The Community Deity Game #15 - American

Cool map with just a disgusting amount of barbarians lol

Man this map is hard but I am bad at liberty.

I got to a point when I couldn't continue with the game, but due to technical problems, not due to difficulty.

For those who are struggling with Barbs, I suggest using 2-3 units to clear a camp, then leaving a unit in that area as a sentry. Barb camps can't spawn where you have vision.

In my experience, most people don't build enough units. Make a Warrior after every other item in your build queue and send them out, and they'll soon be great Barb killers.

Echoing what consentient said - I was always surprised on this map how camps would spawn so close to my cities. Find some hills that give you some LOS so your Workers and TR can do their thing in peace. I am a big fan of Scouting I and II.

I hate how the warrior line gets something of a nerf when upgraded to the UU. So I did extra scouts and had little barb trouble. They get xp quick and a scout with +2 sight (because of the UA) can unfog as many as 90 (!) hexes. Plus I ended up with four scarchers, so kept building scouts for as long as I could.

My first UU (born with Drill III) to level up took March and then I assigned him to camp clearing for Golden Age points for the rest of the game. It is not a bad map script for America.

How does the Warrior line get a nerf???

You build Warriors, collect Shock Promotions (great on this map) and upgrade them all the way into the UU, whereupon they get Drill I, No Terrain Penalty and Points for GA.

What's nerfed about that? I don't get it.

Just struggling to find the balance between fast expansion, buildings, scouting, camp clearing and defending cities.
Hard to tell if the best use of a composite bowman is staying near the capital just in case or if it's going around the map scouting CS, getting quests, ruins and clearing camps. Of course ideal I'd just have more units but then you fall behind in other things etc. etc.

Still learning, still learning. I can't say I'm struggling with the map or anything, just feeling like I'm not where I could optimally be, though I never played beyond turn 140 so I might just be quitting pointlessly early

consentient said:

How does the Warrior line get a nerf?

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It is something of a nerf because for your UU born in cities with an Armory, almost no one would pick Shock II / Drill I. For new units, most players will pick Drill III or Drill I w/ Cover II. But neither of those is an option for Warriors upgraded into the UU (when their xp comes from barbs).

What's your goal, poxpower? If you want to win Domination, pick a unit you want to sweep with, and then head for that tech as fast as you can, while building units to protect yourself, kill barbs and do a ton of quests. Since you can build Warriors from the start, and they can grow into a nice UU that combines well with Cannons and later with Artillery, I'd go with those. The Warrior line needs backup to make sweeping easier, but it's good all the way through to Infantry. I can't tell you how powerful Infantry are with terrain promotions, Blitz and March.

beetle said:

It is something of a nerf because for your UU born in cities with an Armory, almost no one would pick Shock II / Drill I. For new units, most players will pick Drill III or Drill I w/ Cover II. But neither of those is an option for Warriors upgraded into the UU (if all their xp comes from barbs).

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I wouldn't have Minutemen born in the Renaissance, end of. I'd have them born in the Ancient Era and upgrade them through. And going for Cover on them has always seen like a waste to me. I'd have Trebs 'born' in Armory cities on their way to become Canons, though.

Just trying to get points according to the map description. So liberty into diplomatic victory.
Forcing myself to make 7-8 cities and see where that goes.

Aight this is probably the one I'll just keep playing through no matter what. This is the turn after I used GE to rush National College. I now realize that a national college in a 5-6 pop capital is PRETTY USELESS lol. But otherwise it would have taken 40 turns to build so..yeah...

@poxpower:

I have some constructive criticism for you:

What would you give up building/buying to get units and to spend gold on city-states?

Turn 204.

@Poxpower:
That screen shot shows a few problems with your game and if you won't mind, I'll point them out.

Is there any reason why you haven't explore the map especially the west side on turn 200? If you find that scouts won't do it, consider getting mounted units for exploring. I think at that point in my game, I've allied all CS, as I like Consentient absolutely love CS and would coup or throw gold at them over buying buildings.

I think spending 15 turns building Oxford is a waste of hammer and there are better buildings to build. You can consider saving it for later tech when you have the hammer. Same as spending 15 turns on windmill? Surely there are better things to build. I would've rush bought hydro plants in this game for sure. There are literally very low production and it will take too long to get built. The other problem is your pop size for some cities is pretty low for turn 200. You probably settled them too late, but if you did that you have to be willing to spend gold to rush buildings especially food buildings such as hospitals etc. Also consider taking fertilizer early. As a rule of thumb I usually don't bother building things that take longer than 12 turns unless it's a wonder that is low priority. There usually is something better to build or it's possible to reassign population to do them quicker. Also consider allying all culture CS as soon as you're able to and please keep them allied. It helps a ton to increase your culture to defend against possible AI tourism. Also since you mentioned you just won WF, why did you not have all culture CS? Also I believe piety doesn't decrease cost for faith buying science buildings, so that is wasted. I also think that some of your cities are settled in spots that have literally no hammers. You have to really consider settling for hammers with liberty on this map. You can settle on flat land next to rivers, but have to be within 3 hex of a hill that you will have to buy. If there is no hill or forests, don't bother settling there as you will have to buy too many things to get it up to be worth it.

@poxpower: I didn't have to spend any gold to get alliances with all the CS because they had a million barb camp quests. It seems the way you're looking at it is "what should I not build (from my usual build queue) in order to build units". Play should be adapted to the map. With a map like this, which is very big, and the AIs are not so tempted to go to war with each other, and there are loads of barbarians, and pretty crap terrain for yourself, getting an early NC should not be your priority.

Like I said, I built a Warrior after every other thing.

So Scout, Scout, Scout, Monument, Warrior, Granary, Warrior, Archer, Warrior, Archer, Warrior, Settler, Warrior, Settler, Warrior.

Just like that. Finding the CS gives you gold and more importantly a chance to get allies. I finished Liberty on this map faster than in any other game, and took really cool spare policies in Tradition, Patronage, etc.

Had I been able to continue, I was making excellent timing towards Gunpowder and Chemistry and had built a war road down to the SW opponents. If your aim is to go for DiploV, you're still gonna want those CS alliances. So do the barb quests, protect them and yourself properly, and don't worry about an early NC.

Sclb said:

@Poxpower:
stuffs

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West side has a bottleneck where you need to go all the way to the northwest, then down to the south. Yes I should have it scouted by now, but I sent all my scouts directly west and they hit the water so now they have to go all the way back up. Also they can't embark lol I didn't research optics until after radio..yeah.. whoops.

This is the first time I play liberty / piety on Deity so I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm not rush-buying any buildings for now until I get all CS as allies, but maybe buying 2-3 hydro plants would be worth it, I dunno.
That oxford was 25 turns lol. So I started it in a crap city so that I could pop it whenever I want later on. I mean in the end it is worth basically free plastics or globalization or whatever, how bad can it be? Get plastics 8-9 turns sooner and rush buy a bunch of labs with faith? I dunno, didn't seem THAT terrible.


Arabia just reflipped one of the cultured CS and is now randomly like 130 influence ahead so that's why I don't have that one. I got it with a coup, but then arabia basically dumped 2000+ gold on it the next turn...
I got all cultured first, then got some mercantile as needed and then faith ones.

As for settling, I had no idea. All I did was just rush 9 cities as fast as I possibly could. My priority was settling on luxuries, not hammers. I chopped most forest to speed up buildings. Again no idea what I'm doing lol I never play like this.

Haven't gotten the piety discount policy yet, if it doesn't work then I guess I won't get it.

poxpower said:

That oxford was 25 turns lol. So I started it in a crap city so that I could pop it whenever I want later on. I mean in the end it is worth basically free plastics or globalization or whatever, how bad can it be? Get plastics 8-9 turns sooner and rush buy a bunch of labs with faith? I dunno, didn't seem THAT terrible.

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It's not about being good or bad in and of itself but WHEN and WHERE you build it.

Part of making the best decisions is choosing the build the right thing at the right time in the right place.

Questions that feed into that:

- is this building/wonder going to make an immediate impact?
- should I really have built it earlier?
- If I build it now, will I finish it in time for it to make the right impact?
- Is there a chance someone else might build it first (with world wonders?)
- Am I building it in the right city?
- Is this a good use of the hammers I have right now?


And so on...

So for example, rather than build Oxford in your worst city and have it take 25 turns, hwy not build 2 buildings in that time in that city, and then build Oxford in your capital 20 turns later, where it will take 5 turns, or whatever?

And even before Oxford, if you've gone Liberty, it's a good idea to go to Metal Casting before Education, so that those smaller cities can build Universities in less than 10 turns each once Workshops are up. Going Education first would mean having to build Universities in 15-25 turns and then Workshops. That's clearly the wrong way round.

If you want to improve your play, I recommend watching some videos, by say Acken, MadDjinn, Moriarte, etc. and watching how they do things.

Consentient, that's a crapload of units you built, how fast were you settling cities? You also skipped religion?
Or were you able to buy 3-4 settlers from finding city-states and clearing camps / ruins? It does seem like you were going for war more than me though. Would you still have built that many units if you weren't planning to war?

edit: Yeah I went metal casting before education to get workshops. I did watch most of Acken's videos, but I will check out other people's. As for oxford, my capital had better things to build. That's always the problem, the capital has the most production and can build all the good buildings and wonders faster, so I just queued oxford in a crap city that would otherwise be making a 20 turn stock exchange anyway.