[CIV4] Replay #9 - Beating Deity

I don't know why you didn't complete the video series (lack of interest?), but you should've completed it. I enjoyed the first 3 parts. Great gameplay, thought process, and production quality to top it all of!

JSS said:

I don't know why you didn't complete the video series (lack of interest?), but you should've completed it. I enjoyed the first 3 parts. Great gameplay, thought process, and production quality to top it all of!

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It wasn't lack of interest, I just rage-deleted all video material after having read some comments, which weren't really that nice. I think I also wrote a longer explanation on Page 2.

Ok, now I get the idea. Nonetheless, good job with the game. I can see that a great number of things went just right for you in this. I gathered a lot of eye-opening things that help my game from the 3 videos.

JSS said:

Ok, now I get the idea. Nonetheless, good job with the game. I can see that a great number of things went just right for you in this. I gathered a lot of eye-opening things that help my game from the 3 videos.

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I hope you've noticed, that I made a complete writeup of the rest of this round .

Yes, I did take notice of that, It's quite a complete writeup indeed. Something to read tomorrow at work when nobody's watching.

Seraiel said:

It wasn't lack of interest, I just rage-deleted all video material after having read some comments, which weren't really that nice. I think I also wrote a longer explanation on Page 2.

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Very unfortunate. I honestly have no idea why those comments were made. I am an American and only speak English (sadly), and I have absolutely no problem understanding what you are saying, and I listen and watch with the music on as well!

Your grammar is very good for not speaking English as your first language! In all honesty, your grammar is probably better than a good chunk of Americans. I should also add that I enjoy the music in your video. I wish I had your playlists to listen to while I play myself. The music is very calming which surprisingly can go a long way in making the game more enjoyable and less stressful, because it encourages one to slow down and think through decisions. Better decisions= better outcomes= more enjoyment.

Your commentary has greatly helped my first couple attempts on deity. I have watched the first two videos and have questions about diplomacy and trade.

In my first attempt at deity, I had a lot of requests from people to join them in war and thus earned a lot of negative relations, which led to DoW on me (darn you Brennus!). I also made some mistakes that allowed non-capitol cities to grow a little too big, size 3,4, and even 5 at times.

1. How do I prevent AIs from trying to drag me into wars I do not want? Would keeping the new cities at size 1-2, maybe 3 prevent AI's from asking for assistance in war?

2. How do you balance requests from AIs asking for techs and when they ask you to break off trade with other AIs?

Maybe these questions are answered in video 3. I still have a while to go before I reach 1AD. I am about a year behind on this thread, so I may start a new one if I don't get replies. Regardless, the information and teaching in this replay have been very valuable.

Thank you all for your contributions!

Kesto11 said:

Very unfortunate. I honestly have no idea why those comments were made. I am an American and only speak English (sadly), and I have absolutely no problem understanding what you are saying, and I listen and watch with the music on as well!

Your grammar is very good for not speaking English as your first language! In all honesty, your grammar is probably better than a good chunk of Americans. I should also add that I enjoy the music in your video. I wish I had your playlists to listen to while I play myself. The music is very calming which surprisingly can go a long way in making the game more enjoyable and less stressful, because it encourages one to slow down and think through decisions. Better decisions= better outcomes= more enjoyment.

Your commentary has greatly helped my first couple attempts on deity. I have watched the first two videos and have questions about diplomacy and trade.

In my first attempt at deity, I had a lot of requests from people to join them in war and thus earned a lot of negative relations, which led to DoW on me (darn you Brennus!). I also made some mistakes that allowed non-capitol cities to grow a little too big, size 3,4, and even 5 at times.

1. How do I prevent AIs from trying to drag me into wars I do not want? Would keeping the new cities at size 1-2, maybe 3 prevent AI's from asking for assistance in war?

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1. You can i. e. beg the AIs and by that get a 10T lasting peace-treaty. AIs usually ask in the first few turns of a war to join them, if one has a peace-treaty joining is impossible so they don't ask ^^ .

2. The size of cities has nothing to do with AIs asking you to join their wars. Also size 3, 4 or 5 is not too big.

2. How do you balance requests from AIs asking for techs and when they ask you to break off trade with other AIs?

Maybe these questions are answered in video 3. I still have a while to go before I reach 1AD. I am about a year behind on this thread, so I may start a new one if I don't get replies. Regardless, the information and teaching in this replay have been very valuable.

Thank you all for your contributions!

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I decide such things situational. If a neighbouring AI asks, it doesn't get the tech, I conquer my neighbours early, they shall not get an advantage. If I don't need to conquer anymore how, everybody can have every tech. If an AI is far away and wants to have a tech, fine, then I can get it to friendly more easily. When you have no disadvantage, give the techs away, otherwise evaluate the advantage against the disadvantage.

Seraiel said:

1. You can i. e. beg the AIs and by that get a 10T lasting peace-treaty. AIs usually ask in the first few turns of a war to join them, if one has a peace-treaty joining is impossible so they don't ask ^^ .

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Thanks! Did not know about that. I am currently reading through G-Major 137 and a little of the most recent one, as well as some of the Civ Illustrated articles. There is a whole lot of information out there scattered in a lot of spots. I am pretty sure I spend more time reading than playing and it helps my gameplay a lot.

I currently play Monarch/Emperor normally and use World Builder to throw in a resource like stone if I want to start with it rather than keep regenerating maps manually. I downloaded the Map Finder before I realized I needed to play with the HoF mod for it to activate, and I like to play with a custom civ I made. It's a little OP, but then there's the Incas. What I really need to do is stop reloading saves when things go poorly.

I don't have the time to play competitively, but do thoroughly enjoy the strategy and challenge of this game and appreciate the sharing of expertise from those that have more or less mastered the game.

Hopefully at some point there could be a summarized guide that most of you top players can agree as sound strategy, since there are so many people saying so many different things. For instance a few things I am trying to find general conclusions for:

1. Worker stealing: Should we do this virtually every game maybe except when going for religious victory?

2. Opening build order: I saw on replay #9 that you went worker > worker before going to warrior and stole a worker later. Is warrior > worker better if going for a fast steal when starting with a scout? Gotta improve tiles, but when is it best to pass on that temporarily to nab a free worker or two? I saw warrior first as a good potential play in G-major 137 in 700 AD space race. Congrats by the way on beating that date.

3. Early/Rush Warfare: When to peacefully and not-so-peacefully REX? A lot of this depends on game speed, and I mostly play on Epic or Marathon because the opening few thousand years are so crucial, and having more opportunities to conquer a neighbor or two is often optimal. Stealing wonders is efficient. Plus, we all love a little (or a lot of) war mongering.

4. Teching: What techs to get and which to let the AI get and trade. I understand tech path greatly varies depending on game type and situation, but a general list of what techs the AI loves to research and which it avoids would be great. Also, which techs should a player hesitate to trade, such as Monarchy? Which techs are best to Oracle? CoL, CS, MC? Seems that this choice is mostly a judgement call unique to the specific game being played.

5. Economy tips: I saw the one about putting 1 hammer into a warrior and whipping to generate some gold. What other tips are there out there to round up some good when needed?

Edit: 6. Siege Weapon promotions. I have heard a lot of differing opinions over what to give them. CR or go for collateral damage? Does this change between Catas/Trebs/Cannon?

Up until the past week or so, I thought it was best to keep that research slider at 100% as much as possible and therefore limit expansion to what is sustainable. But the binary research method has opened my eyes to much more efficient teching, trading, and expansion. Also, keeping cities smaller besides the few powerhouses and whipping has really opened my game up.

1. Worker stealing is very powerful. It needs to be evaluated, whether stealing Workers has the greater benefit (common situation) or whether the diplomatic relations towards a certain civ are more important. A tech-partner can be very valuable, having a stronger empire onesself however is too. Someone wrote "Worker stealing changes the game" . I've gone over to trying to steal Workers but only if I'm sure that I can steal safe and that the diplomatic relations aren't ones that I want or need.

2. GM-137 was on Marathon and in HoF it's a lot about getting the greatest benefit at the lowest cost. Mathematically building a Warrior and stealing a Worker makes perfect sense. Worker first is the peaceful approach that gets advised in S&T, it's a safe approach on how to win civ. When playing competetively it's about winning faster than an opponent, if playing multiple maps is no problem, then Warrior -> steal Worker is better, if winning a certain map safe at all cost is required, then building a Worker onesself is the right approach because it comes with no risk.

3. Expansion through war is simply more powerful in civ, because units and Settlers aren't perfectly balanced. Peaceful expansion is a lot stronger than many think, but cities can be conquered for way lower costs than they can be self-built.

4. Best tech to oracle I know is Civil Service, but depending on the difficulty level and the map Currency sometimes even can be better and it's a lot simpler to oracle Currency than Civil Service. Metal Casting is the best choice when wanting to trade a lot. Oracling CoL is a very good approach that doesn't shine well under the light that Oracling Currency is possible, but it's the easiest approach when Oracle makes sense at all. Oracle Construction imo. is weak, empire's are not ready for an Elepult rush so early so oracling Currency and then self-teching Construction with the one can trade for is better.
Techs a player should research imo. are Currency, CoL, Civil Service, Paper, Education so basically a straight beeline of economical techs that leads to Liberalism or further. Techs the AIs like to research are basically all others so Monarchy, Calendar, Construction (hard to trade for because unlocking many things, which is why self-teching sometimes makes sense) , the AIs go for Aesthetics late usually, Metal Casting seems pure chance to me, sometimes the AIs research it early but most often they research Calendar, Construction and Monarchy first, AIs like Feudalism, Machinery, Engineering, Philosophy is similar to CoL, the AIs love it when they can be first but trading for it is not easy so self-teching might be required, past that point I didn't record what the AIs like to research because I usually win the game then.
The last is very harshly dependant on difficulty, the lower the difficulty the more techs a player needs to self-tech, this completely changes the rules. If self-teching i. e. very important, then i. e. teching Banking early is very powerful because Mercantilism with REP is a huge economical boost.

5. I wrote a guide on the economy, you find it in my signature.

Wanting to keep the research slider at 100% is a common mistake of players in the beginning imo. . A larger empire also generates a larger base sum and a lower-slider with a higher base-sum can still lead towards the same sum while having more production and a higher research potential. It's right, smaller empire initially research faster but the gain in production by having a larger empire is more important. Cities easily can sustain themselves at 0% through TRs, so then the only real cost of a city is the rise in maintenance through number of cities. Cost through number of cities is capped though so there comes a point at which each city doesn't generate an additional drain because of raising the maintenance of all other cities aswell. Cities then even boost the economy of an empire while giving extra and and that at size 1 already.

I wanted to post these two screens to help with understanding how easily size 1 cities sustain themselves:



That city is almost a worst case scenario. Great distance from palace, 0 , still it generates almost as much as it costs.



This city is only very slightly better, it's only a little closer to the palace and works a FP giving 1 . This is already enough for the city to create a benefit.



Showing a city in medium to close distance from the palace. It easily generates a mentionable benefit because of working a 3 coastal tile and because of the extra TRs from GLH. As seen on screen #2 neither the GLH nor extra is needed when a city is close enough to the Palace. If the distance is greater a single Cottage can make a city already self-sustainable at 0%.

The problem is those cities have more costs than that.
Every other city in your empire gets an increase due to total # of cities cost.
Plus you have Civic Upkeep increases.

I've give you GLH + coastal cities pay for themselves though.

WastinTime said:

The problem is those cities have more costs than that.
Every other city in your empire gets an increase due to total # of cities cost.
Plus you have Civic Upkeep increases.

I've give you GLH + coastal cities pay for themselves though.

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The cost from # of cities is capped afaik why there's the "plateau" as T-Hawk called it. Once a certain number of cities gets surpassed each new city only adds its own cost but doesn't increase the cost of the other cities.

Civic upkeep is minimal.

And GLH + coastal cities are better, they make profit.

The cost from # of cities is capped afaik why there's the "plateau" as T-Hawk called it

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Is there a link or any confirmation for this? I set up a random test game on a Standard map and after 60 cities every new city still added a substantial amount to # of cities maintenance.

I can't remember ANY game in which I ever had so many cities. So what I'm saying is if there is a plateau it doesn't seem it would ever apply to a regular game. Once again, confirmation would be nice either way.

Source: http://www.dos486.com/civ4/sushi/page2.shtml

cseanny said:

Is there a link or any confirmation for this? I set up a random test game on a Standard map and after 60 cities every new city still added a substantial amount to # of cities maintenance.

I can't remember ANY game in which I ever had so many cities. So what I'm saying is if there is a plateau it doesn't seem it would ever apply to a regular game. Once again, confirmation would be nice either way.

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Were you looking in the financial advisor or in the city screen? The amount in the financial advisor will always go up, at least by the cost of the individual city you just added. But Seraiel and WastinTime were talking about the number of cities cost for all other cities. In the city screen you can see a breakdown of city upkeep costs by hovering above it (in Buffy), this shows you how much comes from # of cities. That amount only increases to a certain level, then stays there no matter how many cities you add. On standard immortal max cost should be 7 gold/city.

As elite says, the plateau is for individual cities. The max is dependent on difficulty. 8 per city on Deity, and 7 on Immortal. Takes a long while to get that many cities though.

There are other costs too of course, like extra civic costs. It's a better gauge of the actual costs to look at the finances before and after settling a new city. The maintenance costs of the newest city isn't enough, as the costs will go up slightly in all other cities as well (plus civic costs).

With the GLH just about any coastal city will make a profit, but internal cities may not. But naturally there are other considerations than just costs as well (this game is never straight forward), such as resources and good land.

Fantastic Video/Writeup, Seraiel!