Diety - Zoo animal experience

[batavier]

I've never yet played higher than prince, but just for fun I started a Diety game, fully expecting a quick defeat. Much to my surprise, I managed to keep everyone pleased and finally lost to a spaceship victory in 1900, while researching rifling.

My random leader is Saladin. I tought what the heck, so I started researching meditation. After 12 turns I founded buddism. There are no religious civs at all! I could even have found hinduism as well, because I had another 15 turns to do so.

In the meantime, this religious start has destroyed any chance that anyone might have ever had of winning this game, because I'm now helpless against barbarians. I manage to get a second city next to bronze, but it gets razed before the first axeman is out. My worker had to flee to germany and the barbs swarm all over my capital. It finally comes down to 2 archers vs. 2 warriors in my capital and I win. After that the waves died down a little, and they were mostly taken care off by my neighbours.

I resettled the copper and got out a few axemen and nearly captured a size 2 barb city before Washington gets it, who has com all the way from the other side of the continent (pangaea map). I Manage to get only 3 cities, and even tough my capital was only about 8 tiles from the east coast and from the southern ice, the AI's set up shop all around me on thin slivers of mostly useless land.

Worse is Frederick, who seems to be trying for a culture win. He founded a city in the southern tundra that had a 4 tile radius almost at once. I know he's creative, but it doesn't seem possible without a culture bomb, and I know he didn't do that. I use a culture bomb of my own to get some tiles back, and I can run a lumbermill before even having machinery. He finally steals 3 tiles from my capital, when I have used 2 great artists there and have built everything I could that gives culture. I got one extra unhappy face in my capital, because they wanted to join their motherland. Ungrateful traitors!
Does the AI get a culture bonus too? I can't find anything in the XML Files.
Frederick ends with about 75000, 40000, 40000 culture in his top cities.

All my culture finally flips one worhtless Ice city from Washington. no resources, 3 sea tiles and an Ice Hill. I chose to have that razed. Luckily Washington took no offence.

Noone wants Buddism, but no one gets mad enough over it to attack. The world gets dominated by a massive Hinduist block, wich I join at the earliest opportunity. two civilizations found and adopt other religions and almost immediately get declared upon by at least 2 others and shredded apart. Eventually most of them adopt free religion.

I got 4 free techs from Mansa Musa. polytheism, machinery, engineering and military tradition. The last one was probably an attempt to bribe me for UN elections. The rest of them must have been pity. He also gave fishing and 90 gold for meditation. My only tech trade of the game.

My opponents were:
Frederick. Cultural monster and by far the largest empire.
Mansa Musa. Won narrowly with a space race.
Julius Caesar. FoundedHinduism. Pal of Frederick. No dealings with him.
Washington. bottom one of the four AI's that remained. Had several pointless and annoying cities round my borders. Didn't even get up to the apollo program. Had a war with Julius.
Huyana Capac. Invented and adopted Islam. Got wiped out.
Djenghis Khan. Thankfully far away, and already hated by everyone when I first met him. I get some diplomatic bonuses by stopping trade and joining in a war.

All of them were pleased with me, and Mansa friendly. My cities were protected by 5 defenders eacg that I was slowly replacing with less out-of-date units. Everyone could have killed me in 10 turns using a just a few units from their border garrisons, but they never did so. At noble or Prince they will stab you in the back when pleased, if you let your guard down a little.

I'm feeling like a zoo animal.

[Theben]

I assume you're the green splotch?

[batavier]

yes.

It didn't take much time. With only 3 cities and no one to attack.

[Fleme]

I have started a deity game myself inspired by this and so far it's going great (I'm #1 in score by a thin margin), the year is around 900 AD and I'm aiming for a cultural victory. So far so good.

[snoopy369]

I don't believe the AI gets any culture bonuses, but the ability to cheaply build culture buildings means he'll have a TON of culture at his disposal

[Fleme]

I'm on a huge lead culture-wise having three religions in all my three culture-cities and Pagodas, Cathedrals and Mosques along with a few culture rich wonders and Hermitage in the lowest culture one.

But I'll post a summary of the game when it's over. Boudica is right next door and she has almost as much score as me and a huge army to boot. My block is in war with her and I sure hope she doesn't come out on top or I'll lose.

[Fleme]

Disclaimer! I don't expect for anyone to care or even to comment; I just felt like posting this


Ok so I completed mine and since my whole game was inspired by this post I feel like posting a recap of the whole game.

Standard Gaea

Mayans (myself, random)
Celts
Spanish
Portuguese
Vikings
Japanese
Malinese
Ethiopians
English
Germans (a colony formed by the ethiopians on the only island capable of holding three cities).

Beginning

I start at the southwestern corner of the continent on a spot that has 3 clam, 1 cattle, 1 gold and a river. Later on a coal also appears on the bfc. Luckily only one close neighbor, the English. They start roughly 10 tiles from me and have settled their second city below the other. Their capital is on the shore of a large lake which blocks passage to the north while the other city nearly blocks passage to the south (or atleast the terrain south from this city is very poor) and to the northeast from my spot there is a spot between three lakes which I soon settle to block any attempts to settle in what I've claimed as my slice of the world. All in all I have a very safe spot behind a weak nation and my second city is in a killer spot (whopping 12 river tiles, horse, stone, copper, wheat and 2 spices in the BFC, Have you ever seen a city spot this good?) so I have my early game set up. I got up to a really good start, finding mysticism and masonry from 2 of the first huts I pop so I decided to build Stonehenge in my second city, having stone and all. By this time my capital had made the second settler and the spot northwest was settled so my area was sealed. On top of my peninsula I could still find two more cities but I was in no rush to do that now that I had the area secured. To the tundra in the south I'd later find two cities as well and one on the island just outside my capital, making my total amount of cities 8 by the time settling the map was over.

So, being neighbors with the English was good since Victoria had been pinned down from the west by the Celts and by the time Boudica had her hands on iron they were at war and the british city of York changed ownership numerous times while I kept my hands clean and teched away. I managed to get Temple or Artemis in my second city Lakamha so it now had 2 wonders and was pushing borders on the British cities of London and York. (I also had marble just outside the bfc of my capital to the north which I gained control when the borders expanded).

I didn't get an early religion but did manage to get Taoism from CoL but I never converted to it. I had gotten Christianity from Victoria and converted to it to maintain relations. This soon turned out to be a bad move because the pacifistic/tech block of Mansa, Zara, Isabella and Joao were joined by Islam. Luckily Mansa likes to spread his religion so I got a taste of Islam and never looked back. Boudica kept to her own Hinduism all game long.

So, as the warring continued the British were soon wiped out by the time not even half of the map had even researched Feudalism. The two newly conquered cities of London and York had no culture so the borders of Lakamha soon took over and I had two new cities in my hands, increasing the amount of cities under my control to 9 and making me the largest nation. This troubled me because the strong one always gets declared war upon by the second strongest, who was my new neighbor Boudica.

I soon built the Apostolic Palace and that turned out to be the best move in the entire game. Boudica had one tiny weeny city which had Islam in it while the the Islamistic block was unanimous in it's desire for peace most of the time so every time Boudica would declare war, it'd be stopped by the AP. She didn't declare war on me a lot of times though since there was a lot of action going on in the east.

The Vikings never rose to power and only managed to get up to three cities and were soon vassalized by Boudica. The Japanese insisted on holding to their christian ways and the Islam-block decimated them, making them a vassal to Joao for a while.

As the game progressed to the Renaissance-Industrial, Boudica declared her first world war. She came rushing to my garrisons of York which I had fortified and garrisoned extensively and to my southern tundra town of Xupia. York held up for a good 15 turns because I had beelined for rifling and she was attacking me with muskets, knights, elephants and trebuchets. However, I did lose control of both my frontline cities and was about to give up but I was happy to see that I could convince all my islamistic brethren to join in on the war (They refused when the war was declared) so Boudica had to spread her troops. I could rally a relief army and recapture my lost cities while Boudica made short work of Joao who then lost control of his vassal state Japan. Peace was declared and in the small war that followed the Japanese were destroyed by the Islamic nations.

So the power graph was now me and Boudica tied on score with Mansa soon behind. Zara was never a strong power, having only 2 cities on the continent and his colony the Germans never took part in any of the wars and had nothing to do with absolutely anything. Isabella was weakened by the previous war and had lost her power.

Boudica soon declared a new war, her having riflemen and grenadiers in addition to the units she used in the first "world war" while I had already teched up to Infantry. She did come with massive force this time (stack was way over 50 units) and my garrisons didn't hold up for very long. Tactical mistake by me not to attack the armies before they could attack me. She had like 20 Trebs. So I lost York and Xupia again and this time I had no relief army handy. I once again rallied the islam block to fight for me and so they did. Boudica had a massive army and went for Isabella and made her a vassal while holding my cities. In my weak moment I formed a permanent alliance with Mansa Musa and switched to Nationhood and started drafting Infantry. Boudica must've not given me much credit at this point since I didn't experience a lot of resistance when my army of 15~ infantry took control of my lost cities. Both cities had lost nearly all their improvements and all of their buildings but I wasn't too upset about this. My powerhouses were all intact and while Boudica had now effectively taken out 2 members of my former block (Joao and Isabella both being vassals to her now). I was on my way to a cultural victory with my first three cities building wonders and since I had so many cities and religions I could have Pagodas, Cathedrals and Mosques up. I was in a huge culture lead at this point and well on my way to a cultural win.

With my newly formed alliance I did gain a bit more confidence since I didn't have to fear a backstab from the northeast anymore and started building up an army to march on Boudica to reduce the threat. When I had about 20 infantry and a bunch of cannons I got an event that I'd never gotten before; Nationalist Party gets a new charismatic leader, choose between 2 happy faces in every city or every gunpowder unit promoted to March. Since I was on my way to a war I chose the March promotion and started my assault. I took her cities with ease (I had a general with Medic III and Woodsman III by this point) and all my units promoted to March and the enemy had only Rifles and Grenadiers so I made short work of her towns. I actually captured 4 cities including her capital and razed one and she gave me one more when signing peace so I gained 5 cities + 1 that I settled making my total at this point 16 cities and by far the leading power in the world.

Seeing this success I knew I had won the game. 2 of my culture cities had gained Legendary while doing this and the last one was like 70 turns away. I built Hollywood, Rock 'n Roll and Broadway there with engineers so the margin slimmed down to like 20 turns. Game was won before 1700 AD by culture.

Highlights:

I got what are in my opinion the best random events. First in the very start I got the one where you get a chance for +2 Health in every city for some temp sad faces. Succeeded. Pagoda inspires a Great artist > score when you are aiming for a culture win. Federal reserve cuts inflation > -25% inflation and then finally the one where all my Gunpowder units gain March.

Everything I did in this deity game met with resounding success and I usually lose on Emperor by a lot. Monarch I win but Emperor is most of the time too much and this was in fact the first time ever I've even tried playing Deity. I guess I had a prejudice and thought that my cities would be sick at size 2 and have a rebellion at that time as well. Turns out I was wrong so I'm thankful that you inspired me to try it out Probably my best game and by far my best score.