DMOC's DEITY Game #1 - Gandhi

Avatarz said:

Ok, so according to the formulas given here you are not likely to become a possible target and are therefore safe, but let`s imagine that someone actually does declare war on you - what do you do? Aren`t you pretty much doomed?

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His best bet would be to try to bribe someone to save his sorry butt... odds are though it'd be game over, as far as I can tell.

He only knows Ramesses, Kong and Cyrus. Ramesses is pleased so he can't declare on DMOC. For Kong Cyrus (or some ai further down in the south) will always be first target even more so than the other way around. DMOC isn't even a landtarget in the eyes of Kong. According to the formulas DMOC is 100% safe right for now.

You should think about trading away that copper you have there, maybe even the iron. IIRC the AI value those resources even if they have them already. Copper has no strategic value; you're not building shrines or the Colossus, so what's the point? You're not planning on building any troops short-term, so the trading away the iron might be an option as well. This would give you two advantages. The obvious one is that you increase your income. The second is the diplomatic bonus for trading resources, which, I believe, is now restricted to one cow, and thus only a bonus with one leader. Trading the copper to WK or Rammesses might improve relations further.

Before you do that though, you should consider building some troops for the HR bonus in Delhi; the city can reach size 11 working the cows, pig, iron and 3 irrigated grasslands (24 food and 2 unhealth so 12 with an aquaduct), allowing you to run 4 (or 5) scientists, and still have good hammer output for cunstruction of infrastructure.

That brings me to a third thought; Delhi will have no problems generating great scientists. The next one's up in 8 turns, the one after can be spawned within 15 turns of that, and another 15 turns after that. So, why not get an academy up in either Pataliputra or Vijayanagara? You won't be short of GSs and both cities are excellent sites for running scientists, and an added 4 culture/turn in Vijayanagara will help the cultural struggle.

^You live in the same city i do. I agree on trading copper/iron away. The ai won't value it (redded out) if they have it already until corps. But if they don't they'll pay lots especially for iron.

JammerUno said:

You should think about trading away that copper you have there, maybe even the iron. IIRC the AI value those resources even if they have them already. Copper has no strategic value; you're not building shrines or the Colossus, so what's the point? You're not planning on building any troops short-term, so the trading away the iron might be an option as well. This would give you two advantages. The obvious one is that you increase your income. The second is the diplomatic bonus for trading resources, which, I believe, is now restricted to one cow, and thus only a bonus with one leader. Trading the copper to WK or Rammesses might improve relations further.

Before you do that though, you should consider building some troops for the HR bonus in Delhi; the city can reach size 11 working the cows, pig, iron and 3 irrigated grasslands (24 food and 2 unhealth so 12 with an aquaduct), allowing you to run 4 (or 5) scientists, and still have good hammer output for cunstruction of infrastructure.

That brings me to a third thought; Delhi will have no problems generating great scientists. The next one's up in 8 turns, the one after can be spawned within 15 turns of that, and another 15 turns after that. So, why not get an academy up in either Pataliputra or Vijayanagara? You won't be short of GSs and both cities are excellent sites for running scientists, and an added 4 culture/turn in Vijayanagara will help the cultural struggle.

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Actually, I think I beat you there...I'm already trading my copper. At least, I think I am...I'd better go check the save. I'll consider iron, but I think all 3 AI's have it. Still, I will check possible resource deals as I always do in the beginning of a round (next round).

Additional military stationing in Delhi will commence soon.

I am considering building an academy in Vijayanagara with my next Great Scientist. I don't think I'll be able to do a third academy -- I'd rather save those Great Scientist to lightbulb technologies like Education.

Avatarz said:

Ok, so according to the formulas given here you are not likely to become a possible target and are therefore safe, but let`s imagine that someone actually does declare war on you - what do you do? Aren`t you pretty much doomed?

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Well, of course I am!

So why bother building an extra 5-10 military units when I could be building theatres/temples/libraries/granaries, etc.?

What is the attack plan? If you're planning on cannons i'd save all the gs to bulb as much of the path to steel as possible. If not then an academy is probably a good choice. Generally i wouldn't generate more science than is needed for the attack, start building units early so you can take out Ramesses quickly and maybe Cyrus or Kong, if he borders Ramesses, if they're slow to reach renaissance units.

Alternatively you can take on Cyrus first if you have a military advantage,you will need it against him, Ramesses will fall later anyway. Don't have to decide on these issues yet.You may also begin thinking about the GT for drafting. Maybe it's not necessary but having it in place early is a big help in building up for renaissance wars.

I'm planning on trebuchets/rifles, so I don't think I will use cannons. Maybe later. And I plan on having my sixth city be the Globe Theatre city. It's build order will be something like Granary - Theatre - Globe Theatre.

I was originally planning to war against Egypt first. However, attacking Cyrus is also an option, especially if I keep Ramesses II pleased/friendly.

If I do go for Steel, what are the techs that Great Scientists can bulb and what would I have to research on my own?

Lastly, what do you all think of researching or trading to get the Monotheism technology to run Organized Religion, which is Ram's favorite civic. This is why he's pleased with WK and Cyrus.

Apart from the usual suspects you can bulb pp (need it otherwise you can't bulb chem) and chemistry.On deity it's often possible to trade for pp, if you have researched gunpowder and didn't research astro at that point you can bulb chem. Gunpowder is best self researched, in my experinece the ai don't research/trade this tech as soon as pp. Timing is essential, if you can see you won't be finished with the mil buildup before teching steel you may as well not bulb chemistry, just prebuild trebs and upgrade cheaply later. But you probably know all that.

Even at cautious the chance of a backstab by Ramesses probably isn't that big, he's no Ghandi though, he can declare on bis own but also be bribed against you at cautious, not at pleased. But there's no reason why he wouldn't be pleased later, you share religion and probably exchange tech in the future.

Cannons/Macemen are much better than Rifles/Trebuchets. Plus it puts you right next to grenadiers so it won't really hurt you much anyway.

Joshua368 said:

Cannons/Macemen are much better than Rifles/Trebuchets. Plus it puts you right next to grenadiers so it won't really hurt you much anyway.

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My experience is that it's 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. You either attack with cannons after bombarding (very few will die) and mop up with maces, or bombard-only with trebs and attack with rifles (very few will die). You either heal your cannons or heal your rifles. I do like the cannon/grens line if I don't have an overwhelming tech lead, though - it's a lot quicker than rifles.

I've always thought Rifles/Trebs are a better plan simply because you can draft Rifles but not Grens.

Well I never use drafting... maybe if I'm spiritual. As long as you start building the units in the late medieval era you should have a nice army ready for an upgrade as soon as you need it.

I dunno, personally the science boost from Bureaucracy/Free Speech is too much to pass up for any long period of time. Therefore I rarely ever find myself using Vassalage or Nationalism...

lynxcat said:

I've always thought Rifles/Trebs are a better plan simply because you can draft Rifles but not Grens.

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I agree. I plan on drafting HEAVILY to raise my army. After all, I can only afford 10 macemen upgrades or so, and I will need a lot more (say, 30 rifles). Any more than 10 maces will require lots of gold which I won't feasibly get even with a Great Merchant. The nice thing about being Gandhi is that these civic switches won't cost any anarchy.

Keep these comments going, everyone. I am away from my CIV computer (off on vacation now) so don't expect an update until 2009.

-Lurker here Nice game, keep it up.

-I saw you wrote before to maybe even use GS to bulb part of Liberalism, I think I tried it once, and it was no go, GS will bulb Printing Press instead. I guess you need some other GP (Great Prophet if I am not mistaken) to directly bulb Liberalism.

-I would settle one more academy, and bulb what you can with other scientists. You should probably plan two golden ages that you will start with Great People.
Great Merchant for trade mission and gold for upgrades was great move in one of your immortal games, you might wanna do it again.

_invy_ said:

-I saw you wrote before to maybe even use GS to bulb part of Liberalism, I think I tried it once, and it was no go, GS will bulb Printing Press instead. I guess you need some other GP (Great Prophet if I am not mistaken) to directly bulb Liberalism.

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To make the GS bulb liberalism, you must avoid machinery. You will need MC, Calendar, Compass and Education.
See the list of great people tech preferences:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/greatpeople_tech.php


Printing press has a higher priority than liberalism, but if machinery is not available, the GS will choose the next possible tech on the list. If you have MC, compass and Calendar, this tech happens to be liberalism.

I am done with the next round but will post it up later (not tonight).

EDIT: It may be a while as I am currently SWAMPED with other work.

Round 6: 110 BC to 250 AD (25 Turns) - The Liberalism Race


In this round, we continue in our race to Liberalism, which looks pretty good at this point (I was worried before).

I waited a turn into the round to see if any AI would discover a new tech. But they didn't, so I just traded around Philosophy.




After I traded with Cyrus, I gave Philosophy and 325 gold to Ramesses II for Feudalism. Yeah, he must have been researching Philosophy himself.

And the following turn...




The strange thing is, I still have no WFYABTA. This is surprising. According to the reference tables, Cyrus is "averse" in tech trading. I think his base value is 5 techs (mulitplied by 1.2 for deity) which turns into 6 techs. I've received MUCH more than 6 techs in this game, though.

Tech screen after Philosophy. This is the power of tech trading. Wasn't it just a few centries ago that we saw so many techs on the AI's list and we couldn't offer them anything?




Meanwhile, I founded my sixth city which will turn into my Globe Theatre city. It's build order was Granary - Theatre - Globe Theatre (I haven't yet finished the theatre at the end of the round, though). I probably won't found anymore cities. 6 is all I need.

Once Delhi grew to size 9, I began to hire scientists.




Which eventually resulted in this:




The Great Scientist would have lightbulbed Machinery, which I didn't want at the moment. I decided to bulb Paper with him once I finished Civil Service.






Now here's an interesting twist to this game -- Wang Kon adopted Vassalage when I gave him Feudalism, which meant that Cyrus was now cautious towards him. In order to get Cyrus close to "pleased" status, I actually switched to Vassalage! Imagine that...researching Civil Service and NOT adopting Bureaucracy! That's very unusual for me. Oh, and did I mention that the civic switch was anarchy-free? I must have saved on 5-10 turns of anarchy so far with Spirutual.

After I spent a period of time regrowing Delhi to size 11 (I put the scientists back to work on the farms -- this kind of tile adjustment is CRUCIAL to succeeding at this level), I hired scientists again. I wanted one to bulb part of Education, which is an expensive tech (about 4,500 beakers!).




Oh, come on....



I gave in to his demand and Cyrus got pleased. With Paper out of the bag, I figured I might as well get what I can from it, especially considering that there didn't seem to be any WFYABTA for some reason.




This was full price because Ramesses had more than 790 gold. Could that be a result of Cyrus building the Chichen Itza?

I went to another AI:




Calendar is a prerequisite for bulbing Liberalism, so that opens another option (I still need Compass, though). And, once again, it seems that Wang Kong is falling behind in the tech race. I don't understand why he always does this in my games...he's Financial! Oh, and by the way, I still didn't get any WFYABTA from anyone after these trades.

Soon I got another Great Scientist who bulbed part of Education. I held off on bulbing him until some of my cities grew in population, because the beaker value that the Great Scientists bulbs would slightly increase.






On a final note, it seems that a Great Merchant was born (in a distant land, so it's not on this continent for sure) on turn 186 (190 AD). Could that be the Economics Great Merchant, or is it too early to tell?

Thus ends the first part of the round.

[To be continued in next post]

Round 6

[Continued from previous post]



Tech choices:




Tech screen (keep in mind that Ram and Cy are both NOT researching Education judging from the price of techs they give me for my proposed trades). Ram might be going down the Economics route:




Glance:




Money advisor:




Domestic advisor (Varanarsi is building a catapult for my future rifle/treb/cats war):




Espionage advisor (I don't have visibility on Cy's demo's anymore but I do on the other 2 AI's):




Civics (yes, still in Vassalage):




The map:




Victory conditions:




So...how am I doing? If I win the race to Liberalism, it will be the first time I've done so on a true deity game. I've got a Great Scientist coming in 6 turns, so I could bulb him for Liberalism (ONLY if I get Compass from Ramesses) or later Printing Press. I could also settle, make an academy, or start a Golden Age (I'm not a fan of this).

Assuming I get Liberalism, what tech should I pick? I still think I should take Nationalism as the "freebie." Getting a tech like Economics would be troublesome (Machinery AND Guilds AND Banking as prerequisites).

If I need to hurry up and get Liberalism, I can get my empire to max out at about 250 beakers but I don't think that's necessary.

My overall long term plan is a rifle/treb war with Ramesses II. I could capture maybe 3-4 cities and he would likely vassalize and I could leave him with sevreal solid cities so he could help me in tech. I'll have to be sure to take Thebes to prevent a culture victory by him (did I mention he's built a LOT of wonders in that city?). If I engage in a war with Egypt, I'll have to bribe Wang Kong onto Cyrus or the other way around since they're on good terms with Egypt.

I need help, suggestions, comments, and criticisms.

The save:

Cyrus is not averse to tech trading. My version of the reference sheet has him at moderate, which seems much more likely.

While the war plans are good, you still need to do a LOT of teching for that - you need machinery/engineering for trebs and guilds/banking/PP/RP/Gunpowder/Rifling for the rifles. You can possibly obtain everything up to banking, maybe even PP/Gunpowder from the AI at some point but you'll have to do RP and Rifling yourself.

Realize though that war is still far away. Wang is already in WFYABTA, Cyrus likely close to it and trading too much with Ramesses might backfire. You can switch religion at a blink, though - perhaps you could get Cyrus or Wang to friendly to obtain more techs from them.