The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game # 3 - Persia

[Walter E Kurtz]

Spoiler :

So I decided to go into Piety for once, because hey, why not try something new. With the help of the opener I got shrines and temples up really fast, combined with Uluru and the + faith and culture from silver I'm doing well on that front. Converted half the continent and receiving good money from Tithe. Got Theocracy and Mandate of Heaven too. Built the Great Mosque.

The idea is to combine the +gold from Theocracy and fast Satrap's courts to work in synergy with the Golden Ages. Does the income from Tithe increase in a golden age too?

After reaching Renaissance I opened Rationalism. I will finish Piety after +2 science from specialists, because I got no guilds up and lack any sort of tourism. Sacered Sites has to save me. I am planning to go for science and am reasonably on track. So delaying Rationalism might be dangerous. Ideologies are coming up too. I guess it all comes down to getting the needed policies in time and meanwhile prevent getting run over by the Ottomans. Suleiman kicked serious ass on my continent.

Got Machu Picchu, Oracle, Hanging Gardens (turn 110) and missed Petra by 1 turn (cheaters).

 

[dragonxxx]

@Walter - is Jesuit Edu taken? getting Ss for a few tourism points sounds like a waste Cheap Ss and Labs on the other hand ....

 

[RedRover57]

Played to turn 225.

Spoiler :

The Good News: I have pretty much caught up in tech. Am at close to 900 beakers/turn with 2 research labs still left to finish. Four or 5 GS ready to bulb. Two RA's cooking. Finished Rationalism tree. Will push to Satellites for Hubble - I should be the first to Information Era. Pretty happy about this considering I was 13 techs behind not too long ago. SV would typically be in the bag at this stage. However...

The Bad News: Alex is a monster. He is currently at war with every other civ and on a tear through his continent. He won the International Games and is putting out massive tourism. I had to go with Autocracy as my ideology choice because of this, since that's what he chose first. The only thing that could stop him from winning a CV before T250 is France, and France is falling quickly. I'm not too optimistic about the outcome.

It seems that the best way to win this map would be to take the Grendel approach and send a massive army over to the other continent ASAP. I started this way, but unfortunately the Ottomans building the Great Wall and having the largest army in the early game thwarted those plans. Interesting how differently things can go on the same map.

 

[hicks53081]

There is more diversity in types of wins submitted this game which is kinda nice to see. For the most part it seems to be Alex or Nappy dominating the other continent. I won my game and decided to go back and try again with a piety opening. I played about 100 turns and decided piety is garbage and I will never do it again.

 

[Acken]

Spoiler :

So I decided to go into Piety for once, because hey, why not try something new. With the help of the opener I got shrines and temples up really fast, combined with Uluru and the + faith and culture from silver I'm doing well on that front. Converted half the continent and receiving good money from Tithe. Got Theocracy and Mandate of Heaven too. Built the Great Mosque.

The idea is to combine the +gold from Theocracy and fast Satrap's courts to work in synergy with the Golden Ages. Does the income from Tithe increase in a golden age too?

After reaching Renaissance I opened Rationalism. I will finish Piety after +2 science from specialists, because I got no guilds up and lack any sort of tourism. Sacered Sites has to save me. I am planning to go for science and am reasonably on track. So delaying Rationalism might be dangerous. Ideologies are coming up too. I guess it all comes down to getting the needed policies in time and meanwhile prevent getting run over by the Ottomans. Suleiman kicked serious ass on my continent.

Got Machu Picchu, Oracle, Hanging Gardens (turn 110) and missed Petra by 1 turn (cheaters).

No golden age do not increase the gold from tithe.

Actually golden age doesn't increase gold directly. It just makes every tile that yield at least 1 yield one more.

 

[glory7]

Spoiler :

Don't have screenshots yet - will update later if needed.

I moved warrior to find out whether any mountain or good petra spot is available, and boom! uluru, and river hill mountain? this is irresistible.

My warrior quickly met Japan. Judging from the distance, it was obvious that he will attack very soon - so I started the war by stealing his worker.

cap BO: scout - monument (yes, I was thinking about going liberty, but I clicked tradition opener as a habit. and I wanted tiles around caps asap so didn't want to risk finding culture ruin.) - scout - granary - 3 archers - settlers when pop 6, adding 1-2 archers - etc

I chose one with nature as I was not working on enough desert tiles for early turns - and when I saw GBR, I was like, yeah, this is really over.

I am not sure what Oda was thinking, but he just kept sending workers/settler/units and my archers had enough practice. By t55, I got like 5 workers and 2 settlers. I even had to delete one of them to avoid production penalty. And I got about 600g from the peace deal. It's already over...

I went for tradition 4 cities and locations are very similar to Acken's. Since I had some units and workers needed jobs, I bribed Dido to attack ottoman and I took istanbul. I delayed my GA by selling unique luxs (liberated several workers and got CS allies, so had lots of happiness) and used 1st GA to kill ottoman easily.

I quickly moved my troops to get Kyoto and liberated Almaty (bribed Dido to attack Oda with like 4 gpt, as she denounced him right after Oda took that CS). timing was something like t94.

My religion is strong - nobody in my continent even found pantheon, so I guess this continent will follow my religion.

cities are growing well, got lots of CS allies.. education around t110. I lost interest at that point, as it's over already.

 

[RedRover57]

@glory 7

Your game started exactly like mine except that in my game the Ottomans built the Great Wall and had the strongest military (they beat me to xbows and Gunpowder), so that put a quick halt to my comp bow rush after I easily captured Oda's capital. And with Alex out of control on continent 2 I couldn't afford to delay science any longer to research the bottom of the tech tree. What do you recommend in such situations where an immediate neighbor builds the GW and is more technically advanced in terms of military? On pangaea it is not quite so much of an issue as there is less chance that a distant AI will runaway while you delay science to warmonger early.

 

[glory7]

@glory 7

Your game started exactly like mine except that in my game the Ottomans built the Great Wall and had the strongest military (they beat me to xbows and Gunpowder), so that put a quick halt to my comp bow rush after I easily captured Oda's capital. And with Alex out of control on continent 2 I couldn't afford to delay science any longer to research the bottom of the tech tree. What do you recommend in such situations where an immediate neighbor builds the GW and is more technically advanced in terms of military? On pangaea it is not quite so much of an issue as there is less chance that a distant AI will runaway while you delay science to warmonger early.

in that case, I'd bribe ottomans to attack Dido. In my game, Dido went for patro tech and getting some CS allies - another reason that I wanted kill her fast, but I delayed it until I get 2 weak guys' coastal caps.

After killing oda, you should join the winning civ and cherry-pick (get good cities, sell crappy cities at good prices as they are close to the winning civ's border, liberate CS, etc). Depending on the situation, I would try to attack the last civ right after.

ottomans will attack you at the UU timing - so why not start wars earlier and pick the units up early? and we all know that we should not trust Dido. So whoever wins, you should plan to kill both of them anyway.

And my tech wasn't that slow at all - edu t110 with nice 6 cities (including 2 caps that I took) good pop and production could be better than t100-105 edu. usually all you need is 2-3 immortals (upgraded to pikes) for meat shield and 7-8 CBs to Xbows. After getting 7-8 archers, I built infrastructure.

Even if your tech is bit slower at the beginning (say t130 edu), if you get the whole continent than you are going to win for sure. there is no way that AIs can do cross-continental invasion well and all you need to is just get some frigates. In fact, you may take/destroy some coastal cities to slow them and earn gold.

 

[RedRover57]

Dido and Sully fought on their own - I didn't need to bribe them. But she had a stand-off against the Great Wall as well. Their war ended right about when I was ready to attack him, but he already had xbows a few turns later. I took one city from him, but the second was entrenched in rough terrain plus the GW, and he got his UU shortly thereafter. I couldn't make headway and had to just farm some xp while I teched up. Later it just seemed better to keep pushing science as I was 13 techs behind Alex. I also needed Sully for exchanging trade routes.

 

[RedRover57]

Turn 301 Science Victory. Just barely made it (screen shot below shows how close Alex was to a CV). Bribing Alex to make peace with France and subsequently continuously bribing him to war every other civ saved my game. Luckily he didn't DoW France again and he apparently didn't culture bomb him with musicians. The end was agonizingly slow as I ran out of RA partners and faith to buy more GS's - one more round of RA's and another GS or 2 would have knocked off 20-30 turns. Lucky timing with a natural Golden Age near the end.

Spoiler :

 

[Walter E Kurtz]

I won my game and decided to go back and try again with a piety opening. I played about 100 turns and decided piety is garbage and I will never do it again.

I agree. Piety just isn't worth it. And that's a shame really, because getting a good religion is hard enough as it is. Theocracy sounds appealing but it gave me a lousy +10 gpt at turn 160. As it stands, faith is just currency for buying great people and you should leave it at that.

No golden age do not increase the gold from tithe.

Actually golden age doesn't increase gold directly. It just makes every tile that yield at least 1 yield one more.

Alright, thanks.

 

[dragonxxx]

T277 SV. This was very intense game ...

Long story short:

Spoiler :

After the NC around T90, settled the GBR and for some reason Sulleiman got mad at me ... He considered this land to be his. Shortly after Dido attacked Oda, so I finally could make peace.

Somewhat slow Education - T116.

Spoiler :

Got Machu Pichu - T123
ST - probably around T170. Purchased 2 schools - cap and coastal city.
Napoleon entered Modern on T177
I bulbed Oxford for Radio - T180
We both went Order
On T189 he had already Eiffel and Broadway ...
Plastics T209 (at this point I was like 10 techs behind him), purchased 2 Labs - cap and coastal city.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

I started war between Napoleon (my buddy) and Kasimir at one point.
Then I saw many french planes, and stopped the war for 33 GPT, because Nap was already influential with the others .

T243 - I had to restart their war, because otherway I'd lose in less than 29 turns.
Kasimir proposed International Games - that was hilarious.
Its good that Oda and Nap conquered half of the CS, so with some borrowed gold I managed to vote the IG down, otherway I'd probably lose despite the war going.

Spoiler :

Started with the parts T251 (after Hubble, bought with GE).
At the end I had completely overlooked the timings, as I got the last tech before getting the LVL3 tenet, so my brave GE shaved only 1 turn off the last part. And I didn't use the free one from the tenet.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Major mistake I did - at the end I had 43 more turns of golden age, because I completely forgot about the 3 great artis, that I was saving for late game golden age. (thats what playing at 4-5AM does for you ).
I should have used these maybe 20-30 turns earlier, after plastics probably, but at this time I didn't feel the need for GA, as I had high GPT and nothing useful to produce in the meantime. And I didn't get the achievment for 5 golden ages ... I guess they have to be separate???

Also, failed with the religion completely. Enhanced probably second to last (because of the Holy Warriors), still got Swords to Plowshares and something completely useless (Reliquary was taken).

Did not spread much outside my borders, and delayed making shrines and temples for too long, so at the end I didn't bother with at all. I could probably buy at least one more great person otherway. All FPT came from DF, 2 holy sites and the NW.

Still it was nice game, with a very scary ending.
Thanks for that, I definitely enjoyed it

 

[glory7]

Spoiler :

after making peace with Japan (I did not build/buy any worker myself). Oh, and GL was built at t56!

Spoiler :

t90. ottoman cap is already annexed and started growing. Took Japan cap, and going down to liberate CS.

Spoiler :

t129 astronomy. not sure I opened rationalism (I used oracle to get patro left 1, so I guess not). Science will jump up a lot when I build observatory at cap and get secularism with GW.

Since Dido went patro 3 and I know that she is not trustworthy, I decided to take her out. killed lots of units and now moving in to take cities.

Spoiler :

Game is already won... not sure I will continue playing this.

 

[Olodune]

It's interesting that Napoleon is the biggest threat, assuming he wins on the other continent. I guess all those chateaus add up. I would have labelled Alex as the bigger deity runaway threat before seeing these games.

@glory
That is a powerful opening! Huge early pop + beakers in abundance + conquest of two AIs pre turn 100. No Japanese Samurai, or are your CBs just that tough?

How did you ally 4 CS at turn 90? Just camps + fortuitous events? I agree that there are no foreseeable challenges left in this one

 

[glory7]

It's interesting that Napoleon is the biggest threat, assuming he wins on the other continent. I guess all those chateaus add up. I would have labelled Alex as the bigger deity runaway threat before seeing these games.

@glory
That is a powerful opening! Huge early pop + beakers in abundance + conquest of two AIs pre turn 100. No Japanese Samurai, or are your CBs just that tough?

How did you ally 4 CS at turn 90? Just camps + fortuitous events? I agree that there are no foreseeable challenges left in this one

Spoiler :

Early game went too well - too many free workers, free religion thanks to uluru, amazing peace deal (like 500+ gold lump sum and some gpt).

Allying CSs were lucky too. I think 2 of them had faith quest (which was guaranteed, as other civs in the continent didn't even have pantheon) and I did some barb quests including saving their workers (in many cases I have to use them for myself, but this game I already had enough Japanese immigrants). I also utilized trade route/lux quest I think.

For the conquest, it was almost too easy - I killed lots of Japanese units from the beginning so he was no threat at all, and Dido did an excellent job killing ottoman (and japan later) units. If I had to face Dido's army during the early game, it would have been tough.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel]

This game was ugly - I was near last place in all demographics until the 200s. Once production set in, I could breathe for about 50 turns, and then it got very tense again. Nuked my SW neighbor and took my planned 4th city spot before blast-off, oh yeah!

Spoiler :

This game got pretty wacky - on the other continent Nappy went Culture Wonder Wild but still steamrolled Captain Underpants pretty early, and had almost the whole S half. Alex stayed the smallest there the whole game, and was pretty ostracized, esp after Freedom (with Dido). Closer to home, I kept Oda boxed in with 3 cities, while Sul very early boxed me in with Liberty spam. Sul and Dido stayed even until Sul's UUs kicked in, and he wiped her out. But not before she spread her religion pretty hard. I never had quite 1/2 of Sul's many cities under Taoist influence. Sul never DOW'd me, whew. Later, Cas came over and stole Japanese cities from Sul - they flipped biggest military all game. Late game Alex reanimated Underpants, who immediately denounced me, LOL. By the end Cas had started taking Nappy down hard, Paris was about to fall next turn.

The last few turns Sul started citadel bombing me - going for my GBR city. I had him in 3 wars and he still would have hit me pretty hard with what I could see. My choice of Papal Primacy (15 influence) with Consulates (20 influence) didn't kick in as hard as I would have liked because of Dido. I had poor 45 fpt, and only got a late GP to start converting the S CS's in the last turns. Tithe would likely have been better, I was short on gold running mostly internal routes the vast mid-game. Still, I had all but one CS on my landmass allied in the end game, even though almost everyone was 3-5 deep in Patronage. I even hosted the WC the last 1/3 of the game. The Mil CS were good to me, always giving me good units. This was my first game ever where I didn't buy every spare lux - I had the luxury (groan) of waiting until I needed them for WLTK. Once Underpants and Dido were gone, everybody but Alex were Friendly until I built my first nuke, about 12 turns left.

What saved my bacon was Nappy taking Order after I did. I never had any negative pressure. Nappy was miles from a CV, and everybody appeared to switch to SV after I had a huge head start. Sul and Cas went Autocracy, but after Sul took out 2 capitals I think even Cas had enough, and war bribes mid-late game were cheap everywhere.

I had only 3 cities for the first 1/2 or more of the game. I finally built a 4th on the coast N, so was able to get 2 cargo foods going, and one more Caravan to my cap. Planted 2 citadels to get Oda's iron and more farmland. Constant WLTK days all game. I had so much happiness that I never built a Coliseum or all my Circuses. I had low production (food focus) until well into Order, so very late with everything. Then as always happens after 5 Year Plan, I am tall enough to work more mines and Factories and Hydro Plants have been built, and I can relax and beef up my military.

Oda gave me Osaka on like the 4th peace deal, I hadn't even fully set up for an assault - I was very surprised - SOZ and Machu Pichu! Thus I was able to get bpt up to mid-1300s (didn't get over 1k until 220s, ouch). I hard built every science building, I was so short on cash. By the end I was working almost all specialists. Tradition, [edit - Patronage Opener and Consulates,] Rat to Secularism, 6 in Order then finish Rat, 2 more Order, then 2 Commerce (I didn't need all the order happy tenets).

With Arts Funding I had so many GAWM (burned all GA and all but 1 GW) and so very few GS late game, relatively. But once you start chugging towards Satellites, take Silver in WF, etc, it's just a steamroll. I bulbed Eiffel and Neuschwanstein, hard-built PT, Hubble, CR, and Gr Firewall. I didn't even get East India built until the last 10-20 turns.

 

[peddroelm]

Liberty piety T 330 domination win - videos should be up in the next few days

Poland ate France and Greece and quickly grew into mega-Poland (like it does in most my games) .. Went for him after dealing with Japan - Otomans back stabbed me off Poland's continent forcing me back into the carriers (had 3 cities foothold including his capital) .. Polynesia joined the fun and dropped 6-7 Xcoms around my capital ...

I find it much harder to achieve critical mass past turn 250 without honor finisher ... (probably killed in excess of 20k worth of gold units had I had honor finisher) ... A few settled prophets do not make up for that (couldn't capture any ) .. + Adding full piety tree in the mix delayed my autocracy policies ...Which forced me to do weird tech detours for a domination game (Sydney Opera/CN Tower) .. Final capital fell to SB + paratroopers ...

Had I been more careful and lost less units game would've finished earlier - but I find it impossible to maintain concentration for such high lengths of time ...Also wasted growth early chasing chimeras (Petra/Chichen Itza) built Mosque of Djenn (most benefit for that is that it generated a GE ) ...

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Turns 0-166

Spoiler :

Well it seems when I moved my warrior I find a ruin and Uluru and alot of desert. I decided to move over to the Mtn and get all the goodies. When I met Japan I had a chance to steal a worker and thats what I did on around turn 5 or so. Ofcourse he had some troops and his city and I couldn't get out alive. I exectuted the worker and stole the other even though Japan got it right back.

I decided after that to go Full war on him before he kills me and I went Full Liberty down left side first. My Panth choice was either DF or FwNW. I chose the Natural Wonder +4fpt and was happy later down the road when I found the Great Barrier Reef. I chose Tithe, Mosques, Holy Warriors which was basically wasted since I kept buying Mosques instead. I also went plain old Rel Texts too.

I only got 4 cities up and I would of liked to try more but happy was a problem. I was at war with Smarkand for a very long time and I XP farmed and pillaged the heck out of them, not to mention citadel bombed them twice for lux and to get my road through. I messed up the war a bit with the Japs and lost a few archers. I just click way too fast for percision.

My B.O. was something like Scout, Monument, 3-5x archers, 2 settlers once the rule came around, more archers and Immortals, all the happy buildings down the line, library late, Nat College late like t 90 or so, I did manage to get Machu Pichu. In my expos it was Monuments first and army and after that the usual with happy stuff and markets and what not.

Dido was my best friend and I kept her at war with the Ottomans. I put her to war with the Japs as well. After I took out Japans Cap and 1 Expo I gave him peace and by that time I had like 12Comps and I kept XPing them up and upgraded them all down the road to XBs. Next I went for the Ottomans Expo and Cap. Those fell with little resistance and I was at a crossroads to either backstab Dido or not. I decided not to wait the 26 turns for DOF to expire and I backstabed her and razed an Expo and took her cap at t166. I gave her peace and the rest of the world didn't hate me as much as I thought they would. I got a nice gpt deal from her and now its onto the other Cont I hope.

France is a true runaway. They were 3 deep into Ratio very early and built a ton of wonders. I put him at war with Poland and Hawaii. Im not sure if that is slowing him down and Im 17% behind them in tech. Im only 6% behind the avg but its been along time since I've been so far behind and I think he is going to beat me to the PT. I never think the AI has a chance no matter what but this game is testing that theory lol! It is a pretty fun game and I guess once I get an Observatory I will have better Science. I really have neglected Science for all out war to take over my Cont.

I know this game is far gone and nobody is probably reading this but if by chance someone does and has some advice I'll be more than happy to hear it .

SPs: Full Liberty, Wagon Trails (comm), opened Ratio.

 

[peddroelm]

@Fluphen Azine

Spoiler :

plenty of options
1. tech and win science
2. obtain OpenBorders from Poland, land a bunch of landships on the other continent - roll France, then Poland, Polynesia
3. without open borders should probably attack France with carriers and bombers/fighters, paratroopers
4. could also wait till Stealth + XComs

no idea which will be faster and don't precisely remember the oil situation (think oil fueled war is possible at least until more oil rich lands can be "acquired"). Take your pick ..

 

[Fluphen Azine]

@ Peddroelm:

Spoiler :

Great input my friend. Your right on the money with the turtle up and get the tech lead. I sorta did that basically with stealing techs and bulbing. At turn 241 I have the lead according to Demos and I have no techs to steal from Poland. They smashed France so no real trouble of CV for them this game I think. Funny I would of figured Poland would be ahead of me in tech since they beat down France. I guess those guys were neck and neck. After I bacstabbed Dido I had no chance of open borders but I guess I could of tried to land at my CS allies but that seems like alot of work lol! I was planning on waiting for nukes/bombers/paratroopers or xcoms. Now it looks like I might just go Diplo. Not really sure yet but I will finish soon and post up. I love all your ideas by the way, thanks again!

I was doing some gold mining via pillage and repair exploit in open land for the last 40 turns or so but it turns out I most likely didn't need to do that but it sure is funny to me to get all that free gold .