compete for a religion. I got 3rd religion with TotG/Tithe/Pagodas/Plowshares/IP. Nice. 4 city NC on t96 and the start was okay but definitely not great. My cities were so small until I got the cargo ships to help out with the growth. I stole a Worker from Portugal early and that set us off on a shaky path for the reat of the game. Maria came for the first time already with Triremes. She managed to pillage a cargo ship but that was it. The wars were frequent very early on. Japan on Siam, Japan on Portugal, Siam on America and so on.

The early midgame wonders went a little too fast for me and I have done so many of them that I instead focused on science. Oda came with an attack together with Maria and they managed to pillage two cargo ships at a loss of roughly 15 units. After the war Maria wanted a DoF... Go figure. I went Freedom and Siam join me. However three AIs went Order and two Autocracy. One didn´t make it so far. But the Coal business was really annoying and I had to settle a crappy city near Uluru to get access to Coal of my own. I also settled a late expand next to Grand Mesa. After all there was an unique luxury there. So six city Freedom at the end.

When entering Modern I only had one problem: China, staying away from all wars, was teching faster than me and they had a fantastic game. The rest of the pack enjoyed an endless stream of wars, finally also eliminating Siam. China was going for a SV and so did I. I only cought up when entering the Information era and when I lauched on t298 they already had five spaceship parts. So it stayed tense until the very end even if the rest of the pack was far behind. Definitely an enjoyable game.

SP: full Tradition, Patronage opener, Aesthetics 2, full Rationalism, Exploration 2, Freedom 6.