Total Domination Challenge G&K

[RedRover57]

Does anyone actually try for a diplo win on purpose? To me it has always been the consolation prize, the VC to go for after all else fails. It just seemed too cheesy in vanilla, and now in G&K it is so map and opponent dependent as to be un-fun in most situations.

 

[Grendeldef]

the next challenge should be Deity Diplo Vic on standard settings, continents, with mandatory presence of Austria as an AI civ. theres enough rage about their abuses at high levels that im curious who could beat them short of beelining them militarily if you get them on your continent. Plus diplo is quite hard to me with all the spy activity late game. i'd be interested to see what really good players can do about it.

While this may seem interesting there're few things that can screw it up. To make this even remotely equal for players Austria should be powerful enough to use it's UA. This would in practise mean that Austria shoud start on another continent but there's no set up for this. To meet these conditions some degree of luck is needed and those who play ~150 turns just see that it didn't happen are facing a replay or just ignoring the challenge.

There're several interesting scenarios which, unfortunately, will not make a good challenge. Even if we all used the same map the random element might make games radically different from each other when one requirement is certain behaviour of an AI.
Keep the ideas coming.

G

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

i certainly wouldnt want to play it, but its been a popular discussion so far. seeing how runaway powerful they have gotten is really a curiosity.

pre-GnK i did specifically play Diplo games because it made me focus on CS relations and see what they could and couldnt do. in most other games they were just an afterthought bonus. one of the things i really like in GnK is their quests/bonuses. I find them really good to make use of.

other game types i'd like to see are Culture vics at deity. ive never really gotten the right pace for earliest turns and im curious what that might be in GnK. the specifics to the challenge would be better for someone else more adept at those kinds to figure out. or maybe like the Complete DOmination you could do a Complete Religion vic where the actual VC doesnt matter but every Civ city must follow your religion.

 

[Grendeldef]

or maybe like the Complete DOmination you could do a Complete Religion vic where the actual VC doesnt matter but every Civ city must follow your religion.

This is something I'd say is worthy of a challenge.

G

 

[Grendeldef]

OK, after two days of rain & thunder the weather permitted some playing again and I finished the challenge with Harun and I admit I reloaded twice; T186 & ~T206. I don't know if it's a bug or not but when camel archer with logistics gets a promotion on the 1st hit the game swaps to next unit. Twice this resulted my city capping unit to go to a certain death next turn position so I reloaded but I'm not gonna slip wrists for that.

I'll write a proper story later but here are few pics & the original save - it's doesn't look that special but turned out to be an excellent one. After playing for 12hrs more or less straight I think I'll take a short break from this particular game.

The game ended @T230. Could've shaved few turns if I had been awake until the end but it's good to know that there's room for improvement.

G

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Hmm, something's wrong with the quality of the pix - either jpg compression or with software itself but hopefully these at least tell more lies than 1000 words.

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A bit more detailed info about the game. A Good start turned out to be quite excellent with 3 luxes nearby. Basic build queue scout-worker-shrine-warrior-2xsettler at which point Attila DoWed but the barbs were more troublesome. Quite a few units but AI can't use the HAs at all and if rams are blocked the couple swords & archers won't do much. Killed the bunch but his two cities placed unreachable for chariot but apparently I killed enough unit along with a new 2 pop city to get a city+ 2k G peace deal. I sold the city to Isabella. NC with 4 cities @85 and tradition filled 10 turns later with Oracle. At that point I had only met two CSs.
Spying started @T94 and I stole 2 very cheap techs from Attila before I killed him off with 5 camels. His was kind enough to DoW me again. While defending from Attila I DoWed Egypt since Ottomans were on gates of Thebes which I had to have & luckily got with ND as a bonus. Unfortunately I wasted 20 turns of spying Egypt for nothing. Even Attila managed to get a religion but not me so I was virtually without one apart from puppets. I left Egypt with two but Isabella killed him off sometimes later which I didn't even notice.
I was friends with Spain almost the whole time & with the Ottomans for 50 turns when he turned hostile; I assume grass was greener on my side. After mutual denouncing I save him the trouble of DoWing after he GG bombed 2 cottons from me. Suleiman topping everything and GW I expected a harder battle but the camels are brilliant now. Luckily I had to take only one city before capital. After that I burned 2, sold 2 to Gandhi & gave him also 2 as he was somewhat displeased with my wars & after I got caught for stealing he decided I was not BFF material. This made me to revaluate my plan for xx'th time as nothing seemed to go according to my master plan. Luckily Gandhi was already at war with Washington and Dido was easy to bribe to join.

I DoWed India as asoon as our RA materialized. I bought a decent navy with 12 frigates, few privateers & caravels to match Dido so Gandhi was not much of challenge on sea and surprisingly nor on land. Apparently he killed his army while banging Washington. As map later revealed he could not go head-to-head with Dido on land. I kept India's original cities but burned all 4 on my continent and got few extra barbs as a bonus but nothing serious. Luckily I had money to buy units since building would've taken ages. After India I waited few turns for our RA with Dido while healing units before DoWing her - DoF was still on but Isabella was already hostile so didn't much care. Fortunately we also had a RA for some 12 turns which I used to build & buy unit since I had almost none on my continent. I bought ~10 cannons while keeping artillery unresearched. Dido war started ~T205 & Isabella ~T215. According to demographics both had larger army than I did but what I saw didn't impress me much. The slowing factors were Dido's hilly land & Isabella's far too many cities - she even managed to settle 4 new cities on Suleiman's burned land while I had used 3GGs to cover the wasteland.

T221 a Spanish missionary finally made my 1st city religious one so I bought an engineer which I used for TM. I also annexed a 2 pop city near Carthage to buy some artillery - with ~20 unhappiness the camels were seriously lacking oomph vs cities. I also finally managed to build Oxford to get electronics - too late to make a difference but it felt good. With 3 logistics & range BSs I could have demolished the whole Dido's military.
Roughly the same time Cahokia took one of Spanish cities which I had bombed to 0 hp. I never saw a caravel but I couldn't be anything else when you look at the map. Valencia is visible and I painted a red ring around Cahokia on minimap - almost the only time a CS proved useful in the game.

Policywise I took full tradition and full honor starting with the left side and opened autocracy for happiness. When I found a cult CS I allied both of them without much of a competition. I had serious happiness issues when fighting with Suleiman since I found both merc CSs @ ~180. In the end the -20 - -40 was only annoyance, not a problem.
I was constantly burning cities so finishing Oxford took ages. Every turn took so long that in the end I forgot what I started with - had I been awake while playing this wouldn't prolly have happened.
I missed religion so I threw away hammers for 3 early shrines and my first 3 three cities were without a religion in the end so I missed some perks also.
I managed to hard build Petra, Oracle, LToP, missed FP by 4 turns & used a GE for BB & TM. Settled 2 GSs & bulbed 2. Spying gave me 3 techs worth 10 turns at the time. Rest of the time I was defending.
Map was generally excellent for my UA but forests & jungles made me to wait for chivalry for any serious offense. In the end my navy killed of Dido & newly built/bought army Spain. With more balanced set up some turns would have been shaved from the finish.

G

 

[Tabarnak]

Good job and good idea to pick Harun.

I was constantly burning cities so finishing Oxford took ages.

I sold the city to Isabella.

I count 26-27 cities from your screenshot and i finished with 44.

VC = total domination ie player must control every city (own, annexed or puppet) on the map apart from CSs still alive

I thought it was a rule to not sell or raze any cities.

Glad that you made a similiar approach Medieval UUs are the best!

 

[Grendeldef]

Good job and good idea to pick Harun.

I count 26-27 cities from your screenshot and i finished with 44.


I thought it was a rule to not sell or raze any cities.

Glad that you made a similiar approach Medieval UUs are the best!

Harun was based purely on camels and they proved even better than I originally thought. The ability to move after hitting is essential when capping cities - I didn't lose a single CA during the game as they can take at least one shot from any unit in that game.
With luck & cities a bit further apart from each other I managed to get quite a few luxes and that combined with Arab UA kept my economy in decent form from the 1st bazaar.

The original challenge by Snarzberry had no limitations about selling or razing so didn't write it down anywhere, my bad. However, selling cities is still bound by the at least 15 turn trade & DoW rules. I have do some reloading to check how many turns I had in between but close to 30 anyway. At the moment I'm not too keen on reloading anything from that game - my eyes are still crossed after a barrel of coffee.
I razed roughly 20 cities and had 4 or 5 burning in the end - I had no need for that but it became a habit. Sadly it made hard to build national wonders. On few spots I burned down two different cities. In total I sold 3 cities.
Also it seems that occasionally when AI is about to lose it'll start spamming settlers so some 5-6 of the cities I burned were 2-pop max.

If I had the time & willpower I'd play the ~100 turns again without building shrines & if I had even more time & wp I'd try the same with actually getting a religion.
Most likely I'll try Arabs again trying to utilize the CAs more effectively - this was very safe mode version when it came to making war. Not totally sure but I think that 1st unit I lost in battle after the original scout was something that I caught with a privateer. More offensive approach would get results faster and still have enough highly upgraded units.

G

 

[Grendeldef]

Quote: Originally Posted by Grendeldef
VC = total domination ie player must control every city (own, annexed or puppet) on the map apart from CSs still alive


I thought it was a rule to not sell or raze any cities.

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I actually came to a situation when further interpretation of this is needed.

Last city I took from India was next to Sydney then allied by India. After Gandhi was dead I made peace but when I DoWed Spain Isabella allied Sydney and it's troops started to knock down my city. My troops had sailed for Carthage so I had none defending and at least that city would have fallen had I not sent a couple units back to defend. Technically, regardless of what Sydney had done with the captured city it would have been beneficial to me and still within the rules but I thought I'd against the spirit of the rules. So obviously there's some things that need additional clarification.
DoWing unimportant CS would be easy way to get rid of crappy cities in their borders.


G

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

i now love General bombing. im gonna play a China game just for that. these challenges and the successes im reading are just ridiculous. different civs using their bonuses to success is so interesting. I still have a long list of civs/strategies to play and im already 700 hours into this.

i need to focus and just play my next 20 games as warmongering. i just cant keep the units and strategies so focused to even beat Deity let alone try these challenges. im currently about to win a Carthage dom vic but it will be in the early 300s (only 2 caps left and its 285 or so and one is 2 cities away from a coast). Plus it's only Emperor. I'd love to see these as LPs, even without commentary although that would help a good bit.

 

[Grendeldef]

these challenges and the successes im reading are just ridiculous.

One should always remember that a fair bit of luck is needed for best results while 'just' winning a game leaves room for messing around.
I had another go with Arabs few moments ago with 4-4 start generally slightly worse than previous one. I was roughly on par with last game finishing the Dutch when general leader Korea DoWed me T120 while also at war with Siam. I took two Korean cities when it went industrial T134, T146 modern & T148 there were machine guns at which point I quit.Winnable situation perhaps but no way for sub T230.

G

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

only in the name of silliness, i wonder what the optimal turns could be if you allow reloading. you could then play the most efficient, mistake free game for the lowest time, even while having that '*' next to it just for the curiosity of knowing that turn number.

 

[Grendeldef]

Constantly reloading might save few turns but more beneficial would prolly be to play far enough to see all the resources on the map to help planning the city placement & then start from scratch. Luckily/unfortunately - depending on one's pov - the RNG comes into it and might chance things drastically so getting the absolute best result is very unlikely.
With good start & very favourable map sub 200 should be achievable. The Huns can clear a 5-3 start continent @T100 and if there's a coastal passage between continents T150 could be achieved.

G

 

[Grendeldef]

There seems to be a sudden interest in all sorts challenges so let's wrap this up soon. The challenge semi offiacially ends on Sunday 19th so peeps have a week & half to finish they games. This should be plenty even though these games tends to be longish.

While watching the games roughly 24/7 I've been side stepping to the world of civ & trying some offbeat things without much of a success. Might be lack of concentration & skill but more likely I've failed in two aspects that are most important: rolling a good map and getting suitable opponents.

G

 

[Slvynn]

I finally got to it
I picked very special civ to play this challenge - Mr. Nabby himself
Started, moved settler, Ottomans declared, ate some bowmen arrows, then ate them more, then lost capital after struggle.
Istanbul was hard to take as you see, used 2 generals to it, really hard place.... i hope now game will go up.. i have less sattelite cities, and made experiement with honor 50% xp bonus, aiming to get new hightly experienced units very soon, after i get up barracks and stuff after some some happiness preparation.
I've made some mistake that costed me few units during siege, perhaps this is not best start, but i got nice food growth in my capital, hope i get proper scientists soon
I have question..... We can raze cities right?
I didnt but i would like to raze that Bursa..

PS. I am not that satisfied with the start, perhaps i will replay it or start over with nabby with full tradition route and more cities.... Honor before finishing tradition did not made it good, i lost units at Istambul and i needed more sattelite cities.

 

[Grendeldef]

Yup, razing cities is allowed.

G

 

[Grendeldef]

Couldn't help myself trying liberty start with Arabs as well. I was about to stop more than once in the early turns due to 3-5 start which luckily turned out as 3-2-3 later.
Also religion wasn't part of the plan but Sri Prada being in a suitable spot I had a go with it and managed to get the Messenger of Gods pantheon but I needed a prophet to convert my cities due to rapid growth.

Settled for cities, NC ~T85, denounced Songhai for CS repu & waited for the 1st DoW but it took some 15 turns after which few crappy units came by. Killed those, took Gao, burned Jenne & liberated Monaco - bye bye Askia. Meanwhile I settled 5th city to cover the land in between. Also befriended with Egypt which made Korea & Poly cross.

Attacked Egypt right after the DoF was over through Cahokia & Korea with which I had OB. After wiping out Rammy I DoWed Korea but due to his army advancing was slow. Also due to narrow continent which left no room for a massive army I started to sail troops towards Attila who unfortunately popped the WTH are you doing when my 1st frigate paid a visit on his borders so I had to DoW him, too. Attila wasn't much of a problem but I was pacing myself to keep unhappiness under 10. I had to annex the only coastal Egyptian city to have trade route on the continent and the 2nd Attila's city for the same reason. Buying harbours & universities took all my cash.

Hiawatha was easy to bribe war against the Celts so I didn't have to kill her on my own. This also backfired a bit when Hiawatha actually took one of her cities. I was waiting for T212 & RA with Hiawatha for the final wars which I didn't necessarily need and the an earlier RA with Kame gave me nothing - an annoying bug in it's many forms.

T213 I DoWed Hiawatha & Kame and lost quite a few camels in two turns beacause I didn't have the money to upgrade those. Hiawatha had quite a few units but the early airplanes are impotent while Kame had only few units but his cities were far from mine and behind the GW - beyond my bombers. Two mostly uneventfull wars which ended T225.

Liberty was filled ~T95, opened left side of honor but lack of culture forced me to open autocracy after that. I had several merc CS allies for happiness but I had to pay them a lot. I had more happiness but less money than in my previous game. Partly this was due to map.

Had I found Egypt & Korea earlier I could have saved few turns but missing the beakers & effectively one tech from RA with Kame. Waiting for the RA with Hiawatha is harder to judge but either way - no big deal.

It's hard to compare trad & lib openers because the difference of the map but it's nice to see that both are viable.

G
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I might also add that this time I teched a bit faster and headed for Scientific Theory before Artillery apart from last time's artillery beeline after opening industrial with Industrialization. This resulted battleships @T210 instead of T225 but due to map their usefullness was very limited.

 

[Tabarnak]

This time you got a lot more cities

Must be very hard to finish under 200 turns but may with an OP Spain map you can do a lot of interesting things. They aren't banned...if i had the will and time to play another one i would have tried a game with them(with a superb map of course). I play mostly mp games lately, waiting for other nice challenges

I guess you just won your own challenge

 

[Grendeldef]

I razed only 3 cities out of which 2 were Korean 1-tile islands because I had a lot more happiness and I wanted a different approach.

This game made me a believer of sub T200 results even though the likelihood of such is very slim. T220 seemed possible but GW bomber's range prevented it (and my stupidity not to settle a city close to Honolulu).

The contest isn't over yet and original credit belongs to Snarzberry but actually the T225 is faster than I expected when we were modding the rules for this. The sad part is that it's still too easy to sail unsupported land units across the seas.
Behind this are also the half a dozen games I dropped ~T100-150 for something that an AI did, usually someone hitting industrial @ ~T130 or Austrian princesses coming to age of marriage.

G

 

[Slvynn]

i restarted with babylon, got better start, but didnt had time to advance... perhaps this w
eekend....

 

[Grendeldef]

The official part is over but I didn't have time enough to finish this one earlier so I'll present it anyway. I was about to give up when Korea hit industrial @ T114 but luckily his military wasn't on par with his sci.
4-4 start with Korea & Ottomans as neighbours and Mongols on same continent as well. Good start with tons of space, not all of it very good, though. Suleiman DoW'ed ~T60 without much of a military since Genghis was conquering his land. Korea DoW'ed ~T90 which wasn't a surprise so I had walls ready & few pikes. I hit chivalry T105 when things turned around. I took Suleiman's last city few turns later and Seoul T116. Meanwhile polynesia was already dead.
Biribed Genghis to attack Korea as well and we wiped him out. On the other continents Attila was friendly while Washington & Wu only neutral. Obviously they had met Korea some 40 turns earlier. China turned guarded soon enough & was about to DoW but I didn't wait. She was suppose to a mighty army but I didn't find it - map was a greater obstacle. While sailing towards China I DoW'ed Genghis with only few CAs but it was enough - happiness didn't allow me to take more cities anyway.
Somewhere ~T185 I DoW'ed Wash as well. Luckily he didn't have much of a navy since GW prevented a mass invasion with ground troops. Same time with Attila we finished China so I could leave her continent.
Everything seemed to go ok until Washington got to airplanes after which my CAs started to go extinct. I had annexed Chicago for buying artillery but without harbours my income was pretty low. Attila had been a solid friend so I DoW'ed him very late @T210 when he had only 4 cities. Two coastal ones seemed easy targets but due to number of units I expected a bit harder end. Each turn took 20-30 mins so I wasn't at my sharpest anyway so Attila's weird plan came as a nice surprise - instead of defending his cities he decided to attack my Honolulu. A braindead scheme but helped me quite a bit. Attila's Court was luckily only 3 tiles from the coast. Genghis died T213 & Attila & Washington @ T216 so few turns faster than last game and now I'm quite convinced that sub T200 is achievable.

Tradition opening with honor to follow as usual. I managed to get a pantheon but wasn't going for a religion until I took Seoul after which I build HS & started a religion to have some use for my faith. At best I had 4 cities following my religion so I managed to get few pagodas.

G