Never ever give up: 2. Deity level challenge

Before the start:

We will try to do some things different/better this time, because with our last try, we managed to be best score wise from 1500 AD on (which was good), but in the end we lost the game via Space Race in 1750 AD (which was not so good).

We were going for a domination strategy, but we were lacking maybe 40 – 50 turns to do so successfully. Main problem was, that we were to far behind in tech. The after game discussion revealed that there were several issues that could have caused this:


1. Balance early expansion better

We must expand early to be able to grab enough land from the computer with all his bonuses. But this time we must better consider the economical side of our expansion and we should try to stick to 4 cities as long as possible. Founding more then 4 cities early costs to much money. That results in low research which costs us precious turns in the end.


2. Use slavery more early and more aggressive

Whipping infrastructure helps a lot in speeding up your town-building. On the other side, whipping to early (without enough happiness buildings and resources) can severely cripple your town size for a long time. I the last try, we started whipping only after 500 AD, when most of the happiness buildings were researched. This time, we will start to whip ASAP when currency (market place) is in and we will use it throughout the entire first half of the game (until we are forced to use emancipation). We will try to whip only when we can balance out the unhappiness caused by whipping with happiness buildings whipped so we can still grow our cities. Our cities should remain between size 5 and 9 and will be set to “max growth only” throughout the whole process.


3. No caste system

We will try to avoid switching to caste system for hiring specialists (mainly scientists). We will try to hire all specialists via the various buildings we get by using the whip.


4. One war strategy

In the last try, we based our expansion strategy on 3 pillars:
- early game expansion (settling towns, about 8 altogether)
- ancient warfare (conquering one AI via swordsmen and catapults at about 1 AD)
- medieval warfare (conquering one AI via cavallry and catapults about at 1000 AD)
For doing so, we had to build up an army two times. Only the catapults could be used in both wars. To save some more precious turns for the endgame, we will try this time to go only one time to war (building units only once)


5. Different research path

This time, we will try to go for the liberalism – nationalism slingshot (be first to get to liberalism, then take nationalism as free tech)



The rest we are trying to do more or less similar to our last try

...

One thing to ad:

I will stick to fixed turnsets this time, to make it easier for people who want to join in (everybody is invited) to compare strategy and results.

Our turnsets will be:

40 turns: 4000 BC – 2600 BC
30 turns: 2600 BC – 1400 BC
20 turns: 1400 BC – 750 BC
20 turns: 750 BC – 250 BC
20 turns: 250 BC – 250 AD
19 turns: 250 AD – 700 AD (to have a full century)
10 turns: 700 AD – till end

I will post the starting save in the next post. From then on I will post one save for every 2 turnsets I play (to save db space). Therefore my first game save will be 1400 BC, the next 250 BC etc…


See you

Snaaty

Our starting position in 4000 BC:

View attachment 144767

We are red… … we are Chinese (Mao)… … never played them before… …so let’s first check on their statistics:


Their traits are:

- Philosophical

Great People (GP) birth rate increased 100 percent (hm, don’t think this is to useful, because all GP we need are Great Scientists (GS) for lightbulbing and them we can get in time via a library…)

Double production speed of University (this comes in handy to speed up research infrastructure via whipping)


- Organized

Civic upkeep reduced 50 percent (nice)

Double production speed of Lighthouse and Courthouse (also nice)


Their special unit is the Cho-Ku-Nu:

It replaces crossbowman, has 2 first strikes, causes collateral damage and has +50% vs. melee units

Uhm, I fear we will never see them at all throughout the whole game…

If we are doing an early war, they are too late, if we are doing a late war, they are already useless. They also seem to have sort of a suicidal tendency, which contradicts directly to our motto: Build your army only once!!!



Now let’s have a closer look at our starting position:

Very nice, we have marble and stone nearby and two rivers. Even better is the fact, that we have 3 plain hills in sight (two with wood, one without). One of them we could pick as settling location because of the production bonus (+ one hammer).


See you

Snaaty

Interesting, your earlier game was nice read. Did you randomize leader/map selection again? I think that was one of the points for this challenge?

yup, standard sized continent map, normal speed, all other settings standard

Continents or standard continent, which would be pangaea? (im not trying to nitpick here at all, just to make it sure, sorry!).

I wonder how much normal speed affects to difficulty compared to epic (but this challenge wants as standard settings as possible, right? And that really makes it a challenge).

I'm by no means deity level player but if someone wants to have feeling "what the hell is going on" - try deity with quick speed. Where did all the other AI's go ? To space? Oh, i just didnt survive past 500 bc..

Continents (no pangea)

In my opinion, there isn´t much difference in playing epic or normal speed, since the AI will tech up in about the same timeline (but common opinion is that epic is easier).

When you are playing warmonger, I think epic could be in fact easier, because more turns mean more movement points for your troops. Since I´m a builder this doesn´t affect me much...

Quick speed I have never tried (normally play epic speed on huge or large maps = longer game). I´m more the typ who playes a game an hour here and there and don´t mind a game lasting 4 weeks...

As i thought .

My quick game point was meant for anyone who might be lurking on this thread and may not have tried Deity. I dont think quick speed is a viable option for real game on deity (now it takes about 5 seconds for someone to came and correct me on this..), it was meant as a quick hands-on example what deity is like and what you're basically up against. My best try.. tiny, 4 civs, coastal start - by some miracle, i survived a little while, got even GLH build, but was annihilated soon after.

I think you should take a look at acidsatyr's current succession game. I think that with a philosophical civ, you're better off going the SE route, running caste system at times (no spiritual hurts for switching, so that is something to consider admittedly). It would help you keep up technologically imo.

@ futurehermit:

Thanks for the tip. Will have a look.

If you mean by SE route building no cottages and relying on specialists, the tactics I normally apply (and want to apply here) is this:

- Building only cottages when I can´t irrigate and tile is already used.

- Using specialists (2 scientists) only in one city to get some GS for lightbulbing

- All other cities are set to max. growth (no specialists) and I will try to whip as many improvements as possible as early as possible


So in general I plan to do neither SE economy nor cottage economy but to build as much infrastructure in all cities as early as possible to bring up science and commerce. I plan to use only slavery throughout the full game, up to the point when the happy penalties of not running emancipation are becomming to big...

I just read thrugh acidsatyr's current succession game. The guys there are doing great.

Still I think we should stick to another strategy because I think it will work more general since we are playing random continents and cannot influence the AI´s on other continenst(s) and don´t know how many neighbours we will have. Additionally, our starting position (which I still consider as good) is much worse then theirs (they have 3 of 4 early happy resources in direct reach...).

So basically I would advise to try to expand peacfully (blocking the AI of with "Blocking-Cities") and to try to play as peacefully as possible (low army, much city-infrastructure). When doing a war, keep it short. Early wars I would skip completely (too risky, too much losses) wars only after swordsmen (iron) or macemen (copper) and catas are awailable. 4 cities are in general enough for early game.

Best is to try without any war, untill you are ahead in warfare tech. One war I always do, is when I have cavalry against knights and longbows. When this applies, with 20 cavalry and 6 catas, you take out every AI within 20 turns (no matter if he has 10 or 4 cities) without big losses. I never go for grenadies, because I think cavalry is faster, stronger and has a chance to retreat. But you must be quick, when AI has riflemen, war´s over...

OK - you have flood plains , and marble (and stone). You have outstanding starting position and i think you will really screw this up if you dont play heavy SE and getting maximum number of GS.

Edit: i see you said you never go for granadiers (!). Tech line following all the way up to chemitry favors lightbulbing.

Search for "Disscusion on Immortal game" to see what I mean. You get chemistry way faster than Cavalry.

I'd concentrate on getting GL in capital assign max number of scientists and build NE in it. Also pacifism.

Wait this is vanilla, mao is philosophical. Perfect.

If this was on a lower difficult I'd **** myself over that starting position... Hello wonders. Still VERY nice anyways.

@ acidsatyr:

thanks for your tips and advices.

Pacifism I will try to get ASAP. The Great Library (with marble) is worth a try, but I wont try to build it in capital because I will try to expand peacfully and therefore need it to build workers and settlers

National epos I will try to build after GL

I only lightbulb techs in the beginning (philosophy, paper, half of education), for which you need only 3 GS. Them you can get when applying pacifism and assigning 2 scientists in time with any civ. The rest of the GS (think we will get some more because of the civ trait of the chinese) I plan to build academies and/or settle them

So far, I´ve been quite successful with doing war with cavalry on deity. When you get them fast enought, war´s very easy.


@ Captainkeyes23:

Most important for a start on deity are the early happy resources (money and happiness). The more the better. The rest is nice but happy resources are the key to success

Wonders are almost impossible to get on deity (execpt maybe GL and one or two later wonders when you are ahead in a certain tech...)

We have decided not to settle on the spot, but to move our settler one tile northwest, so we have both rivers connected to our starting city (good for later cities & trade).

Peking 2600 BC:

View attachment 144799

We are lucky. By moving between the rivers, we left the copper that would have been initially in our fat cross. But there is another deposit north of us that we started to work ASAP. Also we have spotted gold to our south. There we plan to build our second town

Our production so far:

Worker
Warrior (mainly to let our capital grow to size 2)
Worker (chopped 1 wood)
Axmen (chopped 1 wood)
Settler (chopped 1 wood; one turn left)

A scout was popped from a hut. Two more hut brought altogether 72 gold. So far, not much happened, no Barbs encountered.

Work Oder:

We worked the rice immediately when our first worker was out. So while producing a warrior, our capital would grow. Then we sped the second worker via chopping and while waiting to finish the second worker, we set the first one to work the bronze. When the second worker was finished, we set him to chop wood, while the first one would move to the spot our second city would be and build a road to the river.

Our neighbours:

So far, we met Ashoka (Ash, good, few military, will trade, won’t backstab), Saladin (Sal, neutral, average military, will trade, will only backstab us when our military is to week), Isabella (Isa, oh my god, Monty’s little sister)


See you

Snaaty


save in next post

I just had a look at acidsatyr´s "Disscusion on Immortal game" impressive play


But I think this taktics istn´t my style of play since I prefere to build and live in peace most of the game...

So I will stick to the strategy I had in mind from the beginning:

Expand peacfully, block of AI via city placement (see first deity level challange), build up city infrastructure early via whipping, no cottages, no scientists (only in one city for GP´s) only one war to expand before endgame (then of course, another BIG war when going for domination), set most of our cities to max. growth, grow big cities, apply specialists only when all tiles are worked (inbetween 1400 - 1500 AD)

Although most (or all) other players seem to go to Medieval wars with grenadiers, I still would do them with cavalry because losses are fewer, war is faster and you need lesser units to take out an enemy. Research is: take nationalism as free tech from liberalism, trade liberalism for the prerequisits for mil. trad. Reseach mil. trad. and trade nationalism for gunpowder (if AI´s aren´t advanced enough, then research gunpowder yourself). Save some money (and/or trade it), build elephants or knights in advance, upgrade them, go to war...


After reading several posts for higher level-play, my overall playstyle and my warfare taktics seem more like an outsiders strategy (well, let it be so), but this also seems to work (even on deity)...


I prefere this playstyle, because I´m more a builder then a warrior and therefore are not aiming for an early win. My overall goal when playing civ is to be competitiv throughout the whole game (=play the whole game) from warriors up to modern armor...

...

A very good thing is, that this time there is much more interest in this challange

Everybody is invited to prove my playstyle wrong by joining this game with his own playstyle (and hopfully will do better then me, since I lost the first challange ...)


See you

Snaaty


P.S.:

Since I wont be home next few days, I will post next session already tonight

well, good luck.
What win you want since you want peace on deity?

Dont get me wrong, I never intended to play this game ONLY peacfully. I´m aiming at plaing it MAINLY peacfully with a one war strategy for mid-game expansion.

For ending the game I would like to go space-race. But since this is something almost impossible on deity, my fallback strategy is domination (with modern armors)

Snaaty said:

apply specialists only when all tiles are worked (inbetween 1400 - 1500 AD)

Click to expand...

I hardly ever have enough health/happiness to support all twenty tiles being worked by 1400 AD - 1500 AD. For me that's something that doesn't happen until late game. Of course, I tend to warmonger much more than you. A cavalry war would probably be my third war in a typical game. This also means many civs are unhappy with me and won't trade resources. I guess I kind of answered my own question, but could you go into a little detail about how you deal with health/happy to get all twenty tiles worked?

We employed some fogbusters to avoid Barbs coming through the backdoor. Our southern region looks like that in 1400 BC:

View attachment 144815


We already can see Sal’s cultural border. So we will have to settle a blocking city on one of the costal tundra woods to secure our back-lands and the whales…

That is what our northern regions look like, with more fogbusters at work…

View attachment 144816


Ash is close to our west, only Isa’s territory hasn’t been spotted so far (let’s all hope and pray that she is far, far away…). We settled Guangzhou on a mountain here to secure the silk, the horses and to block of Ash. Additionally, we plan to settle one more city between the two mountain ranges, to get access to the bananas near the river bent and to secure our back-lands from the AI.


Our research:

Bronze working
The wheel
Mysticism (for Obelisks, to expand our cultural borders in new cities)
Animal husbandry
Writing
Alphabet (6 turns left)


Our settling policy:

2480 BC Shanghai is founded near the gold (money, money, money)
2160 BC Guangzhou is founded to block of Ash and to bring home horses
1440 BC Nanjing is founded in our back-lands to bring home some fish


Our production policy:

Peking:
Will only produce workers, settlers and defensive units

Shanghai:
An obelisk is chopped, and then we started immediately on a library. Here we want to set two scientists to work ASAP because of the gold-bonus

Guangzhou:
An obelisk is chopped. Then settlers & workers to help building up our empire

Nanjing
No obelisk, we go directly for a library to save some turns of productivity, since the city is in our back-lands and we don’t need early culture


Our units so far:

4 Workers
2 Warriors
1 Axman
1 Scout


Since we are squeezed between Sal and Ash, we don’t have to fear Barbs any more, as long as we are doing sufficient fog busting in our back-land.


Ash (Buddhist) and Sal (Christianity) each have fond a religion. Since Buddhist already has spread to Shanghai, we will have to stick to Ash when we want to beef or Great Person production (GPp) with Pacifism (we need a state religion to do so). Let’s hope that Isa also joins the Buddhist club…



See you

Snaaty

@ Idiodyssey:

You are right, you already answered your question more or less.

Still here I go:

Build all (...uhm I mean whip all) early buildings that increase health (aqueduct, granary, grocer, harbour). When you are planning to play peacful, you should gift a cheap tech to all new civs you meet after you can build caravells. After that, everybody will trade with you. When you go to a war, make sure, that your trading partners are not the best friends of the guy you are planning to attack. Here, bribing them to cancel deals with the one you plan to attack is always a good option.

By doing that, you usually have all (or at least most) health and happy resources by 1400 - 1500 AD.


Hope this helps