The Community Deity Game #2 - Assyria

@Fydor
Spoiler :
My build order was Scout x3 - Settler x2. Also purchased a settler with El Dorado gold. One scout got an archer upgrade, so I kept exploring with it for potential barb camp quests, the other two I sent home to protect civilians and tile improvements. Moved the archer back home after I got one quest done, sent the other scouts to finish exploring once there were no barb camps left near my borders. I stole 2 workers from Byzantium and 2 more from Vatican. I like to have at least 1.5 workers per city when playing Tradition, so I hard-built 2 more a bit later.

Nineveh: Start worker - Granary - Caravan - Finish Worker - Library. Worked El Dorado for the first few turns to get Tradition opener quickly, then switched to cattle to grow. Worked cattle + hill on pop 2, cattle + sheep + El Dorado on pop 3. The extra culture from El Dorado really helps, I finished Tradition on T68.

The caravan will be sent to Byzantium, I like to send the first trade route to an AI on Deity. I didn't make peace with Theodora until the caravan was finished, hoping to get extra workers. Once the caravan was built, I made peace, sent the trade route and get a quick DoF with her.

Nimrud: Granary - Caravan - Library. That city had good early production with double horses, cattle and a forest chop, so I figured I could get a caravan out of it and still finish the Library in time. This time I sent food to the capital, and once the first trade route finished I switched it to food as well.

Kar-Tukulti: Start Granary - Library - Finish Granary. Not the greatest city for early production and settled later than others, so I finished the library before the granary. I don't like doing this, and in retrospect I could've gotten Hanging Gardens in the capital and delayed NC a bit, giving Kar-Tukulti enough time to finish the granary first.

Assur: Workboat - [purchased 2nd Workboat] - Worker - Granary - Lighthouse - Library - NC

Afterwards I built some basic buildings in expos like watermills and stables, Writer's Guild in Nineveh, and got Oracle and Hagia Sophia in the capital.

Hope this helps. :)

Spoiler :
I see all those funny farms you built too by turn 100 too, that had to help immensely as well. I used to always forget to send my first caravan to an AI, but its so powerful on Deity to get the extra 5 beakers per turn that I make it a major priority now.

I haven't had time to start my round on this yet, or finish CDG 1, but now that I have gone and spoiled it all for myself, I am wondering if it would be a good idea to take the 3-5 turns to move my capital to El Dorado and then send my settler bought from El Dorado Gold to the starting location or a better expo spot and build from there? Settling in place looks like it works great too, but maybe it'd be nice to have El Dorado in the capital? I am not sure.
 
Spoiler :

A not so uneventful late game. Sure, no war and no units were kind of mandatory but there was a lot of wheeling and dealing. Arts funding certainly didn't help and I couldn't persuade anyone to vote for my Sci funding, oh well.

My spies were working round the clock to get the culturals to me because my culture was seriously piss poor all game and I had to pay full price for SS parts. CIA would be proud :lol:

Major mistakes I think:

1. Delaying 4th and 5th city this much
2. Ignoring religion for so long only got one faith GS
3. Not delaying Hubble to fit one more natural GS in.

All this would have made the game at least a 250, which I would be happy with. I'm happy with my endgame science as well :)

 

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Spoiler :
I am wondering if it would be a good idea to take the 3-5 turns to move my capital to El Dorado and then send my settler bought from El Dorado Gold to the starting location or a better expo spot and build from there?

Remember you can't buy a settler until you have 2 pop, so what you're suggesting delays expansion. Fast victory meant you should plant cities as soon as you're able to, start looks good enough as it's coastal with possible coastal expo to feed.

I still don't see any obvious way to get all 5 achievements without excessive rng and replaying. So gonna try to skip D and try to utilize repeated capturing cities and razing/selling to tech up using UA. Probably won't get A this way, but still should be fun.
 
Remember you can't buy a settler until you have 2 pop, so what you're suggesting delays expansion. Fast victory meant you should plant cities as soon as you're able to, start looks good enough as it's coastal with possible coastal expo to feed.

Spoiler :
Crap your right, I completely forgot about using cargo ships. There are so many things to consider, I'm always forgetting something! I also didn't even think about having to wait until 2 population, it usually takes about 6-10 turns to meet that too. Still though, a river, tasty steaks and Nanners, and a mountain in the capital might be worth the wait in the long term. Delaying capital founding by 3-5 turns may be worth it to shave off 20-30 later on if I play this right. It may stunt and delay my expos slightly, but tradition and NC will help my Capital carry the weight.

Also, no military units means no blocking pirates from destroying cargo ships!!! Those pirates always plunder my trade routes regardless of what I do to prevent them, they are a major plague and I know their galley's will be showing up in my territory destroying my cargo ships as soon as I get them!
 
I never ever went triple scout opening, the goody huts are just too scarce anyway :(
 
Also, no military units means no blocking pirates from destroying cargo ships!!! Those pirates always plunder my trade routes regardless of what I do to prevent them, they are a major plague and I know their galley's will be showing up in my territory destroying my cargo ships as soon as I get them!

Usually on deity after turn 70 or so, the coasts are clear if AI settled cities close
 
Deity noob here asking for advice on start:
Spoiler :
I have 3 cities (capitol in place, el dorado, and the cotton to the SE of the capitol. Going tradition. Now working on libraries as I tech philosophy. I plan to build NC before trying to settle a 4th city (probably the whale/Krakatoa site, or maybe the spice site to the west of el dorado. Does that make sense? Or should I settle those cities asap and build NC later?
 
Thanks so much Vadalaz! the insight is immensely helpful in accelerating the learning process.
 
My spies were working round the clock to get the culturals to me because my culture was seriously piss poor all game and I had to pay full price for SS parts. CIA would be proud :lol:
It really sucks that culture generation depends so much on city-states. Lately I like to spend as much gold as I can afford to at least befriend all the cultural CSs when I enter Industrial era instead of buying schools and whatnot. Same for religious CSs.

I never ever went triple scout opening, the goody huts are just too scarce anyway
Try it on a Huge/Tiny Islands/Polynesia map. I played a bit with those settings on Deity a few days ago and got 4 culture, 4 tech and 5 pop ruins. :lol:
 
My Autocracy run went petered out, lost to crazy Eastern AI by SV on T354. I had four turns left to go on the last part, and was already blocking the closer AI from getting her last part to her cap (since she tried to move it through my territory). I never could get my science much over 800 bpt.

I reloaded back to ideologies, picked Freedom. No idea why I didn’t do that the first time!

I had a very leisurely end game, knocked out all the NW and got all the Atomic and Information Age WW except Pentagon which I lost by one turn to the crazy Eastern AI. I had ten picks in Freedom, but didn’t through a third time like I thought I would, so I hard built all the SS parts. I had lots of cash, and bought three nuke missiles which I used at the end. A couple of the AIs had all but two parts, and I don’t think they were close on the last techs. It seems odd they teched slower now that I was teching faster!

I didn’t propose Science Funding until late game, so it passed easily, at the expense of letting Autocracy become WI. I did not resurrect an AI until right near the end, held off with nukes until then too.
 

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Achievement B is pretty vague, I'm not sure what counts as help. Does conquering a capital then gifting it to another AI count? Does something minor such as gifting units count as help? Or do I have to attack the city with some units, then specifically let an AI unit capture a city.
 
B - Help a friendly AI conquer 3 capitals - 4

Achievement B is pretty vague, I'm not sure what counts as help. Does conquering a capital then gifting it to another AI count? Does something minor such as gifting units count as help? Or do I have to attack the city with some units, then specifically let an AI unit capture a city.

Agreed, it is pretty vague, and apparently no one has taken it on yet, so I am of the opinion we should be pretty flexible with interpretation. That said, gifting a cap does not seem like it would count. Something minor, such as gifting units, does seem like it would count. Given how passive the AIs are, I think the only practical option though is wearing down a cap with ranged or siege or bombers, and letting your friendly AI take it.
Spoiler :
In my game Harun was bearing down on the Addis Ababa, his units exactly two hexes away. So I nuked it for him and then made peace because I was running out of time to work on liberating Egypt from Dido. Harun didn’t come close to taking Addis Ababa. The AIs are pathetic. Whoever you cozy up to, to get Achievement B, I think you will have to hand them cities on a silver platter.
One other thing I appreciate about this map is that I am certain the AIs must have been manually selected. There is a certain coherence with them all, so that is very nice to see!
 
So my plan was to get Heathen Conversion, and I was making good progress... Until all 5 religions and Heathen Conversion disappeared on Turn 46. What the heck? How and why? Stupid Deity AI's, I know they love getting religions, but how do they do it so freaking fast??? :confused:

Spoiler :
I settled El Dorado turn 4 btw, and bought my first settler and settled Krakatoa. I put another city near the silk and on the Dyes, and left the starting spot open. Its turn 68, I have opened piety and tradition, and lost my starting warrior and several scouts to BARBs. Looking at around turn 80-90 NC, I think I screwed things up. I stole one worker from Byzantines, but made peace before I could get anymore. No military is hard work, scouts just don't cut it. Being Unhappy for 25 turns in the early game was a horrible mistake, I knew better than to do that, but it still happened. I keep forgetting to take screenshots.
 
T289 SV, Achievement D

Spoiler :


Fairly new to Deity, so I'm happy to have won at all.

4 city Tradition, NC on T88. Good opening for me, but I've yet to learn how to fully capitalize on it in the mid-late game for a faster victory. I didn't have near enough RAs--most of my money went to CSs to keep my happiness positive.

Achievement D: Ended up with more units than I really needed from the two Militaristic CSs, and I didn't even bother upgrading most of them.

SPs: Full Tradition (T70ish), Patronage opener, full Rationalism, Order (6)
Wonders: PT,HST,Neuschwanstein



 
I'm gonna purpose the following clarification for Achievement B, since it is so vague, and that nobody has gotten it yet.
Original B: Help a friendly AI conquer 3 capitals

Here, help can mean anything, including gifting units, anything involving trade, including gpt, cities, or even the capital itself. There is nothing specifying that AI must capture the capital with his own units. Also gifting 1 gpt or OB is help, gifting 100 gpt is also help, so there really is no bounds on what help meant.

Next, friendly should be taken to mean that the AI is not at war with the player at the time the capital in question is conquered. So Neutral, Guarded, Hostile, Afraid etc... should also count. It is also perfectly fine to DoW that AI at any point before or after the AI has conquered 3. But as it is more difficult for the AI to conquer while he's at war with the player anyway, I purpose simply dropping this particular requirement that the AI is friendly or not.

There I purpose it be interpreted as simply
LETTING an AI conquer 3 capitals.
This interpretation captures the original intent, while being not so vague. Each capital can be counted only once (so recapturing doesn't count), and that the AI doesn't have to keep all 3 conquered capitals (as opposed to requirement for DomV). Gifting the capital via trade screen also count since it can be done as a trade which counts as help. Also gifting AI a capital introduces 5% tech penalty to player, so it isn't optimal at all. This interpretation also allows the player to DoW the AI at any time. Given the other achievements and in particular D, I think it is more reasonable. In the extreme case, if an AI manages to capture 3 capital without any additional help from the player, it should also count as fulfilling the achievement.

Personally I will not attempt achievement D anyways, as I feel it defeats the purpose of the UA/UU except under good RNG with military CS. Building no units isn't a particular hard achievement in the first place anyways, as I frequently do so on other SV. On deity, a few units will not prevent AI from wanting to DoW due to military score, so bribing is pretty much a must for avoiding wars. It is more about keeping barbs under control, but barb camp disappears pretty quickly on deity anyways. It is more interesting for a SV to involve conquest. I think a better achievement in its place would be to require conquering X number of AI cities, since it obviously will invoke use of UA, perhaps UU.
 
My thought would be to just simplify it to be that an AI must control 3 enemy capitals at one point. Doesn't matter how long they hold or if they control their own capital. Also doesn't matter how they get them.
 
I think it's kind of implied it should be a common war against the AI whose capital will be taken, and it must be a tangible war in which what is assumed as *help* is clearly visible and distinguishable.

So, let's assume that
Spoiler :

You and Dido attack Theo, you take her expo and Dido takes her cap. You then proceed to do the same with Egypt and perhaps Ethiopia. I'd mark that down then. If at any point the ownership of said capitals change, it's irrelevant to the achievement.
 
I'm gonna purpose the following clarification for Achievement B, since it is so vague, and that nobody has gotten it yet.
It is not impossible on this map. (1) Find the far Eastern AI, before they kill their closer neighbor. (2) Cozy up all game, provoke and support a couple more wars in the right order.

I think a better achievement in its place would be to require conquering X number of AI cities, since it obviously will invoke use of UA, perhaps UU.
For Assyria, I would have liked an achievement point for each civ you use the UA with to steal. The limit of one achievement point per civ encourages more chaotic warmongering.

I think for every civ, an achievement could be to build and keep 10+ UU through the game. It worked really well as a challenge for Persia, but would be okay for each game.

I think it's kind of implied it should be a common war against the AI whose capital will be taken, and it must be a tangible war in which what is assumed as *help* is clearly visible and distinguishable.
Agreed. There are a couple AIs on the map that the achievement could work for, and you identified the most likely candidate, but it would have to then really be the focus of your play.
 
In my game,
Spoiler :
Dido took Thebes easily after I bribed them 2nd time, Dido had serious trouble with Theo, but I can easily make it happen once my DoF falls off and I join the war. I managed to start a world coalition against Ethiopia, and I can take his capital once I get artillery easily. Trick is to do it before another AI other than Dido does.
 
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