So I've been playing mostly immortal games as of late and I've decided it's finally time to suck it up and move up to deity. I really wish they had an intermediate difficulty between immortal and deity because the gap is so large. Hopefully if I play slow and pause to strategize, I'll be able to keep up with those crazy deity bonuses. So by posting my game here, I'm hoping it'll slow down my own pace of play and hopefully I'll get some good help too :D

So without further adieu, my randomly selected leader:

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/deity%20challenge/Civ4ScreenShot0025.jpg

A good all-around leader with a great UU and UB and traits you can't complain about. I may even go SE if the map lets me!

And the randomly generated start:

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/deity%20challenge/Civ4ScreenShot0026.jpg

Map settings are fractal normal speed, standard settings.

I've already moved my warrior so I know what I'm getting in my BFC. A whole lot of nothing :mad: On the upside, imperialistic + chopping = lots of fast settlers. But I'm not sure that worker first is ideal here. I'm thinking stonehenge while researching fishing, then bust out a boat while researching towards BW. Hopefully bronze will be nearby, or it's likely we'll have to go tech towards archery.

Thoughts and advice?

Shadows are welcome, but please post in spoilers.

A nice capital for production. I would move 1S hoping for a couple hills in the fog. Even if you don't get anymore hills in the fog. You do claim one a couple tiles S of the silk. The corn by itself can support the 4 mined hills with the 2 clams supporting 3 specialists at size 10 with 2 surplus food for growth. May i reccommend agg->->BW then perhaps hunting-archery if no copper pops nearby. If it does then fishing.

the capitol is actually great; sh while fishing seems ok

Shadowed it to about 1000 AD

Unwinnable scenario methinks.
Just 2 decent city sites, but that would be bearable if not for the fact that it's a semi-isolated start. (one neighbour only).
I think the only way to win this one would be through some cheesy AP vote.
Anyway, a quick recap of my game.

Went worker first, researching Agriculture. Byzantine start with the wheel, so the worker will have something to do after farming the corn. Irigated corn gives the same amount of surplus food that 2 clams without lighthouse.
Then went for BW to chop forests and in hope of finding bronze. No such luck, no bronze for me.
Met Lincoln, and scouted lots of jungles. No good city sites in sight.
Chopped another worker the Settler and a couple of warriors for protection and fogbutsing while teching archery. A city defended by 2 warriors is pretty much safe this early on.
Found out there's stone nearby, so my 3rd city went to claim it in hopes of getting Pyramids, and what do you know, I actually managed to grab them.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3/SpazzMaticus/Shyue%20Deity/1.jpg

Later I used the GE from it to rush the GLib:
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3/SpazzMaticus/Shyue%20Deity/2.jpg

But I had a big problem. As you can see on th epicture above, Licoln's spies were a real pain in the ass. He immedately stole any tech that I've researched. That meant I had to resarched all techs myself.
Caste system + Representation + lots of food in capital meant I managed to pull ~180 beakers/turn, but I had real bad luck with great people. I had about 90% of getting scientist every time, but I got 2xGE and 1XGA, which lead to me losing the lib race (Lincoln won it).
About that time the other continent made contact with me, and If I was able to bulb education and lib I'd have the trade fodder to backfill.
After that maybe, just maybe I'd have a slight chance to somehow amass an army against Lincoln who doesn't build much units. Perhaps trebs upgraded to canons + maces and pikes would work. But I doubt it.

I'm really looking forward if anyone would be able to get himself into a strong position. Wonder economy is the answer in this game I think, but the main obstacle is the research speed. Much too slow compared to other AIs, and you can't really trade techs until the other continent contats you.
In my game I was first contacted by Ragnar, who just doesn't trade techs, later by Joao who didn't want to trade with me too, because I was his worst enemy immedately, due to different religion.

That being said, I'm always up for another Deity game :)

Justinian is one of those new leader additions, and I don't recollect ever playing him. Thus I shouldn't be giving advice on something I haven't really done. So I"ll just say at least you have one STRONG trait, the spiritual. The other isn't so bad either because it counts as a secondary industrious trait since you can much easier grab the good resource cites. You also have higher chances for boxing out AI's, denying them good sources, and getting your minimum of 6 cities reserved.

I generally don't like sea-side tiles but your spot looks great. 3 food sources, at least 3 hills and still another resource in your fat cross. Hopefully you can use this to catch up to them pretty fast.

Anyhow, that reminds me, I have always avoided archipelago maps like the plague, and never wanted to try them. But I should probably start my own thread and FORCE myself to play one. I also don't like financial trait that much so I should force myself to also use one. But I'm sure I will end up misplaying at least one major event. I will probably drop it down to Immortal STD and go slowly in 10 turn chunks to make sure I don't do something really stupid.

BTW, you should at least mention you are playing standard in your thread. Otherwise you may get a couple people telling you legit advice... but then the one guy who always plays with barbs off tells you something contradictory.. while the other guy who always turns off UN options tells you to ignore your diplo-relations hog-wash, etc.. etc.

So I played some turns to get this going. I'm just going to copy my reporting style from my SG reports. Although maybe with a few more pictures than I normally use.

Turn 0 - I settle in place. the tiles to the south of Constantinople aren't very good - just unforested plains tiles. I set research to fishing while building the SH.

Turn 7 - Fishing is completed! I set growth to size 2 working the silk tile, then work the grass-hill-forest to make a WB in 6 turns. I also set research to mining -- BW.

Turn 10 - I meet Lincoln. An easy guy to get along with who has a high peaceweight.

Turn 13 - Buddhism is founded. Looks like no civs starting with mysticism.

Turn 15 - Mining is in.

Turn 27 - Hinduism is completed. I've been growing to size while while building another workboat as a worker won't have anything to do other than build roads right now.

Turn 29 - BW is completed. A worker is 2 turns from completion. Here are my surroundings:

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/deity%20challenge/Civ4ScreenShot0029.jpg

Long-term it's good land, but I'll either need to skip the jungle or get IW early. I don't like teching IW so I think I'm going to just plant cities beyond the jungle. And no, no bronze :mad: But there is stone south of me.

The marble-fish-banana area to the north is a little awkward. I want to settle on the plains hill to get marble + banana + fish in the BFC but then it's off the coast. But it'll take care of the fog to the north of my capital and I can send a boat up from Constantinople. I won't be working those coastal tiles anytime soon anyways so I'm tempted to go there for city #2, while sending my warrior NE to explore the jungle more. Research is set for hunting -- archery, as there's a lot of open space and AH is too big of a gamble for my taste.

Shyuhe, I took a look at your last save, and I think you misplayed quite a few things already.

First of all, you should be trying to maximize your imp trait. You want/need to get the hammer bonuses to max use right away. Instead, we are on turn 30 here, and you haven’t even got a worker out yet to even attempt to mine a hill. This should have already been in progress.

Your first unit should have been a worker while you went after aggriculture. You have a very awesome corn right next to a lake for free irrigation, and you ignored it. You would have got the 3 Food default, AND +3 more for farmed, bringing in 6 Food alone with just 1 tile!

Instead, all we have to show for now are 2 clam sources, which only support 4 Food each, which costed you a whole workboat each to do so! Grrrr. Top in the fact you are not financial and you don’t even get a commerce bonus. And hell, they’re not even fish for the extra +1 F either. Oh hell, they are not even mixed sources either so you only get 1 single health boost.

Your worker should have got that 6F tile up asap, and also been mining the hills asap. All hammers boost settler production. These hills are far more important growing settlers than the food you will get from the lousy calm tiles. They also will help with production of other things, and less unhappiness from whip and you wouldn’t have to worry about the 1 turn anarchy either.

I know Snaaty also is against any whipping with this trait. He is a bit more experienced with Imp so maybe he can put in a few words on this thread. Also, there’s an Imp exploit for getting hammers to use on non-settler production, but you need to chop in order to make it work, and right now you don’t even have one out the door yet. Grrrrrr!

I also don’t see why you worked on the Henge then put it into the Que. You will never get it done in time, and without the industrious trait, you didn’t even get the 50% gold boost. At least you could have built a worker or other warriors.

Anyhow.. I’ll do some more thinking on this. I guess you can try to catch-up in the situation now by whipping a second worker… that can help a lot….

But there is another very dangerous problem at hand with your sea-food. You are going to get a lot of barb galleys. And they always have the advantage against your galleys even though the odds indicator tells you that you should have the odds. You will get your heavily invested sea sources pillaged to nothing. And not much to show for. You will then keep sinking in more hammers into galleys to protect those sources… and start losing them too.

Also, with just the corn tile and those 3 hills if they were minded, would bring you a total of 9 Food, and 9 hammers! That is just for 4 tiles, and you would have had a 5’th of your chosing to add into that. And with your imp bonus it increases…


Anyhow… good luck.

Justinian doesn't start with mining and the start was all forested so I couldn't build any mines until I got BW. Hence I timed the worker production to finish almost at the same time that BW would complete. If I had gone worker first going agriculture, the worker would have had nothing to do after building the corn, until bronze working came in. Yes I know irrigated corn is a great tile, but I don't like idling my worker. I think the 2 coins from the claims over roughly 20 turns should have made up for the time lost from not going mining -- BW directly. The barb galley issue is a valid point though. I will probably tech sailing a little earlier than normal to deal with that.

I'm not planning on whipping this worker to completion. I would rather have that spare population for working a grassland hill for building a settler. I may whip out a second worker to speed up settler production though.

The SH was not meant to be finished. If I had started building anything else, it would have decayed by the time I got back to it so I just sank the hammers into a 1:1 conversion for the time being.

If I had gone worker first going agriculture, the worker would have had nothing to do after building the corn, until bronze working came in.

I think you over-looked something. You start with the wheel. The big advantage with this tech is that no matter how poor your starting position is, you ALWAYS have something to do with your worker(s). Not only would you be able to have that worker hook up your health bonus from the corn right off the bat, but you also would be able to road those 3 hills which is very important. Every expert likes to do this because you are gaining an extra free movement doing so. Roaded hills-forrests allow you to chop-mine-move all in one turn. It's like turning your workers into India's fast-workers. It allows you to time a lot of rapid chops with minimal workers at the right times.

You are going to road those hills and the rest of it anyhow, so why not do it early when the benefit helps you tremendously?

With Imp you will never be able to catch up in your roading anyway until late-stage.

Justinian doesn't start with mining and the start was all forested so I couldn't build any mines until I got BW. Hence I timed the worker production to finish almost at the same time that BW would complete. If I had gone worker first going agriculture, the worker would have had nothing to do after building the corn, until bronze working came in. Yes I know irrigated corn is a great tile, but I don't like idling my worker. I think the 2 coins from the claims over roughly 20 turns should have made up for the time lost from not going mining -- BW directly. The barb galley issue is a valid point though. I will probably tech sailing a little earlier than normal to deal with that.

I'm not planning on whipping this worker to completion. I would rather have that spare population for working a grassland hill for building a settler. I may whip out a second worker to speed up settler production though.

The SH was not meant to be finished. If I had started building anything else, it would have decayed by the time I got back to it so I just sank the hammers into a 1:1 conversion for the time being.

Whip the worker with 1 turn to go and overflow the hammers into a settler for the bonus

BTW, if you're worried about the decay, why not flip the item back into the que to refresh it right before it sets in?

You can't "refresh" once an item starts decaying. The only way to keep all your hammers is finish it immediately.

But I agree that worker first would be a better choice.

I played a few more turns. Barbs are annoying as usual, but I've managed to sneak out 2 settlers and a third is on its way. I need to send a scout out to check out the north more too, as it appears Lincoln is east of me.

Turn 33 - Hunting completed.

Turn 39 - Archery completed. Now I have some defense!

Turn 42 - GW built in a faraway land.

Turn 46 - Agriculture completed. Now that corn can be put to use.

Turn 48 - SH is built in a faraway land. I get 7 gold for my "effort."

Turn 51 - Lincoln founds Judaism. Yay! It's looking like I'm isolated with him so I should be safe once he spreads his religion to me.

Turn 64 - Writing is in. I OB with Lincoln. Now I have to hope he sends a missionary my way. I've also stopped here for suggestions on research.

There's a ton of jungle I'd like to settle, which makes workers (I need more as it is) and IW a priority. I have pottery and writing so I'm not too worried about my economy now.

I settled Thesalonica in a conservative spot at the clams to the south. It'll be good with Moai and I didn't want to expand too far without archery. Adrianapole is right up against Lincoln's borders. That may not have been a wise choice but I didn't want to give up the calendar resources without a fight. I'm hoping to send my next settler east to try to block off Lincoln. Althugh without creative borders, I'm not sure the borders will pop in time to stop his settler spam.

So this is what my empire's looking like:

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/deity%20challenge/Civ4ScreenShot0043.jpg

The barbs took the spot on the coast to the north. Annoying, but the price you pay for not leaving fog busters out there.