The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game # 2 - America

[Fluphen Azine]

@ KB and Dehli

Spoiler :

Ahhh yes... GG against the enemies capital. That makes perfect sense and I have done that many times. Im not sure why I decided to land grab the marble and the gold in that test run. I guess I was thinking about the xtra gold and happiness. I like your plan better though and using the citadel to keep healing my units and killing his. I'll keep this in mind for my next attempt!

Very nice SV Dehli!! Im not sure how you were bored crushing the AI on Deity? Isn't that what you wanted? Your city placement was far better than mine and you grew alot bigger! I guess if the end game bored you, you will have to mess about with the complex CV and Domination victories. I personally am practicing my Domination skills as we type. I decided to roll an Oval map with England and my game is going really good. I have 3 caps down by turn 125. Shaka is holding on slightly and Monty attacked my middle but Longbows are pretty sick! I think I have about 15 of them. I was at -50% production for some time but it has all turned around. Also 2 spies seem unfair, I've stolen my way to only being 5% behind now. I just need to keep the pressure on since everyone has denounced me anyway. I hope your next game is more fun... keep up the good work!

 

[Dehli]

Fluphen Azine

Bored maybe the wrong way to put it once you read it back to me. I was nervous and kept checking the technology screen to make sure I was in the position I thought. My first win on deity was my fastest science victory in my years playing. Kep expecting something like a nuke being dropped on my capital or some other catastrophic ending. Guess I meant that after the work to put myself in position to win it was next turn next turn next turn next turn. All of us have bene there.

To other point I also am working to learn domination but the first game I tried I teched up wrong and got crushed later the game went on. Going to start watching Peddroelm second game tongight to get some more ideas. I again fully admit I know nothing about the culture tourism mechanics and really want to learn. It does not seem to be a popular victory condition here which makes kb's games the much more interesting. I need a good youtube episodes of a culture game. Or a strategy guide like the Shoshone science overview.

 

[glory7]

continue from the previous post. t185~

Spoiler :

After wiping out mayans, I went for bab right away. I wanted his colossus and GLH - and he was just on the way to ethi too.

Using Budapest as a meat shield, I DoWed even before my troops arrive. When my troops got there after 3-4 turns of swimming, CS army and bab army lost lots of units already. I landed in, and took babylon t201.

There was a happiness problem, but when I chose autocracy and used one GW to get happy barracks tenet, it went alright.

Spoiler :

I got a nice peace deal (he offered his 3rd city, but who cares about that crap.. I just took his whole gpt instead). I bribed morocco to DoW ethi already, and moving my troops to the ocean again.

Unexpected DoW from morocco! but that didn't really matter. some of CS in my continent were morocco and ethi allies, so new produced units defended.

I checked ethi and surprisingly, he was willing to give me open borders for 4 lux (I had tons of some lux anyway, and they only offer 3-4 gpt per lux so I ignored it before). I sent 2-3 units to see ethi defense. not that much, so I started a surprise attack!

Spoiler :

Next turn, I took a coastal city (with Kilimanjaro!) and liberated Aztec. too easy.

Spoiler :

Maybe not. When ethi chose order, I got happiness hit. I had to give away Maya 3rd city, and still -7 happy. As wonder +3 culture was passed (I proposed it) and I took lots of great works from other civs, I need only some turns to get rid of this unhappy.

Spoiler :

ethi UU was really strong, and GW was annoying. However, with 2 citadels I managed to take his cap at t225 with artys and well-upgraded Gatling guns. Lost some units, but it didn't really matter. with mobilization + mercantilism + big ben (I rushed it with faith GE), units were very cheap. I think I bought at least 30 units. Since I had only one coastal city (among my original 4 cities), I rush bought most of my naval units.

Spoiler :

on the way to south, I took Aztec cap easily. Cannot believe that Monty built wonders and lost wars to Morocco and Ethiopia....

I finally finished commerce tree (with 2 GW bulb) and now swimming in happiness. Prora is almost done in Boston too.

Spoiler :

Instead of going narrow path (btw, this continent looks like north and south america), I decided to swim and attack from south. I lured out his units to Meknes - and my main units attacked south cities. Under the command of Yi Sun-Sin (my favorite admiral ), navy destroyed morocco and coastal city falls at t231.

I upgraded frigates with range promo to battleship, but this wasn't really efficient in terms of gold - upgrade costs 390g and buying battleship costs 430g.. and with autocracy tenet, new units start with additional 15xp so range promo from the start.

Spoiler :

I lost 2-4 units per turn, but who cares... I just pushed my units in. Rabat falls at t234.

Spoiler :

USA domination complete. t237. I built no culture buildings, made no great work myself, chose no aesthetics policy, and no culture CS ally as none was at the starting continent and ethi and morocco were crazy about culture CS (and patro 5....)

but thanks to "outsourcing", my cpt is okay and tourism is decent too. Could have done domination-like CV too, but just went for DV this time.

Spoiler :

Thank you for a nice map again!

 

[peddroelm]

@glory7

Spoiler :

Wow I managed to clear my continent at T210 ( just 9 turns behind glory7 - honor 3 city opening )

I think I know how you could improve your win time even further and again increase the finish time between us ... This advice is 100% on a pangea game but for your skill and speed I'm pretty sure it works for continents too ..

Cut science after you get Dynamite , Industrialization , Rifling & Navigation (maybe stretch it to electricity (great production buff on river cities) , trade value and extra production from strategic luxuries ) CUT SCIENCE COMPLETELY ..

Don't build public schools (saves hammers/gold/faith), sell annexed captured public schools, sell all your universities .. You gain gold per sale and gpt from saved upkeep.. Science specialists can get converted to gold specialists (can generate awesome great merchants (awesome for mobilization/mercantilism/BB) that is) , or simply work hammer/gold tiles ... Here's another kicker - since you don't care about science anymore - you don't care about food (blasphemy) - can stagnate the empire for max hammer/gold output [autocracy gets hammer multiplier for military units tenet] and also the caravans can be switched to gold/hammer ..

Looking back on your game how many submarines/ destroyers /carriers /planes /landships / battleships did you use to clear the second continent ? (yes there was Prora - option if you finish tradition // randomly get Glory of god cities . Still commerce autocracy combo gets plenty of happy even without prora) ...

I'm convinced you would've won quicker had you just cut science at Dynamite , Industrialization , Rifling & Navigation .. I'm not sure this will work for me as-well since I'm a little behind and don't have any real fleet yet (lost a few ships foolishly to Babylonian trap ( lol ) ) ..

 

[Dehli]

Excelent games warmongerers. Is domination the way for lowest possible turns usually? Are there any games just unbeatable in your opinions?

 

[peddroelm]

T253 domination win - never reached modern era

Spoiler :

going artillery first made the difference.. Probably also favorable wonder placement .. Videos should be up by Tuesday

@Dehli not always - science with good start has great potential on continents .

 

[Acken]

It depends.
Domination is very map dependent when it comes to speed. Obviously the smallest map the faster domination is and pangea is often faster. Unless you have everyone on coast in which case it's easy to win with frigates.

If you play on huge deity it can easily take 280-300turns to kill everyone, while science will be faster.
For low difficulties domination is obviously even faster and you can win culture through SS spam to give a 120-140 culture win on like King.

 

[Olodune]

t248 Dom - I wanted to play with those American Toys

Spoiler :

After Flight the main war to decide the game begins. The Dutch have many cities in the 20-30 pop range and so with Deity bonuses can rebuild a full carpet army every few turns. These are the wars where air superiority helps a great deal, making it much easier to advance quickly. (No bribes possible to distract, but I don't mind fighting a few battles "fairly". )



After this war the game is thoroughly in the bag. I even have the largest army.



These are the moments when I typically lose a lot of motivation to plow through the end game. In this case I wanted to try out B17s, and possible some other Atomic era goodies, so lets continue to tech up a little.

With B17s replacing my veteran GWBs, the Mayan campaign was a slaughter.



Swimming to the other continent my Admirals failed to coordinate properly with the army. While the navy advanced from the West the army was left to fend for itself. (I lost my old, upgraded hero Chariot Archer to an Ironclad in the beach landing).



The most challenging part of the Moroccan -> Aztec war was getting melee units to in position to capture pulverized cities. I need to bring more cavalry/paratroopers! (A fleet of 4-5 carriers is just off the coast. With just an Armory even newly built B17s can get Air Repair ).

At the end of all things it is only proper to reward game long allies with a token of my heartfelt appreciation. Hey, it glows in the dark



Why were you so Afraid, Nebby? We are pals to (almost) the end, right?



Thoughts on the map, later today .... but thanks for hosting this, DingleBirdy

 

[teqofc]

Meh, rather crappy and unpleasant game for me. Had to settle for a t324 SV.

Pretty much everything that could go wrong went wrong including.

1. Could only get 3 cities down and had to deal with settlers everywhere
2. Me being the only one going Order while all the culture whores go freedom or autocracy
3. Lost my first two spies to counterspies!@! Oh and of course when I put a counterspy in Washington other civs just steal my techs like he doesn't exist
4. Attila was a pita through 2/3 of the game but everyone piled on him in the end
5. Missed world's fair by 20 hammers
6. Couldn't get a single WLtKD because all 3 cities wanted truffles and guess who had them? Yea Attila great. EDIT: Forgot I got one WLtKD in when Atilla offered me truffles for peace.
7. Pantheon but no religion. Not a big deal though, had plenty of +fpt to buy two GE and two GS.

Was fun using the B17s though when Pacal and Neb put the hurt on Attila and I joined in and got to raise(EDIT: raze duh) the two cities south of Washington.

After I found out six Oakland Athletics made the All-Star team I felt a little better

Spoiler :

 

[kb27787]

For shame you people! You're playing as the great USA on July 4th and no one else adopted FREEDOM? (3 cities you REALLY should've gone freedom teqofc, 3 cities is fine and will allow you to adopt any ideology you want while still being in the green really. With 4, things get hairy. In my experience anyway)

 

[teqofc]

For shame you people! You're playing as the great USA on July 4th and no one else adopted FREEDOM? (3 cities you REALLY should've gone freedom teqofc, 3 cities is fine and will allow you to adopt any ideology you want while still being in the green really. With 4, things get hairy. In my experience anyway)

Freedom was tempting but I knew I wouldn't have the funds to buy spaceparts. With spies dead early I had to put a lot more money than normal into buying CS influence even with the +25% bonus from pat. Buying the two GE to build spaceparts with Order was helpful to end my misery and not let the game go longer than it already did

 

[Olodune]

@peddroelm

Spoiler :

(watched part way through ep 5)
I am impressed with several things.
- Your insistence, and effectiveness, fighting with archers/warriors even when Jerusalem has CBs and Pikes, wow.
- I have new appreciation for blitz melee. I'll need to try that one. I usually just make tankish melee (double cover).
- Reaction to DoWs: just enough. When Attila attacked I would have made peace with Jeru. Certainly when Babs joined in. You ... well, you had perfectly minimal reactions. Very nice.
- Well played Honor really does generate significant gold on Deity.

A few things that will greatly help your mid-game (t150) tech. Feel free to ignore these if you want since, obviously, you are beating Deity effectively.
- When cities hit pop 5 you should probably take them off production focus ... otherwise you grow into unemployed citizens (New York). This is fine if you OCD check them (not recommended), but you don't. The production trick is really only material in the first ~75 turns anyways.
- Washington has ~6 unimproved riverside tiles in the late t130s. Post civil service these are 4 yield tiles that will help your city do stuff much faster.
- You stole Astro, so immediatly went exploring to find the missing CSs right?
- Aqueducts are your friend, and need to be built early for us non-Tradition folks. (Ok, I went Lib/Trad hybrid this game, but you get my point ).
- This one is more of an opinion/preference: I like your Boston, but it needs a Food Caravan pre-Fertilizer. At the very least you need to farm that riverside tile in its 3-ring.

@FireOrb

Spoiler :

I went with Order. Almost immedately William went Autocracy forcing me into "Dissidents" status, as expected. I teetered on the edge of "Revolutionary Wave" later in the game, but just managed to hang on. In this case Autocracy might have been safer: if I have to switch later I can almost instantly get the Tier 1 Order happiness; Autocracy has them buried in Tier 2. Either way 1-2 policies are "wasted". (Either from switching or using happiness tenants to offset the tourism penalty).

Me: Order
William: Auto (tourism leader)
Babs: Order (a big help, but he has low tourism. Opened Borders and sent a Cargo ship asap).
Pacal: Freedom (bad, nearly Revo Wave! If it wasn't for Nebby I would have to switch here)
Haile: Auto/Freedom, not sure. (late)
Ahmad: Order (late)
Monty: Auto (I think, but he had basically zero tourism and really low culture. Maybe no Ideology opened.)


Altogether pretty typical: Auto/Order split with a Freedom outlier. Since I am (usually) a little weaker on tourism, my Ideological friends usually end up

@Dehli

Spoiler :

Early Plastics (~t200) does seem to bury even the deity AI in tech progression. Personally, I think the Deity handicaps are mis-tuned. I would prefer a Deity AI that had a smaller initial advantage but a much steeper progression curve. Post Industrial Era the wheels fall off nearly all the time (at least on Standard sized maps ... ).

 

[peddroelm]

@peddroelm

Spoiler :

...
A few things that will greatly help your mid-game (t150) tech. Feel free to ignore these if you want since, obviously, you are beating Deity effectively.
- When cities hit pop 5 you should probably take them off production focus ... otherwise you grow into unemployed citizens (New York). This is fine if you OCD check them (not recommended), but you don't. The production trick is really only material in the first ~75 turns anyways.
- Washington has ~6 unimproved riverside tiles in the late t130s. Post civil service these are 4 yield tiles that will help your city do stuff much faster.
- You stole Astro, so immediatly went exploring to find the missing CSs right?
- Aqueducts are your friend, and need to be built early for us non-Tradition folks. (Ok, I went Lib/Trad hybrid this game, but you get my point ).
- This one is more of an opinion/preference: I like your Boston, but it needs a Food Caravan pre-Fertilizer. At the very least you need to farm that riverside tile in its 3-ring.

-New York production focus problem and Washington's unimproved tiles - same cause - I had suffered an uncharacteristically high worker shortage all game long - I kept telling myself - don't waste hammers/gold on workers - you'll soon be capturing them by the bucket - loads from the AIs - for some reason it never did happen this game - and my tiles (growth/science/hammer/gold) suffered for it ..

-Astronomy issue - did start on a trireme at some point / had to cancel it for more ground units .. fact that New York lacked production didn't help .. Scouting is one of my big weaknesses . I did managed to capture a few caravels way later tho ..

-Aqueducts - strong building no doubt - often have trouble getting them out in time - when I fail in other domains (dire worker shortage / low pop / production ) - somethings need to get cut - for me tends to be aqueducts


The thing I like about honor is as all those failures illustrate - it is pretty forgiving hammer wise - you build cheap hammer units and then you straight buy most of then - allows for some sloppy play ..

 

[Walter E Kurtz]

Nice Olodune, could you explain your science strategy some more? You have good science for a domination game with pretty late conquest (meaning you have territory in resistance and without much development).

Do you puppet and tradepost the conquered area's?

 

[Olodune]

@Walter

Spoiler :

Short answer: develop core similar to a science game pre-Flight + lucky events + geography -> fast Info Era (for a Dom game)

Longer answer:

In my control

Because I wanted to do a Flight beeline there is time to build up the core cities (5 founded + Attila's Court). That means Aqueducts/Markets/Workshops fairly early. I also opened Liberty -> Collective Rule (for the CB rush), then went into Tradition for Landed Elite and Monarchy, followed by Rationalism. As long as aqueducts are prioritized (Engineering always before Edu, imho) you don't give up too much compared to the pure Trad opening. I proposed and won the WF so rationalism was completed very early (linked the WF culture to a natural GA + Artist GA + Writers 2/3). I did run a round of RAs (William, Nebuchadnezzar, Pacal). First GSci -> Acad, then bulb. I used 3 bulbs pre-Plastics. With 650 beakers pre-Plastics just build some labs. Momentum will carry the game into the Info Era. I did save Oxford for Radar after it was unneeded for flight.

For continents maps the turn gap between XB/Artillery victories and Flight+ victories shrinks a little. Flight+ makes for a much shorter real-time game.


Tech Stealing

None. A first for a Deity game of mine. 3rd to Renaissance. Sent my spy to two Dutch cities with too long steal times. Washington was hemmoraging tech so the spy went home. Killed some Huns. I think the same turn I built Hubble Attila finally stole Acoustics.


Lucky

Pacal spread a super religion to my American Empire: Pagodas, Religious Centers, Jesuit Education From faith purchasing I got:

1 Uni
1 School
1 Lab
3-4 Pagodas

Shrines + Temples are really strong with such good faith purchase options and the temples give me happiness. Very, very lucky* I think if you take away Pacal's religion you can add 5 turns to Flight. Geneva was a game long ally, so FPT is decent too.

*Well, at least I think it's lucky. It seems that most games the AI spreads something good, this was just a little better than usual. Because of the deity Prophet spam when you don't self found you can often double dip into multiple religions. This game I could have bought mosques and monasteries at various points as well. At one point I had 7 prophets in my core. Worker movement was a pain.

**peddroelm gets a Mayan religion that is nearly as good, so I don't feel too bad

I built Machu Picchu (and Himeji, not sure I've actually built that one before), both of which usually fall to the AI.

When I met Brussels they had the +influence from gold gifts, so I threw 1250 gold at them. Cultural CS ally added to the WF culture craze, nice.


Geography

I think these maps with close AI and central locations can lead to fast openings: not only are there many early caravan options (mine went to Rotterdam), but the AI sends them to you! Pacal especially has limited other options. Easy maps? Could be.

With all those Religious city states it is easy to just stumble into a Pantheon. I took God-King which is amazingly good early. With Republic + Hill + God-King I had an early +3 passive hammers in Washington. Yes, please.


Puppets

Insignificant contribution to beakers. I did annex Amsterdam to build a few (entirely unnecessary) Nuclear Missiles (I've only used Atomic Bombs once before. Nuclear Missiles are another beast entirely. They don't fit on carriers, however. Do they fit on Nuclear Subs?) The downside to late conquest is that puppets are just happy sinks and sources of captured great work slots. I did TP spam a little in two of the Dutch cities. Mayan+ conquests were too late to be economically useful.

@peddroelm

Spoiler :

While Caravels are very nice to have, land units are better than nothing. I know you've built a few ...

Edit: I think conquests on Deity are extra difficult to make economically useful. The game goes faster, but the resistance is longer (since the cities tend to be larger).

 

[peddroelm]

playlist link

first video is up

all videos are up

 

[Walter E Kurtz]

Played until turn 92.

Spoiler :

Settled my cap on the spot next to the mountain, and New York on the coast near the citrus, banana and wine. Hard built two settlers.

Chose Sacred Path and as a result rocketed through the Liberty policies. Getting that first free settler out and quickly be able to build the other two cheap is more valuable than the extra food from Sun God in my opinion. Especially in a tight spot like in this game.

I got sailing from a ruin early and built two caravans. One to Atilla and one to William for about 6 gpt and 4 spt each. Exchanged embassies with Atilla and he connected a trade route to my cap. I did bribe him to attack Pacal for 1 Citrus and a few gpt. But I've come to regret that decision. He proceeded to kick Pacals butt and almost wiped him out. No juicy capital with wonders for me when I get there. I am planning on conquering my continent like most of the others here, but happiness is a problem before I've even begun to take territory. Sitting at -1 until happiness buildings are up.

I am not going all out on units. Will finish NC in 7 turns or earlier, and have an army of 5 CB, a few unupgraded archers and one warrior. They will attack Atilla after Machinery. The plan is to get Education after.

Got a free GS from the Liberty finisher, and settled an academy on grassland.

Food is pretty low in all cities except New York, where production sucks. Maybe Sun God wasn't such a bad idea after all.

William built the Great Wall, which is also going to be a challenge. I will probably have to wait till artillery or flight before I'm going north.

 

[dragonxxx]

Walter, whats the advantage in chosing liberty here? As I look at your screenshot, you got similiar city location like mine, but less population, BPT, GPT and happiness, and you even have to build aqueducts still.

NC is too late too.
Why are you not attacking Attila with these CBs btw? The rams cannot hurt you, so you can wipe out his army while you wait for machinery, if thats what you are doing.

Olodune - what was your tech path between education and flight? I still have no time to continue my game , but I am thinking how do I continue my game after I get ST.
I am not sure if I want to bother with GWBs at all, so I am thinking - radio - plastics - radar, and then kill the rest of em.

 

[glory7]

@peddroelm

Spoiler :

I think your points make sense. while I only built one pub school (cap), I agree that even that was a waste. I should have gold-focused right after dynamite (I even forgot to use oxford... dumb me) as artillery, cavalry, and frigates were all I needed anyway.

I overestimated AI too much...

 

[Olodune]

Olodune - what was your tech path between education and flight? I still have no time to continue my game , but I am thinking how do I continue my game after I get ST.
I am not sure if I want to bother with GWBs at all, so I am thinking - radio - plastics - radar, and then kill the rest of em.

After Education I opened Ren with Astro, then focused on the bottom of the tree until Fertilizer. Then Machinery -> Banking -> Sci Meth -> Biology -> Flight.

Fertilizer is often the question for me: it can be great, and it can be useless. Many side effects too: extra spy, better CS yields, more expensive faith purchases, etc. If there is happiness still to use I think it is usually the right call. With all the plains and lack of fresh water it is a huge growth boost on this map. Used my 2nd Sci to bulb it, iirc. I was importing 5 luxes at t150 to support the extra food.