India Challenge Photojournal

[CrazyG]

Hello Everyone,

This was played on an older patch, and I don't plan to finish the game, but I want to share the early game decision making. This challenge is intended to show how strong India is when he is well executed.

Spoiler Challenge Rules :

I'm going to try and make this difficult by adding rules that will hurt basically any aspect of the game. These were my initial challenge rules

• No follower beliefs (I will simulate this by taking faith buildings and not ever purchasing them)
• No allowing foreign religions in my cities (I can't use their follower beliefs)
  
• Gold cost to invest in buildings has been increased (I did this mod myself, its intentional to weaken early settler-monument spam)
  
• No specialists
• No Naga-Mala. In fact, no skirmisher units at any stage.
  
• No vassals (for me only, the AI can)
  
• No declaring war, denouncing, making friendships, or defensive pacts
• No conquering cities
• China will be one of the AI, because she tends to perform extremely well

I've played until I reached medieval era, let me know if I should add more rules to make it harder.

Spoiler My Starting Position :

I rolled until my start looked not that great. Lots of decisions, including a pantheon to choose. I think there is a clearly best choice.

 

[chicorbeef]

Gonna pick Craftsman?

Those are a lot of rules. I'm impressed with how you can think up of and follow through on these crazy challenges. No Specialists/no follower beliefs as India, interesting.

 

[CrazyG]

Gonna pick Craftsman?

I sure am.

 

[crdvis16]

So you're relying on the strength of fast pantheon/enhancing, buffed farms, extra pressure/food from pop, and Harrapan reservoir I think?

Which of these perks is the one that you think is most OP in human hands? The extra food from population, working farmers, and Harrapan kind of goes to waste if you can't work specialists so that leaves the fast enhancement?

 

[CrazyG]

So you're relying on the strength of fast pantheon/enhancing, buffed farms, extra pressure/food from pop, and Harrapan reservoir I think?

Which of these perks is the one that you think is most OP in human hands? The extra food from population, working farmers, and Harrapan kind of goes to waste if you can't work specialists so that leaves the fast enhancement?

The UA is really good in human hands. A turn 1 pantheon is a crazy benefit if you make a good choice. Cheap prophets means you get to neglect faith in favor of culture, so you just start snowballing, and the extra growth and production mean you easily keep your lead.

 

[CrazyG]

Update #1

Spoiler The Most Important Turn of The Game :

I research pottery, build a monument, and expect to take progress. Pantheon is God of Craftsmen. This seems to be unpopular but its absurdly strong and my cheaper great prophets more than compensate for its only weakness.

From ruins I find 75 gold, a map, and a I discover mining. After the monument I build a settler, and I'm able to buy a worker.

Spoiler Second City :

I can stop Maya from crossing these mountains by putting my city here. Overall the location isn't great (I would rather settle a natural wonder or some quarries), but I want to limit his movement because I can't conquer cities per the rules of the challenge.

This city, and the others too, build monument first, then well/watermill (if available), then shrine, then workers or military units. It costs 100 gold to invest a monument, I'm able to invest in 7 of my 8 expansions, including this one.

Spoiler Setting my Borders :

Here you can see my first wave of settling complete. I plan to three more cities down, but at this point I think I've defined my borders and I will be able to see any foreign settlers who approach. My military is weak, but I do have an archer in the capital who is one turn from completion.

At this point I have 3 social policies, I went down the left side first. I'm going to try the Temple of Artemis because I have both stone and marble in the capital, I figured I should use it.

The Netherlands has reached like -18 gold per turn, removing all of his science, and I'm pretty sure he never gets out of that or researches another tech again.

Spoiler Success :

That's a wonder for me, and my 4th social policy on turn 63. None of the AI who I have met have 4 policies, and I am at most 1 tech behind.

Spoiler War :

The Dutch attack me. I have gold to buy an archer and the city is settled defensively. Two other cities were building horsemen. I have never had a single game where I built horsemen before barracks and regretted it.

My other border city is working on walls, when complete it means the Maya won't really be a threat.

Spoiler 5th Policy :

Turn 83 to get my fifth policy, I have workers going around building roads and my science is soaring. Only Babylon has a tech lead against me. Lapis Lazuli monopoly is looking good.

The war is pretty easy in the desert, horsemen and archers hold out easily enough. The last settler is being built. My great prophet is born the same turn, I'm going to walk him to Delhi.

Spoiler Religion and Bangalore :

Petra still wasn't build I'm guessing there isn't much desert in the world. I can get in 4 turns in Varansani, wish me luck.

Bangalore is settled, giving me 9 cities total. For my religion I took Stupas (which I can't buy), and Holy Law.

Spoiler Petra and Golden Age :

Turn 94 and Petra was still there. Statue of Zeus lasted until turn 120, I think. I really can't figure out why the AI is doing so much worse than before. Netherlands is stuck at just 7 techs, but still wants to fight.

I get a golden age and my cities start finishing barracks, arenas, stoneworks and herbalists. I complete progress on turn 101, it appears that none of teh AI took progress, and none of them have 6 policies. Babylon is about 10 techs ahead of the other AI, but only 2 techs ahead of me. He will probably be a runaway who starts spamming wonders. My capital still has no shrine BTW, the Indian UA is really good.

I'm researching Philosophy to build the Oracle. I'm only going to get teh classical era bonus for it on purpose to be try and give the AI a chance to catch up.

Spoiler Medieval Era :

Turn 115 medieval era. Babylon has more techs than I do but isn't in medieval era. I am leading in all demographics other than soldiers and I'm the only civ to enhance their religion (iconography).

Spoiler Renaissance :

Only Babylon is in the medieval era, the others are classical (Netherlands is still in ancient era, his army is bankrupting him but he keeps attacking me. I reformed at some point and took faith of the masses.

Sorry for the lack of details, but this is boring. I had the most crop yield and production before the Harrappan reservoirs were built. Now I can just build every wonder.

I really do not understand why the AI is performing so much worse than previous patches. I could probably win 100% of the time on Deity this patch, that's not normal.

 

[chicorbeef]

The AI was not that easy in my game, Parthenon went T95, Artemis went pre-T50 in my game...maybe it's just luck?

 

[CrazyG]

The AI was not that easy in my game, Parthenon went T95, Artemis went pre-T50 in my game...maybe it's just luck?

Maybe? My position wouldn't really be much worse if I missed those wonders. This is how my games consistently look, at most one AI is doing well (here its Babylon, who build Great Wall extremely early). With India I can consistently snowball much faster than any of the AI do, are you seeing them hit the Renaissance before turn 140?

If you play a game to turn 100 and then play till turn 100 on like the December patch, I think you'll find that the AI are behind in everything compared to their old selves.

 

[besset]

Awesome photojournal, would love to see more gameplay from you