The Deity Challenge Line-up #26 - Celts

[Acken]

Important:
You MUST download the map version provided in this thread. If you previously got it from when Consentient posted it before stoping being the host, the map was slightly modified from its original creation for experimental purposes.

Welcome to the Deity Challenge Line-up!



- The spreadsheet of all challenge finishers to date has been updated and is available here.
Rules:

Spoiler :

This was a fortnightly event, but the schedule has changed and new games will now be posted every 10 days.

- All the games in this series are set to Deity difficulty.
- User civilizations, maps, and opponents change with each challenge, but the game speed is always set to Standard and the starting era is always Ancient.
- We try for a variety of starts
- This isn't a competition so there will be no predefined victory conditions.
- If you complete 5 challenges, your name will be added to the 'Top Finishers' list.

* We welcome all comments and write-ups and invite you to post screenshots of key moments and the moment of victory (if you are successful), but please use the spoiler tag if you post a picture, make a comment about which civs are in the game, or about wonders, or locations of ancient ruins, etc.

* In short, if it’s information you can only know by playing the game, don’t spoil it for others by divulging this information in the open. Thank you for your co-operation

New - For better view please put your results in bold letters so that the person that updates the spreadsheet can quickly see it.

DCL Game #26
You: Celts
Map Type:

Spoiler :

Fractal

Difficulty:

Spoiler :

Medium

Starting Location:

Spoiler :

Settings: Quick combat/movement (turn it back on if you would like)
Everything else is set to default.
Game Version - 1.0.3.276
Downloadable Content: – G&K, BNW, Conquest of the New World Deluxe, Genghis Khan's Mongolia, Harold Bluetooth's Denmark, Isabella’s Sapin and Pachacuti's Incan Empire, Kamehameha's Polynesian Empire, Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon, Sejong The Great's Korea, Wonders of the Ancient World. The map packs are intentionally excluded.

Schedule

Spoiler :

Game #1 20/06/14 The Zulu Pangaea
Game #2 04/07/14 America Continents
Game #3 18/07/14 Persia Continents
Game #4 01/08/14 Sweden Pangaea
Game #5 15/08/14 The Inca Pangaea
Game #6 29/08/14 Byzantium Continents
Game #7 12/09/14 Ethiopia Pangaea
Game #8 26/09/14 Mongolia Pangaea
Game #9 10/10/14 Rome Small Continents
Game #10 24/10/14 Polynesia Terra
Game #11 07/11/14 Morocco Pangaea
Game #12 21/11/14 The Maya Continents
Game #13 05/12/14 Indonesia Continents
Game #14 19/12/14 (Xmas Special) The Netherlands Small Continents
Game #15 19/12/14 (Xmas Special) Poland Pangaea
Game #16 02/01/15 China Pangaea
Game #17 16/01/15 Germany Pangaea
Game #18 23/01/15 OCC Babylon Continents
Game #19 02/02/15 Aztecs Pangea
Game #20 12/02/15 Spain Terra
Game #21 20/02/15 India Continents
Game #22 28/02/15 Brazil Pangea
Game #23 10/03/15 Huns Continents
Game #24 20/03/15 Arabia Pangea
Game #25 30/03/15 (April Fool's) Venice Pangea
Game #26 10/04/15 Celts Fractal

I hope you all enjoy the map!

If you have any comments, questions or would like to submit a map for consideration for future challenges, please send an email to: deitychallenge@outlook.com
*Temporary kept the same mail address, may change in the future - Acken

Please note that submitted maps MUST have map packs disabled, so those who do not have them can enjoy the challenge. To do this, you MUST go into the DLC option from the Main Menu and untick the options ‘Scrambled Nations’, ‘Explorers Map Pack’ and ‘Scrambled Continents’. You will need to do this EVERY TIME you start a new game, or just simply delete the map packs. I suggest you disable these map DLCs on steam directly. Steam will uninstall them, just reactivate them when you need them. Thanks.

 

[Acken]

Important:
You MUST download the map version provided in this thread. If you previously got it from when Consentient posted it before stoping being the host, the map was slightly modified from its original creation for experimental purposes.

 

[stormtrooper412]

map says

Spoiler :

Fractal

btw

 

[Acken]

Thanks, modified.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

certainly a lovely start for the UA. even has two forests you wont have to eventually chop if you settle in place. and a hill river coast without moving anywhere. i'll either move the warrior to the hill across the wine or move him thru the city to the deer.

 

[stormtrooper412]

meh...

Spoiler :

Absolutely nothing went right, planned Liberty with Monasteries and use Liberty finisher to GE Petra in the eastern oasis, while farming for workers and then picking up Oracle on the way to Acoustics. Ended up with absolutely nothing, Petra got taken turn 57, all religions were gone turn 60-ish, I really hate this "chance for a great prophet" thing, I was sitting on enough faith to get one at least 5 turns. I also got beaten to every wonder, but at least I was quite rich for the most part. Happiness was also not an issue because luxuries are quite diverse. I then got invaded from the East which caught me flat footed.. Meh, I wasn't really going to finish this anyway, felt like a proper chore

 

[Acken]

@Moderation:

I would like to make an announcement thread on the General section. Not a thread per DCL but a one thread containing links everytime a new one is posted. The purpose would be to get more exposure. I'd also would be willing to put links toward the immortal challenges in OP if people from the ICL team are willing to put announcements in that thread (would like it to be always the same person to diminish confusion).

Would you be ok ?

 

[consentient]

Great idea. Can't see why they'd have a problem with it

 

[Acken]

Playing a wide liberty + Jesuit reformation game. Got T115 Edu.

Spoiler :

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Playing a wide liberty + Jesuit reformation game. Got T115 Edu.

Spoiler :

Full Liberty and Piety into Reformation?

 

[kb27787]

Spoiler :

For the most part, tech seems OK, t110 or so education and looks like will be Science theory ~t170. 3 cities God-King tradition.

Why God-King you ask? Well, because the unreliability of culture ruins for one, getting God-King with 3 forest tiles as Celt nets you sometimes enough faith to found a religion just like that (although in my case, all religions were taken under 100 turns so the pantheon indeed served its purpose well) Goddess of the hunt was another option (Goddess of Festivals means you have to work the wine tiles early, so it's out of the question); but getting God-King and guaranteed ToA is better since +10% food +10% growth will outdo +1 food from camps midgame onwards.


Uncharacteristically for me, settled quite early for my standards. The most obvious spot if you are going to hit the ground running with ToA and God-King.


Mining first and worker first (no scouts until later); then 2nd worker, granary for deer and chop-chop-chop ToA t37. Did not steal any workers. (map being fractal, I don't have any guarantee a civ is nearby anyway and by the time I knew it, I got forward-settled by Persia pretty darn early)


Going wide piety like Acken would've been a massive fail in my game. The missionaries and prophets are relentless. Got some pagodas from Hiawatha eventually before getting all converted by Persia (who, for some reason, gets a salt start and is pretty much a runaway).


Overall, pretty happy with the midgame wonders so far. Fractal maps are really hard on the AI (similar to archipelago); less land means their cities don't grow big; and due most AIs going piety, their capitols seem to stop growing much past 20+ish, so I expect to get all the later game wonders. Only thing I wish was better is faith income, but that cannot be helped. Fractal is ANNOYING for scouting though... your units get choked up so badly you pretty much are forced to get optics or leave the map unexplored

 

[Acken]

Full Liberty and Piety into Reformation?

No, collective rule + Reformation.

 

[Grendeldef]

Since the DCL #18 is OCC I skipped right into this with flowers in my mind so no early DoWs & recruiting foreign workers but I still won't do Tradition.

Spoiler :

Nothing has happened. Desert Folklore on T6 though I settled the 2nd city in the face of Darius which he didn't appreciate at all but seems to be more keen on wonders than attacking me. DoF with Hiawatha but he also complained me settling every place imaginable + few others. Met Gandhi only few turns ago which was a bit unfortunate, others & their location is unknown.

Moneywise things have reasonably well until I had to borrow from Hiawatha to buy few tiles to prevent him settling near my future luxes. Nobody wants iron but at least horses sell.

Peaceful under the Sun apart from me vs Hanoi to get a worker on T28 at which point I had a hard built worker and have since build 2 which is just sad. I'll probably DoW someone at some point but out of curiosity testing how's life without a war - mostly boring.
Liberty finished T75 and I took GE which will be used for 5C NC in 2 turns as the last Libs are ready. After that I may even found few more cities just for the fun of - having more cities than Hiawatha without conquering his is an achievement on it's own. Further than I have now plans but I assume some sort of warpath will call me with the arrival of XBows.

Last religion on T62 but unlike usually no other religions were founded while I was waiting my lazy prophets. No happiness buildings available but as Darius didn't get a religion there'll be some gpt from it in the long run.

Capital size 3 @T55 and 5 @T70 is some sort of record even for me but couldn't be helped without internal TRs and bad luck with CS quests as only fullfilled one is a camp clearance - get GMusicians @50 has some problems so not a single CS ally and only 1 friend.

 

[tschukki]

180 turns in, many things not going according to plan. Settling messed up, religion messed up. Still in a very winnable position but probably not as quickly as most others

Spoiler :

Which pantheon to pick was the first question. Wine/incense was an option, camp food another, plenty of tiles for both, but both poor pantheons, especially wine. Went with desert folklore once i found the neverending floodplains east with three unique luxes in it.

Where to settle in which order was the second question. On the one hand i wanted to secure a coastal west and block persia who was forwardsettling the out of me, on the other i wanted to get the desert faith rolling. Looking at ackens screenshot suggests that i set my priorities wrong?! Did a compromise first settle with Dublin which led to the coastal spot west of my cap being taken by persia immediately. Ended up with a 5 city tradition start, also snatched the dyes far east which hiawatha heavily disliked.

Sent an early caravan to persia to make him stop coveting even more of my land. Was invaded by a huge iroquois army around turn 100. Fought it off easily, but still that was a setback. Religion went far worse than i hoped. Got last religion, lost desert faith quickly and after buying all the pagodas and mosques from persias and iroquois' religion im not sure if i should really use a prophet to reconvert my cities for 15% production plus garden happiness. The settling and faith situation makes me very unhappy so far.

Tech feels slow, hammers feel poor, but demos say im actually doing well. Maybe that is because im used to quick speed.

For a general approach the first idea was to go for an order based culture victory since i have never done that. But looking at the insane culture output of the other guys ill probably just do science. After some scouting also domination came to mind. Most civs, maybe even all of them, seem to be coastal, so just driving around with frigates/battleships and killing everyone may be possible.

Spoiler :

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foto hochladen[/IMG]

 

[consentient]

Really awful T321 SV

As you can probably tell from the screenshot, this was an aborted CV attempt. Played 'KB' style with no bribes, no war, even worker steals. For various reasons, I could not get my tourism to overtake the lifetime culture, and meanwhile,

Spoiler :

GW

was almost ready to launch. So I put together an emergency space program as quickly as possible, by selling all science buildings and many other buildings too, and begging, borrowing or stealing enough to be able to buy the SS parts. I would bet all the money on my real bank account that I won by less than one turn, purely because the human player gets to go first. Absolutely desperate. I need more practise at overcoming anything over 50k of culture.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Wow, two more attempts wasted due to just how terrible frustrating the circumstances were. First time around, all religions gone by turn 55, second time that insane dude with the beard up and settled everywhere. I have a plan now, but I'm honestly getting tired of Deity level scripted play. I think I'm gonna hit the Communitas mod, it looks really awesome

 

[consentient]

Communitas is not a mod. It's a complete overhaul. Virtually everything is changed. You'll have to relearn how to play. I don't mind adjusting my play (for example, in response to a patch change like the Tradition nerf, or earlier Berserkers) but when the whole game is changed, I just feel like that's too much of a chore. If everyone else also played Communitas it might be a smoother learning curve, but that's a Catch-22, really.

But anyway, sorry you're having difficulty on this map, Stormtrooper. Maybe you can try a run where you don't worry about religion at all? Or Small Piety? There's also a new Immortal map up to have a crack at. Don't despair!

 

[stormtrooper412]

Yeah Communitas is much different than I expected, it feels like a new game altogether.

I definitely should have a crack at the Immortal map, like I said, every move on Deity is pretty much scripted and that's tiring

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

Yeah, lots of options on the Immortal #21 England map.

 

[Grendeldef]

...like I said, every move on Deity is pretty much scripted and that's tiring

If that's suppose to mean that the AI follows a linear path in every game and hence the player is forced to do the same I'd disagree, more than slightly. In most cases AI's actions or lack of them are totally irrelevant apart from Shaka as next door neighbour - that requires closer look at what he's doing but other than that player can pretty much start with any policy tree, settle any number of cities and just mess around for fun or for no reason at all. The AI isn't a threat in any way, shape or form.

This is highly different world than in vanilla for example when one was quarenteed an invasion from at least one AI before T40, Monte came @T20 and multiple DoWs weren't rare at all, sure the game was usually won after the defending succesfully that early attack but now even that isn't required. Now there isn't mandatory build orders for anything - going without units is fine if so wanted.

On later turns being an era behind makes no difference as AI is gloriously incompetent of actually winning the game. It will rather make a 180 degree turn just before finish to do something totally pointless. Getting the AI to win a game is tricky with most starts.