The Vox Populi Challenge No. 2 - Polygamy

[Grabbl]

Dear friends of Vox Populi!

Update: The submission deadline is over, thanks to all participants! Soon, challenge no. 3 will start...

Welcome to the second edition of the Vox Populi Challenge! No matter if you know it already or not, keep on reading and participate!​

​

Be excited for the new challenge, as your goal is something that is illegal in real life: Marry more than one person city state! With the 4-30 version of Vox Populi, you will incorporate Maria Theresia of Austria and be able to marry as often as you want (well, not really, but do you really want more than 9 spouses?).

Before we go into details, please make sure you know the rules. Especially, don't share ingame information unspoilered, not even the number of points you achieved. I don't want anyone to be discouraged by your large amount of great works, or to know prior to his game what number he has to beat. In spoilers, you are very welcome to describe your game, of course

Spoiler Game Rules :

1) The Golden Rule: Don't replay, don't reload, send in your first try! It is recommended to set your auto-save frequency to 1 turn for this game. If you have a crash that forces you to replay, write it in the mail afterwards and try replaying as closest as possible to what you did before the crash.

2) Don't exploit any bugs you may find. At the moment, I'm not aware of any exploitable bugs, but just in case, don't overuse obviously bugged mechanics (like the infinite tribute-bug a few patches ago).

3) Don't share ingame-information unspoilered! If you want to share strategies or ingame information in this thread, use spoilers and write "Do not open unless you already sent in your game." on top of it. A separate thread for spoilers would be good, but I don't want to spam the main forum for this pilot.

4) Don't look at spoilers if you didn't finish your game!

5) Don't use cheat tools (Ingame Editor, Info Addict...) and don't open the map in some editor or else.

6) Don't use any additional mods besides full Vox Populi (1 to 6, either EUI or non-EUI) as I'm not sure whether I will be able to open your savegame files if you do.

Now, the details of the challenge:

Primary Goal: As fast as you can, marry 8 (out of 12 total) city states (with the Austrian unique ability). Tiebreaking is accumulated gold.

Secondary Goal: If this seems not possible (anymore) to you, you can send in any save with Telecommunications technology researched. Your save will be ranked by the number of city state marriages at that moment, of course below anyone that reached the primary goal. Tiebreaking in that case is the turn number of your save.

The challenge can be done on difficulty 4 (Prince) or 7 (Immortal). The goals and settings are the same for both challenges, the map and (possibly) other civilizations are different. You may play (and send in) one or both challenges as you don't gain in-game information for the other challenge.

Submission deadline is Sunday, the 20th of May 2018, 6pm Eastern Time (midnight in Central European Time). You can submit by personal message to me, posting your save in this thread, or sending it to vox-populi-challenge@gmx.net. Don't forget to write the name under which you want to appear in the ranking if sending by e-mail!

Spoiler Game Settings :

• Map: Continents, Small
• Research Agreements, No Tech Trading
• No Ancient Ruins
• No Events

If something is not clear, read the following spoiler, then ask a question if still unclear:

Spoiler Challenge Specifications :

• For a valid save, 8 alive city states need to be married with Austria.
• When a city state you are married with is conquered, you need to liberate it to make it count.
• The influence status with the city states doesn't matter (whether friendly / angry / allied /Sphere of Influence etc.).
• You don't even need to be at peace with the city state(s).
• If city states get conquered, open door policies enabled, or city states are created by revolts, the goal of the challenge doesn't change (in particular, if no 9 city states are alive, you will have to liberate some).

This challenge is the second of a season of 12 challenges. After the submission deadline, I will rank all participants (divided by difficulty level) and you will get 15/13/11/10/9/8/7/6/5/4/3/2/1/1/1/... points for the 1st/2nd/3rd... rank. At the end of the season, your best 10 results will count for the final ranking.

The winners of the season (one for Prince, one for Immortal) will be granted the opportunity to become a part of the game as a Great Person of their choice (Prophets excluded). Thanks to Gazebo for this contribution to the challenge!

Now... download the save for your difficulty, make sure you have Vox Populi version 4-30 and you're ready to go!

 

[Grabbl]

And... here are the results:



Congratulations to the winners Sruixan and Peterw1987 of the Austria challenge! You are now officially authorised to wear Maria Theresias dress

Thanks to everyone who participated (the numbers are going up, yeah!), I hope you enjoyed it. A special thanks also to all those that tirelessly try the Immortal games, I know that they are quite hard and early mistakes are not easily forgiven...

In the leaderboard for the season, Rean is able to defend his first place (though don't forget that in the end, the two worst results will be eliminated, so the players that didn't participate in all challenges will catch up ).



The next challenge will follow in a few days to wait for eventual hotfixes and give you a bit of praxis time Don't miss it!​

 

[Rean]

I'll be terribly disappointed if the AI enemies aren't just 5 Genghis Khans.

 

[Rean]

Spoiler Do not open unless you already sent in your game. :

Got it by turn 198 on Prince, researched astronomy, rushed diplomats over and waited 10 turns.

After seeing it was just me and Portugal I quickly wiped her out and focused hard on science to get Astro fast as I could.

Might've been able to do it earlier if I'd seen the spot you can use to pass over ocean with Great Lighthouse and had gotten lucky with quests but oh well.

 

[a1nosweat]

Spoiler :

Same story here, just slower, T269 on prince. Actually hit 10/10 discovered city states, as two in the 'new world' had merged together, and two marriages occured in the final year. Should have rushed compass more, but I'd forgotten my endgame at that point.

I wonder if it would be possible to make portugal so unhappy it make new city states? or even make yourself that unhappy?

 

[nemoens]

After only managing to submit Immortal last time out (Prince game was still 50 years or so out) I thought I'd have another go on hard mode:

Spoiler :

I will be very, very impressed if anyone submits an Immortal save for this one where they've married even one city state. I had one of the best starts I've ever had on Immortal (four cities by turn 65ish, resource monopoly from Ivory) and I got absolutely nuked thirty turns later by a super expansionist Hiawatha who was into double figures for cities and was spamming super powered Mohawk Warriors all over the shop. That war is presumably completely inevitable, and maybe you can stay competitive by rushing War Elephants, but those Mohawks are just going to steamroll everything as far as I can see and Austria is hardly a fast starting civ with strong defences.

Oh, and they sit right between you and any potential city state marriages.

Good luck, Immortal players

 

[a1nosweat]

I'd love to see a skilled immortal player record a video of a successful game

Spoiler :

capital (and other cities) destroyed by hiawatha turn 169. I might have another go, but I'm at a loss for tactics. I can only think turtling might just work. I reckon a post in the strategy thread might be required. Or this might be too hard

Edit - It was turn 119. and turtling with elephants didn't work either

 

[Grabbl]

Spoiler :

Sorry guys, I didn't anticipate that it was that hard. I saw that war against Hiawatha probably is inevitable, but did think that if you realize this, you can overcome him (mainly with the many horses and perhaps war elephants). I played a few turns and he expanded fast, but not unraceable fast... Well, I can still improve judging games from the IGE glance

 

[Vortok]

Did Prince.

Spoiler :

I screwed around a bunch in the opening. First planning to beeline Roman Forum and then wanting Archers and Markets (Goddess of Springtime), but also Spearmen to fight Portugal. Fortunately, you can get away with a lot on Prince. Got Hanging Gardens even though I started it quite a bit after finishing the Forum.

At turn 112, I took Braga but the auto-Annex bug popped up. Didn't notice until most of the way through 113. Reloaded in order to puppet as intended. Attempted to play the turn the same way (including moving a catapult into borders before the cap, lulz).

Founded first religion on 114 (off three cities.. and I didn't even rush out the Settlers, lmao). Forgot how slowly Prince AI does stuff.

Porto auto-annexed on 129. Noticed and reloaded immediately.

My first Great General I immediately used to Citadel Mt. Kilimanjaro away from Hong Kong. Made dealing with Portugal just that little easier. I decided to experiment with putting the Great Diplo Embassy in a spot that'd get Citadeled. Embassy became available again (useful to know, if another civ ever puts an embassy in a city-state and you're in a position to replace it). It gave Graz a semi decent tile, at least, though it was too concerned with feeding itself at first to actually get around to working the tile.

Annexed Lisbon as my fourth city, though might've not even been necessary. Decided I wanted the Horses near Hong Kong for punching Portugal, and after that I only saw one other really solid spot. Could've put a fourth to the southwest of Vienna, but it didn't look appealing enough.

Founded World Congress on 202 for giggles with the 8th marriage on 203.

Japan apparently get dunked on (and then Citadeled back most of the lost territory, lol).

Somehow Polynesia never wandered over to initiate contact until after Portugal had been wiped out. Having no witnesses certainly made it easier to just demolish her entirely.

I liked that this challenge didn't necessarily require a full game, making it easier to jump in and try it.

 

[merill]

Did Immortal

Spoiler :

I was a bit distracted by the Iroquois in the early game (settler? -> war!). Failed to conquer his capital so i stopped and has a mostly peaceful game afterward. France loosing some cities from revolutions in industrial.
I think i could have done better, as i mostly played for a normal win most of the time, instead to focus on the challenge.
My people was almost always a bit unhappy, as i was my first since a year, it's a nice new challenge on this front.
I lost the Palace of westminster by 1 turn (i miss by a few hammers), lost 2 GE in this catastrophic failure.

finished t296
save: https://mega.nz/#!txoRyDwY!zfZQlWExbFjb6GstUsN_ugBwUITJN6ZPzVaw9O0fw-U

 

[Diverman]

Just finished Prince.

Spoiler :

Went aggressive this time and destroyed Portugal early on to focus on city states after. I focused on gold and science to rush astronomy/civil service and manage to get my 8th husband on turn 203. I liked this challenge : fast and furious. And fun too. Maybe a little too easy, as I was expecting for Venice or Mongolia in the game.

 

[nemoens]

Prince effort:

Spoiler :

Eighth marriage on Turn 241. Got up to five on home island quickly, made the (in hindsight) mistake of religion-swamping Portugal rather than conquering them outright, so got a bit delayed by them and Polynesia deciding to go to war with me about the same time as I got to Astronomy - I probably gave up a few turns by getting angry with them and building Caravels rather than focusing on the end goal, but still completed the goal in good if not outstanding time.

Never really played Austria before, might have a go with her on a higher difficulty. Not played Prince for a while either, had forgotten how slow the other civs are to wake up to city states and religion - they get there, but the first 100 or so turns I more or less had a free run.

Thanks for running, looking forward to challenge 3 - agree that having Genghis around would have made things a bit more fun though.

 

[Myrrdin_Emrys]

Hello maybe i will try your challenge for the first time but i have questions about it ?

-> Can u try again the same challenge once you have finished it ? (because i understand you don't want us to reload during our attempt but can you retry it ?)

-> Can i use Improved City view mod that just modifying the interface of the city screen ?

 

[Grabbl]

Hello maybe i will try your challenge for the first time but i have questions about it ?

-> Can u try again the same challenge once you have finished it ? (because i understand you don't want us to reload during our attempt but can you retry it ?)

-> Can i use Improved City view mod that just modifying the interface of the city screen ?

1st question: No, you can't retry. (for your pleasure, you can play the save as many times as you want, of course, but you can only submit your first try).

2nd question: Yes, you can use it. Mods that only modify the UI are allowed.

 

[peterw1987]

I will not submit my prince challenge since I do retry because other civ build great library a few turn before me. I am quite surprised prince AI beat me for it, even thou I really focus on it.
So I am only sharing my gameplay.

Spoiler Spoiler prince challenge :

I finish on turn 182 on my second retry. Maybe I could be faster if I neglect roman forum for library first. I am literally swimming in gold from godess of springtime pantheon. focus on caravel and explorer first for exploring, then astronomy for great diplomat to cross ocean.

Now I will try to do Immortal challenge without retry after I am familiar with Austria

 

[void_genesis]

Here is my effort on prince. Will give immortal a go next and see if I get stomped.

Spoiler Spoiler :

Went for tradition, got pantheon for extra gold on plantations, stomped Maria out of existence and quickly married off all five CS on my continent. Found Byblos near Polynesia after they settled my island and I burned their city down. Also found and married CS on pearl island to the north. Beelined caravels to discover more CS, then chichen itza tech so I could send my diplomats overseas. If I had been luckier I would have found the CS just to the west of Polynesia earlier. Exploration was really important for speeding up the game and a little luck dependent, though I could have built more ships earlier instead of killing off Maria. Got eighth CS marriage by turn 210.

 

[peterw1987]

Finally finish my immortal challenge.

Spoiler Finish Immortal Challenge :

Finish on T196. Policy progress.Religion : god of the hunt(camp bonus),WLKTD bonus founder, cathedrals(bonus gold farm,pasture,quarry).
Maybe I am very lucky because 1 of Iroquis settler is captured by barbarian early game(although they recaptured it later)
I forward settle to the top spot( basically stealing almost half of the forest in the continent from him).
Then after I explore all my continent, I left my scout and warrior nearby Iroquis cities.
And when I see that I can steal 2 worker with no guard, I DOW Iroquis. Basically after that, I keep sending my horseman and catapult until I cleared Iroquis from the game. They only get to make 4 or 5 Mohawk Warrior.
From the beginning, i know that anihilating Iroquis is a vital point in this game, or else they will be unstoppable, and basically blocking me from the rest of the continent.
Another point is friendship with good France. France being my good trade friend early game. I trade all of my horse and iron to France which give me gold surplus.

I dunno how difficult will this challenge be if I am late defeating Iroquis early game.

 

[Sruixan]

I didn't think I was gonna get round to doing this one, 'cause I first had to finish the game I put on hold to (not quite) participate in the last challenge before I could update to the current version. Still, it all worked out in the end... and then some...

Spoiler Prince (loooooong write-up) :

Having thought things through a bit beforehand, I actually had something resembling a plan in mind this time! It didn't all pan out, though - sometimes it worked out better! For instance, I'd been hoping, via Goddess of Beauty, to have an engineer ready to rush the Great Lighthouse in whatever coastal city I could rustle up, but it turned out Goddess of Springtime could be a thing so I snatched that up instead. Otherwise, I knew I had to prioritise exploration, money and science, in that order. You can't marry off princesses to places that you don't know exist (well, not without destabilising your lineage, anyway), and knowing that this was a Continents map there was only the scarcest chance I'd be able to reach eight city states without getting a trireme over to the other major landmass. Weddings are also expensive (I blame the cakes), so I was hoping to get a money-spinning religion formed off of the Springtime pantheon, and if it did turn out that there was no way of making it to the other continent before Astronomy, I'd have to beeline it, with Education being the only permissble detour.

The first hundred turns or so went fine - stole the False Maria's woefully unprotected settler (and narrowly missed snatching one of her workers, hmph), wandered my starting pathfinder around with the aim of getting +2 vision asap, dealt with barbs for Vancouver, Colombo and Hong Kong, then hooked the latter up with tobacco and waited:

The GL rush succeeded, and I mean both Library and Lighthouse, so I bought a trireme and eventually bumbled my way up to Kiev, finding Sri Pada for Colombo and Vancouver to boot. With no sign of a shallow-water connection to the other continent, I was exploring with fingers crossed that the extra vision on both my trireme and my (now) scout might allow them to spot something; if not, then I'd have to reconfigure my empire to pour everything into that aforementioned Astronomy rush. And then Kammy showed up, fashionably late, but much appreciated. I ran my scout over to where he made landfall, and bingo:

Next turn, a caravan of his showed up in Byblos to seal the deal: this is where I needed to look to find the rest of my desired Prince Charmings. There was a slight hitch in the form of the False Maria's war declaration, presumably an attempt at getting her own back for my earlier transgressions. Fortunately, the forests around Salzburg made it perfectly defensible, but her move did force me to spend some of my precious dosh on unit upgrades...

First religion meant free pick of Thrift to get that cash flow going, plus Holy Law because moneys. Colombo wanted a trade route, so when Maria pillaged the caravan that had allied me with Vancouver, I had the perfect excuse to sort them out with one.

Three marriages down, five to go: I'd declared on Kammy just to get through his coastal waters, which turned out to be a bit more awkward than I'd anticipated on account of a horseman he'd sent over to Marialand for reasons best known to himself. It did mean that I had Buenos Aries and Zanzibar on the potential suitors list, so all I needed to do to beat the challenge was ally (at least one of) them. Until Astronomy, that meant completing quests... which I could only do if they gave them to me... which they didn't... for a while...

...so anyway, once I'd peaced out with False Maria, I bought some skirmishers (yes, that way round) and went and cleaned up the camp Vilnius had been moaning about for a couple of millenia. After that, they took a field trip to Kiev and polished off their barbarians too. Throw in a visit to Wittenberg from a Great Diplomat, and I soon had marriages four, five and six down. Still haven't run out of princesses yet though - surely I'm into the cousins by now?

Finally, the city states on non-Marialand (temporary name) starting piping up: Buenos Aries wanted religion (no can do, matey), Byblos implored me to denounce Askia (definitely can do, bud) and Zanzibar fancied the Circus Maximus (okie dokie, I'll put it on the to-do list, pal). All of these quests would confer enough influence to both form an alliance and maintain it for ten turns, so all I needed was the money... which I'd have, because I'd enhanced with Mastery and Tithes to form the weirdest religion I've ever composed in VP. That meant I just had to weather Maria's latest attempt at bothering me, assuming I could actually keep Byblos and Zanzibar allied with me for those full ten turn periods. I flirted with the idea of just declaring on everyone, but then Kammy declared on me and I figured that would probably do. And it did:

I could have shaved two or three turns off by rushing the arena and/or Circus Maximus in Vienna, but I wanted to be 100% sure I'd have enough banked to organise the wedding number eight. Admittedly my only major expense was the occasional unit purchase/upgrade to keep False Maria's toothless sallies at bay, but it's the thought that counts. Thus ended a run that I'm extremely pleased with, all things considered - a little planning went a long way...

Marriage Summary
093 Hong Kong
120 Vancouver
130 Colombo
152 Wittenberg
158 Vilnius
165 Kiev
177 Byblos
181 Zanzibar

 

[Grabbl]

Scroll up for the results of the challenge! Congratulations to Rean and Peterw1987 and thanks to all participants!

You'll have to wait a few days for the next challenge as I want the new version to settle down a bit to reduce the probability that a hotfix is needed mid-game.

 

[peterw1987]

Quite surprised by the number of participants despite the low reply number on the threads. Waiting for next challenge.