The Deity Challenge Line-up #15 - Poland

[beetle]

I tried to get a peaceful CV out of this map. I got the Louvre and Uffizi and had both themed pretty early along with Hermitage. But Korea is just such a runaway, and he won by CV on turn 277. My fastest late-game loss ever. I am going to try it again playing conventional SV. Maybe build an army to go grief Sejong, but I am not very optimistic!

 

[stormtrooper412]

Wow. But then again it IS Korea after all

 

[beetle]

Oh, and he had five SS parts launched as well, so the SV loss was just a few turns away too!

FWIW, I was also trying to get something out Underground Sects and World Church. I figured that between the UA and aiming for CV -- by late game I should be able to fill out all of Liberty, Piety, Aesthetics, Rationalism, and six in an ideology! I think I was on pace to do so by the early 300's -- but this map does not provide that amount of time...

 

[stormtrooper412]

I don't remember now, that map was one of my better SVs, so I finished well before then, but I think he was hindered by *involuntary* conquest that shot his tech cost up

 

[beetle]

I mostly just turtled and ended with a pretty average time for me. I kept Korea a little bit busy w/ proxy wars, and was planning to engage him near the end. As it was, Korea DoW'd me just a couple turns before I would have declared on him. I didn’t hurt him as much as I thought I would, but it got me the time I needed.

 

[fimbul]

Domination on T271, longest game yet.. I wasnt sure how best to handle the terrain so this dragged out far longer than I wanted it to.

Spoiler :

Played the start a few times since poland's extra policies change the timings, decided to go lib-honour-comm-auto to try out this honour purchasing strat.

Settled next to mountain, stole worker from greece. scouting revealed genghis is to the north so its 4 city lib crossbow.

Machinary was reached around T100 but Alex and Genghis were more pathetic than I have ever seen. Alex sat on 3 cities for a long time before exploding to 6 right before my attack, athens collapsed T110 and i burnt 2 more cities since they were in terrible locations. Genghis conquered 1 CS, failed to conquer anything else and was getting destroyed by elephants and hwachas when i ninjaed the capital at T125.

recalled genghis T147 after declaring on siam but Siam had an insane ability to spam elephants so I just settled for killing the odd unit and generated some gold since honour had been completed by now.

By now i am feeling the pain of no rationalism with only 6 crappy lib cities generating meh science. Korea took rationalism and was broadcasting KPOP so 3 fact auto into artillery was the logical solution. burnt 2 GGs to get through the great wall, lied to korea about my army, and popped seoul and busan on T200.

Sukothai and Lampang fall T211, and artillery slowly move towards berlin. Pharaoh was kind enough to offer a two front DOW against germany so life was made easier despite GWB making their appearence. Berlin falls T229 and i begin to fly bombers and sail battleships to the peninsular. addtionally i had given up on comm so rationalism was being filled and nukes were being researched.

Darius was pleased with my liberation of some of his cities so DOF and offered a two front war against Pharaoh. Apparently artillery and lancers are still good if your opponent's airforce is on the other front so Thebes and memphis fall T256.

Darius completed the manhattan project 2 turns before me giving me a heart attack but a closer look revealed no uranium in his borders. Rocket artilleries/nukes/bombers mince the persian forces and persepolis falls T271.

overall a bit of a dissapointing game for a domination pangea map; never going to go for honour again.

Social Policies: Full lib, honour, Comm (3), Rat (4), Auto 10

Religion: God-King, Pagodas, tithe, peace gardens, RT. Neligible outcome since faith generation was bad

WC: WF (won), IG(won), +3 to wonders; arts funding and embargo poland was passed despite my efforts.

Wonders: petra (GE from lib since noone seemed to be interested), big ben, brandenburg, Nueschwanstein. missed prora to germany

 

[Sclb]

T248 CV
This map shows why Poland is one of the top tier civ, where even after a slow start can snowball to a CV. Went for the Polish Lib/trad start for a total of 8 city wide game, and still had enough SP to spill into commerce after completing Tradition, Liberty, Rationalism, Aesthetics, 6 Freedom.

Spoiler :

Planted Warsaw on top of the gold for mountain/river access.
I have watched Acken's LP on this map before, so knew exactly where Alex was and was able to block him from planting his first expo south of Warsaw. After his settler went south, declared war to steal at least 3 workers since there was a spot I could hide.
Took Tradition opener for border growth, then went lib until settler, then finished trad.
I was also able to grab Uluru for Sun God food pantheon and religion with Pagoda and grab land from Genghis's expo. Other expos were close to the silk NW of Athens and around the rivers. Also manged to grab the salt south of Seoul. Built NC after 6th city, NC took a while due to the low hammer of the capital which would be a recurring problem until all the hills were exposed and factories/hydro plant built. Planted 2 more cities after that for total of 8. This would mean that WF and IG should be trivial to win. Happiness would eventually be a problem until ideology and I'm forced to pay huge amount of gold for lux and CS to stay happy. Luckily with wide empires, gold is easy to come by.
Sejong as usual was ahead of the general tech, surprising even after his late start of liberty/tradition mix before rationalism. Warsaw managed to hard build Sistine Chapel, and Krakow hard built Petra. Used the Liberty finisher GE for LToP and took the GE for Globe. Didn't attempt to build any other renaissance wonder in capital. Tried Porcelain tower on expo but got beat by Korea as usual. Later Warsaw built Eiffel Tower for the happiness issue after sending out a lot of archaeologists. I managed to fill 7/8 of the museums. SoL was not build until after IG since capital was too busy with other things such as NVC. Oxford was built to grab Internet since the build queue for Warsaw was too full for earlier tech. In fact, IG was won without the participation of 2 of my cities, my capital included. The other city Gdansk was busy with Sydney Opera House. Still ended with 2 extra GS after Internet and was used to grab Radar with the Rationalism finisher. Since the hammer was so poor in many cities, used a faith bought GE to rush CN Tower for the free broadcast towers. Also most of the hotels/airports in important cities were bought with cash. It only took 1 natural and 2 faith GM bombs to end the game after IG/airports. 2 on Siam, 1 on Persia. I have so much culture that all GW and GA were all used for works.

 

[claudiupb]

I still suck at CV, but with Poland it was manageable.

Spoiler :

I went for a 4 city tradition setup as the terrain was pretty crowded and I didn't really have a nice spot for a 5th. NC in late T90s, I did Oracle first. Then education in T120s. Went for ST before Archaeology, it was ok since I manged to fill all my spots with only annoying 2 other civs (Siam and Germany). Then straight for internet (it is pretty cool that once you enter info era you get a free policy that you can use to finish rationalism and get internet), and later Airports. After airports I started spawning musicians (I had 4 in total 2 natural 2 faith bought, but the last one was unused).

I settled Uluru fast so I did get a religion, but unfortunately Cathedrals were taken, they could have given a little bit of extra tourism. I got Sun God, Tithe and Mosques. I enhanced pretty late, after getting Mosques in all my cities, and got Religious Art and Reliquary.

I lost the race for Sistine Chapel, Egypt got it, but they didn't have a high amount of culture in the end, it was Korea who was the target of the concert tours. I lost the race for WF (Alexander got it), and for IG. International games came pretty late and I think it wouldn't have made a big difference, probably a couple of turns. These set me back a little since I wasted hammers with them.

I got a bunch of wonders, with some I was pretty lucky: Petra (in my expo), Oracle, Porcelain Tower, Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, Neuschwanstein, Sidney Opera House. And later since Cultural Heritage was passed I built Big Ben and CN Tower for the extra tourism.

I got a high amount of SPs, never burned a single great writer: full tradition, opened Piety, full aesthetics, full rationalism, 6 in Freedom, 4 in Commerce, 3 in Liberty (for the extra golden age).

I didn't get into any major wars, Alex attacked me a couple of times, but it didn't do too much damage (he pillaged my lands and a caravan, also forced me to rush buy walls in a city). Bribes were pretty easy and I kept people busy at war most of the times, but Alexander really hated me. I didn't build a military, I just had some archers and my initial warrior. The build queue was pretty long with science buildings, gold buildings, culture buildings and later archaeologists, there was no time for units. I had to sacrifice growth at times, but it didn't set me back since I had observatories in 3 out of 4 cities.