[BNW] Enjoyable Deity Games

[billby]

Finished #5 with a satisfying and drawn out domination victory on T335. I wasn't sure how to play Byzantium so went with what I know best... It's an incredibly strong start... but ran into problems when I found all the city states disappearing in front of my eyes and three rivals were running away with the game. Dug in and ground it out. Even at the end my army was the third largest and I was third in science.

 

[Nizef]

Did you go Liberty or how did you play the early game?

 

[billby]

Did you go Liberty or how did you play the early game?

I planned to but this game turned out to be complex:

Spoiler Starting EDG#5 :

Byzantium is a tough civ to play on deity. The unique units are only worthwhile if you have an early close neighbour to take out - although Honour and Dromons can be fun if there are lots of barbarians. You have to get an early faith producing pantheon to make use of the unique ability. Uluru helps in this case.

My initial plan was to start Liberty... move to Piety, get sacred sites and a religion with three lots of religious buildings then head for a culture victory.

That didn't work.

There's salt and a total three luxuries. That's powerful, so yes Liberty would be a good choice and Honour if there are plenty of barbs. In this case my warrior opened a culture ruin on turn three or four before I had seen the lie of the land, so I played safe with Tradition. Built three initial cities, stole a worker from Kiev and a second from a barb camp. Had NC at around 85, built city number four on the island to the west to pick up more faith and planned to head for education when I noticed Kiev turn purple and an ominous Maya build up to the east so switched to machinery built ten crossbows, took out Kiev and Venice, then a Mayan city and Palenque before running out of steam.

Waited for frigates, cavalry and artillery to press on... ran out of steam again until battleships and land ships to tackle Mongolia. I never got about number three in science and until the last five turns was never better than number three in solider numbers. Even at the end I had a smaller army than the Maya. On a couple of occasions happiness dropped below -20. Those snowballs never rolled, just relentless aggression, at the end my army was depleted... and I doubt I would have won if it wasn't for Autocracy and Clausewitz's Legacy.

 

[Nizef]

Yes, domination can sometimes be a little tricky. The reason for creating the Byzantium game in the first place was that I was fed up with AIs snatching all religions. With my skill level back then I thought I wanted to have a fantastic start to secure a religion and the start is of course crazy. However, I am very pleased with how the map turned out with an extra bonus for the island to the west.

 

[consentient]

Hi there,
I was not sure where to put this so I started a new thread for the purpose of sharing deity games that any of us has played and enjoyed. I have no fixed rules in mind for this, but my first example might enlighten a little bit what I have in mind. The starting location has not to be OP in itself, but I generally like deity starts where I:
1. can freely choose whether to go tradition or liberty,
2. have enough room to settle at least four cities,
3. have enough growth and production to be competitive,
4. have enough resources (strategic as well as luxuries) and
5. have land that makes religion a possibility.

Given this framework I am clearly not thinking of superb players, for whom normal deity is too easy. Instead I am perhaps more referring to casual deity players as myself and perhaps also players who want to make the leap into deity.

My first contribution is an unmodded Pangaea roll with Korea on standard speed and all settings are standard but quick combat is on. The AIs are selected randomly but at least I enjoyed the mix. A jpg-screenshot of the starting location has been added.

Spoiler Hint (yes, really) :

I didn´t SIP.

I hope for short reports of what you made out of this game. And not to raise the bar too much, I would say that any tradition start has to include at least 5 self founded cities and any liberty start should aim for 7 self founded cities. NC with just 2 or 3 cities is a no-no. All VCs are enabled.

I'm very happy upon returning to the game to see that there is yet another shared game series to work my way through.

Still not sure about the criteria you're using to choose the maps though.

Could you expand a little? (if you're still about)

 

[consentient]

EDGE#161: A, A and A and some other issues (DomV challenge)

Here comes another play along game. I noticed that we haven´t had a plain war game for a long time and thus this had to be corrected. This time we play as the Zulus on a Pangaea map with standard speed and size. I have played some 70 turns so I have a good understanding of what the game offers. We have ended up in a neighbourhood that is somewhat hostile, or what do you think of playing against Alexander, Augustus and Attila? The start is nice and there are enough luxuries to go for a more peaceful start if you like that better. Anyway the aim is clear: DomV. Enjoy!

T228 DomV

Spoiler :

Great start, horrible middle, ended surprisingly fast

Stole 4 workers and 1 settler from Alex. He seemed almost as if he'd been programmed to send them to me. Clearing barb camps for the Cultural CS gave me early Honor finish. I quickly realised that settling in the mountain pass would a) put me on Caesar's doorstep for easy XP farm, and b) also take Iron away from him. Made peace with Alex and then turned Caesar into the bad guy, gaining DoF with Haile and Trollface in the meantime. Attila suggested war, so I chose the 10 turns to prepare and moved archers and spearmen into position. He spammed ballistas which I mowed down like Star Wars battle droids.

While farming XP and gold from Caesar I made Attila into the next bad guy, and sent all my caravans and bribes to Alex to stop him should he recover, but honestly I feel like such a gluttony of worker steal glitches the AI completely and he did nothing more the whole game.

Attila fell easily to Impi and CBs, then I bribed Trollface to DoW everyone, including backstabbing Haile. He was surrounded by hostile CS, and Haile, and then I came in around T107ish with XBs and Impis and took 2 cities.

Those same units made short work of Alex once they'd travelled the great road back West (not enough gold for 2 armies), but then I realised I was seriously behind tech pace and had a gold problem. So I sold XBs and Knights and beelined Electronics.

In the end, Liz fell to Bombers, Battleships and GWI. Isabella and Haile had been so busy wonderspamming and depleted from the wars I initiated against them that they both rolled in less than 3 turns.

I should say that while beelining and at peace, I ran into serious happiness and gold problems until getting Commerce finisher and starting Order. I had to mortgage Ulundi to buy the money for my 3 factories. I even contemplated selling a captured capital and taking it back later, but luckily I avoided that.

- - -

I'll say one thing in comments: rolling vanilla maps is never gonna be as enjoyable for me, but at the same time I appreciate that if you use HB Pangaea, it dates the save to that version of the Mod. Newer versions won't load them, sadly.

If there is still interest for shared maps, perhaps a few of us can get together and make a new series for this 13 year old game with current HB maps

 

[penguin74]

Is there a master list of mods needed for the series, similar to the pinned thread giving the page location of each entry?
Im still doing my replays and am up to 18, but it needs the Hellblazers Map Script v.7
I dont see a search function in the get mods tab of the menu, and there are like 360+ pages, so Im not sure the easiest way to get it, or any others that would be needed.
any help is appreciated