The Deity Challenge Line-up #20 - Spain - Valentine day Resurrected

[consentient]

I knew this one could be done really quickly. I waited absolutely ages before starting my attack (with Honor). Congrats on a nice swift lib sweep.

 

[Blatc]

With such a good map, I decided to redo with narrower focus on conquest. The plan was:

Liberty, Illiterate Domination attempt
*will NOT tech Writing/Philosophy; use Liberty finisher for GS
*Religion: One with Nature, Tithe & Holy Warriors - do NOT enhance, just start pumping out Comb bows
*get 2nd army out with Composites, do NOT wait for XBows
-probably won’t use any UUs

Spoiler :

Timeline/Notes - turns are in comparison to T129 Domination Victory
*Russia has Goddess of Protection pantheon (+30%)
T27 Construction
T42 Pyramids
*didn't boot-camp CS this time
*didn’t make peace with England after very early worker steal
T51 conquered 1st capital: London (Market, Library, Lighthouse) – 16 turns faster
*peace with English: 104 gold and 16 gpt
*England denounced me; Theodora gave me a sultry look and asked for DOF (agreed)
*forming 2nd army for Eastern attack
T56 Western army DOW Russia with 6 Comps, 1 Spear, 1 Warrior, and GG; Eastern army DOW China with 5 Comps and 1 Scout (lots of cities that can be captured by Mt. Kilimanjaro-upgraded Scouts). Split army 30+ turns earlier. 5 units over limit, but most new units are coming from Faith and Gold
T60 capture Novgorod & Guangzhou
T63 finished Liberty (later than previous game): Great Scientist, built Academy, Science at 35 – on pace for Machinery at 93 (likely earlier)
*lost my warrior to Moscow (still have Spear)
T66 captured 2nd capital: Moscow (Great Library, Temple of Artemis, shrine) – 24 turns faster
T66 captured 3rd capital: Beijing (Stonehenge, Granary, Library) – 39 turns faster
*peace with Russia; they wouldn’t give me anything
T69 I backstabbed Byzantium. Only 1-tile path between Russian and English cities; I may have to re-DOW just to move troops back and forth to Byzantium capital
*triple-denounced by Russia, Celts, and Austria
T70 I DOW Dido. I’m on West side of Shanghai (last Chinese city) and they’re on East. If I captured without DOWing, their units would be moved; this way, I can kill a few. Science at 50; should have Machinery before T90
T71 2nd DOW on England to get to Byzantium faster. Probably should have done this 2 turns ago instead of stalling
T71 conquered Shanghai, China gone; can’t burn it!?
T73 lost a Comp bow near Constantinople. Western army has 6 Comp, 1 Spear, and 1 Scout. Eastern army has 8 Comp and 1 Scout. Assembling 3rd army for Austria: 8 Comp and 1 Scout
*around T70-75 started using Heal Instantly as promotion, when reasonable
T77 Utique
T80 Russia built Terracotta and had previously denounced me
*saving up some gold to ally the CS near Edinburgh, same as last game, which will be final capital
T81 Graz (Austrian)
T82 captured 4th capital: Constantinople (Market, Granary, Library). Peace: 144 gold & 26gpt
T82 captured 5th capital: Carthage (Shrine…just a Shrine!). Dido gone, 6 civs left. 82 is 37 turns faster
T83 opened Commerce. Catherine will only give me 2gpt for Spices; she must not like Spices
T86 Machinery, 3 turns faster than previous game. Vienna is just over 30 strength and taking out 1 Comp Bow per turn. I burned down the expo (Graz) instead of keeping it and cannot upgrade that army; this was a significant mistake
T87 start attacking Dublin with Xbows
T88 peace with England again, have my surviving units heading East (didn't make it in time to help), got a small amount of gold
*realized Chivalry requires Writing, and the plan was to be illiterate, so I won’t get Chivalry
*didn't buy/build any horsemen, only 1 warrior, starting warrior that became Spear, archers/Comp/Xbows, and Scouts
*Great Wall in St. Petersburg
T91 Dublin; Edinburgh next for that army
T91 captured 6th capital: Vienna (Great Lighthouse, Hanging Gardens). 34 turns faster. Peace deal. 1 city to go. Now allied with both CS near Edinburgh
*deleting units final few turns
T95 captured 7th capital: Edinburgh (Parthenon). 34 turns faster

This game really brought home to me how much early game advantages and early city captures can snowball. With ridiculous early game advantages, the math surrounding beakers/hammers re: necessity of Writing/Libraries and Philosophy/NC becomes quite interesting, which led to my decision to make an Illiterate Domination attempt.

Policies

Spoiler :

Religion

Spoiler :

Science

Spoiler :

Victory

Spoiler :

 

[stormtrooper412]

You're mad

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Lord Jesus. Here is to the sub-100 DomV people were requesting.

 

[consentient]

Well, blatc, you are a true master of early warfare.

Love the scout captures

You ought to make a video. It would become as famous as the guy who completed Quake in 8 minutes or whatever

 

[Blatc]

I'd encourage anyone who likes playing around with #s and theory to look at the beakers and hammers involved in an 'Illiteracy' attempt.

Writing 63 science
Philosophy 202 science
Library 75 hammers or 400 gold, gives 1 science for every 2 pop
National College 155 hammers plus 30 per expo (ex. 215 for 3-city NC), gives 1 culture, 3 science, and 50% science

I've been using Liberty to GE a 3-4 city NC. If a fast victory is possible (absurdly good start, early OP UU, etc.), I compared getting a GS from Liberty finisher and ignoring Philosophy and Writing. At what point do you reach key technologies faster by going illiterate and getting a GS from Liberty finisher?

Ex. 3-city National College with city populations of 8, 6, and 4
8 pop cap gets +4 from Library, with NC giving +3 and 50% (8 pop + 4 library + 3 NC + 3 Palace) = 4 + 3 + 9 = 16 science from library and NC, once they're built
6 and 4 pop expos give 3 and 2, for a total of 5 science. You could have higher numbers, but overall the capital is much more important early and reaching 8+ pop should be a priority.
That's a total of 21 science from writing and libraries, at 8-6-4 pop, once those buildings are actually build.

If you stayed illiterate, you saved
63 + 202 = 265 science - that will take 10+ turns, at 21bpt, to catch up
BUT you also planted a GS for 8bpt instead of completing an NC, so the difference is (21-8) 13bpt and it would take 20+ turns to get back the 265 science/beakers you put in to Writing and Philosophy

3 libraries cost 3 x 75 = 225 hammers or 3 x 400 gold; let's say you built 2 and bought 1, that's 150 hammers and 400 gold.
150 hammers and 400 gold is (almost) enough to build 4 archers (40 each) and upgrade 5 archers to Composite Bows.

While it was a replay, the comparison I just did on this map showed that the earlier addition of conquered cities helped me get to Machinery faster, although it also showed with the perfect set-up you might not need Machinery. At the very least, it has encouraged me to look for situations where I can go Construction before Writing.

 

[Acken]

That's a good point. Considering that in a normal game you often make the NC around 80 and then get machinery around 100 (20 turns) I could see both ways giving similar times but skipping libraries allows for more units.
You should maybe even just keep the GS then and bulb machinery.

However you have to be sure you can finish with crossbows.

 

[consentient]

Apart from geographical restraints - isthmuses, peninsulas, other continents (needing Astronomy), what do you guys think are the most likely causes of a game where you CAN'T win with Crossbows. If this can be established precisely, I'd like to generate a further strategy entirely around it.

 

[Blatc]

Apart from geographical restraints - isthmuses, peninsulas, other continents (needing Astronomy), what do you guys think are the most likely causes of a game where you CAN'T win with Crossbows. If this can be established precisely, I'd like to generate a further strategy entirely around it.

Playing DCL #21 India!

In my previous recent Liberty-Domination games, I was trying to get to 40-50 science ASAP. Going the illiterate route the target was 30-40, and that was sufficient (with the Liberty GS).

Good suggestion on bulbing the GS. In this particular game, I planted on 63 and got Machinery 23 turns later, benefiting (8 x 23) 184 beakers from it. As the bulb is based on your science output the previous 8 turns and the Academy without modifiers is 8, you just need to be putting out more science than the # of turns until machinery (in this case, be >23 science. It shouldn't cause any issues with any remaining luxury techs, but would delay things like Markets, Horsemen, Engineering (bridges over rivers definitely help for fast Liberty-Domination).

 

[sweaty_wombat]

First time ever trying out the DCL challenge on CivFanatics Spain is my favourite civ just due to the ability to offset the innate early game advantages the AI have (and to wonder whore).

Pretty happy with this game, wish I could go for a sub-200 win but I have no idea how you guys are putting out the population and getting to plastics so fast.

Would love some advice if anyone still checks this thread. I'm pretty experienced, so focusing food is pretty obvious. But I don't see how I can get to where people like Acken are, with 50 pop at 200 turns.

 

[Sclb]

Fun map overall.

Spoiler :

Pretty sure it's possible to win closer to 200 if not for the war with Cathy.

Settled Madrid on coast near the NW, extremely strong capital, started aiming for petra, had enough gold to buy 2 settlers for 3city NC from the UA. Meanwhile built ToA + HG. Got OwN as pantheon. Stole 2 settlers from celts and 2 CS workers.

Petra T70, NC T75. Also grabbed Colossus, MoH, Oracle. Also quickly settled the 4th city.
Around the same time, at T80, Cathy suddenly backstabs DoW without any warning. Had to tech detour for Construction which delayed Education to T112 and buy units which definitely slowed down my game a lot. During the war, Cathy forward settled a city right next to Madrid. I had to raze the city as I'm sure she'll GG bomb me if I left it there. After I decimated the invading force, I tried to go for St Petersburg but the terrain wasn't great and I didn't nearly have enough units. Took white peace T136 since my capital was busy building other wonders such as Globe + LtoP. I should've just peace a lot earlier as I'm losing 15% growth from religion when I'm at war. Pretty sure it cost my finishing time at least 10 turns.

After the war, DoF with Cathy and signed RA until the end when she got her ideology.
Got Taj Mahal, PT, Big Ben, SoL, Hubble, standard freedom SV wonders. Didn't go for wonder whore when I'm behind, except I did get Sistine Chapel when I notice nobody built it for a long time. It's good for quicker SP.

Interesting that Cathy converted Madrid to her religion and I had to waste some prophets. Kind of stupid that I had to have units circling each city to prevent further conversions. Lucky that during the war I captured at least 3 of her prophets and I had a ton of faith from the holy sites.

ST 143, Plastics 172, Hubble 199 with GE, Apollo 205, bought 2 more GS to finish the techs.
It's always nice to see a capital of size 50+. I actually used one of my GG to citadel bomb Lhasa so that Madrid can grow more.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Nice one!

If I'm not mistaken, one more submission and it's The List for you

 

[cazaderonus]

With such a good map, I decided to redo with narrower focus on conquest. The plan was:

Liberty, Illiterate Domination attempt
*will NOT tech Writing/Philosophy; use Liberty finisher for GS
*Religion: One with Nature, Tithe & Holy Warriors - do NOT enhance, just start pumping out Comb bows
*get 2nd army out with Composites, do NOT wait for XBows
-probably won’t use any UUs

Spoiler :

Timeline/Notes - turns are in comparison to T129 Domination Victory
*Russia has Goddess of Protection pantheon (+30%)
T27 Construction
T42 Pyramids
*didn't boot-camp CS this time
*didn’t make peace with England after very early worker steal
T51 conquered 1st capital: London (Market, Library, Lighthouse) – 16 turns faster
*peace with English: 104 gold and 16 gpt
*England denounced me; Theodora gave me a sultry look and asked for DOF (agreed)
*forming 2nd army for Eastern attack
T56 Western army DOW Russia with 6 Comps, 1 Spear, 1 Warrior, and GG; Eastern army DOW China with 5 Comps and 1 Scout (lots of cities that can be captured by Mt. Kilimanjaro-upgraded Scouts). Split army 30+ turns earlier. 5 units over limit, but most new units are coming from Faith and Gold
T60 capture Novgorod & Guangzhou
T63 finished Liberty (later than previous game): Great Scientist, built Academy, Science at 35 – on pace for Machinery at 93 (likely earlier)
*lost my warrior to Moscow (still have Spear)
T66 captured 2nd capital: Moscow (Great Library, Temple of Artemis, shrine) – 24 turns faster
T66 captured 3rd capital: Beijing (Stonehenge, Granary, Library) – 39 turns faster
*peace with Russia; they wouldn’t give me anything
T69 I backstabbed Byzantium. Only 1-tile path between Russian and English cities; I may have to re-DOW just to move troops back and forth to Byzantium capital
*triple-denounced by Russia, Celts, and Austria
T70 I DOW Dido. I’m on West side of Shanghai (last Chinese city) and they’re on East. If I captured without DOWing, their units would be moved; this way, I can kill a few. Science at 50; should have Machinery before T90
T71 2nd DOW on England to get to Byzantium faster. Probably should have done this 2 turns ago instead of stalling
T71 conquered Shanghai, China gone; can’t burn it!?
T73 lost a Comp bow near Constantinople. Western army has 6 Comp, 1 Spear, and 1 Scout. Eastern army has 8 Comp and 1 Scout. Assembling 3rd army for Austria: 8 Comp and 1 Scout
*around T70-75 started using Heal Instantly as promotion, when reasonable
T77 Utique
T80 Russia built Terracotta and had previously denounced me
*saving up some gold to ally the CS near Edinburgh, same as last game, which will be final capital
T81 Graz (Austrian)
T82 captured 4th capital: Constantinople (Market, Granary, Library). Peace: 144 gold & 26gpt
T82 captured 5th capital: Carthage (Shrine…just a Shrine!). Dido gone, 6 civs left. 82 is 37 turns faster
T83 opened Commerce. Catherine will only give me 2gpt for Spices; she must not like Spices
T86 Machinery, 3 turns faster than previous game. Vienna is just over 30 strength and taking out 1 Comp Bow per turn. I burned down the expo (Graz) instead of keeping it and cannot upgrade that army; this was a significant mistake
T87 start attacking Dublin with Xbows
T88 peace with England again, have my surviving units heading East (didn't make it in time to help), got a small amount of gold
*realized Chivalry requires Writing, and the plan was to be illiterate, so I won’t get Chivalry
*didn't buy/build any horsemen, only 1 warrior, starting warrior that became Spear, archers/Comp/Xbows, and Scouts
*Great Wall in St. Petersburg
T91 Dublin; Edinburgh next for that army
T91 captured 6th capital: Vienna (Great Lighthouse, Hanging Gardens). 34 turns faster. Peace deal. 1 city to go. Now allied with both CS near Edinburgh
*deleting units final few turns
T95 captured 7th capital: Edinburgh (Parthenon). 34 turns faster

This game really brought home to me how much early game advantages and early city captures can snowball. With ridiculous early game advantages, the math surrounding beakers/hammers re: necessity of Writing/Libraries and Philosophy/NC becomes quite interesting, which led to my decision to make an Illiterate Domination attempt.

Policies

Spoiler :

Religion

Spoiler :

Science

Spoiler :

Victory

Spoiler :

Whoah, amazing really. Even with the fact that you knew the map, it stays impressive. Very much like what you did on the arabian DCL.

I think i'm gonna try and copy cat that play. I will certainly learn a lot from that as i'm not too good at going for a different plan than the classic NC->machinery for early\mid wars.

 

[claudiupb]

T240 Cultural Victory

Spoiler :

This game was crazy! Was it even Deity? It felt like Emperor. I totally disregarded a lot of things I do on a regular basis, I rarely micromanaged my citizens, I built hermitage and forgot to theme it until I got my next Great Artist, I never even bothered to grow 2 of my cities, I even started to build a wonder that took 23 turns to complete in the Information Era. From time to time I felt like I was way to slow, but then I looked at the Turn Timer and just wow, in a normal game I would have been way behind.

The early game was extremely lucky, but I guess that has to do with some map tweaking. Found Mt. Kilimanjaro very soon and got 500 gold. I used some to buy a stone tile, to speed my production, because I could not rush a settler yet. This did not delay my first settler at all, I planted it west in the desert. I managed to find 2 religious City States for 16 faith just when a pantheon was 15. I went with one with nature, even though Moult Kilimanjaro was in the 3rd ring, and I did not have the money to buy the tiles. My scout went east were it found an unguarded Celtic settler, which became my worker. Then I found my second NW, which I settled (but that city, while it gave me a combined manufacture/academy at first was in a very bad spot overall). I hard build my 4th settler which was used for a city north of my capital to grab an additional 2 unique luxuries. I tried to prioritize sailing to get a trireme, and it payed off, because there was a chain of islands in the south with Great Barrier which gave me another 1000 Gold. All the other NWs found gave me 100 gold as I was not first to find them. This is because I forgot it was an earth map and did not rush some caravels to explore the new world first.

Tech wise I went for Currency before Philosophy to get Petra in my first expo, and then I went for Education. Other beelines were Metal Casting, Acoustics, Printing Press (managed to get both LToP and Globe Theater I can rarely pull that off even at emperor), Architecture, Electricity (used Oxford for Radio in order to get Ideology - Freedom), Archeology, Replaceable Parts, Refrigeration (I wasn't ready for Hotels earlier, since there was also the WF, which I needed to win, and I did not have the cash to rush buy them), Internet, Radar.

I got a religion with 2 buildings, Mosques and Cathedrals, this helped me get more artifacts and more tourism. In the end I had all great work of arts slots full (Hermitage + Sistine Chapel were filed with great works of arts and themed, the other were filled with artifacts, so only the museums were themed). I didn't go for Sacred Sites, since that my religion was not that powerful, I only managed to get all buildings in Industrial era, and for SS I would have needed a lot more cities to pay off. At 16 tourism it was not worth it no matter how early it was.

Policy wise I went: full Tradition, Aesthetics (5 policies), opened Rationalism then finished Aesthetics. After that Freedom to level 3, and finished Rationalism during WF (except for the last which I saved for free Internet). I did not go for Rationalism as soon as I got to Renaissance since I wanted to get more from Aesthetics.

The map favored cultural victory, since there were a ton of unclaimed artifacts, I actually managed to fill all the slots, and theme everything that could be themed. I could have planted a 5th Expo to grab both GBR but I did not bother since it was too far away, and I needed to get a missionary there to spread religion.

 

[Blatc]

Whoah, amazing really. Even with the fact that you knew the map, it stays impressive. Very much like what you did on the arabian DCL.

I think i'm gonna try and copy cat that play. I will certainly learn a lot from that as i'm not too good at going for a different plan than the classic NC->machinery for early\mid wars.

Cool. Make sure you get the Mt. Kil promotion on all units. Enjoy the Scout-captures!

 

[sweaty_wombat]

Fun map overall.

Spoiler :

Pretty sure it's possible to win closer to 200 if not for the war with Cathy.

Settled Madrid on coast near the NW, extremely strong capital, started aiming for petra, had enough gold to buy 2 settlers for 3city NC from the UA. Meanwhile built ToA + HG. Got OwN as pantheon. Stole 2 settlers from celts and 2 CS workers.

Petra T70, NC T75. Also grabbed Colossus, MoH, Oracle. Also quickly settled the 4th city.
Around the same time, at T80, Cathy suddenly backstabs DoW without any warning. Had to tech detour for Construction which delayed Education to T112 and buy units which definitely slowed down my game a lot. During the war, Cathy forward settled a city right next to Madrid. I had to raze the city as I'm sure she'll GG bomb me if I left it there. After I decimated the invading force, I tried to go for St Petersburg but the terrain wasn't great and I didn't nearly have enough units. Took white peace T136 since my capital was busy building other wonders such as Globe + LtoP. I should've just peace a lot earlier as I'm losing 15% growth from religion when I'm at war. Pretty sure it cost my finishing time at least 10 turns.

After the war, DoF with Cathy and signed RA until the end when she got her ideology.
Got Taj Mahal, PT, Big Ben, SoL, Hubble, standard freedom SV wonders. Didn't go for wonder whore when I'm behind, except I did get Sistine Chapel when I notice nobody built it for a long time. It's good for quicker SP.

Interesting that Cathy converted Madrid to her religion and I had to waste some prophets. Kind of stupid that I had to have units circling each city to prevent further conversions. Lucky that during the war I captured at least 3 of her prophets and I had a ton of faith from the holy sites.

ST 143, Plastics 172, Hubble 199 with GE, Apollo 205, bought 2 more GS to finish the techs.
It's always nice to see a capital of size 50+. I actually used one of my GG to citadel bomb Lhasa so that Madrid can grow more.

Damn man! How in the world do you pull off a 52 pop by turn ~200. Are you running every food trade route towards your cap all game? Do you tech for hospitals and medical labs really early or something? I can only JUST get near 40 population despite doing pretty much what every else does (HG, Petra, trade routes).

 

[Sclb]

Damn man! How in the world do you pull off a 52 pop by turn ~200. Are you running every food trade route towards your cap all game? Do you tech for hospitals and medical labs really early or something? I can only JUST get near 40 population despite doing pretty much what every else does (HG, Petra, trade routes).

Only 1 cargo + 1 caravan for cap, had enough gold to buy hospitals and medical labs in every city with loans.

 

[Stolare]

First sub 250 victory T 237 CV

Was really surprise how many wonders I was able to get late. Did not beeline Petra, Colossus was still around late so picked it up in 3 turns. Was able to get wonders had never had a shot before: Hanging Gardens, Chichen Itza, Notre Dame, Sydney Opera House and a few others--Madrid was just cranking out the wonders.

Was a fun map to get my fifth challenge on. Would have been faster but could not get international games in the second vote and Russia would not give me open borders. Catherine could still not stop the Flamenco wave from swamping her borders. Paella > Borscht

 

[Acken]

Getting fast medical labs has a big influence on pop numbers. It almost doubles your food efficiency. But to be honest it hasn't time to be a huge impact on your end game results.

 

[sweaty_wombat]

Only 1 cargo + 1 caravan for cap, had enough gold to buy hospitals and medical labs in every city with loans.

When do you managed to tech to hospital and medical labs? I'm often rushing away to plastics and then straight onto Apollo / Hubble / Boosters. Then I am often using GS to bulb out the rest of the game.

But it only leaves a 15 turn gap where I can actually use medical labs and I'd rather use that gold to buy Research Labs or Space Parts. Because of this I find I never get over 40 pop by turn ~220 (earliest SV of mine)