Quest for Glory - Deity Challenge #13

[Nizef]

Realpolitik?!

It is time for a new challenge. This time we play as Germany on a large Fractal map with Standard speed. The aim is to achieve a Domination Victory. To your aid you have a nice starting area with some tempting possibilites. However, to add some agony, some of the AIs start with three Settlers to boost their game. Will you go for a fast approach or will you bide your time? Many strategies are possible here! Enjoy!

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Some opening actions.

Spoiler Spoiler containing map knowledge :

Oh man, what a map. Forget about domination, I want to go science on these lands instead! (Not really, I will still attempt domination). A perfectly isolated corner of the map with plenty of luxuries and abundant resources. Finding Kailash early was nice so I did not have to build a shrine. Still, I sent my first settler south for a chance of Petra, with the extra trade route being super valuable for Germany. When I finally got a pantheon, I took desert folklore. Had I found the Great Barrier Reef earlier, I would have taken One with Nature instead. In fact, I found GBR kind of by accident. Normally, I take survivalism on my scouts, but this time I took sight. As I took the promotion, the first GBR tile releaved itself .

For Hamburg, I did not all-in the Petra rush, but I did want to give myself a good shot. I researched writing, but not calendar and trapping. I founded my religion in Hamburg (religious community), and sent Hamburg one, and later two trade routes. I also had France declare war on Shoshone and Ottomans. I had barely done any scouting, so the war declarations were a bit random, but at 9gpt apiece I felt the price was Ok.

Then, with all this preparation in place, I stupidly continued to build the archer after I researched currency . I still got it, though, turn 81, which is not breaking any records, but is not terrible either for an expand. The capital also managed a late Hanging Gardens, so the game is going pretty good. When I will be doing war, I don't know yet, but for now I am enjoying the sim.

 

[Nizef]

Nice to see that you are enjoying yourself, @The_Black_Vegetable. The core of this one is of course to time the warmongering right. I remember that @vadalaz had a game in the EDGE series where he didn´t go to war until Panzers. But when he did, he cleared a standard sized Pangaea map in something like seven turns or so...

EDIT: the write up is on page 31 in the EDGE thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/enjoyable-deity-games.641765/page-31. And I was a little too optimistic... But he took 7 capitals in 14 turns by only using Panzers.

 

[erco]

I'm new around here, but have been lurking for a few months. I've been trying to make the leap from Immortal to Deity, and this looked like a good place to jump in. Looking for a bit of advice here, I feel like I may have taken some wrong turns after checking @The_Black_Vegetable 's in-progress write up.

I wasn't planning on including a write up from the start, so I wasn't keeping notes on specific completion turns, etc.

Spoiler In-Process to Turn 102 :

Let me start off saying that I typically plan on Epic game speed, so I'm not entirely confident on timings in Standard speed.

My overall gameplan when I loaded in was to focus on Honor, leverage the German UA to grow my army quickly, and then make a push for 2-3 capitals with XB's. I think I've been pretty successful with that portion at least, even if I am a bit melee heavy compared to CB's. I've completed the Honor culture path, but now not really sure which way to branch out. I'd like to get 2 more cities north of Berlin and 1 more to the SE of Berlin. Should I be thinking to pick up Liberty next until I can start on Rationalism?

After settling 3 cities I went for NC. Cologne was my 4th city, so I probably completed NC somewhere around turn 80ish. Does this seem like a decent timing for Stand on Deity?

I don't typically do much with religion, but with the NW in Hamburg it seemed like a no brainer. I went with the natural wonder pantheon, Tithe & Pagodas, and then Ascetism & Religious Texts. My thinking was that I'll probably have some happiness and gold issues in the future, so I should get some benefits that boost each of those. Am I off base here?

Overall, if I was playing Immortal then I'd think that I'm in a pretty decent spot to make a push soon. Looking at the other screens above and knowing I'm on Deity, I think I might be in a bit of trouble. What's your read on the situation as it is currently?

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

I may have taken some wrong turns

I'm not the best player to emulate when it comes to domination victories, I tend to procrastinate way too long before going to war. There are certainly advantages to starting out with sim rather than war. One problem with early war is that you will likely be short on gold due to unit maintenance, so you won't be able to buy CS when you need them. In addition, if you do make some progress in war, the other AI are more likely to hate you, and therefore trading (luxuries, horses and iron for gpt) becomes harder, meaning you might get bogged down with no gold and no happiness, while some of the AI are running away with the game. So, it depends on the circumstances whether early war is a good idea or not.

Spoiler Early war for this game :

I suspect early war might be difficult on this map. Elizabeth might get longbows fairly early, and Suleiman is a moderately aggressive AI who will also head towards his unique units. It's not impossible, though, as access to English lands is pretty good. In my ongoing game, I went for a late-ish frigate push, which did succeed, although I lost 7 out of my 12 frigates to capture London.

 

[Nizef]

I'm new around here, but have been lurking for a few months. I've been trying to make the leap from Immortal to Deity, and this looked like a good place to jump in. Looking for a bit of advice here, I feel like I may have taken some wrong turns after checking @The_Black_Vegetable 's in-progress write up.

Welcome!

If you are successful on Immortal, you already possess the knowledge needed for Deity. The biggest differences in my mind, are that AIs gain access to new techs faster than on Immortal and that they have more units. In general, you should expect the AIs to get Xbows around t100-120 and Musketmen maybe around 110-130. My own way of measuring progress is mostly through science and population growth (for example for a four city game I want at least pop 55 and minimum science of 150-160 on turn 150).

 

[erco]

Thanks for the advice from each of you. I'll be playing this one out, but definitely seems like I need to shift gears a bit from my initial strategy. I may need to bide my time and try to close the science & population gap more than where I'm at currently. Mostly basing this on the timings for XB's and Musketmen above. If the AI is about to get a couple of large upgrades that I'm not especially close to, my military is going to get wiped.

Fun map so far. Biggest takeaway at the moment is that I think I probably didn't focus the right techs appropriately, and I didn't get enough settlers out early enough to get my population going. I know it's tough to say from a single screenshot, but does that seem like a fair assessment?

 

[Nizef]

Fun map so far. Biggest takeaway at the moment is that I think I probably didn't focus the right techs appropriately, and I didn't get enough settlers out early enough to get my population going. I know it's tough to say from a single screenshot, but does that seem like a fair assessment?

After something like 10000 hours, I feel that the early game is so important. And getting those settlers out earlier (no need to go full liberty, but down to collective rule has helped me at least to get the science game going a little bit earlier) will accumulate to faster teching. From your screenshot, I would say that nothing is lost. But you might have to turtle, get your science going and go for Domination in the later stages. If better Dom-players disagree with me, I would be happy to learn though.

And a tip: Get Sailing asap. That second trade route is so important when you use it for internal TR.

 

[fiddlesticks]

This was an ideal starting location for deity. Just close enough to neighbours to steal some early workers and get some unit xp, but not in the thick of things. I set up a solid 5-city core with no happiness challenges with the nice luxury resource diversity. The plentiful iron helped get the economy rolling early. All around a great start to a fun game.

Here I've got my core 5 cities up and running. Berlin has HG, Cologne has Petra. I've been fighting England (round 1) and it ended up with a peace deal worth about 750g for me.

Turn 150 and public schools are mostly done. Hanses are up and 2-3 of my trade routes are with CS's, boosting production. I missed Chitzen Itza by a turn, but built LToP (Prophet), and Globe. A second war with England yielded another good peace deal.

I hit Plastics around turn 171 by finishing Rationalism. I messed up Oxford and only got Industrialization by forgetting to wait until an expensive tech. I'm about to finish Combustion for landships, then PT should finish to get combined arms and Panzers. Things should move quickly from here. Shaka with a big fat bank account just made friends because I bribed him to attack Liz, but once I clean out that gold we won't be friends for long. Same with Monty who's been lending me cash to upgrade units. I went Order to reduce the cost of bying some labs.

 

[Nizef]

Turn 150 and public schools are mostly done. Hanses are up and 2-3 of my trade routes are with CS's, boosting production. I missed Chitzen Itza by a turn, but built LToP (Prophet), and Globe. A second war with England yielded another good peace deal.

This is a prime example for @erco (and all of us) to learn from. Building Schools before going for more serious warfare and having a whopping 455 science at turn 150. This is what I aim for myself but I most certainly do not succeed on all maps. Having said this, in my test game I did things differently and went for London very early on (about t80-90) and then turtled with my 6 self founded cities + London and York until Infantry and Panzers. I must say that the more I use Panzers the more I like them. It is a shame that they are available so late in the game...

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

T228 Domination victory. A typical game for me, in the sense that I built too many things that are not strictly necessary (but anyway, I was enjoying myself), but also about as good as my games get. I almost finished the tech tree, despite not playing to optimize science.

Spoiler Game play :

For this game, focusing on sim for a while was not such a bad thing I think, especially with the Zulu on a faraway island. I finished the game with stealth and X-Com, and those came in really handy. If you would have to embark an army of Panzers, I think the Zulu war might be trickier.

My schools timing was a little slower than @fiddlesticks , low 150s, though I did bulb a scientist for it. Then to navigation to upgrade a fleet of 12 galleas into frigates. The plan was to capture London (Chichen Itza, Great Wall) and then sail onto Copenhagen (Temple of Artemis, Mausoleum, Globe). However, I lost 7 frigates, one each turn, to the English defenses, so I paused after London and resumed simming.

By labs my timing had fallen a little bit further behind @fiddlesticks time of 171; I bulbed two scientists for T189 Plastics. Only after hard-building most labs did I finally start to build - and buy - units again. My gold was very good all game, and my social policies at this point were Tradition, two in Patronage, three in Commerce, Rationalism (not finished yet), and Freedom. I did consider autocracy, but it was still a long way to Panzers and I wanted to grow my cities. Perhaps I played Germany wrong. I sent all my trade routes out to city states (except later one cargo ship to help London catch up), but that meant growth was a little slow (despite Swords into Plowshares, lol).

I first went for bombers and then for Panzers, and on turn 213 the first Panzer rolled off the line - apparently for the first time ever in 8000 hours: I got the Steam achievement "Model of a Modern Major-General": train all units, across any number of playthroughs . In this playthrough I did not notice whether any AI started with an additional settler, they were not particularly advanced, and in the end only Shaka's planes took out some of my X-Com. I have some regrets for not using the Panzer more heavily. It was quite a good unit and could have swept the continent with them, given how little resistance I met. However, the X-Com were needed to take down Shaka quickly, so I'm not sure I would get a much quicker finish time if I would replay the game (and maybe slower, because I felt quite lucky to get all the wonders that I did).

 

[fiddlesticks]

I finished up my game on turn 213 capturing Moscow.

After London, I split two conventional armies of infantry and artillery. One started swimming to Ulundi (three infantry, three artillery) and another similar contingent went swimming to Shoshone lands. This army took Moson Kahni and Copenhagen, but the panzers got to Moscow first.

What I sent to the Zulu continent was barely enough. In fact, if I hadn't got a peace deal Ulundi would have been retaken and I would have been set back a lot. As it was, I kept Ulundi, bought 3 bombers there, and had no problems taking Amsterdam after the peace deal expired.

Once I had oil wells on-line a panzer army swept east then south taking Istanbul, Tenochtitlan, and Moscow. (I made a mistake by going for the bottom half of the tech tree first, I should have teched to biology first, then combined arms. That delayed me 5-10 turns).

The city captures were York, London, Ulundi, Istanbul, Moson Kahni, Paris, Texcoco, Tenochtitlan, Kaupang, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Moscow (176, 179, 194, 195, 197, 198, 200, 203, 205, 209, 212, 213)

 

[raider980]

Start on the Gold if you got it That's my motto.

 

[raider980]

Been playing this one and things are going well; better than my normal Deity games I think due to the nice starting location. I got quite a lot of ruins: Archery, Map, Gold, Culture, Pottery, Spearman, Gold, Map, Scarcher, Pop, Culture, Gold. And also quite a few barb camps that gave me units; a good mix of Hand-Axes, Archers a couple of warriors and a spearman.

Spoiler through T103 :

Early exploration revealed a lush landscape with plenty of luxuries. And we're in a corner so that helps with defense. I saw 5 or 6 good city locations in our corner of the world so wanted to block off the German territory fairly quickly. But when I found GBR to the west, I had to go that way first. Then second expo was next to Mt. Kailash. I debated doing 3-city NC but decided to settle a 4th expo down near the silver to prevent Liz from encroaching too far north. Turned out to be a good move; I got a T89 NC which is very early for me. Added Frankfort on the coast up north for a total of 5 cites.

Religion is: OWN, Tithe, Mosques, Iterant Preachers and something I forget. I didn't start working Kailash right away because I wanted to grow Hamburg pretty quickly to defend against Ottoman aggression so I got 3rd religion. I don't have any wonders, Oracle went on T88 which seems very early even on Deity. Liz is spamming wonders left and right so she is behind in military so is not a threat and hopefully I can take London and all her wonders fairly easily when the time comes.

Sulieman sent an unguarded settler too far west so I had to take it; this was early on like T30 something. And I've been at war ever since, he refuses to make peace for anything less than a city or a lux plus gold, horses and iron. If he were closer, I might pay it but since he's across the desert he hasn't ventured close as of T103.

Around T76 I thought I was doing great; until I saw that Napoleon had Pikemen and I was no where near getting them. Luckily he is far away and hasn't sent any explorers my way so I haven't traded embassies until he does find me.

Spoiler Through T159 :

Played further and am at T159 now. The Ottomans got Janissaries very early - I still had Swordsmen and Pikes as my best defense. Thank goodness he didn't send them my way. He and Napoleon had been at war fro quite a while even though neither was able to gain any ground against the other. There was quite a lot of fighting with Napoleon, Suleiman and Monte all kind of packed close together; good for us!

I rushed for Musketmen earlier than normal because I knew those Janissaries would be coming eventually. And they did around T150. Never seen so many CS requesting units! Its a violent world out there.

My advance army spotted them near Genoa so I spent 1000g to ally them to provide a little distraction; sorry Genoa but I had to throw you under the bus. I moved my army toward Genoa and was able to push the Ottoman's back to the east side of the CS. But here on T159, Suleiman has quite a force and I fear its just a matter of time before he takes Genoa. That might not be terribly bad, I think I can hold him off and then liberate Genoa later.

Great fun so far!