The Deity Challenge Line-up #38 - Alexander the Great

[consentient]

More screenshots:

Spoiler :

T223 Russian Revolution!

T226 Final wars start. Northern Army uses worker baiting and Logistics artillery. Southern Army uses GWB, rookie Artillery and Cavalry spam

T230 Moscow is falling

T231 Turn before VC

T231 Inspired by his patron, Yerevan starts his own 'Armenian league'

T232 Victory

 

[stormtrooper412]

wow, what a change, went from all the space you want to "settle while you can"

I really wanted that northern spot, it has mountain, a lux and some bananas. However, it was claimed as early as turn 25 so I had to settle with 3 cities.

Should have gone full Alex on their asses but I keep forgetting I don't really know how

 

[Blatc]

T209 Domination Victory
(a CS actually has 1 capital, but the victory icon came up and I'll take it. The cap is at 1 pop, having been conquered 3 times)

To try something different, I put the first 5 policies in Tradition (never took Aristocracy), then right side Liberty to Meritocracy. This kept the people happy as I conquered.
Religion was Desert Folklore, Tithe & Holy Warriors, then only using faith to produce units, as I like to do when possible.

Key tech beeline order:
-Horseback Riding
-Construction
-Philosophy - finished NC on T93, had 3 cities at that point (Athens & 2 puppets)
-Machinery on T108
-Education
-Dynamite on T197.
Nobody got ideologies.

Spoiler :

Germany forward settled and DOWd me before I hit construction; I held them off with Companion Cavalry and Archers, then continued the war conquering North to Berlin (4 cities).
Went West and I believe took out the Huns before I hit Machinery (Edit: got Machinery/XBows right before I DOWd the Huns). Made sure everyone passed by the Fountain of Youth as I took on the Celts next (they were very weak).
South to St. Petersburg (Great Wall), waiting a couple turns for DOF to expire; took that city and Moscow, made peace, then right into the Romans: burnt their city N of Moscow, puppeted the one between Moscow and Rome. Left the Romans with their 2 cities N of Rome and DOW Russia again, taking Novgorod (S of Moscow), which had built up an army, and 2 cities to the NW that were on my way to the Mayans.
I was friends with the Mayans and Polish for a long time; both ended when they denounced me.
The Polish had a huge number of troops around Palenque, mainly their UU horse, but weren't doing any damage. I could only get a few XBows (with Logistics and Range) within range of Palenque and very slowly wore it down, them moved troops towards Warsaw. During this time, I built up some Canons/Artillery and moved them in from Berlin through Wellington (Allied Wellington and Kiev shortly before attacking the Polish).
Upgraded to Gatling Guns as I moved into Warsaw. Lost some troops but had plenty and it was just a matter of time as, at the end, I had 7 Logistics Gatling Guns within range of Warsaw and 7 Artillery coming in from the West.

 

[Acken]

I've been pretty busy but had some time to download this file and it seems to work just fine with my game and pc. I recently upgraded to a new pc and have windows 10 now and am getting used to it. One problem I had with Explorer was that it does not want to download civ5save files but I used another browser and that fixed that problem. As I have said before though it appears we will not be getting any hard maps anymore but at least this one is listed as med/hard.

I am waiting for Acken to update and release his mod out of the beta phase. How do we get the beta version and are players playing maps off of it and posting on another forum? I wouldn't mind messing about with it if others are playing maps with it and posting!

Hey.
See my signature. The thread been up for 2 weeks Not yet ready for me to post maps on it. Maybe some time after v2 or v3. Will probably post only level 6 or 7 maps (6 is the old immortal, 7 is a new intermediary difficulty) seeing how crazy Deity can currently be Hell level 7 is pretty hard already.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

See my signature. The thread been up for 2 weeks Not yet ready for me to post maps on it. Maybe some time after v2 or v3. Will probably post only level 6 or 7 maps (6 is the old immortal, 7 is a new intermediary difficulty) seeing how crazy Deity can currently be Hell level 7 is pretty hard already.

I'm glad to hear you plan to post some maps! Otherwise I had been thinking about posting some challenges with your mod at level 6 as the ICL has not been getting much attention this summer, and this might spruce it up.

 

[consentient]

Nige, I think the reason the ICL has died down a bit is that we're all comfortable Deity players now, so Immortal feels a bit too easy and we lose interest, isn't it?

I mean I played til like T150 on the Shoshone map but it feels like the game is won and I'm bored.

I'd be very much in favour of an ACLU (see what I did there? , or Acken Challenge Line-Up

 

[stormtrooper412]

yeah but it would have to be on Prince if I was to have a realistic shot of winning

 

[consentient]

To prove you wrong, I'll play a game on Emperor and make an LP!

 

[beetle]

DCL #36 is too hard for me, I may start this.

Assyria was labeled Easy, but this one is supposed to be Medium-Hard. I think I am having an easier time with this map though. But then with Assyria I kept trying to make Liberty and/or Piety work. Maybe if I had just defaulted to four-city Liberty with that one?

wow, what a change, went from all the space you want to "settle while you can"

France DCL #37 was similar. I am enjoying the contrast to the Assyrian and Egypt maps.

However, it was claimed as early as turn 25 so I had to settle with 3 cities.

Same here. I got a surprising number of early ruins though. Spoiler for the direction I headed first by luck:

Spoiler :

South!

Should have gone full Alex on their asses but I keep forgetting I don't really know how

I have the same problem, CS are not falling into line like they seem to for the AI Alex. Still, the best thing about playing Alex is that the AI can't!

 

[claudiupb]

T109 Quit

Spoiler :

My first attempt was a total fail. I wanted a liberty start, but failed the CB rush. I got NC in time, even build a 4th city. I DoWed Germany to get Munich but then rage quit because no matter how close I was getting he just brought units after units, and I couldn't really get closer. I lost a couple of units and in the mean time he also build a Wall in there, and that was really it. I was 3 turns to Machinery but did not have the cash to upgrade so I just quit. I think I will try a tradition start with late domination in mind, i really liked my starting dirt, and I refuse to pursue any other VC with Alexander

Oracle was gone at T53 thanks to my neighbor, screenshot attached. I got a ton of ruins, with just 2 scouts, I got like 3 free techs (one was actually a waste because I was 2 turns to finishing). It was like having GL

I don't know how people get Desert Folklore, it was gone before I even got to pottery, maybe on a second run I will have better luck.

 

[Acken]

That sparta city is really ugly. No food, no luxuries On the hill where your worker is would have already been better: 2 horses in first ring, oasis, more fresh water tiles. I guess you wanted the mountain but it is really overrated if you sacrifice food for it. Probably would have to feed it with caravan too, this is one of those situation.

 

[claudiupb]

Yep, I only realized it after building it, even 1 tile NW would have been better because I would still keep the mountain, and get another fresh hill. I mainly focused on production, and figured I would catch up with the bonus from civil service since many tiles are near water.

 

[beetle]

I should try and emulate the early warmongering. At about T230 [1] launched her first part. A few turns later [2] and [3] DoW me and I lose my cap because my FL are up near [3] getting the FoY enhancement. So I have reloaded, paying [3] a spare lux to DoW [2]. My plan now is to just get Freedom trade routes online and see if I can get a Diplo V before [1] launches.

Spoiler :

[1]==Katherine, [2]==Bismarck, [3]==Attila

 

[consentient]

@beetle: Peddroelm said that the very reason he became so involved with domination was that he was sick of late-game abuse by the AI and being beaten to SVs and CVs. As I've said many times, once you're comfortable with whole-game Domination, it's by far the easiest (in terms of taking control of victory).

 

[beetle]

@consentient, that is a very rational response. I am still playing for closer to how the way I wish the game worked...

I am just now getting around to looking at screen shots, as I did not want to prematurely influence my game. I am very envious how many folks got decent expo spots. I started working on a settler as soon as I hit pop 4 (my usual pattern) but everything north and east of the cap was gone by the time my settler spawned. Two spots south was all I could get.

I had to settle with 3 cities.

I don't understand. You have all that space south of you! It is not great, but good enough. As a last resort, I did okay with settling on the mountain next to the ice-locked crab.

 

[Phenril]

Well started this game because no more ICL, and bored of doing old ones 1 by 1.

The start seems pretty good, 3 good cities,3 worker steals from mayans and 1 from barbs, 4 allied CS at turn 54(20 hapines with 1 lux not connected...), NC prob goin to end around T75-80.

diplomacy goin pretty well right now, i'm just scared of caesar, everyone hates the huns, so i denouced them and made 3 allies like this (celts, germans and mayans).

my 3 cities looks nice but i have no place to settle after NC anymore.

Let's hope this one wont end like russians DCL immortal was getting too easy, but deity is still too hard.
If acken's patch has an intermediate level i'll be glad to see some chalenges on it.

 

[stormtrooper412]

I don't understand. You have all that space south of you! It is not great, but good enough. As a last resort, I did okay with settling on the mountain next to the ice-locked crab.

Many reasons actually.

1. Too late to get it up to speed.
2. No luxuries around it
3. Let's see if what happens with 3 cities for a change

 

[Matthew.]

Spoiler :

I didn't finish it. Seems like a very easy map. TONS of ruins. I actually formed a religion, but didn't capitalize on it so was pretty much dead before it even started. There was a new record for Parthenon: gone on turn 44. I've never seen it go that quickly. Not like I was trying to build it, just found it amusing.

It has been so long since I've played a completely un-modded game of Civ, I didn't go into the game with any kind of plan except to survive. Atilla attacked as predicted, held it off with ease with my Roman bro, but he wouldn't sign peace. Germany decided to try and backstab during this with his comp bows and trebs, so more of a nuisance than anything else. Once Rome backed out of the war, Atilla started pushing again with rifles and my army was out of place. I got sick of micromanaging a hundred turns of war, so just quit the game. Atilla was tech leader, so if I eventually dealt with him I don't think anyone else was in a winning position.

So I should clarify, it seems like an easy map if you make sure to have enough strength to shut down Atilla efficiently. If I were to play it again, I'd probably place more focus on a strong medieval push and crush the northern part of the map. From there, the city-state placement and horizontal nature of the map would keep you safe from pretty much anything.

Perhaps I will try it again, maybe not. I don't have a lot of free time lately, and playing Civ without mods is not that great.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Spoiler :

Double teamed by Rome and Poland on turn 180. I would have survived easily but I stopped playing anyway. This map is made for the fight to be taken to them and they seem to be aligned kind of nicely anyway. Pity I lack the know how :/

 

[beetle]

Wow, loss by SV on T285. Never seen the AI do that well!

Even with the good examples here, I don’t think I can get a DomV. I need better expos for starter..