Polynesia Challenge Photojournal

[CrazyG]

Spoiler Special Rules for this Challenge :

I cannot settle additional cities in the old world. I cannot defend my capital and must allow another civ to capture it. Then I must retake my capital, and win the game. Credit to @SpankmyMetroid for the idea.

8 civs, 16 city states
Standard Speed
Terra
No ancient ruins, tech trading, or events

Spoiler Pre-Game Strategy :

Polynesia is the civ, I use the ocean embarking to send my people to the new world, where I must start a new society.

Polynesia's UA has immediate embarking, including crossing oceans, which is necessary for the challenge.
Then you get +2 food from fishing boats and atolls, and you can build these with melee naval units. This is a small but decent economic boost.

The real strength is the Moai. I love this improvement, culture and production are the most important yields. It can be built on resources but doesn't connect them and gets a bonus for adjacent moai, which lead to interesting decisions with city planning. The huge culture output pushes you towards a tourism victory.

The Maori warrior probably won't matter at all this game. I don't expect to be at war during the medieval era.

Spoiler Starting Position :

 

[crdvis16]

I guess just make your capital a settler factory? Or does it make sense to play more normally in order to not fall behind too much in tech even if you are supposed to lose your capital by design?

Also, you should probably try to find a religion because otherwise your new world cities will be without a religion for a long time.

 

[CrazyG]

Also, you should probably try to find a religion because otherwise your new world cities will be without a religion for a long time.

I did a warm up to see how this would work. It is really hard to get a religion because settlers need to spend like 12 turns traveling.

 

[crdvis16]

I did a warm up to see how this would work. It is really hard to get a religion because settlers need to spend like 12 turns traveling.

Maybe forget founding and just hope your capital gets a religion spread to it before you lose it, and send missionaries over then?

 

[CrazyG]

Update #1

Spoiler Early Game :

Monument first, pottery first. Then shrine (invested), then settler. I can't grow to 3 population before the settlers.

My pathfinder immediately sails East to find the new world. I find this nice little spot for Samoa, which will become the new capital. This area is really good for Moai. 3 turns later I take my pantheon, which will be Goddess of Protection. It can reach 4 faith in every city and is the only real chance I have for a religion.

Spoiler City State Quests :

I'll have unique access to these city states for about 100 turns. They give me a quest to meet Germany, which I complete for some big science.

For science I researched pottery, then mining, animal husbandry, construction, which gives me both Moai and Walls. I also connect the gold mines and trade it for gold.

Spoiler Third City :

It has a natural wonder, which is really important. I need to invest in shrine and walls everywhere. All cities build shrine, then walls, then barracks. My capital also built walls and barracks, but otherwise only builds settlers, workers, and military to send across the ocean. The new world is infested with barbarians.

Spoiler Great Prophet? :

I get the 3rd religion on turn 92. I had to sell the walls in my capital to make sure the prophet didn't appear there. I have territorial disputes with both Germany and Aztec, I'll declare war on turn 100 if they haven't yet (of all the times for the AI not to be aggressive)

 

[thunderbird_14]

This is amazing! What will be the 2nd policy tree you'll pick? (And although I know it must be Progress, still I'm curious whether my guess is right or not)

 

[CrazyG]

I did choose progress. Sorry for not saying that. For my second policy I'm leaning towards artistry because I think its just better than the other two, although statecraft looks pretty good in this situation.

 

[CrazyG]

Spoiler No Contested Borders :

Turn 100, still no war, I declare on the Aztec. I want Aztec to be strong and have a border with Germany, who is going to be the AI that snowballs. I get another worker and pathfinder safely to the ocean before it falls, 7 turns later.

Spoiler Peace and Building :

I'm now totally safe from all enemy aggression and just go hard into getting infrastructure up, while also buying tiles and making more Moai. I'm behind in basically everything.

Religion: I took thrift for my first follower, and Holy Law for the founder.
When I enhance I take mosques and iconography. Here we can see the new capital, Samoa, which is also my holy city. It is growing extremely quickly. I reform on turn 179 after spreading to all of the new world city states. I take faith of the masses, I need strong culture and a way to spend my faith.

Spoiler City-States :

I get special access to all these CS without any competition. I'm enjoying these big quest rewards and getting a lot of yields for completing quests, I actually have two great generals from clearing barbarian camps.

I still take artistry because I have some golden age synergy, culture is king, and I like having happiness.

Spoiler Diplomacy :

I love these CS war quests, the rewards are just so high.

The other nations are crossing the oceans now. Portugal has shown that she can compete with Germany, and founded the World Congress before he did.

Spoiler Demographics :

 

[CrazyG]

Spoiler Monopoly :

Using the East India Company, I can get a monopoly on silk for 10% gold, which I do. These two silk are my only direclty controlled luxuries, I also have a marble but I choose to use a Moai instead of a quarry.

Treasure Fleet got proposed by landlocked India and passed. Germany won, I only invested in the bronze trophy.

Spoiler Second Wonder :

Leaning Tower of Pisa in my capital. I take a free great artist to fuel my golden ages. I tried to get Chichen Itza and Taj Mahal but miss boht, which really hurts as I can't keep my mosques activated as much as I would like.

Spoiler Acoustics :

I can faith buy all the opera houses and get my musicians guilds going. At this point there are ships from the old world all over my continent, and I'm starting to face competition for the city states.

Third Policy Tree arrives on turn 198. What would you take?

Spoiler Bonus Yields :

There's been a lot of discussion about these, I just wanted to share an in game screenshot. The food is only progress. I'm moving towards the industrial era through public schools, then probably archaeology. I was disappointed that I couldn't beat anyone to these wonders, but I'm the only person who took artistry so at least Louvre is guaranteed.

Spoiler New Host :

With enough civs in the industrial era, city states provide a world congress vote, meaning I have the most and can become host. My second spy goes to Portugal, who now has a tech lead over Germany, but is still behind in social policies. I'm two policies ahead of everyone, Moai rule.

Spoiler War! :

Aztec was already at war with Germany, but he was moving large numbers of soliders to a city he founded on my continent, so I asked about troops near by borders, he wars me. Excellent! I have an army of almost purely CS gifted units, and a decent navy, I can easily take his city and I don't have to activate defensive pacts. It does interrupt my archeology a bit though.

Aztec have taken Shoshone's capital and have him as their vassal. He also pays Portugal to declare war one, which is great as it means her defensive pacts don't activate and I can start taking her cities in the new world.

Spoiler Ideology on turn 245 :

You can see my military moving in on Portugal here (does my supply cap seem small to anyone?) I lose some trade routes but its an easy war, it also blocks her from competing with most of the world's CS.

Ideology, what would you take? I also didn't share which 3rd tree I picked, so tell me what you think would have been best!

 

[crdvis16]

My guess is Rationalism? You're ahead in culture but not ahead in science so that's the easiest way to get ahead? Rationalism also has some good synergy with Artistry.

Industrialism would probably be ok too? Imperialism maybe less so even if you're a naval/coastal civ. I imagine you don't intend on having puppets when every city you have probably has good Moai tiles and justified as being annexed.

Also, where do you access the "instant yields averaged over 10 turns" display? Is it included in VP+EUI or do you need an extra mod?

Have you decided on a win condition? Tourism and diplomacy seem possible.

 

[CrazyG]

Also, where do you access the "instant yields averaged over 10 turns" display? Is it included in VP+EUI or do you need an extra mod?

Have you decided on a win condition? Tourism and diplomacy seem possible.

Its part of VP that was added a few months back. You can see my cursor over a silver star along the top bar.

I'm thinking tourism, but diplomacy could happen too.

 

[azum4roll]

It's obviously Imperialism with all those science on ocean tiles.

 

[CrazyG]

It's obviously Imperialism with all those science on ocean tiles.

I did pick imperialism, but this isn't why. I have a lot of coastal tiles within my borders, but I don't have that much population and Moai and specialists come first. I want that extra movement on naval units, extra production towards military, and cheaper upgrades.

 

[CrazyG]

Spoiler Imperialism and Autocracy :

I took imperialism (I usually take imperialism). The +1 movement to ships is game changing, the production to units and gold discount are strong, and its science is pretty good. I'm moving my tech towards cruisers.

I think the obvious ideology was autocracy. I took the policy with +3 science on unique improvements first, its worth an immediate 180 science. I can also get Futurism.

Here we can see that Goa falls, and I get 2,400 gold from imperialism. I love this policy tree.

Spoiler Eiffel Tower :

At the start of every turn, I check my spies, and I've been watching Portugal. When I unlocked the technology, Portugal had 8 turns left on this wonder. By investing, using a great engineer, and completing a CS quest that I had saved, I beat her to it. This felt so good, Portugal has passed Germany as the biggest threat (probably because I keep pushing him off of city states). Germany offered me friendship, which I took.

Spoiler More Portuguese :

A huge navy shows up, but its all corvettes. She pillages my fish, but loses like ships. I send the bulk of my navy towards her southern city.

 

[SpankmyMetroid]

Very cool! I’m not surprised that you were able to tackle this so easily. I assumed the biggest hump was taking out barbarians in the new world to be able to safely push some settlers in, how difficult was that?

 

[CrazyG]

Very cool! I’m not surprised that you were able to tackle this so easily. I assumed the biggest hump was taking out barbarians in the new world to be able to safely push some settlers in, how difficult was that?

This time it wasn't that hard. The city states got a lot of the barbarian attention, and I sent a lot of archers over quickly. What made this easy was Moai, mosques, and being the only person who know the city states for a long time.

In a warm up game (just to see what Terra was like, I had never played on it before), I lost to the barbarians.
I was next to China, who captured my capital. We were still at war, which meant that I got war wariness every time I killed a barbarian. 100 turns after losing my capital, she still wouldn't make peace and I had like 40 war wariness.

 

[crdvis16]

This time it wasn't that hard. The city states got a lot of the barbarian attention, and I sent a lot of archers over quickly. What made this easy was Moai, mosques, and being the only person who know the city states for a long time.

In a warm up game (just to see what Terra was like, I had never played on it before), I lost to the barbarians.
I was next to China, who captured my capital. We were still at war, which meant that I got war wariness every time I killed a barbarian. 100 turns after losing my capital, she still wouldn't make peace and I had like 40 war wariness.

Getting WW with China from killing barbarians seems like a bug. Though it's probably not often that it's significant enough to matter other than odd games like this one.

 

[Stalker0]

This is a cool game. I also think Statecraft would have been an interesting choice just because you had such a dominant position with many CS for so long.