[BNW] Enjoyable Deity Games

Here is a recap of the games in the Enjoyable Deity Games Experience (EDGE) series so far in 2020, (games from last year are listed on page 9 of this thread):
42. the Mayans 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Piety challenge
43. Siam (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Patronage partial challenge
44. the Shoshone 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
45. Poland 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Honor challenge
46. the Netherlands (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Liberty challenge
47. the Aztecs 3 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
48. the Celts (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
49. the Zulus (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Aesthetics challenge
50. Austria (Pangaea, Epic speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
51. Persia (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
52. the Ottomans (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Religion challenge
53. Rome (Fractal, Epic speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
54. Songhai (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
55. the Incas (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
56. Russia 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
57. India 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), CV challenge
58. Germany 3 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
59. Byzantium 2 (Fractal, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Religion challenge
60. the Iroquois (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Aesthetics challenge
61. America 2 (Pangaea, Epic speed, Standard size, Unmodded), DomV challenge
62. Sweden 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), Petra challenge
63. Morocco 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), partial Commerce challenge
64. England 3 (Fractal, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), partial UN challenge
65. Portugal 2 (Continents, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded), partial elimination challenge
66. Egypt 2 (Pangaea, Standard speed, Standard size, Unmodded)
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)
 
Glorious! Nice write and I appreciated the screen shots! But more like Total Dom on t290!

Thanks! You're right! Those who didn't want to wear Incan blue jeans had to...be taken out of the picture... I'll have to try a peaceful game from the list to see how different winning culturally would be. I assume that without militaristic intervention, the Internet and International Games would be needed and 1-2 musicians. I think my next Edge will be something to try to accomplish a peaceful cultural victory. Brazil would be nice for that but I will wait until Nizef uploads another Brazil game, there are 2 games with them but one is modded and other one is epic speed, and I would like a standard one. Until then I will start #93 with France. Valadaz above had a 237 CV and it sounds impressive. I never played a diety game with France so it should be cool to see what I can manage to do with them.

While I am here I would like to ask Nizef when he thinks the time comes for a Sweden game if I could share a really cool game I had with them. It's a standard pangea with standard settings but I hand picked opponents.
 
Thanks! You're right! Those who didn't want to wear Incan blue jeans had to...be taken out of the picture... I'll have to try a peaceful game from the list to see how different winning culturally would be. I assume that without militaristic intervention, the Internet and International Games would be needed and 1-2 musicians. I think my next Edge will be something to try to accomplish a peaceful cultural victory. Brazil would be nice for that but I will wait until Nizef uploads another Brazil game, there are 2 games with them but one is modded and other one is epic speed, and I would like a standard one. Until then I will start #93 with France. Valadaz above had a 237 CV and it sounds impressive. I never played a diety game with France so it should be cool to see what I can manage to do with them.

While I am here I would like to ask Nizef when he thinks the time comes for a Sweden game if I could share a really cool game I had with them. It's a standard pangea with standard settings but I hand picked opponents.

I am of course not on your level but I pretty much always need 3 or even 4 GMus to win a peaceful CV. Good to know that there is interest in a game with Brazil. It will have to come a little later though. At the moment I have Austria, Babylon and Germany in the pipeline.

Vadalaz had probably an "average" performance in EDGE#93 with France. :) I mean, it is crazy good, but compared to his skill level it seems to be fairly ordinary. :)

You are very welcome to share the game with Sweden right away as EDGE#97.

And while I am at it, your report on EDGE#87 was a delight to read!
 
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Thank you Nizef. Edge #97 "Against the Warmongers".

This is a standard pangaea with standard settings with war-loving leaders. This is a clearly OP start (a YASS), but I swear I didn't reroll for it, it came up. Now the fun part. I chose the leaders to try to create a hard game, but surprise! It ended up being the opposite. I won't spoil the mystery, you'll discover them soon enough. Keeping the tradition, I'll give a hint - in a world where people like to build armies instead of libraries, many unconventional things become possible. Maybe this is the chance to build those wonders you always wanted? Create your perfect religion? Or, maybe you want to join the fray and profit from the the spoils of war? The choice is yours. Try to scout the lands quickly so that you can make the best decisions concerning your empire and to identify your rivals. There are enough good spots to expand and you'll be happy to know that you're not in a place likely to attract that much attention. That's not to say this will be a walk in the park - it's still Deity and you shouldn't count on finding too many friends in this harsh environment. As a special challange - try to get a different victory type than Scientific.
Good luck, and enjoy!

A short spoiler about my game is below with screenshots at T100 and 297.
Spoiler :
I had a very comfortable game and I got a T297 cultural victory. Only Attila remained in the game, we divided the world in half. I don't know if it was the start or the leaders but I was able to build many wonders (7 before t100, 2 of which were Petra and Collosus) and concentrated heavily on growth, with Fertility Rites and Swords into Plowshares as religious beliefs. The hardest moment of the game was in the Medieval when Aztecs wanted to capture my capital, and I actually had to sacrifice a few units to defend properly. I built a lot of cities (10) and captured 8 more with modern era weaponry - war bombers and artillery. Since I built a lot of wonders I passed Cultural Heritage Sites at the World Congress and I was able to get a strong cultural output. Having settled cities near Cerro de Potosi and Sri Pada, I also passed Natural Heritage Sites. Only Inca and Denmark built more than 1-2 wonders so this was quite fortunate for me. I paid civs to battle each other during the game, a thing that worked well in the end.

Policies: Tradition 6/ Liberty 3/ Honor 3/ Patronage 1/ Commerce 1/ Exploration 4/ Rationalism 3/ Freedom 8.

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Thank you Nizef. Edge #97 "Against the Warmongers".

This is a standard pangaea with standard settings with war-loving leaders. This is a clearly OP start (a YASS), but I swear I didn't reroll for it, it came up. Now the fun part. I chose the leaders to try to create a hard game, but surprise! It ended up being the opposite. I won't spoil the mystery, you'll discover them soon enough. Keeping the tradition, I'll give a hint - in a world where people like to build armies instead of libraries, many unconventional things become possible. Maybe this is the chance to build those wonders you always wanted? Create your perfect religion? Or, maybe you want to join the fray and profit from the the spoils of war? The choice is yours. Try to scout the lands quickly so that you can make the best decisions concerning your empire and to identify your rivals. There are enough good spots to expand and you'll be happy to know that you're not in a place likely to attract that much attention. That's not to say this will be a walk in the park - it's still Deity and you shouldn't count on finding too many friends in this harsh environment. As a special challange - try to get a different victory type than Scientific.
Good luck, and enjoy!

A short spoiler about my game is below with screenshots at T100 and 297.
Spoiler :
I had a very comfortable game and I got a T297 cultural victory. Only Attila remained in the game, we divided the world in half. I don't know if it was the start or the leaders but I was able to build many wonders (7 before t100, 2 of which were Petra and Collosus) and concentrated heavily on growth, with Fertility Rites and Swords into Plowshares as religious beliefs. The hardest moment of the game was in the Medieval when Aztecs wanted to capture my capital, and I actually had to sacrifice a few units to defend properly. I built a lot of cities (10) and captured 8 more with modern era weaponry - war bombers and artillery. Since I built a lot of wonders I passed Cultural Heritage Sites at the World Congress and I was able to get a strong cultural output. Having settled cities near Cerro de Potosi and Sri Pada, I also passed Natural Heritage Sites. Only Inca and Denmark built more than 1-2 wonders so this was quite fortunate for me. I paid civs to battle each other during the game, a thing that worked well in the end.

Policies: Tradition 6/ Liberty 3/ Honor 3/ Patronage 1/ Commerce 1/ Exploration 4/ Rationalism 3/ Freedom 8.

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Sounds like a fun game! I think I will try it out.
 
EDGE#98: Turtles ohoy

This civ is the last to appear this year in the series. In this case, one could argue that the best is saved for last. Anyway, the task is to play as Babylon on an unmodded Pangaea map with Standard size and Standard speed. QC and QM are turned on and all VCs are enabled as usual. You will not like your neighbours but they are far away behind terrible terrain, so you do not have to fear any early invasion. As you can see from the screenshot, the starting location is very good and there is room for some natural expands. As always with Babylon, you can go in any direction with this and still be sure that you are competitive! As the start is coastal, you can grow your capital as much as you like. There are also other decent coastal locations for cities! Probably the biggest annoyance you will encounter is the lack of one of the midgame strategic resources. Your aggressive neighbour have some though... in his capital. Obviously you can just buy it if you want. Anyway, I am sure you will like this one! As in some of the previous games, I also upload some pictures from my game, this time two pictures from the win at t302.

I played according to HOF rules, but didn´t submit due to the mediocre finishing time. Anyway, there is a short recap of my game behind the spoiler.

Spoiler :

SIP (what else?) and the BO was Scoutx2-Shrine-Granary-Settlerx2-Worker. I stole one worker from Attila and two from Tyre. First expand to the S to hook up Marble and take control of the mountain pass and second to the N for all that Fish. 3 city NC on t83 and I reached Education on t100. I added a fourth right after NC to the E in the desert. As usually, I was too slow with the expansion but Babylons UA still work wonders for the scintific development. Nobody came to visit me. Rome had a peaceful start and built a lot of wonders and Attila found easier pray elsewhere. The Celts had a fantastic game and they took some cities from Pocatello very early on. Indonesia managed to make use of their UA by settling a one tile island in an inland sea! Clever!

In the midgame, I added a fifth city on the "wrong" end of the mountain pass - just to hook up Cotton. I chose a poor location just to make sure that I could defend it at all times. China and the Celts ganged up on Poland and later Pocatello was out of the race alltogether. Attila had some initial success against Indonesia but filed to get the snowball rolling. Rome went Order (and built almost all relevant wonders) and as soon as I was able to buy Coal, I followed. Later we passed Order as World Ideology. Rome did not expand all that much and stayed competitive on 6-7 cities until very late in the game. I had a mediocre midgame myself, tring to do too many things instead of just focusing on science. Thus Rome was first to Modern and I didn´t even get Eiffel nor Broadway.

In the endgame, I got bored and join Augustus and Indonesia in the destruction of Attila. I took two cities but Rome beat me to Attila´s Court by a thin margin (basically one turn). Boudicca also got bored and she started to conquer China. She ended up as number one in military. That was a good performance from her! I made many poor choices and did not optimize my endgame, thus loosing 10-15 turns unnecessarily before finally launching on t302. With this start, I was aiming for a win around 270-280 but fell short of that. Once again, playing too fast and too defensive... SP: full Tradition, Commerce 2, Exploration opener, full Rationalism and Order 6.
 

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Vadalaz had probably an "average" performance in EDGE#93 with France. :) I mean, it is crazy good, but compared to his skill level it seems to be fairly ordinary.
Remember that HoF results aren't the best indicator of a player's skill level. For the most part my HoF submissions are games that went exceptionally well, and behind every fast game there are dozens of rerolls, partially played starts and hundreds of mistakes made. If I wasn't so picky with my starts and submitted more games you'd see a lot of results in the 220-240s.

I'm not very good at Deity CVs, as I've never tried to optimize my them to chase some elusive finish turn target like I have with SVs. My understanding of peaceful CVs is that

- the faster you can finish a peaceful CV, the "easier" it is, meaning that you don't need nearly as much tourism to win. In that sense I found #93 to be a pretty tough map. I had a slow early game, which to me meant that a T200-220 victory wasn't going to happen. That's why I chose to settle 3 more expos after finishing NC - I figured I might need the extra yields in the late game.

- CV finish times are tied to the World Congress vote times. The fastest games only need one Congress session (World Religion or WF depending on your needs), Hotels and Futurism, while all other games need International Games to get passed and the Internet to be researched while the Games' bonus is active. The strongest games of that type need two Congress sessions and end somewhere around T200-210, so you need a high research rate and enough delegates in the Congress to propose and pass IG.

In #93 I didn't even get to make a proposal on the second Congress, as I didn't have enough CS allies. That's poor early game scouting hurting my mid-late game. America had most of the CSs allied with tons of influence by the time I met them. Regardless, I don't think I would've reached the Internet in time to coincide it with the Games' bonus if I'd passed it on the second Congress.

Correct ideology choice is a bit of a mystery to me - Freedom is the "default" pick I suppose, because it directly buffs your musicians instead of giving you passive tourism bonuses.
 
Correct ideology choice is a bit of a mystery to me - Freedom is the "default" pick I suppose, because it directly buffs your musicians instead of giving you passive tourism bonuses.

Media Culture (lvl 3) +34% more tourism from Broadcasting Towers seems also nice.
 
Remember that HoF results aren't the best indicator of a player's skill level. For the most part my HoF submissions are games that went exceptionally well, and behind every fast game there are dozens of rerolls, partially played starts and hundreds of mistakes made. If I wasn't so picky with my starts and submitted more games you'd see a lot of results in the 220-240s.

I'm not very good at Deity CVs, as I've never tried to optimize my them to chase some elusive finish turn target like I have with SVs. My understanding of peaceful CVs is that

- the faster you can finish a peaceful CV, the "easier" it is, meaning that you don't need nearly as much tourism to win. In that sense I found #93 to be a pretty tough map. I had a slow early game, which to me meant that a T200-220 victory wasn't going to happen. That's why I chose to settle 3 more expos after finishing NC - I figured I might need the extra yields in the late game.

- CV finish times are tied to the World Congress vote times. The fastest games only need one Congress session (World Religion or WF depending on your needs), Hotels and Futurism, while all other games need International Games to get passed and the Internet to be researched while the Games' bonus is active. The strongest games of that type need two Congress sessions and end somewhere around T200-210, so you need a high research rate and enough delegates in the Congress to propose and pass IG.

In #93 I didn't even get to make a proposal on the second Congress, as I didn't have enough CS allies. That's poor early game scouting hurting my mid-late game. America had most of the CSs allied with tons of influence by the time I met them. Regardless, I don't think I would've reached the Internet in time to coincide it with the Games' bonus if I'd passed it on the second Congress.

Correct ideology choice is a bit of a mystery to me - Freedom is the "default" pick I suppose, because it directly buffs your musicians instead of giving you passive tourism bonuses.

I am sorry if you were offended/annoyed about my remark. It was only made with humor and to show how much I appreciate your playing skills. I know you put a lot of hours into the game and some (if not most) of your finishing times seem so outlandish to me. And believe me, you ARE good at Deity CVs. I can myself almost always get a CV in the region of 300-330 as long as I get either Uffizi or Louvre, but you have really set the bar on an extremely high level.

Your remarks on #93 and CV in general are very valuable and I am sure I am not the only one to pick up one or two hints for future games.

Overall I am very happy with the discussion in this thread these days. Thanks for trying out these games and contributing!
 
Somehow I'm not surprised to see salt...

That is why I introduced the term YASS (Yet Another Salt Start). :) I know they are overrepresented in this thread but I don´t mind. I kind of dislike slow starts! Btw. there are some slow starts in this series like EDGE#4, EDGE#52 and EDGE#66, if you or anybody else want to try them out.
 
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I am sorry if you were offended/annoyed about my remark. It was only made with humor and to show how much I appreciate your playing skills. I know you put a lot of hours into the game and some (if not most) of your finishing times seem so outlandish to me. And believe me, you ARE good at Deity CVs. I can myself almost always get a CV in the region of 300-330 as long as I get either Uffizi or Louvre, but you have really set the bar on an extremely high level.

Your remarks on #93 and CV in general are very valuable and I am sure I am not the only one to pick up one or two hints for future games.

Overall I am very happy with the discussion in this thread these days. Thanks for trying out these games and contributing!
Oh, no worries, I wasn't offended or annoyed at all, quite the contrary actually. I was just trying to say you might be overestimating my abilities, because HoF can give a false impression. Apologies for any confusion.

Media Culture (lvl 3) +34% more tourism from Broadcasting Towers seems also nice.
Yep, that's what I meant by buffing Musicians. Other ideologies' % modifiers are applied to tourism per turn but not GM strength. The catch is that you have to invest a lot of culture to get to a level 3 ideology tenet, while you can get something like Futurism with Autocracy or Skyscrapers with Order for free and finish Aesthetics and/or Rationalism quicker. My guess is that Freedom is superior in games with 3 or more Congress sessions, but it might not always be the case for faster games.

I think I'll play #97 next - Sweden's an interesting civ and the settings look great for Great General farming. I had a lot of fun with Honor in #89, so I expect #97 to be a very enjoyable experience as well.
 
Doing the EDGE 97, Sweden game. Having a good time!

Spoilers in the screen, check out this capital!

BOOM SHAKALAKA!
 

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Yep, that's what I meant by buffing Musicians.

Oh! Silly me, you're right. Now I understand what you meant, I never saw it this way, I thought that multiplier applies to those percentages, just like for "open borders", "trade route" and "religion". I thought by buffing musicians you meant more of them from the 25% more people, but Order has that too, so I should have figured it's not that you're talking about. Very good insight. So basically Order has no real bonus for tourism (or it's more situational, anyway) while "Cult of Personality" from Autocracy has crazy potential to be abused against the cultural runaway, as that 50% multiplier is additive. I guess strong musicians are still more comfortable method especially when the player wants to remain at peace...

edit: also, I'm happy you'll try the game I shared, I bet you'll cruise through the game!
 
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Edge 97, DV, 322. Superlate domination, great game. Fun to see those other warmongers in the game.

Polices: Piety 5, Honor 5, Rationalism 5 and Freedom 6

Capital capture in order was
Spoiler :
aztec, inca, denmark, zulu. the rest were killed by the other players so i don't count them.


EDIT: Recorded game with commentary. Will be up on my channel in a couple of days.
 
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That is why I introduced the term YASS (Yet Another Salt Start). :) I know they are overrepresented in this thread but I don´t mind. I kind of dislike slow starts! Btw. there are some slow starts in this series like EDGE#52 and EDGE#66, if you or anybody else want to try them out.

Thank you. However Babylon with salt with isolation looks like good treat!
 
EDGE#99: African championships

This should have been a game with Austria or Germany but somehow I missed that target "slightly". Instead I fooled around with a civ that has only appeared once in this series and on that occasion we played them to an unusual CV. When I get a start like this, I just have to play it... Here you can unleash all your generated COVID-frustrations or play it smart. Your choice. Once again the start is very good with a lot of possibilities. The task is to play as the Zulus on an unmodded Pangaea map with Large size and Standard speed. QC and QM are turned on and all VCs are enabled as usual. My idea for this game was to create an african theme and thus among the AIs you will find Carthage, Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco and Songhai. Three other AIs were also hand picked. In my opinion they fit the theme quite well and accidentally the last one is not far off either. You can´t miss this one! As a hint there is life north of Kiev! As in some of the previous games, I also upload some pictures from my game, this time from t98 and on the win on t292. Enjoy!

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

Spoiler :

I crossed the river and settled t1 on the hill. The BO was Scoutx2-Shrine-Settler-Granary-Settler. I stole 4-5 workers from Byblos. First expand to the N for Marble and more Salt. Later I found Oil there as well. The second expand to the SW between two rivers. It was a fantastic location and it had an unique luxury (Copper) as well. I strggled with science and happiness early on and got my 3 city NC on t89 and Education on t109. I got the fifth religion with Earth Mother/Tithe/Ascetism/Feed the World/ Messiah. No early wars due to the isolated start. I managed to build the Oracle before NC.

In the midgame, I settled two more cities and join a coalition to take out the annoying Ramesses. I conquered Memphis and Thebes but due to unhappiness issues I had to sell Memphis to Dido. Wars were frequent and I managed to catch up nicely. Besides the annoying egyptians also Songhai was out of the game quite early. Dido and Haile divided those cities between themselves. After taking out Egypt most AIs hated me and I had to sponsor a lot of wars to steer clear of the mess. Ethiopia beat me to Ideologies by a few turns and I join the Order club thinking that Ethiopia would be the cultural forerunner... I was not very concerned when Carthage picked Authocracy but the surprise was coming later: the rest of the pack went Freedom and doomed me to happiness problems for the rest of the game. At the end I got -40 from ideology pressure but remeined in the positives. However since most AIs hated me, I had only limited ways of trading for luxuries. Instead I built up relations with key CS and had 3-5 CS allies until the end.

In the endgame, I built "the usual" wonders (Broadway/Eiffel/HST/Kremlin) and focussed on just winning. Dido and Napoleon took out England and after that they chewed up both Assyria and Ethiopia as well. Morocco and the Ottomans also helped out. So only four AIs made it to the end. However only the Ottomans were even remotely close in the science race and I could launch on t292. I didn´t engage in wars as much as I had hoped and in hindsight I should have dealt with Carthage early on instead of Egypt. This map had a lot of potential and I feel I didn´t do enough. SP: full Tradition, Honor 2, Commerce 2, Patronage opener, Rationalism 6 and Order 7.
 

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Finished #97 with a T210 total DomV. Super fun game, thanks for the map @Tiberiu

Spoiler :
Honor's growing on me. I don't think I'm playing it to its full potential yet, but I'm having a lot of fun with it. I'm still picking Tradition opener first, it's a very strong policy and once you have 4 cpt with a garrison and a monument, your city borders grow very quickly. Not to mention it opens up the possibilty to pick up Aristocracy later.

5-city Honor opening; went straight for crossbows because I figured that a) I wouldn't really get anywhere with CBs due to the narrow chokepoints you have to push through, and b) the map allows for some good peaceful development and early wars might be detrimental to that.

I managed to get Petra and HG in Sigtuna, so that was my top production city, and the capital had all the Guilds as it had a LOT of food. There's really very little competition for wonders on this map for some reason, for example Stonehenge went around T90 if I remember correctly. I got 5 wonders before T100: Petra, HG, Oracle and Machu Picchu in Sigtuna and Mausoleum in Stockholm.
Spoiler T100 :
20200723164711_1.jpg
Religion: DF / Tithe / Pagodas / +15% production / IP
Tech: Machinery T101 -> Education T123 (T119 NC). SPs: complete Honor, opened Patronage.

At this point I'm building roads through the chokepoints and mostly just farming XP with Crossbows, making some progress on Tenochtitlan, but not rushing things to make sure I don't lose any units. Getting 60-70 XP towards GGs per turn, so they spawn quite quickly and I secure some CS allies. Tenochtitlan falls on T131. I'll end up taking two more Aztec cities, leaving them just one that I'll clean up in the late game with Frigates.

Tech: Education -> Banking for Forbidden Palace (finished on T146), stole Gunpowder from Denmark -> Printing Press for LToP (finished it very late for Deity on T154 - Sigtuna is 8-turning the Renaissance wonders) -> Acoustics for Musicians that I'll gift to CSs. SPs: start taking Commerce policies.

One of the militaristic CSs is gifting Winged Hussars, and I make a mental note to try Honor-Commerce with Poland, in order to buy cheap Landsknechts and upgrade them. The other militaristic CS is gifting Janissaries, a fantastic unit and I get two of those before reaching Rifling.

I can't make much progress on Denmark with XBs and Cannons so I wait for Dynamite. In the meantime my southern army XBs all have Logistics and some have Range as well, so Cusco falls very quickly.

Tech: Acoustics -> Dynamite T167 -> Industrialization T171 -> Rifling T177. I sell all my universities, libraries and aqueducts and slowly tech towards Frigates. SPs: Putting production towards the World's Fair which I'll win by a large margin, then complete Commerce, take Aristocracy, open Autocracy and get Barracks happiness and cheap units. All CSs allied by T170ish.

I build and buy a ton of units, mostly Artilleries and Caroleans at first, then start spamming Cavalry, as I figure that 2-move units won't get to the battlefield in time anymore. Happiness never fell below +20 even while I was razing multiple cities.

Spoiler Pointiest sticks on T200 :
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I finish the game with way too much gold, so I suppose I could've been buying many more units and perhaps even eliminated everyone before T200. It took way too long to kill off Denmark with their Great Wall, Red Fort, Himeji and a lot of Norwegian Ski Infantry. I should've probably sent units to the east sooner than I did and finished Denmark with endless reinforcements from my core cities.

Spoiler T210 :
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