Deity cookbook I: Gilgamesh from Sumeria

Irrigated corn and gems is probably my favourite 2 resource/tiles in the game so I'm very positive about the game already. They get a jump start and with the Oasis things are looking even better.

There's a lot of early commerce and grassland hills which makes a run for the Oracle something to keep in mind. Meeting Pacal II (and having more EP on him than he has on me) adds even more weight into going for the Oracle. With two neighbours I'll be able to trade techs. Not to mention the fact that priesthood enables the UB. It costs less than a regular courthouse so it can be worthwhile starting on it early. If my neighbours fail to found an early religion CoL becomes a real treat too for improved relations.

Settled in place and went mining -> BW. We have copper in our BFC! Uruk grows to size 3 the same turn I finish mining the gems.



Seeing as we have copper I don't have to go to archery. BW -> mysticism -> meditation -> priesthood. I haven't seen any AI borders yet and there's jungle to the SW so going for the Oracle shouldn't hurt.

Stop to get a vulture to defend my land 2500 BC. There hasn't been a lot of barbarians around (and they settled a city nearby) so 1 should be sufficient.



Eta 1 on the Oracle on turn 48 / 2080 BC. I'm going to take MC as Pacal founded Judaism -- there's no need for confucianism.



Discover a 2nd AI just after the Oracle. It appears to be Saladin judging by the color. This is an awesome city spot so I'm probably going to settle it right away just in case Pacal or Saladin want to grab it with galleys.



I meet a Zulu scout on turn 51.

I pasture these cows although they're not needed yet. I'm going to settle my 3rd city 3E of Uruk, but my workers will be busy down south at the time so this way it will have an improved tile right away.



Finish my 1st settler 1800 BC and start on a second. 6 turns for the next settler and 6 turns for writing -- very convenient. I'm going to get a library after the settler to swing the GPP odds in favour of a GS instead of a GP.



Things are looking good so far. Once the AIs get alphabet MC will bring in a lot of techs. I might go for the Colossus as well -- we'll see.

There is stone and I haven't met any industrious AIs yet so I might make an attempt at the Pyramids as well.

Techs: Mining, BW, Hunting, Archery, Fishing, IW, Masonry (in progress).
Builds: Worker, Warriorx3, Archerx2, Settler, Worker, Archer, Worker, Barracks (part build).

I decided to settle in place - after moving the warrior 1NE and finding nothing of interest - for the reasons given by Dirk and Rusten. There's enough hills in bfc and moving 1W might settle on a resource. Also I'd lose time in working improved tiles.

Start seems fairly straight-forward, we have Ag and TW. We want to hook up the corn first then the gems so Worker+Mining it is.

My warrior survies a couple of battles but take alot of damage so he slowly explores the peninsula just south of my capital then moves to the west. I find stone by a river, then later rice and gems, I decide to take a shot at The Pyramids.

Worker improves corn, sacrifices a turn getting to gems to build a road on the corn (since gems are 3 steps away). Improves Corn roads back to capital. Improve Copper, road it. Chop forest 1S for settler, chop plains hill forest for worker, Mines it, roads to first expansion. 2nd worker directly to improve rice on expansion, 3rd to mine grassland hill at capital.

3720: Mining is done. I pick BW next since we don't have good cottage land and there's no other worker techs to consider.

3680: I see an injured wolf which means we're not isolated (did we know that already Dirk or is the map totally unknown?).

3440: Meet Pacal, buddhsim goes late not until turn 12 and it's not pacal. A derth of Mysticism-starting leaders then?

3320: I find some borders across the gulf(?) but can't tell if it's Pacal or Cyrus.



3120: BW is done and we have copper in the BFC, excellent. I ponder tech choice a bit here but decide to go for Hunting->Archery. I've found that 35 hammers for both exploration and barb defense is alot of hammers indeed on deity. Especially given that there seems to be alot of jungle around and several directions to explore and so I'll need some fogbusters. Archers, at 25 hammers, are cheaper and come faster and with the gems and oasis there's good early research so we can afford it.

2920: Hunting -> Archery.

2720: Archery -> Fishing. Upon seeing the stone, river, gems and rice I decide to settle my 2nd city there and take a shot at the pyramids. But before masonry I want IW so I can improve the rice and gems. IW costs a bit though and I'm out of good tiles in the cap so I go for fishing first so I can work the 2 lakes for commerce (1 at capital, 1 at expansion site).

2880: Pacal converts to Judaism.

2400: I reach happy cap of 6 and finishes my 2nd archer, build a settler.

2320: Stonhenge BIDL. Very late.

2240: Meet Suleiman's archer coming from the south.

2120: Found Eridu.



The only river thus far but a little food poor to be a commerce city. At size 5 it can work rice, gems, stone and run 2 scientists. Hopefully with representation.

1960: IW -> Masonry.
TGW BIDL (Pacal). Another late wonder. I hope that means there's no hog out there. Hopefully I can get The Pyramids.

1800: And I end the set to report.

Screenies:



A barb city popped up in a decent spot, I'm thinking of getting some vultures there. Probably need to try and cut of the peninsula from Pacal first though then there's several cities that can be settled at leisure. Question is if I should switch barracks and chop another settler to do that before going for Pyramids or if I need to get started on the wonder straight away. I want it by 1300 or so I think.

The southern end.



Both iron and ivory, problem with running rep is Pacal's favourite civic is HR. We better keep him pleased if he gets all the strategic resorces. I suspect they're both out of reach now.
I need to do more scouting to the southwest but I reckon someone will have had more luck in that area.

Techs:



1 turn to masonry then probably AH to check for horses. And now to look at the pro's reports.

I can't believe you went archery after finding copper in the BFC -- insanity. We even start with the wheel to hook it up.

For starters we're somewhat surrounded by water so there aren't that many places for the barbs to spawn. As a result you don't need as many units -- you can just as easily use 2 vultures instead of 3 archers.

Secondly they're a friggin' (good) UU. Not only are they good defense, but they are excellent at taking barbarian cities. Axemen usually have poor odds, but vultures eat the barbarian archers. If you're guarding your cities with archers you'll have to use hammers on vultures anyway to take cities. It just seems silly to me. I could <maybe> understand if we were talking about regular axemen -- but these are vultures!

Indeed it turned out I could have skipped it. I had a game recently with Gilgamesh of all leaders where it cost me dearly though. The situation was similar to this one but instead of settling peacefully the barbs came in hordes from relatively small areas, I don't know if I was unlucky then or not. In any case I'm not entirely comfortable with deity yet so I decied to play it safe. Sometimes that extra unit (3 vs 2) you get with archers can make a world of a difference. Also getting a unit out from my expansion quicker helped me as I played on, with the cap building Pyramids I was a bit pressed for hammers.
I guess the AI settle the land so much quicker on deity that they do a decent job of fogbusting some of the land for you. I would never have gone for archery without the gems though, in the end I don't think I lost too much going for it as my cities thus far haven't missed out on anything I'd rather build if I had the techs bc of the good early tech rate.
As for extra units, the archers will be used for city garrison and had I built vultures I'd have had to build some warriors at least for this job as they left to attack.

Your games don't resemble each other one bit and mine's very different from both.I pursued my idea of an early rex, racing to the spot where in Rusten's game a barb city has gone up (you certainly can't complain about that city btw, it'll hold the ai's back for some time). Together with the peak and the lake it has great blocking value. No time to write a full report now, coming up tomorrow.Probably 2 reports about 1800 bc and 1000 bc as i'll have some time then.

I like the oracle gambit for relations,could have been important. Mc won't hurt you either for early techs. I wasn't to worried about an early dow as the neighbours i met are relatively peaceful. Remarkable that you got 2 workers and a settler out too, did you chop a lot?

Research: mining->BW->Iron Working->AH->Writing (3 turns left)
Production: 2 workers, settler (founded Eridu 1920BC), 3 vultures, 2 warriors.

Managed to keep warriors alive with some lucky combats vs. archers. 1 warrior has just received woodsman II, so hopefully scouting will get better.

Exploration and diplomacy:
Met Pacal first (scout from south), Followed by Saladin, and recently Suleiman.
Pacal is jewish and Saladin is hindu and they are annoyed with each other.
Everyone is pleased with Sueiman.
We have open borders with Saladin (the only one with writing so far)

City overview and explored land:


My thoughts on how to coninue:
Exploration for appropriate blocking cities is a priority. There is a potential to block a lot of land here.
Once land blocking is achieved, I might take a shot at the pyramids. Cottages don't seem very lucrative on this map.
Pyramids will also help with hapiness, which we don't have too much of at the moment.
However, monarchy is the favourite civic of 2 of our neighbours. It might be more beneficial to adopt it instead of representation.

I am not sure how to create a competitive economy on this map. There is food here, but not a lot of sites with a huge amount of food, so bulbing towards liberalism is questionable.

Perhaps cottages around the capital after all (with overlaping satelite cities) to create a bureacratic capital with academy?

The capital is production rich, so perhap I could aim for the great library even without marble, although it is quite a gamble.

My game is similar to Gliese, except I didn't go for archery. Oracle is a good call Rusten, as well as rushing for the great city. I am planning to settle it next, but I might have lost it already to Saladin.

Another advantage of Rusten's game is that there is no need to self reseach iron working. Let's hope the early extra gems in my Eridu will pay for the "waste" of self research IW.

Looking forward to see more games