The Deity Challenge Line-up #15 - Poland

[Acken]

Out of curiosity, what's the overflow cap?
I thought they fixed the so called overflow exploit bug already...

There is now a cap on the overflow you can have which is Max(cost_last_tech, 5*bpt). In my game I bulbed a tech that was 1 turn away from completion and which was a low tech so I got capped at 5*bpt instead of approximately 7*bpt

 

[LordBalkoth]

Spoiler :

It is a better spot but he was not moving the settler in that direction. Further there were not other good spots I could see nearby. I suspect that most people moved their warrior along the river turn 0 looking for the only possible better spot than the gold. Scouting inland, in open terrain also makes more sense than scouting jungle or coast with the initial warrior.

I think I got pop/map/upgrade to spearman/barbs/culture/bronze working out of 6 early ruins when I did scout/monument/scout. That is slightly more ruins than average and average results. If you do not get culture ruins and do not steal workers you will fall behind early game.

I got an earlier NC, slightly later education as I detoured for sailing, engineering and machinery and my spy who was to steal it from Korea was killed, Ideology was turn 161, plastics 189. In my game I was alone in freedom while most of the world was order which got me chain-denounced.

They seem underdeveloped if you are 15-16 pop and building banks at turn 279. You want to be able to work max specialists/jungle tiles which in order means more like 20 pop since you do not have the bonus food from freedom.

No city state allies? ouch. I scouted most city states by turn 50, cleared camps, connected luxuries, found wonders et cetera and was at roughly 4 allies/4 friends most of the game. I went first two spies in Korea and the rest in city states to preserve them. DoF with Alexander and Ramkamhaeng is also a good way to make sure they cant buy your city states.

Taking out Korea this late and investing in explorations seems like a distraction from your science victory. Seoul is still in resistance, 15% more expensive techs hurt you, so does fewer targets for espionage/discounts.

Spoiler :

I suppose on the scouting. Just used to the AI founding cities regardless if my unit is there because I can’t seem to figure out its poor algorithm for placement!

Saying you’ll “fall behind” by not stealing workers is like saying you’ll “fall behind” by not “denying” (aka, killing) your own minions in DotA to prevent the enemy from doing so. Both are incredibly stupid mechanics. I don’t have a problem with taking a vulnerable worker/arch/etc during war. I do have a problem with declaring war on a city state and then making peace instantly after taking their worker.

Interesting that you planned to steal Education specifically – used to the AI going down the bottom of the tree and not being able to steal science techs.

The buildings just didn’t have much production with all the jungle. Freedom has a much easier time of it due to the half food specialists which means getting +6 production from factory/workshop is only 1.5 population and 3 food.

No, I figured it would be mostly futile to get CSes with both Alex and Ram in the game. I had DoF with both Alex and Ram – what do you mean by making sure they can’t buy my city states? As in trading them gpt for gold at 85% efficiency so they don’t build up enough gold to actually bribe the CS?

I only put one point into exploration – yeah, it’s significant, but I thought I might have to do substantial naval battling. The previous attempt Korea was a massive science runaway – Korea well ahead of me and me well ahead of everyone else. Hence why I had planned to take out Korea to be safe. Also, given that I already had 7 cities, it was technically only about a 150/135 = 11% increase.

I suppose I’m used to autocracy and taking out (or at least messing up) the major threats rather than just sprint to the end.

 

[chumchu]

Spoiler :

Looking at Acken's game. His start was way better than mine with more and earlier workers and some very good ruins. I stole 1 worker from Yerevan and 2 from Siam and they did not arrive until turn 25-30. He did not get rushed by Greece either. My Greece took honor which kind of explains the difference.

His midgame was also stronger with the food bonus from tradition, a better religion, larger capital et cetera. I did build petra in my uluru city and conquered 2 cities from mongolia. I was also able to hold more city states and got a lot of extra culture from that. That together with winning world fair gave me 4 more policies in the end. It is much easier to win it if you propose it after you have built the SoL. The happiness from protectionism helped a lot as well.

The two extra cities started to pay off in the late game when I was at 450 higher science than he was. If your cities are bad you can always add a few more to make up =) I also maxed out specialist buildings in all my cities, while he focused more on growth and working jungles, this made my secondary cities better late game, which also goes to explain the 450 science deficit. He got it his science earlier than me though and was faster to all important science goals. He also had more scientist than me with porcelain tower and the fact that I used 3 great engineers for petra, SoL and hubble. I got 1 great person from each of my mongolian cities but that did not fully compensate.

 

[Acken]

Inspired by Chumchu, I tried to do it using Full Liberty + Full Commerce and killing someone midgame (Greece in my case since he was weak and Mongolia had a gigantic army). I Was able to cut it down to T223 at the end.
And considering that I also couldn't get neither porcelain or pisa (compared to my other playthrough) I find that interesting that such a long delay for Edu did not really matter that much at the end.
I had time to make a detour toward metal casting and ironworks and guilds. I even made a mistake in Sparta not giving the city fast enough GPP so it was a few turns short for a useful GS (took me more time than expected to capture greece cities overall).

Spoiler :

 

[chumchu]

Spoiler :

Can you make a more detailed comparison between the two games? What was the role of the extra science? What was the role of more map knowledge? What was the role of better policy timing? et cetera. Or If you make a video that would be cool too.

 

[cairnsy44]

T207 Quit



They were pumping out so many units from their 4 (later 3) cities that frankly it's cheating. If the human can only buy one (non-Landknecht) a turn, then the Deity AI should be limited to that too. Yet somehow he was making up to 10 elephants a turn. It took me forever to get close to his capital, by which point he had bombers and I gave up.

It also annoys me that the AI can have 2 cannons in a city you are attacking and both of them are allowed to shoot at you before one moves out of the city. How is that allowed? I am quite certain the human players are not allowed to do that.

 

[Acken]

Spoiler :

Can you make a more detailed comparison between the two games? What was the role of the extra science? What was the role of more map knowledge? What was the role of better policy timing? et cetera. Or If you make a video that would be cool too.

Didn't make a video no.

Differences:
Map knowledge mostly made scouting easy that's the only real difference (I also delayed my 3rd scout as a result).

Policies were a lot different.
In my first play I went Trad/Lib + Commerce 3 + Rationalism/Freedom on 5 cities. In that one I went Trad opener, full Liberty, Commerce 4, Rationalism 4, full commerce, freedom, full rationalism

I'm torn on Trad opener, it makes border expansion a breeze, reducing the amount of gold spent, but costs an additional policy. I used the liberty GE for Petra in north city

I went Scholars and then WF. But I'm really not sure if that's so much better ? I purposely settled for silver in the WF since I had no use for more policies that late in the game. Not sure if scholars really had a strong impact...

I teched for guilds to get machu pichu and then for machinery + metal casting. I really like early workshops for Liberty before investing into universities. Also gave more time to accumulate gold and get mercantilism for universities. Machinery allowed to attack greece around T110 and I got his capital arount T135. Sadly sparta was captured 3 times so it ended up at pop 1

My religion kind of sucked, went pagoda but only had time for 3...

Those are the main difference. I'm curious how you got 2 additional engineers ? Did you naturally generated them ? I wanted to buy one for SoL but then I remembered this is only with Tradition So I had to make SoL and Hubble the hard way.

 

[Shark Diver]

Those are the main difference. I'm curious how you got 2 additional engineers ? Did you naturally generated them ? I wanted to buy one for SoL but then I remembered this is only with Tradition So I had to make SoL and Hubble the hard way.

I can't tell you how many times I've done that recently. I used to almost always go full Tradition and was so used to faith buying GE's, it almost comes as a shock when you go to the city screen and don't have that option

Since the Nerf to Tradition, I've often been finishing Liberty for the GE (if Petra seems possible), but I really need to consider if 1 free GE is worth not having 3 faith GE's later on…….depends on a few things, I guess (how good is Petra City, how much culture I'm generating, how much faith……etc).

 

[chumchu]

I looked at your borders and the difference from tradition opener is huge. I think it is a worthwhile policy in this scenario. It saves a lot of gold/ opens up a lot of jungle. Having the option to go for aristocracy might be useful as well.

Unless all AI struggles with science, scholars should be very useful. If you plan around it you should be able to get 20% discount on at least half the remaining time. Did you keep any score?

I like early workshops as well, especially on water maps where I can send production cargo ships to secondary cities. I lost Machu =(. I think my religion was as bad as yours

I generated them naturally as I went for industrialisation before public schools and prioritised factories/engineers to get my infrastructure up to speed in my secondary cities.

 

[tombakerwho]

Late to the DCL again, so I will not post a detailed description, as I can try to catch up.

Looks like I followed a similar strategy to other posts.

Spoiler :

The good:

6 city liberty, healthy economy

T103 Education, T155 Scientific Theory, T184 Plastics

Freedom/Science - Don't think order would have worked as well on this map

Don't remember playing Poland before, but Free social polcies were awesome

Liberty + Tradition Opener - Saved a lot of tile purchases, will do this again with Liberty

Very competitive AI from Siam and Korea, nice to see this for a change

Agressive with Alex early, stunted his growth and city spam

Mistakes:

Low pop capital, needed to move guilds into one of the expansions, feed it with more trade routes

Production was terrible, in pretty much every city, should have gone for factories before public schools

Never could fit in national epic

Temples everywhere and Mosques, and Uluru, and only one Faith GS? Mosques were pretty much worthless. Stopped working Uluru, but not even sure how this happened. Religious Community would have been better choice on this map.

Planned on using trade routes for food (growth), ended up using them to pacify Alex, should have either switched to cargo ships or dealt with Alex.

Spent Liberty finisher on National College, probably should have planted a manufactory

 

[sun8119]

CV T287

Spoiler :

I rarely go for CV but hey, this is Poland who can win almost any VC even making suboptimal decisions

Briefly the game:
3 NC, then the 4th city on the coast. Stole some workers from Greece and Mongolia. I had my own religion (gold + monasteries x3) which I could keep at least in my capital. Overall up to T200 it was peaceful except everyone hating Mongolia (they attacked CSs). Later on Mongols were killed completely by Korea and Greece.

WC was owned by Korea, IG were proposed 2nd, and WF next. I won IG (well it was too early to win it) but lost WF.

At the end Korea was a runaway but a few GM solved it. They have also built 4 space parts already by T280.

At the end I also bribed Korea to attack Greece. And I prepared to invade Korea myself but did not need it.

Policies: tradition, liberty opener, a few in patronage, some in commerce and some in exploration. Freedom x5.

From the main culture wonders I got Louvre and Sistine but GT, Uffizi were taken by AI.









Policies.

WC was owned by Korea. IG were passed i

 

[stormtrooper412]

just a quick one:

game 1: went tradition opener + full liberty, got HG in cap and Petra up north from the GE. Hit Machinery at 114 where the save file is provided. I'd appreciate if someone took it and tried it out. I think it's a good setup but since I am fairly crap in warfare I was locked in a stalemate and ended up nowhere. So like I said, load the save and tell me what I should fix. The pic on the right is simply wow

game 2: tradition opener -> liberty to free settlers -> rest of tradition. Petra was HARD BUILT turn 104 in the 4 pop city up north. Education turn 101 which is even more unbelievable given the state of my cities, left pic

I think the liberty game will be culture and the tradition game science. I somehow don't feel like I've finished as many as 11 DLCs

 

[Acken]

Engineering before education is prefferable for Liberty, otherwise you'll just have a bunch of 6pop cities that can't work the slots.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Man, I wish all of my games can go this smoothly. This was the Tradition variant, Education 101, ST around 150, Plastics 199 because I had to detour Chemistry and Fertilizer

DoFs all over, gold flowing into the bank, nobody to worry about. All it took was some forward settling to throw the warmonger off balance and force him to settle towards someone else who eventually wouldn't be too happy about it. Happiness was just about enough to keep me afloat.

Towards the end my main DoF ran out of gold so I sought another one with deep pockets. At the end, I have improved on my best SV finisher time. Order build would have yielded similar time, in my estimation, and in hindsight it might have saved some ideological pressure. Probably wouldn't because the AIs deliberately always pick the opposite just because

 

[Vaeal2004]

Found it odd the game never really had a runaway. I thought 4 observatory cities and the salt city would make for a much quicker game. Growth was just far slower than I wanted it to be =(

Fortunately I won when I did because Alex started stealing my land to the south and Korea to the NE. Ended up with a 290 SV. I went full tradition/liberty although I delayed rationalism to finish tradition. I should not have done that!

Spoiler :

 

[nickytootricky]

Spoiler :

Tried to go for a quick diplo with a twist. I had watched some of Acken's LP so I knew the map, so tried to take out Alex super early. I hate Alex and couldn't bear seeing his face this game. So marched the settler towards him, killed the warrior and 2nd settler, took about 4 workers and his capital T58 with 5 archers. The tech path was archery-->AH-->BW-->Calendar.

From then on it was full tradition, full rationalism, full patronage (the last two policies of patronage are rubbish by the way, could have done anything else really), Freedom for SoL and then change to Order, which seems far better both for its bonuses and diplomacy.

I won early because Korea was miles ahead (over 20 techs ahead of me before my bulbing), so the world leader vote came earlier than I could have got there. Luckily I had lots of friends so bought all the CSs at the end. I had Forbidden Palace and someone else had proposed world ideology, so managed to get it on the first vote (had to sell buildings towards the end for a little more cash).

 

[reddishrecue]

just a quick one:

game 1: went tradition opener + full liberty, got HG in cap and Petra up north from the GE. Hit Machinery at 114 where the save file is provided. I'd appreciate if someone took it and tried it out. I think it's a good setup but since I am fairly crap in warfare I was locked in a stalemate and ended up nowhere. So like I said, load the save and tell me what I should fix. The pic on the right is simply wow

game 2: tradition opener -> liberty to free settlers -> rest of tradition. Petra was HARD BUILT turn 104 in the 4 pop city up north. Education turn 101 which is even more unbelievable given the state of my cities, left pic

I think the liberty game will be culture and the tradition game science. I somehow don't feel like I've finished as many as 11 DLCs

Getting the petra in one city is impressive work. Ive often heard complaints of petra being difficult to built and you went ahead and built it at the deity level. Thanks for sharing.

 

[stormtrooper412]

There are certain rules to terrain based wonders like Petra or Machu I think, usually it goes either rather early in an AI cap or kind of late in an AI expo, making you draw a conclusion of the type "if wonder X hasn't been built by turn Y, then I have until around turn Z to build it myself".

That particular situation was an obvious gamble, and I reckoned "at least I'll get some money out of it", construction took close to 30 turns but somehow I was able to complete it

btw, nicky, that demographics is a bit messed up, Korea are practically one tech away from winning it and doing so rather super early

 

[consentient]

Stormtrooper, I've had Korea launch pre-T250 several times. If left unmolested, they are completely broken. Definitely the most powerful civ in AI hands.

 

[beest]

I finished this game some time ago with a domination victory (on my second) attempt on turn 295.

Spoiler :

On my first attempt I started quite well until Genghis took over Sidon and Yerevan and then quickly came my way, with a very big army... Second try, Mr, Kahn failed to get Yerevan and that made all the difference. I was in some early wars with genghis and alexander but they did not pose a serious threat this time. Policywise: I went honor, commerce, rationalisem, and autocracy. Fairly offensive selection of policies, so I didn't mind those early wars. Around artillery I went on the offensive and took Athens and starting chewing some cities away from the Siamese, until I got some really sweat peace deal of about 150 gpt (my progress was slowing down anyway). By this time I had a gold mine going, jungles with trading posts with +1 extra science from ratio, and +1 extra gold from commerce. After 30 turns of peace of teching and getting stronger, I finished siam with my "regular" army (mech infantry, bombers etc.) and then used nukes and X-coms to finish the other civs off. Korea where close to launching actually, but fortunatly the nukes arrived on time. Wonders..I built the big ben and neuschwanstein (being autocracy). In the final screen shot the world is red, in more then one way Krakow and Wroclaw got nuked by Korea btw (in case someone wonders why they are not very big..)