Gliese's Deity Game #3, Isabella.

Round 1, 4000 BC - 1960 BC (51 turns).

This is my 3rd attempt at getting a win at the deity level. The leader for this game is Isabella of Spain.
Everyone is welcome to participate by giving tips, asking questions, make observations or shadow. The only thing I ask is that if you play a shadow game and want to post details, you use spoilers and don't go beyond the number of turns posted in my rounds.

The settings:



And the start (after moving warrior):



Don't you just love starting one tile off coast?
The starting techs are Fishing and Mysticism so I might want to take a turn to check the coastline for fish, what do you think?
If I'm not mistaken, settling on the wine will yield +1 commerce, though the coastal wine does not have the cows in its bfc.
Trying for an early religion is possible given Mysticism if I'm lucky. If there's seafood off the coast I'll have some extra time before additional worker techs are needed.
The start looks decent enough with some good commerce and 2 food resources in any case.

That start has a lot of ideas right away. Will wait until some scouting is done to list them.

I would (will -- think I'll shadow this one) probably move the warrior 1NW and the settler 1SW. I don't want to settle on the wine as things stand now, but I might if there's seafood. If there is no seafood I'll probably move the settler onto the forest 1W of the starting position to pick up the unforested riverside grassland hill. Then decide where to settle after the warrior moves a second time.

Good luck.

Thanks.

Note that I already have moved the warrior. I take the liberty of doing this to avoid extra discussions about that minor detail so focus can be on discussing where to settle and startbuild and techs.

1N or 1SW. The first gets you 4 resources for sure, the other is more of a gamble but you can get a second city in around those cows.

No need to get to the coast. Production monster if you settle in place. A little food short at pop 10+ means settling on brown tiles is better than green ones.

Just signing in to wish you to you luck in this one Gliese. I still haven't managed a win at deity yet either so wouldn't rely on any tips from me. Not having played a game of Civ in the last couple of months hasn't helped as well.

As for the start I'd settle in place otherwise go 1SW if no fish 1N and settle on the second turn.

Would like to hear what people think about an early religion. Personally I've usually avoided it but never say never. First tech Agr, then not sure whether to go AH or mining/BW a lot depends on the surrounding land.

I think I will dig out my cd and have a go at this one. Just noticed no huts/events? No barb uprisings to blame my expected loss on then.

just don't move!

finally a start that looks decent; +4 food without any extra farms, 4 river cottages, 2 river wines - decent for bureau, I'd stay in place.

Or 1sw, work the coast and found budhism with decent chance(1 commerce from wine, 2 from coast). But I think it'll keep you in stone age for eons - would try it on immortal, since I so seldom go religion, but wouldn't do on deity.

Umm sorry wrong game I'm thinking about. 1 north, to pick up more hills, 2 wineries and cow. Eliminates the 1 off coast, and retains the river. Plains= work shops combined with Levy=5 hammers.

Is it certain that we have coast in the west? In the deity cookbook game we also seemed to be near coast, turned out to be lake instead. Checking out the forested hill 2S1W for fresh water might give a clue, no fresh water -> coast, fresh water -> we don't know for sure. There might be additional resources 1S2E and 2S1E. You could miss out on those by moving. So i'd probably settle in place.

Dirk1302 said:

There might be additional resources 1S2E and 2S1E. You could miss out on those by moving. So i'd probably settle in place.

Click to expand...

Those tiles are forested.

SnowlyWhite said:

Or 1sw, work the coast and found budhism with decent chance(1 commerce from wine, 2 from coast). But I think it'll keep you in stone age for eons - would try it on immortal, since I so seldom go religion, but wouldn't do on deity.

Click to expand...

No need to work coast. The riverside wine brings in 2 commerce as well but gives a hammer. If you settle on one wine and work the other you'll get 4 extra commerce which will put meditation at 9 turns. You can then switch to a plains hill once Buddhism is in for the expansive bonus. You won't be that much behind and will be able to work an extra tile.

I think 1S2E and 2S1E are both forested. I agree with Rusten's move - check 1SW (settling on wines isn't bad for extra commerce) and then moving north (to 1W of start) before deciding where to settle.

@Rusten, agreed so no resources there. your move could be a good idea. I've always wondered how costly losing 1 turn early is in Civ4 on normal speed. It isn't as if losing one turn early means being exactly one turn behind 1 AD other things being equal.

Dirk1302 said:

@Rusten, agreed so no resources there. your move could be a good idea. I've always wondered how costly losing 1 turn early is in Civ4 on normal speed. It isn't as if losing one turn early means being exactly one turn behind 1 AD other things being equal.

Click to expand...

It might mean more or it might mean less, if one turn later means one turn later settling a blocking city so the AI settler it instead, it is quite significant, it could also mean one turn to late to trade a given tech... However if you move there is often a reason for doing so. Hopefully that reasons pay off before 1 AD(if not moving was probably not a good idea).

Settling on riverside wine do yeild +1 commerce, so it is certainly an alternative.

Round 1, 4000 BC - 1960 BC (51 turns).

I played a longer round this time than in my previous games since my path felt more or less straightforward.

Techs: Agriculture, AH, Hunting, Archery, Mining, BW.
Builds: Worker, Warrior x5, 3turns SH, Archerx2, Settler, Archerx2, Worker.

Not the fastest teching but decent enough I suppose, the extra commerce from the wine tiles helped a bit. Notice the awesome production however, without whipping or chopping no less.

4000: I decided to move the settler SW hoping for seafood. Isabella starts with Fishing + Mysticism which often makes for slow starts. Settling in place I'd quickly want to get agriculture, ah mining and bw for my worker and then likely also hunting and archery asap since it's needed early for barb defense on deity. A sea resource would also give me a shot at going for an early religion since it buys me some additional time to research worker techs while I'm building a wb.

As it turns out there is no seafood but I'm still glad I made the move. After going SW I discovered that 1N (1W of start) was clearly the best spot to settle with an additional cow and more food overall.



This city looks like a really good bureacracy capital with only -2 food at size 20 and good commerce from river and wine as well as good production and even the best possible trade routes from being coastal without alot of crappy coast/ocean tiles. I forgot to take a screenshot just after settling but the hidden tile is a plains tile.

3960: Settle, start on worker and agriculture.

3720: Meet Shaka.

3680: Meet Gandhi

3560: Agriculture -> AH. With 2 cows I go directly for AH delaying BW for later and bypassing Hunting also since I want my worker to improve the cows asap. With 8 production at size 3 from the wheat and cows I will easilly make up for not having the production power of BW but growth is steady rather than fast.

Hinduism FIDL. Good thing I didn't go for a religion, I always go for hinduism if I go for an early religion since the AI favours buddhism in my experience but apparently not this time.

3480: Meet Darius.

3440: Gandhi founds Buddhism.

3160: Meet Bismarck.

3040: AH -> Hunting. Alas, better troops than warriors can not wait long on deity.

Gandhi is close.



Horses are to the north and south.



2840: Hunting -> Archery.
Shaka converts to buddhism.

2720: After 5 warriors I put 3 turns into SH while I wait for archery to get a bit extra cash. This is especially useful now that I play with no huts. On lower levels I usually don't put a limit on early explorers other than the limit set by growth when growing to cap. On deity I prefer to grow my capital as much as possible and get some archers or better before I expand whilst on immortal and down I'll most often only grow to size 4 and be content with warriors when first expanding then send archers shortly after to defend.

2600: Archery -> Mining. Switch cap from SH to archer.

2520: Judaism FIDL.

2480: Darius adopts OR..

2440: ..and converts to judaism.
SH BIDL (Bismarck). I get 21 gold.

2400: Mining -> BW. 2nd archer finishes and I start on a settler.

2040: I'm ready to settle my first expansion. This seemed like a straightforward spot, I could have put the resources in first ring to be more certain of keeping them but my main concern is blocking Gandhi from cutting in to my north. Shaka is dangerously close as well unfortunately.



The land I want to myself is quite good. Notice that Darius is also close by. Hoipefully he'll have Shaka's full attention now that he's been stupid enough to adopt a different religion than the psychotic man in tribal gear. Early stone always makes me consider The Pyramids but I have to say that cottages looks much better on this map assuming that I can claim a bit of that lush river for myself. There's a good amount of grassland up there but not an overabundance of food.



1960: BW finishes. Selected TW as placeholder tech.

Madrid's borders just popped a second time. Barcelona will get its first pop in 14 turns which is hopefully enough to stop Gandhi from slipping through a settler. The one highlighted in the picture seems to be headed to the south of Madrid so I'm optimistic.



Madrid.



Barcelona.



It seems clear I want to grab the best land I can to the north/northwest and cut of Shaka and (if possible) Darius from doing so. Where do you think I should place my next city and how soon? The copper by Shaka and Darius borders is the only one aside from the desert tile to the far north. I would have to put it in first ring though and would risk pissing off Shaka.
A more cautious approach might be to try to block Darius somewhere farther to the west and try to get him to share a long border with Shaka while avoiding doing so myself.
I should be able to get the horses there hopefully but would that be enough to cover my defensive needs? There is always a chance I'll discover iron within reach of course.

What about techs? Monarchy and CS seems to be priorities with good cottage land and wine. There's also stone and marble available though so any wonder is a possibility. Spain's UB is also interesting since I rarely get engineering until after liberalism but it allows for a fearsome medival/renaissance warmachine with level 4 siege units out the gate with barracks, castle and a +xp civic.

depending on how rest of the lands look i just might be place a city NW of the copper at Shaka, but it depends on many factors ... another decent spot would be 2s1e of the northen horses, which while needing a few Farms to go around both can work as a decent Production with the forests and 3 hills, and later on Commence with the many River Spots (11, two of them shared with Barcelona, two of them with Wine)

and aggessive/defencive way to go would be settleing at the horse (2s1e) and then as fast as possable 1w of the dye trying to cut off Darius from expanding west (which seems to be an emtry penisula), finishing the cutoff with a city somewhere NW/W of the cows depending on how the coast goes

City covering dye/horse. I think you'll need to settle with a 2 tile gap, so border pops can close them out. You'll have to run a line of cities up to the northern coast, and hope that they have plenty of room behind them to settle into.

Border pop's and significant defence are the key's. the idea of a Citadel city, on which the AI, can throw its troops, is a good idea, I'd have suggested the hill, by the river where your 2nd city went, as Darius, Shaka and Gandhi are all likely to attack.

the cow in the north, seems to be within 3 tiles of the northern coast, assuming it flattens out along there.

Watch the relation factor at work, Shaka's annoyed with Ghandi despite their only modifier being a +3 from shared religion.

I wouldn't settle the copper city near Shaka, It would be good of course to have copper but it does increase the chance of a conflict with Shaka. Take the precaution to build walls in Barcelona once Shaka is wheoorhn and spam some archers there putting some in the woods before Barcelona, it'll take Shaka a while to get through that,once he gets to your city he has to attack across a river.

Main reason not to settle there is that the blocking factor is virtually non existent. A city near the horses sets you up for further cities near the peninsula blocking Darius.
I think it should be possible to get at least the southern half of the peninsula including the marble this way.Shaka's blocked by the horse city immed, he can only reasonably settle the copper spot himself in that case. If you can also settle the cow spot further up north Darius is blocked completely. You'd have a huge chunk of land (and a whole load of maintenance to pay). Have to wait and see if that's realistic though.

I'd begin chopping the capital for workers/settlers/archers and since you don't have a commerce resource nearby i'd cottage and work the 3 grass river tiles asap. Monarchy certainly looks good here. The ai'll research it soon though so i probably wouldn't beeline it, put a few turns of research in it, then get it in trade probably for aest.

Challenging start. It could turn out great. It could also fall apart rapidly.

yeah ... the more i think, the less useful a city at Shaka's copper feels

i'd push the border towards the northen coast as fast as possable directly west of Darius trying to wall off as much of the penisula as possable

i am agree with dirk : ultra chop for some turn to churn out 2 settlers and settle asap 1N 2W of horse and 2W of cow to block darius (and shaka)
You might have to chop the monument in north one because it lacks of food to whip it

use existing archers to convoy settlers, delay making more archers/workers to biuld those 2 settlers

if that works rest of strart is pretty straightforward : build lib, put 2 scientist, build one more settler to take marble then use GS for academy, rush/chop GL/NE
in term of tech you can target aest to trade for math and monarchy, litt (don't trade till GL finished) then CoL then CS

good luck, the start is pretty hard with darius and gandhi so close by but if you manage to pull those 2 cities in time it could be doable

You have a tough neighbor with Shaka, but as long as Darius and Gandhi are around, Shaka should target them. Of course if Shaka demands something from you, give in at all costs. If he asks you to join Gandhi or Darius in a war, that's an exception, although I would still consider it. You could possibly get an early Heroic Epic this way for a future war.

I would settle your third city 2 south of the horses OR 1 east of it. I'm still trying to figure out which city spot has less plains and more grassland since I'm not used to these graphics in Blue Marble.

Don't forget to keep expanding to that nice land you've got before Darius does.

As a final reminder, add as many cultural buildings in Madrid as you can if you want to keep those tiles in your fat cross.