"Interesting Deity Start" Series

I was playing this game and only going to put in 100 turns and post up from that point but before I knew it, it was 7am and I had put about 6 hours into the game so I kept going taking a pic on turn 200 and turn 337.

I wanted to go a bit coastal on this map so I moved my settler over to the mtn/river and settled on turn 1. Ofcourse the land and a close Persia took away any hopes of me getting some expos on the coast for Cargo Ships. So I noticed the nearby land had a good amount of luxes but not many xtra copies. I decided to hyper expand and settle on the luxes. I settled on the marble to the west and close to the silk and over to the East by the wine and Babylon. I decided to try something I do not suggest... I pumped out a 5th settler before getting up libraries and NC. The reason I did this is because I noticed the foxes and wanted to take advantage of them even though I figured the city would be small. It kinda made things slower actually compared to going 3 or 4 city Tradition/NC.

My B.O. from the Capital was... Scout, Settler 4x (something I never tried before), Water Mill, Library, and since I did not write it down it got a little fuzzy but I know I was having some happy/growth issues. I was at 2 pop in the Capital for a long time since I hard built 4 settlers and had no trees to chop.

So I decided to try and play peaceful this game and figured I would try to get Persia and Babylon in the mid/late game since they both built alot of good wonders. Babylon was coveting my lands and upset that I built too many cities too fast. They brought some troops close to the border and scared me into bribing them to go to war with Brazil. It cost me alot! I had to actually go to -4 happy to make sure they did not attack with a bribe of 2 luxes and some gold. Im glad it wasn't the Aztecs again because Im sure they would of attacked me anyway.

Most of the game I tried to work on infrastructure and did not get into building any army. I wasn't worried about Persia since they converted all of my cities and were pretty much my best friend for the first 175 turns or so. They had +2 happy for temples (BT) so I did build shrines and Burial Tombs asap to get the +4 happy per city!

Later Venice started to convert my cities which hurt the happy but gave me the chance to buy PS's and Labs for 600 faith. It was nice but I wondered if it was going to hurt me not being able to buy more GS's down the road.

I bribed Greece to war with Persia and Arabia a few times and sorta regreted it later since he pretty much rolled them both by around 215 knocking them both out of the game. Assyria knocked out Brazil and I was putting him to war with Babylon/Venice as well. He smashed Venice pretty good but gave Babylon peace.

I was pulling about 650spt around turn 210 and I bulbed my way up to Radio which I Oxforded to get to Modern and Ideology first. I chose Order but it wasn't long that Greece and Assyrias Autocracy put me in a Rev Wave so I converted over hoping to keep Greece from any plan of attack. It seemed to work and we were Allies for the rest of the game.

It has been awhile since I won WF and I just beat Babylon out by 4pts something like 896 to 892 production. That helped me get through Ratio faster. Greece and I were pretty much neck and neck in tech from about 60%. I didn't get hardly any RA's this game and PT went off on turn 159 which is pretty rare in my games. That was really early and I didn't even have Architecture since I teched up to Astronomy first for all the Observatories. I put Greece to war with Babylon and Assyria for the rest of the game and since I wanted some of those wonders I went to war with Babylon in the late game.

I rush bought 6 Rock Arts from loan gold with Greece. I built a Sam and rushed a few Paratroopers as well and pretty much smashed Babylon and Liberated Singapore and got Akkad in a peace deal. I had to keep Babylon in the game since they were blocking Greece from a CV. I had to bribe Assyria to make peace with them to keep them in the game and later I had to give them one of my cities as well to make sure they stayed alive.

So It was a race to get the shuttle up and Greece should of won since they finished at 98% to my 94% in tech. I was pretty sure they would blast off before I could get the last part up but they decided to let me win this time even though it doesn't feel like a win. This was a record for Greece in all of my games against them leaving over 100k of gold on the table so they could of won a Diplo VC as well I think. I bought out one CS from them to block a Diplo win on the last WL vote and they did not contest it even though they had plenty of gold to do so. Also I had to let them keep Singapore and hope that Assyria would take them over which they did before the vote helping as well.

I had fun with this game but I did not really get to do anything that I wanted and pretty much went back to my old boring SV playstyle for the win.

My SP's were: Full Trad, Full Ratio, Order that had to convert to Auto (5 Deep), Commerce to Wagon Trains.

I decided not to even try for a Religion even though the Burial Tomb can help to get one. Since I went 4x Settler I was delayed in building anything really.

I did get a few Wonders this game... I built Oracle in Heliopolis and in the Capital I got Neuschwanstein, Hubble, and Big Ben by accident since I spawned a GE by mistake. I would of rather had a GS sooner and forget Big Ben. When I took down Babylon I got some nice Wonders ... Forb Palace, Notre Dame, Broadway, Him Castle, MoH, Parth, SoL, and ToA.

By this time I realise that the map is not DomV friendly, and since I'm trying to perfect the Peddroelm Honor style, I'll have to take a rain check on this map. Will play another day though.

I did not try for a Full Honor/Dom style of game but I don't see the problem with this map for that goal. You have two close neighbors and most of the map is on flat land for easier take downs. It is a pretty clean start with plenty of production in the middle of the pack. I would probably go with a 2 city attack but you have enough room and luxes to go with the 3 city approach. You also have two warmongers to the East and West that you can bribe at will to help you take down Civs.

I am a bit curious at your reasons that this is not a viable map for Honor/Auto/Dom? Since I have been playing alot of Full Honor games lately I decided to take a break this time but I wish I would of went with it again since the land and all the Civs are in a straight line in both directions for take downs. You even have Venice to smash so that means you really only need to kill 6 instead of 7 Civs. You also have mtn's on the East to protect you a bit so you march NW and take down Persia, Greece, and Arabia first and work your way East after you own the West. Ofcourse if your really good at it you may be able to have two fronts working both East and West but I think I'd rather take out Alex asap and work on the East afterwards.

Besides... that strategy neglects spt and growth. You don't even build/buy PS's. I might be wrong but I really think this map is pretty good for Peds strategy.

Perhaps I will investigate further, cheers.

My conclusion was perhaps premature, sorry.

I wanted to test it out even though I had full knowledge of the map. It took me a little longer than I like since Persia built Terr Army but I did get his cap and 1 expo in a peace deal. Alex and Arabia are having a pretty good war so I do not expect alot of troops moving on. Babylon doesn't seem to expand into the mtns and Assyria is on a rampage crushing Brazil very early. I did get DOFs from Babylon, Venice and Arabia but I should not of taken a DOF from Arabia since they were going to be my next target since they built a city inbetween Persia and Greece.

The problem is that I really don't get a good test since I know where everyone and everything is but Peds Strategy works even on Conts map and since this is more of a Pangea Map it should work much easier. Although this strat works it can be a pain to get the hang of. Im still working out the kinks too. My next game either DCL or IDS I will have to keep going Full Honor to get better.

I played about 120 turns last night……and played very badly. Settled on the Coast and got meager production in capital. I stole a worker from Greece t25 and one from a CS t29, so I was off to a very slow start.

1st expo went to the desert/river/coastal/hill spot due West and I took DF as a pantheon instead of God of Festivals to take advantage of the wine. The thinking here was that I wanted my capital to be working production tiles, not wine, to build Wonders. Because of this, I delayed infrastructure and rushed a settler.

2nd expo went to the Wonder down South, and that was developing to be a nice city, with coast and plenty of beef.

Problem is, I was really late to NC, bypassed Monuments for way too long thinking I was going to get them in Tradition…..then went left side of Liberty for the free Settler. Basically, my culture sucked.

There were religions popping up all around me, plenty of DoF's, and it seemed that every civ decided to be a Wonder-monger, so I didn't build anything but Oracle.

I got 5th religion with 255 faith, and somehow Mosques were still there.

By this time, I'm really lagging in science and culture, Greece is steamrolling the North and Assssyria is doing the same back East. Everyone's spies are telling me Greece is coming for me….I guess I'll build some units, but this is going to get ugly very fast.

I'll play it out later, but I really played this poorly. Can't even get a cargo ship to my capital.

I kinda liked this map. It is not a very easy start and the land isn't anything that will allow huge empires. I have replayed it twice up to about turn 125 in each replay trying the Honor/Comm/Auto Strategy I find that Greece is a monster every single time. I also find that Babylon will play nice and not try to take our eastward land. It always plays the same so far. Assyria rolls Brazil and attacks Venice and onto Babylon. Greece crushes Arabia and works on Persia to help out my war.

I have not played on because it seems wrong playing a map over and over that I know where everything is. It is helping me learn some things like how to wait for double worker steals and on my 3rd try I worker Farmed the heck out of Quebec City for 5-6 workers which I started using Glory_7s tactic of building roads everywhere. I also gifted them back to get my only ally with Quebec.

I found that it is important not to get too close to the coast since Greece has a nice Navy that will wreck havoc. So you have to chop out that jungle and rush up the middle onto his capital.

One thing Greece has is almost all of the CS's since he is able to meet them faster since alot of them are far to the West. Ofcourse Greece is always a problem with the CS's and Army which is why I like him in most of my games.

I want another map but I guess I can wait till the DCL in 2 days. I am trying to build a website for Deity games only. I want to use the IDS name for it. I would like to post a win/loss record since I feel our DCL spreadsheet only shows when you win suggesting we never lose. I also want to show end game stats and give out awards for all different things. Anyway it is a work in progress and if anyone has suggestions on how to build this thing it would help since this is my first time messing about with adobe photshop and dreamweaver.

Yeah, I can see this being a fun map. I just fooled around with some different stuff and gave myself a huge handicap.

If I were to do this map again, I'd get Darius and al-Rashid to DoW Alex by t50 and join the fray with some Chariots.

Had I build infrastructure correctly, I could have turtled with 4 good cities, as the Southeastern terrain is really defensible. (Did I mention I forgot to improve my marble for about 60 turns?……oops).

It's a really strong start. 3 coastal cities, Natural Wonder, T80ish NC, great UU, etc, etc. But the three of us Middle Eastern civs dog piled Alex and he just made mincemeat of us.

I really need to learn to deal with OP AIs like the best players can.

Alex

Buy out all his CS allies. Then he fades out.

If I went Trad/Lib I'd have had no problem at all with this map, but I'm trying to perfect the Honor/Autocracy style as showcased by peddroelm. Doesn't make enough money early enough to stop Alex from going nuts

I'll try that with your Polish map #15. Show you how its done

Just kidding. I'm not good at Deity Domination.

Given the advantage of playing the map, and seeing as how everyone else had the same issue with freakin Alex, I think the only way to deal with him would be to start from t25, when I stop his worker with a spearman. At that point, beeline for 3 war chariots (buy them, chop for them, do whatever just get them up there) and make his early life a living h@ll, and hope the other Middle Easterners joined in.

This would slow down infrastructure, but it might slow him enough to make it a real game.

When I've got a particularly tough early-game neighbor, I never let the pressure off of them. Getting NC 10 turns later is worth it

My second playthrough to turn 125 was working but I wasn't doing alot of things he suggests. On my 2nd Replay or 3rd playthrough I followed more of what his strategy is all about. Your supposed to beeline to Education before wars. The plan is to start attacking around turn 100-110. I found the idea of saving up over 2k in gold to buy 3 Universites to be a problem when I needed the money for upgrades to Comp/Xbows. I used the money for the upgrades and hard built my Unis.

Remember you go straight Full Honor. Your supposed to go on the right side first to get your 3 scouts inside your 3 cities to mirror monuments. You need to get up Writers Guild and Artists Guild pretty quick as well to help fill out Commerce which is very important to keep the gold comming in along with killing units. Your plan is to get to Merc and build Big Ben so you can buy a very cost effective military.

You also need to stop growing and work the gold and production hexes. Im not sure of target pop but I was going with 12 in my cap and less in my expos. Your not supposed to work the Science slots (If you really feel you need it you can pop one GS) instead working the market and gold slots. The idea is to get some Merchants for trade missions or planting I suppose but I think Trade Missions is better. Ofcourse as always the most important thing is to get 4-6 Xbows with Log/Range promos. You need these units to deal with the large army that is comming from Greece. I was able to have 4-5 Great Generals as well to help with Citadel planting.

I also kept building alot of Pikes which I find is very helpful. Again this strategy, from my understanding, is supposed to use a mix of ancient era units. I would have to say that for me I would of had little chance of taking down Alex on my first playthrough since I was playing a more passive approach. I realized on my third attempt that it might be better to wait to press into Alex untill you can get Big Ben and Merc up. However 5 Xbows with Log/Range I figured I could press in earlier. I feel it is important to chop out that jungle in the way to his capital. However if you are not willing to worker farm exploit you may not be able to chop it out fast enough. I had a wall of workers and captured missionaries to freeze him up. One good thing I noticed is that he was building a large Navy as well so he will not have as big of an Army as some games but he sure does get large on this map quick.

In 3 games I did not see him build the GW once but if he does build that in this game it would be a huge pain! The good news is that if you do take over the West you have to go and fight another whacko who is taking over the East!

Thanks for the unpacking of Peddro's strategy. Always helpful to get another view on it.

I really did try to get in Alex's face ASAP but by T45 he already had about 10 cities and 25 CC