Gliese's Deity Game #2, Zara Yaqob

Something seems off on your analysis of HC - I notice he does NOT have compass. This would heavily support making that trade with nappy and then seeing whatever gold/tech you can get. I agree that you need to go after Nappy eventually and cannons seems like the best route for this. Most importantly, you should build a lot of your UU and then upgrade them to riflemen to keep the promotions! From what I can see, the other continent actually isn't so bad except for Wang; Liz and SB seem like they will have low production later on in the game. Even so, pulling off an intercontinental attack would be really tough and it's too far ahead to plan for at the moment; space seems a safer goal. About the GS's: it's almost a bit too late to be settling them in the capital; the game's about halfway through. It's actually a really hard point to judge right now but without representation (are you planning on that?) I think you'd get more beakers by just bulbing. Some important techs like Astro would be sped up by the bulb anyway, and, you know, the short term gain outweighs more beakers a hundred turns from now.

Interesting that the game gives away the name of the English leader by announcing the birth of a GP, while you haven't even met her... (ok, the 3 yields on her coast tiles are pretty helpful hints too). And yet again, this game appears to be another example where impassable mountains mess with the AI's plans. Liz will never figure out how to settle on the wheat north of the mountains - a site with a decent found value...

So no Oromo action in your game, Gliese? (I know time flies on normal...)

This looks good despite the tech decifit, your research rate is fine.I'd concentrate on Oxford first, then have another look at the situation.

is nappy naturally annoyed with wk?(I don't have a game around, so can't check the save - 99% he should be, case in which he might start preparing a military)

JammerUno: Good point about growing my coastal cities, I usually avoid working ocean tiles unless they have a sea resource but the GLH makes it more attractive in this case.

Earthling: You're right I missed that HC doesn't have Compass. That means he has 11 techs on me, 8 if I make the trade with Nappy. A little less out of hand than I thought.
I'm not planning on representation as HC Joao and WK all have HR as their favourite civic and I'm likely to attack Nappy in case of war so sharing it with him would be pointless. I'm also a bit low on happiness overall.
I'm unsure about the GSs. It would be nice to get intercontinental trade going but OTOH I'm not likely to get a technological jump on Nappy so I'll have to rely on superior tactics if it comes to war and hope that it outweighs his greater numbers. Also trying to catch him at the right time and having my UU promotions could help a little. If it comes to a tight space race I might appreciate the extra 1k-2k beakers or whatever I get from settling in the long run, not to mention the extra hammers.
I don't know, anyone else have any suggestions for what to do GP-wise?

Dan: Yeah I was a bit surprised by the game giving out that info prematurely. It could have been Vicky as well if I just had the yield to go by.

Dirk: Agreed on the Oxford, after that I have no clue

SnowlyWhite: They haven't met yet but they have different religions. WK will not dislike Nappy since Nappy is in HR but Nappy might be less friendly toward WK so one can hope. HC and Joao can't be bribed to attack Nappy though Nappy will attack Joao if he's suitably bribed (more than I could offer right now had I wanted to).

It seems I was a bit optimistic about the food situation in my island iron city where I planned the HE. It seems I will only get 11 base hammers there, perhaps I should consider the HE in my mainland iron city Yeha instead which will have 16 base hammers if I farm over the cottage and make farms/workshops on the rest of its tiles.

I completely overlooked your UU. I don't recall wether you've had a GA already, but maybe getting one from your first GS and teching gunpowder and massing some Oromo's would be a decent strategy. Nappy is still a decent stretch from rifles/grenadiers, so oromo's would provide a big advantage. They start with 3 first strikes, that would offset nappy's greater numbers, if you throw in drill III as the first promotion, it's 5 FS, that's huge. A war before steel might be feasable. An army of oromos, pike and trebs might be pretty effective, aspecially if you throw in a GG generated supermedic, the oromos will last for a long time.

Although I think going for Oxford is a good idea, with only 8 cities and a required 6 univirsities it's a big investment, especially since some of those universities will do virtually nothing.

Possibly, strictly speaking Oromos are good with the promos. But what do they add exactly? On offense you'll probably use siege, maybe attack a bit earlier with Oromos than with muskets but if you're going to do this better build some maces with CR to go along. On defence muskets/pike defend pretty well before grens/rifles Oromos defend a bit better but i doubt it's significant. I'm not against a musket/pike/trebs stack, this can work if you build enough (significantly more than rifles cannon), i don't think the Oromo promos add much.

I could be wrong though, i'm not a specialist on unit promotions.

Oromos make perfect stack defenders. I've never used them offensively, however.

SnowlyWhite: They haven't met yet but they have different religions. WK will not dislike Nappy since Nappy is in HR but Nappy might be less friendly toward WK so one can hope. HC and Joao can't be bribed to attack Nappy though Nappy will attack Joao if he's suitably bribed (more than I could offer right now had I wanted to).

Click to expand...

wk has caste as fav. civic. Normally, both nappy and hc should be annoyed with wk from the start - founder of a diff. religion + warmonger respect. On marathon I'm sure one of them(wk probably on hc, hc and nappy on wk) would be declare till industrial; but that here could as well mean modern era.

If hc and wk keep each other in check, probably by taking nappy out(eventually by bribing him to war wk before, if he won't be wheoohrn by then) you should win. Lizzy has too little land to matter.

tech wise I don't have an idea as I don't really have the feeling how many turns you need to enjoy a tech superiority in order to win a war on this speed/level.

Round 5, 760 AD - 1250 AD:

You're right about WK's favourite civic being CS SnowlyWhite, a civic I also shared with him, for some time. I started off the round by making the proposed trade.



I decided to pursue Gunpowder as that would be necessary regardless of which units I wanted for the upcoming rennaisance war with Nappy and it was a tech that noone else had gotten thus far.

780: Meet Liz.

840: GS #3 born in Lalibela. Now what to do with him? I could settle, bulb or start my first golden age. I decide to hold on to him for a few turns to look at the tech situation once I got Gunpowder, so I sent him to the capital in the meantime.
I switch to slavery and OR (only 1 turn anarchy) and build some missionaries as I want to focus on getting some infrastructure up, especially forges and universities to unlock Oxfords.

900: Gunpowder -> Engineering, aiming to get Chemistry. I trade Gunpowder to Joao and WK after deciding to bulb for part of PP with my scientist. The reason for this decision and the following trades is that WK doesn't have PP and Joao doesn't have Guilds, so I hope to do a second round of trading the following turn.





I trade cow to Liz for gold.

940: However it turns out Joao got Guilds the next turn and WK was almost finished researching PP on his own. I decide to get some scraps for it at least once he has some money (he had around 130 here).



1000: Engineering -> Chemistry.

1020: SOL BIDL (HC). He is so happy about this that he decides to be magnanimous.



1050: WK wins circumnavigation race. I start on Oxford in Aksum after finally getting the last required university whipped. I start whipping trebuchets in Libyan and putting the overflow into the Globe Theater. Since I'm in HR I can whip as often as I like as the GT will cancel out all the anger once it's done.
I finish the Heroic Epic in Yeha and start producing trebs there the ordinary way.

1080: Chemistry -> Nationalism. Put a turn into nat to trade for it.
Kremlin BIDL (HC).
I do some more tech trading.



1090: I trade for Nat with Liz despite her being Nappy's worst enemy. No demerits are earned however.



I start researching Replaceable Parts to continue trading around Chemistry. I've decided at this point that I can push for Riflemen and hopefully get a tech jump on Nappy who is a bit backwards and seems to be pursuing non-military techs strangely enough.

1110: Nappy steals banking from me, his borders also expand enough that we now share at least 8 land tiles, making me eligible for additional DOW checks every turn since he's only pleased with me. Still, delaying that possibility until this late date might be what kept me alive so long.
I trade for RP with WK, earning some demerits from HC who falls from friendly to pleased since he's also switched from his favourite civic HR to US.



I start researching Steel.

1120: More trading.



After getting forges, universities, theatres and barracks up in my cities I concentrate more on growth and getting harbors.

1140: Joao gets a free golden age from the sports league events.

1180: Joao loses iron in culture war but no worries I sell it at a discount.



These deals always feels borderline exploit to me. Are they reasonable from the AIs point of view? Not that I'm against exploiting the AI mind, but it could always be patched I guess. Well at least he can build cannons now so I guess it's not useless.

1180: GP #4, a great artist, is born in Lalibela. I actually could have gotten him 2-3 turns earlier as all I wanted was any GP to start a golden age. I was playing a bit on autopilot in regards to this though as I usually avoid great artists like the plague and thus didn't hire all the specialists I could being out of caste system. I start a golden age. I successfully beg Liz for 40 gold after having been rejected from various leaders a couple of times.
I switch to free market and theocracy.

1190: Finish Oxford in Aksum around this time.

1210: Steel -> Rifling. WK has it but wont trade and I want it to start drafting the best units I can get.
I trade with Liz then sign OB with her now that she's not on anyones hit list (diplomacy changing back and forth a bit) and I get Astro for trade routes. It didn't cost me much to delay Astronomy this long as most AIs were in Mercantilism anyhow (most significantly WK).



I trade with WK and find 3 sources of Oil within my borders.



I discover Nappy is WHEOOHRN, could it be me or is it someone else? I'm eligible for a big-scalde land war at least with the new borders.

1230: I didn't note the date for when I met SB but it was really late, so late that I built a caravel and sent it to get it done myself.
Our first interaction is his demand to give him Astronomy. I accept and he's moved from Annoyed to Cautious.

1250: I get Rifling and decide to end the round. First a trade with SB though.



He already has a fair bit of Sci Meth.
I'm thinking of starting the next round by switching to Nationhood and begin the drafting, hopefully I can finally get the GT done soon in Libyan. I never built any Oromos after deciding to shoot for Rifling as I wanted infrastructure and then put priorities on siege and spy units.

Map shots:



Only musketeers and older units here so far.







I've put research to Military Tradition with my eyes on unlocking Cavalry for fast and powerful reinforcements (until Nappy gets rifling). Slider is set to 0% for a turn though to get gold to upgrade my remaining trebs to cannons.

Here's the tech tree:



And the tech situation:



I've avoided trading with Nappy and he's a little backwards being two techs from rifling and cannons and three from grenadiers. He's got physics though for airships.

Relations, WK and SB are the ones disliked by my continent, with Liz being more neutral. HC is furious at WK without actually having fought any wars.

Wow, HC 's advanced here. Doesn't matter, if you can take out Nap you're favorite to win the game.

It would be awesome if Nappy DOWs Joao before I'm ready to declare, I haven't found any SODs close to my own borders at least.

How much of your army have you already built and how long will it take for you to get ready? This is a pretty great oppertunity with Napoleon's tech tree and you don't want to lose it.

I have around 10 cannons/trebs (to be upgraded) and 8 spies to take down two cities with EPs. The riflemen will have to be drafted.
I hope to take the two westernmost cities before Nappy gets rifling, more than that would just be gravy but hopefully I can save up on some cannons by using my spies and have the cannons ready when he reaches tech parity.

Rifles make your task a bit harder,the war'll be slower and you'll need to bring in more reinforcements. They're defence units though so not very threatening, cavs can be a nuisance, they die to rifles but you have to be very alert during the war where his cavs are. Cannons are more scary but in my experience it's no problem if the enemy is already weakened since he won't be able to build a good stack of them.

Personally i don't use spies if i have cannons unless i also have a mounted division that can deal out some heavy starting blows.

I've started on round 6 and so far it's looking good. The spies are mostly to use up the points I've been storing up since the start of the game (all on Nappy as soon as I remembered to delegate points, it was quickly evident that Nappy would be the most likely future enemy). By placing a bunch of spies in the first two cities ahead of time I can avoid casualties in the initial assault and immediately move most of the stack forward against the next target. Extra spies at that point are great for scouting ahead to make sure there are no sneak attack behind the advancing sods and to determine defense strength of the next targets.

Round 6, 1250 AD - 1400 AD (15 turns):

A short round this time since I have to make some significant decisions and would like your advice on the subject. Also I hit the picture limit quickly.

The first order of bussiness was using the last turn of my golden age and switch to Nationhood to start the drafting.
Libyan was not quite ready until 2 turns or so later with the GT, then had to grow back to size 6, but I had enough happy people to fill the draft quota in the meanwhile.

1260: HC constructs Sid's Sushi.

1280: Nappy DOWs Joao! This would make my conquest both easier and more contested.
Joao asks me to join him in the war effort but unfortunately I'm not quite ready yet.

1300: Pentagon BIDL (HC). Lyons is captured by the Portugese, better hurry!

1310: Military Tradition -> Biology. I do some tech trades.



I wasn't sure about giving away a war tech that Nappy lacks to someone that is backwards enough to trade with him, but SB and Nappy don't like each other and I'm almost ready to attack so I go ahead with the trade. Once again SB screws me in terms of beaker exchange.



I glance at the tech screen before deciding what tech to pursue next and choose Biology hoping to trade for it with Liz.



1320: I feel ready to march on the beleaguered Nappy.



1330: I DOW Nappy and split my stacks into two groups of 9 rifles and 6 cannons each, marching on Chartres and Rheims.



1350: My plan to trade for Biology with Liz backfires as she gets MT on her own, but I capture Chartres easilly.



The city was guarded by 2 longbowmen and 2 musketeers. One of my riflemen was slightly wounded but otherwise my units didn't take a scratch after I had disabled the defenses with my spies. I immediately move a majority of the stack against Marseilles.

1360: I'm ready to attack Rheims.



Up to this point 3 of my 4 spies had been stumbled upon here but fortunately the last spy remaining is able to take down the defenses at 80% probability before I attack, once again losing no units.



Nappy has not only 2 enemies to contend with but also the massive culture output of HC which finally costs him his northernmost city of Phrygian.



I had a settler waiting in Gondar for hundreds of years, not wanting to extend my landborder with Nappy to 8 tiles or beyond until forced to. However Nappy ate the tile I had in mind when our borders finally were fully met.
After the fall of Chartres and Rheims the land once again reverted back to me however and the settler could finally get to work.



Notice how Nappy first supplied my wheat with irrigation then cut it off, sneaky bastard. I knew this was a risk when I discontinued my work on irrigating from Aksum but I wanted to work more cottages.

1370: HC spreads Sid's Sushi to Chartres which costs me money for no benefit as the city is in revolt. Well played HC. He continues to spam his corp to my cities throughout the round.

Marching on Marseilles I get some bad news. Joao is already there with a massive stack that the city can't possibly withstand with its motley crew of antiquated units.



1380: Or can it? It seems Joao only used his cannons to destroy the defences but didn't attack the city for some strange reason. I check our stacks.



Five defenders against my 5 rifles and 1 chariot. That should be possible. I lose the first cannon but the second successfully retreats and all my riflemen are victorious, snatching the city away from Joao at the last moment. This would not have been possible without the rapid march from Chartres that my use of spies enabled. Otoh I would never have used the spies if it weren't for the fact that you need to put EPs on someone.



Broadway BIDL (HC). sigh

1390: Biology -> Medicine. I decide to pursue Medicine hoping to trade it around. It's not normally all that popular and HC who is the only one who's got it thus far has already constructed SS which might discourage the rest further. I'm growing a bit concerned about my low tech rate however, only 400-500 beakers at break even which is ok for renaissance but needs to be improved moving into the industrial age.

Another city falls to Joao.



1400: I discover Wang Kon is WHEOOHRN. He and HC are worst enemies but his landlocked neighbour SB is really weak and might be a more tempting target.

My southern rifles have reached Paris and take it without bothering with much bombardment.





I decided to end the round here. Nappy only has the two cities visible in the last picture left. If the war continues both cities will likely fall in two turns. Orleans to Joao and Tours to me. Possibly Joao will need 3 turns but that would be a gamble.
I have an opportunity to make Nappy a vassal instead however.



If I do this, I deny myself a city and I deny Joao a city. Nappy continues to be the worst enemy of some of the civs, possibly drawing some heat from me but I'll take a dip in relations, not enough to matter on my own continent but noticeable vs the other continent. My own citizens get another happy face from having a vassal.
Paris will be heavilly assailed by french culture but I can demand every resource Nappy's got.
I can also trade him for Physics and Corporation (when I'm ready to abandon the GLH) since he's technologically backwards.
So which is best?

Here is the tech situation and demographics:





How do I stop HC? He's becoming a total monster in this game. I have 14 cities but he has 13 and they are more developed on top of all his bonuses and running US FS and EM. Two of my cities will also have problems with culture.
Do I push the war against Joao somehow with State Property and workshop sprawl (he's at tech parity and has big stacks but if I go all out I think I could take him) or do I go for emancipation and cottage spam? I don't know if I can recover in time to best HC regardless of which path I take here.
What about the Internet and the UN? It seems unlikely at this point that I could get either before HC does but maybe a beeline is still worth a shot.

Good thing Joao declared on Napoleon else you'd probably be facing HC in a war right now. HC can attack at pleased and you've dropped to this while Napoleon is friendly to HC and vice versa. However, accepting Napoloen as a vassal state would mean declaring on Joao as well and they're friendly so you're covered. I don't know if you considered this when attacking, but if not it's good to keep in mind for other games. Perhaps you dropped to pleased just recently? When did you get the -2 trading with enemies?

I don't think you'll be able to trade with him after capitulating. WFYABTA exists in a master-vassal relationship as well and the way you've been trading I'm going to assume you've reached his cap. If you take him out you can squeeze in another city by the coastal fish too.

Rusten: I actually saved then accepted Napoleon's surrender since you need to ask to see if he'll accept and he and Joao made peace and Nappy then immediately went back to pleased with me and was willing to tech trade.
I guess that could be considered cheating but oh well, I wish there was another way to check for possible peace/capitualtion treaties as you always demand the maximum amount then work your way backwards, getting the most out of it anyhow. That does nothing to help you present a case online for others to consider though unless you save first then go back, like I did. I knew he'd be willing to trade in any case as he was before the war started and I hadn't made any trades since then (see 1310 screenshot of techs).

HC got those demerits after I repeatedly traded with WK between 1100-1200 AD roughly, but he didn't fall to pleased until he switched out of HR for US.

If you accept the vassalization none of the people you have in wyftba will be willing to trade with you(as they are not friendly with your team). Also it is likely that some people might want to attack nappy, giving more possibility of attacking you...