The Community Deity Game #12 - Byzantium

[Redaxe]

I had no luck with Petra. It's gone before I either get to currency or before I can even finish Liberty. Not that I was trying for it anyway. With this map for the victory conditions you want sailing early and Optics is also helpful. There are a handful of ruins on islands and its good to claim them before the AI can.
Either before or after Optics you probably want Construction for colosseums - on this map they are more important than Libraries - so you should try and beeline this tech early.

I initially spread to 5 cities - I think it's almost impossible to stay out of unhappiness but try and luxury trade when you can. I was lucky to get Pagoda's and Religious Centre so my happiness should be ok for the long term.


Regarding the

Spoiler :

Natural wonder I was lucky to hit a population ruin as soon as my capital grew to 2 so I had a size 3 city that I could start working settlers on from about turn 12 - after my monument. So yes prioritise settling on Uluru before you build a shrine. You want to get that NW asap.
I'd also recommend not taking Tithes - simply put Tithe does not provide the early gold you need. By the time it starts to outperform Church Property gold is simply less important. You need the gold boost early so either Church Property or Initiation Rites is the way to go here.

 

[beetle]

This one is certainly tough - I managed to clear the first capital but it took a long time - turn 141.

Your game is looking very strong! I won’t replace file in OP now.

I now think taking cities with Dromons is just about impossible. You need logistics or range to keep from being one-shot-killed by a city with a CB garrison. By the time they have enough XP, you will almost certainly have researched Compass.

Galleasses are hardly any better though, because you loose a movement point, and they are still relatively weak against cities. With the shallow water limitation, two highly promoted Galleasses can only fire three shots! You really have to have things lined up so you can approach a city from two directions.

 

[igloo8]

I am in awe of that screenshot Redaxe

I am just getting the hang of Immortal difficulty on standard pace - tried this a couple of times but kept getting taken out by Dido

Please keep updating the screenshots its amazing

 

[Redaxe]

I was able to take 3 cities with Dromons. I kept 2 and razed a 3rd. Their capital had a castle so that was nigh impossible - I had to upgrade 5 Dromons to Galleas and I only achieved that because I was able to plunder a few cargo ships - so I got very lucky there.

Thing is I didn't actually declare war until the medieval era. I used an open borders treaty to move a fleet of 6 Dromons South of Hippo Regius. I had 2 composite bowmen from scout > archer upgrades and 1 cataphract to grab the city when it was low enough.

It doesn't matter if you lose a Dromon every turn. Ideally you should be stockpiling them early and once you expand to 4-5 expo's you should be able to produce them at a rate of about 1 every 2 turns. More then enough to replace combat losses.
Having that expo near their capital is great because it lets you repair your ships nearby.

 

[igloo8]

can you do a quick screen of what your happiness is made up of??

 

[Redaxe]

can you do a quick screen of what your happiness is made up of??

Sure

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Most cities have colosseums but really its thanks to a good religion. Pagoda's everywhere and Religious Centre - Only have 1 temple in the capital but more will bel be going up soon now that each city has close to 5 religious followers.

Really its thanks to a good religion. I did luck out in that I managed to get all the religious beliefs I wanted. In fact I was the 2nd to found and the 2nd to enhance. Comes down to settling on the NW very early.

 

[beetle]

I am really inspired Redaxe, thanks for sharing! But I think I want to try Tradition instead of Liberty (since my first two Liberty tries stalled out). Would that be a terrible mistake?

I really need to embrace the Dromons as being disposable. That is a big hint too.

 

[donkeyfish]

I´m having reasonable success with Tradition. In both my attempts

Spoiler :

Dido has chosen Liberty and tried to build everywhere. So I´ve needed 2 settlers before getting CR in order to secure horse and Uluru spot, which are both kind of important.

If she picks Honor (which she often does in my experience), Liberty becomes more viable I believe. Since you can grab more space. If you have the opportunity to do like Redaxe, with available forward-settle(s) its definitely a good idea.

 

[Shark Diver]

My second attempt has been better.

Spoiler :

I disregarded any/all Wonders, got a very early t80ish 3 city NC, and am going to spam 7 cities on my continent while building up a Dromon fleet that can easily convert to early Frigates. Hopefully I can get to England before SoL's (doubtful) but it seems that Harold may give her enough grief that she'll be vulnerable.

I'll end up finishing up Piety late as I'm grabbing Exploration ASAP. Pagodas and Monasteries are a very nice combo.

 

[beetle]

My second attempt has been better.

Glad to see you persevere! But I feel like I missed something... How are you getting along with the AI on your starting continent?

 

[Redaxe]

I am really inspired Redaxe, thanks for sharing! But I think I want to try Tradition instead of Liberty (since my first two Liberty tries stalled out). Would that be a terrible mistake?

I really need to embrace the Dromons as being disposable. That is a big hint too.

Tradition might be easier to get going (ie. manage early gold and happiness) but I think Byzantium really needs a Liberty/Piety combo to shine and especially with the victory conditions.

My strategy hinged on a few things. Moving a fleet of ships past an AI city (so I needed open borders). This way I could encircle the city when I was ready.

Planting an expo near their capital and keeping 2-3 dromons nearby. This acts as a diversion - I probably killed at least 12 AU units this way so that really made things a lot easier.

And a dromon is only 56 hammers. Just try and keep the ones with the most experience alive. The AI will attack a damaged unit first so try and keep the experienced ships at full health and the let the damaged ones be the cannon-fodder.

You don't need an early barracks so you can use an instant heal promotion at 10exp if you need to help keep them alive a bit longer.

 

[igloo8]

out of interest redaxe - why didn't you take the final liberty policy yet? are you waiting for something in particular?

 

[Redaxe]

out of interest redaxe - why didn't you take the final liberty policy yet? are you waiting for something in particular?

That's not a quick question to answer but in short there are many ways to play Liberty - it doesn't necessarily require full investment like the Tradition tree does so it is much more flexible to use.

I have a tendency to delay finishing Liberty if I'm throwing a few points into Piety. Mainly here because I've been focusing on expanding and war I haven't had time to build Libraries so I don't need an engineer to rush a National College.


I also prefer to try to get a golden age and a Great Person first. Triggering the free golden age from Liberty will reset the counter I believe even if you are close to triggering a golden age, You'll also raise the Great Person counter by 100 points. Sometimes it can be worthwhile delaying Liberty to you get a Great Person then use the finisher to get a 200pt Great Person.
Its a bit fiddly I know but it comes down to how the devs worked the numbers and counters.

However on this map due to the scarcity of luxuries, horses/stone and few mercentile CityStates I didn't bother trying to go for an early Golden Age or Great Person because I had no chance of getting early wonders.

It will probably be the next policy I invest in but basically I wanted to get some policies in Piety and the early Piety policies lose their value if you delay them too long.

 

[igloo8]

That's not a quick question to answer but in short there are many ways to play Liberty - it doesn't necessarily require full investment like the Tradition tree does so it is much more flexible to use.

I have a tendency to delay finishing Liberty if I'm throwing a few points into Piety. Mainly here because I've been focusing on expanding and war I haven't had time to build Libraries so I don't need an engineer to rush a National College.


I also prefer to try to get a golden age and a Great Person first. Triggering the free golden age from Liberty will reset the counter I believe even if you are close to triggering a golden age, You'll also raise the Great Person counter by 100 points. Sometimes it can be worthwhile delaying Liberty to you get a Great Person then use the finisher to get a 200pt Great Person.
Its a bit fiddly I know but it comes down to how the devs worked the numbers and counters.

However on this map due to the scarcity of luxuries, horses/stone and few mercentile CityStates I didn't bother trying to go for an early Golden Age or Great Person because I had no chance of getting early wonders.

It will probably be the next policy I invest in but basically I wanted to get some policies in Piety and the early Piety policies lose their value if you delay them too long.

That is interesting - I would have thought with that many cities you would have wanted Representation for the 'Each City you found will increase the Culture cost of Policies by 33% less than normal'

just goes to show how many different ways there are to play this game

 

[Redaxe]

That is interesting - I would have thought with that many cities you would have wanted Representation for the 'Each City you found will increase the Culture cost of Policies by 33% less than normal'

You're right of course but the trouble is there are so many policies to choose from. Normally Representation is something you'd want quite soon but in this case because of the religious objectives I decided to prioritise Mandate of Heaven & Meritocracy first. I needed the happiness for starters and as the objectives are religious centered I needed the faith. One could argue that the earlier you get the religious buildings up (Pagoda's & Monasteries then the earlier you start getting that extra culture so that might even work out better then early representation.

I can't say for sure, there are simply so many policy choices with a Liberty/Piety hybrid that I don't know if there is an optimum strategy beyond going Liberty > Collective Rule and then Piety... Even Citizenship is a strong policy and may be worth delaying Piety over.... It's very hard to know - Ideally I'd have built the Oracle but I just couldn't risk trying to fit it in.

 

[beetle]

With the tips here, I am having a much better game. I am not confident about catching the faraway runaway though...

I buttoned up the southern neighbor early with my warrior and a scarcher. Never could get dromons into position for taking cities though. But the neighbor was stuck expanding south (into ice and tundra) while I got a six-city widely spaced empire up in the mainland.

But even with that, I reset late back to the Tradition/Liberty choice. First I went Liberty, because it is an easy fit with Piety, but I missed Pyramids (by a wide margin) and had terrible problems with gold (which tanked my science). I was fifth to Ideologies, so I gave up. Southern cap was about to fall, but it took me until Frigates.

With my Tradition play, I got Hanging Gardens, which almost never happens. So that is huge, but the main thing (I think) is that Liberty is good if it gets you more cities. But six-city Tradition out performs six-city Liberty. In both games I started on settlers as soon as I hit pop 3. I didn't need to open Piety early because I was using the Natural Wonder to catch a pantheon and OWN to catch a religion, and also I was not really picky about my Reformation belief. (I am using Underground Sects to help convert AI cities and CS). I was second to an Ideology. Going to try Freedom because I still have two polices in Piety and all of Rationalism to get through. Freedom DOM only needs five picks. Southern cap is still taking frigates, but that is okay as all six of them each have four or more promotes. Warrior died to a UU, but that has been my only casualty.

Finally, in my Tradition game, the two northern AIs switched roles in terms of which civ is eating the other. I think that will work better for me. Crazy how much RNG there is from game-to-game!

 

[Shark Diver]

Glad to see you persevere! But I feel like I missed something... How are you getting along with the AI on your starting continent?

Well.....

Spoiler :

I did an early DOW to block/steal two settlers from grabbing that West coast river spot. Right about the time pachyderms started showing up, I made white peace and sent a caravan to their capital, solving my gold/science issue temporarily. That was around t80ish, and I've turned down her offers for DOF and Open Borders. I settled the Southern desert river spot (both to bloc Dido from settling and to complete the incense monopoly) exactly 1 turn after fulfilling a promise not to expand, so that probably helped the diplo as well.

It's around t130's now, and I thought I'd DOW again but I was able to block a settler from getting to the NE corner to settle the last open spot on the continent. I think she gave up and grabbed an island spot. I'm up to 6 cities, with uni's just now going up (very slow) and I'll settle a 7th to grab the 6 iron spot and to further ensure that nobody gets a spot on my continent (Lizzy has been sending settlers South for the past 20+ turns and Dido just denounced her). Harold wants me to DOW England with him and I think I will join in (Lizzy has long bows already, but no SOL's. This should help my diplo with Dido even more, so I'll beeline Frigates, hopefully survive xp farming England, then I'll go after her.

Does this answer the question?

 

[beetle]

Does this answer the question?

Yes, thanks.

I admire that both you and Redaxe were able to trade with the neighbor for a bit while still blocking. That certainly would have helped my economy, but I did not think I could pull off the balancing act.

Since I have not been able to take the neighbor's cap early, and the starting continent is so snaky, I keep having trouble with some random civ settling on the ice. So while I have only built UU, I am not sure I will be able to get the first achievement!

But I think that problem is less than the challenge of figuring out: Who to take on second?

The northern AIs are an obvious choice, but I think leaving the faraway runaway alone for too long will be a game-killing mistake. OTOH, if I go after the faraway runaway, which ever northern AI wins will probably come after me. Plus I am worried my frigates might be facing subs and great war bombers. I don't think my tech is good enough to turtle to nukes. It is a tough map!

 

[Shark Diver]

I'm now up to t155

Spoiler :

My tech is really slow. I'm now relegated to turtling to some extent and getting my tech running. Culture is great with Pagodas and Monasteries and gold is flowing (50 GPT). I am going to complete Piety, hopefully reform with the tenet that allows science building purchases with faith. It's still available right now and I only built 2 unis. I'm hoping I can buy the other 5 in the next 10 turns and start catching up in tech (I checked about 20 turns ago and leader was at 44% and I'm only at 28%......yikes, I'm not even in Renaissance and at least 2 others are in Industrial).

I did DOW England with Harold. I just saw a SOL so this won't be an offensive war. At least I can XP farm CS as Lizzy went Patronage and has allied every CS on the map. It looks like Harold is actually getting some shots in on London, so I'm hoping he can take her out. If he does, I'll get Dido to go after Harold with me once I get Frigates (probably another 20 turns). I've got plenty of Dromons built, and upgrading will be very affordable with my now strong economy.

As far as achievements, I can probably pull off the religious ones, assuming I can ever get tech lead and start warring. Until then.....Dido will be my trading partner and I'm obviously keeping units poised for the eventual inevitable backstab.

 

[beetle]

I lost by SV on turn 347. I had only taken one cap, so not close at all. I may retry to see if I cannot get a SV myself.