The Deity Challenge Line-up #17 - Germany

[stormtrooper412]

First 130 turns

Spoiler :

Went Liberty because I guess I have occasional brain damage and I forget that I don't know how to play Liberty because Tradition is the name of my game. Anyway, nothing fancy, I panicked a bit because of who my neighbor is. Furor Teutonicus took care of initial army shortage, however I was really short on happiness and even shorter on military and that delayed my NC and my Education by a really damn lot. I geared up for an invasion that isn't coming. And it's all my fault. Harald is such a greedy bastard and he would accept money for just about anything. So when I spotted a GG and some Berserkers, I was like, hey Harry, wanna go kill someone? So he went off to kill Cathy and Lizzy instead. And now nobody likes him. Man, I sure am a trickster.

Meanwhile, Haile is a bit whiny so I had to give him some gold so he can stop crying. Pacal is not dangerous, and Egypt is apparently my research buddy, Kame digs my sugar and eeeeverybody loves me.

Some would say it's a waste of Germany not to go and kill everything but I am the good Germany, I am Angela Merkel, and not .. that guy innit..

Once the Hanses are up, things will swing further in my favour and no, I won't pick Autocracy because again, this is the GOOD Germany here, the Germany that everyone loves, not the 7-1 devils. No siree.

I have little doubt about launching before all this is said and done. So yeah, I finally joined in the DCL fun. Although my finishing times will probably be in the late 200s...

 

[Benzy19]

Spoiler :

Well thought I was cool taking Denmark's capital when he was busy going on his rampage against the other civs, he wouldn't negotiate peace at all so I kept killing off his units until his main force came back with both his UUs and destroyed my defensive line, took back his capital and took my 2nd city and he still won't talk.

Wanted to try a domination win on deity for the first time, guess I bit off more than I could chew. Should of just turtled up and let Denmark take out the world while I teched up.

Also hate that even though everyone was at war with and had denounced Denmark that they all still hated me after lying to Denmark about my army. That doesn't really make sense to me, oh well. Might give it another try but this time I won't fight Denmark.

 

[consentient]

Benzy19, there is a mod for diplomacy which makes the AI behave a bit more normal. You won't be able to use it with DCL, but in your 'private' games it can be more fun.

The most thing on the long list of things about Civ 5 is the AI diplomacy.

"Our nations have been BFF since 3500BC but you allied Mombasa and I wanted to. You must die!"

 

[Benzy19]

Benzy19, there is a mod for diplomacy which makes the AI behave a bit more normal. You won't be able to use it with DCL, but in your 'private' games it can be more fun.

The most thing on the long list of things about Civ 5 is the AI diplomacy.

"Our nations have been BFF since 3500BC but you allied Mombasa and I wanted to. You must die!"

Yeah I usually don't lie to the AI but I just assumed that the penalty would be lessened because everyone had denounced them and they were at war with 3-4 civs. Usually when I declare war on someone I let them throw their units at me before advancing but

Spoiler :

Denamark had 95% of his troops half way around the world and I wanted the jump on him.

 

[Acken]

Sigh my wonders.... I'm 100 turns in.

Spoiler :

I went Trad opener + Liberty, found eldorado and was in a long war with danemark, finally got his cap around T80 getting SoZ.
I wanted to use the liberty finisher for Machu Pichu but it got taken 3 turns before I could finish guilds (Turn 85 jesus). Then I redirected toward Physics for ND and same thing... 3-4 turns before completion of the tech: gone to Ethiopia on turn 95. Probably would have got it without the detour to currency + guilds. So I have a GE that does nothing haha. I'll use him for a renaissance wonder or Ironworks I guess. I also lost 10ish turns trying to acquire these techs.
Going for industrial/modern warfare.

Meanwhile Ethiopia has accumulated juicy wonders: ToA, Petra, Notre Dame. So I'm trying to get him. My bows are well upgraded after the first war but I fear I'll just see some Knights soon :/

Spoiler :

Update:

Spoiler :

I capture Addis Abbaba after a long siege of 40 turns. 5 good wonders: ToA, Notre Dame, CI, MoH, Petra !

My policies are a mess since I missed renaissance... Pouah what a mess, I forgot to get sailing for the extra TR xD

Now I need to grow until artillery.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Update2:
Reach artillery at T170, far from being a resplendent timing but still fine if I can finish everyone before 220ish.

 

[kb27787]

Spoiler :

Uh... I guess I'll forgo settling El Dorado after all... after looking at the land...


I've decided to go for the Peace Prize achievement, so that means no DoW, ever! So the 500 gold went to rush-buying a worker and then an archer (because, really, I was quite at a loss as to what else to do with it). Now, who said raging barbs slow down the AI? If anything raging barbs are a HUGE nuisance for the human player without the combat bonus against barbs the AIs enjoy. And also, barbs are far more likely to enter your lands. Thing I hate about the UA is the randomness of it; they could make it 100% and it would still be balanced; mostly got useless brutes.



Like I said in the other thread, if the map is big enough for you to expand, it doesn't hurt to sell cities to AI to prevent headaches. Here Pacal paid quite generously for my size 1, unimproved, buildingless city just because Chichen Itza is nearby (this is what he offered, you can consider replacing 9 gpt for the luxes when you negotiate so total this comes to around 21 gpt worth of trade, or 600+ gold: more than the 500 gold of a settler).



Completing the blockade. The city sold for close to 1000 gold's worth. I am now completely Viking-free! With open borders I can protect Pacal's city, and in turn Pacal can protect me by drawing Harald's covetousness instead


Pacal is sometimes so stupid (no I did not bribe him; I prefer he stay out of trouble because if either one of his cities fall I'd be in danger)... YOUR UNITS ARENT EVEN IN POSITION why did you DoW! They have XBs VS your CBs! Good thing I had the blockade of units set up. Harald anhiliated a whole civ and captured a CS which basically means everyone will DoW him because of warmonger hate...


Playing peaceful finally allowed me to reap the fruits of my efforts: my first world wonder in the form of Sistine (Quite an achievement when Maya, Ethiopia, and Egypt are in the game, and you spawn next to a warmonger, wouldn't you say?) as well as enough gold to buy faith from CS to get mosques.
Well that's it for the first session, I really hope I can get CV (SV is too boring but it's a backup plan, and frankly at this point, it's pretty easy to do... I've refused 5 RA offers up to this point). Ethiopia wants to embargo CS and I'm not sure if I should try to block it or not (I run internal routes mostly so Hanse is kinda useless)

 

[kb27787]

Does it count if I take over from T80 and if yes who is the author in the spreadsheet? Or that is just a different adventure and I still have to play on my own the game from the beginning to submit it here? Would be interesting to take over once and see how it goes

I think you can play from t80... I'm also interested in taking over someone else's game and then handing it back to them 80 turns afterwards and look at their reaction.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I'm 70 turns in

(nobody's going to want my turn 80 game)

Spoiler :

Used ED gold for a settler and worked ED. Opened Tradition for border growth, then Honor. Did pretty well clearing barb camps, two brutes and a spear, but Harald came on 63. He'd wiped Russia out by 56! He came with at least 7 cats, at least 4 CBs, 4 swords, three spears, two warriors. Two of my warriors were limping back from clearing a barb hut north of Bratislava and couldn't get to the front on time. So even though I had the largest army I've ever had this early in the game, he took Hamburg. He them, oddly, accepted a white peace, so I'm still in the game. I might keep playing. If he gets busy with other people, maybe I can build up again. The turn after he settled with me, he asked me to attack Pacal, so he's still on the warpath. I got the last religion, having picked the pantheon that gives you faith for Natural Wonders. Tithe and Holy Warrior.

 

[Shark Diver]

t331 Science Victory

Spoiler :

Since nothing went the way my early plan had predicted, I'm actually not too disappointed with the finishing time. I made the mistake of expanding to cities 4 & 5 before NC, thinking I'd just rush-buy the libraries, but needed the gold for unit upgrades so NC went very late (t106) as I had to hard build those libraries. I didn't get Education until t127 as I had diverted to get Xbows…….they were needed considering the size of Harold's early army.

Finished Tradition early, and got 2 more tenets in Honor before opening Rationalism. Harold accepted bribe to DoW Pacal and took his capital. After Education I went straight to banking and hard built 4 Hanses (bought the 5th in capital). Growth was slow as I used no internal trade routes, instead sending all TR's to CS. This made for a pretty low mid-game population and I struggled to work all scientist slots. So yeah…..very slow science start.

I had built a trireme and sent him around the world exploring and he got to England in time to see a massive Polynesian fleet simply pummeling England. At this point, Russia had the largest army, but they wouldn't DoW Harold (well, they did for about 10 boring turns). Harold came at me 3 times, but I knocked him back each time and settled for white peace. By now, I was surrounded by CS allies on all sides, so was feeling pretty secure, but realized any warmongering would have to wait for Modern Era, so I focused on tech.

I got beat out by Egypt for PT by 3 turns, but won WF in a landslide on t182. I didn't even work on WF in 3 of my cities for the final 4 turns (I was already at 1000). This is probably because everyone was fighting……even without much encouragement from me.

About religion…..as mentioned earlier, 4 religions went early and I had the only pantheon showing. Then, somehow, Kamehameha founds a religion without ever having a pantheon and not building any faith Wonders……not sure how he managed that. So I was forced to use Ethiopia's blah religion and bought 4 Monasteries to help with faith/culture. It was needed as I barely was able to finish Tradition, Honor, Rationalism, and at t319 completed Freedom.

I was going to go Autocracy but Kamehameha got there first and he was turning into a runaway, bulldozing England off the map and leaving Russia with nothing but a stray city she built SW of Berlin. So…….2nd ideology (t198…….Oxforded Radio) I took Freedom. I usually go for FL's as the first 2nd level tenet in Freedom, but given Egypt and Polynesia being cultural beasts, I was going to need the happiness first, so took the specialist happiness tenet. I got my FL's just in time to join the global Jihad against Harold and researched Plastics the same turn, so Harold went from thinking his Ski Patrol were bad dudes to facing 6 very angry Infantrymen who knocked the @$#^^@ out of him. He had GG bombed my gold mine NE of Hamburg, so my first act of war was to GG bomb some coal and a silver mine from him down South where my coastal Frankfurt was. I had traded for coal earlier as I didn't have any, so didn't really need it……but it was satisfying.

Harold had also built SoZ, Alhambra, and most importantly Big Ben in Copenhagen, so this influenced me going Freedom. I got 6 oil from CS allies (I only had 4 oil total in my 5-city empire and I wasn't going to divert tech to get to Offshore Platforms as I was playing tech catch-up). I built 5 GWB's but they couldn't knock down Copenhagen until they upgraded even though I had it surrounded by 6 Infantrymen.



I finally took Copenhagen t286 and then it was just turtle time, as Kamehameha was a freakin runaway. He seemed to like me despite different ideologies and he asked me to DoW Egypt, who I thought was pretty strong. Kamehameha rolled him too. Ramses sent a fleet of tugboats and Ironclads, but by then I had subs and bombers and he had to sail through 2 strong CS allies of mine. He gave me 29 GPT in peace pretty quickly and Kamehameha had his capital pretty quickly. I'd have had a tough time holding ground if Kamehameha had come after me.

Pacal was pretty useless but he and Haile had joined me in Freedom (I got SoL though). Haile was pretty quiet all game until the end when he and Pacal DoW'd Polynesia. At the end, Haile actually had the strongest army, so I'm lucky I didn't go down the warpath. I didn't have the oil for Panzers anyways.

Wonders built in Capital are in screenshot, and I also built Neuschwenstein in Cologne t269 and CN Tower in Hamburg t308 just to help finish up the culture. I went total research around t315, hard built 4 parts and bought the last two.

Considering the very slow science start, I'm not unhappy at all. Nobody else even built a spaceship part, and limited resources kind of limited my options. Kamehameha only got influential on 1 civ. Diplo was spit very evenly with Polynesia, Egypt, and myself each holding 12-14 votes for most of the game.

The Hanse is a simply awesome building (+40% production in all cities), but it does hurt not to have Internal TR's. I was hoping to use the Panzers…….next time.

 

[Shark Diver]

@KB

Spoiler :

I luv the tactics and the math on city-selling is compelling. I'll have to use something like that one of these days.

Sadly, I won't have time to try anyone's t80 saves as my free time is non-existent the next 2 weeks. I'm guessing I'll post the slowest victory time this game.

 

[Shark Diver]

First 130 turns

Spoiler :

Some would say it's a waste of Germany not to go and kill everything but I am the good Germany, I am Angela Merkel, and not .. that guy innit..

Spoiler :

I am soooo tempted to make a snide comment about Merkel……but this is not a political forum so I'll resist. Good luck with your peaceful intentions…….try not to put your whole country into debt like Merkel……couldn't resist.

 

[consentient]

Does it count if I take over from T80 and if yes who is the author in the spreadsheet? Or that is just a different adventure and I still have to play on my own the game from the beginning to submit it here? Would be interesting to take over once and see how it goes

If you mean by "does it count" that you would be added to the finisher's list, then I think not, to be honest. That list is for people who played the whole game through themselves and won.

That said, I have nothing against people swapping T80 saves. I'm just not getting involved.

[
Like I said in the other thread, if the map is big enough for you to expand, it doesn't hurt to sell cities to AI to prevent headaches.

This is the first time I've seen this strategy. It's very inventive, don't get me wrong, but it seems a bit too much like an exploit really, given that the AI's math is so wrong.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Founding cities at really crap locations and then selling them off is a bit of a "lost art". It worked in BE almost too good, founding a city just a tick nearer the coast would have been a really good city but founding a city in the middle of the desert with no food access would just gimp whoever owns that useless piece of land.

Spoiler :

Small update, as I've quickly lost interest in pursuing this game any further. My plan of paying Harry to kill everyone worked a bit too well as he kind of did kill everyone and he's hogged all the luxuries and since he hates me now I can't have any of them for a reasonable price. That means I can't grow, and even though the tech gap is hardly big, I mean I am dead last but only 5-6 techs behind, it's not really looking optimal. If I do get around to finishing it, I'll screen it, natch

 

[stormtrooper412]

Spoiler :

On to turn 250-ish.

Harry and I are in a love-hate relationship. Shots are still not fired, but tensions are high. Still behind everyone but it doesn't matter, once Harry kills Lizzy, it's my game because he will have too many cities to tech efficiently.

Meanwhile, with him hogging all luxuries still, I was terribly unhappy through most industrial era, but then I just finished off 2 CS quests and I shot from -5 to +15 in 2 turns. It's looking terribly sloppy but I feel like I'm finally ready to roll.

I am probably not going Liberty again until I learn how to play it properly (Poland doesn't count). Hopefully the next DCL will be more for me

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Turn 206-311

Spoiler :

SV on Turn 311... Write up to come but here are three pics!

Edit Write Up:

Spoiler :

So once I got into Rocket Artillery I pressed into Denmark and took his Capital and sold it to Ethiopia once and Denmark took it back and I took it and sold it right back to Ethiopia. Is it abuse or exploit? Im sure it is but so is pretty much everything in the game. The biggest exploit in the game is warmongering in general which the AI really has no compensation for. I also nuked Denmark a couple of times since he made peace with most of the world and decided to show up with many GWIs!

However, it is just a game and it does not bother me the least getting about 6500 gold per city. I took most of the Viking Cities and sold them to Ethiopia for lots of gold which I used to buy buildings and CS's. After that I just teched up and blasted off! Very fun game! I found that all the Civs were very friendly... even the Vikings were my best friend until I decided to go to war with them! I was never worried about an attack the whole game even in the early stages when I had no troops as many of my games are like this. I find that you do not have to worry about any early or late game DOWs most of the time. The days of turn 40-50 carpet of Doom DOWs are over in the new BNW!

I used to think all that was needed was a caravan sent to the Civ that coveted your lands but with the new information that kb27787 and others taught me I found out that if you give free resources away it is pretty strong. I even gave Denmark free Spices a couple of times to test it out along with horses, iron, aluminum...etc!

 

[consentient]

T155 on Domination attempt

Spoiler :

I'm pausing on the same turn that Acken won the China map, in order to regroup.

Finally had a really good run with Peddroelm's strategy. This might be the perfect map for it: one West-East sweep across a nice Pangaea. Raging barbs + Honor gave a ton of culture at the beginning, and I snagged God of War as a Pantheon for the first time. This enabled me to win a ton of faith, too. Got me the 5th religion, and I chose (Divine?) the World Wonder founder belief, so I could keep earning faith as I (hopefully) took some juicy capitals.

I founded 3 cities as per Peddro's way, used my barb army to great effect, and finished Honor really early, so I was even earning money off barb kills. T82 NC, T106 Education.

Sweep order was Copenhagen (T60ish, as soon as I got Construction, as I didn't want him to get to Metal Casting), then Addis Ababa, then Palenque. Moscow took a long time, Honolulu wasn't joy either, and now I have Liz behind the GW, and then Rameses.

I will feel a bit of an ***hole when I DoW Rameses because he has loved me all game despite my carnage, and has literally been the best friend a warmonger could ever want.

SPs: Full Honor + Commerce except for the last tenet + Patronage opener (because I wanted the Forbidden Palace in case I ran into problems and need a DiploV 'out')

Some tips I picked up from Acken's China game and put straight to use in this, the next game:

-Building roads well ahead of time

-Planning diplo one or two steps ahead

-Demanding tribute from CS that aren't allied

-Machinery before Education

-Using a 'war city' to use citadel bombing to get through the GW

[more but I forgot them - will add later]

I'd really like to finish off the last two before T200 but I doubt it will be possible. Dynamite will be a long time in coming because I haven't gone Rationalism, nor have I finished before it became necessary (which was the advantage of Acken's T155 victory!! )

Update to follow. I need a cup of tea.

 

[Acken]

Sigh my wonders.... I'm 100 turns in.

Spoiler :

I went Trad opener + Liberty, found eldorado and was in a long war with danemark, finally got his cap around T80 getting SoZ.
I wanted to use the liberty finisher for Machu Pichu but it got taken 3 turns before I could finish guilds (Turn 85 jesus). Then I redirected toward Physics for ND and same thing... 3-4 turns before completion of the tech: gone to Ethiopia on turn 95. Probably would have got it without the detour to currency + guilds. So I have a GE that does nothing haha. I'll use him for a renaissance wonder or Ironworks I guess. I also lost 10ish turns trying to acquire these techs.
Going for industrial/modern warfare.

Meanwhile Ethiopia has accumulated juicy wonders: ToA, Petra, Notre Dame. So I'm trying to get him. My bows are well upgraded after the first war but I fear I'll just see some Knights soon :/

Spoiler :

Update:

Spoiler :

I capture Addis Abbaba after a long siege of 40 turns. 5 good wonders: ToA, Notre Dame, CI, MoH, Petra !

My policies are a mess since I missed renaissance... Pouah what a mess, I forgot to get sailing for the extra TR xD

Now I need to grow until artillery.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Update2:
Reach artillery at T170, far from being a resplendent timing but still fine if I can finish everyone before 220ish.

Follow up and ending:

Spoiler :

Despite a very late ideology because I'm stupid (forgot I could get it with 3 factory...). I finished the game with a pretty clear domination on turn 237 with very little razing. I started attacking what's left of Harald on turn 171 and then went east conquering Russia and England (which had absorbed Egypt). A northern army took Palenque and both were able to meet for Polynesia. Around 215 I added planes to my army and around 225 Panzers (feared I wouldn't have to use them ). I got a VERY late ideology and couldn't get very far in it :/).
Not a perfect game but relatively easy outside of the beginning which was a little tricky between barbs and Harald harassing my 2nd city. My secularism was awfully late also.

Next time I'll go industrialisation before dynamite so that I can quickly start getting ideology happiness.

Spoiler :

I guess crossbow victory is also possible, only England could be tricky (longbows and can only come from the west). But I was tired of playing that and wanted to use Germany's uniques.

 

[consentient]

T188 DomV

Spoiler :

Update: I think something happened with the AI tech-ing that made things really easy for me. It might have been my best diplo game, keeping everyone constantly at war. Thebes (owned by Liz) was the last capital for me and I faced Muskets and Longbowmen. A breeze, really. Felt scarily like Immortal.

Bismarck's unit cost UA is so good when you have a huge army. I had just reached Industrialisation shortly before victory, so bought factories and chose Autocracy, but none of it was needed at all. Getting Cavalry helped, but XBs were doing a better job than Cannons for most of the last 15 turns.

A very strange game, and a very satisfying victory. I hope I can hone my Peddroing skills on a harder play through on a harder map. I prefer to be a bit up against it, and I never really was in this game.

 

[Acken]

Where does all you gold and culture comes from ?

 

[Shark Diver]

@Consentient

Spoiler :

Nice job. I guess your mini-slump is officially over now?

I'm not sure why my turn times are going the wrong direction.

Alas, time to get back to the Dutch slog.