LotR17 Dueling Deity

Start the “Custom Game”. Here are the settings I chose (Note: It's ironic I took a picture of this, as you'll see in a bit. I didn't even have to recreate it. I stored it as I did it). As you can see, I went with Washington. SEALS might be good, I suppose, if we last that long. And Financial/Organized seems the best way to get the most cash flow. I am expecting HUGE difficulties in tech and a bit of extra gold might help with that. <Shrug> But it’s just a guess.



We start here...



(0) 4000 - Those are two freshwater lakes on either side of us. NOT a coastal start. Elephants are the only resource visible. YIKES! But the AI suggests settling in place. If nothing else, those lakes will give us some food and commerce (Good thing we have Sailing), but…. OY! So little info. So much riding on it. The map generator so far has been kind with resources near the start, so I’m going to count on them being there. Settle in place. And no resources appear. *SIGH* Gonna be a SLOW start. That can’t be good. Start a warrior who will take 15 turns to build. Guess that will give us time to grow.

Starting tech? Well, I *DO* think we need some religion this game. We can’t really count on getting one from anybody else. We have Agriculture and Sailing, the two techs we need to make the most out of our starting squares. Mysticism it is.

(1) 3960 - Just move a bit.

(I) WTH? Hetshepsut appears to talk. Umm….I thought we were going to start apart. I don’t know about this….

Yeah, she’s RIGHT THERE! With a scout in our face. How’d that happen? I guess I screwed up the map generation? I dunno. Anyway, Egypt starts with Wheel and Agriculture (normally), so unless the Deity AI gets Sailing as a bonus (possible), their start will be a bit slower than ours. Assuming identical starting positions, which seemed implied, but I guess I’m interpreting the maps wrong. Unless “Small” is like 12X20.

(5) 3800 - Hetshepsut’s scout could just about walk into our undefended Washington. What is she doing so close? Border expansion. Woo-hoo?

(I) Mysticism -> Polytheism.

And we find Egypt's capital....



(15) 3400 - Warrior starts heading East to explore land we might be able to get. One warrior now in Washington as token defense. I’m not paying much attention. I don’t know if we’ll want to continue this.

Well, we end up getting Hinduism first.

But I don’t set it as our state religion. Might as well go for Buddhism, too, and get some culture going. We have no shields in Washington anyway. Might let it grow to size 4 before sending out settlers/workers. Not much for workers to do anyway.

(20) 3200 - Still not much going on. Finding a few resources to the east. A potential second city site with corn and crabs (after cultural expansion).

We’re first to Meditation, too. So we have HinBudism. But I don’t go for Judaism, preferring instead to start us on a bit of military, with Hunting (leading to Archery).

3080 - Thinking some desert might be land bridge, I explore. Oh, it’s the edge of the map. We’re terribly squashed. There are maybe 6 squares east of Washington total. Course, I have no idea how big the map is. Just that Egypt is RIGHT ON TOP OF US!

(30) 2800 - Hatty adopts Slavery. So she has Bronze Working. We, uh, don’t. Just finished our third warrior. I was thinking of letting Washington grow to size 4 before building a settler/worker, but it’s up to the next player. Storing some shields in an archer might not be a bad plan.

Anyway, final pic of the land. Do we want to continue?



Roster:
Arathorn -- just played
grahamiam -- NOT up -- vote needed
Mark1031 -- vote needed
Vol -- vote needed
bed_head7 -- vote needed

VOTE: Continue or not? I'll be the tie-breaker if I have to be.

Note: Any suggestions on changing the settings to get a better map would be appreciated. [Hint: Sirian]

Arathorn

Signing in.

Well this definitely not what I had imagined. Like everything Civilization, knowing the rules is pretty crucial to success!

Per Sirian's descriptions, I think the biggest problem is selecting Team Setting to "Start Seperately". See, our opponent is not on our team. Meaning, we do not start seperately from them, we start with them. If we had teams, Start Seperately would mean one civ from each team starts on each "mirror." I wouldn't be surprised if this catches a TON of people who casually read the option.

I think we want to definitely select Reflection or Inversion as our Mirror Type.

Actually, giving it more thought, perhaps Copy is best, as that should assure we're at least half a map away. Whatever it is, I don't think with such an artificial map concept we should leave it to Random.

Archipelago might be superior as well, which should give us a coastal start for sure. With Snakey Continents, it is not.

Now as for my vote? Well since this is an extremely low probability of success to begin with, does it really matter? I suppose its a matter of how much we want to follow the spirit of our original thoughts about this game. The weak capitol is a turn-off, as is the lack of a coastal start, and the proximity of our opponent, which we had hoped would be an water body away.

An Archipelago, Reflection, Start Together, would be my choice for a re-roll, which I will vote for with desire of following the spirit of the game.

Finally, with regards to your turnset (kept or not). Settling in place was the right decision (or at least the one I would have made). I think we definitely need to found at least one religion, being drowned in culture is a real possibility. I think focusing on founding three would be folly however (although in a duel that means the AI might get 5 religions founded... Hmm... duel is interesting! ). If we get one of the later ones, so be it. After that, though, I think our early techs should focus on improving our available resources.

Hmm. It looks like I forgot to update the mirror pic in the file pack I distributed!

That's my bad. I updated the pic, but failed to send out the latest version of the sample! Woops. (Arrgh, too bad there wasn't room to send it out on the Civ4 disks!)

Mirror got some last-minute enhancements, chief among them that Two Teams and Start Together always produces a perfect mirrorization. (For obscure technical reasons, it wasn't working that way at first.)


Choosing Start Separated was indeed the problem here. That's the TEAM setting, as in members of your own team. (It's chiefly a multiplay map!)

Try again with Start Together and you should be fine.


- Sirian

Here's the correct sample picture for Mirror:

Ooh, I definitely like the looks of that Archipelago for a Financial Civ!

Well, since we didn't get a start that matched our goals for the game, a reroll seems in order to me.

Reroll Archi map

Will reroll a "Start Together" Archi map when I can. Either tonight or tomorrow. I'm glad the team went that way. After sleeping on it, that's the way I would want, too.

I'll keep with Washington, though.

Arathorn

checking in. garee with the reroll

This is exactly what happened to me when I started my own Deity game (after being too late for this one...)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=136886

I decided to keep it, and I'm now running an OCC in 1000 BC and Hatty has about 6x the score I do. But she's Pleased and hasn't come close to being aggressive yet, so maybe something is salvagable? Especially for superior gamers than myself?

(Then again, my OC has horses, corn, clams, dyes, spices, and 2 forested hills )

Alright. Pretty similar settings, except Archipelago and "Start Together" so we can start separated!

I took a snapshot of the opening view and then promptly overwrote the file! Whoops! Anyway, you'll see it all real soon anyway.

(0) 4000 - Settle in place. Rice will be in range once we expand. We have some variety of terrains around that look semi-OK. I doubt it’s optimal, but it’s a canal city, too.

I actually start working the lake instead of a grassland forest. I want some commerce while we grow, to try to get a religion (again). It slows our warrior build, but that’s OK by me. Growth is my main concern. And 3 commerce is hard to pass up (for only one shield) -- doubly so with no barbs. Full bore on Mysticism (only 6 turns).

(5) 3800 - Border expansion. Work the rice for 3 food or the lake for 2 food and 3 commerce? Until we get a religion, I’m going with commerce over food. I hope I don’t regret that later.

When Mysticism comes in, I go for Polytheism and Hinduism, as a bit safer option than Buddhism, which can fall so fast.

(7) 3720 - Complete our scouting. I knew our island might be small, but this is ridiculous. I guess I beeline Sailing as soon as we get some religion.

Holy Smallness, Batman!!!


(8) 3680 - Buddhism founded. I hope we win the race to Hinduism. I stay high commerce.

(11) 3560 - Washington grows to two. Working coast for 3 commerce (but only one food) vs. the rice for 3 food makes only a one turn difference on Polytheism. One turn may critical, but I go for growth, with fingers crossed!

(15) 3400 - Our warrior completes. I store shields in … a work boat, actually. That might be useful once we have a second city and can snag a couple fish. Can it explore even? I don't think it can leave our cultural control, though.

(16) 3360 - We win the race to Hinduism! Yay! Since other religions are going to be few and far between, I go ahead and convert our state religion to Hinduism. That’s a big of happiness for our capital, but a one-turn anarchy. Research is set to sailing, of course.

(20) 3200 - Washington reaches size 3. I very seriously consider switching. A worker won’t help things too much too fast. A settler is pretty high on my list. There is one other spot on our island worth settling. But, well, size will help in a lot of ways and that second city won’t be much good until that work boat finishes. Just stay the course to size 4 and then settler, then workboat, then worker is my plan at this point.

The only thing I do besides hit enter for a large number of turns is pick another tech. I go with Masonry, as that allows the Great Lighthouse. Not certain we want it, but it’s worth considering. On the way to Judaism, too, but I don’t think that’s going to be a big issue.

(29) 2840 - Washington hits size 4. I move off the lake to get another good square for food/hammers. Settler due in 15. And we have the ability to build galleys, but no hammers to dedicate to that at this point.

(30) 2800 - Just waiting for a project to finish. There’s nowhere to scout more without ships, that we haven’t had hammers to build yet.



Map notes: That looks like the right edge to me. The lines are much sharper and less hinting at the next land type than to the west. I’m thinking we’re near the edge of the map.

I think we should put a second city on our main landmass. I say that because it will claim two fishes, which is good eating. It should be able to provide all kinds of commerce for us, down the road. I would finish the work boat after the settler, then a worker, then a galley, then probably another settler. Don’t be afraid to keep Washington size 4 for a bit. Maybe grow to size 5, but use some of our higher hammer plots to finish builds faster.

Roster:
Arathorn
grahamiam - UP NOW (20 turns)
Mark1031 - on deck (20 turns)
Vol - will play 10 turns
bed_head7 - will play 10 turns

We're underway. Continue to explore and expand, I'd say. Boats and settlers are pretty high on my priority list. A worker for our mainland would be good, but one is enough for a while.

Arathorn

Good stuff. This should be interesting! Concur that we're on the far right of the map.

Since we could probably all agree we don't stand a chance militarily against a Deity opponent without an early attack (not likely on this map), it would be worth seeing if one can maintain good relations. This could be valuable for scouting and learning about Deity. With the 1v1 format, we can bend over backwards to foster our relationship, and settle if it is even possible to appease such a beast. Additionally, not pursuing military action probably keeps us around longer, and would enable characterizing mid- and late-game Deity. However, if we want to launch an assault instead and go out in a blaze of glory, tally-ho!

I don't see the save for grahamiam.

i would get it, but I don't see it. I'm going to watch a movie with the better half and check later.

looks like Arathorn wasn't able to get back to the board tonight. I will be away tomorrow and back Sunday night. I'd hate to slow this down right from the beginning, so please feel free to move me down in the order or skip me. I don't want to hold things up

lurker's comment: I love how you guys still call the hammers "shields".

Save file? Boy, you guys want everything!

Attached to this message.

(Revised) Roster:
Arathorn
Mark1031 - UP NOW (20 turns)
Vol - on deck (20 turns)
bed_head7 - will play 10 turns
grahamiam - will play 10 turns (thanks for keeping us updated)

Arathorn

For some reason, I can't manage my attachments right now. A hyperactive popup blocker, I think, but it won't listen when I turn it off. Anyway, it's at http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR17_BC-2800.Civ4SavedGame now

You know, one obvious thing that I missed: our opponent starts on an identical island (could be flipped or mirrored or upside down). It will be interesting to see what the Deity opponent does with city placement and terrain improvement compared to us.

got it for tonight.

2800: I switch to the lake tile which delays the settler by 2 but increases research rate. If we are trying for a 2nd religion which would be good we should do this.

2520: Masonry in Mono in 12.

2360: We loose race to Judiasm by 8 turns. Oh well it will be nice to get mono any way for organized religion which increases building builds by 25% in cities with state religion. Switch back to high shields for settler in 1 less turn. Mono now in 10 vs 8.

2280: Our opponent completes Stonehenge.

2200: Settler->workboat in D.C. send settler to only site.

2120: NY is founded and starts workboat. switch to lighthouse as this would take too long. Unfortunately this city has only 2 health as it has no forest or fresh water. Ouch. Not as important as happy as I think all it does is cost 1 food/health and we will have plenty there with 2 fish.

2040: We have fish.

2000: Mono in as start us toward writing as we will want libraries. Also start revolt to organized religion. Well this will be a struggle. I would say that NY be a settler/worker factory at size 3 (we need to hook up the rice) and D.C. makes boats for exploration. We obviously need to get out and grab resources we have very few. We are happy limited at 4 in D.C. so a calendar will be important as many of the lux require it. We&#8217;ll have to see what is out there. I would put NY on a worker at size 2 and D.C. on a galley after the 2nd workboat finishes.

Got it, will play right now (heads up to bed_head7).