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

[adcarrymaokai]

I will dance on their ashes.

 

[GenuineRisk]

It looks like people had a lot of fun on this map but the save file doesn't seem to be attached to the original post anymore. Does anyone still have this file that they could upload? (any version, I have all DLC) Thanks.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Here ya go!

 

[GenuineRisk]

Thanks!

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Oh yeah, so it was a t265 total DomV. Theme of this game was "scorch and burn": I razed every non-capital city except Dublin with Fountain of Youth, hence it took so long. But it was fun, as I lost almost no troops due to careful maneuvering, CS allies, and razing down cities.

I went something like 4 scouts because there so many ruins -- and surely some became archers! 3-city Honor, super late t100 NC, t 120-130 Universities. My science was so bad, but... the social policies were right side Honor for cheaper upgrades and culture, and then I went into Patronage for Scholasticism. My science jumped by ~150 beakers after I opened that policy and carried me ~t170 artillery (with a bulb and Oxford), by which time I just had finished Honor and built two small armies.

I moved one army West to fight Rome and one North to take Berlin from Attila. Subsequently, the northern army took out Attila, who had a little carpet I killed, and the western one slowly chewed through Rome because he was a tech leader and picked Tradition. Once the northern army killed Attila and Boudicca, it went on Catherine. After finishing off Caesar, the western army joined forced with the northern one to finish off Catherine. While this was happening. a rookie army I built took Tikal from Casimir and started threatening his western borders. Unfortunately, he had quite an army and aircraft by that time, and I just so happened to be razing 5 cities and dipping into -31 unhappiness, so I signed a quick peace and waited until all the cities were razed and more units were built. Then I pretty much killed Casimir in 10 turns with landships and some logistics artillery, but waited another 10 turns razing before capturing Palenque. Ta-dam!

All of this qould not have been possible without Greek UA, which a little too amazing for Domination specifically and is probably one of the best UA's out there. One other weakness of Honor I noticed is it's non-existent border expansion, so you probably have to rely on the finisher to simply purchase tiles for your cities...

 

[consentient]

Honor has better border expansion than Liberty, but as you already said, when the idea is to conquer the world, it's not so bad that you have to buy the tiles back home.

 

[beetle]

Oh yeah, so it was a t265 total DomV.

Love that screen shot! And I appreciate your write-up.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Honor has better border expansion than Liberty, but as you already said, when the idea is to conquer the world, it's not so bad that you have to buy the tiles back home.

Yes it does, but it also comes with a maintenance cost, while the culture from Tradition of Liberty is free bee.

But I am really impressed by the Greek UA. It's actually very versatile if you think about it. DiploV is a given. Domination is also made easier: you get units from militaristic CS, the CS help you wither AI military, and in case they get conquered, you can liberate them and be forever allies, plus CS give their resources. SV is not bad either: you can push your own science and add Scholasticism for a midgame snowball. Only CV doesn't quite benefit from CS allies, but overall, they are so valuable primarily because you get lots of happiness throughout the game and little other bonuses which make your easier.

But of course, you rely on having the CS in the map and in the vicinity, so it's only very strong on Pangaea.

 

[GenuineRisk]

T270 DomV

Spoiler :

Seeing how many people went Dom on this map, I decided to go H-C-A. Bismarck DoWed me on ~T85 but I repelled his invasion and went on the counter. I took Berlin on T100 with some support from Caesar's trebuchets. Caesar later wiped Bismarck out, after which I DoWed and brought him back to life. I took one city from Caesar and then liberated a CS in the peace deal, leaving Rome for later. The diplomatic situation was getting sort of hot and I had happiness problems so I decided to cool off a bit until artillery. I used Oxford on Dynamite and then took out Attila and Boudicca in short order. My borders were very badly shaped and I was getting crushed by ideological pressure from Cathy so I decided to take some more time after that to build up a war chest, get my happiness up, build Military Academies and wait for Combustion. Everything sort of fell into place at the same time - I became allied to every CS, I teched Combustion and I was about to get Clausewitz. Cathy had a big stack of nukes built up and used them on me, but Clausewitz/Lightning Warfare Landships/Tanks can clean up the map so fast that I barely noticed the losses.

Policies: Full Honor, Full Commerce, Patronage Opener, Autocracy 7