Leaders Challenge 1: Flying Squadron

[Saxo Grammaticus]

In the spirit of Francel's CMC and other strategy threads, I have come up with several optimization challenges, most of which are unconventional rushes using game mechanics for a particular leader. Will happily share more if they prove a source of friendly competition among fellow fanatics.

Challenge 1: Playing as the French leader Catherine de Medici (Black Queen), achieve Top Secret Diplomatic Visibility with a neighbor.

Moderate RNG (mostly due to map)

Short Length

Map Settings: Standard / Terra / 10 Players / High Sea Level

These are my map preferences to represent the Old World. While players start 5-9 tiles away, inevitable forward settling produces more dynamic early diplomacy.

Note that the turn you achieve Top Secret access may not lead to an immediate change in visibility. Just save the game, load the save, and behold the state secrets.

Entries should submit the turn/score (tiebreaker), a screenshot, and a save. Feel free to share your strategy, if so inclined.

While the challenge is intended for Deity, anyone is welcome to submit an entry on another Difficulty level.

No reloading/gameplay mods. Please note if using non-game-changing mods.

With that said, keep your wits about you, and see just how fast the Black Queen can infiltrate a neighboring court!

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

Deity
1st place: Planktonic - T124 - 201
2nd place:
3rd place:

Prince-Immortal
1st place: 0urBall - T126 - 180
2nd place:
3rd place:

 

[Planktonic]

It's fortuitous that you posted this. I've been experimenting a lot with some "Challenge" games myself (of a very different character) so I thought I would take this up. I'm probably the worst person to try this since I usually pay almost no attention to Diplomacy or Access Level and almost never make friends with neighbors. But I thought this would be an opportunity to learn.

So..."inevitable forward settling produces more dynamic early diplomacy." Ha ha. This is true if by "diplomacy" you mean "war".

It took me three tries to get this done. The first map (10 random civs/standard/Terra/Deity) landed me right next to Kublai Khan and I was able to steal his settler on turn 2 and eliminate him from the game. I thought I had it made, but about 20 turns later Victoria rushed me with a horde of warriors and I lost my capital. I had 2 other cities by that time and was starting to fight my way back, but that was beside the point and I was already way way behind. So I re-rolled.

The second map landed me right next to Gaul and Gran Colombia. There was barely space to settle a second city. Almost immediately they started warring, and soon Gaul was able to eliminate Bolivar. I joined in the battle against Bolivar hoping to snipe a city, but ended up in a battle with Gaul in which I was able to take both of Bolivar's former cities. But all the war and almost no exploration landed me in the Darkest of Ages, and it was impossible to hold loyalty except for just 2 cities. Again, I could have persevered, but was again well on the back foot and decided to re-roll.

The third map gave at least a little breathing room, and got lucky in other ways as well. Gilgamesh was a close neighbor so was able to befriend him immediately. Had a one tile choke separating me from Harald and was able to block it with a scout, then steal a wayward settler. Still had trouble maintaining loyalty in the Classical, when I was Normal but everyone else was Golden, but was able to make an empire of 5 cities which stabilized in the Medieval while I tried to advance my science and culture. Here too I made a major error: not realizing that I could establish an alliance relatively early (I almost never form alliances in real games), I started bee-lining for Cartography before I realized I should be bee-lining to Printing. Ultimately got 2 campuses built and reached Civil Service and Printing, which gave me Top Secret access with Gilgamesh at turn 124, with 10 turns left in the Medieval.

I suspect someone who knows what they're doing in this regard can improve on this substantially!

Thanks for the fun challenge- it was in fact quite educational and will prompt me to re-think my approach towards alliances in the future!

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

Awesome, glad you had fun with this (and persevered through the two rerolls)! Very true that early diplomacy means war, but in my test runs for this type of map, I often found the AI were not as interested in me as in their other neighbors, allowing some dog-pile friendships and eventually networks to develop. Sounds like you had the best and worst of luck in your first run!

Looks like there were a few nice factors--a corner start, spices (my greedily favorite luxury), and the fact you neighbored Gilgamesh instead of Peter who consolidated quite some land down south. I pretty much default to researching education into printing, so I am glad your beeline worked out. I had not given much thought to Diplomatic Visibility before, but it occurred to me that the mechanic could be exploited... Well, you are on the board Thank you for starting us off!

 

[0urBall]

Found this and decided to give it a go, but only set it up for Emporer, which turned out to be a wise choice... First time around I spawned next to Mattias, who first boxed me in so I could only get 1 city up. He then declared a Surprise War and swamped me with units
However, 2nd time around went a bit better, I was lucky enough to spawn on the southern tip of the continent and so spent the first 40 turns or so fighting off barbs. Then I met John Curtin on turn 42 who turned out out to be the one of the easier AI Civs to befriend, I find. Managed to get up to 4 cities with my little spot of land while beelining to Castles and trying to beeline to Civil Service, which I didn't need in the end. I let the chaos happen between the AI in the northern part of the continent, Persia(?!?) did not last very long(turn 24), Sweden lost their capital due to loyalty only to get it back, Gilgabro took Rome on turn 33 to give some examples.
Finally once Castles was researched and my spy Odette was in place in Geelong, I set up the Listening Post operation to get to Top Secret visibility with Curtin on turn 126:



Saved file is attached. This was a fun challenge @Saxo Grammaticus, I hope you manage to think up some more good ones

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it! Good you made it through the initial dogpile, as you found a bit of a haven in your second game. The amount of AI conflict sounds and looks wild! Also, was this map comparable to your first one for Standard / Terra? It is significantly more interesting than any of the maps I have rolled for these settings mostly two blobby continents.

In general, I am inclined to believe Castles would be the faster route, but that remains to be seen! I will go ahead and borrow another trick from the CMC and set up a ranking where 0urBall will lead, congrats!

(Will also add that with some chops at hand the tile where you settled your capital would have made an excellent Temple of Artemis that would have hit a none-too-shabby seven resources!)