Salt Starts

With the AIs luxuries you need to check the diplomacy screen frequently to see when the AI has a spare luxury.

Maybe you could also try bribing some AIs to go to war? That might free up some luxuries you can buy.

If you get an early religion have you tried ceremonial burial and pagoda's. That should give you enough happiness.

Salt starts are usually good once you get them worked particularly if there's more than one salt resource around. Earth mother pantheon could be really useful and so can a couple of workers if theres more than one available resource.

@Redaxe: I was constantly checking the diplomacy screen for AI spare luxuries. And I kept crossing my fingers and hoping someone would have something. So far as religion, I didn't go for pagodas.

@reddishrecue: I was working the salt.

Like I said--it was just one of those games.

It's weird--yesterday I was watching a Civ V (BNW) video of this guy playing Deity as Ethiopia. And it was a salt start.

Not one single time did he the barbs go anywhere near his cities, AI always lad luxuries to spare. No unhappiness at all, even with three cities and only a few salt worked. Libraries built late, and he's having a great game.

I'm playing Emperor and struggle.

docbud said:

It's weird--yesterday I was watching a Civ V (BNW) video of this guy playing Deity as Ethiopia... he's having a great game.

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How often do people post videos when they screw up or have bad luck? (I remember one MP game where the guy loses his Babs GS twice in a row -- but that is the exception to the rule.)

Yeah many videos in youtube by many players about warriors and scouts getting killed while out there exploring.

docbud said:

So far as religion, I didn't go for pagodas
I'm playing Emperor and struggle.

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Well the only thing I can think of is maybe the AI was just really slow at developing. On Diety usually the AI will have lots of gold early and they connect their resources quite quickly. Maybe you need to move up a difficulty.



But yes building cities early puts a lot of pressure on happiness. Ideally you want to have a new luxury for each new city you found but I usually find I can get away with 1 city with no new luxuries if I'm careful.
If you have happiness troubles you should always pick Pagoda's belief. For 200 faith its essentially a free Monument, Temple & Colosseum combined. For 4 cities that would 8 happiness there. With Ceremonial Burial this would start of weak but the happiness would kick in as your religion spreads further.

The other thing to bare in mind is watch for the distribution of stone and horses/ivory.
For instance if there is a clump of stone on the map that is between 2 potential city sites you can plan it so each city will get its own Stoneworks. Same goes for horses and Circuses.

Horses and Stone are very important resources for the extra happiness and you should always try as much as possible to include some of these in your city sites.


Also instead of buying luxuries from the AI you can also use that gold to ally a mercantile CityState. I think these CSs usually have 2 luxuries and also extra happiness once you are friends so once you're allied that is about 10 happiness if I'm not mistaken.

Lastly if you're still having problems, consider building Chichen Itza, Notre Dam and Forbidden Palace (this one requires a point in Patronage)

Thanks, Redaxe. I appreciate your pointers and suggestions. I seem to do well with only two or three cities, but struggle with the fourth early. I probably could have stuck it out, but it was so frustrating. I wish now that I had at least saved the game so I could have tried.

@beetle: This guy (Berg787) has some good videos I’ve been watching, and he’s messed up at times. But I do agree—the majority of the videos posted don’t have screw-ups or bad luck. I wish more of them would

Everyone have a good weekend.

ive been watching 'lets play deity' on youtube as well

what surprised me is, ive read a lot on here this week (all the guides) and have my targets (NC and 4 cities by turn 90 max, education by 115 max etc) and thats for emperor/immortal

Yet a lot of the 'lets plays' dont meet that target, yet still win

It seems to be due to computer military incompetence though, i watched one guy play his first ever BNW game as poland, he was really really late for education etc

And the zulus attacked him, but the zulus were SO stupid!, they kept marching impis through lakes and getting themselves sunk, doggedly went for his city protected by 3 mountains and ignored the cities that were open to flanking and proper bombardment

I was stunned to be honest, i have won 2 space victories and a cultural so far (i was going to go dom with poland but cultural was close) so havent fought the computer sides much at all

Well first the targets suggested are for Deity standard. Immortal is a lot less demanding and Emperor even less so.
Second the suggested targets are for good games. I have no doubts you can still win Deity with like T130 Education.

That's a common theme on the strategy and tips forums. When someone will ask for advice and timings he will be given good timings not sloppy ones. Even if sloppy play can still award you a win. Someone should aim for these timings because they are realistics and would give a strong game. If however that person misses by a few turns that isn't a problem, keep pushing forward and still try to grab a win.

It is a bit of a "shoot for the stars and land on the moon" kind of thing.

I havent played deity yet, i dont know whether to move to deity for my 4th game, i suspect it is a huge jump. I didnt really notice a massive jump from emperor to immortal to be honest...other than my spies had things to steal. But i have read its an immense jump to deity.


I did have a 2 x salt and 1 x marble start in my last game, and yes salt is awesome i need to get out of the habit of settling on the resources though, i settled on the marble so id get the bonus as soon as i had masonry.

docbud said:

@beetle: This guy (Berg787) has some good videos I’ve been watching, and he’s messed up at times. But I do agree—the majority of the videos posted don’t have screw-ups or bad luck. I wish more of them would

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How funny to see Berg's name pop up on the thread "salt starts"

What you saw in Bergs early game for Ethiopia was very typical for a deity game. Barbarians are usually not an issue at all. On deity the AI's start with two settlers and claim more land, and they also have more military units which they often use to destroy barb-camps before long. About his libraries going up late, I don't follow. I believe he had a very respectable 3 city National College time, that's all that really matters.

About more video's not having screw-ups, some people likely do re-roll and eliminate the mistakes, which is unfortunate and shows a false reality. However, most players making Let's Plays are already fairly confident on deity and thus make a lot less mistakes. The peaceful games I post generally have no major "screw-ups". When I branched out into military, they were full of them.

^^Yeah--that is funny about Berg787 and salt. He always seems to get salt

I guess the libraries was respectable. I guess I'm so used to playing epic and his (and other videos) are standard speed.

That's good to know that barbs are not such an issue on deity. At least that explains it.

Thanks.

I'll have to check out some of your videos.

BruinBound said:

How funny to see Berg's name pop up on the thread "salt starts"

What you saw in Bergs early game for Ethiopia was very typical for a deity game. Barbarians are usually not an issue at all. On deity the AI's start with two settlers and claim more land, and they also have more military units which they often use to destroy barb-camps before long. About his libraries going up late, I don't follow. I believe he had a very respectable 3 city National College time, that's all that really matters.

About more video's not having screw-ups, some people likely do re-roll and eliminate the mistakes, which is unfortunate and shows a false reality. However, most players making Let's Plays are already fairly confident on deity and thus make a lot less mistakes. The peaceful games I post generally have no major "screw-ups". When I branched out into military, they were full of them.

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I think it's only fair to point out that I'm more than happy to post my screw-ups, for those of you that saw my Babylon LP not only did I fail miserably I also did a trade where I thought I was paying 40 gold for someone to declare war, turns out it was 40 per turn

I'm aware that certain Youtubers will make sure they come off in the best possible light at all times and that's fine by me, however I prefer, to quote Oliver Cromwell "Warts and all"

Berg787 said:

I think it's only fair to point out that I'm more than happy to post my screw-ups, for those of you that saw my Babylon LP not only did I fail miserably I also did a trade where I thought I was paying 40 gold for someone to declare war, turns out it was 40 per turn

I'm aware that certain Youtubers will make sure they come off in the best possible light at all times and that's fine by me, however I prefer, to quote Oliver Cromwell "Warts and all"

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Obtaining 40 gpt for peace is worth it too..

reddishrecue said:

Obtaining 40 gpt for peace is worth it too..

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I don't engage in enough wars for someone to pay me that

Berg787 said:

I don't engage in enough wars for someone to pay me that

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I don't either but when iI used to, I would take 40~gpt and a large sum of gold such as 200.

I just had the Egyptions offer me over 100gpt for peace after I DoWed them to kill their stupid priests. I wanted to kill some more units but could not pass that up.

Or whatever large amount of gold a surrendering ai would like to give is also useful.