The Deity Challenge Line-up #28 - Russia

[Olodune]

@Grendeldef

Spoiler :

- Agree that this map is too good. Worse maps are more interesting. The only fun thing about OP maps is figuring out which building I don't need to build (since tech moves so fast). This time that meant no Ironworks, National Epic, Circus Max, Several Colosseums, Markets, Banks, etc.

- Nice artillery war. 50 turns of artillery barrage sounds pretty solid considering the size of this pangaea and the speed those arties advance at. Is that a three front war at the end?

 

[consentient]

Stuff it, I'm gonna replay this since everyone is talking about it being easy. If Grendel can get it done in 199 turns with his strict rules, maybe it can be done BEFORE artilleries?

 

[Grendeldef]

@Grendeldef

Spoiler :

- Agree that this map is too good. Worse maps are more interesting. The only fun thing about OP maps is figuring out which building I don't need to build (since tech moves so fast). This time that meant no Ironworks, National Epic, Circus Max, Several Colosseums, Markets, Banks, etc.

- Nice artillery war. 50 turns of artillery barrage sounds pretty solid considering the size of this pangaea and the speed those arties advance at. Is that a three front war at the end?

Spoiler :

Yup, I love to hate the map scripts; that's not a secret but as much as I dislike these excessive luxes my main complaints are still related to sea tiles - there should a minimum of 2 coastal tiles everywhere and Titanic killers hugging the mainland should be extremely rare or at least let me build Ice Breaker units. Now they are everywhere creating numerous blocked mini seas diminishing much of naval potential and preventing effective use TRs over the seas which is espeacially harmful to Venice.

This time around I think I had all of those; even Banks in most cities but I still have a dream that at some point I'll be able to build IW before starting LToP.

I think technically I was in 3 wars but taking Shaka out took as long as taking the 5 others. I was expecting less of Shaka but much more from the rest. Venice & Constantinople fell in 2 and Delhi & Marrakech in 3 turns and there wasn't much units either while Shaka really embarked himself which caused some serious problem nor was the path to Ulundi the easiest. On hindsight I should've taken MK much sooner with all arties I had and then buy/build 3-4 for Marrakech & Delhi and for Venice & Constantinople after I had BG & Heroic Epic in Moscow. Now I had to idle for quite a while due to not advancing in Zulu front.

Also, as I had very limited early xp being able to GG bomb came much later than I'd have liked. Another major issue on Zulu front was the lack of tanks - Musketmen were nowhere good enough to block Impies so I actually used a GS for Riflemen.
I could've build/bought more units and just zerg Shaka's lands but the builder in me likes to keep things going as the game wouldn't actually end with the last cap so I was running all specialists till the end as usual. Riflemen was the last tech I _needed_ the rest being icing on the cake.

 

[Olodune]

Spoiler :

Musketmen were nowhere good enough to block Impies so I actually used a GS for Riflemen.
I could've build/buy more units and just zerg Shaka's lands but the builder in me likes to keep things going as the game wouldn't actually end with the cap so I was running all specialists till the end as usual. Riflemen was the last tech I _needed_ the rest being icing on the cake.

Spoiler :

Yah. I've tried the musketmen approach. They seem to shoot themselves in the gut as soon as Impi appear. Rifleman <-> Impi is at least a fair fight.

 

[Grendeldef]

F**k it, I'm gonna replay this since everyone is talking about it being easy. If Grendel can get it done in 199 turns with his strict rules, maybe it can be done BEFORE artilleries?

Tbh, I had very few selfset rules here to accompany the few practices I ignore in every game and out of those avoiding Observatories, there was a possibility in Moscow & 2 satellites, postponed arties a bit but not that significantly with Liberty.
Much more influencal was the decision to avoid wars between GW & Arties. Navy would've been extremely helpful against Shaka but again, hardly anything truly meaninful.

By far the most important thing in the game as I see it was...

Spoiler :

settling in the face of Poca & Hiawatha. It doesn't really matter that much what the frontline cities do as long as it prevents the natives from ICSing in their usual manner.
In this game I seriously underestimated Poca military hence the drastic GE -> GW move which doesn't make much sense apart from the fact that I really, really hate losing cities.
And I'm an avid supporter of settling beside the AI.
I'd have been better off losing the city for a while, continue the war, taking a GS instead of a GE and plant that somewhere in Moscow. Now I managed to keep Rostov but lost 4 rush bought and/or upgraded CBs, a build Spearman & the starting Warrior which is well over 1k G. In most games that gold would've been really helpful somewhere else.

Before arties sounds tricky as Shaka's location isn't easily accessible - same goes with Delhi which was a breeze for arties but next to impossible to capture from the direction I came in. The rest of the capitals were in easy spots.

 

[Bimblecrumbs]

T191 Dom

Spoiler :

I got an intense amount of ruins at the start. Build order scout, scout, shrine, monument, granary, settlers if I remember correctly. My second ruin was Animal Husbandry so the capital churned out these first few things really quickly.

My 2 wonders were Petra (turn 65 or so) and Machu Picchu, with NC in between. I later considered building Big Ben too due to my purchasing build, but it was too near the end of the game and I didn't think it was worth it.

So I went for a 3 city NC; I prefer 3 maximum when going full Honour. 2nd was to the west by the truffles/marble etc. and 3rd was north for the mountain/salt.
I decided against planting Lake Victoria because it would have been a low production, high growth city. Since I opened honour I didn't think I would have the happiness to support it, and jungle sucks for quick, high production domination games. Looking back I should have settled there anyway because f**k Hiawatha and his ICS. I could have killed him more quickly with a closer city of my own and one less of his to have to deal with.

I attacked Hiawatha when I reached Xbows on turn 115 or so. Progress was slow at first as his Mohawk spam seriously hurt in forest/jungle and I only had spears as blockers, but Shaka helped out like a bro and impis soon surrounded his cap. Took his cap on 135, and Marrakesh (Great Wall was a nice addition) followed on 142:



I'm not such a fan of Arti rushes and prefer to start much earlier, hence the crossbows. This also gave me logistics/range gatling guns in case of a runaway Shaka; I really like them as an Impi counter. As it turned out, Pocatello was the more dominant one and took some of Shaka's cities. I bribed Shaka to attack him 3 times over the course of the game.

Before taking Venice on turn 154, I caught the rear end of Theodora's army napping nearby and slaughtered them after she and Gandhi DOW'd me:



The rest of her army weas headed for Marrakesh with Gandhi's troops and later died there. From about turn 150 Gandhi threw troops against Marrakesh; free honour gold and no army to kill later:



From this point on I was at war with everyone but Shaka and Pocatello. Shaka seemed happy to receive most of my caravans and remain peaceful.

Mogadishu was probably the hardest city to take due to the terrain. I decided against going straight through the choke point to the north since it was a death sandwich between galleasses and troops/city bombardment:



Constantinople was easy though (turn 177) and I let Theodora retake it once to resolve possible late game happiness issues.

Pocatello DOW'd me on turn 162, just as I was about to. I pushed east with cannons and Landsknechts until Cossacs and Artis arrived, then I used those. Moson Kahni succumbed on turn 186 and Ulundi/Delhi both fell on 191:







I founded Rostow on the coal after realising I had none and rush buying a settler. Note the unimproved tiles - once I start conquering I sort of forget about tile improvements

Social Policies: Honour 5, Commerce 5, Autocracy 3, Exploration 1 (right at the end for a quick water crossing to Ulundi hah).

Techs: Currency ---> Philosophy ---> Machinery ---> Civil Service ---> Education ---> Industrialisation ---> Dynamite.

No religion but lots of faith generation meant that I had all of the faith buildings due to captured missionaries/prophets.

I used my gold on 2 cultural city state allies to finish commerce before Autocracy, then unit upgrades and many, many Landsknechts. Later Cannon/Cossac/Arti spam.

As for doing it before Artis, I doubt I could have taken Delhi without them.

I asked this before but got no reply. Do razed cities count towards the 5% per-city science penalty? I think I read it somewhere but can't remember...

 

[Grendeldef]

I asked this before but got no reply. Do razed cities count towards the 5% per-city science penalty?

Nope.

 

[Bimblecrumbs]

@Grendeldef Thanks for the speedy reply and good, I enjoy razing.

 

[Acken]

I finished this one on turn 200 with culture.

Nothing extraordinarry, the map is easy as expected. Only truly significant event was me liberating Prague from the Shoshone. Terrain was kind of annoying though, not sure I like that script.

Spoiler :

 

[Olodune]

I finished this one on turn 200 with culture.

Spoiler :

Did you go to Internet or stop earlier? I bet hotels + a few GMs + IG is easily sufficient on this map.

 

[consentient]

Terrain was kind of annoying though

You can say that again.

Spoiler :

After an absolute dream start, I smashed Iroquois and Shoshone only to have the unstoppable Impi machine slow me down and waste 20 turns just killing them. I think I'm done with this map purely because I cba to deal with Impi spam. It's just more annoying than anything. It's another thing that encourages you to turtle and tech to Replaceable Parts to have units that stand a good chance of killing the Impi quick enough. Tradition turtling is so boring most of the time for me. I stalled on taking a break from Civ 5, but now I really think it's time.

 

[vanatteveldt]

T72: Got petra (but only after a ragequit and savescum 7 turns earlier to chop it... which I should have done in the first place. Oh well)

Spoiler :

As said above I "cheated" and probably got lucky given some of the Petra dates reported above. Went 4 city tradition but beelined Petra, so only now building my libraries, so slow NC. Let's hope petra is worth it...

 

[Acken]

Spoiler :

Did you go to Internet or stop earlier? I bet hotels + a few GMs + IG is easily sufficient on this map.

Well I passed +3 for wonders first which may have been a mistake. WF and then IG would probably have been better. So yes I got internet.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Tried to do a little better but with 4 cities this time. Doesn't matter if the record will count or not, I think this is my limit

 

[teqofc]

Started to replay this map but want to first focus on the Monthly Deity Challenge #2 thread in the HoF forum. I have to at least beat my own lousy record on poland/pangea. I can't believe I still hold 2nd place after almost a year And 1st place on Poland/continents with 284 turn SV lol.

I miss the intensity of HoF games and it is something you have to focus on once you start. Those games are nerve racking and make you sweat every move and sucks to make a bone headed mistake like clicking on the wrong button because you weren't paying attention.. oh oops didn't mean to declare war while I got distracted watching Game of Thrones ugh!

 

[consentient]

I've also started replaying this from T100, and decided to build the culture of my empire instead of expanding it via further conquest. So I made peace with

Spoiler :

Shaka

for 40 GPT and showed mercy to

Spoiler :

Moson Kahni

. My troops will now be bored, but at least no one will dream of attacking me, and if I can grow all the cities, it should be a decent CV win.

 

[Shark Diver]

T275 Science Victory

Spoiler :

In my t175 update, I crowed about how well the diplo game was going and how I was going to just cruise to a SV or CV. I may have been a bit premature.

In just a few turns, I get DoW's from Shaka and Poca. Fortunately, I had GW's stashed and was able to rush to Foreign Legions.

So I've got Lake Victoria to shoot across, a river for Impi to cross, FL's to just dig in and take abuse, and I even put up a defensive citadel, so I wasn't too worried about losing St. Petersburg. Well.....that was before Hiawatha decided to join in. Those 2 southern unit spammers actually had me worried until the kill ratio got to somewhere around 50:1. I will say the main reason I survived this onslaught was the terrain.

Poca, on the other hand, was a nightmare going after Moscow. Those stinking Comanche Raiders move so dang quickly, all of my internal TR's were gone very soon. He also razed half of the terrain near Moscow several times. I just couldn't grow the capital, nor work my Academy slots. This slowed down the victory time considerably.

The above mentioned war lasted for pretty much the last 100 turns of the game. Although I was never really threatened, I couldn't muster the strength to even take a city from any of my antagonists. I tried to make peace almost every turn, just to get the game over with. I was a science runaway, so the outcome wasn't in question, but 100 turns of defensive warfare takes a loooooooong freakin time to play.

I won't bore anyone with the details of the battle, but it did suck when Shaka stole Flight from me early on, so I had to rush-buy a couple of Fighters and burn early GS to get anti-aircraft.

I had just enough culture to open Commerce about 10 turns before the end, build Big Ben, and purchased the final 2 parts.

Just to add humor to the ending, Shaka re-DoW'd me 2 turns before the launch.

There were only about 5 CS left at the end, as everyone was taking them out before Enrico could annex them. That also slowed the game considerably. I also screwed up by not signing any RA's after about t200, as gold was needed for war upgrades. The entire Western part of the map were permanent DoF's, thank gawd, but they weren't very helpful in my defense of the 3-headed invasion.

I may have set a personal record for total kills without ever taking a city. This should have easily been a sub t240 SV or CV, but the damn wars really slowed things down.

Fun game, and I built a ton of Wonders even though Moscow never grew past size 25.

 

[consentient]

@Acken

In a game like this, when do you hit Plastics?

 

[Acken]

For a culture victory like this ? I don't pay attention as I don't make labs. Labs are needed only for longer games or big runaway requiring airports. But for the Radio > Internet jump I don't feel labs matter.

In my game I got something like a T190 internet. Snowballed from a T89 education.

 

[consentient]

T211 CV

I was on Acken's heels, but I think I was never going to catch him because of the lack of OB due to my earlier conquests. Still this is by far the fastest CV I've ever put together. It may have been a case of swings and roundabouts: i.e. the wars prevented OB but enabled me to never again have to worry about being attacked. I stopped building units on T120 and was 2nd in soldiers until the end of the game.

Freedom is so good for a wide peaceful game it's pretty broken.

@ Acken: Labs surely scrape a few turns off reaching Internet, no? I've not done the Math and I trust your judgment as the superior player, but I would have thought that it must bring the Internet along more, especially if you've had no RAs like me