The Deity Challenge Line-up #16 - China

[consentient]

Awesome. Can't wait!

 

[Acken]

Spoiler :

Ive finished this game at turn 156 (domination). Took me a very long time to reach onondaga due to his many cities and narrow passage.

Spoiler :

Playlist:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13432796&postcount=1

 

[Shark Diver]

@Acken

Spoiler :

I just want to thank you for not finishing 3 turns faster. Had you done so, you'd have finished twice as fast as me and then I'd have to hate you

I REALLY want to see how you pulled this off so quickly. Nice job.

 

[TLHeart]

Yes I'm uploading those first 100 turns

I had played through turn 170 before you started....

Settled my capital in the same place as you did, went south 3 more tiles than you did for 3rd city, 2nd city I settled on the hill on the northern coast, by the city state, to quickly buy the incense... which left me a fourth city on the river by the oasis's, to the south, by India.

Was amazed at how easy it was for me to get 4 cities up on diety, I did go liberty. I usually struggle to get 3 cities up.

Not sure what I am going to do for the rest of the game...

I ave been in 3 wars, all with allies, and now have 7 cities, but India is now a run away. Have entered the industrial era, now.

Spoiler :

my northern cities,



my southern empire, just took sigtuna from persia.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Nice Job Acken and really smooth video as well! When you get a chance it would be nice to know your set up for recording and compressing, what programs you use... etc. I am updating player pages for you but it will take another day since I have to watch the whole LP to get the information. Your China LP is featured on the Stats Home Page!! I have decided to track all of your turn times and I have the first 25 posted on your Deity Page. If you can upload the Egypt game as well Id like to view it.

Spoiler :

Nice job as well TLHeart getting up a Fast Empire!! I will be following your game as soon as it is posted and player pages are in the works for you as well!

EDIT: I must admit tracking all turns is a bit daunting and it will take me more time than I expected to do so. If you get a chance Acken to post up a screenshot of your final Demos and Last turn I will add it to your page. I thought all 156 turns were on the LP but I see now you need to upload the last 56 so I will stay posted. I did post up your LP on your Immortal Page and since it is Immortal I think that will suffice. However... if you can provide a list or your wonders and turn times a screenshot of final demos and last turn shot I will upload them as well.

I was just watching some more turns... Can you say Boot Camp on ***** (CS) lol!!??

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

t299 SV*

Spoiler :

*Remember, I added a Worker and Scout. So after bribing Askia to DOW Wm (to stop his Missionaries) he wiped him out. Meanwhile Autocratic Persia just kept adding to all his demo leads, and took down Sweden and Askia, and much later got Autocratic France down to one city, and had DOW'd Freedom India and was about to DOW my Order buddy Iroq. I never had a war, what with perpetual hugs with India and Iroq, and all the mtns and CS between Persia and I.

Persia and I flipped CS allies the last 1/3 of the game - ridiculous how he was sitting on 147k gold and banking almost 2k gpt... You can see in the mini-map he had about 2/3 of the land. Never went Hostile, even though I pushed thru World Religion and World Ideology, and voted down a proposal of his. Trades were poor for a while, but back to normal soon enough.

To make it Deity-Lite(TM) I avoided Rat until Industrial, after I finished Piety (after Tradition). I only went to Secularism t185, then 5 in Order, 4 in Patronage (left side), Spaceflight Pioneers, then 2 in Commerce. Even w/o more Rat I took the tech lead about t225. I took Glory of God for Reformation, but actually bought 3 GE's first (which I could have with Tradition anyway), then 3 GS later. I bulbed many GS early to get a desired tech.

Tithe combined with Theocracy and MoH brought in a lot of gpt, Tithe finished at 184 gpt. Since Persia did me the honor of destroying the other 3 Civs with religion, and didn't spread his any after mid-game, my spread was good.

I have never had so many long-term Mil CS allies, and so deleted quite a few units. I didn't even upgrade all of my CKNs fully, mostly focused on Fighters and Navy late in case Persia got any ideas. I was worried he would take out one of my neighbors when they were allied with Askia, but he focused W. I did see something weird, Almaty and Ragusa suddenly started fighting mid-game, even though they were my constant allies...? Also, somehow Askia had a MoV, I assume as a Patronage gift.

Hard-built Broadway, CR, Kremlin, MoH, and Oracle and GE'd Eiffel, Hubble, and Neuschwansteinianferschtan, all in cap. Had almost finished CN Tower and Pentagon. I was pretty happy with how the game flowed - being slightly competitive early and hampered some late w/o full Rat. I am thinking I may get the most enjoyment out of Deity SV with an additional Worker, Scout, AND Settler, and doing NO Rat at all. Also, Glory of God free GS maybe should be avoided. Maybe next DCL...

Spoiler :

 

[consentient]

Welcome back Nige! Glad you had fun with Deity Lite (TM). I hope you'll stick around for the fun and games of DCL #17, which has some *cough* interesting features

 

[Gori the Grey]

@Gori The Grey:

Spoiler :

CB timing is BEFORE NC, not after. If you wait T90+ for a 5 CB attack you won't make it.

Thanks, Acken.

In my early Deity games, I got so behind in science, that I kept getting wiped out by not only larger, but more technologically advanced, opponents. It was only when I started beelining NC that this stopped happening, so I now put off everything, even just Construction, until I have NC. But again, that's also in part because I never do offensive wars. I'll watch your video of this game, so I can see how one can war offensively without getting so hopelessly behind in science as to be at risk from slipping behind in tech (although it seems you finished this up by a turn-time where that wasn't as crucial).

 

[Acken]

It's fine to go NC first, this is not what I criticize.
I'm just pointing out that you should then wait for XB and not do a CB rush. The window of opportunity for CB is between 50 and 100 (depending on opponent, terrain etc). So it's usually a bad idea to try to get CB after something like a 80NC. You don't have to make a CB rush or a XB one. There's basically 3 timings for land domination, CB, XB and Artillery. The purpose of skipping one (or 2) is to allow to build eco to reach the next one faster. For example if I do a CB rush I probably will reach machinery around T100 but if I don't CB rush I will reach it probably T90-95. It's even clearer for artillery.
Rule of thumbs:
CB window is around 50-100
XB window is 100-150
Artillery is 150+
(well the lower bound is there only as a benchmark of when you should be able to reach the tech)
And the more upgrades you have due to previous war the longer you can go. That's why a well upgraded XB army can maybe go into T160 while a fresh one would fail miserably.

Then of course you have UU to take into consideration... Songhai likes to spam and beeline their cavalry.

 

[Acken]

I've uploaded last parts

 

[tarafran]

Just got finished with a diplo victory on turn 296.

Spoiler :

Liberty ,patronage ,autocracy and rationalism
I got the Indian capital pretty early and painfully loosing a few units.
I was able to control all of the city states early on which really help me when all the civ left decided to daw me
the big hurdle at the end was killing the swedes as they where too big on culture,paid Aska to declare war as I followed a few turn after
Much easier game than the netherland one ,i never could finish that one
Now time to watch Acken Video to learn from the masters

 

[consentient]

Well done tarafran! Only two more finishers and you can be on the front page!

 

[tombakerwho]

Spoiler :

The plan right from the start for this DCL was domination, due to the unique crossbow unit. Settled in place, mainly to keep the possibility of a Navy open, although I never ended up building one. Nobody was close enough to warrant an Honor start, so I went Liberty/Commerce instead. The one and only wonder that I built was the Oracle, to get the Liberty finisher, which was used on GE for National College. Early worker steals from Askia and William. I did not see a really good 3rd expansion spot, so I switched to building units & a long road toward Gao.

I used Jerusalem as target practice for my initial archer army, which netted a Great General. After meeting Askia, I decided to go for a Composite rush, upgraded later to XBows, due to his Mandekalu cavalry. I have faced swarms of these units in the past, and they are very unhealthy for bowmen of all sorts, so the goal was to eliminate Askia before he acquired the unique unit, if possible. This plan worked, he was eliminated on Turn 83. Although he did field a group of Pikemen, I did manage to avoid the Mandekalu menace.



Next up, William or Ghandi? In a way, Ghandi chose for me, when he built the Great Wall around Delhi, with large enough culture borders to cause serious issues for composites. Unexpectedly, William put up a pretty good fight, especially with his capital in such an awkward location. He also had far more units than expected, and there was no city “close enough” to his capital to conquer/convert into a base of operations. I made a couple of attempts with Composites and worker baiting, but I was forced to back off until hitting machinery, when the glorious Chu-ko-nu upgrade began (Turn 100). Afterwards, Amsterdam fell pretty quickly.



My Tech path was Philosophy -> Machinery -> Education -> Artillery. I annexed both Gao and Amsterdam, to be used as Guild cities. During the Amsterdam assault, I started building a second army to deal with Ghandi’s great wall. Although my main army was slowed down a bit by an incomplete road south to Stockholm, it managed to capture both Stockholm and Persopolis in rapid succession.



Second army had built up enough, so I attacked and captured Ghandi’s nearest expansion, and was about to attack Delhi, when I noticed France’s military might was climbing at an alarming rate. I am still not 100% sure whether this was a strategic mistake or not, but I made the decision to merge both armies together at this point, especially after seeing more than a few Musketeers, and after observing just how flat the terrain around Paris was.



In retrospect, I think merging the armies was a mistake. Despite the flat terrain, too many of these units that I moved away from Delhi ended up being reserve units instead of active shooters, and this delay allowed Delhi’s defenses to become very formidable. Also, I should have switched my tech path to Navigation instead of Artillery as part of this decision process, so that I could assault Delhi by sea, and bypass the Great Wall. Unfortunately, I did not.

I nearly broke my clicking finger shooting Musketeers, but Paris was finally captured Turn 166. Commerce finished and my happiness skyrocketed. All of my puppets ate up the happiness pretty quick , but it was a nice boost at exactly the right time.

The siege on Delhi went on and on, waves and waves of Frigates and Muskets kept appearing, and the siege of Delhi turned into a nightmare, in part because it just came too late for XBows. Any attempt to get close to Delhi meant that any unit, other than a Musket, was vaporized in a single turn. Cannons…vaporized… knights…vaporized. Ghandi had both Frigates and Muskets for defense, and he was using them quite well. The only ranged XBows that I had were required to push through the ridiculous terrain approaching Onondaga from the West. Frigates would have taken Delhi quicker, but after using Oxford on dynamite, artillery took out Delhi in short order, on Turn 189.



Although Hiawatha had a decent-sized fleet of Frigates, terrible terrain to assault, supporting fire from densely packed cities, and waves of Muskets, I citadel bombed my way through, and at some point around Turn 185, Hiawatha army just simply collapsed. I was sort of surprised to break through so completely, and walked into an empty ghost town around Onondoga. I half expected a new wave of units to reveal themselves and kill my irreplaceable, heavily promoted Chu-ko-nus in the process. Fortunately, that did not happen. After dealing with Delhi for so many turns, I was disappointed in Hiawatha’s defense. For whatever reason, he seemed to have no idea how to use his Frigates defensively, whereas Ghandi used them perfectly.



Commerce allowed me to fund a number of AI wars, so I think it was the correct choice for this map. The only AIs I could not wedge apart diplomatically were Ghandi and Hiawatha. It was sort of striking just how low the AI tech rate was in my play-though, so far off the norm due to constant warfare, that some of the turn times on wonders seemed more like Immortal than Deity. Leaning Tower not built by Turn 166? I have never seen this before on Deity. I was expecting that Artillery and Cavalry would be required to combat riflemen somewhere around Turn 170, which was part of the reason I went straight for Dynamite instead of Navigation, but I did not see the AI produce a single rifleman, cavalry unit, or lancer.

Chu-ko-nu are awesome units. They seemed a little less squishy than expected, but without range, their effectiveness seems to taper off when the AI reaches muskets, and city defenses reached the forties. Perhaps teching to Gatling guns would have been a good choice, but it certainly would have cost a lot of gold to upgarde the XBows.

 

[nickytootricky]

Spoiler :

Second CV game of the day...finished turn 300. 3 cities...a bit of a slog... the only civ I had to musician bomb was France...just as I'm about to do it he DOWs me...so about 20 turns wasted with that, but overall a decent game, just a few tiredness mistakes like forgetting to use Oxford...

One thing I've been doing though is sending out units to pillage roads, permanently. Might be frowned upon but it's a good way to cripple an AI economy. Other than that just the standard peaceful CV. Quite an easy map. Cheers.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Spoiler :

Rode this one up to around 280 and I quit because India AND France were culture runaways and I couldn't really bomb them both. A really really sloppy game which I thought I could get away with but in the end I stopped even though I probably could have gotten a SV because nobody was getting there any time soon.

I have to wonder though, how do you guys get so huge tourism by the end, I believe the maximum I ever got in a single game was around 630. Regardless, I really kind of suck in culture games because I can't get a feel for doing things. I have kind of gotten proficient in science wins over time.

Oh well, this is to be tried some other time

 

[Acken]

It's not necessary to reach high TPT numbers as long as you reach it fast. Problem arise when you get a low number too slow.

 

[kb27787]

Spoiler :

Rode this one up to around 280 and I quit because India AND France were culture runaways and I couldn't really bomb them both. A really really sloppy game which I thought I could get away with but in the end I stopped even though I probably could have gotten a SV because nobody was getting there any time soon.

I have to wonder though, how do you guys get so huge tourism by the end, I believe the maximum I ever got in a single game was around 630. Regardless, I really kind of suck in culture games because I can't get a feel for doing things. I have kind of gotten proficient in science wins over time.

Oh well, this is to be tried some other time

... plant everything, build every late game wonder and pass all the WC proposals needed? Generally you can get close to 700; although it all depends on how much faith income you have. If you have none, then do not start the concerts until you've reached max tourism possible (airports, NVC, internet, and all relevant SPs and WC proposals; sometimes you might even need to get globalization to pass something first)

If you win fast, it's another story altogether.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Spoiler :

Well, this was a fairly fun game of hoarding wonders and catching culture runaways against all odds. But let's start from the top:

Seeing all of this stone and marble lying around, I figured this might be the only opportunity that Hali would actually ever be useful. And it sure was. What followed was the combo:

HG
Oracle
Machu
Pisa
Globe
Uffizi
Louvre
Neusch
Sydney Opera
CN
Eiffel
SoL

Total 13 for the top cat

Anyway, there was basically 2 blocks of nations, I was always friends with Willy, Gandhi, Hiya and Gus. Askia, Nappy and Dar were far too crazy. Eventually Gus was reduced to his cap only which he only managed to keep because he somehow managed to steal the Great Wall.

At one point Nappy piled up huge numbers and locked his borders. He was also embargoed so it was a tad hard to catch up to him. Eventually he became nice again and allowed open borders at which point I proceeded to bomb him with pop music.

I got a tip that India geared up for a sneak attack, so I paid off Askia and Nappy to delay him a bit while I moved my infantry back and bought some nukes to defend myself. Everyone pooped their pants immediately afterwards and offered DoFs hoping I wouldn't obliterate them, even Nappy got scared off his horse

Not India though, he DoWed out of desperation along with Hiya, "i know the odds are against me..." etc, so, you see this fallout? Well, I declare in front of the United Nations that it was IN SELF DEFENSE, so Gandhi, you brought this upon yourself, I mean what were you thinking man, I have god damned nukes, if you dare attack, I will level you, bury you in the sand etc.

Which I obviously did as I made one last (pop music) Tour de France.

The biggest mistake was delaying Astronomy for Acoustics because I missed out on Sistine and earlier Obses would be much better. Still, I snowballed fairly potently and had Internet around 260, still much later than I wanted but much earlier than I expected.

Screenie below. That's 8 now, this one being the 3nd most fun, after Genghis and Babylon

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Everything that could possibly go wrong in my game just did.

First, I sent a warrior West and found William advancing with a settler, so I had to rush my first scout to block him. My block was amazing, and as soon as I took a sigh of relief, my third scout (second became archer) spotted Ghandi moving with a settler into my face. Well.. what's a gurl gonna do? I had to DoW Ghandi, and with the help of barbarians captured his settler. I also decided to dubstep DoW Ragusa to bootcamp my archers on it. But Ghandi was relentless and sent another settler. I captured his settler and stole 4 of his workers, which he kept sending on spices. I also stole 2 workers from Ragusa.

Well, at least I got my spots, right? But that literally cost me ez-pz Stone Circles or DF because Wittenberg was just under Jerusalem. FML. Because of stupid William, I don't even have a religion. Speaking of William... I saw a Songhai army moving my way and decided to distract him to attack the annoying expansionist. Guess what? William perished in one-two-three. Now Askia DoW'ed Jerusalem, and it's getting scary.

Originally, I planned for a CV, but things are not looking so well. It's t98, and I am finishing up the Oracle. The plan was to get Aesthetics with it... but... given the circumstance... the Askia... and the flatland capitals... can a gurl... dream of world conquest?

I actually haven't done a single DomV on Deity, should I give it a try? I am on my way to Education, though. The Chu-Ko-Nu's may not be there on time to wreck face (~20 turns to Machinery at current pace), but I might also prepare the world for conquest and plant intrigues and denunciations.

 

[Acken]

Well you can attempt it as long as you're ready to finish with artilleries