Asking for advice on my current Babylon Deity game

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Hello, fellow fanatics.

I'd like to ask a few questions regarding what strategy I should follow in my game.

Settings are: Deity, Pangaea, everything standard. Playing as Babylon.

Here's a few screenshots of what the game and my empire looks like on T96 where I got Education.

http://imgur.com/a/M6Pri

Note: I managed to get the Hanging Gardens for the first time ever on Deity, simply due to me being lucky and getting AIs that hate Tradition. The Oracle went by on T70 or so. I've made war with a nearby CS and took about 4-5 workers from them, so far. My other 3 cities don't look all that good, right now, due to the total absence of maritime CS nearby.

I feel like I can hit a SV before T220 if I play it right, but I'd like some advice on what to focus on, from this turn and beyond. I'm a bit rusty.

PS - Has any of you gotten the Hanging Gardens on Deity before? This is really my first time in the 5 years that I've been playing this game on Deity. If you want, I can provide the initial save file.
 
I'm just curios, which AI got Oracle at T70? Was it the Shoshone? I usually encounter low turn timers for the Oracle when either Maya or Poland are in the game.

Regarding the Hanging Gardens, you can get it if you beeline it, especially with Babylon and salt start.
 
No, it was Askia. Also, I have never beelined the Hanging Gardens, because I feel like you lose way too much infrastructure in order to get it and it's not worth the hassle 9/10 times.
 
Hello, fellow fanatics.

I'd like to ask a few questions regarding what strategy I should follow in my game.

Settings are: Deity, Pangaea, everything standard. Playing as Babylon.

Here's a few screenshots of what the game and my empire looks like on T96 where I got Education.

http://imgur.com/a/M6Pri

Note: I managed to get the Hanging Gardens for the first time ever on Deity, simply due to me being lucky and getting AIs that hate Tradition. The Oracle went by on T70 or so. I've made war with a nearby CS and took about 4-5 workers from them, so far. My other 3 cities don't look all that good, right now, due to the total absence of maritime CS nearby.

I feel like I can hit a SV before T220 if I play it right, but I'd like some advice on what to focus on, from this turn and beyond. I'm a bit rusty.

PS - Has any of you gotten the Hanging Gardens on Deity before? This is really my first time in the 5 years that I've been playing this game on Deity. If you want, I can provide the initial save file.

Yes, sometimes get HG, it really depends on the other AI going Tradition or not.

Want to post your initial save and ask some specific questions?
 
Yeah, sure.

As you will see, Japan is directly north of me and they have completed Honor already. I'd like to keep aggression to a minimum but keep a balance between military units for defense and buildings for science, etc.. I see that a lot of people have been praising Freedom for SVs lately. Is it a new trend? Back in the day, we used Order to achieve fast SVs (talking about BNW strictly).

Also, do I need a 5th city to my west or not? The territory is good, but I am aware of the science penatly that comes with more cities. I know that Babylon will be a beast with a couple trade routes going into it, due to the HG.

Basically, I can play very optimally for the first 100-110 turns, and then I have forgotten what to go for. I know about the key science techs (Scientific Theory, Plastics) but I don't really remember what to prioritize for after I hit Education and then going to the Renaissance era in order to open Rationalism ASAP.

PS - I have attached my save file. Would be interested to see what other players can do, here.
 

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Keep Japan busy, bribing them to attack other civs.

I prefer Freedom for SV.

5th city is debatable. If you can grow 4 quite tall, I wouldn't worry about it at this point. It looks like you have some work to do growing your expos, so get that going.

You can target entering Renaissance to coincide with next social policy (ex. go right to Acoustics, if necessary), or head along the top if you need observatories. Otherwise, I'd say go to Printing Press and get LToP. Look at your # of turns to next social policy, factor in any manual adjustments you can do (choosing to not work a guild, or building one ASAP, or paying gold to turn a cultural CS friend into ally, etc.).
 
Aha. See, that's my main problem in most games. I can't plan ahead in the beginning of the game and say "Yeah. I will build the Writers' Guild on Turn X, so that I will have enough culture on Turn Y in order to unlock Rationalism on the turn I hit the Renaissance era".

I really think it pays off big time if you unlock Rationalism right after you finish Tradition, without having the need to open up any other trees. It's pretty much the most difficult key-point, for me, in a science game.

Have you tried the save, by any chance?
 
I really feel like the first 100 or so turns could have actually been played better. For a triple wheat, dual salt cap, you really should be higher than 11 pop at turn 96. I haven't checked out your save file yet but can you post the original turn 0 save? It would be good to see what other players can do from the beginning.
 
Aha. See, that's my main problem in most games. I can't plan ahead in the beginning of the game and say "Yeah. I will build the Writers' Guild on Turn X, so that I will have enough culture on Turn Y in order to unlock Rationalism on the turn I hit the Renaissance era".

I really think it pays off big time if you unlock Rationalism right after you finish Tradition, without having the need to open up any other trees. It's pretty much the most difficult key-point, for me, in a science game.

Have you tried the save, by any chance?

It can be very difficult to open Rationalism with your 7th policy. This was a problem for me as well: I used to look for ways to avoid getting more culture (so it could be my 7th), instead of finding ways to increase culture as I approached Renaissance so that I could open Rationalism and get to Secularism quickly, even if they were the 8th/9th or even 9th/10th social policies.

I started the game, but it was quite late and I was very tired, so quit and went to bed. I'll give it another go at some point. The biggest difference I'd likely make is settling on the coast with most cities. Your neighbours are a bit scary, I must admit.
 
You were certainly blessed with a beautiful map!

The way that I would approach this game (personal trend, not that it's the "right way to go") would be to go for something other than a space victory. Tech wins are the default on deity, it's the one victory condition that the AI cannot prevent you from achieving. As such, when I have a great civ or a great map, I usually try to go for something else, and in this case you have both. But whatever you would like to do; Babylon with a double salt and triple wheat start can do whatever Babylon wants! Your cities are well placed, but the map suggests your civilization will develop into a high production but low-moderate gold generation. As such, domination would be an option, and this is one of the few cases where it's quite possible to pursue a peaceful culture victory, which is rare on deity.

One thing I noticed is that you have a plains start with only 9 wet, farmable tiles. Not the worst growth start, but not the best either. As such, I would have preferred to plant your early academy on a dry tile - this may not have been an option if your borders hadn't expanded yet, it's certainly not worth delaying the academy for that.

As for social policies, it depends on what victory condition you are going for. If you're set on space race, then yes going straight from Tradition into Rationalism is probably best, in which case you'd probably want to jump right into Acoustics to unlock it. However, there's also the option of opening commerce as a filler, which I'd suggest because my latest trend has been to beeline Printing Press, and get started on LTP as soon as possible, then use the free great person as an engineer to get Sistine - this results in +25% great people in all cities, +25% culture in all cities, 1 culture, 2 easily themed artist slots, all for the price of one wonder. It's also noteworthy that the LTP bonus complements Babylon's UA quite nicely, though they're cumulative and not multiplicative. The commerce opener works well with space race games using Freedom (you alluded to this earlier) because Freedom lets you gold-purchase spaceship parts, and Big Ben and mercantilism reduce the cost. However, the map that you have isn't very gold-heavy, and there's tons of mines so I might suggest going Order for space race (which I rarely do, but this map suggests it.)

HG is frequently possible on deity; most of the SP-locked wonders are attainable. Often it isn't worth the opportunity cost, but in the case of plains start with only a moderate number of farmable tiles, it certainly wasn't a bad choice.

Once your trade routes start giving other civs as many beakers as they give you, I'd send food caravans to your capital, I think you're going to struggle a bit with growth in this game (though HG helped you in this matter.) This is assuming you built your NC in the capital - Akkad has about as much growth potential, and will later have an observatory, and academies in a city with both observatory and NC are pretty powerful - either option would work well in this case.

I wouldn't bother with a 5th city to the west if you think you can get by with only 2 iron - there's no new luxury there and only about 10 workable tiles and it competes with CS land. It would be nice if you could grab the oasis and gems with a single citadel, but it would require two and that's probably not worth it. The city would probably drag you down more than it helps.
 
Nice map. I'll give it a spin if that's ok. However, god knows when might that be :)
 
Of course. Go right ahead, @stormtrooper412. I will be waiting to see when did you win and with what type of victory. This map is actually so good, that if I had cooked the opponents, it would make for an excellent CDG.

@ShakaKhan. I would actually try winning by culture, but, alas, I really forgot how to do that, in a fast way. :/ Got any tips?
About the academy, yes, my borders weren't expanded yet. I would need to buy up a dry tile and money early game is important to buy a Bowman for barbs.
 
@ShakaKhan. I would actually try winning by culture, but, alas, I really forgot how to do that, in a fast way. :/ Got any tips?
.
There's a few different schools of thought. I find the easiest way to win culture on deity is to turtle early to get a strong tech game going, don't need to build that many wonders (or any at all really), get to the landmark culture techs (no pun intended) early - archaeology, refrigeration, radar, internet. Writer's and artist's guilds early help, but aren't necessary. The AI makes SO MANY great works, especially in the civs that are gunning for culture themselves. Around artillery time, beat them up and steal all their wonders and great works, move the great works to your capital except for theming bonuses in conquered capitals. Annex conquered capitals, all you really need in them are courthouses, hotels, airports, maybe broadcast towers if you went Freedom. Once all these things are in place, including Internet, pass International Games, bribe everyone to DoW everyone else so they aren't competing in IG as much, win it, faith-buy a lot of G-musicians and concert bomb all the tough culture opponents that you haven't decimated through aggression.
But that's aggressive culture, which you can almost always do in deity. Peaceful culture is more difficult, since the AI builds most of the wonders, can usually have more great works than you,, prevents majority status in congress, etc. Having a high production start with either one of the civs with great culture UIs or one of the civs with good research bonuses really helps, and you have an incredible production start with the best tech civ... little jealous over here...
 
PS - I have attached my save file. Would be interested to see what other players can do, here.

My game was far from normal, though it could make for an interesting comparison. My scouts noticed my closest neighbours settling away from me - the anti-forward settle! - and, as I find Babylon timing very awkward, I went for the 1-city NC. The save file is on T94, where we're about to found the 3rd religion. We have expanded to 6 cities and have some serious growing to do; AI was mad about expansion, but don't seem to be anymore.
Aside from a CS, we only DOW'd Japan, with a late worker steal. We got 3 workers and killed 4-5 units with just 1 bowman in a city on a hill.

Spoiler :




Played a bit further and learned that when one CS conquers a Mercantile CS, the special luxury disappears, so I only have a 3 luxury Merc ally instead of 4.
 
T94 save file
 

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Hm, I mean, I could try that, since I have just unlocked Education. I was going for an SV though. Maybe I can restart the map from scratch and go for a CV, with your advice in mind?

@ShakaKhan, wow, man. I wish there was an easy way to play with another person online in order to think together at the same time, etc.. Would love to follow that advice whilst playing with someone else, for optimal plays + me really getting back to the game. Maybe Skype or something. I don't know. Are there sessions like that in these forums?
 
Played the first 94 turns to compare early outcome. Interested to compare the early 1-city NC of Blatc (who obviously is an experienced player thinking of his sub 200 SV game with Austria :)) with a standard 4-city opener and a 5th city after a later NC.

Have a religion t 74 with earth mother, tithe and pagodas.
Lost Oracle at t69 !?!
2 Friends for RA:s only, crazy set of AI:s for a SV
 

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Well I gave up my 1st attempt on turn 93 due to Japan not wanting to leave me alone despite getting bribed elsewhere. It goes to show how different games can be
 
Hm, I mean, I could try that, since I have just unlocked Education. I was going for an SV though. Maybe I can restart the map from scratch and go for a CV, with your advice in mind?

@ShakaKhan, wow, man. I wish there was an easy way to play with another person online in order to think together at the same time, etc.. Would love to follow that advice whilst playing with someone else, for optimal plays + me really getting back to the game. Maybe Skype or something. I don't know. Are there sessions like that in these forums?
Do you mean 1.) teams? 2.)standard sandbox MP? or 3.) kind of playing a Let's Play, but interactively?

As for teams, the game isn't set up well for that - Marbozir and Quill18 have a bunch of them, but it doesn't work very well because you and your teammate end up sharing techs - which is fine, except two deity AI teaming up runs away with it.

As for standard sandbox MP, it works pretty well, but you'd probably prefer to play with someone you know if you plan on cooperative play. You end up playing cooperatively, and then they take advantage when you're counting on them... Kind of like the boardgame "Risk" - I had a lot of childhood friendships end because of that game. LOL

As for interactively LPing, not sure if many people would be willing to "ride shotgun" for an entire game. I certainly would, but alas my system is not up to par (finding I need to play small maps or finish VERY early) and I don't have Skype, microphone, cam, etc.
 
Well I gave up my 1st attempt on turn 93 due to Japan not wanting to leave me alone despite getting bribed elsewhere. It goes to show how different games can be

Do you mean 1.) teams? 2.)standard sandbox MP? or 3.) kind of playing a Let's Play, but interactively?

As for teams, the game isn't set up well for that - Marbozir and Quill18 have a bunch of them, but it doesn't work very well because you and your teammate end up sharing techs - which is fine, except two deity AI teaming up runs away with it.

As for standard sandbox MP, it works pretty well, but you'd probably prefer to play with someone you know if you plan on cooperative play. You end up playing cooperatively, and then they take advantage when you're counting on them... Kind of like the boardgame "Risk" - I had a lot of childhood friendships end because of that game. LOL

As for interactively LPing, not sure if many people would be willing to "ride shotgun" for an entire game. I certainly would, but alas my system is not up to par (finding I need to play small maps or finish VERY early) and I don't have Skype, microphone, cam, etc.

@Stormtrooper, really? I'm on T100 now (played just a little bit) and Japan isn't even angry with me. Can you provide a screenshot so that I can see where did you settle on and what's your general situation regarding wonders, etc.?

@ShakaKhan, yes, I meant kind like an LP but with 2 people instead of 1. Yeah, seems like Skype is the only way. I'm actually up for something like that in general. I believe it'd help me and the other person improve as players. No cams or anything like that. Just mics and screensharing. But, well, I have a rather powerful PC, or at least powerful enough to run CiV at max settings without batting an eye.
 
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