Large Deity Histographic - progress and questions

bluejay

Warlord
Joined
Jun 15, 2004
Messages
143
Location
Maryland
I've started my first ever Deity game, a large histographic one that I need in order to boost my QM placing. This one probably won't be the one I'll finish, but after getting to the Middle Ages I have some questions, and my progress and questions may be instructive to others hoping to improve.

Basically I've been following Moonsinger's 88K game strategy, with some amendment because of Large Deity instead of Huge Sid.

Mapfinder: large 60% archipelago, warm wet old, sedentary barbs, least agressive enemies. Mayans vs. 6 scientific civs: Babylon, Germany, Greece, Korea, Russia, Sumeria. Looked for a cow, a couple of river tiles, and some grass. About 25% of the qualifying starts had a domination of 3000 and above (so that's a reasonable cut-off for Mapfinder); a few were up to 3100.

Capital does worker, granary, settlers for a long time. Build no military, so barbs don't attack me. (Do curraghs count as military for this purpose?) No luck with barbs, only a free local map. After getting Alphabet, build several curraghs to explore; have contacted everyone.

Start with Alphabet at 50 turn pace, then full research to Writing and Philosophy. Take Code of Laws as free tech, then full research to Republic. In retrospect, I could have researched CL and gotten Republic as free tech. Next time.

By trading, got all the AA techs except Monarchy, and now in 530 BC have 1243 gold (the others combined have a total of 100). I'm in revolt with Republic coming in 3 turns.

On my own island, medium quality and size. Horses, no iron, only one luxury, but 6 of them, 5 to trade when that's possible. No iron seen in curragh exploration.

Now it's time to start building some military, horses hoping for saltpeter for the Cavalry upgrade later.

21 cities (others have range of 14 to 25).
235 tiles according to Mapstat (others 257 to 430), plus 2 settlers about to settle on next island.
6th out of 7 in score at 928 (others from 899 to 1650)
Forbidden Palace built.

Questions:

1. I'm just into the Middle Ages. The 6 other civs need 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, and 3 techs to reach there. Should I gift them into the MA? Then I probably could buy and trade to get them all.

2. Can I now stop researching, as Moonsinger did, and just trade? If so, what's the best time to go into researching again?

3. So far, the civs with any gold haven't wanted to loan it to me. Do they need gifts or something to get to be willing? I'll need to keep them broke if I'm to follow Moonsinger's route.

4. On the trading screen, all of them show contact only with me. Is that right, or do I need embassies to show the real contacts?
 
bluejay said:
1. I'm just into the Middle Ages. The 6 other civs need 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, and 3 techs to reach there. Should I gift them into the MA? Then I probably could buy and trade to get them all.
I wouldn't gift all at once, just two or three to start with. As soon as two of them have different techs, you can buy one and have it to trade with. You might be able to get the remaining civs to buy the remaining AA techs instead of giving them.

bluejay said:
2. Can I now stop researching, as Moonsinger did, and just trade? If so, what's the best time to go into researching again?
It sounds like you're the tech leader right now, so waiting on the AI will significantly slow down your tech pace. I suppose you could use a lull to your advantage by going for Knights and taking one of them out while you've got a tech advantage.
 
bluejay said:
4. On the trading screen, all of them show contact only with me. Is that right, or do I need embassies to show the real contacts?
I'm afraid I disagree with the boss here.:mischief: You are correct in assuming that you need embassies to see potential and actual trades on the F4 screen. PP allows you to trade contacts but establishing embassies allows to to see who they have met before you get this tech. (and who you can sign alliances against should you wish!) It seems a bit strange that you can establish embassies, see who they have met but you cannot say 'let me introduce you to a buddy of mine...' but then again, who am I to question such a wonderful game.
 
Thanks, Tone. I've corrected my post.
 
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