LukaSlovenia29
Emperor
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2016
- Messages
- 1,500
Hi!
I just won my first Deity game on VP. Phew... The VP version was 17-10-1. I played as the Ottomans vs. manually selected opponents (Greece, Aztecs, Songhai, Rome, Poland, Arabia and Egypt), standard size and speed, oval map, all default except strategic balance resources, enabled human vassalage, disabled events and ancient ruins, enabled saving social policies, enabled research agreements and tech trading (but not brokering). (If anyone's interested, I'll post screenshots). I won a scientific victory on turn 295.
From the start it was apparent I was going to be able to get a dyes monopoly. To the north were two city states, a small inland sea and a narrow peninsula to a stripe of land, where Alexander started. To the east and south I had space for a few cities, then sea. To the west there was Rome, a city state and a small mountain range. I moved my settler to a forested hill, then settled and went straight for shrine, using my pathfinder to explore. I decided against pursuing a religion and went for God of all creation (the old one, 1c/1h per pantheon). After, building the shrine, I built a warrior and by then I researched pottery and my capital reached population 3. Since I could gain culture by working the 2 dyes tiles, I didn't focus on a monument.
I built my first settler, using it to build a city to the west, so the new city had mountains to the north, a city state to the south, Roman lands to the west and my capital to the east. I built it on hills so that any enemy could range-attack only from one tile that was two tiles away, which promised a decent defensive position. I followed by building settler number two and settling northwest of my capital, so the new city had the mountain range to the west, sea to the north (but I paid attention to settle away from the coast) and a city state to the east, so it was a decent defensive position. I built another warrior, then another settler and settling my fourth city to the east, just south of the two city states. I then built my first caravan (important as the Ottomans) and sent it to start from my second city (the closest to Caesar) to form an international trade route to Antium. I then went about researching military science (so I could build horsemen for defense and deterring the AI from DOWing me), bought a worker and connected 3 tiles with horses around my cities. Then I built my fourth settler, settling another city to the east (again non coastal, two tiles away from the sea), a horseman, and my final settler (settling to the south). I thus had 6 cities, good enough for my Ottoman strategy. By that time my first trade route was completed and I used the production to build another caravan (from sailing). Then I went to build 3 horsemen and buy one.
My strategy was to be decent enough militarily to not be a pushover, to place my border cities in easily defensible positions, to settle non-coastal cities even at the expense of losing some tiles (but in this way to prevent having to build a navy), and to be as benign and subservient to Greece&Rome by offering free gold to get the positive diplo modifier etc. In time, I made sure to send my first spy to Egypt, Rome's biggest rival, as a diplomat, so I could share intrigue with Rome, and I also rushed civil service to open borders with Greece and Rome. I also didn't use my diplomatic units against the CS in Greek&Roman sphere or go for wonders. It worked for a long time, long enough for me to build up a decent army. I use inquisitors to ensure my cities would remain following Rome's religion.
My social policy strategy was a key part of my overall gameplan. I picked the Progress opener and the two policies on the left side of the Progress tree, which provide the most long-term scaling benefits. Playing with so few social policies in the early stages of the game enabled me to gain lots of culture from trade routes to Rome and Greece. When I finally entered the Industrial era, I immediately used the saved up culture to fill out the Rationalism tree and half of the Industry tree. I then worked on finishing the Industry tree. This allowed me to have lots of science, happiness and trade routes, and also to benefit more from purchasing buildings (I made banks a priority in all my cities).
As for trade routes, throughout the game I only used international ones and always to the closer AI cities, so they were always finished in around 22-26 turns, granting me valuable yields quite often.
After entering the industrial era and setting up banks, I started to mass buy units and buildings. Once my army became modern-ish and my cities had castles&arsenals, I began to venture into actions that could have displeased the Romans and the Greeks. I DOF-ed Egypt and Poland (allowing me to make research agreements with them). I still tried to act as friendly as possible with the Romans and the Greek, even voting for their WC proposals that didn't necessarily always suit me.
Once I filled out the Industry tree, I rushed to enter the atomic age. I selected Order because it's my favourite tree for a science victory and because Egypt and Poland had taken it (Rome took Freedom) and had enough saved up culture to pick 5 Order policies. I used the free GP as a great engineer to complete the Empire State Building and then its free GP for an engineer to finish the Motherland calls. After that I saved up my GE-s to later pop Hubble&CERN and later on spaceship parts. On the last turn Poland had one tech less than me and "only" two spaceship parts completed and Rome had one spaceship part completed. Throughout the game I focused on working GS and GE specialists, somewhat focused on GM, GW and GA, and ignored great musicians.
I was attacked once in the very early game by Arabia and managed to fend it off without problems, and after that I was left pretty much alone, with the occasional demand for gold/resources, with which I always complied. Even in the later stages of the game I more or less ignored competing for city states. I used my large +GPT to buy techs and I sold some techs I discovered to the less successful civs that weren't a threat to me.
So in my opinion, some of the key elements to my Ottoman strategy are:
1. Keep your neighbour (that you'll be sending your routes to) as happy as you can.
2. Keep other AI civs as happy as possible, try to play "possum" as much as possible.
3. Defensive position should be the main criteria for selecting a settling spot. Avoid settling coastal cities.
4. Keep all your trade routes international, distribute them so that they always end in 22-26 turns.
5. Focus primarily on GS specialists and later on great writers, artists and engineers.
6. Delay as many social policies as you can until the industrial era, and once you've filled Industry and Rationalism, wait for Ideology via Atomic era.
7. Attempt to make at least one strong friend (for being gifted techs and to buy techs from) later on in the game.
8. Rush nukes as soon as possible to act as a deterrent.
9. Propose/vote for world science initiative as soon as possible.
That's it for now, I hope it was useful or interesting to at least some of you. Thanks for any feedback.
I just won my first Deity game on VP. Phew... The VP version was 17-10-1. I played as the Ottomans vs. manually selected opponents (Greece, Aztecs, Songhai, Rome, Poland, Arabia and Egypt), standard size and speed, oval map, all default except strategic balance resources, enabled human vassalage, disabled events and ancient ruins, enabled saving social policies, enabled research agreements and tech trading (but not brokering). (If anyone's interested, I'll post screenshots). I won a scientific victory on turn 295.
From the start it was apparent I was going to be able to get a dyes monopoly. To the north were two city states, a small inland sea and a narrow peninsula to a stripe of land, where Alexander started. To the east and south I had space for a few cities, then sea. To the west there was Rome, a city state and a small mountain range. I moved my settler to a forested hill, then settled and went straight for shrine, using my pathfinder to explore. I decided against pursuing a religion and went for God of all creation (the old one, 1c/1h per pantheon). After, building the shrine, I built a warrior and by then I researched pottery and my capital reached population 3. Since I could gain culture by working the 2 dyes tiles, I didn't focus on a monument.
I built my first settler, using it to build a city to the west, so the new city had mountains to the north, a city state to the south, Roman lands to the west and my capital to the east. I built it on hills so that any enemy could range-attack only from one tile that was two tiles away, which promised a decent defensive position. I followed by building settler number two and settling northwest of my capital, so the new city had the mountain range to the west, sea to the north (but I paid attention to settle away from the coast) and a city state to the east, so it was a decent defensive position. I built another warrior, then another settler and settling my fourth city to the east, just south of the two city states. I then built my first caravan (important as the Ottomans) and sent it to start from my second city (the closest to Caesar) to form an international trade route to Antium. I then went about researching military science (so I could build horsemen for defense and deterring the AI from DOWing me), bought a worker and connected 3 tiles with horses around my cities. Then I built my fourth settler, settling another city to the east (again non coastal, two tiles away from the sea), a horseman, and my final settler (settling to the south). I thus had 6 cities, good enough for my Ottoman strategy. By that time my first trade route was completed and I used the production to build another caravan (from sailing). Then I went to build 3 horsemen and buy one.
My strategy was to be decent enough militarily to not be a pushover, to place my border cities in easily defensible positions, to settle non-coastal cities even at the expense of losing some tiles (but in this way to prevent having to build a navy), and to be as benign and subservient to Greece&Rome by offering free gold to get the positive diplo modifier etc. In time, I made sure to send my first spy to Egypt, Rome's biggest rival, as a diplomat, so I could share intrigue with Rome, and I also rushed civil service to open borders with Greece and Rome. I also didn't use my diplomatic units against the CS in Greek&Roman sphere or go for wonders. It worked for a long time, long enough for me to build up a decent army. I use inquisitors to ensure my cities would remain following Rome's religion.
My social policy strategy was a key part of my overall gameplan. I picked the Progress opener and the two policies on the left side of the Progress tree, which provide the most long-term scaling benefits. Playing with so few social policies in the early stages of the game enabled me to gain lots of culture from trade routes to Rome and Greece. When I finally entered the Industrial era, I immediately used the saved up culture to fill out the Rationalism tree and half of the Industry tree. I then worked on finishing the Industry tree. This allowed me to have lots of science, happiness and trade routes, and also to benefit more from purchasing buildings (I made banks a priority in all my cities).
As for trade routes, throughout the game I only used international ones and always to the closer AI cities, so they were always finished in around 22-26 turns, granting me valuable yields quite often.
After entering the industrial era and setting up banks, I started to mass buy units and buildings. Once my army became modern-ish and my cities had castles&arsenals, I began to venture into actions that could have displeased the Romans and the Greeks. I DOF-ed Egypt and Poland (allowing me to make research agreements with them). I still tried to act as friendly as possible with the Romans and the Greek, even voting for their WC proposals that didn't necessarily always suit me.
Once I filled out the Industry tree, I rushed to enter the atomic age. I selected Order because it's my favourite tree for a science victory and because Egypt and Poland had taken it (Rome took Freedom) and had enough saved up culture to pick 5 Order policies. I used the free GP as a great engineer to complete the Empire State Building and then its free GP for an engineer to finish the Motherland calls. After that I saved up my GE-s to later pop Hubble&CERN and later on spaceship parts. On the last turn Poland had one tech less than me and "only" two spaceship parts completed and Rome had one spaceship part completed. Throughout the game I focused on working GS and GE specialists, somewhat focused on GM, GW and GA, and ignored great musicians.
I was attacked once in the very early game by Arabia and managed to fend it off without problems, and after that I was left pretty much alone, with the occasional demand for gold/resources, with which I always complied. Even in the later stages of the game I more or less ignored competing for city states. I used my large +GPT to buy techs and I sold some techs I discovered to the less successful civs that weren't a threat to me.
So in my opinion, some of the key elements to my Ottoman strategy are:
1. Keep your neighbour (that you'll be sending your routes to) as happy as you can.
2. Keep other AI civs as happy as possible, try to play "possum" as much as possible.
3. Defensive position should be the main criteria for selecting a settling spot. Avoid settling coastal cities.
4. Keep all your trade routes international, distribute them so that they always end in 22-26 turns.
5. Focus primarily on GS specialists and later on great writers, artists and engineers.
6. Delay as many social policies as you can until the industrial era, and once you've filled Industry and Rationalism, wait for Ideology via Atomic era.
7. Attempt to make at least one strong friend (for being gifted techs and to buy techs from) later on in the game.
8. Rush nukes as soon as possible to act as a deterrent.
9. Propose/vote for world science initiative as soon as possible.
That's it for now, I hope it was useful or interesting to at least some of you. Thanks for any feedback.
