The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game # 1 - The Zulus

[consentient]

Muskets are no match for XBs iirc

Actually Muskets can take a few XB hits. If you have a few Pikes and a load of XBs, then Muskets can be killed quite easily. But don't let them hit the XBs.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Well obviously yeah, but I'm going to assume those are super-XBs which can fire twice and from the next town over

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Muskets are no match for XBs iirc

Muskets are just really beefy. Getting through a few of them can take a while.


Anyway. I got t167 Domination Victory, and this is probably the hardest game I have played. It's my second time going Domination on Deity, and there are just too many things to learn. For example, I didn't need that many units in the end, so I could have finished faster.

Also, going Liberty is really superior to Honor for a rush like this, and having Liberty and Pyramids really helped early on with pillage-repair. I rushed a**hole Napoleon and Pocatello. Washington built the GW, but it was easy with citadel bombs. This time, nobody DoW'ed out of the blue unlike the first two times. I think it has something to do with going Liberty instead of Honor. While I was at war with England, a CS captured and destroyed Te-Moak with Chichen Itza, lol.

Lastly, I always got the impression that you skip siege units completely and go for XB's, but even a couple of Trebuchets make it easy to capture a city with 40 defense because XB's just do too little damage at that point.

 

[tarafran]

domination @200I followed Glory's guide probably loosing to much time building shrine to get a religion.Poca had GW and my Impies where pretty wimpy against his 80+ cities ,had too switched to muskets.I never build any libraries but one on the last turn.great waring game

 

[nickytootricky]

T310 CV

As on the LP thread, got a 310 CV with two cities. Recorded it as a VidLp on the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji3pTWlEGFo

 

[phillipwyllie]

T310 CV

As on the LP thread, got a 310 CV with two cities. Recorded it as a VidLp on the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji3pTWlEGFo

Nice victory there. 2 mistakes I noticed were:
1.)You could've sold your aluminum in lumps of 5 for a luxury.
2.)You could've easily synchronized the completion of Aesthetics with your first GM

I would've used my lvl3 spy to coup CS, saving me gold.

 

[nickytootricky]

Nice victory there. 2 mistakes I noticed were:
1.)You could've sold your aluminum in lumps of 5 for a luxury.
2.)You could've easily synchronized the completion of Aesthetics with your first GM

I would've used my lvl3 spy to coup CS, saving me gold.

Thanks for the tips! Not sure I agree with no.1, as I needed more gold than happiness. But the other two you're spot on.

 

[claudiupb]

I know this is an old Challenge, but I wanted to play a HCA domination game with Zulu, so I figured I might as well try the DCL.

Spoiler :

This game was rather interesting, because for the first time, I got DOWed early game multiple times, and there was nothing I could do about it. I saw the carpet of doom, America was bringing towards my borders at T40, but not even 20 GPT were enough for him to change his mind and attack someone else. I managed to fend him off with an archer and 2 spear men, but I lost my initial warrior. After that France figured they take a shot, but they were not such a big problem since by then I already had more troops. This delayed my NC but I still managed to complete it in the late T60 or early T70s. I only built an additional expo because there really wasn't much space for a 3rd and with the dows I probably wouldn't have been able to keep it.

After Civil Service, beelined Machinery and then the fun started. After upgrading all spearmen and 2 turns later all archers I started in a spiral movement to get all capitals: Siam, England, Babylon, Shoshone, France and finally Carthage.
Siam was very easy, I easily took the capital and second city (which I razed).
England was a tough nut to crack, they had Great Wall, and longbows so I lost a few impis (my cities kept building them so there wasn't a big problem. I actually needed machinery for this. With XBs I finally took York and then used a citadel to easily capture London.

By this time Shoshone dowed me because I had stilen land from them and they pillaged my caravan.

I moved forward for Babylon which was slow and steady because of the rough terrain, I only got the capital and settled for peace with 2 luxuries in the deal.

Then south for the Shoshone which were quite weak because of a war with France (that cost me 30gpt).
At this point my Impi's were becoming obsolete, I know they have a bonus against gunpowder units but it really doesn't seem to matter because musketmen destroyed a lot of them.

I pushed for Paris, and took advantage of the fact France were currently at war with America (which became my friends after a joint declaration of war against Siam). Managed to take it without losing any troops.

I decided to wait to upgrade my military. I was already building canons in my cities and I was timing oxford for dynamite. I just bulbed rifling to upgrade my Impis. I used a couple of faith bought great merchants to get the cash since it cost me a lot.

America was extremely easy since I had super riflemen against their minutemen, and artillery.

Carthage was a little tougher because they already had riflemen and eventually got Replaceable Parts (which I stole). The terrain was also rough, forcing me to get a CS.

 

[Stolare]

Never played as the Zulus so thought I would give them a try. Read the all in strats where you don't even research libraries relying on trade routes. Crazy I thought. Was surprised how well it worked. Managed to get one of my x-bows almost all its promotions. I think it only needed Accuracy 3.

 

[Sclb]

T208 Dom V

3 city Liberty CB rush with very low science. My speed was a bit too slow as the final capital was very difficult with only logistic+range XB doing the damage. I was too far from artillery since I never built any universities early except for one bought with faith, and I didn't annex cities until very late. Mass produced Impi for use as meat shields that protected the veteran XB. Got to rifles a few turns before the end for the siege on the final city, but too late to many any difference.

Spoiler :

Stole workers off Valletta, Dido, and Nebby. Stayed in war with CS until first real war.
Napoleon forward settled 2 cities next to my northern expo, so I have to be very careful to not DoW him for as long as possible.
Washington was marching an army, so bribed him to war against Napoleon. When I was ready, DoW Washington to, took his capital at T85.
Dido DoW immediately but didn't do any real damage before peace.
Used Liberty GE for Machu Picchu to help generate gold.

DoW Siam at T108 with XB, took his capital at T112, also took his expo but sold it to Nebby for all his gold, then immediately DoW him to recapture that expo as it was in the way. It was mainly done to generate gold and reduce unhappiness. Also DoW Liz at the same time, which turns out to be a mistake as she already had LB and was actually killing my XB without range.

Babylon falls T126 containing SoZ, razed his other remaining city so he was eliminated. Meanwhile, bribed Pocatello to DoW Dido to prevent her backstab. After a pretty long war, after razing English expo, captured London on T136.

Next target was Paris, which was very weak from previous war with Pocatello, so easily took it at T150. Immediately began war with Pocatello, but he already had musketmans and was able to kill a few of my XB when I wasn't careful. His cities were tightly spaced and combined with GW, so he was quite difficult and it required some GG bombs. His capital fell on T174, contains a lot of wonders including Notre Dame. While I was warring him, he took Babylon and I recaptured it and reduced to 1 pop. Also around the same time, Dido finally backstabs and also took Washington, and I had to split off the less experienced army and recapture it.

Dido already in Industrial era with riflemans/frigate/cannons, also built Red Fort so her cities were tough to take with only XB. Cannons or Artillery were out of the question. Taking Carthage required taking all her other cities on the way, as well as Valletta. And I also had to use several GG bombs, including one adjacent to Carthage to kill her garrisoned units. I used roads to help cycle logistic/ranged XB so that they can do more damage since only certain tiles can shoot Carthage. It finally fell on T208 after 7 turns of bombardment.

Spoiler :

 

[stormtrooper412]

A close map like this is a good example to try out the "Illiterate Domination" strat

 

[Blatc]

A close map like this is a good example to try out the "Illiterate Domination" strat

I tried it out, sorta, but ran into two 'problems':
-Writing is on the way to Impis (and I wouldn't dream of avoiding Impis)
-I popped Writing early and was curious if I could get Great Library (I did)

I hit Machinery T95, and already had Civil Service, and went Philosophy after that, then Education on T112.

Biggest difference from my game way back was that I basically didn't XP farm this time around, started war and took first capital a bit later, but just took the 3rd capital 5 turns earlier (T120) and will just quit there.

I was really just bored, waiting for the next DCL to come out.

 

[Sclb]

The problem with illiterate dom was that I lose steam around T150, as the window is nearing an end. In this case, I was on one of the tough ICS style opponent with GW, and it dragged on for more than 20 turns. Had I built a couple of universities/library earlier, I would tech to artillery and finished earlier, especially since the final civ was on a peninsula with very few attack-able positions. I needed much better troop management skill to manage it faster to avoid end of the window. Losing Impi weren't a problem, as they were very cheap to produce.

 

[stormtrooper412]

I feel like I'm working with very narrow windows for the most part. Perhaps they only sure way is to keep everyone at war at all times to stop them from teching out of reach

 

[fimbul]

Domination at T153 thanks to Glory7's guide.

Spoiler :

Settled 3 city, stole workers from america and france before bootcamping military CS. France stole my 4th city location in revenge. minor build order mishap (forgot to go mon before ganaries, bad trad habit) but managed to get pyramids. Planted a GS since i couldnt find a Machu Pichu city for a GE.

Machinary was reached at T98 with 2 range logistics archers. Babylon first to go around T100, followed by a trek up to London at T110. after that Impis came online so Siam fell T119 with no resistance.

France was busy fighting Shoshone so an undefended paris falls T128 and Moson Khani (with ND!) falls itself T140 after i waded through 2 more french cities and the GW.

At this point Dido wipes out America so the mop-up is easy. Washington falls T143, and a suicidal trek up the peninsular with impis yields Carthage on T153. according to my spy she was building Sistine right before her death...

Social Policies: Full Lib, 2 in comm

Religion: none. Got Englands with mosques and London had 2 planted prophets so I had insance FPT at the end.

WC: Never founded. Dido hated printing press...

Wonders: Pyramids. insane GC at the end due to pillage repair, wasnt sure how to use it speed up victory.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Very nice. I think I'm going to stick around with this map and see if I can make anything out of it

 

[NotLenny]

I'm sure this is a dumb question for most of you guys, but how to I open this so I can play?

 

[Sclb]

The savefile can be downloaded at the bottom of the opening post.

 

[Hans Tork]

It is a very late post but anyway got T292 SV in first attempt.

I had a culture bottleneck(only 1 cultural CS??) and did not have dominant religion in any of my cities(no faith bought GS,GE). Otherwise could have made it 20 turns earlier if I replayed this.

 

[bobbobbybobbob]

Very, very late post. I just played the challange. I have done it before but this time I recorded it as well. I went liberity with only two cities.. which probably was a mistake.. I will upload the video on my channel if anyone wanna watch. It might take a while when it's up though.. Other than that I just wanna say that I had almost forgot have good impies are.

EDIT: Now it's up! Enjoy if you watch.