The Deity Challenge Line-up #42 - Portugal

Nope, sorry, please try again. No, I did not roll the map. I tried a couple, but didn't like the ones I got.

Hint:
Spoiler :
The specific civ consentient named actually does not belong in the group. But there was going to be an extra civ, so that was a good choice.
 
Spoiler :
All of them except Greece have a UI. (which indirectly makes most of them culture powerhouses)
 
Yes, that is it! But please spoiler your answer as that pretty much names the civs in the game…
 
T289 SV
Spoiler :
I moved my settler even further than some - I settled right on the bananas for an Observatory and Garden. If only Uluru was within range... I quickly settled my second city on the coast by Uluru and bought up enough land so that my scout could block Pedro's settlers by itself. The faith was useful for a few Jesuit Education buildings and a GE for Hubble (in retrospect I should have hard built it and got a GS) but production in that city was atrocious until I cleared the jungle and bought a workshop. The start combined with Portugal’s UA was pretty good for an easy freedom SV, which I set out to do after missing out on the Renaissance cultural wonders. Unsurprisingly, I was the only one who went Freedom, so I had to fight Pedro and Kamehameha near the end-game. I was obviously way ahead in tech at that point though, so I just melted their units with Rocket Artillery and Missile Cruisers and razed a couple of annoying Polynesian cities in the process.

I had a decent start despite the thick jungle and managed to open Rationalism as my 7th policy the same turn I entered the Renaissance via Astronomy. As usual, my post-Plastics game was far from perfect, but thanks to obscene gold generation, the end-game was totally stress-free and I didn’t even need loans to buy parts.

Policies: Full Tradition, Full Rationalism, 6 in Freedom (Avant Garde, Civil Society, Universal Healthcare, Universal Suffrage, Volunteer Army, Space Procurement)
 

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I tried again, aiming for 6 city Liberty, but Pyramids gone T50 and Colossus went T63. Aiming for latter really threw me off so I rest for 4 city Tradition aiming for CV. Predictably, that did not work. So I started taking caps. That was slow too, so I started building SS parts and launched on T399. :(

I got Internet before T300, but I guess just too slow?
 
Yeah I think you have to react accordingly to the map A LOT in the early game. That's why in my Domination guide I wrote that some maps are just not suitable/favourable for Domination.

Quite often now I feel that going peaceful is a choice you can still make at T100.
 
Consentient did very well placing his expos, but I am wondering what less aggressive players might settle for? I think four city Tradition, SIP and the closest NW (which should be reasonably easy to grab, but still needs some blocking). But what for the next two expos?

My suggestion is:
Spoiler :
Two on the not-quite-an-island below Inca west of Ragusa. There is a NW and few luxes and fish, but too much desert. Seems pretty good though. You will need fast optics for that to be option, since Polynesia is about, and Inca can walk there.
In this scenario I think you should plant a lot more academies...
Could you explain this a bit? There is like one dry grassland tile, so where do you plant besides that? Maybe on banana?
 
Could you explain this a bit? There is like one dry grassland tile, so where do you plant
besides that? Maybe on banana?

This was made in the context of pretending that a Great Scientist has a fixed bulb value just like the Great Musician, so either plant an academy or bulb when the GS spawns. In this context planting an academy will be worth even later in the game, even after Scientific Theory, since planting one at T180 will give you at least 100 turns of yields, and with the NC and university with free thought that is at least 20 beakers per turn, it becomes 30 after Atomic Theory and Plastics, so unless your bulb will give you something like 2500+ beakers and you still have at least 100 turns left you can easily plant.

Spoiler :


At the time I had not played the map and did not know that there is a shortage of dry grassland tiles since you don't see the 3rd ring in the initial screenshot, but there are still options:

I wouldn't plant on the banana since you lose a lot of yields. You lose 1 food, gain 1 hammer, but you also lose 2 beakers, so that tile is actually not worth improving at all until fertilizer.

I think there were some horses, so that would be a decent spot for the second academy (you don't lose the circus or the horses, and you can still build the stable if you want). Then the sheep (it's basically the same loss as dry grassland: 1 food, and 1 more food after fertilizer), and this is a 3rd academy, so your city is already big enough to work a 1 food tile. If you want more academies, then the dry plains and the dry hill (provided you don't go order, because then you would lose too much from not having a mine) are valid options.

Also if you get a mountain expo you can plant there after Astronomy since the Observatory has the same modifier as NC and the Academy will get the same buffs that it would get in the capital. But I doubt you will need so many academies.

 
T294 Science Victory

Spoiler :


3 city tradition and Freedom so not too shabby I guess. I found this map really hard though. Very few bonus production resources so cities tended to lag a lot in development. The only upside though was that I never went to war once. So I had a lot of gold to buy science buildings etc..
I started building a settler at size 2 with the intention of
Spoiler :
settling Uluru Fortunately I grabbed it before Brazil did and that got me a religion.


I also got the Sacred Path pantheon so that was one good outcome. Worst of all though was the WLTKD - the first luxury in demand was crab - the very resource that is on the other side of the map and only available in small quantities so that really slowed my growth down and probably delayed launch significantly.

All in all Portugal really doesn't bring a lot to this map. The extra gold from trade routes is pretty useless for most of the game because the dirt is so bad you just cannot pass up sending internal trade routes. Your expo cities desperately need a production cargo ship just to help them get going. Late game it is powerful though (when you have more trade routes than you can send internally with 3 cities) but perhaps less game-changing/influencing then?
I only built 1 Nau before I hit Steam Power and they became obsolete, and upgraded 1 from a trireme. Again the poor dirt really did not give me the luxury to be able to build these things in mass production to take advantage of the cargo gold. Simply put there were more important things to do.
Feitora's were better. The starting area doesn't have much in the way of luxuries and with the massive ideology pressure from my neighbor meant I was facing 'Revolutionary Wave' very quickly and because a certain other civ (we all know who I'm talking about) insists on buying up every CS in the game that rules out reliable CS alliances. So the bonus happiness there is pretty welcome and definitely helped. Otherwise I would say Portugal was pretty lacklustre on this map. You almost feel like you are playing a completely white civ with no uniques... I didn't want to flip to Order because I had no way of being able to procure enough Great Engineers to make the SV pay off more quickly. I had Tradition but not enough faith to be able to buy multiple GEs, and because I only had 3 cities and the poor dirt meant the expo's lagged in growth for a while and my max BPT was only about 1000 which is not high enough to be able to neglect working specialist Great Scientists. So using gold to buy SpaceShip parts was the way to go and definitely worth the huge hit to happiness.


Spoiler :
Brazil
was a real runaway culture victory on this map. He got Temple of Artemis, Hanging Gardens, Pyramids, Chichen Itza, Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House, Cristo Redentor.... Basically all the wonders you want for a cultural victory...
Spoiler :
He didn't even clear the jungle away for once but actually kept it all for Brazilwood camps so his tourism was insane
But I was friends with him nearly all of the game so I decided against trying to go to war - I might have been able to do a late game rush with Foreign Legions (Volunteer Army) but he had a lot of expo's and a big army so I don't think the outcome would be favorable

Check these screens out for proof. That was turn 280. By Turn 295 he was over 160% influential on me haha. Luckily 2 other civs managed to resist that incredible tourism allowing me to get of the planet in time ;).

Spoiler :


Spoiler :
 
T260 Dom

One of the easiest games in the series and had I bulbed anything at any point some 30+ would've been shaven off as I needed 4-range ships for the 2nd to last cap.
Very interesting looking start but I was a bit disappointed with the high seas option which I only noticed too late.



Short recap.

Spoiler :

Std double scout start which soon turned out to be 4 scout start after meeting William & Pedro. From the 1st I stole few workers & a settler while the latter had 2 escorted settlers on T21 so I build my 2 settlers by a freakin' 2 pop capital while being hampered by penalty from having too many units and I had to run the lux tiles for few turns to be able to buy the NW tile. Not a solid start so I thought, screw this - let's switch gear & make a Tradition game instead and later on even used internal food cargoes which usually are against my self set rules and yeah, those are still OP.
So 3C start, would've been nice to find Pacha earlier but without pop & and hammers one can't do everything. Eventually made peace with William and Pedro offered DoF as soon as I got a caravan to Brazil.

The first 100 turns were pathetic in every way as the CS quests really weren't matched at all.
T37 One with Nature pantheon and T57 4th religion but sadly Pagodas were taken so Mosques & Tithe and later T101 +15% hammers & faster spreading.

T86 NC, T102 Tradition filled, T108 someone went Renaissance, T110 Education and bought 2 Unis, T121 Astronomy and I was going for some serious Frigate war until I paid any attention that not only was I ironless but so were everyone else especially the local CSs.
Luckily a Dutch Prophet came knocking door so I unleashed my angst against him & DoWed William with my impressive army of 2 archers & a warrior. He didn't have much more apparently as nothing much happened until I got few XBows out but I was in hurry of taking a wonderless capital and he only had 2 cities in total.

Eventually met everyone Ahmad being the leader in everything but no new friendships available so after long period of very peaceful war I took Amsterdam T174 and DoWed Pedro for being nearby. This was also the only capital any sort of land troops were used against apart from inland cappings.

After emptying my savings account I managed to ally a CS with 8 iron but xp farming was doomed as Pedro had no navy and cities in spots that an attack would result a lost Frigate per turn. To circumvent this I teched to Arties, needlessly especially when Pedro had the GW. After taking few other his cities Rio was taken T198. 2 Logistics Frigates made all the difference but I also had to take Sao Paulo as all his 3 WWs were there.

Meanwhile I managed to start few wars between Nappy & Alex and Ahmad & the world so DoWing Ahmad was the next step. Nice army but not much of Navy so taking T219 Marrakech was easy, keeping it without land troops much trickier.
The Hula-hula dude wasn't happy about my global peace jamboree so he was the obvious next target while Nappy had to wait for his turn and Alex even offered DoF which I declined and Pachacuti was still friendly and didn't seem like a hard target.

Honolulu T236 nicely before Alex and since Pacha so nicely asked I joined the war against Nappy as well just in time before Paris was sieged by Alex's units. Paris fell in few turns but again the no land troops policy made keeping it the tricky part.

After Paris I had to still wait for few turns before getting Battleships so I could reach Athens. For Cusco I build/bought an Air Force much too large for the job but unlike in my usual Liberty games I was rolling in cash with very decent income.

With BSs the Greek cities/units offered no real resistance but I had to sent in a Cavalry to take the city T258 and since I was in no hurry I took Ollantaytambo before T260 Cusco with GWBs while Cusco was hammered by BSs.


Very easy though a very slow game. I was under no threat at any point, apart from very few turns always happy and most of the time on double digits, decent gpt throughout the game and my tech rate surpassed the rest around T130 even thought I had 7 unused GSs in the end; the 1st I planted and PSchools came very late due to the detour of Dynamite which was not only pointless but actually harmful as well but I wasn't paying much attention to anything after the initial 'WTF is my iron' -question.

As for the other GPs, I eventually made GWs out of Musicians just to save space & money, used 2 Artists for GA and had 2 other in the end, used 1 GW for... something & saved the rest 4. I ran all the Guilds to the end but didn't bother much using the GPs. One GG was planted near Amsterdam and the rest 4 saved like all the 4 Admirals.

Policywise full Tradition, left side of Honor, left side of Patronage, Rationalism opener & Secularism just to make something differently and then rest half a dozen in Order in which I was joined by Pacha & Kame.

First caravan to Pedro, then cargoes to feed Lisbon & Porto and the rest to Pacha or fullfil some CSs quests as I didn't get beakers out them anyway.

Decent religion, bought Mousques in my own cities & Amsterdam, used an unwanted Prophet for some CS quests and ignored the rest while I could've bought 3 GEs for example. I just didn't need any WWs.

As for UU it gave few extra gold and UA some happiness which I didn't need as it comes so late and I was allying CSs anyway and for most parts lack of money wasn't an issue and compared to a normal Liberty game this was ridiculously easy.

Had I not started building settlers early on and/or missed the 2nd city spot this might've been trickier but the nice wide jungle made settler dodging relatively easy; the early barbs were more of a problem.

Lovely starting position but I hate snaky landmasses especially when it lack the mass like in this case but this must've been the only DCL were nobody thought I was building new cities too aggressively.




Few pics along the way. Apparently one of cap cappings went on with warcorrespondant asleep, sorry about that but nothing extraordinary was missed.

Spoiler :































 
I can understand the decision not to bulb those GP, but why not just delete them in that case?
 
I can understand the decision not to bulb those GP, but why not just delete them in that case?

Excellent question without an equally valid reason, sadly. There're multiple minor reasons and the cumulative effect is usually enough to save the most if not all of them.

The core issue here, I think, is that I'm a builder by default so making and especially leaving a well developed civilization behind is more important to me than saving few turns from the win. I almost always run all specialist till the end if that's been the case for the past x turns, I never sell sci or otherwise obsolete buildings unless I'm razing a city etc - in short, I play like the actual turn of winning would not be the end of a game.

And since I almost always have an agenda of my own which includes variable things I do/don't do apart from winning itself I like to keep the GPs around for drastic late game changes. A bit more practical is to keep a GS/GM/GW around to easily keep track of their value progress and on the last turn I can bulb GSs to see if there's uranium around etc - quite a few little things one can do for personal enjoyment without hampering the game beyond winning.
 
Due to the choices of AI's in this one, it might be tricky for CV.
 
T253 SV

Turn time is slower than expected due to having little control on WC early and AI passed arts funding. (all civs on this map except for 1 went for culture in my game) Except they all have pathetic science. Also, nobody bothered to steal my tech despite being tech leader for a long time, so only got 1 rank 3 spy for coups.

T94 4 city NC
T109 Education
T164 ST
T209 Plastics

WC: arts funding, simultaneous WF+IG (won WF, got 2nd place IG), +culture to GP+landmarks+WW
SP: full trad, patronage opener, 3 commerce, full rationalism, 7 Freedom including +gold to freedom civ
Wonders: PT, BB, SoL, ET, HST. Lost Sistine and never opened Aesthetics, so dreams of CV was over.

Spoiler :

Settled in place, DoW William for worker, but failed to block his expo. Forward settled him for the silver. That city turns out to be my highest production city, so CV would be difficult to pull off due to many strong culture civs and lack of hammer in capital.
Blocked Pedro's expo easily due to jungles and eventually planted 2 cities close to there, including the faith NW. Standard 4 city tradition freedom science game, although rather crowded on my continent, everyone was friends forever. I had to clear some of the jungles to increase my food/hammers. Eventually Hawaii had cities very close, but since everyone except Alex was BFF, it didn't matter much.

Pantheon was +food to banana/wheat, grabbed a religion with the faith mountain and got pagoda + growth

For some reason, 2 other civs also went freedom, which is pretty rare considering I got first pick. Cargo trade routes yield significant gold near end, more than 50gpt in some cases. Also happiness is extremely high for a science game, had more than 60 even after selling every lux, which was extremely rare for non Indian civ. Dutch had well over 120 happiness. UI helped somewhat since it was difficult to keep CS allied with many civs taking patronage, and Alex of course. At no point in the game did I get every CS. UU was pretty underwhelming, only built 2. Eventually Alex pissed off the entire world due to his warmongering, and his constant stealing of CS, so I also denounced for diplo boost.



 
I actually played this a few times, trying to get anything other than SV. My CV attempts took until turn 399 or 400, and could have been Dom victories at that point! It really seems like all the extra happy should be good for something, but I could not figure it out.

I very much enjoyed the map. And despite the SV being late, was pretty strong end game, picking up all the late wonders and no one had any parts besides boosters.
 

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Hello, I was wondering how can I submit a game to be counted in the DCL finishers list/ranking ?
Is it possible to play and submit any old DCL ?
Looking forward to play some DCL :D
 
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