[BTS] Deity Fun II - Qin the Dazzling Man [Fractal, Random leaders, normal speed]

[GKey]

Yes, thanks Lymond. It seems, BUG Custom Assets folder setup does make BUG compatible with other mods, except BUG itself installed as a mod.

To the game though, there is interesting decision to make early in game:

Spoiler:

Granted you've made a good guess as I did and settled on wine: Hunting, AH, Wheel, Pottery, BW, Writing - what to tech and in what order? I went Hunting, AH, Wheel, Pottery. Think to skip BW and go Writing directly.

[Tachywaxon]

Originally Posted by GKey

Spoiler:

Granted you made a good guess as I did and settled on wine, Hunting, AH, Wheel, Pottery, BW, Writing - what to tech and in what order? I went Hunting, AH, Wheel, Pottery. Think to skip BW and go Writing directly.

Spoiler:

Glad people are joining "en masse"; Qin sure had more glamorous effect than poor Shaka...no love for the monster.

Yes, you did the right choice as the majority will. People used to deal how to place first city to be optimal will all go for the same choice in this case. Future games where better starting location depending on gambling will receive some pointers to avoid one guy getting one more corn and gold (assuming I accept a high commerce start again) and the other coping with a single PH sheep. Such differences are indeed unfair and not amusing. I can't fogbust with worldbuilder, but hints will do the job.

Thanks for the solution about BUFFY; will incorporate your solution in a privileged moment. I know people would rather have a unmodded game, but originally 'twas my solo game and fractal on deity needs to be verified. Indeed, fractal is huge mess at moments.

Gotta go.

[vranasm]

@GKey

try in Mods\Buffy folder find the .ini file and edit "NoCustomAssets" (or something like that) to 1 instead of 0. Should solve the issue with loading your BUG custom assets from user profile

you need to have original CvGameCore.dll in your installation directory instead of BULL's one (that one you already covered).

[GKey]

@Vranasm Thanks! I already switched to original Custom Assets folder, so it works.

Will your solution make BUFFY load with BUG I already had, instead BUG included in BUFFY, or will it just ignore my Custom Assets folder (and therefore ignore my BUG)?

To the game:

Spoiler:

I teched up to pottery and then decided to make a shot at oracle. Surprisingly it worked and I oracled Metal Casting (1560 BC) for early cheap forges and with intention to bulb Machinery and go for Stalin (? He got elephants though).
Suddenly Sitting Bull decided to be cool guy just like Monty: demanded gold from me and immediately declared war after refuse.
Good opportunity for my UU to see some action versus protective guy.

BTW, how many cities is it fine to have by 1AD on big maps?

[Tachywaxon]

Originally Posted by GKey

BTW, how many cities is it fine to have by 1AD on big maps?

Just like pixie said, 7 cities are fine, allowing Oxford. More is alway recommended ofc.

[vranasm]

Originally Posted by GKey

@Vranasm Thanks! I already switched to original Custom Assets folder, so it works.

Will your solution make BUFFY load with BUG I already had, instead BUG included in BUFFY, or will it just ignore my Custom Assets folder (and therefore ignore my BUG)?

To the game:

Spoiler:

I teched up to pottery and then decided to make a shot at oracle. Surprisingly it worked and I oracled Metal Casting (1560 BC) for early cheap forges and with intention to bulb Machinery and go for Stalin (? He got elephants though).
Suddenly Sitting Bull decided to be cool guy just like Monty: demanded gold from me and immediately declared war after refuse.
Good opportunity for my UU to see some action versus protective guy.

BTW, how many cities is it fine to have by 1AD on big maps?

as i understand the option it should use the customassets folder in the mod folder and not try to load customassets in your user profile making potentially conflict.

[Htadus]

Yeah, I do not like Deity. Played till turn 76 just past 1000 BC. This is a crowded map.

Spoiler:

As usuall, I expanded toward AI. Claimed ivory, silver, 2x gold and fur. Founded 4 more cities for a total of 5. have room for about 3 more good cities. 2 turns from BW and will be completing Oracle IBT. Sadly I can not get MC free. Should I take HBR and do typical HA rush. I do have many forests to fell. Or wait for something else?

[pixiejmcc]

Originally Posted by Htadus

Yeah, I do not like Deity. Played till turn 76 just past 1000 BC. This is a crowded map.

Spoiler:

As usuall, I expanded toward AI. Claimed ivory, silver, 2x gold and fur. Founded 4 more cities for a total of 5. have room for about 3 more good cities. 2 turns from BW and will be completing IBT. Sadly I can not get MC free. Should I take HBR and do typical HA rush. I do have many forests to fell. Or wait for something else?

Spoiler:

Lordy you've done well to get the Oracle after 1000BC. You've claimed a decent amount of land there. I'd be tempted to tech to cuirassiers.... Having said that Stalin is a real PITA and if you can do away with him you should.

[Tachywaxon]

Originally Posted by Htadus

Yeah, I do not like Deity. Played till turn 76 just past 1000 BC. This is a crowded map.

Spoiler:

As usuall, I expanded toward AI. Claimed ivory, silver, 2x gold and fur. Founded 4 more cities for a total of 5. have room for about 3 more good cities. 2 turns from BW and will be completing IBT. Sadly I can not get MC free. Should I take HBR and do typical HA rush. I do have many forests to fell. Or wait for something else?

Spoiler:

Heee. Such an OP. Honestly, I understand you because in fact I'm forcing deity upon me as well ; the fun factor came from the win itself and how my decisions turned well. And how it is fun to shatter runaway AI's.

Indeed, you are boxed in a little, but on deity you alway have to consider filler cities to make up the lack of spaces; take example to put a city between Nanjing and Beijing.
Regarding Nanjing, I see you set up a library in Shangai, but still I would have put Nanjing 1N to start improving the wheat as soon as possible. And furthermore, that city won't have any future as a productive city later; at least 1N offers some plains and grass tiles, far better than tundra (not improvable) or tundra hills.

A trick you should always consider who to pick on is to use diplo tables until you see their usual bragging about their strongest units; as far I can tell from your screenshot, stalin still has archers as it was in my game.

Oracling HBR often leads to a situation it was better off going for it directly.
Interestingly, everyone is gunning Oracle while I ignored it because I don't start with Mysticism.

Don't give up yet; you're doing fine. I wasn't in a terrific position at the same date as yours IIRC, but ended nice afterwards if choice are well-decided.

CoL is an interesting choice too because it will definitely slow down philosophy (the religion wasn't founded yet.

[Htadus]

My comments in blue.

Originally Posted by Tachywaxon

Spoiler:

Heee. Such an OP. Tachy what is an OP? Not Original Post(er) in this context right? Honestly, I understand you because in fact I'm forcing deity upon me as well ; the fun factor came from the win itself and how my decisions turned well. And how it is fun to shatter runaway AI's.

Indeed, you are boxed in a little, but on deity you alway have to consider filler cities to make up the lack of spaces; take example to put a city between Nanjing and Beijing. Yes I agree. I placed the cities in such manner to allow me 4 more inner cities.
Regarding Nanjing, I see you set up a library in Shangai, but still I would have put Nanjing 1N to start improving the wheat as soon as possible.It would have reduce one of my planned support cities 3 east of Shanghi. Nanjing will use the wheat, deer and pigs and become a production city using 3 hammer hills. And furthermore, that city won't have any future as a productive city later;Are you sure about that? at least 1N offers some plains and grass tiles, far better than tundra (not improvable) or tundra hills. They are for anotehr city. As I see it, 9 -12 tiles per city is good enough for a while. So I will use major overlapping on the next 4 cities.

A trick you should always consider who to pick on is to use diplo tables until you see their usual bragging about their strongest units; as far I can tell from your screenshot, stalin still has archers as it was in my game.
And he is in the builder mode right now. Also he is protecting his hill city west of nanjing. I bet he only have 3 archers in Moscow.
Oracling HBR often leads to a situation it was better off going for it directly.HBR was never a goal for me. As a matter of fact, I will admit, I have never pulled off a successful HA rush (in my opinion). yes I take cities but my economy was never ready for the new cities. On the other hand chariot rushes I do well and since I only have 1-2 cities to start with, the new cities do not kill me because AI did a good job with cottages(towns already).
Interestingly, everyone is gunning Oracle while I ignored it because I don't start with Mysticism. Oracle is a bonus. All the techs were in my planned tech path toward Philo. However Once I realized that I may have a chance at building the Oracle, I hoped for MC (for Machinary bulb) and would have been able to get it had I not founded the city to north. oh well.

Don't give up yet; you're doing fine. I wasn't in a terrific position at the same date as yours IIRC, but ended nice afterwards if choice are well-decided. I am going to continue for a while and am sure I will liberate some thing usefull. My next tech is archary and I will build a deterance force with protective archers.) But I do not like game where i can not build a few good Wonders (builder alert)

CoL is an interesting choice too because it will definitely slow down philosophy (the religion wasn't founded yet. This will open up Philo for me to bulb. And I will monoplize Philo while trading CoL at that time for Alpha, math, Monarchy and what ever. Also if possible for currency the second round. Hope to trade for MC eventually and bulb Machinary with GS #3. Typically that is also a trading tech.

I think I will test both options; a rush or peace to 1 AD. Then decide which to play to 500 AD and decide to cont or not. I am glad this is not xOTM.

[Habitus]

Bank Holiday weekend here so I should get some free time to play. Nearly a month of little to no Civ may make this a Diety game

First things thou I need to get a IU game up

[GKey]

Few things happened.

Spoiler:

Firstly, I have autosave set to 4 turns instead of each turn, so when I continued from save, it was before SB declared on me. No idea what I did differently but this time he demanded tech instead of gold and did not declare on me upon refuse.

So I proceed with my war plans on Stalin. Declared when he got construction, but haven't built war elephants yet. The war was HUGE disappointment towards Cho-Ko-Nus. Even versus archers they do not so good. HA's rip them apart too (I wonder why 6str versus 6str are doing so bad? Is it because I promoted them on Drill lane instead of Combat?)

Then Stalin got longbows and war become complete disaster hammer wise. Seriously, stuck of 18 Chok's can't capture a city with 12 defenders in 1 turn? And on next turn he get city reinforced/defenders promoted and I waste another 3-4 units? About 10 Cho-ko-Nus per city... And of course with such war success Stalin capitulated only after he left with only 2 cities...

Meanwhile Willem run away with 14 cities and win Lib. With such a good capital and land I'd rather go for usual MT rush here, but I was thinking "8 cities on big map - not enough, need rush someone with our awesome UU!"

Not to mention that right now game is crashing like every 2 turns on my comp. Big maps are not for my box...

Pity, map itself is rather interesting.

[Tachywaxon]

^
Shame it won't work for you, GKey.
Now, I understand the repulsion for large/huge maps, which stems from computer strength.
In the future, I shall convert myself to standard.

Spoiler:

BTW, yes, the map is interesting. Taking out Stalin leads to a surprise.

[GKey]

^^

Spoiler:

I took him out, what was the surprise I missed?

[lymond]

Wow...didn't even notice it was a Large Map. I was wondering why the game was bogging down on me sooner than expected....that my computer was jacked.

Gave up on war when I discover I settled just away from the iron, so went peaceful culture, which I played pretty poorly. I think very early culture could be had here.

[Tachywaxon]

Originally Posted by GKey

^^

Spoiler:

I took him out, what was the surprise I missed?

Spoiler:

This is possibly an easier version of a pangaea map (less opponents that can DoW you and reach you). Once you capture the most western
russian city, after border pop, I noticed there was a culture fringe next to Stalin. One tile of ocean was setting us apart unfortunately and the city couldn't be moved anymore.
Once getting a sentry chariot, I met Suleiman. After couple of turns, I noticed how he wasn't affected in tech trade by refusal to trade, so I deduced he wasn't alone on his island. At one moment I couldn't resist trading with him, unknowingly of his neighbours (and I couldn't use the trick on diplo table to see his neighbours as apparently we need two opponents from that island). I met Gilgamesh and Louis XIV way after thanks to the sentry chariot in waiting position.
It was an island of monarchy lovers...diplo wasn't difficult...

I could've met them earlier, but I knew Willem was a dangerous runaway, so I prepared all my forces to attack him around 800-900 AD with ~30 cuirassiers instead of getting Astro.
And SB, ouch, he cost me so many cuirassiers with his 20 cities.

Anyways, twas a fun map with many surprises.
Last surprise, Willem and SB were runaway because Elizabeth was stuck behind mountains down to max 5 cities.

Indeed, fractal is unbalanced...

[Jet]

(from his last spoiler, but I'm just going to quote it)

Originally Posted by Tachywaxon

fractal is unbalanced

Why do you say that? I find Fractal a little boring because it seems to produce a snaky pangaea very often. But it does give you some variety, and unbalanced is not a description I would have thought of for it.

I think overall, Hemispheres is the superior for generic games. It gives you maximum variety within the constraint that some civs won't meet until Optics, limiting the human's ability to do all this namby-pamby exploiting of tech trading and other diplo.

[Tachywaxon]

Originally Posted by Jet

(from his last spoiler, but I'm just going to quote it)

Why do you say that?

Well, many before me assumed that in prior reads.
Second, fractals can create maps favoring one or two AI's at the expense of others (mountains ridges, chokepoints, lots of lands behind capital that can become chokepoint along two-three cities, etc. )

Indeed, those mentioned sneaky pangaea-like maps you mention may lead to such unbalances.

While pure pangaea (solid single continent option) will lead with few peninsulae and ferocious battle for lands.
I know pangaea is preferred for deity because it somehow ensures the player won't get through the assle to end up "cheated" by a hyper-empire (master and lots of vassals). Theoritically, the lands distribution is better than fractal.

The best up to date is Inland Sea as another form of pangaea map.

As for hemisphere avoiding abuses, indeed, diplo is trickier but not unfair (isolation or semi-iso). And taking out civs may lead to semi-iso situations, which is not favorable.

Running away civs civ may happen on other continents, but less likely I think.

Anyways, why this commentary when the purpose of this serie is well (for some regularly involved in deity I guess) fun. Fractal leads to something unexpected. And unexpected is fun. And by playing the map prior to the thread, I verify if it is winnable.

...

Any more shadowings? Yes, I'm a jackal for more shadowing...

Oh btw, I'm not deity player, but aspirant one. So I don't know every aspect of the subject.

[lymond]

Originally Posted by Tachywaxon

Oh btw, I'm not deity player....

If you ain't, you are sure darn close

I like Fractal maps. Basically did a whole bunch of learning on them back when Kos did his thing. With that said, I'm starting to gather a fondness for Inland Sea. It does tend to be balanced without being quite the Cluster F that Pangaea can sometimes be.

[vranasm]

Originally Posted by Tachywaxon

Oh btw, I'm not deity player, but aspirant one. So I don't know every aspect of the subject.

If you are not, then I am chinese clown...