Winning a Deity game with China on Archipelago going for Diplomacy was too easy so I decided to add a challenge.......a One City Challenge. And...here's the results so far.
As of turn 184, I have 14 Diplomatic Victory Points. If there are no emergencies (and despite the fact that I cranked Disasters up to 4, there still hasn't been any) I am set to win on turn 270. If I get lucky and get an emergency by turn 210, I could win on 240. This is assuming all goes right, but I have so much gold and diplomatic favor that I should be fine.
With Natural Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Pingala, I was making 53.1 Science per turn and 64.8 Culture per turn as of the turn I started building the Statue of Liberty (when I switched up cards to help with the production). With ONE CITY!
My district build order was Holy Site ASAP, then Campus not long after I hit 4 people, Theatre District at 7, Harbor at 10, Industrial Zone at 13, and Government Plaza at 16. There was no way I could have triggered the Inspiration by having 7 different districts. My capital was in a location with not a whole lot of production (1 hill in all of it and 2 total forests! much wow) but I had decent growth I suppose. For luxury/strategic resources, I have one each of olive, turtle, and fur and two things of horses. For bonus resources, I have two things of stone and a crab.
My city was not on a "small island" as I'd have liked, but it was on a long snaky island with my only neighbor Sweden on the opposite end. To make matters even better, a mountain range right by my city blocks her from getting to me by land. There are 2 places spread apart where one could place a city on my side of the mountain range, but as of turn 184, nobody has. I have 4 allies and the other 3 civs don't like me, but nobody's declared war.
I haven't built a single military unit besides 3 galleys and the Slinger I always start on turn 1, BUT I got lucky by getting an Apostle with the promotion to convert barbarians. So I converted 8 that way and my slinger and a galley died so I have 8 land units and 2 galleys. I guess that's enough to stop anyone from declaring war, and should be enough to defend if someone does (plus I could buy like a cannon every turn or something if necessary).
It looks like I'm going to win my FIRST TIME ever doing a one city challenge. I'll eventually finish the game, but it gets a lot more boring to me after I've built the Statue of Liberty so give me a couple days.
What have I learned from all of this? Archipelagos make the game way too easy. For my next challenge I will simply try to win a Deity Victory on a Pangaea (or should I do continents?). I will still use China and go for Diplomacy, unless you think I would be better off with Arabia and I could still build the Mahabodhi Temple? I mainly go with China for the guaranteed Mahabodhi Temple, but the extra Eureka/Inspiration boost is awesome and the extra builder charge as well. China isn't a terrible civ to play for Diplomacy, I'm not just crazy here am I? lol (Another thing, if I DID go for Arabia, I still need to have a Holy Site, Shrine, and Temple before I can build the Mahabodhi Temple. So it's not like I save myself from needing those things, just no rush for them.)
