The Deity Challenge Line-up #21 - India

If you have shaka next to you it would be best to research and make the best units you can make, preferably crossbowmen and be ready for his attack. As long as you have military and defenses.
Meh. I just made Shaka clear the continent... and then, he warmed up to me after t250, and then his people revolted and adopted our world ideology from the remaining 3 civs on the map. :lol: I managed to convert pretty much the entire continent, and the red religion modifier disappeared after 200 turns or something. I did not get the "they adopted our religion in majority of cities" modifier, so perhaps they cancelled each other out.

Actually, this map is easier than it looks. Other than managing Shaka, there are no difficult AI's, surprisingly. I was playing Piety/Commerce and literally almost won world leader vote after t300-something. Unfortunately, I did not work scientist slots in favor of Great Merchants and did not pick Rationalism. If I had put slightly more effort on science, I could have literally won a DiploV playing like a total moron with no wonders, no science, no growth, no army, etc. etc.

My goal was playing religion, but I got majorly confused with Evangelism, religion spread, pressure, etc. I think I will start a new thread to better understand religion mechanics.


Also, I loled @ "America is better at Shoshone" and the troll post "Has anyone won with the Shoshone on Deity?" :goodjob:
 
Also, you contradict yourself when you posit that UUs are irrelevant unless they're on the normal archer path. The fastest victories of all have been recorded by people with CA replacements, haven't they?

No, I wrote
the UUs are mostly for flavor and don't do much, unless they are already in good archery line eg. Chu-Ko-Nu, longbowmen or mounted archery units.

Of course there are also Impies :)
 
Greetings! Long time lurker here! Just wanted to say that I really like the concept of these challenges, and I threw myself onto this one (and I realize now that I'm looking forward to trying another one, as this one is pretty painful).

I haven't finished yet, but I don't really think it's winnable at this point, as I did almost everything wrong (but learned a lot doing it). I don't win most of my diety-games anyway, and have a tendency to fixate on something early game, and if that doesn't work, I'm screwed. In this game I decided (stupidly) to attempt a cultural victory (Bollywood-style!), and had already picked a couple of Aesthetics-policies and opened up Exploration before coming to the conclusion that I couldn't possibly do it, and attempting to salvage a science win. Sejong is too far ahead, though, but I'll see how close I can get.

Really happy with the way I made the AIs fight between themselves the entire game (Shaka and Ashurbanipal have been warring min stop) and keeping away from me, but having to adopt Autocracy doesn't really help my science, and my only remaining friend is Shaka.

Trying to play peacefully is fun, as I'm more comfortable being a warmonger. I'll post back when I've finally bitten the bullet! :)


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Yeah, I was just a SP and a couple of techs too late in switching to going for a SV, methinks. Would still be touch-and-go, but I believe it's too late now. Will play it out and see, though. :) If I win it will be ridicilously late. XD


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Right guys. So my next escapade in the DCLs was India, and since noone was going for it, I thought I'd go for the CV.
Spoiler :
As almost always on these DCLs, we're surrounded by aggressive civs. Not a problem, just the usual Small Piety diplomacy (without going Piety).

Acken has taught me that you can move your starting settler for a few turns if it's going to get you better dirt. I love my coastal capitals so as the starting dirt wasn't too good, thought I'd take a wander. Good decision I think as I got a decent capital with coast and mountain. Bad news was that I met Genghis. Good news though by that time I'd already met Shaka and Assyria. Just gotta spread the love, and make them hate each other.

Quick scouting made it clear that 2/3 cities would be the only viable options. India sucks in the early game, but if you do manage to get the cities you want out they are awesome in the late game, for obvious reasons.

Shaka declared on me relatively early on, despite me sucking up to him. But my capital was in such a decent spot, he didn't even bring his units within one tile of my city. That was really weird, and eventually we made peace.

I missed out on the key mid game cultural wonders (Sistine, Pisa and Uffizi), but tried to hang on in there sciencewise (India's UA kicking in) and I was able to get Eiffel Tower and Louvre. Missed out on SoL as well, but focused on diplomacy and denying the others the cultural city states, which is absolutely vital.

Obviously it was full Tradition, then I dipped 3 policies into Patronage early which I think is more than worth it, and didn't bother to put the last two into Rationalism. Mid-late game Aesthetics and Freedom.

3 GMs bought by faith were enough, a bit of World Religion, and that was it.
 

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Sejong launched turn 305, and I was miles behind. But I know which mistakes I made (and there was plenty of them!), so it was a nice game to play out. Starter up the Spain DCL, and I'm learning a lot less. [emoji6] Great change of pace.


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Meh. I just made Shaka clear the continent... and then, he warmed up to me after t250, and then his people revolted and adopted our world ideology from the remaining 3 civs on the map. :lol: I managed to convert pretty much the entire continent, and the red religion modifier disappeared after 200 turns or something. I did not get the "they adopted our religion in majority of cities" modifier, so perhaps they cancelled each other out.

Actually, this map is easier than it looks. Other than managing Shaka, there are no difficult AI's, surprisingly. I was playing Piety/Commerce and literally almost won world leader vote after t300-something. Unfortunately, I did not work scientist slots in favor of Great Merchants and did not pick Rationalism. If I had put slightly more effort on science, I could have literally won a DiploV playing like a total moron with no wonders, no science, no growth, no army, etc. etc.

My goal was playing religion, but I got majorly confused with Evangelism, religion spread, pressure, etc. I think I will start a new thread to better understand religion mechanics.


Also, I loled @ "America is better at Shoshone" and the troll post "Has anyone won with the Shoshone on Deity?" :goodjob:

I'm sorry about the troll post but I was worried because I live geographically close to that civilization. Not only that but I have personally failed to be victorious with the local civilizations at deity level. Not only that but in civilization 4 there have been so many civilizations in it but not all of them got to be victorious. I was coming back from civilization 4 deity as sitting bull since they're geographically close to me and have failed so many times with them. It isn't my intention to have you believe that I was trolling.
 
T242

I'm about 20 turns off the 1st WL vote. Of course I will win, but I need to take a break. I've been playing this one as slowly and carefully as I'm able, and trying to push Gandhi's UA as far as possible, in response to and in anticipation of more negative comments on my tier thread. I don't think people really get the maths of it, so I'm sharing this screenshot with you to show you what is possible.

SPs are Full Tradition, Full Patronage, Commerce Opener, a few in Exploration, everything in Freedom that gives happiness, and I beelined Iron Working and nabbed the Colossus. The backbone of my strategy has been using Shaka as an attack dog and giving everyone decent prices so that they like me enough to make repeat trades. I have World Religion, World Ideology and lots of other stuff, but the UA is responsible for a decent chunk of this happiness.

Of course, I'd gotten the Soma Pills achievement before, but like on King or something. This is definitely the happiest I've ever pushed a civ to on Deity.
 
Can you hover the mouse over the smiley face icon to show the happiness breakdown and screen that
 
I don't think India is underrated because of their UA lategame. It is the fact that it is painful to expand early -- when the AI's can grab all the good city spots -- in addition to poor production jungle starts with nothing to compensate (like Brazilwood camp, for example). The UA is amazing the taller you grow, but you kind of have to be able to expand rapidly on Deity and have frontloaded bonuses to be top-tier.
 
Can you hover the mouse over the smiley face icon to show the happiness breakdown and screen that

Aha, yes, I realise now that would have made a lot more sense. As you can see, 51 of it is from local city happiness. So, even though it would be normal to have all the CS lux at this stage of the DiploV, ordinarily I would have a ton of unhappiness to drain it out. I'm sure someone can calculate for me what the normal happiness would be with the Neutrals, but that 51 local city happiness is probably what pushes it to such great heights.
 
T266 DiploV

I just clicked Next Turn and found a few more ways to increase the wanton joy of my Indian subjects until the vote came round. [For those of you who haven't seen it, I started a thread asking how I can better time hitting the Information Era so I don't have to endure the waiting.]

Peak happiness was 135 at the end of the turn before victory. I have a suspicion I will never come close to that again!

A really fun game. Even after I'd done the hard work and was clicking Next Turn it was fun to watch the rest of the world at war with one another and completely ignoring me because Gandhi had a nuke and somehow they KNOW he would use it...I wonder how that could be...? :D

Shaka was a loyal servant as always. The rest of them were about as haphazard and psychopathic as they ever were and it was interesting to watch the ebb and flow of their power. At one point Ash controlled 3/4 of the continent, then was reduced to nothing. Likewise, about 20 turns before victory Cathy controlled about 2/3 of the whole world then was dog piled and even lost her capital.

Probably the most fun peaceful game I've ever had. DiploV alone isn't the most fun, but once I realised quite how much happiness I would be able to get, I just kept pushing it as far as I could.

This map was GRRRREAT for gold, and I planned around that.

Finishing SPs: Full Tradition, Full Patronage, Secularism, all but the last one in Exploration, Commerce Opener, a bunch in Freedom.

Wonders: Colossus (first time for me), Chichen Itza, Big Ben, SoL, SOH, CN Tower, LToP, Neuschwanstein
 
T298 Science Victory


That finishes up the first 26 DCL for me and covers the games I finished while on vacation and then during the forum downtime.

Major setbacks in this game included being DOW'd by my 2 closest neighbours (didn't lose any cities) and having a GP nearly wipe out my religion (Sacred Path, Tithe, Swords into Plowshares, and Religious Community = this cost me culture, gold, growth, and production!). Timing was poor again, but happy to have DCL #9, 10, 14, and 21 completed.

Spoiler :




Just noticed, in that screenshot, you can see where my remaining neighbour stole land from me with a GG-citadel and then, later, burned the city.
 
T276 SV

I'm quite surprised that I won on the first attempt without restart. Map is moderately difficult. Diplo would save me around 10 turns, but it wasn't possible at the first vote due to too many CS disappearing.

Spoiler :

Only managed 3 city NC start as there are 2 aggressive neighbors and I don't see good enough extra lux for 4th. Happiness was a problem after the 3rd city until all lux are hooked up. Genghis was killed by Shaka shortly after I stole his workers. It wasn't ideal as Shaka settled very close to my capital and later stole land with GG twice, severely reducing my capital's growth potential. The good thing is by bribing him to attack his neighbors, I was able to remain at peace with him for the entire game. He would sometimes go hostile and back to neutral within a few turns. By the end of game, he would kill both Mecca and Assur.

Only wonders I got were Oracle, Big Ben and Hubble. Lost SoL to Maria who went Freedom a lot later. Should've used GE on it.

Sejong was a huge science runaway and was still ahead of me in tech when I won. I kept him in a late war with both his neighbors so that he couldn't build SS parts as quick. He still managed to build 3. No other civs had any parts yet.

Barely won WF, big mistake was to pass world ideology: freedom, as everyone denounced me after that and that cost me a lot of turns as I can't borrow gold for spaceship parts. I was forced to build 1 of the part. Austria went freedom, but she was hated by everyone and won't be my friend. I was only able to keep my religion in the capital, both my expos got converted by GPr.
 

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Replayed this for a t267 Diplo. I messed around this game, dipping into 3 trees early on, then 2 more, and completing only one. It was a "small Piety" playstyle game. I built the NC on t176 or something. Production sucked, food sucked... everything sucked, though I did get Stonehenge (had to reload because AI beat me by 1 turn). After t220, I started aggressively spying and stealing techs, purchased all science buildings (didn't have universities until t200+), and went Rationalism. I was sucking Shaka's dick the whole game and picked Autocracy with industrial espionage, so with some lucky steals from Sejong and a couple bulbs and scholars in residence, I was able to Oxford Globalization just 3 turns before the vote. Weirdest game ever. In other news, sacred path + commerce finisher + free thought = 2 :c5food: 3 :c5science: 3 :c5gold: 1 :c5culture: jungle tiles.
 

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I wanted to play a specific strategy with India so I gave this map a shot: stay at one city, build ToA and spam War Elephants to conquer an empire. I was very lucky to have this pulled off because with the low hammer start I still don't know how I was able to pull off ToA. The initial build order was scout, scout, ToA then spam War Elephants (I think 5 initially, then a break for granary and then another 3). SP wise: liberty left side, then full tradition, rationalism, order to level 3 and try to finish liberty for the free GP (but never got to it). Because I started the liberty tree I had trouble finishing the tradition tree in time, and ended up getting the last policy in tradition long into renaissance. The extra hammer from lierty sure helped but that second city probably not too much at that point.

I was also lucky to abuse a barb camp south and liberate a CS worker multiple times, which gave me an alliance that allowed me to get a religion, and from the other southern city state I got 2 spearmen which was quite useful as I had not built any melee units. I bribed a war between zulu and mongols and then attacked the zulu while they still had archers and spearrmen (I actually had to reload because in my first attempt I attacked mongols first and after that the zulu had impis). After getting the Zulu capital and 1st expo I took 2 cities in peace deal (one originally beloinging to mongols) and left them with a crappy city. Then I took the mongol capital and also left them with a crappy city. By now I had 6 cites, 2 of which were self founded, and was working on NC. After NC, I planted a 7th city, and started to catch up with others.

In the end Assyria eliminated everyone on the contintent except the zulu who they couldn't reach thanks to me, and I eventually had to bribe them to dow the zulu just to leave me alone. After meeting the others, Assyria was glad to dow almost anyone for 4-5 GPT, so they kept things in check. This allowed me to get Eiffel Tower even though Korea was already ahead in tech. I was second to Order, after Korea. This has it's perks as Korea proposed the world ideology, and eventually Assyria flipped form autocracy and we became bff again.

Developing infrastructure was hard as many cities were slower, but after getting skyscrapers I just bought key buildings like hydro plants in order to help thin the build queue in some expos. I mostly built the science buildings with the exception of a few in the capital and 1st expi.

Being a hybrid between tall and wide allowed me to easily win WF and IG so I got a lot of SPs form that, allowing me to catch up with rationalism and even continue to liberty. I eventually surpassed the AI by info era thanks to bulbing.

I also got the LToP with a bulb from a natural spawned GE (ToA is responsible for that), but I chose a GS instead of a GE which would have been better.In the end I had so many GS, I just bulbed them like crazy, even though for many I did hit the bulb cap and lost some beakers. I even bulbed Future Tech. The problem was not the science, but the hammers for the spaceship parts. I did buy 2 GEs, one for Kremlin as I was unsure I would get it, and the other was used for a part. The free one from the Level 3 Tenet was also used for a part but I still had to build the rest. I wanted to finish liberty for another free GE but I was 1 policy short so I ended up building the last parts.
 

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