DAW1 - Diety, Always War

PTW 1.14f
Game parameters:

- Standard map - only 7 enemies (8 total civs), we are the Greeks
- Continents with 70% (middle) water
- Sedentary barbarians (we have enough problems)
- All win conditions enabled
- Difficulty level: Deity
- 24/48 hours to post "Got it"/play
- I'll start with 20 turns, 10 turns after that. Feel free to only play 5 turns. Fighting can be time consuming and exhausting.

Rules
1) Always war variant (thanks Arathorn!):
- NO PEACE! If we can contact a civ, we must declare war on them -- that turn. Some trading is allowed before the war declaration but only of hard goods (cash and tech, no per turn deals). Similarly, no peace treaty will ever be accepted.

2) Usual exploits are forbidden

I chose the Greeks for one reason, the hoplite (1.3.1). It's the best defender available up till muskets and defense will be essential in this game.

Roster

cpp1 << Just Played
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Observations

- Putting cities on hills is highly desireable as is putting walls around them. Normally I don't bother with walls but in this game we know we're going to be attacked early and often.

- Putting cities close together so that slow units can get from one city to another in 1 turn is highly desireable. It adds alot of flexibility to defense when you can do that.

- We're going to be way behind in tech, so aiming for the Great Library with a Great Leader might not be a bad plan.

- We must conserve units. Trading 1 for 1 with enemies is not good enough. We need to be in the 3:1 or 4:1 range. We can do this by trying to make sure that our (hit points * att/def value) is twice as much as our enemies (hit points * att/def value) where possible. Also artillery type units and fast units (that can get back to safety after attacking) will probably be key.

This could go down in flames early, but its certain to be a wild ride.

Notes after playing to 3000 BC

I played 20 turns just to make sure we weren't too close to any other civs and to make sure we had a reasonable start for our civ.

We appear to be on an island by ourselves, in spite of the continent setting when starting the game. There is the outline of another civ to the NE of our land, just to the E of the whale. I'm not sure who it is, but I have been delaying contact for now, until we are more settled.

Athens is in a nice location. It has 1 wheat and 2 game tiles near it. Its currently on a barracks place holder until pottery is done being researched in 5 and then can be swapped to a granary. I had to slow the barracks progress a little so it wouldn't finish before pottery is done.

We have 2 warriors out scouting and 2 hoplites guarding Athens. One of the hoplites could escort a new settler.

Save File 3000 BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/daw1-3000bc.zip)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/daw1-3000bc.jpg

Woah, true Diety AW! Go cpp1, seems like war is breaking out all over. I'm committed to my limit of SG's already but good luck to you. Have you done any test runs?

Edit: Good job with the name too, I think a series is the way to approach Diety AW.

Gothmog: I have done a few test runs and lost them all. I have learned a few things, but I think everything has to be right to pull this off.

* You can't start too close to a civ, their initial units are enough to wipe you out.

* A good defender is mandatory (hence the hoplite) to get the kill ratios that are needed to survive.

* You need a core that is not under constant attack that can supply the troops and build some kind of infrastructure. This means you have to spread out a bit before war breaks out.

The reason for the series is in the (likely?) case that DAW1 does not result in a win, we can always try DAW2. Hopefully there are still some people out there that are not overdosed on tough war SGs.

To be honest, I don't really think this game has any hope of a win as a concept. The reason for this is not that you will get slaughtered early on by masses of enemy units, even though that is quite likely.

There is a far bigger challenge: You can't trade, at all (except for on the turn you make contact with someone, but that's insignificant). Just try winning a Deity game with no trading (or peace concessions) at all, ever, without the Always War restriction. I think that alone would be unwinnable, unless you manage to cripple all the AIs by soon after the expiration of the Great Library. That's assuming you get the Great Library! If you don't get the GL, the game would almost certainly be unwinnable, except under highly contrived playing conditions.

Deity AIs just research far too fast to be able to keep remotely close in technology without being able to trade with them.

-Sirp.

... I guess we'll see how this game goes. ;)
Good luck to all involved! (I have yet to try my hands at deity, so I'm not offering my "help", it'll be tough enough as it is, hehe).

One variant suggestion: gradual AW. True continents map, always war with civs on home continent, then once it's conquered, always war with civs on next continent, and so on... No alliances allowed with off-continent civs, but trade allowed... until war with them eventually breaks out.

@Sirp: It is hard, but possible. I won a deity always war game, but at the cost of still no fun in another Civ3 game because it took all my time for several weeks.

@cpp: Having still no fun in writing a summary of my game I'll post a few hints now.

You already made your first mistake. You need iron working immediately and as much cash as possible when meeting your first opponents. The usual research on pottery is NOT approriate for AW in deity. Its simply too slow for your first attack unit, while graneries are not as powerful as in a normal game. The cash is needed for your initial trade opportunities. You have only one trade possibility with every opponent and you have to be prepared for it once the opportunity comes up.

So I started minimum on iron working, collecting as much cash as possible. Then buying masonry for walls and set research for literatur grabbing the great libary just in time with a waiting leader. - Another possibility is heading for the libary immediately and hope to buy iron working in time. - That gave me enough economic potential until the libary expired and I could compete with the AIs until I got to sf and barely managed to rush ToE. With hoover mine and sufficient artillery units I archived domination before tanks hit the battlefield.

Regarding resources: you'll have no chance at all without iron AND horses available in your core. You need coal later as well as salpeter, but those are not necessary in your core. The possibility of reaching them via a fight is enough. Rubber is not necessary, wich surprised me.

Regarding fighting: Artillery is the key, which means lots of catapults in the beginning. Here I really mean LOTS of them. More than one third of my military units where catapults. They are enough for killing attacking knights without serious losses. Later, when upgraded to cannons you can got to some larger offensive campaions, but be prepared for a complete defensive war until you have cannons.

Regarding settings: I still think, pangea is the correct land choice for this game. You need the contact even at the cost of a war, because you need the research discount and lots of leaders. The AI is bad at mamaging their economy during long wartimes. Nothing an be worse than you being constantly at war with some of the AIs, while other have the time for building up their empire. I won my game around 1550 AD without motorized transportation being researched by anyone. This should prove the need of bringing real war to all AIs as soon as you are prepared for it with a couple of hoplites an 2-3 swords.

And for interest, here is my initial build: barracks, 2 hoplites, worker, 2 warriors, settler.

Good luck with the game. You'll need it and I have to admit, I would have lost mine without some.

I'm not going to play in this (w-a-a-a-a-y over my head), but I will be watching the thread closely. I too have tried an Always War Deity game (as the Chinese), but got clobbered due to a lack of horses on my island.

Urugharakh: Thanks SO much for your hints on how to play always war on Deity. One reason for getting into this game is to see how you have to play differently from a normal Deity game. Actually, you were the inspiration for this game. I wasn't sure it was possible until I read that you did it :worshp:.

Imagine my disappointment :sad: to find out that I have already made a mistake after only playing 20 turns. I knew that getting Iron Working (for swords), Masonry (for walls), Math (catapults), and Literature (for Great Library) were going to be key.

I took the normal Pottery + granary route, figuring that we needed to expand fast to get the income needed to save up for those moments when contact happens and all trading gets done. After Pottery the plan was to go minimum research on Iron Working or Writing and save money for contact trading later on while pumping out settlers and hoplites.

I totally agree on catapults. I think that artillery is very under-used in normal SG games. It's a powerful weapon in defensive wars that can fire twice per round (one on defense, one on offense) and never takes damage.

Urugharakh: Oh you've won ADW? Cool! I saw that you had won an AW on Emperor game, but I didn't realize you had done it on Deity. I'd love to see a report on your game :)

-Sirp.

Originally posted by cpp1
Imagine my disappointment :sad: to find out that I have already made a mistake after only playing 20 turns.

I took the normal Pottery + granary route, figuring that we needed to expand fast to get the income needed to save up for those moments when contact happens and all trading gets done. After Pottery the plan was to go minimum research on Iron Working or Writing and save money for contact trading later on while pumping out settlers and hoplites.


No need to be disappointed. I made the same move in my first tries and got crushed every time because this route is too slow.

Consider that you don't have the opportunity for an usual landgrab. You will have to defend all your cities immediately. So your city build will be way slower than in a usual game. In fact I produced only one settler out of my capital and used my second city for settler production once it reached size 6. This way I had the units availabe for each new cities. I used 2 hoplites and one sword as the immediade defense.