The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game # 2 - America

Spoiler :
Ah! policies were easy enough - I had 2 up for grabs (silver in WF), next one in 9 turns! :lol: So took Elite Forces and Nationalism - Klausewitz soon!
Spoiler :
 

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Best way to go there without planes would be to start from the north, as the Aztec cannot reinforce much, and you can liberate some of Ethiopia's cities on the road. By the time you have borders with Morocco, your bombers should be ready to help fight Morocco.

Make sure you have at least AA guns with you tho, as even GWB will easily kill the artileries if you don't protect the air. But you do not have a big time loop for that I think, its best to just take one more of the dutch cities, sell to Ethiopia and move on.

leave neb for last, you can reinforce good on the continent, while you are busy with the others.
I don't really think you need plastics here - in my game I took it, but I never reached stealth bombers , still my tech around this point was faster - I had radar around T230, so I dunno. If you feel like you are gonna need advanced balistics or stealth - go for it, but otherway i don't see it being needed :)
 
Thx for suggestions dragon! OK, so things are going pretty well. I have 8 B17s and will have 4 Rocket Arty and 3 Mobile SAM in about 8 turns. I had some questions about Liberating, etc.
Spoiler :
I am at war with Haile and Monte, and have others warring each other. Morocco finally called peace with Monte, so I have him at war with my former friend Neb. Neb is fighting Attila in the sea East of Att Court. I took Wm's NW coastal city earlier and sold to Haile. Haile is still fighting with Pikes - sheesh. Monte surprised me with some GWB before my AA caght up, only lost an Arty. Now am shooting them down - this is too easy.

I can Liberate all these Ethiopian cities as I go - I obviously need a wide channel to funnel troops Southward toward Tenochtitlan and then Morocco. Is it worthwhile to Liberate any of these cities while I am at war with Haile? I don't fear much retribution from him, just annoyance. La Libela actually has unique Silver (once I DOW Morocco) and 3 Aluminum.

I am currently razing the small coastal city by Quebec - should I stop and sell it back to him when I get peace?

I also have a navy of 3 BB 2 Ironclads and 2 Privateers pounding Quebec. My plan was to swing them around and Liberate Milan for funsies, it is Monte's only port. My spy arrives in 2 turns. I know I will need them to go against Neb and/or Morocco - good idea? I don't really want to sell any cities to anyone else currently - Pacal could actually cause some headaches, for example.

I actually contemplated some other approaches towards Morocco - hitting one or other coastal city first - either liberating Brussels to fight in friendly lands, or ally Mogadishu and pummel exposed Casablanca... Also considered plopping a city on the dessert N of Mogadishu, buying tiles, and building an Airport - then rain death on everything from there. I actually liked that option a lot as it put me right near Tenochtitlan. Holding the beachead might have been hard, but having Himeji and Clausewitz and avoiding the GW for a while would have been nice. Plus, in prison you hit the biggest guy on the first day... :lol:

 

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Hmm I presume the next challenge will be up soon...
btw I'm rather surprised the majority of the wins over the first two games have been domination (hardest) rather than science (easiest) so far (12 domination against 8 for science... and of course 2 of the "other kind" from me... :cry: :lol: am I really the only one who sees culture as interesting?)
 
Hmm I presume the next challenge will be up soon...
btw I'm rather surprised the majority of the wins over the first two games have been domination (hardest) rather than science (easiest) so far (12 domination against 8 for science... and of course 2 of the "other kind" from me... :cry: :lol: am I really the only one who sees culture as interesting?)

I find SV too boring, so most of the time I go late game domination, just to have some fun with the game ... :D
Culture is interesting, but using B17 is interesting too :p
 
Hmm I presume the next challenge will be up soon...
btw I'm rather surprised the majority of the wins over the first two games have been domination (hardest) rather than science (easiest) so far (12 domination against 8 for science... and of course 2 of the "other kind" from me... :cry: :lol: am I really the only one who sees culture as interesting?)

The first game was pretty understandable that most went for domination, but I was kind of surprised how many people went for it on the second game. I really enjoy your culture games also. You're the only unique snowflake here. I'm still waiting for someone to submit a diplo win(or time :lol:).

And yes, I will post the next game tonight or tomorrow morning. Someone sent me the save for the upcoming game, but I have yet to find out who it was. Maybe they want to remain unknown.
 
and of course 2 of the "other kind" from me... :cry: :lol: am I really the only one who sees culture as interesting?)
Haha, I like them, but I have never combined the warring part. Looking forward to the next challenge, thx for setting this up, DingleBirdy!
 
A slightly unorthodox order of playing these challenges but better late than never besides I have no idea when I've been playing the US last time. Parenthesis might be an overkill at this point but no real harm done.

Up to T100.

Spoiler :

Settled on T2 mountain side hill which after taking a glimpse at others' starts was a novelty spot. Met the Dutch right away and decided not to steal a worker for a change. 2nd ruin gave 100g so I bought the gold and few other tiles and met Jerusalem. Next ruins gave AH & 50g so I bought Jerusalem horses as well and DoWed as I saw no need to ally it anytime soon. While my warrior was heading from the East I saw a Dutch worker hitchhiking on a hill so I couldn't resist myself any longer & picked him up.
Nice open space was suddenly consumed by Attila settling on my doorstep - desperately wanting a non-existent culture ruin I paid him my Gold & 2gpt to say hi to Pacal instead of me while I was chopping myself a settler. After the 2nd Dutch hiker I made peace with him & camped on his border to secure the marble spot and after the settler I send caravan to Amsterdam but the DoF didn't come in timely manner. Free settler went coastal and 4th Westwards. All these and byuing quite a few tiles near Attila made him fill my whole horizon with units so I paid a lux & 11 gpt to attack the Dutch instead and few turns later 9 gpt to attack Pacal again for a safe measurem this was around T60 and really wasn't ready for a war.

On T71 I started to miss my lux & gpt so I DoWed him which made him to seek peace with with Pacal & William not that there were any physical activities between them anyway - I was apparently a special case as there were no shortage of troops.

I got NC T88, pikes T92, Pyramids for kicks T95 & Liberty finished T97 and the war is going on sloppily as I'm waiting for Xbows and then go for Edu. For some odd reason Attila is only building pikes & CBs.

Pacal build SH so I planted my prophet as I saw no real change for a good religion but sadly Pacal's is crap, too. He also managed to get other religious wonders but missed Oracle to Nebby. I could've build it but didn't try due to Pacal being around.
I'm friends with Will & Nebby but declined Pacal's very recent offer as I'm not expecting the Attila war lasting very long after I get Xbows and his cities look tempting. He also a clear tech lead so taking him early makes some sense.

Atm this seems like the other two, domination but who knows.



 
That is a serious contain you've set up on Attila. Huge concave arc. With hills and roads. I feel sorry for the guy :lol: He needs Knights and a bigger brain.
 
Yeah, it looked decent but Attila wasn't too worried and pumped out units like there's no tomorrow. Sadly there were quite few tomorrows.

Spoiler :




T108 machinery and I thought it'd be a walk in park but I was about as correct as Chamberlain in '38. Attila didn't attack my units but any sort advancing was suicidel so I settled for some pot shots here & there but after a while I realized that this was taking way too long so I took his city with few casualties and gave it to the Dutch in hope that Attila would DoW him & take it back - didn't happen and he didn't even leave his units hugging the border so I was unable GG bomb his land and mostly unable to shoot him either.
T115 Edu by stealing from Pacal who went & founded WC T123 which changed my plans to wipe Attila off the map. Slowly surrounding AC with hit & run and letting him to kill a pikeman every other turn game me AC T134 with GL but nothing else - he isn't too kee on building infrastructure. The same turn gave me first range promoted Xbow which was seriously late form my schedule - logistics wasn't even a wet dream at this point as front line Xbow's life expectancy was extremely short.

Pacal went industrial few turns later and had the largest army so my optimism for a quick & easy conquest was shattered for good at this point - I spent 10 turns too much fiddling with Attila and got nothing out of it in form promotions but Pacal was annoyed with me so I DoWed him on T141. Bought few tiles with money I got from Will for Miami and planted a much needed GG. Even unpromoted Xbows are cool but highly ineffective against 68 def city while it's surrounded by riflemen & lancers. Few marshes & extremely well placed river were better than my units.

Hit industrial T161 by stealing again and finally took Chichen Itza T168 when I had few range & logistics Xbows but in practice just waiting to arties for def 88 Palenque so I was basically shooting xp while keeping my units alive.

Apparently I was also mentally absent as I sold few last copies of luxes to Attila & didn't even notice when my border expansion game me otherwise absent & sadly missed coal. I also had to build several workers as earlier I kept feeding them to Attila to lure his units but oddly enough never got them back.

Pacal's tech rate was way beyond anyone else but I managed to squeeze myself into 2nd by stealing from him - I'll set up a statue for my excellent spy later as he surely was worth every penny I didn't invest on him.

Finally after two bulbs I got Dynamite on T189 and on same turn I was first to choose ideology - Autocracy was the bad choice but reasoning behind it was curiosity as I'm mostly ignorant with it. Order seemed appropriate for pretty much every game I play and/or the runaway takes Autocracy well before me.
With 3 arties it only 3 turns to take Palenque, a city to have and since Pacal wasn't happy with peace I took another city and 30gpt peace deal.




Monte is my friend but after wiping Haile off the map he isn't too keen on wars while Nebby has surpassed everyone in military by a comfortable margin and is supposedly marching towards Washington. Meanwhile I'm having a swim school in the middle of the ocean trying to reach Moroccoan borders before Nebby's navy catches me.



Overly confident or not but I hope I can keep Nebby away with the few troops I have left near capital and the new ones slowly being built. I'm about 10 turns away from flight after which the worries apart from lack of cash & income are probably over. Happiness is a minor issue but there has to be some happiness in Autocracy as well and when Palenque comes out of post capturing stress I'll have a nice culture boost.
My CSs allies are pointless religious ones but I had to take them away from Pacal and now William is taking them away from me. He has preferrable religion to Pacal's one but apparently gave up on trying to spread it so I can't do anything with my faith and I worked way too long for my planted prophets.

Hopefully Morocco next - annex some small city & start buying planes before invading Monte's lands given that I'll get cash somewhere. I borrowed money from Monte to upgrade the arties but that's not an option anymore and my other friend William already wants severe discounts on everything. Monte might take some beating until I can reach country formerly known as Ethiopia but the Netherlands should be easy while Babylon is behind a choke point. Might finish this later today while the TdF etappe.
 
T248 domination after refreshingly eventful and time consuming finish. On the other hand had this been my own game so to speak I'd have given up with capturing Palenque at latest - the rest was just moving stuff before the inevitable.

Spoiler :




T204 Babs & Dutch went for a rematch which suited me nicely but the promised Babylonian invasion never came and I got backstabbed my William which wasn't really a surprise the only negative being the Mayan cities being cut off by a road.
Ahmed denounced & build Branderburg G from me it turned out to be a nice miss. With minor difficulties I navigated through Aztec troops to his borders and DoWed on T211 just find out that GW, Casbahs, hills & his cavalry are seriously annoying. Nevertheless I took Marrakech T221 & wiped him off by T231 and sold two of his cities to Monty for much needed gpt. Sadly the closest city was 11 tiles away from Tenochtitlan on instead of B-17s I started building & buying paratroopers as didn't want to waste a promotion for range.
The huge number of Aztec troops pretty much covering every tile withing his land made me change my plans & delay the attack on him. Two bulbs & RAs with Will & Monte gave me Flight 214, Oxford Ballistics 219 & Rati finisher Radar T228 after which I faith bought 3 GSs to bulb up to Rocketry next turn. Upgraded all arties to RAs & headed for Addis Ababa.



DoWed Babs on T218 but he spent much of his time & troops on my CSs allies so I was just getting xp from him until T236 well Babylon fell & T239 I took his last city. Burning the crappier one didn't do much good for my happiness so I sold two cities to Monty and they were later conquered by a nearby CS with the help of the Dutch. Monte was at war with everyone by now and I wasn't entirely blameless for this.



A small scary for moment for my swimming team when Will settled Arnhem - I already had quite enough troops hugging his borders everywere amongst them few trying to block Monty's path to Haarlem as I really needed that city and/or nearby tiles to attack AA later.



DoW T242 and Haarlem taken by T244 and GG bombed few essential tiles while on the other side of AA few selected units where occupying neutral tiles, some for 30+ turns now.



I have no idea what Monty is thinking but it didn't even pop into his head to ask why I'm camping the middle of the sea instead of some nice beach resort. After finishing with Babs all the available troops headed for Monty as Amsterdam was nicely available for few bombers & paratroopers.



Clearly an overkill for Tenoctitlan but better be safe than sorry. Same deal with Amsterdam as most of Will's troops on a pot trip somewhere very elsewhere.



AA down by the same turn as I had little trust in my capabilities of keeping this for long. Oddly enough I only lost two units while capturing partly due to highly promoted Mobile SAM close to him own cities which killed at least 4 GWBs and as a icing on the cake the city was taken by a Minuteman saved for the occasion.


Somewhat odd game as Pacal runaway so fast and I couldn't get Attila to take any serious interest at him - the others' tech rate was bad. Pacal gave me some nice techs & I'd much happier with a less advanced king of the jungle as it slowed me down quite a bit - there's no excuse for spending 50 turns on someone.

I should've founded a religion as that'd been the 3rd one but I was expecting overwhelming Mayan Buddhism. The three late GSs were nice but faith should've been used much earlier and much better and with all the religious CSs around even without faith pantheon I had decent fpt.

Full Liberty, full Ratio & enough Autocracy to Clausewitz a turn before attacking Monty. I'm not sure but I think Order would've been better especially after Pacal & Nebby went Order, too leaving Monte hanging with Autocracy. Not enough culture to use the std fillers like Patro, Trad or Comm openers.

As for the UA at least I bought quite a few tiles - I do that quite often anyway but getting that Jerusalem's gold from the start was useful while Minutemen I didn't much use but I still think the +1 sight is underrated.

WC was useful as I twice managed to propose & vote down WF and the rest was sucking up Monty.






 
Due to lack of coal I was short of factories so I didn't want to spend too many turns on those 350 hammers and I didn't want the GA points so early and the usual one - everyone likes it and I had use for every positive modifier I could get.
 
In my quest to go back and play all of the previous DCL games, I figured I'd give this one a shot.

Thru t55

Spoiler :

Back in August or so, JB (I believe that's the name) had posted a strategy that I found very intriguing. The strategy involved using your settler's radar to locate a nearby civ, and marching the settler and warrior up near there to settle in that civ's face and steal their opening settler. I recalled from reading the spoilers that this map looked like a good opportunity to do this, so I gave it a shot. America's added sight would seem to be very helpful in this strategy.

I marched straight North and met the Dutch on t3 (gotta luv that extra sight). I was able to settle in his face, steal a culture hut while positioning my warrior, then block his settler and escort. 3 turns later I had a free worker and an experienced Warrior. I was able to capture one other setter and still haven't given him peace. Will rush to comp bows to try to take the city, as all he's producing is settlers and caravans.

Attila wanted me to DoW Pacal, who I haven't located yet. I figured it would be a good idea to get on his good side and keep him distracted, so I agreed. I've got a trade route into him and sold him some cotton. With horsies in my first expo, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to bribe him away from me for as long as needed. Hoping for his DoF.

I met 3 religious CS so got an early pantheon. I took +1 culture from plantations given all of the cotton/citrus around. I'm hoping to get a religion to protect this pantheon…..fingers crossed.

I took Tradition opener > Left side of Liberty, and am unsure what direction to go next. Maybe Honor, maybe Tradition, maybe Piety (for religion), and maybe finish Liberty. I could really go a lot of different directions here. I hard built a 2nd settler and will build one more for coastal access to the East and then work towards Oracle and NC while building units in expos.

Very different start, and I wish I could find the link to JB's post on this strategy (hope I remembered his/her name right).

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No Wonder-mongering for me this game, unless I choose to finish Liberty, in which case I'll likely go after one of the Cultural Wonders. If I capture Amsterdam soon, I'll have 5 cities up with room for 1-2 more without ticking anyone off prematurely, so I think I'll go this route IF I get my religion.


t128

Spoiler :

It took me until t126 to take out Amsterdam. I was tech'ing very slowly. I'm about to research Uni's (late), and will heal up and get science going while researching X-bows. Since Atilla and Pacal are at war, I think I'll take the side of whomever is winning and see if I can steal a capital. Babylon has built several Wonders, so he's going to have to added to my United States.

Finished Liberty with Oracle, and have started honor. I took a GS with finisher, as I was so far away from any juicy Wonders, so CV may be out the window unless I do really well in my warring. Religion is blah, but I'll hold it for the cultural bonuses.

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Thru t210

Spoiler :

We met the other continent, or rather they met us. Plenty of good trading opportunities from those three civs, so my lacking happiness and GPT improved quite nicely. The following turn, Ethiopia lost its capital to Monte (where have I seen this movie before?). I proposed World's Fair, as I figured I'd have a shot with 7 cities (2 annexed and 5 I built), plus the fact that my land mass-mates weren't too happy with my warmongering.

I built workshops everywhere while tech'ing towards Minutemen, and got a few of those beastly foot soldiers built in time for Attila and Pacal's joint DoW on me. With the aid of 2 GG's, I made mincemeat out of their armies for the next 40 turns, even though I couldn't quite counterpunch and go after Attila's Court (yet).

I popped a GA for a Golden Age for WF and put all 7 cities on full production mode. It was a landslide…..probably my easiest WF on Deity. Nice to have more cities than usual.

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Babylon is still being a Wonder-whore and a poor trading partner, so I'm planning on inviting him (forcefully) to join my United States soon. He's the tech leader, but he's only up by 7% on me, so I'll catch him soon enough. I hard built 3 factories for 2nd ideology. I had been planning on going Order, but Nebu beat me by 10 turns, so I went Freedom. I popped a couple of GW's, so I'm already 4 tenets in and growing happily (+15 ;)) and now putting out almost 500 BPT, which is pretty good considering I didn't focus on science this game. I did get the important 3 tenets in Rationalism, so that helped.

Oxforded Artillery, and will have 6 built right around the same time as I get my Foreign Legions. If Babylon doesn't have airplanes by then, I'll be taking out his capital pretty quickly, as I've got a ton of promoted Minutemen/Rifles, and plenty of workers for 1 turn pillage/repair (I got Pyramids late).

I think this is going to be a Domination based science victory, but I haven't been over to the other continent yet. I got ice-blocked in one coastal city and Babylon spread it's borders to block off the other. I am going to have to use up a couple of GS early this game to get caught up in science and to make sure I get SoL, as I detoured away from that research path.


 
I use this strategy from time to time. Recently I played it in the Immortal Challenge with India but have not finished the game. I used it with the DCL Ethiopia game and wrecked havoc on Rome early. Itsvery fun and tense at the start, especially if you promise not to reload :). I think your thinking of KB not JB. That is to say KB27787. I haven't seen him around for a long time. He loves to play a peaceful CV every time and he is really good at it! He started a thread about how to do this. It was called... Your starting settler: your greatest weapon. An idea for deity early cheese.

He actually played his game on this challenge about the same way you did to get an early start through war with the Netherlands. He suggests putting a GG right upside of the AIs capital early.

Oh and I tried to use it on the Mongol Challenge but had a tough go at it. I had to restart because I forgot that Chariot Archers upgrade to Keshiks. I hate restarting a game that I had already played around 100 turns but I did it that time because I never played around with Keshiks before.

His name/post of this game is on page 1 of this thread. Just click on his name and find all threads started by him and you will find his guide again!
 
I use this strategy from time to time. Recently I played it in the Immortal Challenge with India but have not finished the game. I used it with the DCL Ethiopia game and wrecked havoc on Rome early. Itsvery fun and tense at the start, especially if you promise not to reload :). I think your thinking of KB not JB. That is to say KB27787. I haven't seen him around for a long time. He loves to play a peaceful CV every time and he is really good at it! He started a thread about how to do this. It was called... Your starting settler: your greatest weapon. An idea for deity early cheese.

He actually played his game on this challenge about the same way you did to get an early start through war with the Netherlands. He suggests putting a GG right upside of the AIs capital early.

Oh and I tried to use it on the Mongol Challenge but had a tough go at it. I had to restart because I forgot that Chariot Archers upgrade to Keshiks. I hate restarting a game that I had already played around 100 turns but I did it that time because I never played around with Keshiks before.

His name/post of this game is on page 1 of this thread. Just click on his name and find all threads started by him and you will find his guide again!

Thanks, I did find the guide again…..after I had already gone 100 turns in. I probably should have taken Amsterdam sooner, but I'm just not a good warmonger yet (although this game is giving me great practice). I'll go back and read his write-up of this DCL after I'm done……I don't want to spoil what is turning out to be a very different game for me.
 
IMPORTANT NOTICE:

Though this map is quite old, it can still be played, so if you play it and complete it, please send me a PM so I can update the finisher's spreadsheet.

Thank you.
 
T266 DiploV
Spoiler :
While waiting for DCL #22, I decided to go back and play yet another of the previous maps I hadn't yet finished. Since no one had completed a DiploV, I planned my strategy from the word go: Wipe everyone off the continent and try to win at the first World Leader vote.

Nothing much to report about the play through: went like a dream, really. Played defensive against Attila until I'd killed all his knights, then went forward and wiped him out completely. Then I took Palenque, then made peace because Nebby and William double DoW'ed me. Had a good enough army to hold them off til I built my frigates and artillery and completely cleared out my continent.

After that, I just built stuff I ordinarily would never build, and waited to reach Globalisation. This strategy was probably not much slower than a normal DomV would have been.

Social Policies: Full Tradition, Honor 4, Commerce Opener, Full Patronage, Order 7, Exploration Opener
 
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