Shadow Game - Is this just a map *I* can not beat?

[jnebbe]

every game is winnable with nukes

 

[aitkensam]

1560AD

Spoiler :

Think I will call it a day on this one now as it's pretty much over but it was a fun and challenging game.

Zara was indeed a beast. Only Gandhi peace vassalled to him in my game. I managed to get Cavs to him before he got anyone else. He did have some mega stacks. Had to do some cease fire cheese to not get wiped out. After I managed to bribe Giggles and Brennus on him as well and Gandhi broke free game was essentially won.

Just rolled over Monty (who didn't have rifles) and Gandhi (who did but only had 4 cities). Gandhi was a bloodfest. Cavs into Rifles not fun, but I was feeling lazy.

Could go for Brennus while I wait for tanks, but I'd probably just stop and tech for now as it'll likely be less play time to the end that way.

 

[Build2Much]

First, I don’t think I can pull this out. That said, I have learned a ton from this game and I just learned a ton about what you can pull off in the late game with some thought and aggressive worker management destroying your beautiful cottages My timeline is much shorter than estimated however. This game is definitely one *I* can win in the future however.

T 271 (1802 AD). Ok, it was a long way to go to tanks, but I did my best. I was able to string (2) 12 Turn GAs together by building the Nat Epic in Bibracte (thanks for all the wonders Brennus!) for the 2nd one to start on time. I come out of those 24 turns 5 turns from Industrialism, with 3 very productive levees built (in my first 3 cities on the river, remember those?) and “some” factories - i have needed to run 20% culture and I need to build a lot of wealth to run 70-80% science, which I have. Brennus was able to get Physics for me, which honestly was really big.

Did not attempt to settle islands - there were already 2 barb cities on silver island, getting down there right away wasn’t feasible in my opinion. I also needed a lot of units in Bibracte to keep it from having a chance of revolting. Decided juice was not worth the squeeze.

Spoiler :

One thing that I didn’t mention previously - Gandhi had just founded Sid’s Sushi. Timeline will continue to get shorter. Started at end of T247.

T 257 - Gandhi completes Rock & Roll and Eiffel. Currently says 61 turns for the 3rd city to hit Legendary.

T 266 - Gandhi has Hollywood. 43 Turns.

T 267 - Zara 3 Gorges.

T 271 - Gandhi Creative Constructions. 34 turns from culture ATM. Obviously it is less than that. Cyrus will trade me Combustion, but I have to give him electricity. Done. GAs are over. I am 5 turns from Industrialism.

If Gandhi would break away from Zara right now, it would look more promising. My only shot is to all out assault 1 city just in time, 2 are coastal but I only have 5 galleons atm, that’s simply not enough troops, at minimum I’d need to land 40 cavs/cannons/tanks and probably get pretty lucky - he won’t have a ton of troops but he will have the tech advantage…and Zara backing him up before I am ready to face him. Maybe I can run all my Cavs and Cuirs down right now, declare and hope to dance around drawing all his troops out, but I assume Zara would move in and mop me up.

 

[Gumbolt]

Kill the Indians or you lose the game? Raze or capture his top 3 cities.

When you saw the Indians had spammed all those wonders they should of been your first target really.

 

[Gumbolt]

Installing Humankind. Not sure i will get into either.

Any beginners guide to civ 6?

 

[Tecumseh1]

Installing Humankind. Not sure i will get into either.

Any beginners guide to civ 6?

Yeah I'm meaning to play humankind as well. Kind of like the theme and maybe it's a game you can enjoy without warfare

Well from my little playing civ6 seems very basic and far less strategic than civ4 or civ5. I'm sure you could smash it soon.

Here's a cool video comparing civ5 to civ6

 

[Tecumseh1]

@Build2Much nice title change lol. Don't feel bad as I made similar threads in the past year and have improved a lot from advice in this forum.

Also @sampsa finds every map easy so don't let that discourage you

 

[Henrik75]

ill give it a go. have a bunch of isolation games in my channel you could also check out meanwhile.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Henrik, you need to adjust the difficulty to deity or it will be quite boring for you.

 

[Build2Much]

ill give it a go. have a bunch of isolation games in my channel you could also check out meanwhile.

If it keeps your interest and makes the cut I’ll be interested to see how you attack the map. Thanks for checking it out!

 

[Fippy]

Henrik, you need to adjust the difficulty to deity or it will be quite boring for you.

I really don't think it would be..
and that island looks brutal for deity barbs, i wouldn't look forward to that.

 

[Build2Much]

Well, I finally decided to meet my end.

Spoiler :

With max 20 turns until culture victory, United Nations forcing environmentalism, and Zara churning out at least 1 spaceship part per turn and a 80+ unit stack highlighted by 50ish mech infantry stationed in a captured Monty city on Gandhi’s borders it was futile, but had to at least invade. Took and razed one of Gandhi’s cities (but I went by land, so not even one of his culture cities) then had a bomb dropped on my stack. So that was that . When I retired it at least gave me Neville Chamberlain!

Thanks to all for the help / following the thread! Next time I will not let them get that big, I swear!

 

[Tecumseh1]

Sometimes you learn the most from losses I have posted a couple of isolation games to YT recently if you're interested. They are my favorite game type for sure. And I enjoy late game warfare.

 

[gavenkoa]

I tried this map and because it is isolation on a pretty rich island I thought about Apostolic Palace election victory.

The research order was concentrated on getting Theology early to secure Christianity & start building AP very early. Monotheism & nearby Monarchy together with GS's Golden Age unlocked +25% for building under religion. Also I squeezed Math to benefit from +30H chops. 4 cities supported research with low maintenance cost, 5th was founded in the pre-chopped forest rich area, with food sharing from the capital and +2 other food surpluses for fast growth.

But to my surprise one of the AI has Theocracy as a favorite religion, and it forced another vassal into Theocracy... So I can't spread religion. Also I didn't gift a tech / gold to one crazy AI on first contact to enable "open border", and later that AI was very upset with me...

As I understand to win under AP I need to spread religion to every AI. Am I correct?

Also I noticed first 2 or 3 elections I haven't been provided with decision voting, what is the mechanic here? Is it enough to spread religion or should force them to convert to have useful voting decisions? One voting was about stopping trade with infidel, I'd love to have a war with infidel voting! They will slow down and I will be in safety on my island alone ))

I can bribe one AI to switch from Theocracy, one will stay with beloved Theocracy and one is with closed borders. Is it losing position for AP victory?

PS I've never built AP before nor tried AP/UN victory.

 

[gavenkoa]

Additional question is about founding extra cities on remote islands - why should I do?

It is after Astro on this map, and the initial island is pretty big, so the only reason I see is to claim some resources I don't have via trade or in the mainland. Foreign trade routes are enough for our 2-3 connections (Currency + coastal Cothon), IDK when AIs switch to mercantilism...

 

[Gumbolt]

Additional question is about founding extra cities on remote islands - why should I do?

It is after Astro on this map, and the initial island is pretty big, so the only reason I see is to claim some resources I don't have via trade or in the mainland. Foreign trade routes are enough for our 2-3 connections (Currency + coastal Cothon), IDK when AIs switch to mercantilism...

Can we see a save?

 

[AcaMetis]

But to my surprise one of the AI has Theocracy as a favorite religion, and it forced another vassal into Theocracy... So I can't spread religion.

You can gift a missionary unit to AIs, and they'll use it to spread religion to their cities even if they're running Theocracy. No, I don't know why they're able to do this, but they can. It's generally preferred to gift missionary units to AIs anyway because it gets them off of your small missionary unit limit faster, letting you build another one more quickly, and if not that AIs also don't have a chance to fail spreading a religion IIRC.

As I understand to win under AP I need to spread religion to every AI. Am I correct?

Every player on the board needs to have at least one city with the AP religion, yes. Doesn't matter if it's a size one iceball on another continent from an otherwise continent-sprawling collection of metropolis after metropolis, any city will do.

Also I noticed first 2 or 3 elections I haven't been provided with decision voting, what is the mechanic here?

The amount of votes an AI gets is proportional to the amount of population they control which has the AP's religion. A size 1 iceball with the religion contributes little, a size 20 metropolis with the religion contributes a lot, a size 20 metropolis without the religion gets told by the iceball that a foreign religious figure told them all to jump and by divine command their only response is asking how high. If a civ is running the AP religion their vote pool is also doubled.

For this sort of AP cheese you want to spread the AP religion to all of your cities, and spread it as little as possible to everyone else. You do need at least one other AI to vote for you, you can't vote yourself the victory even if you have enough votes on paper, but I don't believe it matters whether this other AI meaningfully contributes to the voting pool. Just that they voted for you.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Additional question is about founding extra cities on remote islands - why should I do?

I would stick with 12 cities maximum before the first attack so that civics can be switched in one turn.

I don't think there's going to be 36 foreign cities to trade with. One or two players will stay in mercantilism.

 

[gavenkoa]

Can we see a save?

T164, AD-1040, just discovered Liberalism and will select Astronomy. The save is from original BtS (with BUG in CustomAssets & altered BULL DLL). Later I won Economics' GM and will win GS from Physics (T180, AD-1200). I feel I played quite bad from Astronomy - I thought AP victory is in a near future but Theocracy appeared as an obstacle...

But I'd like to replay from pre-Liberalism/Astronomy - to build enough settlers / workers / missionaries to send to new islands. Because I did preparation in advance only for Optics...

I remember 2 overseas cities have almost invisible overseas maintenance cost. So I plan to send 3 settlers mainly to claim resources to push happy/health limits & trade them for money.

Should I found & grant independence for new nations? I know AI without a worker develops very slowly... Does investment make sense? For AP victory I need also to build a missionary besides a probable worker...

 

[gavenkoa]

You can gift a missionary unit to AIs, and they'll use it to spread religion to their cities even if they're running Theocracy. No, I don't know why they're able to do this, but they can

Great!

It's generally preferred to gift missionary units to AIs anyway because it gets them off of your small missionary unit limit faster, letting you build another one more quickly

Good point! I hesitated to gift a missionary because initially I used them as scouts. I saw Lain used GS for scouting, but in my case with 1unit Caravel I need to send missionaries first.

Lain also pre-built Trireme for upgrade to Caravel (50G). In his game he failfold, so had massive gold surplus:

Post in thread 'Noble's Club 208: De Gaulle of France'

Jan 26, 2025

Question:

Spoiler :

So I just noticed none of the AIs I've met so far have Aesthetics. I'm considering a small detour to Aesth-Lit for the GL and the NE. Worth it or better to just deficit research to Astro right now?

GLH is usually worth it with low happy cap and/or low food. We don't have happiness issues here (and it will get better after astronomy). There is pretty low food but you generally want the scientists earlier so you can bulb optics/astro or get an earlier academy. There is actually a Lain video where he plays this map. He manages to get GLH + NE and still get a very...

• Tecumseh1

• 

I contacted AIs 2T later delaying on slavery whip. Missionaries are pre-built. Actually upgrading makes a naval unit immobile, so delay is only in 1T but you could move Trireme to a proper location to shorten travel path (to save few turns) though upgrade is only possible inside empire's culture.

Every player on the board needs to have at least one city with the AP religion, yes

For this sort of AP cheese you want to spread the AP religion to all of your cities, and spread it as little as possible to everyone else.

So I over spent missionaries, because I didn't understand game rules. Below are details:

You do need at least one other AI to vote for you, you can't vote yourself the victory even if you have enough votes on paper

I though I need to convert one AI to my AP religion, but later I found Gandhi in Free Religion, so I don't have religion penalty and he votes for me.

Can I trick game rules by granting independence to a nation on some island? It starts loyal to me and I can supply religion beforehand.