Tradition China Science Victory Guide - Win Before Turn 300!

[Txurce]

Just won turn 337 science victory on Diety, my first win on that difficulty. Only founded 3 cities, lost one around turn 300, tall science play is more than viable

This was an incredible game, alot went wrong, inlcuding being nuked. I was steadily losing ground to the Autocratic alliance of Ottomans, Polynesia and Germany. At the end the other free nations had already collapsed, only my 2 cities remained, with capital taking hits. I continued playing after launching, and my capital fell in 3 turns.

Early on I fought an incredible war against the huns, going from barely surviving to burning a city down. There is zero way China would have won this game, India's abilities came in clutch so many times. The Pantheon is incredible, Naga Malla let me build agribusiness while keeping my elite skirmishers promotions. The extra pressure spread my religion like wildfire, and of course the growth was absurd. I build the food corporation since it was my only option, at the end my capital grew every turn for. Despite getting nuked was back to 98 at the end of the game. Cooperation gave so many yields its disgusting.

One move I made, which I'm not sure if it was correct, was I killed the Huns after they lost their capital. Their score was crap, so eliminating them brought my yield from World Science Initiative from 10% to 24%. It did take a reasonable investment though

The potential cultural snowball of God of All is incredible, especially with culture ruins, and with India you can still found a religion quickly despite your pantheon maxing out at 2 faith. For this build I picked 2 Aesthetics, then 4 Piety then Rationalism. After taking 5 freedom policies, I finished Piety, got 2 more Aesthetics, and then got spaceship procurements. With God of All, you don't need Holy Law (I picked Theocratic Rule and was able to maintain WLTKD almost all game). Built Masoleum of Hali, Gardens, Oracle, Hagia Sophia (to enhance cause my faith was crap), Leaning Tower, Porcelain Tower, Himeji Castle (now has a free GS), Empire State, Stat of Lib, Hubble and CERN.

With that said my faith output was absolute crap for a long time, my per turn never got above 160. So a God of Wisdom approach is definitely viable (I just worry about early culture)

1. Congratulations on the win. And talk about an exciting game! Which city got nuked, and what dod you do about it?
2. Maybe more surprrising than the Deity win is how many GW's you got on Deity. The legendary difficulty of it is why I never played it on vanilla or, so far, on VP.
3. It would never have occurred me to knock off the Huns for a WSI boost. Given your launch time, it certainly looks like it was worth it.
4. God of All Creation is both so good and reliable, that it's hard to go away from it without an obvious circumstantial reason.
5. I've noticed you keep on not going straight through Piety. I guess it comes down to how much you value Sankore.
6. I go with Transcendence if I get it before Classical, and Then Holy Law over theocratic Rule, but Given how much culture you generate with tradition, I may not need the Holy Law Edge. Thocratic Rule is great, given WLTK.
7. There's no question Tradition works for a SV. I just finished a second game with the Netherlands (Statecraft/Rationalism/Freedom) again. This time I had plenty of polders for 3 out of 4 cities. I had to fight two wars against Japan and then one against Assyria. but stayed peaceful for the last third of the game. This time it was an 11-tech-lead cakewalk: launch on t. 360, which could have been 5 turns earlier if I hadn't spent my gold on rushing buildings late. Again, I built every GW I wanted. (Speaking of which, if it's possible to beeline from Hubble to CERN, it's the way to go.) I may try another game or two with a different civ on Tradition, then switch to Progress. I still haven't won on Immortal with it.

 

[CrazyG]

Mumbai got nuked a few times before it was captured. I had a circle of artillery, which eventually got logistics, sitting their and gunning down my enemies, until they got nuked. I managed to keep a group of 6 skirmishers alive almost all game, none of them died until the great end game war, where our heroes gave their lives to ensure the Indian people could escapte the radiation and oppression. Luckily when Ottomans nuked me they also hit other people, or I might not have held. Delhi (the capital) both got nuked once, I had already proposed the world congress ban on building new nuclear weapons when this happened and it passed a few turns later. I dropped my Manhattan project on the Ottomans, but had no uranium. I build a bunch of workers and got to work repairing Delhi, I was protected by some mountains until Mumbai fell and I held the enemy behind those mountains for a long time after.

I had a really good policy lead, which made wonders fairly easy to get. After Oracle and opening with God of All I could get pretty much any wonder I wanted. God of All is just really good with India.

I would go straight Piety if I had a larger empire, but i only founded 3 cities, felt another would be hard to defend, and lacked good farming land. IDK if that is right, but many of Piety's benefits are per city. I guess the market boost would be alright, but the yields just aren't that large, and I wasn't gonna build Caravansarais unless I got that policy. I also wanted to keep that policy lead, and Aesthetics does that. The other thing is that Piety's opener wasn't really necessary, and the first policy wouldn't do much until industrial. +1 faith from specialists and monasteries are both great, but since I farmed like a madman I think it was reasonable to wait to get them. I considered finishing Piety, but figured that going directly to Rationalism was wiser. Sankore is a strong wonder, I just felt it was safer to secure that policy lead.

You have a ton of options for founder belief with India, I also like early transcendence. Holy Law seemed pointless since I invested so much into getting culture early, but if you choose god of wisdom or something else it makes sense. The greed in me is bothered that with Holy Law all you do is build wonders, you don't actually get policies, and policies are really good! But Oracle is so important, I could see someone choose it solely for that. I also refused to build circus until the city got stuck on a luxury to maximize theo rule. At the end I had 12-20 tech lead over everyone but Germany, who was 8 behind me (I was able to keep stealing tech from Germany for a long time). They denounced me all game because I had 1 CS friend. What is awesome about WSI is the more Germany ran away, the more science I got. The final thing is that India just feels so powerful, I really felt on even terms with Germany despite having 11 fewer cities

 

[Galbias]

That's pretty impressive, I've been wanting to do a (relatively) peaceful Deity game for awhile. Using God of All Creation kind of bothers me because A) it's bad for founding and B) it has basically no scaling at all, but +8 culture with no real requirements is a huge boost and +8 happiness is basically +8% to all yields for as long as you're not above 10 happiness, which is a good chunk of the game.

Maybe more surprrising than the Deity win is how many GW's you got on Deity. The legendary difficulty of it is why I never played it on vanilla or, so far, on VP.

Deity in Vanilla isn't that hard, definitely much easier than in VP. It requires some getting used to because the AI bonuses are pretty ludicrous and if you're not prepared or have a bad starting position you can get overwhelmed, but the AI is for the most part bad at both development and warfare, and bribing AIs to go to war is extremely easy.

 

[Txurce]

That's pretty impressive, I've been wanting to do a (relatively) peaceful Deity game for awhile. Using God of All Creation kind of bothers me because A) it's bad for founding and B) it has basically no scaling at all, but +8 culture with no real requirements is a huge boost and +8 happiness is basically +8% to all yields for as long as you're not above 10 happiness, which is a good chunk of the game.

Deity in Vanilla isn't that hard, definitely much easier than in VP. It requires some getting used to because the AI bonuses are pretty ludicrous and if you're not prepared or have a bad starting position you can get overwhelmed, but the AI is for the most part bad at both development and warfare, and bribing AIs to go to war is extremely easy.

Speaking from long experience now, God of All Creation and a focus on shrines all but guarantees me a religion on Immortal. Could it have to do with the happiness boost speeding construction? And as CrazyG has said elsewhere, scaling becomes less important once you're moving downhill through the different Policy trees.

Re: Deity in vanilla, I meant the legendary difficulty in getting GW's. I didn't want to miss out on that part of the game. I assumed it would be the same in VP... although I'm not quite ready to advance another level yet, anyway. I want to feel confident with all 3 starting policy trees.

 

[CrazyG]

That's pretty impressive, I've been wanting to do a (relatively) peaceful Deity game for awhile. Using God of All Creation kind of bothers me because A) it's bad for founding and B) it has basically no scaling at all, but +8 culture with no real requirements is a huge boost and +8 happiness is basically +8% to all yields for as long as you're not above 10 happiness, which is a good chunk of the game.
easy.

I know it works for India, probably not anyone else. I think you need a really good reason to not pick something that immediatley provide yields to get the most of India's UA. God of Wisdom, God of All, God of Protection, are good examples. If you typically get a pantheon on turn 30, God of All has already earned 60 faith at that point, plus 50 not spent on the pantheon. And how many pantheons provide that much more than 2 faith immediatley on selection? I'm giving shrines a high priority, they are a great building because no maintenance, and deprioritizing monuments. You can many extra yields by moving through tradition so quickly. The key is that you start 120~ faith ahead of what another civ would have, which is a big lead. Its odd but you can found first with out your faith not reaching 10 per turn on immortal.

The general idea of the build is that you have an explosive start, and a near-guaranteed end game win condition, so the only potential loss mid game military and world congress (if you pick Aesthetics enemy tourism should be a joke, and I don't give open borders to nations like Brazil). I'm still trying to figure out if Piety or Aesthetics is better

I really wasn't peaceful, lots of war, burnt cities and skirmishers pillaging the german country side. I think the extra promotions and my great general were enormously important in the first big war against the huns. I also would have nuked a bunch of people if I had Uranium