Gliese's Deity game

Silverdawn said:

Why did you hold on to three scientists for bulbing instead of bulbing them as soon as you earned them? Was it because the path wasn't available yet because you didn't have Alphabet? Or was it so you could use them for something else in case someone beat you to liberalism?

Click to expand...

Yes I've been waiting all game for SB to get Alphabet that I need in order to start bulbing. I could've gotten it instead of Monarchy I suppose and traded for the latter but hindsight is 100%.
In any case it didn't slow me down much in the Liberalism race, the limiting factor for this game has been the availability of GSs.

First I went for the GLH instead of early cottages which I learned was a mistake with a non-coastal capital on deity. I lost the wonder and it also cost me the fish in the gold/fish city.

Then I went for philosophy to found taoism and get a religion to share with SB and later a shrine but SB narrowly beat me to it. This meant I lost TGL as well.

After that I went for Liberalism with a 2 turn detour to get Monarchy for HR but now I've lost that race also.

So now I need to figure out another gambit and try to avoid a 4th failure.

Mack_Jagger said:

Man this looks like a tough one. They are teching quite well on the other side and you're stuck with Sitting Bull who is possibly one of the most useless tradingpartners in the game. Maybe it's to late to start to build for a cultural victory? A diplomatic victory ought to be possible though.

Click to expand...

I agree it looks tough. I think cultural is not viable at this point, I have no religions and no wonders and no experience going cultural. A diplomatic victory is looking more and more like the only option though I would appreciate advice from more experienced deity players on my chances of pulling off a rennasiance war against SB and how to go about it.

I'd go for the war and i'd begin to get things like workshop and GT in place now.I can't see you pulling off any other vic with this small island. Cultural must be out now, diplo needs religion modifiers , i don't see everyone in the world changing to your religion (well you can try with espionage but you hit some negative points with this too unless you're very lucky in your missions) You have to get to UN first too otherwise you won't be eligible i think. Maybe a space race, Snaaty pulled it off in the second ultimate deity challenge where everyone else was murdered by Gilgamesh. He had only ~ 6 cities, all these cities were very good though. Ultimately i don't think you can get enough beakers to do it on this rock.

OTH it depends on Bull's teching but a renaissance war must still have ok chances. It doesn't necessarily have to be Bull can be some other poor sod too as long as he has some decent cities. If you can quickly double up in land a space race looks a lot better than it does now.

You need info on the world so astro should be your first priority now, you'll need it asap whatever you do. Ultimately bulbing edu is best i think, some trade value hopefully but especially oxford is very important on this map.

Dirk1302 said:

I'd go for the war and i'd begin to get things like workshop and GT in place now.I can't see you pulling off any other vic with this small island. Cultural must be out now, diplo needs religion modifiers , i don't see everyone in the world changing to your religion (well you can try with espionage but you hit some negative points with this too unless you're very lucky in your missions) You have to get to UN first too otherwise you won't be eligible i think. Maybe a space race, Snaaty pulled it off in the second ultimate deity challenge where everyone else was murdered by Gilgamesh. He had only ~ 6 cities, all these cities were very good though. Ultimately i don't think you can get enough beakers to do it on this rock.

OTH it depends on Bull's teching but a renaissance war must still have ok chances. It doesn't necessarily have to be Bull can be some other poor sod too as long as he has some decent cities. If you can quickly double up in land a space race looks a lot better than it does now.

You need info on the world so astro should be your first priority now, you'll need it asap whatever you do. Ultimately bulbing edu is best i think, some trade value hopefully but especially oxford is very important on this map.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input. Keep in mind that I can reach SB with galleys so I don't have to get Astronomy for that, I also already have intercontinental trade routes maxed out afaik in all cities so getting it for trade won't help much until free market/corporation. Optics is of course very interesting to meet the other civs and hopefully get some trades / for defending seafood in war. I agree Education is probably first target though so switch to Alphabet in round 5 I think (no need to bulb edu twice).

I see how drafting would be advantageous at least in some cities but what about the rest? Do you suggest I convert cottages into workshops for the production? What units should I go for, cannons and grens?
What about trying to unlock the HE? I need another barb unit to spawn in the fog to get it and not have the RNG screw me a third time. OTOH I'd be delaying the last 2 reasonable cities further. Getting the sheep online would be especially nice since I have health issues.

It all depends a lot on what you find once you meet the others.

-I forgot you founded the city on the extreme north western point, you didn't get the fish but it's a good base indeed so you can reach him with galley's, i can too but it's too long a road for my galley's.

-But astro is also important for import/export resources, besides you'll hit economics/corporation probably soon after teching astro. It probably speeds up tech enough that you reach the mil techs at the same time as when you didn't tech it, not totally sure though if you get good research without astro then indeed you might skip it/get it in trade.

-There are some plain squares on the island, from this point i'd workshop every tile that has less than a village on it. Capital will take care of research.I'd also prioritize guilds (in trade) and chemistry (on the road to other good things). Switch caste and they give good production, they're worth it after guilds, you really need them to be able to build GT in the south western 3-food city.

As for units, i think cannons are a must so this line should be beelined, Curi's would have been interesting but you need siege imo to deal with the CG2/CG3 units. Since you're in a hurry you might skip the rifles part and just go with pikes/muskets. Build enough of them and there's a good chance your stack won't be attacked even by Curi's.You can still try to get Curi's as stack defenders if you get nationalism early in trade, cheaper than rifles.

It depends on Bull's teching really your job becomes more difficult if he's got rifling, very difficult if he's got steel. If he's got cav you obviously need rifles otherwise your stack gets murdered.

- If you still have a chance for HE you might give it another chance, can maybe even be build in the captal together with oxford. Difficult that one since you need to settle the sheep city too. Still a chance for a barb after settling this city.I'd certainly draft alot from GT and also some from the other cities, more if you go with muskets.

I'd still bulb edu if you see a good trade opportunity, saving them to bulb chemistry might also be good, depends on the tech situation, if you see a civ that hasn't got edu and is willing to trade chem you bulb edu , if not maybe better to wait to bulb chem. Astro is such an expensive tech btw that it's trade value is very good.

As a guideline you have to be ready between 1200~1300 AD, it's very unlikely that Bull
hasn't got anything after 1300 AD.

Well, I think that a peacefull spacerace could be possible here also... ...I dont think I have time to continue my game, but since I played up to 1250 AD, I´m pretty confident about that.

In my version of the game I have the SoL almost finished and a GM + GS hanging around in capital (susi and bulb or settle), but I also had the Pant + Glib early.

The superb capital is the main esset in this game, providing 50% of the total research of 600 beakers in my game which is pretty strong at 1250 AD for such an island. (I´ve been delaying SM to profit from the GLib and the Pant as long as possible btw. Chemistry I traded for this turn, so I can get SM next turn from Bull-buddy for it when I add some money to the deal and sprint to sushi (screen in spoiler)...).

Suhsi might be the way to go in this game.

Don´t look into the spoiler, unless you have researched some more of the map and made contact with ALL civs


EDITH:
1. Bull is actually a pretty good techer when isolated and left alone
2. @ Glise: Try to run a "capital economy", your research isn´t strong enough otherwise on this crapisland. Dirk´s idea for your game seems best, but I dont think you can pull it home with a war, because the other civs will tech away. Settle GS in capital and get Oxford in capital ASAP is a must and you need to be very quick with the war, if you go down that route...

...

Edit3:
save...

Sushi looks strong indeed would solve the food situation and can be spread for lots of money to harmless ais. The war has to be fast indeed (~30 turns), otherwise you go down with the Bull.

Teching to space on an island as bad as this is a new idea for me, you'll never reach 2k research here but i can just see you compensating by having 1k early then beelining/trading intelligently and building internet first. Still the expensive techs like fiber, fusion will be hard. 2 rivals in the spacerace'd be much better than one in this scenario. Getting mining for extra production seems important too if you don't expand outside the isle. The capital and to a lesser extent the food rich spot in the south west are indeed the redeeming factors for this island.

I'd at least keep the war option in mind, it doesn't have to clash with going super science since oxford needs to be build anyway. It's a nuisance that Bull still hasn't teched alpha in your game, it's important to know what he's doing.

You can win a space race fairly late (even on Deity I think) if you manage to get the Internet and then set the slider to Espionage. Infest a crappy city of each of your competitors with your religion and keep destroying their projects. Attack submarines are very usefull here. Maybe self-research Robotics, it is low priority for the AI and allows the Space Elevator.

This plan will fail if someone decides to go cultural. The culture buildings are back in no time. being able to unleash a pet war dog is your best hope then.

Still, it is hard to see where the hammers would come from. Looking forward to see the updates of all the great players playing this map.

I've been thinking of mining and sushi corporations also, they seem useful for a small island like this. What about Wall Street? Perhaps I should forego the NE in my "gp farm" and get the GT and WS there to runt merchants with high slider later? (and found corp HQs there as well). OTOH if I don't attack Bull then the NE is more useful there to get the GPs faster.
Workshops could help in getting the GT up but otherwise I could always whip lots of units and put the overflow into the GT (I have marble also to help out), happiness is not an issue since I'm in HR. I'm already in Caste btw.

I think I'll settle the last two cities immediately and if I get the HE fine, otherwise it can't be helped.

Snaaty: Would you advise settling ALL GSs in the capital? You've got TGL and more food in your capital than I have and you also cottaged earlier so I'm not going to be looking at the same beaker output in my game.
What about bulbing the 2 GSs I have stored right now? (Philo and Education). It seems I've no choice but to bulb if I want to try an invasion since I'm running out of time but bulbing these two might be beneficial in any case, no?

@fjordan
Hi,

In addition to the online games i play here I've been playing some offline deity too lately and i've come to realize that espionage is crucial on this level late game. I just never really needed it on immortal but bottom line you're often out researched here even when you have the internet. Then espionage is a powerful weapon that gives you the flexibility to capitalize on the ais actions.

In a recent game i stopped a cultural attempt by first influencing an ai from free speech to buro (check this civ doesn't have redentor though i made that mistake once), subsequently revolting his third city several turns. Thwarting a civ going cultural is not that expensive, it costs lots of spies though, you really need to try ~5 times often before establishing a successful mission. Next time if i have a religion myself or the Redentor i'll use the religion trick to lower costs.

Destroying expensive space parts like the docking bay is very expensive , i find i must be near launching myself to have success with this so far. If you go all out only to hinder the ai though you can destroy something like docking bay every ~3-4 turns. You're totally crippled yourself research wise and need to put out spies non stop for the 50% cost reduction but you can hope for the internet to come through in this case. If it goes on for too long the ai'll declare on you though.

You can also steal techs from the ais generally this is more more expensive than researching but benefit here is that you know what to steal, having the internet you never know what to research.

About research when having internet, never research composites , you're almost sure to get this tech as the ais love this line. Fiber optics - fusion is probably safest but i lean more and more to 100% espionage after internet for maximum flexibility.

I don't think Robotics in itself is low priority for the ai, computers is though and that's the reason they get robotics late. If they do research comps robotics is often next. I didn't get your remark about attack submarines, how do they fit in in the espionage plan?

Dirk1302: I just reread your comments and in addition to my post above I want to ask you about the techpath. I've been leaning toward getting Education first of all but you seem to be indicating Astro first, thoughts?

Short update until 600 AD

@Gliese,

Difficult but as your smaller cities aren't ready for universities yet i'd go the optics path first (after alpha you need to know where Bull stands now), meet others, then decide on further action.You have enough research going to reach optics in reasonable time. Probably edu first then for oxford. Keep in mind that there might be other victims around apart from Bull.

OTH if you go Snaaty's path you may have to decide now as you want to settle those Gs's asap. I'd think a direct manual push for edu'd be in order then as you're a bit less interested in direct knowledge of the rest of the world in that case.

Whipping with overflow can give good production, you need to time it well though, i'm often too lazy to do that mid game. I've never really dived into this but i'd like to do some comparisions between whipping at say ~size 8 and workshops with guilds but without chem to see which is best. Maybe the workshop idea is all wrong compared to whipping, it has served me well over time though.

@Dirk

In close SR my games Robotics was always researched very late. I usually ended up researching it myself, for the SE and the mechs. The other prereq for SE I always got from the Internet. Could be coincedence though.

The attack submarines have the advantage that they can enter enemy territory, no OB needed. They can carry a spy into enemy land. And they are invisible too. Lastly, their 50% (before promotions) withdrawal makes them a nice backup for invasion fleet destruction. You will need them being on an island.

Hm, i thought keeping a city in revolt would be too expensive. I succeeded once in keeping the culture down by constant poisoning, pillaging en destruction of all buildings. Cost me a lot of spies and EP, I found the space parts easier because you can pick a crap city.

BTW, always be sure to check for a security bureau and take it out first.

Round 5, 600 AD - 1100 AD (30 turns):

I started out by switching tech from Aesthetics to Alphabet to better assess the situation.

640: GG #12 BIDL.
I decided I had had enough of waiting for barbs to spawn to unlock a HE unit and sent my settler to settle my 7th city to claim the sheep.



660: UoS BIDL.
I finish Alphabet and decide to go for Optics next, first tech on the way: Iron Working. I feel I'm likely too far behind at this point to win this game unless I can expand beyond my island and so I decide to bulb my great scientists rather than settle them in the capital for the short time advantage of getting the necessary military techs faster, sacrificing post-rennaisance research. I use one of my GSs to bulb part of Education but hold on to the other as I'm not ready to build universities anywhere yet and not sure if I should self-research the rest of Edu or make a sub-optimal bulb to finish it faster.
SB has not gone for Optics yet at this point which validates the decision to push for that asap.



680: I found my 8th and final city for now. (I might get around to city 9 and 10 as marked on the map if I get corporations but otherwise they seem pointless).



700: I finish research on IW and go for Metal Casting next in case I need a trireme for a remaining barb galley. Is there iron on my island?



Indeed there are 3 sources, 2 within my borders.

720: GS#4 is born in Thebes, I save him for later.

760: Sistine Chapel BIDL.
I decide to bulb the rest of Education with GS #3 as Athens is now ready to build a university and I'm generating new GPs fairly rapidly without the NE or Pacifism thanks to being Philosophical.
As my cities finish up markets they begin on universities. Meanwhilst SB has gotten Compass and Optics so I anticipate some trades.

800: MC finish and I start on Compass. My workers start to build as many workshops as I can support with food.

860: Compass finish and I start on Machinery.

880: Angkor Wat BIDL.
I decide that SB has been illiterate for long enough the por sod and I sell him Alphabet for some gold to ensure I get something out of it.



960: I finish Machinery and start on Optics but..

I meet 3 of the unknown civs at once. Julius Caesar and his two vassals, Sury and Vicky. JC is in a monster lead with over 3000 in score to my 800 (18 cities to my 8), he seem to have spent most of his energy fighting though so he's not yet completely runaway in techs.





Sury has taken a dislike to SB making the chief his worst enemy while JC is the worst enemy of SB.
With this in mind I trade some techs with SB first which he is now willing to share.



Then I trade with JC.



With Calendar and Optics aquired I can instead start teching Astronomy directly, however I have an unused GS and decide to bulb him for part of Printing Press and research that first. My 5th GS is on his way and can then bulb part of Astronomy.
I open borders with JC and Vicky who are confucian since neither of them have Astronomy, which will help relations and give the possibility of confu spreading to one of my heathen cities.

1000: PP finish and I start on Astronomy. Vicky gets the circumnavigation bonus (she's the one that got first to Liberalism as well).

1020: I meet Zara Yaqob. He's ahead of SB (1800 to 1500 on score) and the tech leader. He's in free religion and friendly with everyone.

1030: GS #5 born in Sparta, I bulb him for part of Astronomy.

1080: I finish Astronomy and start on Aesthetics to get Drama for the GT. I open borders with Zara who is the only other civ with Astro thus far, forgetting that I need to find one of his cities in order to get the trade bonus. This is unfortunate as SB switches to Mercantilism around this time leaving me with only internal trade routes. I had not been building any caravels since I was contacted by a score of civs anyhow and I prepare to switch some builds to get some scouting done.

1090: Finish Aesthetics start on Drama.

1100: Drama finish, I end the round with Construction in queue. I start on Oxfords in Athens and start to chop the last forests to speed it along.

Shot of empire:



There's only 1 foggy tile left and 8 turns until that is revealed by my culture. In addition to this SB has been fogbusting it with his horse archer for most of the time since I founded Mycenae. It would truly be a stroke of luck if a barb spawns there in the last 8 turns so that I unlock the HE before going to war.

Tech situation:



JC just came out of a golden age that served him well. I'm afraid that he'll focus on his economy and become unstoppable. OTOH at the end of the turnset he became WHEOOHRN, hopefully he's gearing up for war with someone else than me. He might have declared at the unknown civ also. He demanded gold tribute from me once that I gave him but I'm woefully weak and must be a tempting target.
I could trade Drama for Literature but I don't see the point as I think I'm past the stage where the NE would have been really useful and I'm probably not going to unlock the HE before warring. It's unfortunate that SB and JC don't want to trade the techs I really want (Construction and Gunpowder). I'm finishing up GS #6 in Argos then I'll only focus on GP generation in Thebes. I think I can get 2 GSs in time to instabulb Chemistry unless I can trade for it before then. I haven't looked at the GS priority for bulbing Steel.

Demographics:



I've moved up to 4th in land behind JC, Zara and SB (probably). If I capture SBs lands I think I'll be just a little bit smaller than JC in size. Other stats are quite bad still.

The relations:



SB hates everyone which I hope means he'll stay backwards in tech. He's looking like the only viable target to invade right now unless the unknown civ turns out to be even weaker. Sury hates me since I traded with SB but he's a vassal of JC and of no concern right now.

On the to-do list: Get caravels out and scouting. Get the GSs for some last bulbing, tech towards Steel. Get theatres and the GT up as well as observatories, forges and barracks. A golden age from a GP might be nice if we want to switch out of Caste later for Slavery along with switching from Bur to Nationhood (or is the CS workshop bonus more important?). Perhaps it's better to save a GA for after the war. Hopefully we can trade for Nationalism.
We need to decide what units to use beside cannons. Meeting the last civ is also important, scouting should take care of that.
Right now the danger is JCs WHEOOHRN state but there's nothing to be done about that other than pray we're not the target.
Anything I'm forgetting? Please chime in.

@fjordan

Good point about the security bureau, i missed that completely . Is space part destruction easier in crap cities? I thought it was just a matter of distance, religion and indeed that security bureau. The revolt trick is relatively cheap on ep points, if you really do it well at -50% it's below 1000, the cost in spies to do it every turn is big though. The Docking bay in my last game cost me ~10000 at -50%, i had 5 failures though and ended up taking it down at 20000 ep with a spy that just arrived. Ai builds a new docking bay in ~4 turns on deity so it's extremely expensive.

In other words spies can achieve a lot but planning ahead with lots of them is crucial. And having lots of them stacked in foreign cities is dangerous in itself for the negative modifiers you incur.

Most of the time i have OB's with all civs in the game, still i'm sometimes tempted to just declare on a civ going cultural, i don't know exactly what happens then but at least they're not very dangerous. Indeed subs can be good then.

I'm not such a big fan of the SE, i seldom have 2 engineers and if i have i often use one of them on a GA, it's good to deny SE to ai and yes it's good to have it yourself but i feel the investment in hammers and beakers (researching robotics is too high). Problem is that iirc the 50% modifier is additive with other modifiers so you go in a normal city from

(100% buildings/power 50% lab 50% aluminium (most parts) ) = 200% to
250% with SE which isn't stunning. It's worse in IW city. I'm not totally sure the numbers i gave here are correct (alum = 100%?) but that's the idea.

@Gliese,

Did you notice Caesar's size, it's even worse in my own game which i have played this far (and actually farther), i was fairly optimistic but this is not good. Anyway...

-Don't worry about JC, if it's you he's after just reroll

-Bull is slow in your game, so you have some time to organize things

-I'd plan a GA before war, it's important to get as much units out as is possible, also
as fast as possible. Winning the war is by far the most important thing now, we can worry about other things later.

-Construction-engineering-gunpowder, a bit hard to say but it should be possible to get it all in 10 turns maybe sooner if gunpowder comes on the market soon. There's a good chance you can trade for chem subsequently, (double) bulbing chem'll be difficult since you also plan a GA. With oxford you should be able to get steel in < 10 turns subsequently. That's around 1300 AD,The army should be ready then, upgrade 10 trebs in 3~ turns and sail across, you can hit around 1350 AD which could well be in time seeing the state Bull is in. with a GA and some luck in trading you can maybe start on steel earlier or shorten research time on steel. It's going to be hard to get the GT up in time before war, so you just need to draft a bit from all cities, the GT can help with reinforcements during the war. As you need to hit around 1350 AD your initial attack'll probably have to be without rifles unless you can get all of this in trade.

So it'll have to be drafted muskets at first meaning you have to mix in pikes, if you can pickup mil trad along the way that's very good. Maybe it's even a serious alternative to skip rifling altogether also later, draft muskets and put in some curi's to protect the stack. Good enough until Bull gets rifles, after it looks a bit vulnerable. The ai sees rifles as defensive units though so i don't think he'll mass attack your stack with them. Oth rifles get a bonus against mounted so maybe he will attack with some.

Come to think of it even if you don't get rifling and mil trad, put in some pinch knights, they'll provide some protection against gren's should Bull get them, it's free and they're flexible too.

-I'd build an observatory in capital, also all the other economic buildings but i'd set all the other cities to production (forges) and units (and theaters of course) from now on. There'll probably come up a chance to trade for nationalism, it's unfortunate that relations with sury are so bad, he's the perfect trade partner in this game. I'd switch out of religion in GA and maybe gift Sury some thingy's to get him to cautious. Also switch to slavery, you're going to draft heavy so you need to whip away unhappiness once WW sets in, a perfect chance to whip in those observatories, more units won't hurt either of course.

Until 1110 AD

1130 AD

Can't help but chuckle when I see a total of 1 farm amongst the both of you (and one still lacks agriculture) when playing a philosophical/creative leader, that's pretty funny. Didn't get to look at Snaaty's empire yet.

Rusten said:

Can't help but chuckle when I see a total of 1 farm amongst the both of you (and one still lacks agriculture) when playing a philosophical/creative leader, that's pretty funny. Didn't get to look at Snaaty's empire yet.

Click to expand...

I actually have 3 farms and a few more coming but yeah, they're kind of wasted on this god-forsaken island.