Shoshone Overview- Aimed at Deity Pangea play

Just finished my first deity game with 285 turns, not a science victory but the strat put me in a solid position for it, I wound up with a diplo victory.

So thank you very much Tich, I learned quite a bit about opening on deity (I'm an emperor player normally) and will be trying out other civs in the future.

Hi there

Just wanted to say that the guide is well written!
I´ve been a long time Civ deity player and your guide made me try out Shoeshone. Just finished a SV at turn 250. It could have been faster, though around turn 120-150 the game was basically over and the last 100 turns was just building the right stuff and pressing enter. As you say in the post, you can pick whatever VC you want at that point.

For the people strugling with the jump from immortal to deity, my best advice is to learn how and when to manage the AI. Bribing the AIs into war at the right time is the most important thing to do. Everything else is just optimizing science, Growth and hammers.

They need to add another level or tune the AIs bonuses, so they can keep up after turn 100.

Meh there's no "right time" to bribe the AI into war. Early on its hard because their borders aren't very contested. Later on it's as easy as giving them 5gpt or whatever because everyone hates everyone. Main thing to do early on is survive. You need Walls and money for Archers if you're expanding near an aggressive AI. I don't find myself paying people to war with each other early on much any more. It's hard when they're separated so you're often just better off spending that gold on permanent defenses since you can't avoid some DoWs. Later on I just pay everyone to DOW everyone since you have tons of gold anyways and no one charges you anything relevant to start them.

Tich said:

Meh there's no "right time" to bribe the AI into war. Early on its hard because their borders aren't very contested. Later on it's as easy as giving them 5gpt or whatever because everyone hates everyone. Main thing to do early on is survive. You need Walls and money for Archers if you're expanding near an aggressive AI. I don't find myself paying people to war with each other early on much any more. It's hard when they're separated so you're often just better off spending that gold on permanent defenses since you can't avoid some DoWs. Later on I just pay everyone to DOW everyone since you have tons of gold anyways and no one charges you anything relevant to start them.

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You make it sound like it's an absolute. Even in the late game, it can be nearly impossible to bribe anyone to go to war despite the hate. No amount of gold will entice anyone to go up against the #1 army if they do not want to, even if they each denounced them. And not everyone hates each other all of the time so don't act like they do. In my last game when I won a SV, there were three perma-alliances all game long (between me and two others). Others joined in at times but no one wanted to take on Greece. Korea, for example, wanted 30k in gold which was a lot more than 5gpt. Denmark hated Greece for most of the game and even at 200gpt, they wouldn't do so.

Buccaneer said:

You make it sound like it's an absolute. Even in the late game, it can be nearly impossible to bribe anyone to go to war despite the hate. No amount of gold will entice anyone to go up against the #1 army if they do not want to, even if they each denounced them. And not everyone hates each other all of the time so don't act like they do. In my last game when I won a SV, there were three perma-alliances all game long (between me and two others). Others joined in at times but no one wanted to take on Greece. Korea, for example, wanted 30k in gold which was a lot more than 5gpt. Denmark hated Greece for most of the game and even at 200gpt, they wouldn't do so.

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Nothing in civ is absolute. I'm talking about how the game generally plays out. Things like religious conversion, contested borders and whatnot provide incentive for civs to hate each other. As such it's usually very easy and cheap to get civs to DoW each other as the game progresses. Early on it's quite difficult unless they share borders. If you played a game where stuff happened, cool story. I have a lot of those too. Point is that I'm making general statements that will generally be true since that's the best that I can possibly do in a game with this many variables.

What size map is this and most of these other guides designed for? They're very well done but IME there's rarely enough room for 4 good cities on standard sized maps. In those winning screenshots in the OP he's got multiple rivers with tons of luxuries and resources around to expand on in all of those games, no real close neighbors, etc. Just seems like the only way this strategy can work consistently is if you play on Large maps or re-roll to get a favorable start if your expansion options aren't great.

It seems most strategies are based on playing a certain type of map but that doesn't get enough notice. While this is clearly a Pangaea Deity play, I would imagine Shoshone would play differently on certain maps that are unlike Pangaea/Continents. A War Academy article on how to play Shoshone would not, I assume, state that you have to play on a certain maps.

IBYCFOTA said:

What size map is this and most of these other guides designed for? They're very well done but IME there's rarely enough room for 4 good cities on standard sized maps. In those winning screenshots in the OP he's got multiple rivers with tons of luxuries and resources around to expand on in all of those games, no real close neighbors, etc. Just seems like the only way this strategy can work consistently is if you play on Large maps or re-roll to get a favorable start if your expansion options aren't great.

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You should be able to expand 3 times on most Standard maps be they Pangea or Continents. Those screenshots are my faster win times because the map was nice. It's hard to win sub 240 with no fresh water, Calendar luxuries which you can't work, etc. I don't see the point in posting a 260 win or what have you because that's fairly medicore and I don't think that a casual player will be able to pick up on the luxuries neighbors and deduce that it was actually a fast time given the circumstances.

As with anything civ is about luck. If you can't found 4 cities then this strategy won't be very effective. That being said no strategy will be nearly as effective. Fewer cities means less gold, hammers, food, science, etc. You just have less. People want to know how to play under favorable positions so that when they get good rolls they know how to win. No one needs to be told "when the AIs all forward settle on you and you only have 3 unque luxuries within 20 tiles then your game is going to suck."

Tich said:

You should be able to expand 3 times on most Standard maps be they Pangea or Continents. Those screenshots are my faster win times because the map was nice. It's hard to win sub 240 with no fresh water, Calendar luxuries which you can't work, etc. I don't see the point in posting a 260 win or what have you because that's fairly medicore and I don't think that a casual player will be able to pick up on the luxuries neighbors and deduce that it was actually a fast time given the circumstances.

As with anything civ is about luck. If you can't found 4 cities then this strategy won't be very effective. That being said no strategy will be nearly as effective. Fewer cities means less gold, hammers, food, science, etc. You just have less. People want to know how to play under favorable positions so that when they get good rolls they know how to win. No one needs to be told "when the AIs all forward settle on you and you only have 3 unque luxuries within 20 tiles then your game is going to suck."

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I'm just asking what size maps we're talking about here. I'm finding that on Standard Maps the starts like you've gotten in the OP are very rare where you have that many strong expansion locations without a neighbor within say, 10 tiles of your cap that doesn't want to steal some of those locations. If they're large maps, then those rolls are far more common and this strategy seems better suited. In general though I find 4 cities to be the exception rather than the norm on standard sized maps, especially on Immortal / Deity where they expand so quickly as it is.

Also, when do you tend to get the NC up with this strategy? With a tradition start and going for 4 early cities it seems difficult to get it up before T90-100 (hard building 3 settlers).

IBYCFOTA said:

I'm just asking what size maps we're talking about here. I'm finding that on Standard Maps the starts like you've gotten in the OP are very rare where you have that many strong expansion locations without a neighbor within say, 10 tiles of your cap that doesn't want to steal some of those locations. If they're large maps, then those rolls are far more common and this strategy seems better suited. In general though I find 4 cities to be the exception rather than the norm on standard sized maps, especially on Immortal / Deity where they expand so quickly as it is.

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I only play on Standard sized maps since my laptop is terrible and I could never conceivably finish a large+ game. It would be 5 minute turns even if I was just hitting "next turn" lol. I rarely struggle to expand 3 times on Standard maps. If you don't get lots of new luxuries you just have to trade spares for doubles that computers get. Before people say "but they trade away spares" I want to point out that you basically always get first dibs at their doubles since they don't trade with each other until you end your turn. You just have to LITERALLY check the diplo tab EVERY TURN because you LITERALLY have a 1 turn 1 window to get their doubles. Otherwise it will be instantly traded away, ESPECIALLY on Pangea where every AI has a ton of trading partners. It's tedious but I mean if all of your expo locations have Truffles (it's always Truffles) then you have to turn them into Truffleade somehow.

This is why Scout - Scout is so important. You need to figure out your resource situation FAST because you need to prepare to handle happiness RIGHT AWAY. The second that my first resouce is upgraded I'll be looking to trade it away, well before I hook the duplicate up. I need to get access to the computer's doubles as soon as possible because your 1 turn window of opportunity is, well, going to quickly fly by .

IBYCFOTA said:

Also, when do you tend to get the NC up with this strategy? With a tradition start and going for 4 early cities it seems difficult to get it up before T90-100 (hard building 3 settlers).

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Pathfinder - Pathfinder - Shrine if I can get a good pantheon based on my dirt - Worker - Shrine if I'm just getting Fertility Rites (skip if you get a faith ruin - Settler - Settler - Settler - Library - Oracle assuming it finishes by turn 80 - NC done before turn 100. Could get NC sooner but I like Oracle for quick Consulates. I *think* the slight delay in science is worthwhile since 3cpt is a lot early on, the science point is nice and I mean Consulates is a big game. I also know that Oracle goes on turn 85 all the time so I CANNOT get it after NC reliably because Philo is too deep in the tech tree. This is the only timing that I can consistently pull off.

The only exception is if you have mining starts or lots of forests to chop. I then go Pathfinder - Worker - Shrine if I can get a good faith pantheon - Settlers. You want to improve your mines or chop your forests asap to abuse the production boost.

You can obviously get away with buying a Settler if you get early DoFs. Producing 2 the hard way sucks but Shoshone gets a ton of dirt so it's rare that won't have mines/horses that you can work to shave the time. You also get lots of opportunity to get an early forest or two to speed the process up. Chopping forests also helps to power your Libs out in your expos.

Well this is about as streamlined as its ever going to get with respect to the BO, policy order, ruin order, etc. Unless there's some drastic shift to the game I don't think that there's a way to significantly improve the strategy. The only wonders that I'm a bit iffy on are Sistine Chapel and Pisa. They seem to have a lot of variance with respect to their build times. Sometimes they go immediately and other times they go really late which is annoying for someone like miss who never wants to start and miss a wonder. I've tried Temple of Artemis and my problem with it is that you can A) miss it and B) it really stunts your advancement of the game because you basically have to go Granary -> Toa which is fine for growth but Hell for getting gold to buy Settlers and Workers. You'd basically need some sort of Liberty opener to follow it up with Pyramids I'd imagine. I mean the nice thing about Shoshone is that you can SOMETIMES get a faith ruin to avoid the shrine requirement but that's not guaranteed either. This BO basically needs luck-based things to pan out and that seems ambitious. Both ToA and Pyras can go very early at times after all. My build is basically "no risk" which is what I like about it.

So I tried last night to run this and I got a start position that just wouldn't let me. :-D

My settler and Pathfinder spawned in visible range of a mountain/hills/river/desert tile, so naturally I moved my settler next to the mountain. I wish I had a screenshot... I'll have to go back to the initial autosave tonight and post it. In my 3 tiers I had the following tiles: 1 gems hill, 1 silk jungle forest, 2 forest grassland hills, 5 grassland, and the following desert tiles: 2 gems river hills, 2 floodplains, 1 river sheep, 1 oasis, 3 hills with fresh water, 1 stone and 5 regular desert with fresh water. There's more, but you get the idea.

Almost everything that wasn't desert or a mountain was a river tile. In total, including desert hills, there were at least 14 river tiles. It was the best Petra/Hydro Plant start I've ever gotten.

So, I had to somewhat detour from the strategy. I took 2 growth ruins, 2 tech ruins, a culture ruin and a faith ruin, skipping the upgrades, went Desert Folklore of course, and beelined Petra.

I focused on tech ruins instead of pathfinder upgrades to reduce the delay from beelining Petra, and besides, the pathfinders were a non-issue... once Petra was completed, my production was ludicrous. Plus, I had a very defensible position, and the only person with a clear shot at me was the Maya, who wanted friendship even after I stole a worker on turn 7. :-D

Unfortunately, I missed the Oracle by 4 turns as a result of doing Petra first, and because of the 5 turns I wasted building it, I didn't get NC until turn 100. However, were it not for happiness issues, I easily could have finished Petra, Oracle AND NC by turn 100. Doing Petra first makes the others super-fast, so it doesn't actually delay NC.

Now, this just illustrates the need to adapt strategies to your environment. I pumped out 3 settlers per the strategy and immediately regretted it. I had major happiness issues. I found twelve (12!) CS before I found a single happiness one, which didn't help, but in retrospect, that wasn't the major issue. Because of beelining Petra, I couldn't work the marsh sugar in my 2nd city or jungle silk in my capital, and because Petra wants to work so many tiles, I should have modified the plan to only build 2 settlers initially, and delay the last one until later, just to keep in positive happiness. Basically, my capital growth was delayed because of my satellite cities. It drove me crazy to see all those unworked 1food, 4production, 1faith tiles...

I also finished Tradition before opening patronage, because I wanted that extra growth ASAP, and it takes 20+ turns to see growth benefits from Consulates. The aqueducts and growth bonus kick in immediately. Plus I wanted to speed up Petra/Oracle/NC. And I would have gotten all three if I hadn't planted that 4th city and killed my growth. Curses!

In retrospect, I might have been better off going OCC, because my growth waaaay outpaced my happiness. Or 2 cities. Anyway, it doesn't matter that I missed Oracle, because I'm now a production machine. It will probably delay my win by 20 turns, but eh, oh well. I'll have to try doing it your way next time, assuming I don't get another legendary start. ;-)

Cromagnus said:

Now, this just illustrates the need to adapt strategies to your environment. I pumped out 3 settlers per the strategy and immediately regretted it.

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Umm... what? You ignored the proposed tech and build order path but then call the strategy out for failing? The strategy which you blatantly ignored? Suffice it to say that this doesn't convince me that it's flawed. If you're going to follow some parts of the guide and ignore others then the results are on you.

The reason why I never go for Petra myself is because I find that it routinely goes before I can even finish researching Currency and if you beeline + fail to get Petra then you are 100% screwed. My BO is designed to be "safe" in the sense that nothing can realistically go wrong assuming that you make all of the timings. If you're going to beeline Petra, well, that's a completely different strategy which I haven't tested much at all. Every time that I've gotten a Desert start I've lost Petra well before I could have acquired it myself and so I don't think that it's a reliable wonder to get. I just ignore it and do my own thing.

I wasn't calling it out for failing. Sorry if I wasn't clear. The issue was definitely a result of beelining Currency, then Philosophy without getting some of my happiness resolved. My point was just that the spot begged for Petra, which called for breaking away from the tech order, so I didn't follow the strategy.

Petra isn't hard to get with Shoshone. All those hammers you used to build settlers work for building Petra too. :-D

Cromagnus said:

Petra isn't hard to get with Shoshone. All those hammers you used to build settlers work for building Petra too. :-D

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I've personally tried 3 Petra builds on Deity as the Shoshone and in all 3 games Petra was built before Currency had finished researching. I was in a terrible position in all 3 games as a result. Maybe I just got unlucky or something but I mean when I was 0-3 after 3 tries I kind of assumed that you need to get lucky to build the damned thing. I don't want to have to get lucky to win.

Well, I completed Petra on Turn 80. I don't know if that's late, but I could have completed it probably by turn 70. I didn't chop and I was at negative happiness for the last 6 turns or so. Which in my case could have been avoided by only settling 2 satellites instead of 3.

Again though, I took two tech ruins, so I got Pottery and Animal Husbandry for free. I went straight into Archery, and detoured only to take Mining. That saved at least 12 turns. I also detoured into Sailing to get a second caravan... all to compensate for my lack of early tech. I might skip that next time.

PS Very well written guide, thanks for posting it.

This guide is the safest way to get a Deity win on standard settings. I decided to give the Shone a go and had a relatively horrible start. (Coastal Jungle with 2Citrus, 1Bananna and 1Silver all covered in Jungle) my only saving grace is that I settled on a Deer/Hill/River Tile.

I also got unlucky with the Ruins, I only got three even though I built the additional two PF like the guide calls for so a bit unlucky there but I did steal 3 workers and pillaged 2 caravans so the t7-20 war with William went well.

I also got unlucky with no Iron and Horses in my settlement spots and had to tech construction to build Colosseums instead of Circuses. I forward settled Russia twice to get two really nice Hill with adjacent Mountain tiles and prepped to defend a war with someone that granted me a DoF.

Despite all this I maintained decent growth and had access to many more Luxuries than I normally would have in the beginning and ended up cruising to SV on t252.

This is a Top Tier guide alongside Tommy's Poland Deity guide.

Great guide.
I will have to test it.

Thanks a lot Tich !

Cromagnus said:

PS Very well written guide, thanks for posting it.

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Np .

Resipsa said:

This guide is the safest way to get a Deity win on standard settings. I decided to give the Shone a go and had a relatively horrible start. (Coastal Jungle with 2Citrus, 1Bananna and 1Silver all covered in Jungle) my only saving grace is that I settled on a Deer/Hill/River Tile.

I also got unlucky with the Ruins, I only got three even though I built the additional two PF like the guide calls for so a bit unlucky there but I did steal 3 workers and pillaged 2 caravans so the t7-20 war with William went well.

I also got unlucky with no Iron and Horses in my settlement spots and had to tech construction to build Colosseums instead of Circuses. I forward settled Russia twice to get two really nice Hill with adjacent Mountain tiles and prepped to defend a war with someone that granted me a DoF.

Despite all this I maintained decent growth and had access to many more Luxuries than I normally would have in the beginning and ended up cruising to SV on t252.

This is a Top Tier guide alongside Tommy's Poland Deity guide.

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Thanks for the kind words . Glad to hear that your game went well despite your terrible start and bad luck with land !

Patriote said:

Great guide.
I will have to test it.

Thanks a lot Tich !

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Sounds good, np!