The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game #10 - Polynesia

[Fluphen Azine]

People have been saying that this is not as hard as it seems and so forth, but no-one has actually posted a win yet and only one person an advanced turn count. I feel vindicated

Or, maybe everybody's just playing other games?

Well, you know... real life is getting in the way for me. Also I have been having a party with myself for the last week or so and they say MJ is not addictive lol! I just bought 3 new weapons so I have been out in the desert shooting up stuff as well. Im going to give it a go this early morning and see what is up but in all honesty Civ V is starting to bore me a bit. Usually when I feel like this I just take a month or two off of the game and that seems to do the trick. I think alot of people are playing Civ BE since it just came out as well but I will not even think of buying or playing that farce. I would go back to the PS3 or Xbox and play Civ Rev all day and night before I even thought of buying this Beyond Earth BS

Also, it appears at this moment only 23 downloads of this file so far. I think I see 3 posts of people starting up the game so that is on par. I notice about 10% or less actually win and post the results. Most people do not have the free time that I have to actually play every game and post up. Jobs seem to get in the way I know 20 players who beat Deity every single time so if we had a larger group actually playing and posting you would see more wins and notice the game is pretty simple. I myself have played out all of the challenges up to this game and my record stands at 7-2. Shaka rolled me on #4 (rolled Glory 7 too ) #5 Inca was going to be an easy SV so I decided not to finish but that game was pretty easy and on #9 Rome I lost because I rushed the game since I was going on vacation and wanted to finish it before I left. Honestly though I tried to turtle up in that game instead of just going full out coastal. I got greedy and thought I could roll India with my arty's but he got up bombers just as I was getting in. I really did not need to roll India to win but turtle up the whole game for SV is a little boring for me. I like to at least kill 1 Civ every game I ended up resigning #9 since it looked like Portugal was going to win a CV around turn 265 and I didn't think I could stop her in 20 turns.

EDIT: I should not say bored... I should say burned out. I have played this game for hours and hours since moving from Civ IV to Civ V. My steam account doesn't show the 1000s of hours I put into this game before I was connected to steam. Id say I have over 6000 hrs into this game so burned out seems the better word. 2000 or so of those hours are from MP and since I have a hard time connecting to the NQ group and public games rather are a huge mess I only play SP now and after weeks of playing 12hrs+ a day I tend to get burned out!

 

[bigwillystyle]

I've played to turn 90:

Spoiler :

Moved warrior southeast and saw both silver and the coastline. Gave serious thought to hitting the waves but ultimately decided to settle on the silver; provided a hill for hammers, coastal access, room for a few Moai, access to another luxury [truffles]. It was a bonus to see silk within range as well. Figured at a minimum the swamp to the north would be a morass for invaders.

Warrior swam south to meet the CS, and [admittedly lucky decision] went south slightly more and saw sri prada, and explored that area. After identifying a couple of expo sites, swam east [figuring west is the existing continent]. Found the other continent and started exploring. Eventually joined by an archer, additional warrior and two scouts. By turn 90 we're in force on the other continent, completing CS quests and stomping barbs left and right after some early near misses. Met five CSs before the AI at this point IIRC.

Initial Scout went south to steal the CS worker and then camp expo site adjacent sri prada. Expos were on marble next to Sri Prada and on hill on new continent in range of spices and 4x fish. Two settlers on their way to settle wine/tundra island and space near dyes on new continent.

Got one with nature (third pantheon) and third religion for tithe / shrine happiness [I'm desperate for happiness ...]. Missionary is on its way to the new world to spread some love.

Monty came in force with a large army on turn 55, and I bit the bullet and sent my 6GPT and my newly acquired marble to him attack Pachacuti. I would have sent him to Shaka but the two had just warred and made up with a 10 turn peace. This seems to have worked as 35 turns later he's still going at Pachacuti like a rabid dog. And I have my marble back.

Circa turn 60ish I noticed that everyone hates Shaka [four denouncements] so I went ahead and threw a denouncement his way, which generated 4 DOFs from Japan, Sweden, Inca and England. LOL. That may have been a mistake, we'll see. He seems to hate my guts but has his hands full with other AIs - about turn 80 he took Cusco, and everyone REALLY hates him - Japan just DOW'd and I was asked to DOW Shaka by three AIs. Not sure if I should accept, seems super risky. Strangely enough, about 5 turns after the denouncement, Shaka started sending me a caravan.

Build order was Scout / Monument / Shrine / Scout / Warrior / Granary / Archer x2 / Settler x2 / Comp Bowx2 / Circus / Colosseum / Settler x2

edit: some where in there post Archers is a Caravan, sent to Monty.

My capital kinda sucks. I won't lie. 6 pop on turn 90. So bad. But on the upside, I have a nice little defensible home base for my settler army. I have no wonders but both pyramids and oracle are open, so plotting a possible build for either. Also do not have NC which is appalling.

SPs were Tradition open / Liberty to Free Settler / Honor open / Free Worker. Weirdest order I've ever done, but I think it's worked well.

The medium term plan is to get 8 or more coastal cities, get a few social policies in exploration & finish liberty, build a ton of Moai and go wide culture victory. City sites appear to support good Moai building. Will need to tech to Hotels and Airports. Will need a lot of workers to build Moai. Will need the AI to keep beating each other up. I think all of the above is doable, but don't know.

Anyone that's gone farther that has advice, I'm open to it.

 

[consentient]

I think alot of people are playing Civ BE since it just came out as well but I will not even think of buying or playing that farce.

Hear, hear.

Can't say I get that bored of Civ 5. Maybe when I can win on Deity more consistently I might.

 

[Grendeldef]

BE, like for many of us I assume, was with what I spent my playing time during the weekend but I don't think return to it frequently but rather stick with Civ5.

I have to statistics to prove a point but I think it's safe to say that easier/better starts gets more attention anyway. One interesting side notion can be derived from the lack wins yet, though especially when there's an open thread questioning how are people able to do all sorts of stuff on Deity and seemingly with ease, too and the short answer is they don't, constantly anyway.
It's just that people tend to play better starts and are far more likely to share the experience if it was a positive one hence the view is heavily biased towards the successes. For me the interesting part here is the fact that the AI could actually wipe me off and that doesn't happen often at all.

As for my game I just continued and I'm hoping to get somewhere T150 with this stint.

Spoiler :

T82 3C NC, T95 last religion after waiting 9 turns for the prophet, T101 Tradition full, T102 white peace with Poland as I didn't have much of anything to defend myself with, T108 paid Shaka to DoW Poland as Shaka with idle hands is a dangerous neighbour and he offered DoF on next turn. That move didn't please the most but I'd rather war against few civs than a lone Shaka while Impi is still valid. Japan hit Renaissance while Shaka has most techs but I'm reluctant to steal from them at this point. T110 Oracle for me and it's where I am atm.

Oda is tech lead, Shaka the powerhouse in everything else, Pacha lost most of his cities but otherwise it's fairly even apart from me, 4 cities and settling the 5th as soon as my missionary swims to the other continent. Bad luck with CSs quests so I don't have a single ally hence can't sell too many luxes hence the lack of money hence old units hence...the usual stuff.
Barely got to CS and Education is far away. Honolulu is the only city able to support specialists so I went for Workshops before Unis besides I live in hope it'll give me faster XBows should I suddenly need'em.

I haven't yet made any additional rules for myself but like in last DCL I've been skipping Triremes.

 

[budweiser]

There will never be an Emperor map that is a challenge.

While, I don't plan to post Salt & Wheat every time, I want the map to be interesting enough at first glance so that people will try them.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

Are there extra Mods or something? My policy tree is messed up - see Tradition especially!

Spoiler :

 

[sun8119]

Well, I have to admit that I lost this map on my 1st try. I don''t know if I will try this again but this sure looks like the toughest map so far.

Spoiler :

Not much to say. Played till around T90, settled my capital on the coast and my 2nd city also on the coast just north to Poland. The plan was to get 2 city NC and then settle 2 more cities on the free continent.

Unfortunately I did not build enough military to protect myself and even though I could bribe Shaka to attack Poland I could not bribe Aztecs who after a long fight took the capital. And even if I survived this war I would have been slowed down too much I think. That is in addition to the tough terrain and map in general.

I think it is still possible to win this just need to play more careful and smarter and concentrate more on military than usually

 

[Fire0rb]

@nigel

there was a patch yesterday for civ5 which changed Tradition and Piety a bit.

 

[Browd]

Here are the patch notes: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=537043

 

[budweiser]

Re: Patch. You cant rely on Scout first popping a culture ruin for free Monument any more. I rolled a dozen Shoshone starts looking for a Bison cluster. Never saw more than 1 or 2.

 

[Shark Diver]

My thoughts on patch:

-Getting to Reformation beliefs sooner may send me that direction more often.

-I always used the exploit where you could find out all other civs in trade screen (delare war/make peace with). I loved knowing who else was in the game that early and it sometimes dictated early victory strategy path. I'll have to explore even more aggressively now.

I'm almost done with my Kamehameha game. Should be a very late SV.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

t140 - really disliking this game...

Spoiler :

Sent Warrior SW and Settler SE, considered settling the silver for 3 lux, but I decided early to go swimming. Went E and didn't settle until t18, right next to a barb camp, luckily the archer sat still. I think the new continent is horrible - about the only way you can get a NW and lux is to have them both 3rd ring. Went Liberty, which never seems to work for me, as I have had negative gpt and horrible happy all game. Can't upgrade units, can't even build granaries for God's sakes. There are SEVEN extra luxes for sale on the mainland and I can't even trade for one to get a WLTK or fulfill a quest.

Took God of the Sea for pantheon, which is about the worst one possible if you have no production to start with, as boats take forever to build. Built WGuild t110ish, t124 NC, t129 Liberty GS planted, t129 Edu steal from Japan who is now pissed - I am 13% behind in tech. This game seems completely unwinnable, it is going to take forever to settle more cities. Almost all the Maoi sites are either jungle or marsh. I would have loved this map on Immortal - on Deity it just seems like self-abuse to continue.

 

[consentient]

RE: patch. The changes to Piety appear to actually discourage going that path. I say this because a fair amount of AIs went Piety 5 before, and now even more seem to be. I played a series of test games to T100 with Celts going full Piety, liberty/piety and honour/piety to explore different early starts, and saw some truly bizarre things.

AIs regularly get to Classical T20-23 now. Stonehenge is even harder to get now. The AIs who like to go religion are now more likely to go for Piety than Tradition, which is worrying.

The fact that Piety has been 'sped up' only makes it less likely to get a religion, and even less likely that your religion will take hold on a Pangaea. Deity play must surely now evolve around adapting to the AIs religions.

Re: this game. I've replayed again til T180 but I was 11 techs behind and not enjoying it at all. I'm gonna play the Immortal sweden game, since they're my favourite civ, and I'll wait for the next DCL with interest.

Good luck to those who are persisting with this game.

 

[peddroelm]

Was complaining on EU- Long War forums of the wildly inconsitant difficulty provided by unbalanced maps and map entry points ... Civ V suffers from the same issues .. Don't think this map is unwinabble (with restarts allowed) it just feels so underwhelming after beeing spoiled with the previous maps ..

 

[Gustavus Rex]

Was complaining on EU- Long War forums of the wildly inconsitant difficulty provided by unbalanced maps and map entry points ... Civ V suffers from the same issues .. Don't think this map is unwinabble (with restarts allowed) it just feels so underwhelming after beeing spoiled with the previous maps ..

I want to see a LP were you lose.

 

[peddroelm]

I want to see a LP were you lose.

losing is easy

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Spoiler :

LOL Ped... losing can be easy and I have taken my share of lumps.

I started up this game and am comming up to about turn 100. I went scout first and met The Aztecs, Poland, Shaka, and Japan very fast. With this many Civs so close and not much choice for expansion I decided to try just 1 city and rush the Aztecs. After the scout and since the change in Tradition I decided to go Liberty and Mix in Honor. I went for Republic in Liberty for the production and over to warrior code for the free general.

After scout, monument I pretty much just built archer 7x and threw in 2 Spears (this cost me -50% production for a few turns). I put Shaka and Monty at war twice and even though nobody won I think it helped thin out Monty's troops. I did struggle a little to take The Aztecs expo and Cap and I think I lost 1 unit but not too bad for my skill.

Im not very happy about this map like everyone else but what can you do, it makes it more of a challenge. This game is far but won and Id like to press into Shaka but I don't think I could take him since my science is in the tank. Maybe take the Aztecs cities and try to tech up. I really don't know where to go from here and not really in a rush to finish lol.

I decided to settle on the truffles and get the deer and stone in my 1st and 2nd ring and also on the river should be nice later on. My Tech path was AH, Trapping, Beelined to Construction but held off 1 turn and finished Calander and Writing while I was building a few more archers waiting for the upgrades. I did get to DOF Poland and Japan so I got some trade gold for the upgrades and rushed a library down the road. I built a water mill by hand and after that I built the NC around tun 93 or so. I think that is about all, I did steal a worker from Monty early on and made peace while waiting to attack.

Oh, Monty built me the GW, Terr Army, and GL so that is nice.

I did get a panth on turn 90ish which was a nice suprise and I chose God King since Im not sure if I can get a religion. 2 are left so maybe I can but I am not counting on it.

Not that many people are playing this map or reading these posts but I forgot spoiler tags last night ... oops! I put them in this morning after playing another 10 turns.

Spoiler :

So I took one more of Monty's cities before I gave him peace. It looks like Shaka is busy elsewhere but I have fallen for that trap before. I guess I'll just try to wait for Xbows which is a ways off still. This is a crossroads for my game and I really know that I need to take him out asap. After only 10 turns this morning I feel the stress of this game and have to save it and come back later. Im 10% behind the leader in tech and this game feels like my old games back in G&K where I played really bad and was always in bad shape till the very end.

34 more turns... up to turn 140

Spoiler :

Not alot to report. I waited till I got machinery and I put Shaka to war with most of the world. After that I asked Poland to give me 8gpt to join in the war effort and he was very happy to help. I worker baited a few impis and took down Ulundi on turn 140. Shaka had a good counter with 6 impis onto my cap but failed to get in. Im onto the right side of Honor now and will be happy when I can put some units in cities for the Happy/Cult boost.

This game is a real slog and very hard not to rage quit lol. Even though I am in control of two caps at the moment I feel like I am losing and only going to lose after hours of headaches. That will make the strongest person rage quit lol! Anyway, Ill keep pushing on at a slow pace and see if I can end up with some sort of a win. I am getting my first tech steal and I wish I would of planned it out better to steal Edu but maybe next steal. Not really much esle to report but I am willing to listen to ideas of what to do next even though I may be ahead of the game before listening to advice but I like to hear some comments for future games.

Ugh my 8 pop cap, 54 spt on turn 140, -gpt , +19 prod in cap only cause Im working production right now... is some really bad numbers. I guess my only chance is to keep warring on and on and on and on

Side Note: This is my first 1 city/total puppet empire lol!

I notice only 29 downloads of this game after being up 1 week. I don't mind these type of maps even if I lose but we better get up something easier or these Deity Challenges are gonna disintegrate! Heck the main host is MIA/AWOL on vacation and may never return

 

[Grendeldef]

Not that many people are playing this map or reading these posts but I forgot spoiler tags last night ... oops! I put them in this morning after playing another 10 turns.

Lucky you with those long stints - I was hoping to get into T150+ last time but managed only 6 turns before called elsewhere and after that too busy to even read the forums. Sometimes RL really screws up important things badly.

I notice only 29 downloads of this game after being up 1 week. I don't mind these type of maps even if I lose but we better get up something easier or these Deity Challenges are gonna disintegrate! Heck the main host is MIA/AWOL on vacation and may never return

I still think that one reason for the lack of results is the launch of BE but either way, one hard(er) or even few in a row doesn't kill the interest though it probably will result fewer submits. Especially if there're quite a few regulars who think they're only borderline Deity players.

Anyway, as Dingle still hasn't been online since the 9th and I have no plans of keeping the series hijacked the next DCL has a fair chance of being open floor and most likely easier.
In case Dingle still doesn't come back this thread should be used as sort of a agreement platform who's to (backup) host the next one. So far I know that at least Consentient has something to offer but others are free to make themselves known as potential hosts.

The host itself is irrelevant as long as the original rules are used and the playable civ hasn't been used in the series. Possible extra rules etc are for the host to decide but since there's no way of enforcing anything it's not 100% restrictive either way. As much as I managed to glimpse the ICL threads there were something extra on the table which I personally like but some really don't.

 

[Fire0rb]

Regarding the lower downloads its a mixture of many things i guess...

I had played a bit Civ BE but due to the fact its ridicolously imbalanced and easy (as expected from a freshly released firaxis game) i decided to drop civ be and also civ V for a while and get some other stuff / games going.

I wish you the most fun in the next challenges, maybe i will come back before the year ends

 

[consentient]

I am in a stable position so I can be host if people want me to be, but I have the following thoughts:-

1. Do we really need a single 'host'? Isn't the host just the person who posts the thread to the forum? As Grendel says it could be a different person each time. Conceivably, the DCL community could draw up a timetable of 'lineups' including specifications for civs, map settings, etc. I'm actually in favour of this 'rotating host' model because it puts the DCL in the hands of the community.

2. But this begs the question "who is the DCL community?"

Is it:-

- everyone who has ever played a DCL game, or wants to play the current game?
- everyone who has submitted to the finishers spreadsheet?
- players that can really call themselves Deity players because they can generally win given a reasonable start?

- or...are players like me, who are somewhere between Immortal and Deity, included?

3. With enough variety of civs, maps, etc, will all of the people who form the community 'get what they want'? No disrespect to Gustavus Rex, but the Immortal challenge saves don't interest me at all. Likewise, no disrespect to Grendel but the Rome and Polynesia maps are too much of a challenge for me. So maybe if there were to be some community model it would have, as a central tenet, that a 'toughie' would be followed by a map that is considerably easier (not too easy!) and more accessible for 'borderline Deity' players?

The map that I would be happy to submit for #11 is the kind I have in mind. It's the Maya, Pangaea, semi-decent map. I've played through to T180 and am in 3rd place with an OK shot at diplo victory or maybe late domination. Compared with my position in the Rome and Polynesia games, it's significantly better, but compared with some of my Deity victories, it's still 'touch and go'.

4. So in terms of the difficulty, I would say that my idea of 'fair' is that out of every 3 maps, one is 'rock-solid', one is 'medium' and one is 'accessible'. That way, there is something to suit everyone, and the best players can play the 'medium' and 'accessible' games with a view to getting as early a win as possible.

I hope the above thoughts are of value to whomsoever is not playing Beyond Earth and wants to see the DCL go from strength to strength.

My thanks again go to Grendel for keeping the 'franchise' alive