The Great DoC 1.9 UHV Challenge

[Barbuesque]

Score is 7739, finish date 1793. It's my highest score for a 600 AD start so far.

Byzantium declared war on me after the flip. This may be rather important for the extra troops, although I believe in the end I just captured Mumbai as an extra city with the camel archers. Going through Byzantium was a real possibility as they had no real military, but since that's Turkey flip territory later, I refrained.

I flipped a settler too, so I sent it and my 2nd one to far west Maghreb with 2 camel archers as escorts.


I am not sure how the "control" thing works. Until I expelled all independants from both Persia and North Africa, I didn't have the "control" check done for either, even though I had more cities in Maghreb (2 vs 1). On the other hand, Once I vassalized Spain I had "control" of Spain even though (still Portugese) Lisboa is part of Spain as per the tooltip.

The first phase was to build up the cities, as I already quite a few (11). China took the tech lead early, and looking back that was the greatest threat.

I held back most of my military in the east, waiting for the seljuk invasion. The UU is particularly effective against them .Never had an easier time destroying 40 units

Then the veterans headed west for Spain, I had a truly massive fleet built up by then. The invasion only started in 1200, but I had an overwhelming numerical and qualitative advantage and Spain capitulated in 1250. I took the tech lead the same year, and kept it until the UHV date.

At this point it was taking conversion work while watching stability.

I had several frivolous declaration of wars on me. Are they checking the power ratios in DoC? France attacked me with no real army, that could do any damage anyway. The mughals attacked me too at hopeless odds. Even worse, PORTUGAL, on their own, alone. The trading company event against Mali maybe?

It took quite awhile as you can see per the finish date. I tried expanding on my own too. War with the americans at the end. It seemed my spanish vassal refused the flip and started the war on their own? I didn't know it was possible.

My comments:

The camel archer is a formidable UU. It dominated the battlefields for 1000 years. In actual conflicts with the other AIs it was invariably a rout. On the other hand, perhaps it's necessary because of the seljuks.

The islam %: It's tedious. Stability could have been an issue, but it just wasn't. There's a lot of turns between 1300 and 1793, and there were no real threat in between. Perhaps a time limit with a lower %?

 

[Sarius1997]

The islam %: It's tedious. Stability could have been an issue, but it just wasn't. There's a lot of turns between 1300 and 1793, and there were no real threat in between. Perhaps a time limit with a lower %?

A lower percentage would be too easy, i´m usually able to get Islam to 25 % by just controlling the UHV areas.

 

[Barbuesque]

A lower percentage would be too easy, i´m usually able to get Islam to 25 % by just controlling the UHV areas.

Weird, if I remember correctly, I was at 14%.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Guys.

Please tell me what GAME SPEED & DIFFICULTY LEVEL you are playing on in each save.
Otherwise, I will not post some victories. They also have to be UHV victories.

 

[Caesar Augustus]

A lower percentage would be too easy, i´m usually able to get Islam to 25 % by just controlling the UHV areas.

It's not about easy vs. hard. It's about fun vs. boring. If you accomplish your first 2 goals, you'll almost certainly be powerful enough to, eventually, accomplish the 3rd. You'll be well ahead in tech, number 1 in every demographic by a fair margin, and the vast majority of your empire will have every important building. It could take more or less time depending on how aggressive you are and how much infrastructure you built in the UHV areas, but you will get there eventually unless you overexpand and stability gets you. While you wait to hit the threshold, you're going to spend a lot of turns doing a whole lot of nothing, especially since you can only build 3 missionaries at a time.

 

[Barbuesque]

Guys.

Please tell me what GAME SPEED & DIFFICULTY LEVEL you are playing on in each save.
Otherwise, I will not post some victories. They also have to be UHV victories.

Sure they are all monarch/normal

 

[Swarbs]

Guys.

Please tell me what GAME SPEED & DIFFICULTY LEVEL you are playing on in each save.
Otherwise, I will not post some victories. They also have to be UHV victories.

My Mayan one was Emperor / Normal / SVN.

I also now have Byzantium on Emperor / Normal / SVN.

1450 AD, 11619, Winston Churchill
Virtual 1425AD

Byzantium is a bit of a slog on Emperor. Stabiliy is virtually always crappy, everyone spawns all over your doorstep and the economy takes a looong time to get going. City wise, I flipped Athens and Sparta from Rome, Angora from Persia, and Sur and Jerusalem from Phoenicia. This caused me to war with Phoenicia from the start, so I got the two bonus cataphracts. I was also lucky to spawn in the middle of Rome invading Greece, so I ended up flipping a load of their catapults and legions, for a total of around 15 legions and 5 catapults at the start. I also managed to flip a barb Camel Archer outside Jerusalem, which I basically shepherded for the entire game and built into an uber anti cavalry tank. Wonder wise, I flipped the Temple of Artemis, Great Lighthouse and Parthenon in Athens and Sparta, and Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. Rome had Italy, Persia had Babylon and Iran, Egypt was independent / barb.

My first steps were to found Ragusa on the copper, disband all the useless archers, spearmen and axemen I flipped, then send my legions, catapults, cataphracts and camel to whale on Persia. I captured Ninua, which had the Sphinx and Mausoleum, then razed Babylon (Ishtar Gate) and Shush (Oracle) to deny them to the Arabs. I was helped by the fact that the rebels also razed a Persian city one tile SE of the iron. Once that area was clear, I founded Phasis on the iron to block off the Russian barbs, make sure I had unpillagable iron, and also as a production city to give me 8 cities so I could get the Opera House and Summer Palace later. First tech was Music for the cathedral and ability to build culture (didn't realise at the time I was going to get the Sphinx), and after discovering it I went 100% gold to hit the 5,000 figure. My first GP was a GE around 500 AD who I used to rush the Apostolic Palace in Konst, then forced priests to get a GPr who build the Church of the Nativity so I had both religious sites.

Arabia spawned at war with me just before I razed Shush, but I was able to kill the city before it flipped. I let them flip Jerusalem as it was empty. The Arabs settled a city south of Ninua which I razed. I then recaptured Jerusalem with city attack legions and my camel and cataphracts in support, then went south and took Mecca hoping for the Islamic holy site for the money. No such luck, so I razed the Arab city to the south, then extorted calendar from the Arabs in exchange for peace. Mecca soon flipped to independent so the Arabs took it back. This took me up to c. 800AD, by which time I'd accumulated around 2,000 gold at 100% gold after I'd gotten Music. Building wealth in almost all cities helped push me above the 5,000 gold level in time for 1000AD, but stability was still bad - Sur and Jerusalem went independent at various points and had to be recaptured. Fortunately, shortly after this I managed to get my eight hippodromes and courthouses and build the Opera House in Konst and the SP in Ninua to get my stability up to around +15.

The empire then entered its high period, with decent stability, no real enemies and plenty of gold to trade for tech (engineering, compass and philosophy were all bought / traded). Const popped another GPr around 1100AD, who used the Sphinx power to create a great work. Then it was just a case of giving the city all surrounding tiles and manually maxing food to reach a size of 20 in around 1180. Then the plague hit and the pop fell back to 18, but still just made it as being bigger than the largest Chinese city. The reward was a 12 turn golden age, which I used to push Guilds just in time for the Turks, having stockpiled huge numbers of archers beforehand. Used my gold pile to upgrade them all to longbowmen, then pulled all my troops from Ankara and Ninua, with a single longbowman left in Phasis (if you only have one soldier he won't flip AFAIK).

The Turks spawned at peace, but I refused the flip. So they occupied Ankara and besieged Konst which was full of longbowmen, supported by cataphracts, pikemen and mercs. I also got gunpowder around 1300, which helped me whip some bombards and muskets to hit the defenders. After about four rounds of combat all the Turkish troops were dead, and the flip had stopped so I reconquered Ankara around 1300AD. Unfortunately, despite all the Turkish culture vanishing, I took a -30 hit to expansion, which pushed me back to around -35 and unstable.

I waited till 1400AD but was still unstable, so had to hit Egypt anyway. Egypt had declared its independence around 1200 as per usual, and took all the independent cities, but was woefully behind in tech with just axemen, archers and chariots. So I pushed in with all remaining legions, cataphracts, longbowmen, pikemen and camel archer (still alive! ), took three cities around 1425, then vassalised Egypt (also vassalised Italy at some point). At this point, it was just a case of waiting and hoping nothing collapsed, as well as spicing things up a bit by getting Printing Press in 1445 and thus ending up at war with England, Poland and Spain due to the reformation. Also built St Basil's in Konst, which helped a bit with stability. Then Neapolis flipped to me on the last turn, so I said what the hell

And we're done

Victory:

The Eastern Roman Empire:

Score:

And (in)stability:

 

[Barbuesque]

Turkey win, monarch, normal speed, score is 5079 for a NERO standing. I had a virtual win in 1695 as per the screenshot.

I spawned in a Seljuk controlled Anatolia, in fact they control everything up to Persia, with 1 or 2 cities lost to the mongols.

Constantinople wasn't well defended so I took it the first turn, and Byzantium collapsed. It became my capitol, and that simplified the first UHV.

3 weak cities flipped to me: Konya and Trabizond, in a sorry state from the seljuk occuptation, and Kersones on the northern black sea coast. It's a terrible spot for a city, but it did make the Black sea control requirement of the 2nd UHV a lot easier as it's culture eventually took over all the north side of the black sea.

I switched to Catholicism, since it was present in Constantinople. I saw no point in staying muslim in a world where most major powers were catholic.

With 3 religions in the capitol, building wonders was easy, I added St-Basil, Sistine, and the leaning tower before the cutoff date, with a lot of time to spare.

After Constantinople I took Athen, then moved my army to the east to face the seljuk and some indeps: Razed Damas, took bagdad (with 3 wonders), Jerusalem and Mecca. With 3 shrines, 4 later with protestantism, I ran 100% science the whole game.

I then had to fight off an independant invasion (!) after the seljuk collapsed, about 10 units invaded mesopotamia. Then the persians declared war and what military I had was stuck there until they capitulated around 1600.

Meanwhile the egyptians and Holy Rome collapsed. Italy (french vassal) beat me to Vienna as we were both besieging it, and I had to declare war, taking back Vienna easily. They were already at war with Russia, who had 2 massive armies heading west, one through germany while the 2nd went through Italy and took Venice and Florence.

On the south front, I took Cairo, and a mughal army slipped by while I was healing up and took Alexandria... I had to declare war to the mughals too. I took Alexandria from them, sent a few units to support the persians in the east, while my cavalry swiftly went west grabbing the north african cities one after the other.

I was done with the territorial requirements in 1685, when Algiers (french) fell.

I spent the last 100 years of the game in a perpetual golden age (Versailles, Taj Mahal, 2/3 UHV, + 2 more from great people) and fough major wars against France, Spain, Russia and Germany in Europe. Lots and lots of killing but not much headway made, I added Rome, Paris and Stuttgart, and ceded the maghreb cities, Khersones and Trebizond to get rid of the junk cities and speed up research rate.

It's a very fun set of UHVs, very much tailored to what I like to do. Building lots of wonders, expansion, fighting serious wars. But it's not very hard compared to some of the others, particularly the last UHV. If you can get the 2nd, chances are you can get the 3rd.

 

[soul-breathing]

Mongolia,on Monarch/normal/SVN 390

start at 1190AD,finish at 1455AD

Starting war with China,attack Beijing immediately(two archers,one pikeman,no wall,fortunately China doesn't have guild so there weren't longbowman),gain 2 keshiks.Then Nanjing,Kaifeng,Hangzhou,Guangzhou(p.s.Don't attack Xi'an at the beginning,it's hard to attack and a waste of time,so capture the coastal cities asap),then you may have 10 keshiks or more(p.s.Mercenaries are important,so hire them all in every turn,you can even make you tech 0%),with trebuchets prepared on the iron north of Xi'an(trebuchets with two crossbowmen as guard),you can capture Xi'an easily.

Then capture Xi'an,destroy Lhasa,the 1st goal accomplished.

Never stop building keshiks in your cities.After the conquer of China,the next goal is Middle East.Samarkand and Mery were independent cities,capture them easily and destroy(in fact,if you don't destroy these two cities,you may finish the UHV earlier...).then capture Seljuk's Isfahan and Siraz,it's also not difficult.Now you should have about 20 keshiks or other mercenaries in all.
Now,declare war with Arab,first Baghdad(with Seljuk's help,Baghdad is easy to Attack),then Jerusalem and Mecca,Now,the Abbasid Dynasty collapsed,you can easily capture Damascus,Sana'a,even the whole Egypt.

By now,you may have razed 7 cities(my 7 were Lhasa,Samarkand,Mery,Qantahar,Ad-Damman,Masqat and Damascus),you will enter your Golden Ages.In my game,when it starts,the Turks and the Mughals declared war to me,it's better than war with Japan and Khmer.

Now you may have 30 or 40 keshiks,the game becomes a massacre.Finally I captured all the Northern India,Minor Asia,Belgrad and Constantinpolis.And completed all 3 UHVs in 1455.

The score is 11669(Churchill)

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

soul-breathing, can you attach a save?

 

[soul-breathing]

soul-breathing, can you attach a save?

wait a minute,Is there can't post images from Microsoft's SkyDrive?

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Alright, the list has been updated.

 

[iOnlySignIn]

600 AD Moorish (SVN 391) UHV, E/E, 18379, virtual at 1190.

Been on a hiatus from civ for some time. but with the new release of the Moors I just have to try it. Turns out the Moors are a very powerful, and yet very difficult civ. It's certainly very fun to play - definitely among my favorites now.

The Moors are powerful because of their UP. Its UB is also really good, but pales in contrast to the UP. Your UP is slightly better than starting with free Biology - an SE enthusiast's dream. If you can manage the Happiness issue, you can simply Farm every tile, run pure Specialist Economy, and dominate:

SE with its usual perks means you'll be able to grab any Wonder you like. Easy access to both Islam AND Catholicism means limitless Wonder hogging:

How good is La Mezquita + Red Fort + Leaning Tower in one city? The answer is: VERY GOOD. I almost lost La Mezquita to the Arabs by 1 turn because I don't want to whip Cordoba - but I reloaded and whipped.

However, that single whip (the only whip I used in this whole game) almost cost me the UHV. It is almost impossible to get Cordoba to be the largest and most commercially powerful city in the world. Forget Constantinopolis- it can't compete with you. Your top contenders are Hanseong and Kyoto. Seriously, I think Korea needs to be rebalanced for the Moorish UHV. I overtook them on the last turn before 1000. Of course, I would have had an easier time if I did not whip La Mezquita, but then I would have lost it to the Arabs and my economy would be weaker in the long run.

Research is naturally set to Civil Service => Guilds => Gunpowder to maximize the effect of the UP and get fast access to the UU. I thought I would be able to tech to CS before Spanish spawn, but I was wrong. Spain spawned with gigantic army (about 5 times the size of mine) at war with me, and flipped 3 of my Workers near Barcelona (I didn't know they flip Barcelona - but you should take Barca regardless). But then, Spain moved its army of doom 1NW out of Madrid, leaving the city undefended, and I captured it without a single battle using a mercenary Numidian Cavalry. Voila! "The Spanish civilization has been destroyed!"

See my signature's first line? It says "Supreme Excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."

Then Spain flips Madrid again, and I capture it again with 1 unit, and so on and so forth. It reminds me of how Darth Plagueis kept resurrecting his enemy just to kill him off over and over again. It's satisfying in a twisted way. Seriously though, as the Moors you need to do 3 things in quick succession in your early game: build La Mezquita, win 1st UHV, and survive/kill Spain. I play on Epic and exploited the AI and yet barely accomplished the 3. I can't imagine how hellishly difficult it must be on Normal without exploits.

Egypt respawned and peace vassalized (I had to give Aesthetics to Saladin to make peace between Egypt and Arabia first) to me. Their tech is messed up - they don't have anything. But I gave them everything and they remained Solid and a useful ally at my flank. They traded Incense, Copper, and Stone (which helps with some of the Wonders) to me for Iron. Very useful.

An age of prosperity unfolded and it's full steam ahead towards Gunpowder, and preparing to invade Mali for the UHV. The actual invasion could be done easily with Knights, but I want to use the UU for it and almost waited too long. 3 cities in West Africa by 1200 is actually really quite hard, again because the date is too early. And because the UU is bugged - it's called Camel Gunner but it suffers movement penalty through Desert, unlike the Arab Camel Archer. Leoreth should fix that.

But let me just say that the Moors have good reasons to invade Mali in a gameplay sense. You get 4 unique Luxuries out of invading Mali: Gold, Gems, Cotton, and Ivory. With Market + Forge this means a gigantic +7 . Obviously, this is very vital for your ubercharged SE. Invading Italy or France, while better for the ego, will not bring such tangible benefits, as their luxuries (Dye and Wine) are what you already have.

Then it's simply a matter of waiting for 1300. The GPs spawned slowly at first but then after 1200 they start poping up really fast once I got all my Farms/Wonders in place. Another good thing about the Moors is that they start with the best Civics for winning UHV. Scholasticism - fantastic. In 1280 the Turks spawned and the game became very unstable, with frequent QTDs. The Moors are beyond Solid though, in the +30s and +40s with a double Golden Age (Triumphal Arch + Versailles, I have 2 GPs waiting for a third). Another convenient thing is that 2 GAs entirely cover the period between 1200 and 1300, so you can win UHV under GA, which is always good.

As a final touch I invaded southern Italy and took Napoli (it's Contested, I have to do it). It also wins me the favor of the Turks and Mongols, who struck up further useful trade deals (Rice and Pigs from the Mongols) with me. But it doesn't really matter - I already won.

An Augustus score with never more than 10 cities until right before the end game is something to be proud of, I think. I haven't been able to top this score with either Russia or England, two of my best and favorite civs. So I can safely say that the Moors are now among my favorites. Thanks Leoreth!

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

^Very, very good. I've been looking forward to the Moors the most (aside from the Kongo) out of all the new civs.

I think I'll take the ego trip on Italy & France, and if I'm feeling gutsy, England, though, iOnlySignIn.

Great writeup, I'll have it up in a sec.

 

[strijder20]

Ack, I really want to update the SVN. But I'm playing Russia for this challenge at the moment...

What is the Moorish UP, by the way? Something with food, judging on the tile yields.

 

[BenZL43]

+1 food on every improvement that contain food, on the plain iirc.

 

[Leoreth]

Thanks for the quick report. Glad everything works out, seems the extra time was worth it.

The UP gives +1 food on plain tiles for every improvement that already gives extra food. Now that Biology is mentioned, I think it should expire with the Industrial era. The Moors should lose their advantage over time, and not become completely overpowered.

I'll allow the Camel Gunner to cross deserts without penalty.

I also might tone down their GP rate a little, currently it's faster than all medieval European civs which is not really necessary considering how their UP already aids SE.

And the Arabs will be further disincentivized from building the Mezquita.

 

[strijder20]

But then, Spain moved its army of doom 1NW out of Madrid, leaving the city undefended, and I captured it without a single battle using a mercenary Numidian Cavalry

I have that too. Looks like the old issue is back (although it probably was never fixed, just hidden with the 10 turn forced peace after spawn).

 

[Barbuesque]

Aztecs, 3000 BC start, Monarch, normal speed

1896 Finish date, score was 3116

I settled the capital 2 north of tenochtitlan, on the Tuitan spot. Awesome production spot, with 4 food sources and all the mines. The 2nd settler went to found New Orleans.

Mayas were still alive. I declared war immediately, but the troops stalled at Yax Mutal until I could bring some catapults. They collapsed right after.

I met the euros early. In 1440 the french came from pacific side, so I did not avoid the conquerors. This happened a few turns after the capture of Yax Mutal, as I was besieging Olxmiche (ex-mayas turned native faction). I hid the jaguar Yax Mutal garrison in the jungle, then the conquerors moved in and wiped out my besieging force. I managed to get 2 slaves so it wasn't all bad. Then they proceeded to move toward Olxmiche, leaving Yax Mutal empty. In some bizarre combat results, they got wiped out. I moved back into Yax Mutal, and with some reinforcements, capture Olxmiché too, which I had to cede to France to make peace. I decided I really needed peace to colonize the carribeans, and Olxmiche was easy to back for the 1st UHV anyway.

I built 3 carribean colonies to secure the 1st UHV, before proceeding to colonize the rest of the great plains and then the west coast. I got involved in a minor war at the turn of the 1st UHV to expel the french from Olxmiché, that involved the Incans and Dutch as well as they had defensive pacts. It took a long time before I could talk to them again and make peace, so the settling of the River Plate was delayed.

I ceded the 2 easternmost carribean islands after getting the 1st UHV, as I had lots of cities already and I had far more productive cities inland.

I met the british in 1742 and the spanish even later... They made zero effort to colonize the americas. As you can see in the screenshot, the spanish do not have a single colony in the americas. I see this happening a lot recently, particularly on the part of the british. Not sure why, but they are often delaying researching astronomy until the 1700s and that shouldn't be so.

The americans declared war on me shortly after spawning, along with the Koreans when I refused to accept a congress resolution to give them one of my cities. Quantity prevailed over quality and I wiped them out, grabbing the east coast and now dominating almost the whole of north america. I also discovered that they didn't count as euros so I still had 3 slaves to get.

I reached the industrial age in the 1830s, wrapping up the technological UHV.

Since very little existed in the way of american colonies, I had to find euro slaves in Europe... so that's why my win got so delayed. There were some sizable french colonies in south america, but they had defensive pacts with nations I didn't to go to war with, and I figured waging a war in Brazil wasn't easier logistically than landing in Spain, so I went for the easier target instead. I had to land twice, and both landing parties were wiped out but did manage to get 3 slaves for the win.

Fun game. The conquerors could have been bad, but in the context the damage was minimal. The weakness of euro civs made the enslavement UHV harder, but on the other hand I was able to create a massive empire since I had no competition, ending up 1st in almost all relevant categories of the demographics.

 

[strijder20]

Vikings

Monarch, Normal, 600 AD, finished in 1440 AD, score 8430

The first UHV goal, control an European core by 1050 AD, can be accomplished in different ways. Russia is an easy target (despite general winter: they don't have longbows/heavy swordsmen/knights), France a possibility and Spain not overly hard too with the Moors added. I went for the most logical target however: England.

A good way to prevent them from founding 4 cities (in horrible spots ) is founding Lindisfarne (on the Iron) in 840 AD. This will also give you metal to get Huscarls.

Things are easier if you spawn at peace with England, as they won't hire mercs in that case.

I got very lucky with my Huscarls (won 3 25% wins in a row) and conquered Lunduvir and Belfast.

I accomplished the insanely difficult second goal by shrewd trading and controlled GP spawns. After bulbing Guilds, Education and Paper, I libbed Astronomy in 1060 AD and reached America just in time.

Spoiler :

Nah, of course I just used the Ireland-Iceland-Vinland island hopping trick

The third goal is definitely more interesting and fun than the previous 'amass 5000 gold' and 'sink 30 ships' goals. It also provides a challenge. However, if you know where to look, you'll have plenty of targets.

After England, my Huscarls went to Spain, where they found an undefended Santiago Afterwards I conquered Cordoba, but sadly enough it flipped to Portugal later on.

I sent some mercenary cavalry to Russia just before the Mongol invasion, and pillaged/conquered Russian cities. They ended up vassaling to me. I actually didn't even have to start the war: the turn I was about to invade, Yaroslavl declared on me

I beelined Optics for Caravels (conquerors can be gotten without Optics thanks to Vinland) and killed some ships in India.

I also got the conquerors. You shouldn't get them too early: Aztec had only managed to put up one improvement by the time I reached them Incas had more gold to offer though.

I sent an expedition of Knight and Huscarls to Germany and captured Brandenburg and Hamburg. Afterwards I went pillage-happy in the rest of their lands.

And lastly, the merc horsies from Russia went straight to China (Mongols opened borders thanks to mutual war against Russians) and pillaged some indies there to finish the goal.

Spoiler :

Viking empire: I mainly stuck with those eight cities. I burned most things I captured to maintain stability.

Spoiler :

Vikings are surprisingly fun for builders too: you get the opportunity to improve your cities as you don't need that many troops. I got 4 out of 5 greatest cities

Spoiler :

And lastly, score.