The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game # 1 - The Zulus

[DingleBirdy]

The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game #1

Welcome to the inaugural of what will become a bi-weekly event. All games in this series will be set to DEITY difficulty. User civilizations, maps, and opponents will change each game, but the pace will always be set at standard and the starting era will always be ancient. We will try for a variety of starts, and not just having a crazy warmonger as your next door neighbor (although there will be that too). This isn't a competition so there will be no predefined victory conditions. I will keep a public spreadsheet of finishers that will look something like this. New challenges in the series will be posted every other Friday.

DCL Game #1
You - The Zulus
Total Civilizations - 8
Total City States -16
Map – Pangaea
Settings – Quick movement and quick combat(turn them back on if you would like). Everything else is set to default.
Game Version - 1.0.3.144
Downloadable Content – G&K, BNW, Conquest of the New World Deluxe, Genghis Khan's Mongolia, Harold Bluetooth's Denmark, Isabella’s Sapin and Pachacuti's Incan Empire, Kamehameha's Polynesian Empire, Nebruchadnezzar's Babylon, Sejong The Great's Korea, Wonders of the Ancient World. The map pack are intentionally excluded.

Starting Location

The save can be found at the bottom of this post.

Who can play?
Anybody can play. The more the merrier. Even if you normally don't play deity games you are still welcome to try. The games can become great learning resources for the player trying to improve. Even if you don't finish the game, we are still interested to hear about your experience.

Do's and Don'ts
We are going to be using the honor system. Feel free to restart, reload, play the same game multiple times, but don't use the science overflow exploit. Also please don't edit the game in IGE. If you do chose to cheat, please don't share your results in the comments. Also, please use the spoiler tag if you post a picture, comment about neighboring civs, close by wonders, or locations of ancient ruins.

Also, please tell us about your Build Order, Social Policies, Tech Order, and what type of wonders you went after. I know a lot of this stuff seems pretty mundane to the experienced player, but the details are incredibly useful to people trying to learn.

Why no vc's? And what is the point if this isn't competitive?

Having freedom to do whatever suits you best, whatever suits the map best, freedom to experiment and even fool around is, probably, one the main appeals of these games. We have two restrictive types of games. Why would we need another speed race?

I obviously don't want to forbid people from proposing (deity challenges) but if at least one was aimed to regroup more people that would be great.

The Deity challenge series is not about winning as fast as possible imo, its just about people playing the same start and telling the story of their game, unlike for example HOF and GOTM.

If you have any more suggestions, or questions, please post them at the New Deity Challenge Series **Suggestion thread**

Future Games in the Series
I want users to submit saves from turn 0. Preferably the person submitting the game has played enough turns to know the map is either difficult, fun, or unique in some enjoyable way. Write a short description as to why it is special and email the save to DeityChallengeLineup@gmail.com

Game #1 - June 20th as The Zulu
Game #2 - July 4th
Game #3 - July 18th

Important
If you submit a game for the challenge, you must have the DLC map packs disabled. Not everybody has them and they are honestly kind of useless. Having them disabled will allow more participants.

DCL Finishers Spreadsheet

 

[Dehli]

Woah might need to sit back and watch as some others take some whacks at this one.

Spoiler :

First game i went looking for the coast and accidentaly settled with my borders against Paris. Didn't try to play that one out. Next settled in place got three cities out but literally surrounded on each corner. Napolean and Washington won't stop settling right on top of me. I am surrounded by like five small cities. Siams borders bump mine, so do Babylon and Carthage just settled to the left of Valleta. I did get the pyramids and finsihed liberty, but I don't know where to go now. Feeling flustered.

 

[budweiser]

I will practice my spear point diplomacy when I get some time.

 

[hicks53081]

My favorite domination civs are China, Arabia, Huns, and Mongols. Starting this game made me realize I have very little experience with with early and mid game melee units. I've either used ranged for medieval wars or waited and used artillery/bombers/rocket artillery. I may not know what I am doing.

Spoiler :

First of all, did anyone else meet every leader by turn 20? Anywho I decided not to settle in place and walked my settler up a bit. My warrior scouted out some sugar in an area next to four wheat, and a couple salt. I figured it was as good a place as any to start. After settling I immediately saw Rammy's borders appear right next that sugar. I tried to rush out and find some city states so I could buy that sugar, but he got there first. That sucked, but luckily my borders were in reach of some dyes. Napoleon quickly ran a settler out to those dyes, but luckily by then I had enough money to buy some tiles and send him somewhere else.

I stole workers from America, Rammy, and got one from citizenship . I was torn between honor or liberty in this game, but ultimately decided liberty because I wanted the Pyramids. They became my number one priority because I had to get there before Pocatello, so I opened with AH, sent out a science caravan then rushed towards masonry. I ended up getting one free settler and building a another one. As I was moving my third settler to the coast to the east of Valletta next to the sugar, Rammy dropped his 4th city right in the location I was eying. I ended up taking the hill tile next to the river SE of Valletta which put me right next to American borders. There was such a little amount of space left to settle, but I didn't want to waste that settler. I also finished the pyramids before turn 40.

As the game went on, Napoleon came and settled right under my nose. He had been being a warmonger all game and this was clearly an act of aggression. I paid Washington and Pocatello to declare war on him, which they both did for pretty cheap. By about turn 95-100 I had an army of 6 composites and 8 impi and decided it was time to attack Napoleon. I really didn't want to attack him first, but I figured nobody would really care.

I was able to take is crap city in just a couple turns, razed it, then moved my swarm to Paris. The entire time I was trying to build a road but American units were everywhere, so it made it impossible. Eventually I was able to surround Paris with Impis and pretty much let the Shoshone and American composites and catapults take shots at the city. After about five turns of just fortifying I finally struck and took his capital. It was f***ing empty. Plus it only had one unique that I didn't have.

Now here I am and it's around turn 115 and I'm thinking Babylon seems like the easiest next target. Pocatello seems to be running wild. He has built nearly every wonder and he's allied with most city states. He has the gw and a million tiles of protection surrounding his cap. Another thing, nobody is in the renaissance era yet. WTH?

 

[Moriarte]

t.52 progress report

Spoiler :

So, against my own will (Zulu + Salt is a bit crazy to start with) i started this game and met all civs on turn 12. The set up turned out to be even more sugary than i thought. In the middle, between all civs, here i am, sending caravans whichever way i desire, DOF'ing everyone in sight and stealing A worker from America on turn 7. I did manage to snatch his caravan too, plus hard built another worker, so i had 3 of these guys before turn 30. We signed DOF with Wash recently too. Dido is the only one who is alarmingly silent and on top of that she apparently covets my lands.. It's good that America is between us. For now. I haven't explored the west of the map, since i was busy with barb camps, but two of my scouts are ready to explore what's left. One of them has improved eyesight. I doubt there is much more land to the west though.

Anyway, i went tradition, partly because i found a culture ruin on turn 1. Otherwise, i would most definitely go liberty. Now that i chose a peaceful path i have the luxury of accumulating gold (which promises to be plenty) and tech'ing crossbows and impi, which should be enough to cleanse this tiny map. Liberty will probably win on this map, but let's see how well tradition can do the same thing.

The French forward - settled me, but i payed them to attack the Shoshone for 6 gpt. I settled a total of 3 cities, with an option of settling a final one to the south, but i decided against that. The reason is - domination. I'd rather have a shot at t6* NC with 3 cities and two caravans, than have a 4 city t.7* NC with one caravan.

Situation is fragile because France and Carthage didn't DOF me yet, but, i guess, if i don't make mistakes in the field of diplomacy i can safely live long enough to get my medieval units and start making trouble against either France or America.. I feel that France is the better option, since i can probably lure the queen of Carthage to try and take Great Library of Washington for herself, while i deal with Napoleon. Then i could kill her, kill some Naresuan elephants and proceed onward.

So, my program for today is: NC, granaries, unique barracks, units ad infinitum. Every capital has some unique unique luxuries, plus i allied Vatican for a long time and befriended another faithful CS, so happiness might be good. After meeting few religious city states i got a free pantheon and went for Sun God (extra food). Liz is the only one having religion now (Protestantism with Cathedrals, Mosques and desert folklore), so i am hoping for some missionaries soon.

Faster, faster, faster, towards Impi.

Here is the screen:

 

[glory7]

screenshots to come later. Basically I played another example of my zulu pangea domination guide - I might enhance/revise that guide or at least add a decent example with this map.

Spoiler :

This map cries for liberty domination: no river, no mountain around the cap, so peaceful science game is not very powerful. moreover, zulu pangea means that you can pwn with impi+xbows.

It actually turned out that liberty is a nice choice here, as the starting position is middle of several civs and you have to act fast to get good expo spots.

I stole one worker from america very early, and one more from Dido, and 2 from Valetta. I used that CS for XP farming - two archers (didn't even upgrade them to CBs, as in that case I may miss a shooting opportunity) hit logistics (!!!)

Liberty 4 cities, Xbows to impis. science caravan worked well - AIs sent caravans too, and that helped a lot.

More details will be added when I upload screenshots.

 

[DingleBirdy]

glory7's Zulu Domination Guide (Deity, standard, Pangea)

Don't know how I missed this guide. I can't wait for your update.

 

[RedRover57]

I played to T75 and am enjoying the map so far. Seems fairly balanced - no AI's have the space to spiral out of control. I settled on the hill and settled one additional city to the south (river, mountain, dyes, marble) after my capital hit pop 4. Two city NC - Tradition start. Napoleon built the Statue of Zeus so I bribed him to war with Babylon. For some reason he has been unwilling to war against Pocatello, which seems odd since Pocatello has basically surrounded him with cities. Siam and America have forward settled on me (no surprise) - I have a DoF with Siam and I turned down a DoF with America. Trying to bribe America to war with Dido or Siam, but he won't do it.

Now I'm rushing to Civil Service while building spears/comp bows. Icanda in my cap and one soon in my 2nd city. When I have 6 impis, a few comp bows and a couple of cats I will attack America. He built the Great Wall but their borders aren't expanding much (he must have Liberty) so I want to take him down before he gets his minutemen. Hopefully at that time I will also be able to get France into a war with Pocatello so I don't have to worry about my western border.

Seems like a winnable game for sure, but I'm not going to try to compete with Glory7 for time. I'm not playing nearly as aggressively to start as I much prefer Tradition to Liberty.

 

[kb27787]

Worked late today so only played a few minutes...
Hmm... headed north after I saw traces of a river. Such a douche map... all the wheat are off the river, and salts are pretty far away! If you want river you give up salt and vice versa. In the end settled on gems with bananas up north... turns out I saw a Babylonian settler right there! Doesn't happen often on deity, but I think I just took Nebby's natural expansion location!... His settler eventually went north instead and was forced to settle on desert

Spoiler :

Took both his starting workers, and a third eventually before making peace. Now Babylon is stuck in a jungle with no workers. That hopefully should slow him down since he's one of the rare aggressive yet science-based AIs.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Got VERY lucky with barb quests and looks like I may get a religion just from CS faith eventually. (faith growth will trigger Lhasa's quest for faith which after calculations would put me very close to 200 faith after everything wears off) btw Napoleon forward settled me on turn 19! NINETEEN ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!! ARGHHH feel like reloading but I had such a good start I'll keep going (sun god was my choice of pantheon btw)


I have 2 friends, America and Siam, and a bunch of luxes to develop. Now I'm at a major crossroads. How many archers before I attempt to expand? Where to expand? Should I drop 500 gold into Valetta to get some units? (although with hostile personality even with +50% influence, I'm not sure if I'm getting my gold's worth... PLUS chances are it'll give me crappy warriors instead of archers)
How many cities? (seems lose-lose no matter where I go... I hate America and Carthage in general; not really loyal "friends" and France of course is the most disloyal AI ever... last think I want is to get triple teamed... Babylon and England aren't exactly angels either so only Siam is semi-trustworthy...) And I'm too sleepy to think straight so I'll play this tomorrow.

 

[glory7]

Spoiler :

I attached lots of screenshots for this one, as I plan to use this as an example for the guide itself.



Started with early worker stealing. Build order is scout - monument. with lucky culture ruin, I opened liberty already, and this will give a free settler about 5 turns earlier.

usually early culture ruin = tradition to maximize the effect. But for this map, no river/lake/mountain means that usual tradition science approach won't be powerful as usual. Moreover, you play zulu... let's war!



my scout went west, and found a map ruin so I went north-west for the found ruin. my 2nd scout got blocked by sea and ended up going north all the way. I met 3 religious CS and getting almost free pantheon - earth mother it is.

meanwhile, I tried another worker steal from america but failed. I took one from Dido (where her warrior stands) and one from the CS. There are some warmonger hit, but stupid BNW warmonger system is usually okay unless you take cities.

I went for scout-monument-scout/granary-shrine and now building an archer.



Made peace with Dido, as I won't able to steal more worker(s) anyway. Make sure you sell lux/resources/embassy for hard cash.



when american units approached, I had to make peace with him too - sold embassy only. Yet, I took an early worker and plundered one caravan (toward this CS), so got some gold too.

As I got lots of gold, I rush buy caravan and connect it to reduce warmonger hit (it seems that AIs really love you when you send trade route first)

next turn free settler.



I've sent caravan to washington and he immediately asked for DoF at the next turn. My warrior waited 2 tiles away from the horse tile and took 2nd worker from the CS.

Sometimes it is risky to settle in front of other civs, in particular when I have to settle it on open plain (not hill), but that place is sooo good (and for zulu game, I welcome all challenges!). I also try to get foreign trade routes.

I bought the gem tile right away and had sent a worker earlier to get that chopped wood and gem faster. I built one settler right after the free one and sending that one to east - forward settling toward east to block them off and get wine+others. Moreover, worker from CS can be used immediately, instead of wasting several turns moving.

Note that I am using 2 archers to reveal the map also, as my initial scouting sucks.. and I am looking for barb quests.



france forward settled. and pyramid gone already??? didn't even notice that he chose liberty. okay, fine, I can win without it anyway.

note that spt became 22 (it was 11 spt 4 turns ago). 2 foreign trade routes and 3 more pops compared to the previous screenshot.

due to the close-distances, there was no barb quest at all - strange. I could not XP farm my archers too. Hence, I am sending my archers to the CS for XP farming. I researched sailing early to get additional caravan.



I got 2nd caravan.. where should I put it? checked the trade routes and I see french and american caravans coming in. I will send my 2nd one to france. I swap techs to maximize spt earning (I delay techs as much as possible, as "I do not know 2n or 2n-1 techs they know" means n spt for a caravan)

america forward settled to me (boston). Given the close-distance map, my 3rd city position would have gone if I had not chosen fast settler tech.



Since I am okay with happiness and need to fill the gap, I am going for 4th city. for tradition plays, computer recommendation for the south is a good spot (marble, dye, hill, river, and mountain!). However, for liberty game, you should build your cities as close as possible so that you can defend much easily when surprise attack comes and utilize important tiles. 4th city will be on the hill between the cap and 3rd city.



This is one advantage of building close cities (4 tiles away). I let the new city to use 3 food 2 hammer salt tile to grow fast and get monument fast. I bought iron tile for cap to work. of course, develop this tile asap to sell iron. you can sell one iron/horse for 2gpt.



scouting is almost done and archers arrived at the bootcamp. you can see 6 workers - 1 from america, 1 from dido, 3 from CS (took one more last turn - that's why scout is almost dead), and 1 from citizenship.

3 caravans are coming in! as siam is not sending one, maybe he will be my first victim later...



doing not bad - already #1 in production. went bronze working fast to find out iron and build ikanda (UB) fast. sometimes I skip/delay ikanda for expos, but for this game, I followed usual build for expos: monument, granary, UB, and units!

 

[glory7]

up to t54 shows how to build the bases up. This one shows how to prepare for rush (and the results)

Spoiler :

as I could not find any barbs and no one to fight early (worried about more diplo hit and caravan getting plundered), I am using this CS to XP farm, as if 3 workers were not enough. attacking city give 3XP, instead of 2XP for attacking units!



5 incoming routes... impressive given that I DoWed a lot from the beginning. I changed my caravan destinations to french cities as they give most spt and gpt, and they are safer. I went engineering early so that I can get 3rd caravan. I also built early market(s) to attract foreign trade routes and enhance my gpt for upcoming upgrades.



first logisitics (only from attacking this poor CS!). spearman took all damage (I think I attacked the CS with it so that the CS will attack it from then). Didn't upgrade them to CBs, as in that case there will be too much damage per shot and I won't utilize all shooting opportunities (total damages = recovery to keep this going)

non-veteran units started attacking siam. no need to hurry - I just cut his units one by one, and built roads near his city to do moving-shots. I know that I cannot get this city before XBs without losing some, so I just wait and farm XP.



from the map, it was obvious that siam caravans should go bab or england (or CS, but not likely). I took the worker too, but not really meaningful.



I had to load autosave (as I forgot to take screenshot of this). getting free 100 gold...yummy.



CS quests are not going well. I could get 2 CS allies with science quest (military CS, budapest, is not showing on the screenshot). England with religious CS neighbors and OP desert forklore is going crazy - she enhanced it around t40 and sending missionaries to this area already (my cities got converted too).



this archer even got range promo. Xbows are up, and time to finish siam up. note that I already built roads along the border so that I can shoot easily.



I forgot to use liberty finisher GS and got impis one turn later, but not a big deal. t92, 10 Xbows and 3 impis... and more to come when I get more gold by taking his cities.



t94, first city falls. by the way, akkad looks very nice.... And of course, I don't forget to bribe AIs so that neighbors fight all the time. I paid 22 gpt for Dido to attack america (it was worth it.. I didn't need to defend the east border and they sent more caravans to me), and paid less than 10 gpt for France to attack shoshone.



t98, siam cap falls. I DoWed bab before capturing the city and plundered his caravan to siam cap. I forgot to turn yield on for the screenshot, but when I did it those banana tiles showed 2 sciences, which means it has university in it. it also has gem, truffle, spice, and cotton (I don't have last three). His cap is mediocre at best, but 2nd city is awesome. So it should belong to us



five turns later: I cleaned up his warriors+CBs+spears without any loss and took the city. I don't have education (and prolly never) and this city has university, and even aquaduct! better than my own cap.



I immediately DoWed England and started clearing. I also took her GProphet and fulfilled CS quest - and this is a new one (use 4 left), I will use this to enhance my own religion



like this. I didn't plan on doing anything with religion, but given that I get some fpt now this is not a bad idea. I got messiah, so that I can get my own prophet fast (as this is the only way of spreading my own religion at this point).



England has GW, but it does not matter as her forward city has a wide open plain in front of it. I annexed akkad and it gives 30 spt - the same as my cap. I think my cap is producing only 10+3(palace)+5(library)=18, and the rest of spt (12) are from trading routes connected to my cap.



t111. cleared units, and took the city, 8 turns after the fall of Akkad. ty for GW, but I want more...



5 turns later, London falls. most veterans already headed southeast to attack America, who took +10 happy wonder and petra (and statue of zeus), right after taking the GW city. I took 2 more fresh prophets during the war, and planted them on the tiles to get +12 (6*2) fpt. I will be able to buy mosques soon (this city alone will give 15 more fpt....)

I bribed AIs to fight against each other, and my units are already killing america. It's only matter of time to finish the game at this point, so I stop here.

 

[DingleBirdy]

Wow, 10xbows and 3 impis at turn 92 is incredible. Who built the Pyramids? Pocatello or Washington I'd assume. Apparently France built the pyramids. Was the tech path the same as your Zulu guide? I think I'll play and ignore the pyramids because I can always get it later.

 

[DingleBirdy]

I forgot to use liberty finisher GS and got impis one turn later,

I'm sorry, but what do you mean? Was your intention to use GE to get Machu Picchu, but you accidentally picked GS instead? Also if you did get a GS, did you bulb him instantly?

Also, postimg is very frustrating. I don't know why, but about every other link won't open on the first attempt. It just stalls out and I eventually have to reload the page. I uploaded all the pics and text to a personal imgur album. It's set to private because I'm not trying to step on anyone's toes. Imgur also works with thumbnail zoom plus.

 

[RedRover57]

I don't consider myself to be a bad player, but watching glory7 makes me want to uninstall the game.

Turn 115 or so for me and I have only taken one of Washington's cities so far. He's had the supernatural ability to spam wonders in his capital (including GW) and churn out a seemingly endless parade of units with only 3 cities (2 now). He's got xbows (as do I) and longswords (soon to be minutemen I'm sure) and his cap is over 40 strength, so I need to detour for trebs before Education if I want to have a chance to take Washington. I have some promoted impis (lost a bunch too) but they are basically obsolete already except as semi-competent meat shields. Catapults were worthless against his first city as they were basically one-shotted (not surprising) - this also is why it took so long to take that city. I should have built more comp bows instead.

I had Machinery around T100 so my progress wasn't that bad - just went after the wrong guy first I guess. Although if I didn't go after Washington first he really had the potential to get very strong, very fast.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel]

Spoiler :

Sent Warrior to NE hill and saw nothing, so settled the hill. I followed glory7’s guide (had an interesting game when I found it a few months ago – I’m not a domination player often, it was fun, but very frustrating in hills/jungle). BO was scout, monument, scout, granary, shrine, 4 archers, scout, Pyramids, start UB, start settler at pop 8. Expo did monument, granary, UB start. I had to build an extra scout because one got killed stealing a French worker (warrior saved worker), and one got stuck in Dido’s ZOC. I have a habit of over-exploring when I enter a tight space like that, but I want to see all approaches for later.

3 ruins gave map N/NE, culture (yay!) and gold. SP Tradition left side, free Settler went S 5 N of Wellington (poor initial food, I know). (My 3rd city should go on red dot, 2 N of Solomon’s Mines – I plan to annex with GG – wanted it for 2nd city but too far away – the lost scout hadn’t backfilled fog towards Ulundi). Both Expos should have good defense with mountain blocks and roaded hills for range.

I DOW’d Nap trying for a double worker steal, and stayed at war because my archers were XPing for a while, then what appeared to be a mtn trained spearman ruined my day (is there any way to know what the enemies up wedge promotions are?). He got CB before me, and has a small army possible heading out, so I am back on defense. I may still be able to pot shot him with CBs if I can get some roads in hills NE of Paris in a while. I have more fun with archer scouts than any unit early game…

I doubt I will get 4th city out, although USA is not expanding. I have been short on gpt, and should finnnally get Earth Mother soon, last to get pantheon. I have 5 workers.

In retrospect I should have DOW’d Budapest for XP farming and just tried to steal workers from Nap and USA and offered peace, Nap wants my Expo now in deal. Washington has the best army approach, it seems, and 2 unique lux. I only have DOF with USA and Siam.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=377647&stc=1&d=1403374839

 

[glory7]

I'm sorry, but what do you mean? Was your intention to use GE to get Machu Picchu, but you accidentally picked GS instead? Also if you did get a GS, did you bulb him instantly?

Also, postimg is very frustrating. I don't know why, but about every other link won't open on the first attempt. It just stalls out and I eventually have to reload the page. I uploaded all the pics and text to a personal imgur album. It's set to private because I'm not trying to step on anyone's toes. Imgur also works with thumbnail zoom plus.

my bad about being not clear. Since I got gold to upgrade xbows and impis, and gpt was not bad, liberty GS was an obvious choice. (also,I did not have any machu-pichu able city anyway)

I bulbed him instantly, but forgot to change the tech order before and wasted one turn (for the rush, sometimes one turn is crucial, since if you plan to finish a city at the certain turn and cannot get the firepower, you may lose units and/or pull back). I forgot to finish either horseback or drama, so when I bulbed GS, I had more than enough science overflow but could not research civil service b/c of one research per turn limit.

for postimg, sorry for that - have not heard about it before when I used it for gotm. I should try imgur next time.

 

[The Pilgrim]

I don't consider myself to be a bad player, but watching glory7 makes me want to uninstall the game.

Yes, we totally should make these challenges more competitive!
I mean... I wish glory's great achievements had such an effect on me - I need to work more and play less... 'Thankfully', I am still very limited in my ability to play due to Nvidia drivers being buggy as they are...

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Turns 1-121

Spoiler :

First things first, I haven't read any of your posts yet but I am looking forward to them. I played the first 123 turns and am having a really fun time in this game. I went 2 city NC (t84). I could of had it earlier but decided to build Oracle instead (t 70ish). I used that free SP to fill up Tradition. I wanted to go Liberty since all the strategies I've read suggest this is the best for Zulu domination. I thought of where to settle and what policy I would open for a few mins before I settled. I decided with those farms, salt, and dyes I would try to settle on the hill and have all the luxes in range, plus being on a hill is always better (IMO). I was hoping to settle next to the mtn down the road for an observatory. Like most games, my plans changed and (IMO) I scouted really well this game compared to all my other games in the past. I went NE first, found a gold ruin before settling (I was hoping for a map ruin but this is good to buy the salt hexes) and Valletta for the insta DOW. Next I headed SE and hey its USA! I hung around his borders and waited for the best time to steal a worker. It was beautiful when he put a worker on top of a hill and his warriors were across the river. Wait a min!? I guess he had some more units and after my DOW and steal he killed both my warrior and worker ! Oh well such is life and this is War! A few turns later peace with them and DOF ofcourse, DOF with Siam as well! I thought about religion but with all the faith CS's and faith Nat Wonders I didn't want to fight the AI for that. We adopted Buddhism and it's a good one with Pagodas and what not!

My BO was scout, scout, mon,(wasn't sure if I was gonna mix in liberty. Oh well free Amp), gran, carav, arch, arch, worker, lib, Oracle. I met all the civs on t 19. I think that might of been a personal record for myself! I managed to get back to Val CS to get 1 worker and after that I decided to make peace since I seen they had a CB now. Perhaps if I would remember to send my archers over there to xp farm my game would be better. I used my first 500 gold to rush buy a settler. I planted him on the dyes close by to the west (gran first, rush buy lib). Tech order was: Pot, AH, Mining, Arch, Cal, Sail, Writ, Philo, Theo, BW, Mason, Civil, Const, Mach; in hopes of stealing Education from USA. Washington didn't have that so I stole IW and promised not to steal. I lied and stole steel (lol stole steal steel pun) in 5 turns. I put 1 turn into Physics and after the steal Im teching Edu most likely getting it at turn 132 (LATE). I guess all the wars I bribed (Poc vs France, France vs Babylon, Siam vs England, Dito vs USA, and hey USA declared on France just for fun by himself!) made the AI tech slow Im only 4% behind. Also all the trade routes comming in and going out was alot of science.

I used all my luxes to bribe early wars or get gold trades. I used my 3 caravans for gold and science routes instead of sending food to the cap. Finally I decided to attack Paris when he asked me if I was going to war with him. I didn't lie and said ofcourse since you have no army left after fighting Shoshone and USA. I put Shoshone back to war with him and timed when to take Paris so Shoshone didn't get it (Shoshone has open borders with me). I forgot to check warmonger hate before I took cap so I hope it was minor! Paris had Statue of Zeus so that is nice since I did not open Honor. That is where my game is at and time to take a break. It is a fun game for me though and I won't finish nearly as fast as you all but Im sure you know by now my skill doesn't allow for a fast finish. Im not sure but my plan is most likely to take Philly and Washington(Petra, Itza, Machu, Parthenon, TOA, and my fav Notre Dame ... USA really built some of the best wonders ) next, since he probably will hate me now after all the spying. He is at war with Carthage and a few turns after I took Paris she is insulting me and ready to denounce Im sure. Maybe stop warmongering after that and go SV or DV. Shoshone has GW and that combat bonus in his borders so Im gonna hope he is my best ally the whole game. Perhaps I can get him to march that army at Paris over to Philly and Washington with me

 

[kb27787]

Spoiler :

WELL... I have a habit of going one-city NC and this game reminded me why I had that habit. A few turns earlier and my settler would've been caught! DoW'd by Napoleon who went full honor; if I had expanded my satellite would've probably fell/get double teamed from Carthage (AI much more likely to DoW you if you are already in a war)

Spoiler :

Come at me Frenchies t50 or so pretty early (you're going to have to do better than just spearmen and catapults though)! We are well prepared (with my units going over supply cap even) In the meantime the citizens of Ulundi are nonchalantly working on a national college.

Spoiler :

War is over and I didn't get pillaged or lose a single unit aside from the poor scout who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. That was a really short war! Whew...

Spoiler :

It was close but thanks to my block-happy scouts (had 7-8 scouts this game now you see how useful they are... and once astronomy is researched they will explore the oceans for me since we cannot get a coastal city), the settler races were (narrowly) won and I expanded where I wanted (taking full advantage of the peace treaty turns). Oracle was also constructed.

Spoiler :

Would've taken religious community but someone else took it... I'm not sure if swords to plowshares will get enough mileage here... but it's worth a try. This will put my diplo skills to the test. Enhanced at t89 after faith from CS spawned me my first GP and Hagia Sophia spawned the second one.

Spoiler :

Peaceful CV looking fine so far! I live and love in God's peculiar light.

Spoiler :

AIs really suck on this map their tech speed is really slow because of limited land. With Arts Funding that everyone loves, I can expect quite a few more friends. Will now be crazily attempting Pisa followed by Globe/Uffizi with free GE maybe. Then Porcelain tower.

I have a lvl 3 spy who will be doing some couping shortly. Ulundi is size 22 close to 23 currently; not bad but I've seen better. I plan to grow it to the sky. (Zulu means sky and Ulundi means high place so let's make Ulundi live up to its name). Bribed Carthage against France so they can slug it out and ease border tension a little bit.

Babylon never recovered from my early DoW... he was the last to enter renaissance. Siam is somehow down in tech! (HOW!?) He would've loved scholars in residence. (left me scratching my head). So my northern neighbors are weak. Good.

So far so good but I expect all hell to break loose on this map once ideologies come online. Fingers crossed.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Ok I peeked at all of your games who played them up to turn 135 or so. I can only hope one day to be able to Warmonger like Glory_7. What a write up to enhance his Zulu guide, very nice! Im really in awe of what he did! Turn 87 Machinery... Mother F*&^#$er! Great learning XP for me, and Im doing that S*#% next time I warmonger! He has an archer that gets logistic/range promo without honor... awesome! Also he finds a way to get a free religion, enhances it, spreads it when he isn't even trying for any of that with 30fpt at t116!! I want him to make an LP channel like Moriarte, Elcee, Madjinn, Yorrus...etc. Id watch every minute of those! I would watch Tommynt's but I need commentary, I do like seeing the German version of this game. I really found all the reads good, very entertaining and that is what I like about this. Ofcourse, Glory_7s addition to his Zulu guide made me feel like such a noob! It is very nice to see everyone has a completely different approach and the city placements are all different for the most part.

Yes it seems that Hicks, KB, myself and all your other games notice the AI isn't teching worth anything this game.

Moriarte met all civs on Turn 12!! Simply Amazing! I thought my turn 19 was good but geeesh! You guys steal workers/settlers/caravans so much better than I do and that makes me jealous. However even though the more workers the better I have played many Deity games with only one worker and still have no trouble winning through the years.

Good point, Red Rover, about taking Washington down early, in fear of him getting super powered. Im hoping the wars I got him into with France, Carthage and Shoshone keep his army smaller than usual. Ill have to remember to keep him always at war with others. LOL, at your Glory_7 comment, I can totally agree with you but I think Id rather learn and do that Sh*& in my games from now on.

KB you are a gifted peaceful CV player. You crack me up roaming around with your settler like this game was Civ Rev. I've always said that this game is Civ Rev + Civ IV = Civ V. I used to play Civ Rev (Deity) on PS3 and you could take a cap in the first five turns by moving your settler around and settling next to AI cap and since they had no army or defense for those first 5 turns bam you could just walk right in! Two Caps by turn 5! Also thanks for teaching me the meaning of those two words, I did not know that!

No reloads in your game yet Nigel_Tufnel huh? Keep that up... I know you can win without it! Looks like we both decided to settle our Cap in the same spot! Also I think that happens in every game of mine on Deity if you settle your 2nd city while in a DOW the AI wants it, if you want peace.

Anyway even though this map is most likely on the easy side for Deity, playing and posting and reading all your games helps me keep an interest in playing because Civ V BNW was starting to bore me. I always could get into playing mods but I really wouldn't know where to begin with all those choices. Who am I kiddding? I've been playing Civ for over 10 years now and playing all games since I was five years old (that's over 30yrs). I play in the casino's on a daily basis so I guess even if I was bored to tears with this game I would still put a few hrs into it daily. Ofcourse after reading Glory_7's game up to turn 116 I just realized I have many, many, many things still to learn at this game and just got a little more love for Civ V BNW. Ever since I started playing Civ in general I wanted to roll/destroy the AI like he shows is easy to do on the hardest level! If he and the rest of you keep teaching all these little secrets my dream may one day come true! Im gonna try that Archer XP farming on CS's in my next mp game though that just might be amazing. Ofcourse alot of MP games don't last very long (every time I CB rush and take 1-2 caps everyone quits) unless you play with the NQ group but since Im in Las Vegas I have a tough time getting good connections with those Europeans. For some reason the West Coast has problems with the connection compared to people in NY.

"Luck" Definition by Webster : the things that happen to a person because of chance : the accidental way things happen without being planned.

This is why I always say I do not believe in "luck" I believe in a plan. (IMO) I think Glory_7's game is a prime example that so called "luck" of anything in this game (ruins, Nat Wonders, building wonders... etc) in SP, no matter the level, has nothing to do with anything in this game. I have always believed that you can not just win but destroy, crush, annihilate (same word as destroy but sounds better IMO) the AI on any level no matter the map, civ, land, policy you choose, what ruins you find... etc. I would even go as far to say if you have the right tactics and knowledge you can overcome someones finish time even if they get more of the "luck" factors in the game. Knowledge equals skill and this is a skill game (IMO) (SKILL: the ability to do something that comes from training, experience, or practice!) and "luck" has nothing to do with it. That is to say if "luck" even really does exist. Ofcourse this is just my opinion and we are all free to choose what to believe.

LOL Pilgrim at your response to your location? (virtual reality )