The Deity Challenge Line-up #40 - Korea

zxcvbob said:

I'm about 150 turn in. This is my first time to play at deity. I moved my settler to the riverside hill next to the mountain. Settled a 2nd city to the south east on a coastal river tile. Shoshone forward-settled on me and claimed all the available land to the north and to the east, including tiles that should be workable for me. I need to goto war with them and raze a few cities, but I'm 8 techs behind and and about 1/4 the military of anybody else. I have lots of research agreements, trade routes, the Rationalism opener, and my spy is busy stealing techs, but I'm staying way behind. I did build a couple of good wonders; ToA and Hanging Gardens. I didn't expect to get HG, I was just building it because I couldn't afford the maintenance GPT on anything else that I could build at the time.

I planted my GE for the 2 beakers per turn because I'll probably never catch up enough to have a chance at another wonder.

I don't think I'm going to finish this one. I'm doing okay-ish, but there is no path to victory. I need to go back to playing Emperor-level where I belong.

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If you can tech to Scientific Theory, build or buy Public Schools, and then race to finish Electricity as soon as possible, while timing the building of Oxford University so that you finish on the turn you finish Electricity, and choose Radio as your free tech, then go to Fertiliser, then Plastics, you will find that you leapfrog the AI in terms of tech and will take a lategame lead. From there, you can open Freedom and follow ACken's guide for a Freedom Science victory.

Hell, I've gotten Science victories with no wonders and no rationalism. It's just a matter of good diplomacy and empire management.

Don't give up yet. In Deity, you're always coming from behind. Be like the hare. Steady wins the race.

Pretty sure you meant the turtle wins the race.

If you can tech to Scientific Theory, build or buy Public Schools, and then race to finish Electricity as soon as possible, while timing the building of Oxford University so that you finish on the turn you finish Electricity, and choose Radio as your free tech, then go to Fertiliser, then Plastics, you will find that you leapfrog the AI in terms of tech and will take a lategame lead. From there, you can open Freedom and follow ACken's guide for a Freedom Science victory.

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That's how I usually play just about any game; any victory condition, unless I want to Oxford dynamite and go on a rampage just to mix it up.

I've had to spend more time this game in the bottom half of the tech tree just so I could get Hwachas to defend myself -- and then I stole gunpowder because it was the most expensive tech I could grab. I don't even have universities yet. I think I might be building them right now... I don't remember, that was late last night.

I'm also lagging way behind everybody in culture. I did get a religion, but only my capital is following it. Busan is a different religion because Catherine converted my cities the turn before I got my Great Prophet and Seoul doesn't exert enough pressure to convert it back.

As soon as I got a couple of Hwachas and put them on hills with a longsword fortified in front, Pocatello stopped being hostile and wanted a declaration of friendship (even tho' he has muskets and cannons, he doesn't see me as defenseless anymore -- I think that's what happened)

Shaka hates me (because I'm weak) and is supposedly marching an army towards me, but he can't get to me w/o going through the Aztecs and/or Russia first, and they both hate him. Everybody hates Shaka, that's the basis for some of our friendships.

Maybe I'll play another 50 turns or so and reevaluate.

Sclb said:

Pretty sure you meant the turtle wins the race.

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Doh! Yeah, I did.

beetle said:

I would like to see a screen shot, but you have described the vast majority of my Deity games at T150. They are a struggle, but I mostly go onto win. Hang in there!

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Not sure how to upload a screen shot. Let's try a link to it at Steam:

http://images.akamai.steamuserconte...997/7E8483995246503C78E1C01049FC20D0F989366C/

I played a little while after uploading that. It's now turn 184 and my science is 217 per turn and I've caught up a little. I'm almost finished researching Scientific Theory and have enough gold to buy a public school in Seoul. Still way behind in every possible category.

I'm about to lose my religion; Russia's religion is exerting more pressure on Seoul than its own internal pressure. Don't have enough faith to buy a missionary or inquisitor. Maybe I should have used my 2nd prophet to spread religion to Busan and a couple of Shoshone cities instead of enhancing. (I thought Sacred Texts would take care of it)

217 science for T184 is below atrocious, I'm sorry. In the last game I tried to play before my computer started screwing up, I had 450 science at that time, and I was really worried. I also hadn't put a single policy in Rationalism.

A good game has 750+ BPT at T184.

Upload the save file and someone (maybe me if I have a chance) can help tell you what you need to be doing differently.

zxcvbob said:

Not sure how to upload a screen shot. Let's try a link to it at Steam:
http://images.akamai.steamuserconte...997/7E8483995246503C78E1C01049FC20D0F989366C/

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I am sorry I gave you false encouragement. That looks terrible. You (and I) cannot win with only one weak expo. You need to go way back and get three expos out early. Some people play OCC for the lultz, but it's because they need the extra challenge.

I'm about to lose my religion; Russia's religion is exerting more pressure on Seoul than its own internal pressure. Don't have enough faith to buy a missionary or inquisitor. Maybe I should have used my 2nd prophet to spread religion to Busan and a couple of Shoshone cities instead of enhancing. (I thought Sacred Texts would take care of it)

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Religious Text will only do the job if you have four cities all within 10 hexes of each other. With four cities: each has 27 pressure, 108 pressure net. With two cities: each has 9 pressure from the one other city, 18 pressure net.

For your core cities, you never need an inquisitor and rarely need a missionary. Third GPr can be used to convert your cities back. But this game is toast and losing your religion is the least of it.

Gonna quit and start over. Can you tell if I did anything right?

I found lots of goody huts, but most were things like barbarian activity and crudely drawn map.

In the early game I was really strapped for gold and happiness, and that slowed my expansion until it was too late. (happiness and GPT may have dipped negative for a while when I settled Busan) I had lots of gems and not much else.

And I think I needed more workers.

Thanks.

Post the starting save file, and one from T75 and one from T184 and people can give advice.

consentient said:

217 science for T184 is below atrocious, I'm sorry. In the last game I tried to play before my computer started screwing up, I had 450 science at that time, and I was really worried. I also hadn't put a single policy in Rationalism.

A good game has 750+ BPT at T184.

Upload the save file and someone (maybe me if I have a chance) can help tell you what you need to be doing differently.

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If a merely 'good' game has 750+ beakers at T184, what would a 'great' or 'fantastic/OP' game have at T184?
I don't think very many of my peaceful DCL games have reached 'good' status.

@zxcvbob

One thing that clearly grabs my attention: why are there so many river tiles not irrigated? You should be working those tiles for food. Your cities are very very small, especially the capital.
Another thing, I noticed you have a lot of forests around. Chopping forests around cities is a good source for hammers early on, you can chop to get settlers faster (so you don't delay growth for too much), you can chop to get wonders faster, or NC, or everything really. Forests give you at max 20 hammers so they are very important early game, at this point (t150) they don't really give a lot. You start with a worker AND mining, that should be the first thing you do. Pre-chop (stop chopping when you are one turn away), the forests around you, and when you hit population 3 start working on settlers and finish chopping those forests. You can easily pull off a 4 city start very early (with all those forests around you have at least one free settler).

zxcvbob said:

Can you tell if I did anything right?

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You survived that long, so you must be doing something right! I am frequently wiped out by T50. Busan is a fine location. Your unit:city ratio looks good for peaceful play. I suspect that the biggest thing is needing to get the expos out sooner, even with the forward settling. I was initially tempted to open Liberty on that map (which would have been a fatal mistake for me). There is space, even if you miss LV and the great spot W.

That was one of the biggest adjustments I had to make with moving up from Immortal to Deity. Immortal I could get a nice early 3-city NC. With Deity I cannot usually afford to wait on my last expo -- because the space will go.

Blatc said:

If a merely 'good' game has 750+ beakers at T184, what would a 'great' or 'fantastic/OP' game have at T184?
I don't think very many of my peaceful DCL games have reached 'good' status.

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An approximate benchmark for my Korea games is 500ish beakers at turn 150, so that's not that far off

Blatc said:

If a merely 'good' game has 750+ beakers at T184, what would a 'great' or 'fantastic/OP' game have at T184?
I don't think very many of my peaceful DCL games have reached 'good' status.

Click to expand...

stormtrooper412 said:

An approximate benchmark for my Korea games is 500ish beakers at turn 150, so that's not that far off

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Yeah, by good I don't mean middling, I mean pretty darn good. I have had more, usually by conquest. With dirt this good, a starting tech, a worker, and the Korean UAs, 750 is achievable. Great or fantastic would be the games where I've conquered most of the known world including some massive cities given to me in peace deals where the population hasn't halved and I've annexed them.

The first save I have is turn 121 (I played that first 100 turns pretty fast.) I was *planning* to found 3 cities, but ran into happiness problems, and couldn't find a decent place with another unique luxury... And then Pocatello gobbled up everything to the east, and I didn't want to forward-settle on Russia.

Gonna start over, but not delete my last save either; I can come back and finish it later. (attached here in all its ignoble glory)

I probably should have settled 3 cities (maybe 4) right away whether I had the happiness to support them or not (can build coliseums and circuses to deal with that), and opened Aesthetics or Commerce instead of Honor -- the barbarians were a problem at first, but the AI's cleared the map of them pretty quickly. I also needed more workers as soon as they were reasonably safe from the barbs (that's why I have so many riverside tiles without farm, it takes 7 turns to improve a tile and I hadn't gotten to them yet)

consentient said:

217 science for T184 is below atrocious, I'm sorry. In the last game I tried to play before my computer started screwing up, I had 450 science at that time, and I was really worried. I also hadn't put a single policy in Rationalism.

A good game has 750+ BPT at T184.

Click to expand...

stormtrooper412 said:

An approximate benchmark for my Korea games is 500ish beakers at turn 150, so that's not that far off

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Olodune, who is a better player than you, consentient, and I combined, gets on average about 300 bpt on t150. Sometimes more, sometimes less: link, link, link.

I opened your save.

Observations (noted in the order that I noticed them)

Scouting. You should have the entire map scouted 100 turns ago. It’s a Pangaea, with plenty of space. You need to meet all the CS, find out as much as possible about the terrain and its features, and find all the ruins that no one else found.
You talked about not having room for other cities. The cities that surround you are size 9 at most, which means they were founded very recently. There is no reason you couldn’t have settled them. Talking about happiness is just making an excuse for your bad play. There are lots of unique luxuries and horses to give you plenty of happiness.
Your cities are tiny. You need to micromanage what is happening inside them. You currently have Science Focus enabled, which is killing growth.

I could go on and on, but frankly the best thing for you is to watch an LP of a really good player playing peacefully, and learn from what they do. I think Acken has made LPs of Science and Culture games. Check his YouTube channel. (RezoAcken)

consentient said:

A good game has 750+ BPT at T184.

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Actually, I found a posted game with similar bpt. It's in the "Compare Liberty and Tradition" thread, and IrnofighterXXX has 700 beakers on t147. That's an exceptional player on an exceptional map, and:
1. He plays the Shoshone. Nuff said here.
2. He has a religion, which is probably 15% growth rate
3. He went Tradition
4. He picked Scholasticism and Rationalism
5. Stealing from CS workers, selling strategics for 2 gpt and other tricks to take advantage of the AI.

And I believe that was a sub-200 win.

Sure, 217 bpt on t184 is pretty bad (especially for Korea), but I have yet to see the quoted numbers in an average "good" game.

adcarrymaokai said:

Olodune, who is a better player than you, consentient, and I combined, gets on average about 300 bpt on t150. Sometimes more, sometimes less: link, link, link.

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Which is why I said Korea games

For other civs it's closer to 300-350 ish on average, unless you're one of the god tier players, natch

consentient said:

I opened your save.

Observations (noted in the order that I noticed them)

Scouting. You should have the entire map scouted 100 turns ago. It’s a Pangaea, with plenty of space. You need to meet all the CS, find out as much as possible about the terrain and its features, and find all the ruins that no one else found.
You talked about not having room for other cities. The cities that surround you are size 9 at most, which means they were founded very recently. There is no reason you couldn’t have settled them. Talking about happiness is just making an excuse for your bad play. There are lots of unique luxuries and horses to give you plenty of happiness.
Your cities are tiny. You need to micromanage what is happening inside them. You currently have Science Focus enabled, which is killing growth.

I could go on and on, but frankly the best thing for you is to watch an LP of a really good player playing peacefully, and learn from what they do. I think Acken has made LPs of Science and Culture games. Check his YouTube channel. (RezoAcken)

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Thanks, I needed that. I've watched a bunch of deity games on youtube, but they are all warmongering games -- even the few that switch later to science victory. I haven't found a single video of a peaceful deity game. I'll check out the channels you mentioned.

I started over; founded 4 cities as fast as I could and built another worker or two. It's turn 125 and I don't have a national college yet, but I'm still not as far behind as I was in the previous game with a turn 70-or-so national college. My happiness is -5. I am at war with Pocatello and probably about to lose Busan. I've killed dozens of his units and only lost 2, but he seems to have an endless supply. So I'm not sure this is really better.

I think I'm in over my head at this level.