The Deity Challenge Line-up #26 - Celts

[Blatc]

Blatc I think I'll have to choose a new nickname. You are FAR more bloodthirsty than I am!

Maybe a little too (early) bloodthirsty.
I had 2 failed attempts on this map. I wanted to use the UU, along with archers, to start an early rush and roll from there. While I was able to get my closest neighbour in the T50s both times...well as you can see in the pic above, my science was at 130 at T137. On a pangaea/terra/etc. map with everyone closer together, this could have worked out, but on this map I think it was a mistake.
I'm replaying with a 5-city Liberty start and no war in the first 100 turns. In the T130-150 range my science is double what it was in those previous attempts, so I have tech lead with Navigation done and Artillery (Oxford-Dynamite) available soon. I'm getting more comfortable using naval units, but will have to learn how to use Artillery and later tech units. Hopefully it's still 'Stick them with the pointy end'.

 

[Blatc]

T216 Domination Victory
Although I found this map challenging, in that I had to follow a different strategy than pangaea, I think it's a great map that gives the player lots of options for how to win. Normally on anything with capitals on more than 1 land mass, I've just gone for Science victory, so it was good to finally expand and adjust my game. A few brief notes and pictures in the spoiler.

Spoiler :

With 3 of the 4 closest city states being cultural, clearing barb camps and returning workers netted me 2 cultural CS allies leading to finishing Liberty on T58 - got a GE, but wasn't ready to use it yet.
Philosophy on T60 and 4-city National College on T62, immediately building a 5th city (I had less than 400 gold, so that settler was just waiting) and science was at 41.
T69 finished Pyramids and have 8(!) workers; I deleted several in early T100s as there wasn't much left to do
Opened Patronage T72, finished the Oracle T81, and got Scholasticism on T89 - had 2 CS allies at the time and 1 friend. At T89 science was at 71: 54 from my 5 cities, 10 from TR sent to me (I wasn't sending any out), and 7.5 from CS
T103 Education. Built all universities (by T119 I think), saving gold as I tech to Navigation
Opened Exploration (+1 movement and sight to naval); I think this was decently helpful, probably my first time opening the policy tree
Got Navigation T125 but didn't have much gold yet. DOW'd Persia a few turns later, partly to start getting XP on existing units
T146 captured Persepolis (1)
T150 Science is at 301 (Persepolis still in resistance) and we have Tech lead by 2!
T153 Chicago, which was East of Washington and my 'base' from which to attack the capital
T162 captured Washington (2): 10 wonders, including Great Wall, Forbidden Palace, Notre Dame, and Himeji Castle!
*shortly after getting Washington I split the army in 2. Land units finished of America then started on Rome, with new land units bought/purchased in Washington. Iroquois DOW'd me after T177, when I wiped out America, as I was still putting together a 2nd army for them and India, which was a combo of land and naval units.
T165 Oxford-Dynamite
T192 Onondaga (3)
T194 Rome (4), had Zeus
T200 Ideology: Autocracy. I don't remember going Autocracy before. I had 2 GW and 2 GA saved up to help get policies, but at this point it really didn't matter
T207 Addis Ababa (5)
T216 final 2 Athens and Delhi, same turn

Artillery with a good road network are fantastic! As are logistics Frigates!

Spoiler :

 

[peddroelm]

in progress ~T198

went liberty 6 city liberty-honor .. Oxforded late artillery. Still got first autocracy pick .. Only beaten Darius so far (was Nr1 with tons of wonders) .. Going for Rome next (weak and has Statue of Zeus) .. Have a choice to all in with industrial tech (I think is doable) - or try to kick in some science for battleships (safer play but will probably delay time to final victory).. Won world fare. World might DOW me soon (massive hate fest) ..

Spoiler :

youtube playlist

 

[peddroelm]

T246 Domi win ..
Very poor show from AIs (gave me tech lead for most game, never fought against airforce wielding enemies) ..

Spoiler :

 

[Sclb]

I've never played the celts before so I wanted to try their UB and that leads me to CV. (who actually builds opera houses for non CV anyway)
I also wanted to experiment on wide liberty + piety play due to the +3 happiness from UB and the strong starting faith generation.

Spoiler :

Settled in place on the coast. Figured that I would need the cargo ships for gold/food. Turns out that was correct with Persia immediately to the south. Meanwhile scout went east and found that the continent had a lot of space for a super wide 8 liberty game. DoW Hiawatha for 3 workers but they would take a while to walk back. I would settle more cities if Persia didn't settle Susa that close to Edinburgh at the same time I settled Dublin with the free settler.
BO was scout, monument, worker, Temple of Artemis, settler x 2, granary, etc
Lots of forest around for chopping, but I forgot about shrine and perhaps it would hurt me as I missed out on getting any religion buildings for piety Sacred Site play. I did get +culture/faith from wine/incense pantheon as there are a lot of those around.

Turn 92 4 city NC then 4 more cities for total of 8. 4 on the coast, 2 on the flood plains and 2 further inland. I put my 3 guilds in Edinburgh, Truro and Cardiff respectively as they had the food to grow large.

Hiawatha would later DoW me because they covet Douglas + Nantes AND I expanded too quickly. I was ready for it and quickly repelled his invasion. I wouldn't take peace until they would offer me gpt. Later on he DoW me again with better units and I also beat him back with XB and started chopping forests surrounding him to prepare for assault, but he offered lux + 30ish gpt so I just took peace instead. On the other hand, Persia didn't covet my land, stayed friendly entire game, traded for full value, but would never sign any DoF with me for some odd reason. I didn't understand why. India was super friendly and remained DoF through out, I sold everything to him, including uranium. Rome/Ethiopia hated me because my DoF with America, Alexander disappeared off the map. On my map Rome didn't completely conquer the continent, it was pretty much 3 sided until the end when it was obvious that Rome would eliminate Ethiopia. It seems America + India was on the way to wiping out Persia on mine if I had not won by CV.

As I planned on Piety, I needed a massive amount of culture and I have to complete Aesthetics also and at least get some points into rationalism. I had to bulb every GW.
At end, it was 5 liberty, 5 piety, 3 rationalism, 5 aesthetics, 6 freedom, that's some massive amount of culture like 60k and I don't have enough to finish off rationalism. I needed to finish off piety for holy site boost. Took Charitable Missions for the reformation to boost CS as I needed all of the culture CS for this.

Liberty finisher was spent on a great prophet, which was stupid now that I think of it. All it did was complete CS quests which would be completed anyway. I should've got the GE to rush Pisa which i missed. I only got Sistine Chapel, Globe Theater, Broadway, Sydney Opera House wonders. The extra GE would've definitely got me Statue of Liberty or Eiffel Tower which went to India and Persia.

By the time I founded my Catholic religion, ALL faith bought religion buildings were already taken. So I was kind of screwed except I found that Persia had Cathedrals AND Sacred Sites. I decided that I would adopt his religion in every cities other than my capital. It also helped that Persia was extremely good at spreading his religion, quickly converted my cities. Every non capital on the east continent had Zoroastrianism and most cities on the other continent also had it.

I got his world religion passed for the +2 votes and still Persia didn't like me. Shared religion with America, India and Persia helped my tourism. There wasn't a clear cultural leader in this game. All of them except Iroquois had over 20k, Rome+India had over 30k
Easily won both WF and IG with that many cities.

Despite planting 2 prophets and buying 7 cathedrals, I still had enough faith for 3 GM, 1 GW, 1 GA at the end. I could never time the natural spawned GM correctly so he spawned 2 turns before I had airports. Sent 1 GM to Ethiopia, 1 to India, 2 to Rome. I had to wait a few turns before concert tour since it worked out that I needed 3 extra turns. In the meantime I got another GA to spawn. Interesting that Rome was willing to pay all his gold for my city.

I believe this is my 5th DCL submission.

 

[peddroelm]

(who actually builds opera houses for non CV anyway)

My domination culture path most of the times requires huge amounts of culture (For example: full liberty & full honor & full commerce & 1+ exploration & 6+ Autocracy in this game. Even with oracle, WF, prora and 2 free autocracy that is still a lot of culture) .. And some maps don't even have a lot of culture city states .. So in many cases I ended up having to build Hermitage in domination games .

 

[fimbul]

Managed a T269 CV.

A brief writeup despite being throughly unimpressed by Celts UA and UB:

Spoiler :

Wanted to try out the celts unique abilites so decided to go for 6 city liberty CV. Couldnt find a good spot for 7+8 city.

Found Persia early in a peninsular so first settler raced there to box him in - mixed results. Darius didnt settle a third city until turn ~150, but instead built a ton of early game wonders. Found Hiawatha and India next, got DOF with both.
All the remaining AI were located with a trieme and managed to found WC by stealing techs from Ethiopia around T130.

Nobody did anything to me in this game - Rome was too busy destroying everyone else (CS included) on his continent, and Hiawatha eventually decide that the Indian sub-continent was his and killed Gandhi around T240. Bribed him to war Persia after that to keep him occupied until end of the game.

Game ended with 2 GM bombs on Alex and 1 on Rome. Alex wouldnt give OB at any price so i sold him a city, declared and nuked him with my bagpipes.

Biggest challenge was slow-tech rate - Late Arch (think around 180); barely managed to fill all museums as the AI kept tech pace up to industrial era.

Religion wise was a failure as well, God-King, Monastries, tithe, Swords into Ploughshares and RT. Couldnt generate the 2500 faith for 2 faith GM until T260.

Wonders managed: Sistine, Uffizi, Eiffel Tower, SOL, Broadway, Christo, SOH. Wanted PT but was careless and sniped by America.

WC proposals: WF (won) , +3 culture to wonders, IG (won), +4 to landmarks. was host throughout and they were mostly chosen to keep Hiawatha happy so he wouldnt DOW.

Social Policies: Full Lib, Trad opener and 15% to wonders, Full Aest, Full Rat, 9 in Freedom

Wont ever go for Lib Peaceful CV again. Too much effort (slow to rena era, cant summon GE with faith, built 20 arch....)

 

[Acken]

Managed a T269 CV.

A brief writeup despite being throughly unimpressed by Celts UA and UB:

Spoiler :

Wanted to try out the celts unique abilites so decided to go for 6 city liberty CV. Couldnt find a good spot for 7+8 city.

Found Persia early in a peninsular so first settler raced there to box him in - mixed results. Darius didnt settle a third city until turn ~150, but instead built a ton of early game wonders. Found Hiawatha and India next, got DOF with both.
All the remaining AI were located with a trieme and managed to found WC by stealing techs from Ethiopia around T130.

Nobody did anything to me in this game - Rome was too busy destroying everyone else (CS included) on his continent, and Hiawatha eventually decide that the Indian sub-continent was his and killed Gandhi around T240. Bribed him to war Persia after that to keep him occupied until end of the game.

Game ended with 2 GM bombs on Alex and 1 on Rome. Alex wouldnt give OB at any price so i sold him a city, declared and nuked him with my bagpipes.

Biggest challenge was slow-tech rate - Late Arch (think around 180); barely managed to fill all museums as the AI kept tech pace up to industrial era.

Religion wise was a failure as well, God-King, Monastries, tithe, Swords into Ploughshares and RT. Couldnt generate the 2500 faith for 2 faith GM until T260.

Wonders managed: Sistine, Uffizi, Eiffel Tower, SOL, Broadway, Christo, SOH. Wanted PT but was careless and sniped by America.

WC proposals: WF (won) , +3 culture to wonders, IG (won), +4 to landmarks. was host throughout and they were mostly chosen to keep Hiawatha happy so he wouldnt DOW.

Social Policies: Full Lib, Trad opener and 15% to wonders, Full Aest, Full Rat, 9 in Freedom

Wont ever go for Lib Peaceful CV again. Too much effort (slow to rena era, cant summon GE with faith, built 20 arch....)

Hello and welcome to the DCL.

Congratulation on your first completion