The Community Deity Game #22 - a.k.a. 'The Mayan King'

[consentient]

IIRC, there is no mountain for the capital. There is a lot of farmable tiles, and Maritime and Cultural CS, and HG seems to be easy to get as I got it in both playthroughs, but OCC is never easy. Well done for trying, I say

 

[beetle]

I tried for a Liberty domination run starting with Artillery, going east first. As I was starting on the western neighbor, two AIs launched boosters. So stopped at 3 caps (plus mine for 4) and reconfigured for an SV (which I only barely squeaked by, at T342. It was interesting that I so much longer than my previous game!

1. Number of cities, 14 (7 self-founded,7 captures): 4 pts
2. Population, 48 million (from demographics screen, right?): 0 pts
3. Turn of victory, T342: 0 points
4. #Wonders built or captured, 2+1; 8 built (Hubble, Kremlin, Oracle, Pentagon, Porcelain Tower, Pyramids, Sistine Chapel, Neuschwanstein); 7 captured (Alhambra, Chichen Itza, Borobudur, Great Library, Great Lighthouse, Hagia Sophia, Parthenon): 3 pts
5. Style points: 4 GP (3x GS, GPr at end) on cap for 12 points

19 points total

 

[consentient]

Nice shift of gears there! I'm assuming that it was with Autocracy, so you had no benefits for your SV either, right?

 

[Wild_Woojsha]

IIRC, there is no mountain for the capital. There is a lot of farmable tiles, and Maritime and Cultural CS, and HG seems to be easy to get as I got it in both playthroughs, but OCC is never easy. Well done for trying, I say

I think it could have been done if I had focused more on the maritime civs and taken scholastics early instead of Commerce. That along with not going north up to penicillin to squeeze a few more growth tiles out and not converting my farms to trading posts in the end. I have 500 turns of autosaves, I'm debating rolling the clock back and switching from commerce to patronage earlier and seeing if I can do this right. The map is perfect for keeping the AI out of my territory, I was so close this time and it wasn't optimal at all. I can do better.

EDIT: No I can't. Rolled it back to turn 75 and chose patronage instead. Lost borobodur for no reason and was double DOWed turn 110 because I didn't buy landsknechts. I'll retry this map later, I need a break.

 

[Wild_Woojsha]

Rolled it back to turn 115 and chose scholars in residence instead of worlds fair. Made better choices this time and focused more on growth and left them far behind this time. Turn 309 launch, 0 points but for OCC on this map I'll take it! Never went to war at all, and they were all "Afraid" after I built my first nuke on turn 250. OCC science on Deity is a slog for the last 120 turns. I planted three great scientists, chose order for worker faculties, got my capital to pop 40 around turn 260 and then just left it there to focus on getting 800 bpt. With only 1 city, it takes 4 times as long to get from plastics to the end...

1 city = 5 points
30m pop = 0 points
turn 309 launch = 0 points
10 wonders = 3 points
5 great people improvements = 1 point

9 total

 

[beetle]

Nice shift of gears there! I'm assuming that it was with Autocracy, so you had no benefits for your SV either, right?

I appreciate you trying to find something admirable, but no. I was late to ideologies, with zero tourism. (Autocracy was my T0 plan, and the guilds were among buildings I was skipping to focus on units.)

I opened Ideologies from Factories. At that point I could have been 2nd to Autocracy, but I was already having my doubts about my competence for Domination. The Western neighbor DOW’d me (and had a good sized army) when I had just finished moving everyone (Muskets and Cannons and one well-promoted Gat) East to get started on that side of the map. I had five XBs back home waiting on gold, but they would not have been enough.

No one was running Freedom and I had just unlocked an SP. So I took the 6x FLeas, hit -20 unhappy for a turn, and switched to Order. The FLeas ended the 2nd war with the Western neighbor and went East with Arties that were just coming online. I got my Arties in the field before my opponents had GWBs, so that was a nice change of pace for me!

I did not take cities from the Western neighbor until my third war with him, and after my march to the far Eastern end of the Pangaea.

Eventually the 3rd tier GE built Hubble and a late game GE went to the SS Engine. So it pretty much a straight forward Order SV, except my taking over the lower quarter of the map.

Another, much earlier, humiliation with the Eastern Western neighbor was gifting my 3rd city (it was about to fall) to the far Eastern AI. That split the Western neighbor’s army, plus he did not have Open Borders, so they stayed split. I lost one of my six Atlatlists, but killed like twenty of his units. I had six CBs (with the retreat buff) as soon as I hit Construction, but was not able to take cities with them. I never did see the UU special ability trigger, but I did keep most of them alive.

 

[consentient]

A couple of things:-

1. What UU special ability are you talking about?
2. If you recognise that one of your problems with Dom is having too few troops, why not simply build more?

 

[beetle]

1. The “retreat when attacked” Slinger special ability that Inca gets. Oops!
2. I felt like I was focused on units, at least in the cap, until near ideologies. I used the early benchmarks from the China game. I should have built CBs and XBs instead of melee and siege though...

Edit to say that I think I had enough units if I had been in position to start the wars and better control the early pacing. My DOW-bribing skills, which are usually good enough to keep me out of trouble, were of no use with this game (at least not with the three neighbors). In terms of defending against (sometimes multiple) COD, my early army really struggled.

 

[consentient]

You won't be able to defend against a carpet of death very easily in this map. You need to be proactive and mess with the correct AI right from the word go.

Northern AI is too far away to attack directly, and is easily befriended on this map, so don't worry about him. Immediate NW neighbour will attack NW for very cheap and NW will keep him in a war for a while because he's a capable opponent.

Immediate E neighbour is the easiest to go to war with. Make lots of archers and a few spears and later, horses, and steal all his workers/settlers and caravans and train your troops up on him. Don't make peace until you've got his cap or even later. Just make sure you bribe the guy on the other side and give him free gifts so you don't get caught on two fronts

In other words, the guy to the E can really be messed with if you're brave enough from T0

 

[Lavves.s]

T236 science.

7-city liberty into piety, followed by rationalism and order. all the fresh water around the start made for a solid science game.
the last 20 turns couldve been managed a lot better. the problem was that i wasnt able to both finish rationalism and get the level 3 tenet in order. i ended up going for rationalism finisher, which allowed my to buy 3 scientists. i got the level 3 order tenet 2 turns before i finished my last spaceship part, so the engineer only shaved of one turn.
All in all fun game with a nice map.

 

[consentient]

Wow 7 cities is pretty interesting. Where did you put them? How did you get on with the achievements?

 

[Lavves.s]

All the cities were placed on the rivers close to the cap, except for one in the south to grab furs, they were all 4 tiles from another city. Settling close to both Atilla and Monte caused some problems in the early game, but my atlatists fended them off. My pantheon was +1 happiness from cities on rivers, which helped me tremendously in the early game, providing 6 happy.

Achievements:
1. Number of cities: - 4-8 cities = 2 pts
2. Population 0pts
3. Turn of victory - 231-260 = 3 pts
4. #Wonders built or captured 1pt
Sci
Plant X Great Person improvements: 0 pts

I havent been able to open the file with the final screenshot on my computer. the problem might be that it is a .tga-file, which i dont know what is

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Northern AI is too far away to attack directly, and is easily befriended on this map, so don't worry about him. Immediate NW neighbour will attack NW for very cheap and NW will keep him in a war for a while because he's a capable opponent.

Immediate E neighbour is the easiest to go to war with. Make lots of archers and a few spears and later, horses, and steal all his workers/settlers and caravans and train your troops up on him. Don't make peace until you've got his cap or even later. Just make sure you bribe the guy on the other side and give him free gifts so you don't get caught on two fronts

In other words, the guy to the E can really be messed with if you're brave enough from T0

Been lurking here for some time as i downloaded this interesting map planning to play one last CiV game before 6 comes out. I must say i'm impressed by anyone who even manages to get past classical.
Eastern guy is no trouble, i tried several times and each time i attack him before T10 and get between 3-5 workers before even seeing any unit. The one i have troubles with is the NW neighbor. He always comes at me around T40-50 while i'm researching Horsback Riding or starting to build my first horses with about 4-5 of each Chariot, Swordmen, Archers, Warriors and a couple of Speamen, Horses and Catapults for good measure Sometimes i can bribe him but then he will "attack" for 10 turns before coming back and most of the time he won't accept any bribe at all.
While i can usually stop him thanks to Oligarchy and good city positioning, i have to stop playing with the "other guy" who quickly comes knocking at my door
I'm curious how you manage to become friend with NW neighbor. Do you refrain from settling near

Spoiler :

Marble

Cause it seems to piss him pretty badly, but it's one of the few good locations with a mountain.

 

[beetle]

One thing I have learned from these series is that AI personalities vary quite a bit from the same T0 file. If it makes you feel better, the western neighbor was not bribeable in my games either. And I am a shameless reloader.

 

[consentient]

I settled near the marble, in the middle of the three mountains, but I did everything I could to pay NW to fight W. The war lasted a while, and when it ran out, I made another bribe to attack someone else (don't remember who) and started with the free gifts. Soon he was getting my religion too. Not long after that, I started on him myself. He can be formidable in the lategame but if you beeline your techs he will fold.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Yep, middle of the mountains is exactly where i settled. Couldn't bribe him efficiently thought.
Maybe i'll try again. Slightly more than 1 week to wait for Civ6 anyway.
I started offering him horses even before i attempted to bribe him, not much else to offer at that time

 

[consentient]

Good luck! I think I'm the only one who's not going to buy Civ 6

 

[beetle]

I will not be buy 6 for a while. At a minimum, I will be waiting on the Apple Store version. I am so tired of Steam.

 

[Wild_Woojsha]

I don't have the time for 6 so it can wait for me too. I'm still mastering 5 anyways. Maybe after Christmas I'll grab it.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Good luck! I think I'm the only one who's not going to buy Civ 6

Thanks. Well, maybe i'll be disappointed and come back to 5 but most of what i've read sounds great and most importantly, it will bring new and different gameplay. I've not "mastered" CiV in the sense that i can't compete with the best players for fast wins but when i try to start a new game now, i often feel like i've already played this game before, many times ... so i guess it's time for something fresh.

Not really true for this map thought. It's definitely an interesting one (so where is smiley ?)
Maybe this run is the good one. This time after the troublesome neighbor stopped fighting the war i bribed him to start, the 3rd bad guy wasn't involved in one so i could bribe him to attack NW neighbor. This kept him occupied long enough for me to build some proper (i hope) defenses.
Got Theology for T86 Long Count, shortly after NC. Last religion and not much left so i went full production with Guruship and Religious Community. Built HS to help me. Planted my 4th city after NC to the coast, might be useful later depending on ideology.
Now T138 and on my way to Industrialization. Lost LtoP to the AI that founded WC, she built it 2 turns after so probably used a Great Engineer. I had one waiting from 2nd long count. I might use him on Big Ben if i have coal for a very fast ideology. I'm #1 in tech right now.
Scientific Theory will come next, then probably the military techs and i'll go rampage. I expect it will take time to get through all the AIs, 3rd bad guy went on a colonization spree late medieval and have grown real wide. Maybe i'll end this with Giant Death Robots, from what i've read i won't have those in civ6 and they are damn cool