Standard Communitas_79 on Deity as Arabia. SV on Turn 475!
So I'll just start this off by saying....I shouldn't have won this game, nor had even a chance to win this game, but we will get to that.
My plan this game was to try a CV on Deity. Arabia is my go to civ for it, Arabia isn't the best CV civ (although its in the top tier), but its carries a strong science core as well, and has good SV play as a backup. This would prove essential in this game.
I built out my little 5 city empire against Polynesia, who was the only other person on the continent (at that point...but I get ahead of myself). For a long time, we were good friends and trading partners. Then in the late medieval era Polynesia took a chop at me and bloodied my nose a bit. This would become a pattern, next hitting me in the renaissance. In order to keep up I had severly skimped on ships. It was so bad, by the Industrial Era I had barely explored anything in the world. Then in the late renaissance the hammer got thrown down. Polynesia attacked with a huge sea force, and mongolia came out of nowhere, killing Panama to my west and then doing a strong land invasion.
This was a look at that devastation (something I posted earlier above)
This should have been the end. Baghdad sacked, Najran gone...and with two mass hordes that had broken through my citadels....I had nothing left to stop it. I was intending to play it out just for fun, see how long I could last. However, Polynesia peaced me out from nowhere!! I was stunned...I was a walking corpse and they offered me mercy.
Then Mongolia sacked Najran, but left it completely undefended. So I sent a fusilier to take it back, and managed to peace with Mongolia as well. I lived!
Well...."living" is a strong word, they had pillaged all of my great improvements and left huge swaths of land devastated. I was in shambles, and with Baghdad gone I had only a meager 4 cities, and no water access (in fact towards the end I was completely surrounded on all sides by enemy borders. But I figured, lets see how far I get...and I was curious how the diplomacy AI would treat me and whether I could deal my way back into any kind of shape. So I begin the rebuild, I set up more citadels with my new generals, and fortified the western fronts against Mongolia. There was a strong mountain line there so a few citadels made it very secure. I also got Bradenburg gate, and so finally had enough supply to at least build an actual defense force (I would ultimately have no more than 38 supply the entire game).
I was still on for my CV plan, 4 cities is extremely brittle but at least my tourism would be higher! And off we went. Mongolia and Polynesia would both test me again, and Poly did some damage, but my lines were strong and I never was truly threatened. Funny enough both Mongolia and Polynesia were in a religious war, with me as the battleground. My actual religion probably switched at least 8 times this game. I was happy for it, as that meant a +25% tourism to one civ or the other, and both gave me some religious buildings that were useful.
Getting through Industrial I had to gamble, going the north tech tree to secure the strong infrastructure and CV techs I needed (along with robotics to boost my science). I did have to go south on the tree occasionally to ensure some military, my goal was to only stay one unit level below Polynesia so my superior defenses could still counter him, but its a delicate balance as without the raw power of the North tech tree I had no chance of catching up. Also I had 0 oil (0!!!!)....so no tanks and no planes....phew this was going to be hard.
Ultimately the plan worked well. I secured the CN Tower and Hubble, and with power plants faster than all of the major races I suddenly had a big boost. I also had one more major fortune. I finally got a world map trade and could see the remaining 75% of the map (yes it was that bad). And lo and behold, because of Mongolia and Venice....there were only 3 total CS on the entire map! 2 of them were on my continent, and 1 of them was a sphere for me! This was major, it meant I was not missing out on hordes of yields from all of the CS allies and friends I should normally have, and it meant I could save a lot of hammers on ignoring wire services.
Then I made a big blunder. I did a timing window of faith buying Musicians and International Games after Telecom. That is a window when Science is flying and culture is low, but I severely underestimated the impact that Endowment for the Arts had had. Science was slow (note I didn't finish until Turn 475....I normally finish sub 400 for SV), and culture was high! I should have instead gone for the window after Internet, to maximize my bombs. That said, realistically I knew CV was likely out of the question. My only hope there was to use my bombs against Mongolia and Polynesia (who were both high culture contenders), and then hope the military civs would knock down the other culture players, allowing me to flip them naturally. It was a far away hope, but I had already assumed I was dead so anything was better than nothing.
Then that hope was destroyed. The WC was out for blood this game, and sanctions were flying like candy. I got sanctioned, along with Mongolia and eventually Polynesia as well. I lost my TR and open border bonuses, and knew that with my early spent musicians I had no real hope of getting a CV. Well that....and the fact that Morocco had over 50% more tourism than I did
So CV was not going to be my game. I also lost a ton of money from my lucrative TRs, so it was getting bleaker by the turn.
Now the interesting thing is, I had a lot of support earlier in the game. A bunch of tech trading, some gifts even. Now its like I had just kicked John Wick's puppy, everyone hated my guts. Denouncements left and right, and even though I was no longer the tech or culture leader people sure seemed to think I was ahead in the game.
Moving into the final stages, hubble gave me a push but realistically I was a goner. Morocco especially had more policies and techs, and with Order was the number 1 manufacturer in the world. There was no way I was getting to SV before them. And sure enough, as I was getting through the information era, the SS part notifications started flying. I patted myself on the back for making it this far, and decided to play it out for fun, seeing how long it would take the AI to secure a victory, or for Polynesia to get his dark horse DV.
But...the victory screen never came. I had only 4 cities but they were all prepped and ready to go, power plants and spaceship factories for all of them. My capital was a beast, a 50+ pop capital! So I knew I could churn out the parts, but I was 20 turns behind the leaders if not more, there was no way. And yet, turn by turn I kept getting closer. And then on Turn 475.... all was quiet, and I secured the win
A beaten, near broken, little 4 city civ managed to win a SV on deity against morocco, I couldn't believe it.
1) To highlight my notes above, as cool as this game was (and hopefully the story that goes with it), the AI must have been sleeping at the wheel to let me win. Morocco was not in any wars at all late game, they had the best production in the game, and they were 20 turns ahead of me in tech if not more. That's a slam dunk victory, the fact that they didn't (they lost by 2 parts as a note), tells me their SV build algorithms need some work.
2) The late game diplomacy anger was quite surprising. Though I never got war declarations I got a lot of hate from everyone out there, and they voted against releasing my sanctions 3 times in a row. I was pretty surprised by that, in previous games being low in score usually meant a lot of good deals and support from other AIs, but this game I was the whipping boy. Only thing I could really think of was the sanction, perhaps because I was giving them lucrative deals they saw no reason to like me.
3) Sometimes I think that sanctions shouldn't destroy your franchises, just deactivate them while your sanctioned. It is brutal enough to lose all trade and deal making, but losing all of that work with your franchises (which you never recover from) is so penalizing.
4) I'm curious about other deity players experiences with peaceful CV. I know players will often war the culture leader to secure it, but is a truly peaceful CV viable? Obviously I have practice to do here, but it was very disheartening to see other AIs with over 50% more tourism than I had, even playing one of the better CV civs.
5) We have often talked about how much GS plays into the pace of science. So I think its telling that in a game with an early Endowment for the Arts (which was eventually repealed), the game was a full 80-100 turns longer than my normal SV win timeline. Those slower GS really really really make a difference to the tech speed.
6) Freedom vs Order for the CV. If been thinking about this. Freedom is my default as Arabia, but ultimately was it the right choice? Cultural Revolution gives you a +5 to all of your great works, compared to +2 for freedom. Freedom's you get earlier, but honestly that earlier tourism is not important as compared to after you get the big tourism multipliers later. Freedom you get +25% tourism at tier 3, but dictatorship of the proletariat gives you a massive +50% bonus against less happy civs. Playing a 5 city tradition style, maintaining 100% happiness is trivial, so its a full +25% over freedom and comes earlier. And of course if your culture rival happens to also take Order, you get an extra +34% on top, but that's not reliable. Freedom does have other advantages....but I honestly wonder if its the best way to play CV for a 5 city tall style now.
