The Deity Challenge Line-up #41 - Shoshone

[consentient]

The only thing is by turn 35 I think you'll really struggle with gold and happiness to be able to fund an army.

This doesn't make any sense to me at all. More cities = more income = more GPT = more upgrades. More cities also means more hammers = more units = more barb quests and ruins and meeting CS and pillaging, etc..

The purpose of a fast Liberty expansion is to enable the production of an army. It in no way restricts it. I've just started another Liberty game on Deity and had two capitals by T80 and had 25 units by that point. Liberty, although probably not intended by the developers, is the go-to Domination tree for early rushes. Aiken addressed this in his mod by trying to make Honor something more like what it SHOULD be, i.e. more like the vanilla Liberty tree, with culture and happiness and a boon to units.

Also, in this game, a capital that is much bigger than normal will pump out Archers much faster. I built Pathfinders, found ruins, grew my capital, then pumped archers. Loads of them. If you have 20 units, it doesn't matter that your production is reduced by 70%, it doesn't mean your Libraries will take 70% longer, and anyway who cares. Domination is not a strict science game, especially when you capture a decent city with a couple of wonders in it.

Maybe I've misunderstood what you're saying, but it SEEMS you have it exactly backwards.

 

[Redaxe]

Well I always tend to find that with early expo's the gold you get from working luxury tiles gets pretty quickly consumed by the basic city infrastructure: shrine, monument, granary, library... Perhaps you don't bother building those improvements and just go straight for units?
Some luxuries you don't want to work early e.g. mines because no food for growth, plantations - poor food/hammers so your expo will develop very slowly.... Salt and marble are obviously the best but not always easy to find.

And cities aren't really that profitable with roads until they're about a size of 5

So that doesn't leave much gpt to fund military or buy upgrades outside of selling luxuries, pillaging tiles etc... which is pretty much how I funded all my wars before.

Look ultimately I think it just comes down to the fact that you and Acken have done things with Liberty that many players probably haven't tried - you know how to make it work. It's less forgiving than Tradition which (so long as you secure a couple of city sites and don't get beaten in an early war is pretty easy to win generally)...

 

[vanatteveldt]

Do you actually need the shrine? By that time you probably have your pantheon (especially with shoshone), and you probably don't really want to found a religion, especially if a good non-faith pantheon is available (ie the opportunity cost of going faith is high)

 

[Redaxe]

Do you actually need the shrine? By that time you probably have your pantheon (especially with shoshone), and you probably don't really want to found a religion, especially if a good non-faith pantheon is available (ie the opportunity cost of going faith is high)

Probably not actually - but religious buildings can really help with happiness

 

[vanatteveldt]

Probably not actually - but religious buildings can really help with happiness

I don't think that is sufficient reason to build shrines in an early conquest plan. 3 shrines will give 3 fpt. To get a prophet (to found) and build a pagoda (if you're lucky to get one) costs at least 400 faith, so barring other faith sources will take >100 turns, by which time the game will be more or less over. You can't buy buildings (or missionaries) in a puppet city, so to use with another civ's religion you have to rely on their missionaries or natural spreading, which involves a lot of chance to get decent happy buildings.

Also, you will probably conquer cities with faith wonders, so the 3fpt won't be that much of a contribution on the long term.

Finally, there are much easier ways to get happiness. Allying CS can be expensive, but as you conquer the world you want to have them at your side anyway as much as possible. Halfway through the game you should have most luxuries and at least one merc cs, and you can probably conquer notre dame at some point. If you raze most cities and puppet the capitals that should carry you to the end.

 

[consentient]

Well I always tend to find that with early expo's the gold you get from working luxury tiles gets pretty quickly consumed by the basic city infrastructure: shrine, monument, granary, library... Perhaps you don't bother building those improvements and just go straight for units?

Exactly. My build order for Liberty Domination is to make libraries after the army, and the expos make Monument > Archer > (sometimes another Archer) > (sometimes a caravan) > Library > Granary. I almost never build Shrines.

Hammers spent trying to found a religion when your aim is Domination are a complete waste.

Some luxuries you don't want to work early e.g. mines because no food for growth, plantations - poor food/hammers so your expo will develop very slowly.... Salt and marble are obviously the best but not always easy to find.

Develop? You mean grow? You don't need your cities to grow fast when your army is capturing the capitals of the civs whose cities HAVE grown.

And cities aren't really that profitable with roads until they're about a size of 5

I don't build roads between my cities until I can get the happiness out of the last Liberty policy. But they're not needed when you're saving GPT by not building shrines and other junk.

So that doesn't leave much gpt to fund military or buy upgrades outside of selling luxuries, pillaging tiles etc... which is pretty much how I funded all my wars before.

Yeah, but you're doing it backwards. You're building an empire and then using it to fund conquest. I conquer and use it to fund an empire.

Look ultimately I think it just comes down to the fact that you and Acken have done things with Liberty that many players probably haven't tried - you know how to make it work.

Er, no. I learned to do Liberty Domination from Moriarte's almost definitive thread on the matter, which was posted more than 2 years ago. At this time, I was a weak player overall, not really wining a lot on Deity, and I saw how powerful a CB rush was. Some players think I'm cheesy for doing the same thing whenever possible - Archer/CB rush into XBs, Cannons and then, if necessary, Artillery. But I enjoy it, I don't always go Domination, and when I do, I've gotten steadily better.

My comments on this thread and others is to help those that want to get the hang of Liberty Domination but haven't yet. This map is literally the best one you could hope for to practise it on. DCL #16 (China) was good, but had some awkward terrain to the SE. Great Plains is pretty open for the most part.

It's less forgiving than Tradition which (so long as you secure a couple of city sites and don't get beaten in an early war is pretty easy to win generally)...

I completely dispute this. Tradition needs a certain kind of dirt to be competitive. Also, even though most AIs have been somewhat neutered in BNW, some warmongering AIs can still pose a threat between T30 and T120, a threat which is much better countered if you yourself have concentrated on a military, and Liberty will help you get that out faster.

In fact, in Moriarte's thread, he makes the case that it's a safer strategy. Certainly it has been that way for me in over 2000 hours of Deity civ.

I don't think that is sufficient reason to build shrines in an early conquest plan.

Absolutely. Putting a shrine into a BO that is meant to send an army off to do conquest is completely hampering. Just imagine it in real life. Alexander has his army assembled facing down Darius and then he busts out a little icon and asks them to join him in a quiet moment? Nah, don't think so.

 

[Redaxe]

My comments on this thread and others is to help those that want to get the hang of Liberty Domination but haven't yet. This map is literally the best one you could hope for to practise it on. DCL #16 (China) was good, but had some awkward terrain to the SE. Great Plains is pretty open for the most part.

I completely dispute this. Tradition needs a certain kind of dirt to be competitive. Also, even though most AIs have been somewhat neutered in BNW, some warmongering AIs can still pose a threat between T30 and T120, a threat which is much better countered if you yourself have concentrated on a military, and Liberty will help you get that out faster.

In fact, in Moriarte's thread, he makes the case that it's a safer strategy. Certainly it has been that way for me in over 2000 hours of Deity civ.

Well that has certainly given me a lot to think about and definitely challenged many of my preconceived perceptions of the game - and to be honest I've never really tried to work liberty like that before. I will have to read up on those links and try it for myself.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Absolutely. Putting a shrine into a BO that is meant to send an army off to do conquest is completely hampering. Just imagine it in real life. Alexander has his army assembled facing down Darius and then he busts out a little icon and asks them to join him in a quiet moment? Nah, don't think so.

I think Constantine would disagree with you. From the good wiki:

"According to Lactantius, Constantine was visited by a dream the night before the battle, wherein he was advised "to mark the heavenly sign of God on the shields of his soldiers ... by means of a slanted letter X with the top of its head bent round, he marked Christ on their shields."[158] Eusebius describes another version, where, while marching at midday, "he saw with his own eyes in the heavens a trophy of the cross arising from the light of the sun, carrying the message, In Hoc Signo Vinces or "with this sign, you will conquer";[159] in Eusebius's account, Constantine had a dream the following night, in which Christ appeared with the same heavenly sign, and told him to make a standard, the labarum, for his army in that form.[160]"

And of course he proceeded to gloriously win the battle where he was outnumbered. All due to the extra faith points!

 

[OzymandiasDK]

Well that was quick...
I tried to do a DomV without settling any new cities and only filling the honor tree, and managed with some success. Although an additional city or dipping into liberty might have been better, I think a sub-100 finishing time indicates that the benefit would be minor.
BO: pathfinder x3, monument, granary, barracks (bought), archers.
Religion: like Consentient, I choose to boost my wheats for fast cap growth (size 10 around t45).
Tech: Writing, then beeline to Machinery (t93), with horseback riding along the way.
Like most, I started by going NW (elim. t50), then I upgraded all archers to CB (ca 15 total) and split my forces between N and S. During this time, I signed a DoF with SE, and got her to DoW all of my victims in turn, which may or may not have helped keeping her and her neighbors in check.
The two SW capitals were captured around t70, and the N capital around the same time. The S capital fell at t85, but both my armies were losing steam at this time, and I could not take NE or SE before they were upgraded to XB on t93.
Happiness was an issue most of the game, but I kept it at around 0 for most of the game by bribing a merc CS, as well as a military CS for its lux and the occasional unit.

 

[GenuineRisk]

That's an incredible finish time.

 

[consentient]

Hey Ozymandias, do you have a save file so I can see a replay? I want to find out exactly what you did to be so fast. It's really incredible!

 

[Blatc]

@OzymandiasDK - that's awesome!

This inspired me to replay going 1-city Honour and copy OzymandiasDK. I got distracted when I popped writing (I seem to pop Writing when I replay maps I've finished, ha!) and built GL. I used the free tech on Philosophy, ~T40-42 National College.

I've attached a save in case some people struggling with the map would like to play with T74 Machinery.

You'll have 9 comps, 1 warrior, 1200 gold, and can capture NW capital next turn (will have to move 1 comp back into range). The neighbour to East doesn't like us as we DOW'd (another AI asked to and I wanted them to war). I went left side honour, should have some Logistics soon. I'd suggest Horseback Riding next; you can reach Chivalry by T100. Also, the comp up north wants to move East and kill a caravan.

 

[OzymandiasDK]

Hi, I have attached the save file here.

One comment: I there is a lot of "sessions" in the replay (typical for my games), for two reasons:
1) I usually play short sessions (usually 30-40 min at a time) over several weeks
2) I like to think/rethink and evaluate my choices between each session, and often I decide against my current path, and reload at an autosave or save-state to try out something new.

 

[consentient]

Ah OK, I see. Well T99 is still good no matter what, don't get me wrong, but it's not as impressive as doing it without reloads, which is what I thought by default.

 

[stormtrooper412]

I might want to try this setup again.

 

[Redaxe]

Ah OK, I see. Well T99 is still good no matter what, don't get me wrong, but it's not as impressive as doing it without reloads, which is what I thought by default.

Well I tried again with full honor and got a turn 155 victory. That's still an extra 56 turns so I'm sure theres plenty I could do to improve things. That said it can become very luck based. I found that a quick victory really depends on making alliances with citystates that sit on your enemies border.
I had a couple situations where allied Citystates took and burned down AI cities or at least weakened them a lot letting me go in for the kill.
Although I had to deal with a couple of rogue CSs myself and if that catches you at a bad moment it can really delay your victory time.

Spoiler :

Venice certainly didn't take kindly to my behavior. I don't think I've seen that insult before

Spoiler :

 

[Redaxe]

Anyway so between the Liberty and Honor - Honor saved me about 90 turns.

I must say it does seem to work stronger. Honor actually gives far more utility than I thought.

Culture: you get enough from barbs to help you through the tree
Gold: well there's pillaging but if you are slow enough to still be playing when you finish the tree there is Professional Army + Finisher (so you can upgrade to crossbows/knights easily)
Happiness: Military Caste - Well this is often maligned as useless but its not actually as bad as it looks on paper. Yes it requires a unit in each city BUT if you are doing a fast sweep you can't really spread your defense too thin. You need to keep some archers in cities to stop barbs from pillaging your luxury tiles - this will happen with all the empty space on the map and also to help if a nearby CS attacks you.

Also Liberty happiness is almost completely dependent on roads which are largely unnecessary to be wasting time on for the output. They are also hideously expensive to be running across the map to connect farflung cities and again are prone to getting pillaged. For the cost of connecting a road to a distant city the unit maintenance cost is far cheaper in the long run.

I also found the sooner you get Military Tradition (+50% exp) the better. Getting this early will ensure that you'll have plenty of composite bowmen with range and logistics. This is necessary if you want to win by the time you are just getting to Machinery. I wasn't good enough to do that but I'm sure some players could.

As far as great people go - the Great Merchant can be pretty handy. If you take an early city with a market you can spawn one of these quite early. They can be well used to do a trade mission in a citystate that is near an enemy you're planning to take down. Then give them the gold as a gift to make an alliance and declare war on that neighbor - If the CS has enough units they'll do a lot of damage to that AI.

I didn't bother building any expo's - it got to a point where I was at -40% productivity from having excess units but that was only for a few turns before I got my first city. From then on that problem dissipates.

Shoshone does make this strategy easier no doubt about it. Pathfinders gave me a free Pantheon, 1 culture ruin, 2 population and 2 Composite bowmen - that really gives you a strong early advantage. I really think building settlers is a waste of this opportunity time.

 

[consentient]

I built one settler in hardly any time plus got a free one. 7 turns for being able to build more units simultaneously? Sounds like a no brainer to me!

 

[Redaxe]

I built one settler in hardly any time plus got a free one. 7 turns for being able to build more units simultaneously? Sounds like a no brainer to me!

Well you're probably correct - I haven't practiced this strategy enough to nail it down precisely so no doubt I am an amateur here.
For that map I was caught up on whether to build the National College first or Heroic Epic. I settled for building a large army and then the Heroic Epic but I think in hindsight that was a mistake because I still needed Crossbows to finish off and the HE wasn't quite as game breaking as I thought.
Eventually I'll try this map again with the intention of opening Honor and building an early expo & prioritising the National College after the construction beeline.

I will concede that the advantage of selecting multiple population ruins you can certainly build a settler faster than any other civ can at such an early pace. Being able to choose the Sun God Pantheon at turn 20 too also guarantees that your capital will catch up on growth very quickly. So it is probably silly to not utilise that advantage.

That said you still favor Liberty by the sound of it - have you tried this map in full Honor? How do you compare each policy tree here?

 

[consentient]

Well you're probably correct - I haven't practiced this strategy enough to nail it down precisely so no doubt I am an amateur here.

I want to make clear that I'm not pulling the expertise card, I'm just trying to share my view on what works, and what I think doesn't work so well. We're all amateurs. No one plays Civ 5 BNW for money AFAIK, even in Korea.

For that map I was caught up on whether to build the National College first or Heroic Epic.

Why build either? You're simply not going to need anything beyond XBs. On a blind run, it's half the battle knowing which tech you'll need to finish the map. Since players have already played this map and finished it with XBs, you know that it's possible. If you're keen on replaying this map as a learning experience, I recommend that you play trying to win with XBs until you do it

For a XB run you won't need an early NC or HE.

I settled for building a large army and then the Heroic Epic but I think in hindsight that was a mistake because I still needed Crossbows to finish off and the HE wasn't quite as game breaking as I thought.

HE is never game-breaking because fast efficient DomVs simply don't build units after T100 and don't give a monkey's about Iron Working.

Eventually I'll try this map again with the intention of opening Honor and building an early expo & prioritising the National College after the construction beeline...
I will concede that the advantage of selecting multiple population ruins you can certainly build a settler faster than any other civ can at such an early pace. Being able to choose the Sun God Pantheon at turn 20 too also guarantees that your capital will catch up on growth very quickly. So it is probably silly to not utilise that advantage...That said you still favor Liberty by the sound of it - have you tried this map in full Honor? How do you compare each policy tree here?

If you want to win the game with XBs or earlier, Liberty is miles better. The reason being that all the benefits of the Liberty tree will be used to the full during the course of the sweep.

Early Culture boost (it's small but nice) -> Hammers to get things moving -> Free Settler to get the expo out (with a hard built one being much quicker to make too) - > A free worker usually at a time when the others are further from cap -> Culture and Golden Age (great for any civ, absurd for Persia) -> Happiness and a free GP.

On this map, I can't remember if I picked GE for Machu or GG, but GS is not going to be needed.

Honor opener is wasted because with so little room, the barbs didn't survive long. Free GG might allow a lux hookup but comes too early for CBs and too late if you go right-side first. The extra culture and happiness is OK, but the best way to smash this map is to cease caring about your empire completely once you've only got the 2 Eastern-most capitals remaining. The finisher and the upgrades help a bit too, but nowhere near as much as the Liberty tree.

Honor is best when you want super-crack troops that survive the whole game and earn a fortune in kills. Winning on T132 means they won't even have 4 promotions, most likely.