Post a (tough) Deity map for me to play

[Lain]

Thanks! Your new map looks juicy and I haven't played Charly yet. Need a save though

 

[AcaMetis]

I forgot to attach the save. *Facepalms* . Here you go

 

[unas876]

Also, here's another map that's just too not to post. The start for Charlemagne of the Holy Roman Empire:

I forgot to attach the save. *Facepalms* . Here you go

Spoiler :

I mean sure starting next to Nappy is a bit dangerous but apart from that, shouldn't this map be a complete cakewalk? There's even horses to HA rush Nappy if one so chooses and plenty of land to settle in the back on top of that. HA rush on Nappy and 12 decent cities guaranteed? Lot of options on this start though for sure.

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

True, it's not a challenge in the traditional sense, but I thought the map was over-the-top enough to be worth a go for the fun of it. And a super dense cluster of 24 floodplains leading straight to Nappy's doorstep, with a capitol that can settle on a riverside PH with riverside grass cow and triple coastal Clam, and Horses in the cap's third ring? Yeah, that's a pretty fun map to mess around with.

If a tough map is preferred, though, I'll see if one can be grown .

EDIT: Got really lucky with rolling a nice looking map pretty quickly . So the start for Alexander of Greece:

Spoiler :

Map Settings:

Spoiler :

Pangaea, Cold Climate, High Sealevel, all else default

Why it's worth playing should be obvious by turn 5.

 

[Fish Man]

Spoiler :

True, it's not a challenge in the traditional sense, but I thought the map was over-the-top enough to be worth a go for the fun of it. And a super dense cluster of 24 floodplains leading straight to Nappy's doorstep, with a capitol that can settle on a riverside PH with riverside grass cow and triple coastal Clam, and Horses in the cap's third ring? Yeah, that's a pretty fun map to mess around with.

If a tough map is preferred, though, I'll see if one can be grown .

EDIT: Got really lucky with rolling a nice looking map pretty quickly . So the start for Alexander of Greece:

Spoiler :

Map Settings:

Spoiler :

Pangaea, Cold Climate, High Sealevel, all else default

Why it's worth playing should be obvious by turn 5.

A start where both fishing AND hunting are useful starting techs? Not bad, not bad at all.

 

[sampsa]

Congrats with the Boudica map, Lain .

Not a huge deal, but you shouldn't be spoiling the result. I'm still in the middle of watching that game.

Also a big thumbs up to Lain for making these videos!

 

[Bibor]

hey Lain, I’d like to ask for some spacerace games if possible. Doesn’t need to be a plains cow start on a rocky low seas dry map

 

[gaash2]

He's done some .. I think his Joao game was space race.

 

[Fish Man]

hey Lain, I’d like to ask for some spacerace games if possible. Doesn’t need to be a plains cow start on a rocky low seas dry map

Seconded. I think the Charlie one is easy enough to sub-t250 on (if you want to impose an additional time constraint): 5-6 cities + GLib, cuirstomp 3 AIs, get 60% landmass, tech to fusion by 1450s AD.

 

[sampsa]

I don't see any value in forcing a winning condition. Winning via space when you could win conquest much earlier is not very interesting to watch IMO (well, I tend to skip watching the final parts anyway when the game is clearly won anyway, so doesn't influence me a lot).

 

[Fippy]

Watched a bit of an older Giggles game, and got inspired by an idea..
avoid bronze working (and even mining), what do you think Lain complete madness or just calculated insanity?

 

[Fish Man]

I don't see any value in forcing a winning condition. Winning via space when you could win conquest much earlier is not very interesting to watch IMO (well, I tend to skip watching the final parts anyway when the game is clearly won anyway, so doesn't influence me a lot).

Idk, space wins are interesting for me, especially when the record you’re trying to beat is a personal milestone or previous record. And if we didn’t force victories types we wouldn’t have @WastinTime ’s deity BC launch

 

[unas876]

I don't really think that type of HoF approach is gonna work on video tbh with how long the games last and all the crazy detailed micro.

Imo much better for videos are regular maps that have some kind of interesting flavor to them. For me that usually is achieved by high difficulty of the map and setup but it can obviously be achieved by a lot of other factors too.

 

[Bibor]

I don't see any value in forcing a winning condition .

Well, okay, but I would

 

[sampsa]

Well, okay, but I would

Sure, for a completely different type of game. Lain has previously stated that his goal is to win 100 consecutive games.

 

[Fish Man]

Sure, for a completely different type of game. Lain has previously stated that his goal is to win 100 consecutive games.

Alright, then. If he's going for consecutive wins and wins as fast as possible then that's completely fair. On a side note...when was the last time he lost again? Japan/Mao iso? Was a while ago...I'm trying both those maps now.

 

[ArchGhost]

Spoiler :

what I think happened with Julius and Alex is that they started plotting on each other, but because that put both in full unit spam mode neither could get enough of a military advantage to declare, so they just kept spamming more units trying to get more military. Not sure why Alex didn't declare at any point after Julius got DoWed by Gilgy and lost a bunch of units and two cities, though. Alternatively Julius was plotting on you, but Alex was plotting on Joao or Sury only to get stuck trying to figure out how to navigate around the Roman/Portuguese mountain border? Both had Astro for a while and Alex was clear military power leader for a while, so...not sure.

Spoiler :

Alex WAS plotting on Joao or Sury. Refusing to dogpile JC kinda confirms it because he wasn't that weak yet, and he had plenty of chance to hit either Lain or Giggles; it seems like he was plotting for like 2/3 of the game. The AI cannot navigate or even see mountains as impediments, so it will just keep trying to plan an overland route; it only plans naval invasions on other landmasses and doesn't count a mountain range as separating two landmasses, apparently, is the way it was explained. If you pay close enough attention Alex actually stopped going up in power (stopped spamming units) but refused to drop the war plans until Lain's DoW on him.

Julius could have been plotting on Alex (on anybody but Lain, really) but could've dropped the war plans because of Alex's power skyrocketing, it happens sometimes (limited war plans only, i think). I don't remember exactly but I think he was still plotting when Giggles ended all that anyway with his own interference. Or were you referencing an earlier plot JC was doing?

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

For Alex I'd say that's probably the case, since literally anyone else on the map he could have DoWed at some point. I didn't know that AIs effectively can't navigate around impassible mountains, though. I've had situations on Hub maps where AIs would transport units right onto my node despite me having an isthmus that's not blocked by a mountain. I mean the dozen-odd Churchill longbows on a forested hill fort weren't going to let anyone short of a tank pass, but in theory, it was passable. It makes me wonder whether the player would be effectively immune to DoWs if s/he's on a pangaea but blocked off by mountains. Would every AI just get stuck plotting indefinitely because they can't figure out a path?

For Julius, no. IIRC he was plotting when Lain first met him (which indeed means he wasn't plotting on Lain, kinda forgot about that), and kept plotting all the way up until Gilgy DoWed him. He couldn't have been plotting on Toku, since the latter's death didn't end the war plans, and he probably wasn't plotting on Gilgy since he could have backstabbed at any time during the Lain/Toku/Gilgy war but didn't. That leaves Alex, Joao and Sury, so I though he was plotting on Alex when Lain saw Julius' stack parked on Alex' border. But than Alex had his stack parked on Gilgy's border and was plotting on Joao or Sury, so maybe both AIs just got really confused with the whole impassible mountain thing.

 

[AcaMetis]

So here's a map with an...interesting start, I think. The start for Saladin of Arabia:

Spoiler :

Map Settings:

Spoiler :

Pangaea, NHNE, all else default

One thing I should mention: The original map was accidentally set to Marathon speed, so I had to do the WB save -> load scenario -> save as a regular map trick in order to set the map to Normal speed. I didn't cook the map at all, but I did (re-)give the Barbarians the Agriculture, The Wheel, Hunting and Archery techs through WB. The map seems to work just fine as far as I can tell, barb archers parading around early and AIs building stuff crazy fast and all of that. But if something is off, that's likely why.

Anyway, about the map, why it's a headscratcher should be obvious by the end of turn 1.

 

[sampsa]

That Isabella-game was a huge disappointment for me.

Spoiler :

I mean, it's OK to play an easier game every once in a while just to show how easy deity can be if played correctly, but that map was a bit over the top. It was obvious (for me at least) by T5 that it's in the bag. OP city center tile, many strong city sites available and the land shape made it easy to defend against barbs or early AI attacks.

I'm rooting for a random fractal game.