The Vox Populi Challenge No. 6 - Make love, not war (or why not both?)

Grabbl

Prince
Joined
May 25, 2016
Messages
431
Dear friends of Vox Populi!

The submission date of this challenge is over, scroll down for the results! And don't miss the next one :)

I'm sure you are already itching to play the next Vox Populi Challenge, so here it is: Keep reading and participate by playing a character quite different from Enrico Dandolo who you lead to success (hopefully) last time:


It's the Aztec people that await you in two hand-chosen worlds, hoping that you'll lead them to new greatness. However, they are tired to be seen as brutal warmongers only and hope that you will show the power of their prospering population. However, a bit of sacrificial captives never did any harm, did it?

Before you read on, make sure that you have Vox Populi version 8-19-1 (that's the new version including the hotfix).

As the main link in the version thread still links to 8-19, here's the link (choose the installer labelled 8-19-1):
https://mega.nz/#!qvxX0LBI!nutbfhfYlLv_BZMs7rk-EajugINZC0sSZjofJn1Bjw4

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 exact goal for this challenge:

As fast as you can, have a total of 60 citizens (the number next to the city name) in your 3 largest cities.

Tie-breaking
is food income before consumption in your capital.
Submission deadline is Sunday, the 16th of September, 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: Pangea, 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 :

  • The required citizen number is the total of your 3 largest cities (so the individual sizes added up), if that was unclear).


Luckily, the goals this time are easier than with Venice :). The goal is quite general, but that leaves a broader range of strategies open (at least I hope that).

This challenge is the sixth 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 8-19-1 and you're ready to go!
 

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The results are there!

Quite a lot of participants this time, you seem to love warmongering :lol: Or the shorter challenges...



Especially the Prince challenge was tight - all seven finishers in a range of ten turns. Congratulations to the newcomer Loafery for the win (by an incredible margin of 6.5 food).

And CrabHelmet finally finds his first victory - perhaps thanks to him being the only one that found Victoria Lake early enough to use it for his counting cities (scouting is important, folks...).



Dejagore safely defends his lead and CrabHelmet places himself on top of the Immortal contenders. The season is now at half-time, six challenges to come until we'll get two new Great Persons named after you!
 
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By "a total of 60 citizens in your three largest cities", do you mean that the added citizens within your three biggest cities must reach 60, or that your three biggest cities must each have 60 citizens ? The second seems highly improbable, but I prefer to ask.

Thanks once again for the challenge !
 
In that case, here it is. :D

Spoiler Spoiler :

Some music first :
Spoiler Music :

So, what to say about this challenge in Prince difficulty ?
First, I like the fact that your neighbours are Songhai and Denmark, both warmonger civs, although this challenge is about "love" : after checking if I was authorized to fight "a bit", I decided to offer them Aztec love by burning their nearest cities.

As you might imagine, Songhai was my biggest concern (the MCavalry could have obliged me to concentrate on military matters more than I wished) and so I decided to eliminate the threat they represented as soon as possible, attacking them after seeing that their military was, strangely enough, the weakest among major civs. After that, Gao became my northern puppet shield (but no attack came from that side in the end, surely because of the mountains that separated me from Egypt and the Maya).
For Denmark, they were the first I attacked, since they settled their second city near the place where I wanted mine to be. I burned it to the ground, and gained a GA out of it. After that, they became my bully target for the rest of the game, so that I could gain some gold and faith.

In the early game, my biggest concerns were happiness and gold, hence my very fruitful alliance with a Merchant CS in the north. After the conquest of Gao and the acquisition of Markets in my three cities, gold wasn't a problem anymore, and I managed to trade Luxury resources with Egypt and Spain to maintain my happiness, that skyrocketed after I finished the Tradition tree.

To boost the growth of my capital, bullying the nearest maritime CS was very important (as was my religion, that I didn't enhanced because of the nature of the challenge) => heavy tribute always meant that my capital would grow the next turn (I could have befriended it, but I decided that short term benefits were of preferable here).

For the wonders, I wished I could have built the Artemis Temple, but I failed at the last moment... For the others, typical Tradition ones (plus the Oracle for the free Temple and the culture spike that helped me since I invested more in growth and production).

For the specialists, I chose to only obtain one of each type before concentrating on growth and production only (with some faith to spam missionaries).

For the city placement, all three of my cities are inland and aren't on a river tile (since I wanted to keep them for my farm triangles, and the Aztec can build their UB anywhere anyway).

Between important buildings, I produced a lot of Workers, and the result was that I has almost no more tile to improve at the end (except in the southern city, but I had two internal trade routes to feed it).

It was a fun first challenge for me. Thanks ! :D

Good luck to all participants !
 

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Why do people keep revealing the turn they did the challenge. It was also done on previous challenge. It's quite frustrating :(
 
I'm sorry. I'll change things so that it doesn't appear anymore. I know it's too late for you, but I can do that at least.
 
Thanks for pointing this out, Zestikios, and thanks for changing, Hinin. I already had the impression that nobody cared if the turns are revealed unspoilered, but now that that's not the case, I'll pay more attention to that as well.

And please don't be disencouraged and participate, Zestikios :thumbsup:
 
No big deal, it is slightly annoying knowing beforehand what you have to beat :p
Anyway here's my save.
Spoiler :
I could have saved some turns if i wasnt so greedy to conquer Denmarks capital. I allready knew which 3 cities would be my growing ones. Conquering Denmark put me in negative happines for quite a lot of turns which delayed my growth. Also losing time building 2 wonders that i eventually lost was not good for me either. One wonder was hanging garders which i lost to pacal. His capital was under siege by my units when he build it, so no big harm there. The other one was temple of artemis which was build early from another neighbour. He then became my 1st target to capture his capital.
 

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Here is my effort. Really enjoyed this challenge!
Spoiler Spoiler :
I took authority and settled to the north west to grab another two tobacco, plus lots of marsh and camps later. The free settler went west to use the smaller river and grab a spice and tobacco. After that I farmed barbs until they ran out, then conquered Manila to get the 10% food sugar monopoly. Unluckily maya settled to take the sugar before Manila could, so they were next on the chopping block. I should have just grabbed the sugar city or popped a general to steal it but I got greedy and took Tikal as well. I was eyeing their golden age monopoly but fell short of taking their capital. SHould have pivoted north to get Songhais salt monopoly sooner. For religion I took goddess of fertility, asceticism (lots of capital food for spreading) and asceticism for flat food. Enhanced but no food effects there. Could have gone for Denmarks olive food monopoly as well- it was a really interesting set up with lots of tempting possibilities. Hit my pop goal at T151
 

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First time posting the challenge. Mostly lurked and tried the previous challenges, but didn't post until now.

Spoiler :

Did it on Prince.

The early war hurt me a little bit with Songhai and Denmark declaring at the same turn, but it wasn't that detrimental.

I wanted to go for the Hanging gardens but that got snatched away from me, but except that and Songhai declaring again everything else was smooth sailing.

I really liked this challenge, it only took 2 hrs!
 

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Finished on Prince

Spoiler :

Turn 161 - Cities size: 24/18/18

Denmark attacked me - I took 2 cities from him. I stopped war when Songhai declared on me (just when I wanted to place my 4th city, he almost got my settler. I had to settle him in the east sea, rather than on western river). I could finish 4 or 5 turns earlier, if Pacal wouldnt convert two of my 'growing' cities to his religion with prophet(-15 food from religion lost).
 

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  • Thomas_e_Aztec_Prince.Civ5Save
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Grabbl, actually decided to take a crack at this, but an important note. This challenge requires the Explorer's Map Pack DLC. That is not required DLC for Vox, so you may want to put a special note on the top of your challenge.
 
My first time into the Fray, had a great time.

Spoiler :

Tried Monty a bit strange this game....Going Tradition!

I pushed south where there was some excellent river and flood plain spaces. Decided to build just 2 cities, and planned to hole up, milk the barb camps for early game faith and culture, and ride the growth bonuses to victory.

It worked pretty well. Denmark declared early but I crushed him. I should have pushed for his capital but I decided to move my forces back to get some tribute from Manila.

My main problem in this game was money. I overbuilt my army without going for markets early enough. I tried to sprint to all of the growth stuff (hanging gardens -> floating gardens -> trade routes) but was a bit too much and my GPT really hurt me. This delayed my science which delayed my aqueducts, and I think if there was anything to fix it would be that.

At the end of the game Denmark and Songhai declared, but I held them off long enough. Ended with my civ on fire, but got it done!

Turn 155.
 

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Grabbl, actually decided to take a crack at this, but an important note. This challenge requires the Explorer's Map Pack DLC. That is not required DLC for Vox, so you may want to put a special note on the top of your challenge.

Thanks for telling me, I wasn't aware of this. For the next challenge, I will think of either disabling the DLC or writing that it's neede.

Also, the link given in the first post doesn't point to version 8-19 anymore, so here's a new one:

https://mega.nz/#!qvxX0LBI!nutbfhfYlLv_BZMs7rk-EajugINZC0sSZjofJn1Bjw4
 
Thanks for another great scenario!

Spoiler :
Probably could have finished at least 5 turns earlier. Forgot for like 20+ turns to spread religion to third city when picked +1 food per believer. Also probably I should pick 'farming' in the cities queue more often. Was fun anyway :)


edit: adding save from Immortal level in addition to Prince uploaded earlier
 

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Finished immortal:
Spoiler :

T153 - cities size 22/20/18 I was unable to grab religion boon which would grant me extra food after spearding to new city as I did on Prince level. But I still were able to finish earlier (probably beause I ditched all great Persons).

I was unable to settle in northern flood plains - Sweden got it, but thanks to that I didnt generate any tension with him - and I had war-less game beggining. I have settled in west near lake // and south near Silver (+2 city in south). Around turn 120 - Sweden did attack me (after he finished fighting with Shaka), but I bloodied his nose and took peace quickly so he wouldnt be able to pillage too much of my stuff.
 

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Here's my entry.

You can definitely do it a lot faster than this, I think. I got very unlucky with what the game expected from me for the WLTKD bonus, with resources I couldn't possibly trade for.
 

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The results are there! Hopefully, I didn't forget anybody this time :) (Second post in this thread)

Congratulations to CrabHelmet and Loafery for being the best lovers... or warriors, you decide, and thanks to all participants!
 
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