The Barbarian Challenge

[Kadazzle]

Spoiler :

In fact, it is possible to get both SH and a religion. But most of the time, you lose the SH for 1 or 2 turns. SH is truly useful early IMO for culture border. Not mentioning the GProphet that will spawn later, which can be settled for the 5 per turn. As regards founding a religion, Hinduism is accessible since the AI found it around 2400 BC. I tried this strategy, but it delays a lot the researching of writing, which is essential early for maintaining tech pace.

@Tachywaxon

Spoiler :

It may be possible to get Hinduism in this game, but you'd be dead shortly thereafter so it wouldn't matter. You need to go Hunting -> Archery first, Mysticism -> Polytheism would just be a waste of time, and added to that, the AIs start with 2 cities so I'm still pretty sure you'd miss out on Hinduism.

Stonehenge is impossible in this game (<---- I am sure it is possible, but it will only delay your finish date, and possibly kill). Besides the fact that you need to delay mysticism, spending that many hammers on SH and not on Archers/Workers would be a bad play, as you'd get over-run very quickly.

 

[Wreck]

Spoiler :

@Tachywaxon
It may be possible to get Hinduism in this game, but you'd be dead shortly thereafter so it wouldn't matter. You need to go Hunting -> Archery first, Mysticism -> Polytheism would just be a waste of time, and added to that, the AIs start with 2 cities so I'm still pretty sure you'd miss out on Hinduism.

Stonehenge is impossible in this game (<---- I am sure it is possible, but it will only delay your finish date, and possibly kill). Besides the fact that you need to delay mysticism, spending that many hammers on SH and not on Archers/Workers would be a bad play, as you'd get over-run very quickly.

Try it. I did: I got Hinduism and missed SH by many turns. So after reading other people saying they are missing SH too, I don't think SH is a strong play, but I remain interested in Hinduism.

Why? Well, you'll want Mysticism anyway in the early game for monuments. So, basically you're investing 13 turns of research out of your way to score a religion. What does that get you? +1 happy, temples for another +1 happy, and the religious civs for the rest of the game. Not to mention a shrine.

And all that in a game where happiness is at a premium, and you are always tight on gold. So yeah, I think it is the masterplay here.

 

[Blacklanner]

Spoiler :

Hind is easily possible, but it does damage your early game so that it might not be worth it. You have to work coast as much as possible, except for building the first workboat and 1 archer with the forested plains hill. A single drill IV archer is invulnerable until axes at least, and it would take a lot of lucky axes/swords to take even 1 out. I've restarted a couple times just to get a feel for possible on religion and stonehenge. henge isn't really possible, it comes down to luck if you can get it or not. And henge + Hinduism definitely isn't possible since you have to choose either hammers or commerce. henge + Judaism might be. Any way you do it i don't know you can recoup the hammer investment and delay of city founding.

 

[Wreck]

Spoiler :

I tried again and am now 2/2 in founding Hinduism. 11 turns, BTW, out of the way.

I am assuming you go for the wine/plains hill tile to start.

I have a hard time believing this would hurt your game. In a normal diety game, you can get religion from AIs. Here you can't. In a normal diety game, you can tech-trade with AIs. Here you can't. So, since you're going to lose all techs beyond a very early point in the game anyway, all you are talking about with the 11-turn delay early is 11 turns. You should easily make up for that by the +1 happy alone, much less being able to run Organized Religion and build a temple.

 

[Manco Capac]

Never thought that mentioning that bold (bold in the sense you need luck) strategy would raise such a fuss. Anyways, I really don't think SH is that hard to get since in my last early attempts to get the Oracle, I built SH without any problems. Adding Hinduism is a must then. Indeed, I went more audacious and give a shot to the oracle for Alphabet slingshot. Getting Alpha early permits to "build" research instead wasting hammers in low-effect buildings. Moreover, spies are the perfect fogbusters since they are invisible to all barbs. Fogbusting early reduces by a lot the axes/swordmen onset. Nonetheless, the Oracle is far harder to get than SH. Just for comparison, is the discovery of Alphabet around 1750 BC is enough early or not? Anyways, via the SH, Oracle and Hind strat, I was afloat for a long moment (80 % bar research with 5 cities including the capital). Three settled Prophets plus a shrine are nice, especially with the UB.

Here's some landmarks:

SH: Built around 2600-2540 BC
Hinduism: ~2400 BC
Oracle: ~1740 BC.

 

[Manco Capac]

Spoiler :

I tried again and am now 2/2 in founding Hinduism. 11 turns, BTW, out of the way.

I am assuming you go for the wine/plains hill tile to start.

I have a hard time believing this would hurt your game. In a normal diety game, you can get religion from AIs. Here you can't. In a normal diety game, you can tech-trade with AIs. Here you can't. So, since you're going to lose all techs beyond a very early point in the game anyway, all you are talking about with the 11-turn delay early is 11 turns. You should easily make up for that by the +1 happy alone, much less being able to run Organized Religion and build a temple.

He's right, raising more happiness cap means less units, then less unit maintenance.

 

[DampRain]

@Cusanus

Spoiler :

In fact, one of the other AI's launched strategic missiles on every single one of the barb cities... After that, the mopping up became really easy...

Just awesome, pure awesome .

An also very interesting discussion on religion... Particularly going for early fog busting spies O_o. But surely the best way to prove one or the other would be earliest win date? ^^"

 

[Kadazzle]

Yeah, I may give the religion route a try, but I'm fairly certain all it does is slow you down. Post up a good finish date, and I'll become a believer.

 

[stopstopp]

Spoiler :

I'm on my fifth try and I found, if I wait until I get close to alphabet to settle, my tech rate will be easy to recover.

 

[Snaaty]

nice idea

Spoiler :

not much to say... ...but my aw experience helped i guess

settled on the costal wine, teched archery, got some archers out (drill4 archers are sooooo ugly), started improving my land, settled blocking city south,

View attachment 252716

teched pottery, some cottages and some more cities, then writing-alpha

View attachment 252717

again some more cities, missed tao (wanted to bulb me a reli, but AI was damn fast on it)...

around 1000 AD I started conquering barb cities with elpults

View attachment 252718

later backed by maces, later by knights. after having elepults, i managed to keep techs more or less even with barbs, only after they were down to 2 cities I think they got knights themselves, but they never reached gunpowder units

havent hunted down barb ships... ...too lazy i was

finished in the late 1600... ...would have finished some turns earlier, but havent thought you have to settle ALL tiles to win

View attachment 252719

 

[kossin]

Snaaty

 

[JammerUno]

It's hard, I'll say that.
Having trouble pushing the barbs back effectively to develop land. I went for archers on my first try, but that's no good. A screen on axes/HA on the border is probably more effective, along with some workerteams to slash and burn all the forests and get some roads down to make the screen more efficient. Once it's just open plains, axes and HA will be sufficient until the barbs get maces.

 

[stopstopp]

Gosh Darnit!

Deity is so difficult. The maintenance is so high that my economy dies on archers.

 

[Manco Capac]

nice idea

Spoiler :

not much to say... ...but my aw experience helped i guess

settled on the costal wine, teched archery, got some archers out (drill4 archers are sooooo ugly), started improving my land, settled blocking city south,

View attachment 252716

teched pottery, some cottages and some more cities, then writing-alpha

View attachment 252717

again some more cities, missed tao (wanted to bulb me a reli, but AI was damn fast on it)...

around 1000 AD I started conquering barb cities with elpults

View attachment 252718

later backed by maces, later by knights. after having elepults, i managed to keep techs more or less even with barbs, only after they were down to 2 cities I think they got knights themselves, but they never reached gunpowder units

havent hunted down barb ships... ...too lazy i was

finished in the late 1600... ...would have finished some turns earlier, but havent thought you have to settle ALL tiles to win

View attachment 252719

That guy is God!

 

[Snaaty]

its not that hard if you know what to do

some spoilers with tips

Spoiler :

1. you dont need hundreds of archers, 4-6 will do in the beginning. try to have 1-2 healer warriors you can move around to heal your archers (and not getting attacked. healer archers usually die)
2. forget about reli and wonders. get archers out fast.
3. if you settle costal on the wine, improve the hills + pigs east of the river after you have 3-4 archers (build a worker then), protect the pigshill with 1-2 drill 4 archer
4. after having 5-6 archers, get a blocking city up (doesnt really matter where, best is to put it directly into the path where most barbs come from). on a hill...
5. get 2-3 charriots to kill archers walking past your defline and tech to pottery and get some cottages for the capital to keep reseraching (work coast if needed)
6. get bronze and tech to alpha to build research
7. after having bronze, an offensive defmix of axes + charriots is best, kill babs before they come into your land (on flat land without forests of course). delete your healing warriors and some archers (you never need more then 6-8 mobile defunits alltogehter
8. secure the phants (dont forget to tech masonry so you can build walls... ...really helps do defend cities on flatland
9. secure the river (near the rice)
10. you dont need more then these 6 - 7 cities to tech fast enough to win. get an army of 10-12 units (catas, eles, some axes and archers) and invade barbarialand. tech feudalism before civil service to defend your new cities with lbs
TO KEEP YOUR TECHRATE UP:
get an academy in capital and a library and build science (if you have enough units, else build some). all other cities build only money buildings (tech direction banking) and build wealth (if you have enough units, else build some). like that you can have your science slider around 80% most of the game, with your capital bringing in enough research to keep up with the barbs

 

[Manco Capac]

@Snaaty
I did most of what you said, especially founding a victim city to free the others for developing (I'm used to enraged barbs on emperor). But my big mistake is my pacific way to win: I didn't attack at all the barbarian cities early, which should've be done to avoid grenadiers and riflemen. They don't spawn like their primitive kinsman. Each time, I had to fight strong grenadiers and riflemen with weakling musketmen for a long time before getting Rifle... and each time I lost all interest. I had a slight idea of using phants, but they're costly and the barbs evolve so fast, so I thought it was impossible to crush them.

I should give a try... with the religious path (SH/Hinduism and essentially Oracle for Alphabet slingshot) to see if it can give a better final dates, which I doubt. Settled prophets are nice to cover maintenance notwithstanding.

 

[Sveon]

I gave this challenge a shot, I never played Deity or raging barbs before, but it was great fun. Kind of reminds me of defence mods for WarCraft3. I got one good game going but my six city empire was overrun about 1700 AD.

Spoiler :

Might try again with a better tech strategy. The barbs totally out-teched me. Only reason I held out was using an Iron Maiden inspired strategy of keeping all cities and defenders on hills, developing the land in between. Used a few mounted to pick off potential pillagers. Eventually the barb rifles owned my knights though.

 

[goodolarchie]

Ugh, this was more annoying than it was hard. Still good fun though for a different challenge

I only played till about 1000AD with a little over half the island conquered.

my tips:

Spoiler :

Once you take the top half, defense is quite easy and can be concentrated into 1-2 cities.

I would skip mysticism, go for writing after AH and wheel. Tech rates are really hard to keep up while maintaining such a high troop count in the start, with no economy. chop libraries out, then go for pottery/granaries and try to secure cottages behind your lines.

Barbs are pretty stupid, you can trick them into pursuing lone workers on roads, then dart back into town or a tile away. I stacked my archers with either drill/medic on offense or CG/drill on def, and never lost a single one.

I fogbusted just fine using chariots and settlers. I made the mistake of not prioritizing writing/pottery and going for iron working instead. You can reach and copper somewhat easily for your second city, so I'd skip iron working until you actually plan to assault barb cities with swords.

Because my economy crashed with only 2 cities, I just ended up cranking out about 6-8 settlers, fogbusting with them and spamming enter until I caught up. Axemen are a good unilt to spam, because the AI never produced any chariots in my game. Axes only have chariots and other axes to threaten them, so they can freely escort or assault any other unit up until macemen/xbow.

 

[King Pluto]

I'm gonna give this a try if I have time. I'll post a report if I don't get stomped.

 

[yena]

Second time's the charm. Domination in 1925, but the barbs were gone already by 1810 or so. It just took a long, long time to grow the population to the domination limit. My first deity win

Spoiler :

I chopped hard to get workers and settlers out much earlier this time, and it paid of. By 800AD or so had a cats and elephant SOD in place that started capturing barb cities. This time the barbs never got anything better than longbows and macemen before the end - no rifles or grenadiers. I also concentrated on the lower half of the tech tree after taking care of the economy with pottery and currency.