The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game # 4 - Sweden

[DingleBirdy]

The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game #4

Welcome to The Deity Challenge Lineup. This is a biweekly event with games being posted every other Friday. All games in this series will be set to DEITY difficulty. User civilizations, maps, and opponents will change with each challenge, but the pace will always be set at standard and the starting era will always be ancient. We will try for a variety of starts, and not just having a crazy warmonger as your next door neighbor (although there will be that too). This isn't a competition so there will be no predefined victory conditions. There is an informal spreadsheet of previous challenge finishers that you can find at the bottom of this post.

DCL Game #4
You - Sweden
Total Civilizations - 8
Total City States -16
Map – Pangaea
Settings – Quick movement and quick combat(turn them back on if you would like). Everything else is set to default.
Game Version - 1.0.3.144
Downloadable Content – G&K, BNW, Conquest of the New World Deluxe, Genghis Khan's Mongolia, Harold Bluetooth's Denmark, Isabella’s Sapin and Pachacuti's Incan Empire, Kamehameha's Polynesian Empire, Nebruchadnezzar's Babylon, Sejong The Great's Korea, Wonders of the Ancient World. The map pack are intentionally excluded.

Starting Location

The save can be found at the bottom of this post.

Who can play?
Anybody can play. The more the merrier. Even if you normally don't play deity games you are still welcome to try. The games can become great learning resources for the player trying to improve. Even if you don't finish the game, we are still interested to hear about your experience.

Do's and Don'ts
We are going to be using the honor system. Feel free to restart, reload, play the same game multiple times, but don't use the science overflow exploit. Also please don't edit the game in IGE. If you do chose to cheat, please don't share your results in the comments. Also, please use the spoiler tag if you post a picture, comment about neighboring civs, close by wonders, or locations of ancient ruins.

Also, please tell us about your Build Order, Social Policies, Tech Order, and what type of wonders you went after. I know a lot of this stuff seems pretty mundane to the experienced player, but the details are incredibly useful to people trying to learn.

Why no vc's? And what is the point if this isn't competitive?

Having freedom to do whatever suits you best, whatever suits the map best, freedom to experiment and even fool around is, probably, one the main appeals of these games. We have two restrictive types of games. Why would we need another speed race?

I obviously don't want to forbid people from proposing (deity challenges) but if at least one was aimed to regroup more people that would be great.

The Deity challenge series is not about winning as fast as possible imo, its just about people playing the same start and telling the story of their game, unlike for example HOF and GOTM.

If you have any more suggestions, or questions, please post them at the New Deity Challenge Series **Suggestion thread**

Future Games
I want users to submit saves from turn 0. Preferably the person submitting the game has played enough turns to know the map is either difficult, fun, or unique in some enjoyable way. Write a short description as to why it is special and email the save to DeityChallengeLineup@gmail.com

Schedule
Game #1 - June 20th as The Zulu
Game #2 - July 4th as America
Game #3 - July 18th as Persia
Game #4 - August 1st as Sweden
Game #5 - August 15th
Game #6 – August 29th

Important
If you submit a game for the challenge, you must have the DLC map packs disabled. Not everybody has them and they are honestly kind of useless. Having them disabled will allow more participants.

DCL Finishers Spreadsheet

 

[Olodune]

Nice start for a Nordic civ. Should be a little slower without mining luxuries, but the capital has little to complain about: coastal with very few bare sea tiles, stone, a river, etc. Edge of the map. Looks like a good one. Hopefully we have a little space to work with.

 

[kb27787]

This is the first sea start for this series, and I'm quite happy with the terrain honestly (tundra bias but I see plenty of grassland river)

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

Looks to be a very low prod start to me, no good hill to settle on.

 

[kb27787]

Looks to be a very low prod start to me, no good hill to settle on.

The extra hammer is seriously overrated. Faster scouts does not always mean more ruins anyway.
I see at least two hills and a quarry, not to mention lumber mills if you need, but for coastal cities you simply can ship in food and hammers, provided you have a coastline for yourself to work with.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

The extra hammer is seriously overrated. Faster scouts does not always mean more ruins anyway.
I see at least two hills and a quarry, not to mention lumber mills if you need, but for coastal cities you simply can ship in food and hammers, provided you have a coastline for yourself to work with.

Blasphemy! That extra hammer is very nice from Turn 1-Turn 20 or so, much rather make scouts in 5 turns than 7, so we can build two before starting the shrine we'll need for +1 prod from fishing boats. And generally speaking, more scouts = more ruins and more stolen workers.

 

[Olodune]

Looks to be a very low prod start to me, no good hill to settle on.

Working the stone is similar to settling on a hill, so the immediate hammers aren't too much of a problem. Longer term: hopefully there are some horses or iron deposits, otherwise I agree. Maybe we'll have a guilds capital instead of a production powerhouse.

 

[kb27787]

Blasphemy! That extra hammer is very nice from Turn 1-Turn 20 or so, much rather make scouts in 5 turns than 7, so we can build two before starting the shrine we'll need for +1 prod from fishing boats. And generally speaking, more scouts = more ruins and more stolen workers.

If you work stone as your first tile (which you should anyway) you'll also get your first scout in 5 turns as if you settled on a hill and worked a non-hammer tile such as cotton or lake.

 

[Gustavus Rex]

Agree with Buddha. Also, you have to get masonry, optics and trapping to get things sweet.

I prefer salt

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

kb -- fair enough! But prod still seems low overall post-stone. And I can't even sell stupid stone.

I'm with Gust -- could be a reasonable city down the line but need optics (especially that) and masonry and trapping which will take awhile.

 

[Fire0rb]

Spoiler :

Slow Start due to discussed capital and i got f***ing forward settle a bit by Shaka....

Spoiler :

i was not able to build a 3rd city and i did not want to go to war already with him so i will sit it out until Artis, maybe i can last so long but i guess my science will be too slow.

Edit: Shaka declared war T140 and rolled me
i guess i need to try again

 

[Manpanzee]

I’m pretty excited about this map. It seems like an ideal opportunity to explore an idea I’ve tested a bit but haven’t yet completed a full game with: beelining Optics for super-early Patronage*. Detailed writeup of the first 50 turns follows.

*Optics is the fastest way into the Classical Era, which is necessary for opening Patronage. It only takes 3 techs if you go through Optics, while any other path requires at least 4 techs. It’s a pretty significant difference.

Spoiler :

First, let’s talk about ruins. I got a lot of ‘em, which is a nice change of pace from the last couple of these games. Here’s the full list:

T2 Spear upgrade, T5 Culture, T8 Gold, T8 Map, T10 Culture, T11 Pop, T20 Faith

For the T8 ruins, I could’ve had both a turn earlier but delayed since I was one turn short of growing and wanted to see if I could boost to Pop3*. It didn’t happen, but fortunately I didn’t lose either ruin. Similarly, I found the T20 ruin in time to grab it a turn earlier, and waited a turn for a shot at faith. This time, I hit.

*I'm not actually sure what happens to your food when you hit a Pop ruin. If it would just put me at Pop2 and a turn away from hitting Pop3, then delaying here was pretty dumb

Capital Build Order: Scout – Scout – Granary – Work Boat (buy Work Boat) – Scout – Lighthouse – Settler (buy Archer) – Archer – Caravan in progress

I built early Granary and skipped the Shrine because rushing Optics puts a huge burden on your early science. I needed to grow as fast as possible in order to get my science up. I still managed to get a pantheon through a ruin, and decided to go for God-King. I didn’t plan on founding a religion and felt that the extra science/gold/culture from God-King would be worth more than an eventual one extra hammer from my second Work Boat. I guess Stone Circles could have been an interesting option, but whatever.

For Workers, I gambled a bit trying to steal one from Austria and ended up losing both the Scout and the Worker. Ouch. Fortunately, my second Scout stumbled into a fortuitous situation in which I was able to recover two captured barb workers without having to DOW any city-state. I wasn’t actually too worried about quick worker steals this game anyway, as I didn’t have the tech for anything but Farms and my city was working a lot of sea tiles.

For Social Policies, I went Tradition Opener – Legalism – Monarchy – Patronage Opener. Next will be Consulates. I got Patronage opener on T34, exactly one turn after completing Optics.

Picture:

Spoiler :

Obviously, I’ve settled Sigtuna in a very vulnerable place. But it’s just suuuch a nice location. So many bonus tiles!

For now, I’ve sent Shaka after Darius for a very affordable 9gpt. But I need to be careful and make sure to build up some defenses. Because of my national-defense needs, I’m planning on sticking with a two-city National College. I actually have the happiness to support more (I currently have two Whales exports, Gold from Manila, Monarchy, and will shortly connect Truffles and Ivory), but for the moment I would rather spend my happiness on gold, and then spend that gold on security. I will probably settle a city a bit to the north after I’ve finished National College, but we’ll see how it goes. Maybe I can take some cities from Shaka instead.

Oh, and I’m going for a Diplo victory. In case that wasn’t obvious.

 

[Gustavus Rex]

Spoiler :

Slow start for me. Not my favorite closest neighbor for a "slow-worked-luxuries" start like this.

Settled in place, built two scouts before shrine -

Stole 1 worker from Shaka and three from Maria Theresa but lost one to evil brutes on the way back.

Continued with two archers and a workboat before settler and library. Bought library in my pre doomed new city as I started on walls...

Finished NC on turn 80 then built another settler for my third and probably last self made city.

Full tradition. Picked God of the sea for some early extra hammers, gave up in religion and they are all gone by now as well.

Mistakes:

I got up a trade route way to late for needed beakers.

Miss clicked when Shaka bragged about harassing my cultural city state friend and lost it.

I missed out scouting a part of the pangea before the whole land was covered with Zulus and Germanys city spamming so I have not met Theodora yet. (Saw her in the bribing window)



Everyone hates Shaka but have made peace at the moment. I also bribed Shaka to attack Napoleon but that war just ended as well... Even if I survive the Zulu terror I will be facing nazis, killer indians or evil baguette eating sodomites.

I have no planI have no hope winning thins. Feels like a to hard Deity-start for me. It's going to be nice to see how you pro's deal with things.

This is my sad empire at turn 101:

Spoiler :

 

[dragonxxx]

meh, after looking at the spoilers, I don't think I will try this one ...

Spoiler :

Shacka next door, on a completely flat terrain with low production capitol, bad expansion slots, and sea resources? No, thanks.

 

[Manpanzee]

Up to 100 turns in. I’ve reached a point where I’ll need to make some tough decisions, so this seems like a good time to step away, ponder for a while, and sleep on it before I decide how to proceed.

Spoiler :

Here’s the dangerous situation I’ve found myself in:

Spoiler :

Two cities completely enclosed by the Zulu menace. Shaka’s at war with both Germany and Byzantium right now, but I don’t know if that’s enough to sate his bloodlust. I don’t want to spend the whole game bribing Shaka and praying I don’t get DOW’ed, so I’m going to take the war to him. Next turn I’ll have nine Composite Bowmen, and in several more turns I’ll be ready to upgrade to Crossbows. This should be enough to focus-fire him down to shreds before too long, but I’ll probably build a couple more units to be safe. Impis can chew through Crossbows FAST, so I need to make sure that I have a critical mass of guys. I THINK it'll be ok, but this definitely is not the most confident I've ever been. The other difficult part is going to be deciding which cities to take.

I also have a Great Prophet spawning any turn now, and I’ll have to decide whether to found a religion or send that to a cultural city-state for an alliance. My next policy will be science from city-states, and then after that I’ll get extra happiness from them, too. So city-state allies are very valuable. This is also pretty late to be founding, and I’m not sure if I have enough faith to make a religion really worth it. I had no intentions of getting religion this game, but there were only two other pantheons by turn 60, so I figured I might as well invest in some faith. I’m leaning toward gifting the Prophet away, but I’m not sure.

I currently have 4 city-state allies, providing all my happiness. Every luxury I have is being exported (I have two DOFs, which is why my gpt is low). Current allies are, I believe, three Maritimes and a Cultural. All of those were earned through quests. I also spent 250 gold getting a brief alliance with Ife, since they had a quest for a gold gift. I have two quests to denounce Shaka right now, so that'll be a nice bonus once I'm ready for war.

By far the most amusing Civ-thing that's happened to me in a while: I ended up in a funny situation where I found a single brute guarding two captured workers on a small island west of the Shoshone. My scout ended up returning four (!) workers for influence before the brute finally died, so I have a comical amount of influence with Sydney.

I feel like I’m in good shape as long as Shaka doesn’t DOW me in the next two or three turns. With this geography, I'm unlikely to ever be threatened by anyone but Shaka, so if I can succeed in eliminating him as a threat the rest of the game should be smooth sailing.

 

[glory7]

don't want to be arrogant, but I haven't lost to AI for a long time - and now I learn again that Deity Shaka can beat me up easily.

Spoiler :

I got spear upgrade early and when I saw Zulu and worker steal opportunity, I could not resist. Since I didn't like capital terrain and there was mt. Kilimanjaro nearby, I thought I could do liberty CB/Xbows rush.

Main problem was, production was horrible, and I had to spend hammers to get science boost cargo and caravans and work boats. didn't have enough gold too. So I got 6-7 CBs around t70. I tried to make peace with Shaka but he refused all the time.

b/c of his 3 movement spears, I could not take his cities. In fact, I was in a defensive position. I used citadel to def, and he stole it with citadel!! and when I saw impi at t83, I realized that something is going wrong.

I re-citadel them, and continued defense. I had to beeline machinary, and got it around t100 (no philo). I borrowed gold from my friends and upgraded my veterans. I thought I could kill him off with Xbows.

But no.... there were just toooo many units. When his units surrounded my cap (damn 3 movements...) I had to rush buy walls in the cap. my cap was about to fall for like 3 turns - I thought I was going to lose it. This screenshot is after that 3 turns.

Spoiler :

When I saw that he just killed my fortified pikes with impis rushing in, I knew that I cannot hold it anymore... I had 4-5 range+logistics Xbows, but his cannons+lancers+impis+Xbows were just too many. And my pop is low, spt is horrible... no hope at all. Finally he pillaged my citadels and my Xbows veterans fell... and I clicked "quit".

 

[kb27787]

Spoiler :

hmm... I think it's safe to say I got really lucky on quests

Spoiler :

Clear camp + return worker, return the worker again after it got caught by barbs, then again. This guaranteed that my God of the Sea is here to stay. (but lost out on every single wonder so far... including Hagia, Borobudur, and Oracle... also did not get divine inspiration as someone took it... which means I'm pretty much going to be faithless except for CS and Grand Temple... Oh well)

Spoiler :

Shaka likes my WC proposal so far and he's occupied somewhere else... I'm hoping to get a DoF from him and my empire will be safe (DoF pretty much the rest of the world already except France and Austria hence a whopping +50% GP generation)... btw why did I move my starting settler to that spot?
Well... because I know that a city with 3 sea resources kinda sucks as your first city, but with 6, it's a completely different story I have had plenty of experience with these kind of sea-heavy starts (no need for worker steal so your scouts are free to do whatever.. just explore and then rush-buy that lighthouse from CS gifts and whatnot... everything will snowball from there... also, aside from camps that are on the coast... in this game there were none, no annoying barb problems... they can come, but all the tiles I work are in the water) I'm very happy with its growth while still running specialists.

 

[teqofc]

Spoiler :

Pretty tough map for sure but Sweden is the ultimate cheese when it comes to DV. You have plenty enough extra GW and GA to gift to CS to make ally. With Sweden I use my first two GW to ally culture CS since they won't be worth much at that point and I knew I wasn't going to win WF with that production. Got smashed in WF by Persia but enough for a free policy. I was buddies with Zulu most the game until I got Order as the world ideology that I needed to get the 37 votes and at the very last turn he attacked

Went Tradition, pat up to scholastism, full rati but was last to ideology so only got first two tenets of Order. Went Order because 4 other civs were already, except Zulu of course. Got religion but barely so I was able to preserve my god of the sea pantheon. Getting friends with Ife through barb quest was key.

Early cargo ships went to feed my cap and later a few to feed the other cities so that meant I didn't have much gold for a long time. Once I switched to other civs I had plenty of gold to help top up my CS allies after I moved my spies to be diplomats.

EDIT: Forgot to mention I didn't build a single world wonder. If I had built the FP I could have won at turn 278

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Very fun challenge!

 

[BlackWizard]

*I'm not actually sure what happens to your food when you hit a Pop ruin. If it would just put me at Pop2 and a turn away from hitting Pop3, then delaying here was pretty dumb

IIRC food stays put you are not 1turn from pop 3 but more than halfway there.

 

[Grendeldef]

60 turns into Saturday morning fever.

Spoiler :

Settled unhappily on the spot. First ruin gave a spearman, 2nd map, 3rd pop & 4th map again. Met Shaka on T6 & stole a worker on next which seemed like a decent move at the time but I later started to regret it as he was totally unwilling to make peace nor attack anyone else.
Liberty was the choice based on kicking out a settler without having to spent any precious hammers on it. A spearman guarding the hill 4 tiles away form Ulundi successfully turned away the early Zulu settler so 2nd city there on face of Shaka and 3rd nearby on the coast to ease out the inevitable defensive measures.

Managed a pantheon late 30s and took DF in hope of getting 2 cities on desert but that didn't happen due to Shaka and surpringly energetic bunch of barbarians which I have no time nor units to deal with. The lack of hammers in Stockholm is pretty much hampering everything and can't compensate that with money since I have nothing to sell. The only I'm not short are workers as I've stolen quite a few from Shaka though recently I've just destroyed them for xp.

Friends with Germany and finally he took a bribe of a lux & 97g to DoW Shaka and depending on his activity & success against Shaka I may or may not be able to take Ulundi with SoZ.
Met everyone by T44 and nobody luckily hates me though nor likes much as I haven't got caravans out yet. No manpower to do any CS quests so I don't have any CSs friends/allies either.

Atm the vague plan is to get walls up in the border cities and survive Impis in 10 turns, perhaps even make a peace with Shaka as I don't even have CBs and archers can't properly handle a speaman nevermind an Impi and 3 move melee unit is scary anyway. I've said it earlier but everytime facing aggressive Shaka at early stages reminds me of the early days of Civ5 when the only truly scary unit the AI had was a golden age Persian Pike - now Shaka has quite few of them.
4th city will be up in few turns & 5th is planned soon after that, then just Libs & NC which seems likely to be built by a GE as Stockholm won't have hammers to do it in a timely manner.

Can't say that I'm genuinely enjoying the crappy situation but for a change this isn't a clear roll-over even with few early stolen workers. The sad part is that the success or failure very much depends on what Shaka does rather than what I'll be able to do.